At
an outdoor elementary school fair in Dexter, Oklahoma, September
21st 1990, children play, ride on a pony carousel and have fun. A
boy on a swing calls to his Mom to watch him, but she is talking
with a friend. When Mom looks again, the boy is gone from the swing.
She looks, calling to him in distress, but can't find him. A young
man has been watching the boy, and is seen to dispose of the child's
backpack.
Ten years later --
Mrs. Underwood arrives at school and her son, Josh, tells her
"they are looking for you." Several men in suits are
standing near the swings. She asks them whats wrong, but none of
them answer. They separate and she sees her first son, Billy, in the
swing. He is no older then he was when he disappeared and will not
speak. Scully and Doggett arrive to investigate.
There was never
even a suspect in Billy's disappearance. He is healthy and seven
years old. Billy's parents want to take him home, but Doggett goes
in to talk with Billy first. Doggett tells Billy he's talked with
many children who have been hurt. Sometimes the hurt starts to go
away when you start talking about it. Doggett asks about the man who
took Billy and shows him the backpack. Billy reaches for the
backpack but Doggett holds onto the backpack, asking for the name
first. Mrs. Underwood gets angry and takes Billy away.
Scully yells at
Doggett for what he did and asks him whether he thinks its a game.
He tells her that it’s a serious game that they have to win. He
says that he worked on a child abduction task force, and knows the
horror stories, but the kid can help them. She tells him that it
isn’t just a horror story. It is a biological impossibility. He
says that that’s her area of expertise. He just wants to put the
person who did it out of business. He says that Billy did not just
show up. He got away or was let go, and if he can talk he can tell
them by who, or he can look at photos in the files and point to the
man who did it so it doesn’t happen to some other little boy.
Scully tells him that he is ignoring the fact that Billy is still
seven years old. He asks her if “failure to thrive” is the term.
He asks if there aren’t diseases that delay puberty and so on. She
tells him that Billy is not sick. Doggett replies “Good. Then he
can talk.”
At the Underwood
home, the family dog, a German Sheppard named Sparky, becomes
agitated around Billy. At the hospital, Scully concludes that Billy
is the same boy who was taken, with no evidence of even the
slightest medical changes from his last medical examination ten
years ago. There are no cavities, he still has four baby teeth. His
cell counts, enzymes and hormone levels are all exactly the same as
they were 10 years back.
Scully:
There are X-Files cases that describe similar paranormal findings,
alien abductees, who came back with anomalous medical stats.
Doggett: You know, these words – anomalous, supernatural,
paranormal – they purport to explain something by not explaining
it. It’s lazy.
Scully tells him
that she's not saying that she can explain it, but it is definitely
not normal. Doggett is looking at the records of the young man from
the teaser, a high school dropout named Ronnie Pernell, who was
questioned and released ten years ago. Doggett tells Scully that he
was convicted of possession, arson and shoplifting in 1990. When
Scully realises that Doggett is looking at juvenile records sealed
by the court which Doggett is not supposed to have and that he's
breaking the law by accessing them, Doggett tells her that he wants
to catch the guy, whatever it takes.
At Billy's home at
night, Billy leaves his bed and hears his parents talking about him.
Josh is afraid of Billy. Billy enters Josh's room carrying a knife.
Doggett approaches
the mobile home where Ronnie Pernell lives. Pernell drives up as he
is there. Pernell remembers being questioned about Billy. Doggett
wants to take him to see Billy now and "see what Billy
says." Pernell wants to be left alone. Back in his car, Doggett
takes a photograph of a young boy out of his wallet and contemplates
it.
Mrs. Underwood
finds Josh - the knife is stuck in the bed and there is blood, but
Josh is OK. Investigation shows that the blood is Billy's, although
neither child was not cut. The parents have never seen the knife
before, but the prints on it are Billy's. Scully thinks that Billy
should be removed from the household so that he can be observed.
Doggett, however, thinks Billy should stay at home. She tells him
that he is not a normal child, and it is not a normal act. Doggett
tells her that she sounds like she thinks he’s possessed. He says
that he’s a kid who’s been through a lot, and to give him a
chance. He asks how she knows that he’s not trying to communicate
something. She asks what the message is. He just looks down. Scully
tells him that he is a kid, but he’s a kid who materialized out of
this air unaged. She asks him if he doesn’t recognize how strange
it is.
They notice that
the knife has a symbol on it. The sheriff recognizes that the same
symbol was identified by a police psychic, Sharon Pearl, ten years
ago during the investigation, when they were trying everything to
find the boy. Scully recognizes the symbol immediately as a shape
Billy has been drawing. It has five lines radiating out from a
central point in a star shape.
