(It is a dark night and a single car is seen driving along a road, singing can be heard from within the car)

FAMILY: ..was his name-o, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, and Bingo was his name-o. There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, and Bingo was his name-o. There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o, B-I-N-G-O

(Just then a sudden bang is heard from outside the car)

SON: Dad what was that? What's happening?

DAD: It's ok, it's ok, I just got a flat.

MOM: Ooh Noo.

DAD: No problem here honey.

(There is a flashlight lying on the ground shining on the car while the dad is removing the panelling to get to the wheel. The dad sets the panelling down and lifts his wheel wrench, in doing so, he knocks the flashlight down a hill at the side of the road)

Aaooh. Darn it.

(He throws down the wheel wrench and goes after the flashlight. We see the man pick up his flashlight and go back up the hill from the viewpoint of someone or something in the bushes watching him. The kids are sleeping in the car and the dad taps on the window beside his wife)

Honey, would you mind holding the light for a secaaaaaah....

(The dad is suddenly pulled backwards out of sight very quickly. The mom gets out of the car)

MOM: Paul. Paul. PAUL.

(The mom picks up the flashlight and shines it down the hill into the woods)

Where are you? Paul. What happened?

(We see the mom standing at the top of the hill holding the flashlight from the same viewpoint of something in the bushes. Next we see the the legs of the dad as he is being dragged into the woods)

VOICE: Over here, we found something.

(The men all run off to where the voice was calling from. They go downhill and the dogs are anxious to get down)

MAN WITH DOGS: Easy, easy.

(The dead body of the dad is lying on the ground, the men look at each other)

POLICE OFFICER: His leg's been eaten off.

(Just then another voice calls out)

POLICE OFFICER 2: HEEYY, UP HERE.

(The men make their way back up the hill and run towards the area where the calls where made. Several police men are standing pointing their rifles into a cave)

IT'S IN HERE. IT'S AS TALL AS A HOUSE.

POLICE OFFICER 3: We can smoke him out.

POLICE OFFICER: And then what?

(From within the cave, we see the men all pointing their rifles into the cave, waiting)

POLICE OFFICER 2: I SEE IT.

POLICE OFFICER: He's coming at us.

(All the men begin shooting again and again)

(A man is typing on a computer and several voices can be heard in the background.
We see Scully walking through a busy office)

(Mulder is sitting, staring at a centrefold in "Hanky Panky" magazine. Scully walks in the door and sees what Mulder is looking at, she pauses and then puts her case on a desk and walks beside Mulder)

SCULLY: Working hard Mulder?

(Mulder turns the magazine around so that Scully can see it better)

MULDER: This woman claims to have been taken aboard a spaceship and held in an anti-gravity chamber without food and water for three days.

SCULLY: Anti-gravity's right. (Mulder throws the magazine onto the desk) Sorry to interrupt your serious investigation, but I just heard a story that'd just about take your knees out.

MULDER: What's that?

SCULLY: They found a body in the New Jersey woods yesterday, missing it's right arm and shoulder. They think they may have been eaten off, by a human.

MULDER: Where in New Jersey?

SCULLY: Just outside Atlantic City.

MULDER: Not an uncommon place to lose a body part. They think it's the mob?

SCULLY: Mmma, it was a homeless man. There doesn't seem to be a motive.

(Mulder gets up and gets his coat)

MULDER: You feeling lucky Scully?

SCULLY: Relative to whom? (Mulder is looking in a drawer in his office) It's not our case Mulder, the local police are handling it. (Mulder pulls out a file) An X-File?

MULDER: Ever hear of something called The Jersey Devil?

(Mulder hands the file to Scully)

SCULLY: Yeah, it's a beast that's supposed to come out of the woods and attack cars, right. Kind of like an East Coast Bigfoot.

MULDER: Read the file about the case in 1947.

(Mulder leaves the office, Scully closes the file and grabs her case and follows after Mulder)

SCULLY: Save me the trouble.

(Mulder and Scully walk back through the busy office)

MULDER: 1947, family watches dad get dragged off into the woods, cops find dad with a few appendages gnawed off. Cops corner a large naked man in the woods and gun `im down. (They stop at a desk) Autopsy shows human flesh and bones in the man's large intestine. A beast man. (Mulder talks to someone behind the desk) Requisition for a car please.

