Title: All the King's Men Author: Vickie Moseley Written for Virtual Season 11 Halloween Special Rating: G Category: V, X, MSR Archive: Two weeks exclusive property of VS 11, then anywhere. Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are the property of 1013 Productions and 20th Century FOX. Fort de Chartres is the property of the state of Illinois, managed by the Historical Preservation Agency. Prairie du Rocher is a real town along the Mississippi River in Illinois. Please see notes at end. Merci beaucoup to all the dear readers who have stuck by us these past three years. We hope to dish up a great season for you this year. Feedback to vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com. All the King's Men by Vickie Moseley Prairie du Rocher, Illinois October 31, 2003 11:21 pm The dark blue Ford Taurus pulled down the gravel road, coming to a stop at the edge of a field of corn. The moon shone brightly over the field, until a cloud covered it for the length of a breath, only to scuttle away. "Mulder, is _this_ what you meant by 'let's go check out the sights'?" Scully asked with more than a little annoyance in her voice. They had just finished up a particularly dissatisfying team building conference in St. Louis, just across the river. Since their plane didn't leave from Lambert International Airport until the next day, Scully had envisioned a night on Laclades Landing by the river, sampling some of St. Louis' finer restaurants, maybe even catching the Blues play hockey at the Savvis Center. Much to her dismay, Mulder took the rental car out of the hotel parking lot away from Downtown St. Louis and across the mighty Mississippi and south, into the boonies. "Mulder, is this private property?" she asked, glancing around the deserted landscape. A stand of trees bordered the field directly to the north, the gravel road bordered it to the west. To their backs, Scully could almost hear the rush of water that was the longest river in North America. If she concentrated, she could smell the moisture coming on the autumn wind. Mulder was sucking on a sunflower seed, which he absently spit out the open car window. "County road, Scully. Albeit slightly less developed than we're used to back east, but pretty pragmatic when you figure the only vehicles to travel this way are combines and equipped with tractor tires." "OK, so you've now shown me that you have at least a passing knowledge of agricultural implements. Mulder, what the hell are we doing here?" she asked crossly. He smiled at her, his expression just visible in the light of the dashboard. "A picnic?" he offered and jumped out of the car, striding purposefully to the trunk where he withdrew a hamper, a camp light and an old blanket. She got out of the car slowly, closing the door against a gust of wind. Leaves from trees she couldn't even see in the dark skittered over the hood of the car and danced near her face before chasing each other through the skeletal stalks of corn. Mulder was walking away from the car, next to the field. He finally settled not far from the trees, which, in the light of Mulder's lamp, Scully could now see were a mixture of maple and oak. She watched him spread the blanket out on the dry grass, brushing off a couple of leaves that clung stubbornly to the fabric. He settled down on the blanket on his knees, opened up the picnic hamper and started taking out an assortment of containers. "Where did you . . ." "The hotel offers 'tailgate packages'," he announced proudly as he fished around and pulled out a bottle of wine and couple of plastic glasses. "You'll have to excuse the screw cap on the wine. I thought about getting something more expensive, but figured a corkscrew would be too cumbersome out here." Scully shook her head and after a few minutes sat down on the blanket next to him. She picked up a container and opened it, discovering chicken salad on a tomato. A second container held a roast beef sandwich on marble rye bread. Mulder elbowed her arm and she looked up to find him handing her a glass of wine. "Eat up, Scully. The show should start soon." He handed her a fork and she balanced the wine glass on a level spot near her foot. Taking a bite of the chicken salad she smiled. It was quite good, with walnuts and grapes, an indulgence she rarely got for herself, but one her partner of 10 years knew was a secret craving. "This is really good," she told him, just to let him know he was at least partially forgiven. They ate in silence for a few minutes, Mulder polishing off the roast beef in his usual 'eat it before it eats you' manner. He was sipping his wine when she put her fork inside the Styrofoam container and placed both in the hamper. "So, what's for dessert?" she asked. In the glow of the camp light, he leaned forward and captured her lips in a sweet, heady kiss. Not one to let him get the upper hand, Scully ardently returned the kiss. A gust of wind came up again and caused her to shiver, breaking the spell. "Here, bundle up. It shouldn't be long now," Mulder told her, taking off his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders. The day had been warm, but the temperature had dropped and she wasn't prepared for a picnic in the moonlight. "You keep talking about this 'show', Mulder. What, exactly, are we here to see? Isn't this the part in the movie where the children of the corn come out carrying scythes and kill the two young lovers?" "I don't think I saw that one, Scully. Was that Children of the Corn III or IV?" he shot back, but finally set down his glass, a sure sign that he was about to embark on a Mulder story. "Do you know that we're sitting on a part of history here, Scully?" "Do tell? Of course, find me a square inch of land in this country that isn't a part of history, Mulder, but please, go on with your story." He shook his head and muttered something that sounded amazingly like 'damned skeptic', but flashed her a smile and continued. "Right down this road," he said, pointing south along the line of corn, "is Fort de Chartres. It was one of the first forts along the Mississippi. King Louis the XV built it in 1756, back when this land was held by the French. Did you know that many of the names of the towns and streets in St. Louis come from the French, Scully?" "I think names of towns like Creve Coeur, Frontenac and