SHAPES

                    This is unsettling as there are traces of his father blood type...which could only be                                                                    there through ingestion

The episode opens at night on a ranch in Browning, Montana, and two men (father and son) loading guns and checking the barns by torchlight. They discover dead cattle, and all of a sudden the younger man is attacked by a beast, whom his father fires at. We then see something lying on the floor as a result of the shooting - a dead Indian man.

Mulder and Scully turn up at the ranch to investigate the killing, where they interview the rancher (Mr Parker), who shot the male, and his son Lyle Parker, who was attacked. According to Mr Parker they heard noises and went out to investigate, and that as a result one Joseph Goodensnake was killed. His son  described how whilst investigating he wanted to protect the cattle when he saw red eyes and fangs, and that it was no mountain lion or coyote....but nor was it human.  Whilst investigating the scene of the crime Mulder finds what appears to be some form of shedded skin, and he decides that the body of Goodensnake needed to be seen.

At the Trego Indian Reservation, which borders the Parker ranch, Mulder and Scully meet Sheriff Tuscany, who tells the agents that Goodensnakes body is in his office. The body shows that he was killed at point blank range, although deep scratch wounds on his body would also suggest that he was attacked by some animal some time back. Goodensnake also seems to possess fangs, and Scully insists on seeing Goodensnakes dental records - although this is not agreed to. Mulder pushes for a full autopsy but the Sheriff says that he cannot allow that as Indian belief suggests that any desecration of the body angers the spirits.

The following day Mulder recalls how the very first X-File was opened by J. Edgar. Hoover in 1946 during world war 2, and it was focused upon a number of murders in the mid west in which the bodies of the victims were ripped to shreds, and that many of the victims were found at home, as if they had let there attacker in. He adds that in the same year the Police cornered some form of wild animal and shot it - and upon going to retrieve it found the body of one Richard Watkins - and as a result the murders stopped that year. Mulder tells Scully that the case indicated that the killings started again in 1954 and on further regular eight year periods, and that the case was linked to the ancient belief that men could change their shape - lycanthropy.

The funeral of Goodensnake follows, and when Lyle Parker turns up the victims sister, Gwen, is not happy. Later that evening Parker senior sits on the veranda...he is being watched by someone or something. He is viciously attacked and killed - his body mutilated. Meanwhile both Gwen Goodensnake and Lyle Parker have gone missing - and when Mulder finds skin and fur in the vicinity it appears that lycanthropy may not be out of the question. Not too far from the Parker house Scully finds Lyle Parker, naked and asleep - which he later puts down to getting drunk. She takes him to hospital whilst Mulder meets a local Indian man, who tells him that he knew Watkins and was aware he had been attacked by something in the woods. He recalled that as Watkins scars healed the murders began, and that at the age of sixteen he had walked by Watkins home and witnessed his transformation into a werewolf. This mysterious stranger adds that Watkins had a son and that this affliction had been passed through the bloodlines...and that Gwen could also be a were wolf. At this point a noise is heard and Gwen is found to be listening - and when she tells Mulder that she saw Parker being attacked by the werewolf it seems as though she is in the clear of murdering him. Mulder then calls the hospital and speaks to Dr Joseph..who tells Mulder that Lyle Parker had been discharged, and that blood tests showed traces of his fathers blood type....that could only be there through ingestion.

Mulder realises that Scully, who had taken Lyle home, would be in danger. He rushes to the address with the Sheriff, whilst at the Parker household Lyle is beginning to shed his skin and change.....After high tension the prowling, hungry beast is shot....and the body of Lyle Parker lies there.....

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