SCULLY: Is the autopsy report in here?

(Mulder fills in a requsition form)

MULDER: No, the original disappeared from the Patterson PD's files a few years after the incident. But there is a statement from the attending pathologist.

SCULLY: Mulder it's the same story I've heard since I was a kid. It's a folk tale, a myth.

MULDER: I heard the same story when I was a kid too, funny thing is, I believed it. (Mulder hands back the form to the person behind the desk and is given a set of keys) Thanks Doreen. (Mulder turns to face Scully) Fact is, we got a cannibalised body in New Jersey, someone or something out there is hungry.

(Mulder walks off and Scully turns and looks at him)

(Mulder and Scully are in the morgue looking at the body of the victim. The coroner is there holding up the sheet which covers the body)

GLENNA: Er, they say animals can develop an appetite for human flesh but, this is no animal. You see the teeth marks, just below the clavicle, they're human.

(Glenna walks off and removes her surgical gloves)

MULDER: Who found the body?

GLENNA: Park Ranger.

(Scully is examing the body while Mulder walks to the feet of the body)

SCULLY: Was he alive when it happened?

GLENNA: Well, it's hard to tell.

(Mulder looks at the toe-tag, it reads:)

CORONER'S DEPARTMENT

NAME CROCKETT ROGER CASE NO. 2272 DATE AUG 29 / 93 WHERE TAKEN FROM: N.J. STATE PARK

There's a scull fracture but no sign of a struggle, his blood alcohol level was up, probably never knew what hit him.

MULDER: Any ideas about that?

GLENNA: The size of that bite mark, I'd say.......

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: I want this on the QT.

(A man walks around a corner into view, and approaches the three of them)

GLENNA: .......large adult male.

MAN: I'll do my best.

GLENNA: Er, Detective Thompson is handling the case.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Glenna?

(Scully shows her id to the detective)

SCULLY: Hi, I'm Special Agent Dana Scully and this is Agent Fox Mulder.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: I don't remember anybody calling the, FBI in on this.

MULDER: Well we're not here on an official capacity, Agent Scully's a medical doctor, we heard about your victim and, she thought she might take a look.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: I'm sorry, I'm gonna ask you to leave. We have an investigation.

GLENNA: For God's sakes Tommy, this is no time to get pissy.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: We have jurisdiction here.

MULDER: Any suspects yet Detective?

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: I don't work for you sir, and unless you hear different from the Attorney General, er, this case is a local matter.

SCULLY: Agent Mulder, we should go.

MULDER: There's no need to get bent outta shape.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: On the contrary, I think I've been exceedingly polite.

(Mulder and the detective stand there staring at each other for a few moments, and then Mulder leaves)

(Mulder and Scully walk along a street until they reach their car)

MULDER: So what's eating that guy?

SCULLY: He was perfectly in his rights. The FBI has no overriding jurisdiction in a murder case. Anyway, you'd feel the same way if someone was horning in on your work.

MULDER: Yeah, chances are he's without a clue. He'll probably be scratching his head when they bring the next body in.

SCULLY: You missed your opening Mulder, you could've really humiliated him and er, told him who the perpetrator was, The Jersey Devil. (Mulder laughs)

(Mulder stands beside the car and talks to Scully, who is standing on the other side of the car)

MULDER: Hey whatta you say, we grab a hotel, take in a floor show, drop a few quarters in the slot, do a little digging on this case.

SCULLY: You're kidding right.

MULDER: Ok, we can skip the floor show.

SCULLY: Mulder I have to be back in D.C.

MULDER: What you gotta date?

SCULLY: No, I have my godson's birthday party at 6:30. (Mulder throws the car keys across the top of the car, Scully catches them) What are you doing?

MULDER: A little poking around, maybe make a weekend out of it.

(Mulder walks off)

SCULLY: Mulder, it's a three hour drive back by myself...(Mulder waves to Scully)...in Friday night traffic, ooowh.

