FRESH BONES

                     In small enough doses it can cause paralysis and depress audio respiratory activities - the                                  victim might appear to be clinically dead.

We begin at a family home in Folkstone, Northern Carolina, and a wife desperately concerned about her husband. He has behaving strangely lately; hallucinating, bad dreams and aggressive behaviour are commonplace. When he awakes and begins to eat his breakfast he sees maggots over running his bowl and flees. He jumps into his car and speeds of, looking in the mirror and again hallucinating - visualizing himself to be horrifically disfigured. However his lapse in concentration has fatal consequences and his car ploughs into a tree....and as it smokes the camera pans around the tree to reveal a strange sign painted on the tree.....

Some time later Mulder and Scully arrive at the scene and learn that the dead man was one John McAlphine, a marine who was stationed at a local INS base, a processing centre that housed 12.000 refugees waiting for asylum. The death of McAlphine has been treated as a military suicide, the second one in as many weeks, and there has also been a death within the refugee camp, that of a 10 year old boy. Mulder reveals that the reason for their arrival is not through military contact, but after McAlphines death his wife contacted the FBI. In fact the wife goes further by suggesting she did not believe he killed himself. Back at her house she tells the agents that her husbands mood changed after being at the camp, and that he would return home angry, and that she was also told that he was put under some kind of voodoo curse.

The Agents decide to pay a visit to the processing plant and meet Colonel Jacob Wharton, who acts angrily to their presence and questions what it is they are actually investigating. He goes on to tell them that the immigrants are nothing but trouble, and in particular the revolutionary, Pierre Bauvais, who is locked in solitary. After finding that McAlphines body has disappeared, to be replaced by the skeleton of a hyena, Mulder goes down to see Bauvais to talk about the voodoo signs and deaths of the two soldiers, which he responds by saying 'its a terrible shame.' He adds that the spirits only warn people once, and after that no magic can save you. However as the Agents drive away from the base they see a soldier wondering aimlessly in the road.....McAlphine.

At the psychiatric hospital the agents are told that McAlphine is non verbal and non responsive to pain, yet the only thing Mulder wants to know is how this man had come back to life. Blood tests further reveal that there were normal counts of red and white blood cells, yet there was also trace elements of a poison associated with the puffer fish - with Mulder making an instant connection to zombies. He talks of the zombification phenomena, an analysis of several types of powder prepared by voodoo priests, with the finding that tetradytoxin to be common in most. He goes on to explain that the substance can be lethal, yet in small enough doses it can cause paralysis and depress auditory respiratory activities that makes the  victim appear clinically dead. This of course leads them to ask the question of the other marine, who died a week before McAlphine. At the municipal cemetery they meet a young boy from the camp, Chester Bonaparte, who catches frogs and sells them to Bauvais. They also bump into a Private from the base, who tells of beatings ordered by the colonel and Bauvais threats that more will die unless they are allowed to return to Haiti.

Back at the base the Colonel laughs of suggestions of beatings, and claims that Bauvais was the one causing the trouble. We then see the colonel administering beatings to Bauvais - he wants the secret...whatever that might be.

Mulder meets with X, who tells him that the investigation is faltering, and that he has 24 hours before he gets called back to Washington - the military do not like the FBI sniffing around. Meanwhile things get worse for McAlphine when the private who earlier warned the Agents of the beatings is found dead, and McAlphine is left holding a knife. He claims that he cannot remember what happened, just feeling sleepy. Another death swiftly occurs when Bauvais is found with cut wrists...yet there seems to be some connection the Agents are not identifying...a missing piece of the jigsaw. Mulder finds a photo of the Colonel some years ago - and stood next to him is Bauvais, it would appear they knew each other when the Colonel was serving in Haiti. The plot thickens when the Agents learn that the Colonel had been administering beatings, and evidence of his involvement in the deaths of soldiers is discovered. However the colonel has also gone AWOL.....

Back at the cemetery Bauvais body has been exhumed and the Colonel is there performing some form of ritual....and the Agents are in hot pursuit. We then see Bauvais rise from his coffin and the Colonel die....before Mulder or Scully can do anything. At the end of the episode they learn that Chester, the boy who had been appearing throughout...was the 10 year old boy who had died six weeks ago....

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