The X-Couple: EBE's Are Wild
The X-Couple
Episode One "EBE's Are Wild"
PR Chung & Victor Skynard
Crystal City, Virginia
Walter Skinner's Apartment
1:28 a.m.
Skinner awoke to a blinding light filling his bedroom, the building shaking violently, and when a humanoid creature scurried across the foot of his bed he knew immediately what was happening—
The Friday night poker game had kicked into full swing.
Before he could get his pants up and zip them the sound of music began blaring from downstairs.
* "I got a van that is loaded with weapons, I'm ready to go... The sound of gun fire off in the distance- I'm getting used to it now..." *
He jerked the bedroom door open and hurried down the stairs to the sight of two small grays dancing on the ceiling, others were bouncing around the smoke-filled living room, jumping from the sofa to the coffee table and back again.
A group stood giggling in front of the television, pointing at the mother ship in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
Startled, he stopped, looking at a dining room table that was littered with poker chips, overturned Mountain Dew soda cans and a strange sparkling substance that appeared gelatinous.
The table was surrounded by cigar smoking grays, and seated among them was Cancer Man, the Bounty Hunter to his right.
"Oh, come on!" Skinner shouted over the music at Cancer Man. "For God's sake, you didn't give them Mountain Dew again, did you?!"
Cancer Man lifted his chin, gazing through smoky air over his cards. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did..."
Two grays skittered past Skinner toward the bathroom. Noxious fumes harassed his nose as they passed by.
"My God, it stinks in here," he exclaimed, "I'll never get this smell out of the furniture."
"You've done it before," Cancer Man called over the sound of music. "You'll do it again."
"No way, they go now. I'm tired of these creeps destroying my home- they go now, or you go."
"You can't threaten me," Cancer Man declared, "I've watched Presidents die…”
As if on cue the grays broke into hysterical laughter, or the alien equivalent considering the shrillness of the sounds emanating from their bodies. Skinner started forward, tripping on something. He looked down seeing a crumpled Barney costume lying on the floor.
"What the hell is this?"
"Oh, that... It's the only way I could get Lord Kinbote past the doorman." Cancer Man explained.
It was then that an immense three fingered hand clamped down on Skinner's shoulder. He turned to see a nine-foot tall, drunken cyclopes Lord Kinbote, who emitted a monstrous belch so strong it blew what hair Skinner had back.
"Barge coming through!" Cancer Man cracked and the grays giggled wildly.
"Sorry about the mess in the fichus, Skinner," Kinbote rumbled as he weaved his way past the man and back into the living room.
The bathroom door opened, the two grays running out- their bulbous heads knocking together hard as they tried to fit through the door at once. They giggled hysterically and ran up the wall to join the other two dancing on the ceiling.
Skinner opened his mouth to protest but was interrupted by knocking at the front door.
* "She came from planet Claire. I knew she came from there, she drove a Plymouth satellite, faster than the speed of light..." *
"Back off!" He shouted over the B-52's as three grays scurried to open the door. Heading them off with an icy glare, sternly pointing them back out of sight.
Opening the door barely a crack, he peered out into large angry green-blue eyes.
"Scully?"
"Sir," she replied tightly, her face a wash of irritation.
"Uh..." he felt grays clamoring at his back trying to see around him into the hall. "What are you doing here, Agent Scully?"
* "Planet Claire has pink air, all the trees are red. No one ever dies there... no one has a head..." *
"I…"Scully hesitated, scrutinizing the scene; the man before her oddly wriggling his body in the mere few inches he had opened the door, the blare of music coming from inside and the sound of high pitch... squealing. "Am I interrupting something, sir?"
Grimacing, he wriggled again appearing to kick at something behind him, followed by the sound of a high-pitched squeal.
"No," he casually declared, "and you don't have to call me SIR-" shouting the last word he broke off abruptly shutting the door.
Scully heard a shrill squeak muffled by the door. A moment passed, and the door opened again, a mere inch, Skinner peering out at her.
"What do you want, Scully?" he asked, sounding exasperated.
"I received several prank calls tonight," she answered promptly, businesslike and with all the irritation returning to her expression. "I had them traced... They came from here, sir."
He glanced back into the apartment, three grays were jockeying for the cordless telephone, giggling, and pushing buttons furiously.
Skinner cursed under his breath.
* "That's great it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes and airplanes and Linny Bruce is not afraid...!" *
"Are you having a party?" she asked having to raise her voice over the increased volume of music being issued from the apartment.
"No," he said and winced, "I mean I'm not," he felt a gray scramble up his back, "someone else is!" He pulled back trying to get the gray off his back before Scully saw it, but it was too late.
She gasped as two grays popped their egg-shaped heads out the door and another peered down at her upside down from the top of the doorway.
* "...offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline... It's the end of the world as we know it!" *
"Back! Back!" Skinner scolded them, yanking the one off the door. "All of you get back!" Getting them away from the door again he turned back to Scully in the hall, her face was pale. He shrugged, "okay, so, Mulder was right, what can I say?"
Her jaw was slack.