(We see people playing slots machines, playing at the crap tables. Mulder is standing beside a telephone, looking through a telephone directory. He runs his finger down a page until he finds what he is looking for:

PARKS SERVICES - STATE OF NEW JERSEY Parks Information - General Inquiries ....555 - 9573

Mulder lifts the phone)

(Mulder and a Park Ranger get out of the ranger's pick-up truck and walk a couple of feet away from it)

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Found the body just over there, lying face down in the rocks. Thirty-two years with the park service, I've come across some weird stuff but I tell ye, never anything like this.

MULDER: Victim was a homeless man, you get many of them wandering around out here?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Well, occasionally ar, see some but, most are scared of the woods.

MULDER: Scared? Of what?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: I don't know, the devil.

MULDER: People say that's just a myth.

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Depends on who you talk to.

MULDER: What do you think?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Well like I said, now thirty-two years, I see alot of weird stuff. Like one time, a little over four years ago, I saw what I thought was a, large man come out of a, copse of birch trees, not, not a stitch of clothing. And he was about, sixty yards away, and he starts, sniffing the air, you know like a dog. And then he looks straight at me, and I swear he smelled me because he took off into the woods so fast, you'd swear it wasn't human.

MULDER: Really. You never saw him again?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: No, but I feel him. And, I found things, some scat, half buried like a cat's only more human. Found a half eaten rabbit with what looked like a human cuspid tooth in it. And some deer bones, looked like they'd been sharpened into tools.

MULDER: You think it might be what's responsible for the body you found?

(The ranger laughs slightly)

RANGER PETER BOULAY: I got a pension coming up in a few years, you know, you say the wrong thing.

MULDER: Yeah.

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Er, I'll tell you one thing, I don't ever come out here without my weapon anymore.

MULDER: How far is it into town from here?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: `Bout a mile, mile and a half.

MULDER: I'm staying at the Galaxy Gateway for the next couple of days, if you think of anything, will you call me?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Sure.

(Mulder walks off down a path in the woods)

(We see a gorilla mask and the wearer runs into a room, from which another kid runs also wearing a gorilla mask and carring a plastic baseball bat. He runs into a wall and falls on his back and starts to cry. Scully comes to see what has happened)

SCULLY: Oh c'mon, it's ok, it's alright, what happened, did you bump your head? Hhmmm.

(A dog is licking the birthday cake while the kids cheer at it, a woman lifts the dog onto the floor)

ELLEN: Oh Peter, stop that. (Scully comes in holding the kid who hurt himself) What, what happened?

SCULLY: Jungle warfare.

ELLEN: Aaar, I'm gonna kill that dog.

SCULLY: If the hit squad doesn't get to him before you do.

(Scully and Ellen laugh)

ELLEN: I'm so glad you're here Dana.

(Ellen hears the breaking of glass and goes to find out what is broken)

(All the kids are sitting around a table eating food, Scully lifts an empty plate and goes into the kitchen, where Ellen is washing dishes)

SCULLY: Oooh, you're amazing.

ELLEN: What?

SCULLY: You're just such a natural at all this, I don't know how you keep it all together.

ELLEN: Mommy radar.

SCULLY: Mmmm, I don't think I'm cut out for this El.

ELLEN: Dana, you went through the FBI academy, what better training could there be for motherhood. (Scully lifts out a large plastic container from a cupboard and opens it) Seriously, you're great with kids, what're you talking about.

SCULLY: When am I supposed to find the time?

ELLEN: Well first you have to get a life.

SCULLY: Ooooh.

ELLEN: And, of course, it helps if you can find a man.

SCULLY: Know of any?

ELLEN: Yeah, they're disappearing faster than the Brazilian rain forest. What about that guy you work with?

SCULLY: Mulder?

ELLEN: Yeah, I thought you said he was cute.

SCULLY: He's a jerk. He's not a jerk, he's erm, he's obsessed with his work.

(Scully's godson's party is still going, when there is a ring of the doorbell, Scully answers it. A man stands outside the door)

ROB: Hi.

SCULLY: Hi.

ROB: I'm Rob, I'm Scott's dad.

SCULLY: Oh, come in.

ROB: Thanks. Hey Tiger. How you doing? Are you having a good time?

(Rob crouches to talk to his son, Scully watches him and smiles. Ellen is along the hallway talking on the phone, she puts her hand over the mouthpiece and quietly says something to Scully)

ELLEN: Divorced.