St. Louis itself that sort of gave it away, Mulder. But don't let me stop the story," she encouraged with a wave of her hand. "Show off," he muttered. "Anyway, as I was saying, Louis the XV commissioned the fort. It was essential to the fur trade that came down the Missouri to St. Louis and down the Ohio to the Mississippi, then further down the river to New Orleans, another major French holding, and eventually, the civilized world, which was considerably east of this river," he explained. "Some might be so bold as to say it still is," she interjected. He faked a silent laugh. "Mulder, the show?" she prodded. "I'm getting to that," he told her patiently. "So, the French had this fort. And one day, one of the king's emissaries turned up dead, murdered, presumably by a disgruntled resident of the fort. The murderer was never apprehended, but the townspeople were more concerned about what to do with the body of a prominent person so far away from the Court in Paris. A delegation made the trek to Kaskaskia, the site of the regional government, later to become Illinois' first capitol, to determine what they should do." "I'm definitely getting the 'historic' part of this story, Mulder, but it still doesn't answer my question. Why are _we_ here?" "So, it's said that every year that Halloween falls on a Friday, and there's a full moon, you can see..." At that very moment, a dark cloud obliterated the moon and a strong gust of wind blew up and knocked the camp light over, causing it to turn off, plunging them both in darkness. Mulder instinctively reached for his gun, Scully coming up with hers almost at the same time. Both agents peered anxiously into the near pitch-black darkness. As suddenly as the moon had vanished, it reappeared. Scully blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light. Then, off in the distance, coming down the far side of the gravel road, she saw them. Horses, at least two dozen of them. The riders were in tandem, as if on parade. But no sound came from the hoofs, only the sound of the wind and the unsettling brush of leaves on the tall grasses. As the horsemen drew closer, they turned and headed into the cornfield across the road, but the corn didn't part in their passing. Soon, wagons came into view, and the two agents sat in stunned silence. Then Mulder began a whispered count. "Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two..." Scully thought her heart could be heard a mile away when the last wagon came into sight and she heard him breathlessly murmur "Forty!" And then they were alone. The horsemen, the wagons, all disappeared into the corn. The wind howled through the trees and rattled the stalks like bones as the chill and something else tore at their veins. Scully shivered, as much from what she'd seen as from the sudden drop to near freezing temperatures. Mulder was scrambling to toss objects in the hamper, tugging at the blanket before she'd come back to herself enough to rise. He hooked the hamper on his arm, grabbed the light with one hand and her arm with the other and hurried back up the road to the waiting rental car. Tossing the hamper and light haphazardly in the backseat, Mulder tore open the door and Scully crawled through to the passenger side, too shaken to walk around the car to her own door. Mulder crawled in after her, jammed the key in the ignition and to a peel of gravel, they sped off down the road. The lights of Prairie du Rocher were fading behind them, and the Mississippi River Bridge was coming into view before Scully found her voice. "Mulder, what the hell did we just see back there?" she demanded. "I didn't think we'd see it, Scully. Honest, it's been years, several years, since the last reported sighting. I figured it would just make a really cool spooky way to spend Halloween," he panted. "Was that what I think it was?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "That was the King's emissary's funeral procession, Scully," Mulder said firmly. "It's been viewed in the past, as I said, but mostly in the late 1800s. It was seen a couple of times in the 20th Century, but just once in the past 20 years." He pulled the car onto the bridge and Scully was relieved to see that even at that late hour, there was traffic crossing the river. "So, if you didn't think we'd see it, why on earth did you drag me all the way out there?" she asked, struggling to get the muscles in her back to relax. After being tense for so long, they were screaming for relief. "If there's one thing I've learned in 11 years, Scully, it's that when I'm with you, spooky shit happens." He gave her a grin in the dim light of the dashboard. "Actually, Mulder, I think _you're_ the spooky magnet," she said with a sigh, forcing herself to relax into her seat. For a while they just drove, the sound of the tires on the bridge reassuring them that they were safely in the 21st Century. Scully thought back to the cornfield and the funeral procession and shivered again, but this time, it carried a delicious tingle. Reaching over, she clutched his hand where it picked at the fabric of his pants. Slowly, she rubbed her thumb across his knuckles, eliciting a smile from his lips. "What?" he asked, glancing over at her before turning his attention back to the road. "Where are you taking me next Halloween?" she asked coyly. His smile grew brighter. "Have you ever heard of the ghost woman of Paris, Missouri, Scully?" the end Author's notes: Inspiration for this story was found in the book _Haunted Heartland_ by Beth Scott and Michael Norman, Published by Barnes and Nobles Books. It is based on real sightings of the funeral procession near Fort de Chartres along the Mississippi River in Illinois. The actual processional is seen at midnight on July 4 in years where the 4th falls on a Friday and there is a full moon. I moved the date to Halloween because it just seemed more suited there. The last acknowledged sighting (and the one recorded) of the funeral procession was in 1986. The town of Prairie du Rocher almost joined the provincial capitol of Kaskaskia at the bottom of the Mississippi River during the 500-year flood in 1993. The townspeople and a lot of sandbags saved the town. Fortunately, the cool heads at the Illinois Historical Preservation Agency saved the Fort and its contents from destruction by the floodwaters.