Mom gently asks
Billy to help them understand what he is going through so that they
can move forward and put whatever happened, behind them. She wants
him to see a child psychologist, but as Dad begins to back the
family van out of the driveway, Billy is suddenly not in the van
anymore. He is upstairs in Josh's room.
Ronnie leaves his
girlfriend's trailer home. Another boyfriend drives up and hassles
Ronnie. Ronnie walks through the woods. He digs with a spade that is
buried under leaves and finds a human skull.
At the Underwood
home, Scully and Doggett bring in the psychic, Sharon Pearl. Billy's
Father takes Josh out of the house. When she meets Billy she gets an
immediate impression of powerful forces working through Billy and
drawing him to his brother. She also feels a force, coming through
Doggett. She tells him that he has lost someone just like Billy. The
psychic convulses and the star mark appears on her forehead. An
ambulance takes Sharon away. Scully asks Doggett about what she
said. He thinks it was an act. Scully taped the psychic readings
[when she was convulsing] and when she plays the tape backwards, you
can hear a child singing. Scully quietly sings the song along with
the voice.
Ronnie is
threatened by another boyfriend of his girlfriend, who says he knows
what Ronnie has buried in the woods and what he [Ronnie] did to the
boy. Ronnie drives to the Underwood residence where Scully and
Doggett observe him arrive. Suddenly Billy is in the car with
Ronnie. Doggett approaches the car to find out what Ronnie is doing
there and sees Billy in the car, assuming a kidnapping. Ronnie
drives off and Scully, in the agent's car pursues, soon stopping
Ronnie's car. Doggett runs up. Ronnie gets out of the car but Billy
is not there. Doggett slams Ronnie against the car, but Ronnie can't
explain it.
Meanwhile, Josh is
on the Underwood's van with his dad, who goes into a gas station to
pay. Josh sees a man leading a pony to a horse trailer and walks
over to see the pony. He reaches into the trailer and someone grabs
his hands and holds him. Cameras show the side of the trailer. It
says - Al's Pony Ride Along, on it there is the same star symbol.
Ronnie is
questioned at the police station. Before Doggett goes to question
him, Scully tells him "Count to ten, Agent Doggett".
Doggett is convinced that Billy was in the car, even though he was
also known to be in his home at the time. Police report to the
agents that Josh has disappeared. Doggett questions Ronnie again,
who says he knows what Doggett is going to ask, but he has no
answer. Doggett says that Ronnie went to the house to get Billy
back. Ronnie tells him that he's wrong and that he didn't know how
Billy got into his car. He went to the house because he didn't
believe that Billy was there.
In Ronnie's
mind, he sees Billy swinging and he is there watching him holding a
hypodermic needle. Ronnie asks to see Billy, but Doggett tells
him that Ronnie wanted to get Billy back and where did he keep Billy
for all those years. In Ronnie's mind he sees a bound &
gagged Billy. Doggett says that Ronnie is sorry he let Billy go,
but Ronnie says that he couldn't let him go. In Ronnie's mind he
sees himself singing to Billy [in the same singing voice as before].
He brings a knife to Billy's hands, ready to free him, but he turns
to see someone behind him. Ronnie claims that he took care of
Billy, he sang to him so that he wont be afraid. Doggett asks more
questions. What was Billy afraid of? Is Ronnie a victim too?
Police, including
Scully and Doggett, raid the home of the operator of the pony
carousel that night. We see that the star symbol is the shape of the
pony carousel and also the logo of the pony business. Josh is found,
tied up but safe. The owner runs and Doggett chases him. We see that
it is Ronnie's girlfriends other boyfriend. When Doggett stops him,
the man denies that he has Billy Underwood. Billy suddenly appears
and then disappears again. Doggett runs through the woods and finds
the skull in the ground. Later at the crime scene, Billy's family
has seen the skeleton and they're crying, looking at Billy's
skeleton in the ground.
Doggett walks over
to Scully and tells her that he doesn't believe its Billy's
skeleton. She says that the clothes, age and condition of the bones
makes clear that the body is Billy's and she is sure that the
forensic tests will reach the same conclusion. Doggett asks her
"What then", do they move on and let it be - case closed?
Scully tells him that she's been there before where he is. She says
that he feels like he's failed and that he has to explain it somehow
and maybe he can.
Doggett: Not
if that’s Billy’s body I can’t.
Scully: But maybe that’s explanation enough. That, that’s
not Billy’s brother lying in that grave too. That that man who did
this is never gonna to be able to do it again. Isn’t that what you
wanted, Agent Doggett?
Doggett: Agent Scully, don’t ask me to believe that this is
some kind of justice from beyond the grave.
Scully: All I’m saying is that maybe you succeeded, whether
you’re willing to see that or not.
As Scully walks
away, Doggett looks at Billy's crying parents.