(Scully looks back at Rob, who turns and looks at Scully and smiles. Scully coyly smiles, puts her head down and looks away)

(Mulder walks along a street filled with homeless people living in cardboard boxes. The street is littered with boxes and cars stripped of anything valuable)

MULDER: Did anybody here know Roger Crockett? (No one acknowledges Mulder's request) He was murdered two days ago. (Mulder tries to talk to a woman as she goes passed but she just ignores him) Ma'am, can I..

VAGRANT WOMAN: Hey honey, have you got any change to spare?

MULDER: Roger Crockett? Anybody?

(A man gets up and walks towards Mulder)

JACK: What d'you wanna know?

MULDER: Did you know Roger Crockett? (The man nods his head) Did you hear how he died?

JACK: Yeah.

MULDER: Any ideas who might've done it?

JACK: You a cop?

MULDER: No, I'm FBI.

JACK: I'll show you something.

MULDER: Ok.

(Jack leads Mulder through a door and into and alleyway)

JACK: I need some money.

(Mulder takes some money out ot his wallet and gives it to Jack. Jack rummages in a black bag, in amongst a sheltered area, and pulls out a piece of paper from a small plastic bag. He unfolds it and shows it to Mulder. It looks like a man, but more like a beastly kind of man)

MULDER: What is this?

JACK: Stuck in the pocket of a jacket I found.

MULDER: Does it mean anything to you?

JACK: I've seen it.

MULDER: Where?

JACK: Right here, digging in the trash..

MULDER: Here? Are you hustling me?

JACK: Swear to God.

MULDER: Who do you think it is?

JACK: I don't know, scared the hell out of me.

MULDER: Has anybody else seen it?

JACK: Oh yeah, everybody's pretty freaked.

MULDER: Anybody told the cops?

JACK: You think they don't know.

MULDER: Where're you sleeping tonight?

JACK: You're standing in my bedroom.

MULDER: You know the er, The Galaxy Gateway? (Mulder gives Jack his room key) Room 756. Go ahead.

JACK: Hey, they got HBO?

(Mulder laughs)

MULDER: Yeah, they do.

(It's night time and Mulder is sitting in Jack's bedroom with a blanket wrapped round him. As he tries to go to sleep he hears a noise, at first glance he can't see anything but he gets up and
quietly looks around)

(He notices a figure at the end of the alleyway searching in the trash. Mulder slowly advances to get a better look at the figure. Suddenly the figure starts sniffing the air, but soon continues to
resume searching in the trash. The figure then climbs over a fence and out of sight. Mulder runs and jumps up the fence and sees the figure running along a catwalk)

(Mulder then rushes out of the alleyway and into the street to see if he can see where the figure is going, as it runs along the roof of a building, Mulder whistles at it. It stops and looks over the edge of the building at him. A police car and police van approach from behind Mulder and the figure moves on. The headlights from the police car shine into Mulder eyes, the vehicles come to a stop and a police officer gets out of the car)

POLICE OFFICER: Sir.

(Mulder points up to the roof)

MULDER: You got a man up on that roof.

POLICE OFFICER: Nothing to be afraid of, we're gonna give ye a warm place to sleep it off.

(The police officer grabs Mulder by the arm but Mulder shakes it off)

MULDER: Hey back off.

POLICE OFFICER: Alright, calm down.

MULDER: I'm telling you, there's a man up on that roof.

POLICE OFFICER: Get in the car, now.

(Mulder is sitting in a small white room, empty except for a table and some chairs. Through a window in the door, Detective Thompson peers through before entering)

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: What the hell do you think you're doing?

MULDER: Enjoying the night life here in beautiful Atlantic City.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: I'll go right to the D.A.'s office if I have to, obstructing an investigation, misconduct.

MULDER: That's good, let's go see her together, and while we're at it, why don't we add withholding evidence to the list.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Whatta you talking about?

MULDER: Statements given to you describing something stalking the back streets of Atlantic City.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: This is the fishing trip they get me up at three-o-clock in the morning for. Unbelievable.

MULDER: Why else would you be sweeping the streets tonight? You know it's out there.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: I got a perpetrator out there. Whether it's Hannibal the Cannibal or Elmer Fudd, I've got a job, to protect people.