Two men carrying enormous delivery cases of pizzas walked up to Skinner's front door.
"Pizza delivery for Wally Skinner," one announced.
Skinner growled.
* "It's the end of the world as we know it!" *
"Sir, what is going on?" Scully demanded stepping back as a gray hand clutching twenty-dollar bills jutted out the door past Skinner.
He glanced down, the grays had his wallet.
"I didn't order any pizza!" he yelled trying to snatch the money out of the alien hand, missing.
"Pizza! Pizza!" Little voices began squealing behind him.
"Oh, the pizza it's here, good..." Cancer Man pushed his way through the ecstatic and hungry crowd of grays. Joining Skinner at the door, he asked, "you don't mind, do you, Wally? I'm running a little light with this poker game and all." Ignoring Skinner's glowering, he looked at Scully, "Agent Scully, how nice you could join us... twenty-dollar minimum tonight."
Scully's cell phone started ringing as pizza and money changed hands.
"Hello?" she answered pressing a finger in her ear, wincing against all the noise.
Feeling ill, Skinner watched Cancer Man and the aliens cart the pizza into the apartment and his money counted by the delivery guys as they walked away, throwing puzzled glances over their shoulders as they went.
"I can't hear you... Mulder?" Scully called loudly into the cell phone. "I know. I got them too... Uh..." she glanced at Skinner, "yeah, that's where mine were traced to also... What?... No, I'm not at a bar... I'm— I'm at Skinner's apartment, actually."
Skinner's eyes went wide.
"No," Scully urgently said into the phone, her eyes darting back to Skinner. "No, Mulder, you really don't need to come over here... it's-it's.... No... Mulder?!" She clicked her phone off, turning to Skinner slowly. "He's coming over here."
"What? Why?"
She looked at him, blinking. "Please?" she exclaimed, motioning toward his apartment.
* * *
* "We're gonna' rock this town, we're gonna rip this place apart. We're gonna' rock this town, rock it inside out..." *
Coat flapping, puffing breath, Mulder marched up the hall to Skinner's apartment. The muffled sound of the Stray Cats drifting into the hall. What on earth was going on? He thought, completely perplexed by the strange prank calls he had been getting since one this morning which had been traced to of all places his former boss' apartment.
Mulder leaned toward the door, listening.
The music was definitely coming from inside.
* "You look at me once, you at me twice, look at me again..." *
He knocked...
* "... and there's gonna' be a fight-!" *
The music cut out abruptly.
There were muffled scurrying sounds, shushing noises and then a suddenly sharp squeal. A long moment went by before he pounded again, " I know you're in there," he called through the door.
It opened. Holding a large garbage bag, Skinner looked back at him, his expression sour.
"What do you want, Agent Mulder?"
"I want some answers." Mulder replied pushing his way inside the apartment. He looked around. The place was clean, not one sign of anything out of the ordinary had been going on.
"Answers about what?" Skinner asked him.
"About these prank calls I've been getting since one this morning," he announced rashly. "And what was going on when I talked to Scully. She said she was here, where is she?"
"She left a while ago."
Mulder frowned. "She's not answering her cell phone."
"Maybe she's home in bed, like you should be." Skinner shot back.
"I was in bed until I started getting crank calls from an obvious party," Mulder countered. "What's been going on here, I heard music when I walked up?"
"Nothing's been going on."
"There was music when I talked to Scully too."
"My neighbors were having a party."
"But the music was coming from here."
Skinner shook his head. "You must be mistaken," Mulder opened his mouth to protest, but Skinner opened the door for him. "I need to get to bed, if you don't mind, Agent Mulder?"
"Is that why you're taking the garbage out at four in the morning?"
Skinner hissed. "We've been down this road before. There's nothing going on, Mulder. Now if you don't mind..." he motioned toward the open door. "
Mulder headed for the door, pausing. "You want me to take this on my way out?"
Skinner glanced at the bag in his hand. "Uh, yeah, and here," he reached behind the door turning back with two more bags in each hand. "Take these too."
Mulder took the huge garbage bags and Skinner shut the door on the perplexed looking young man. Seconds later, the kitchen door was thrown open. A frazzled looking Scully stumbled out, countless grays tumbling out behind her followed by a haggard looking Bounty Hunter who was holding ice in his hands.
A smug Cancer Man strolled out, unscathed by the last five minutes they had all spent in the compact space of the kitchen.
"All right," Skinner boomed at them, "that's it. Party over. Everyone out - and that means you too," he added spotting Lord Kinbote trying to stealthily reclaim his hiding place behind the fichus.
Tiny middle fingers flipped in his direction as the grays blew raspberries at him.
"Let's not be rude to our host," Cancer Man told them and drew on his cigarette. "It's been a long night and there is always next Friday..."
Skinner hissed, watching the grays jumping up and down excitedly at the news of another party.
Scully, smoothing her tussled hair down, stopped by Skinner on her way out the door. "Sir, I suggest you get out of here," she told him.
"I can't," he answered hanging his head. "I have a lease."
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Continued... "Vea Evictius"
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