MULDER: Oh is that your job, or is it to keep the dice rolling, keep the tour buses rolling in. You can't fill those casinos, this town disappears like a quarter down the slot. (There is a brief pause of silence) I've seen it.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Seen what?

(Mulder reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the piece of paper with the drawing of the creature. He unfolds it and shows it to Detective Thompson, who looks at it and laughs)

You've been spending too much time in supermarket check-out lines.

(Detective Thompson folds the paper up again and throws it onto the table)

This story's as old as the hills.

MULDER: Who's going to be responsible when you lose your first tourist, Detective? You are.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: No, you are sir, because you're wasting my time, and impeding the solution of this case. (Detective Thompson opens the door and stands by it) You wanna go on a safari, go to Africa. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your weekend.

(He leaves, closing the door behind him, and leaving Mulder sitting by himself)

(Scully is walking through the same busy office, we've seen at the start, another agent calls to her from behind a desk)

AGENT: Agent Scully, Agent Mulder line three.

(Scully picks up the phone on the desk beside her, and answers line three)

SCULLY: Where are you?

MULDER: I'm not far from where you left me.

SCULLY: You're still in Atlantic City?

MULDER: Er Scully, you got anything happening this morning?

SCULLY: What's that noise in the background?

(We see Mulder is talking on a payphone outside a jail cell. In the cell is a man, bent over)

MULDER: That's a guy getting sick.

SCULLY: Mulder where are you? (We see Scully again, Mulder has just told her where he is) The drunk tank.

(Another agent is looking at Scully, she turns away and continues to listen to Mulder)

(Mulder and Scully are walking along a street, Mulder's clothes look dirty)

SCULLY: Well, it's not hard to see why they mistook you for a vagrant.

MULDER: You gonna rag on me or you gonna take me to get something to eat?

SCULLY: Am I buying or did you manage to pan-handle some spare change while you were at it?

(Mulder and Scully are sitting at a table, Mulder is eating a meal, he appears to be very hungry, talking at times with food in his mouth. Scully is drinking coffee)

MULDER: It moved like a cat, quick and graceful. There's no way a human could've got up on the roof that fast.

SCULLY: Mulder.

MULDER: What?

SCULLY: What's gonna happen when word of this gets back to the bureau?

MULDER: They dropped the charges, that guy Thompson, he ran me through the system just to spite me.

SCULLY: I'm talking about this Jersey Devil thing.

MULDER: I saw it, it's exactly the way the ranger described it, the way it moved, the way it sniffed the air. It's come out of the woods, probably in search of food.

SCULLY: Hyeah, I'll say.

MULDER: It was peeking through the garbage Scully, if it was a man-eater, why didn't it come after me? Probably felt threatened in some way..

SCULLY: Mulder, listen to yourself. You're already ascribing it a motive and an alibi. This thing, chewing somebody's arm off is not exactly a defensive posture.

MULDER: But you do believe that I saw something, don't ye?

SCULLY: You saw something, I'll give you that but I'm not about to go in and sell it. Not when it's nothing more than a sighting in a dark alley.

MULDER: I still got a hotel room I'm paying for.

SCULLY: Yeah well, I have got to get back to Washington by 7:30, so er..

MULDER: Another birthday party?

SCULLY: No. I have a date.

(Mulder looks at Scully)

MULDER: Can you cancel?

SCULLY: Unlike you Mulder, I would like to have a life.

MULDER: I have a life!

(Mulder and Scully look at each other, Scully looks away with a slight laugh)

SCULLY: C'mon, I have somebody I want you to meet, on the way home. C'mon.

(Mulder, with a mouth full of food, lifts his hand and gives a consenting grunt. He wants to finish his meal)

(Mulder pours himself a cup of coffee, Scully is standing, arms crossed, beside another man who is talking)

DR. DIAMOND: Just about every culture has one. Yetis, Sasquatch, Russian Almas, Dsonoqua.

MULDER: Why is that?

DR. DIAMOND: Oh, it's a kind of universal wild man myth. A symbolic fear of our dual natures as humans, as creators of life and destroyers of it.

MULDER: What's this chart?

(Dr. Diamond walks towards Mulder and the chart)

DR. DIAMOND: It shows the historic entry of man onto each continent and the effect it had on other animal species, which as you see has been disastrous.

MULDER: Why?

(Mulder goes to sit down)

DR. DIAMOND: Well, we humans have retained hereditary traits through evolution that have proven to be extremely destructive. We tend to be tribal and aggressively territorial, oriented by selfish sexual and reproductive drives that make, co-operation beyond the family-a-tribe, extremely hard for us.

MULDER: So we kill other species in order to survive.

SCULLY: Yeah, humans are top carnivores, we sit at the top of the food chain and we, reduce other species' chance of survival.

DR. DIAMOND: Nice to know Dana left here with more than a degree.

MULDER: But what if something entered the food chain above us?

(Dr. Diamond pouts himself a cup of coffee now, and walks back towards Mulder and Scully, at a table)

DR. DIAMOND: It won't happen, see our intelligence virtually insures us, barring the introduction of some alien life-form, we will live out our days as rulers of the world.

MULDER: But, but what if through some fluke of nature, a human was born, who reverted to it's most animal instincts, a kind of carnivorous neanderthal. Wouldn't he occupy a space above us on the food chain?

DR. DIAMOND: Oh sure, all he'd have to do is wait outside any fast-food restaurant and eat us on the way in.

MULDER: Right, yeah, an.and, and haven't there been cases were, men have been raised in the wilderness by animals who have no language and hunt like predators?

DR. DIAMOND: Oh yes several, but you see cannibalism is rare, even among the lower mammals.

MULDER: But even when faced with extinction?

DR. DIAMOND: Well maybe in the jungles of New Gineau or, it's just, highly unlikely that what you're suggesting could've survived civilization, a revolution, out in the woods of New Jersey.

MULDER: Yea, highly unlikely, but not outside the realm of extreme possibility?

DR. DIAMOND: Well, it would be an amazing discovery.

(Dr. Diamond nods his head a few times. Mulder looks back at Scully.
Nothing is said, but she turns to look away)

(Mulder is sitting, looking at some photos, in a dark room. Photos connected to the Jersey Devil, both photographs of footprints and the drawing of the creature)

ROB: Well the hard thing was when my wife remarried I... Suddenly I felt very competitive for my
son's attention. It was weird.

SCULLY: I'm sure.

ROB: I became a superdad on the weekends with Scott, I, had this unconscious fear of being
replaced. I actually had dreams where I was running over his step-father with my car. Well,
you'll understand when you have kids, having kids changes everything.

SCULLY: That's what they say.

ROB: Maybe some weekend, if you're up for it, we could er, take the kids out to the beach for the
day.

(A waiter brings Scully and Rob's meals to them)

SCULLY: Yeah.

ROB: Great. (Scully looks at Rob and smiles. The waiter puts Rob's meal down in front of him)
Thank you. (The waiter leaves) So, can I ask about the case you're on or, can't you say.

(Scully picks up a piece of food on her fork, looks at Rob cutting his food and pauses)

SCULLY: I don't think it's a case we should discuss over dinner.

ROB: I don't suppose you'd wanna hear about the, finer points of the state planning and taxation.

(Scully looks up at Rob and smiles, she continues to eat her meal)

(Mulder takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, he looks at the time on a clock on the wall, it is 7:55 p.m.. The phone rings)

MULDER: Mulder.

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Agent Mulder, this is Peter Boulay of the Jersey Parks Department.

MULDER: Oh yeah, hi.

(Peter Boulay is talking from his rangers's truck, in what appears to be part of the park)

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Hi, I found a body out in the woods today, it looks like it's been dead about six to eight months. A long haired male, missing the same tooth I found in that rabbit a while back. It could be your devil.

MULDER: Where's the body now?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: I turned it over to the coroner's office.

MULDER: You're sure it was a male?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Well, it had all the plumbing.

ROB: Excuse me.

(Rob lifts a small milk jug to pour into his coffee)

SCULLY: Eef-hhmmm. (Scully's beeper goes off) Sorry. (She opens her handbag and checks the message on the beeper. She closes her bag again and gets up from the table) Excuse me.

ROB: Certainly.

(The phone in Mulder's office rings again)

MULDER: Scully.

SCULLY: Mulder.

MULDER: Sorry to interrupt your evening.

(Scully is using a phone in the restaurant)

SCULLY: That's ok, what's up?

MULDER: I just had an amazing thought, maybe it isn't a beast-man we're looking for after all.

(Mulder is holding up the drawing of the creature)

(Glenna is looking through a filing cabinet, and pulls out a file. She walks back towards Scully and the ranger, Mulder is walking beside her)

GLENNA: Well, if they picked it up, nobody logged the body on the chart. I sure haven't seen it.

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Well, I don't understand. What else would they have done with it?

SCULLY: I'm afraid we may have called you down here for nothing.

(Scully is talking to Dr. Diamond, who is also standing with the others)

MULDER: They're going to try and sweep this whole thing under the carpet.

DR. DIAMOND: Why?

MULDER: Any publicity and you're got the streets crawling with the kind of people who aren't here to play the crap tables. Word gets out there's something still on the loose, forget it.

DR. DIAMOND: You said it was a female.

MULDER: The body they found was a male, there's a fifty-fifty chance there was a mate. We may never know unless we find out ourselves.

DR. DIAMOND: If it's true, what're the chances of catching it alive?

(Mulder is cutting the wire attaching the wire fence to the metal post with a small pair of wire-cutters)

DR. DIAMOND: If it is a primate, it would have a natural fear of heights. It would also want to stay close to it's food source.

(Mulder steps through the fence and holds it back so that Scully, Dr. Diamond and Peter Boulay can get through. The ranger is carrying a rifle)

MULDER: This thing has no fear of heights. We'll stay together and start with the lower floors. How much time will that dart give us?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: It'll put down a five hundred pound bear for an hour, if I hit it.

(They all enter a building, the same building that Mulder saw the creature enter and run across the roof. It is an old building, with bars on the doors and windows, the windows have been smashed)

(Out on the street, a police car drives by and stops when the two officers inside the car notice the ranger's truck)

POLICE OFFICER 1: What the hell's a park ranger vehicle doing here?

POLICE OFFICER 2: I don't know.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Check it out.

(Both officers get out of the car, the first one walks off while the second one lifts the radio)

POLICE OFFICER 2: Run a check for me on a...

(Back inside the building, Scully is walking past some lockers while Dr. Diamond is looking at a pile of rubbish. He lifts a few empty bags and plastic covers, and then he notices something. He crouches down and picks up a piece of cloth and smells it)

DR. DIAMOND: Something here. (The others arrive at the location of Dr. Diamond, who gets up) It's blood. She could be bringing her killing here. She could be injured.

(A S.W.A.T. team member stands outside the building and turns looking at the surroundings, he is holding a machine gun and has a headpiece on)

S.W.A.T. TEAM OFFICER: Roger, zebra team in position.

(More S.W.A.T. team men gather outside an entrance to the building with one man pointing out directions for the others)

(Everyone is still looking inside, but now they are up a few floors. Mulder peers over a railing and looks down, Scully comes near)

MULDER: What if it is a female Scully? How close is she to you or me? Does she feel emotion? Or are her days just spent looking for food?

SCULLY: Maybe, she spends her day shopping.

MULDER: Eight million years out of Africa, I don't think we're all that different.

(S.W.A.T. team members are running quietly through the bottom floor of the building)

SCULLY: Mulder, we've put men into space, we've built computers that work faster than the human mind.

MULDER: While we over-populate the world and create new technologies to kill each other with. Maybe we're just beasts with big brains. (Scully is standing, not moving, a still face gazing into nothingness) What?

SCULLY: No I was just, thinking about my godson's birthday party, eight little six year old boys running around, talk about primitive behaviour.

(Mulder hears the voice of Detective Thompson and peers, once again, over the railing. He sees the detective standing talking to Dr. Diamond with a couple of police officers standing beside them)

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Now look, his name is Mulder and he's a federal agent, you ever hear of him?

DR. DIAMOND: No.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: You know him?

DR. DIAMOND: No.

(Mulder puts his finger to his mouth, Scully turns and looks down over the railing as well)

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Well what are you doing here?

DR. DIAMOND: I'm a professor of Anthropology.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Mulder, does that sound familar to you? Look, I know he's here somewhere. Would you check you upstairs Andrew, go check upstairs. I want this place searched...

(Mulder and Scully continue their search of the higher levels of the building. Outside, two S.W.A.T. members appear on a bridge looking into the building, they take a quick look and then run on)

(Mulder is looking through a room and stops, suddenly he hears a noise and as he looks in the direction of the noise, a figure runs past a window. Mulder gives chase, Scully hears the sounds of Mulder's feet running as she is close by. Mulder stops after coming around a corner and walks slowly along the corridor. Mulder hears Scully's voice, quiet and soft as not to arouse the attention of the police)

SCULLY: Mulder? Mulder where are you?

(Mulder looks out a window and sees the figure, the beast-woman, running across the top off an adjacent building. Scully is walking down a corridor, looking for Mulder as well as the beast. Mulder jumps onto the roof of the other building and as he lands, rolls over and scrambles to his feet, trying to catch up with the beast. Scully appears in the same corridor Mulder was in recently. When she peers out a window, she sees Mulder running across the top of the other building)

(The S.W.A.T team is quickly making their way up through the building)

(Scully lands on top of the roof of the other buidling, and like Mulder, rolls on landing. She takes out her gun and gets to her feet, crouching under large metal girders, making her way to where she saw Mulder going)

(Mulder is crawling slowly on his hands and feet, making no noise, trying to hear where the beast might be. The creature walks quickly and quietly across a boarded walkway on top of the roof, close to where Mulder is. As the creature goes passed, Mulder jumps up onto the walkway and runs after the beast)

(The walkway leads down some steps and into a dark building. Mulder slows his pursuit once inside the building, he reaches the bottom of the steps and enters a dark room, cautiously looking it over. Beams of light shine in through the spaces of a fan as the fan is spinning. Mulder looks along one side of a piece of machinery and then back towards the fan. Suddenly the beast jumps Mulder and they both fall to the ground. Mulder lands on his back, and lifts his head trying to see where the beast has gone and wondering what it might do to him. The beast appears from the darkness and sits on Mulder's legs. Mulder lies back, breathing heavily, waiting)

(Scully has made her way to the top of the steps, and descends slowly with her gun trained in front of her. The beast backs off from Mulder and Mulder tries to sit up, as he does so the beast-woman swipes at him, knocking him back to the ground and hitting his head. Scully approaches the bottom of the steps)

SCULLY: Mulder?

(The beast-woman runs off, Scully quickly runs down the last few steps)

MULDER: Scully.

(Mulder is sitting up when Scully enters the room, she puts away her gun, and attends to Mulder)

SCULLY: Lay back. Oh, Mulder you're hurt.

MULDER: You should've seen her, she was beautiful.

SCULLY: Yeah well, she just about ripped your lungs out.

(Mulder is sitting in the back of an ambulance getting medical attention, he is holding his shirt up while a medic attends to his wound. Dr. Diamond is sitting in the ambulance also)

MULDER: She could've torn my head off Scully but she didn't, she sensed that I wasn't a threat..

AMBULANCE DUDE: You've gotta hold still.

(Scully is talking on her cellular)

SCULLY: Yeah I need to talk somebody who can get me federal jurisdiction on this case. Mulder.

MULDER: What?

DR. DIAMOND: How old would you say she was?

(Both Scully and Dr. Diamond are talking to Mulder at the same time but he turns his attention to Scully)

MULDER: What?

SCULLY: The US assistant D.A.'s on the phone with the bureau right now, he wants to know what the hell is going on up here in Atlantic City.

MULDER: Well tell him he's got a real live neanderthal on the loose. She was young, I, I, I don't know...It's hard to say exactly what, what, what...

SCULLY: The Atlantic City major crime unit has filed a complaint that we're endangering a murder investigation.

MULDER: That is such crap, you can..

(The ranger comes over to the ambulance)

RANGER PETER BOULAY: Agent Mulder, they got her cornered, in a building.

MULDER: Let's go.

(The S.W.A.T. team have followed the beast-woman into another room.
One officer is talking on a walkie-talkie)

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Can you see it?

S.W.A.T. TEAM OFFICER: It crawled into the walls.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Can you get a man in there?

S.W.A.T. TEAM OFFICER: That's affirmative.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: And keep these people outta here.

(Two police officers restrain Mulder as he tries to get past)

MULDER: You could take her alive.

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: What's going on in there?

S.W.A.T. TEAM OFFICER: I got a man down, I got a naked woman just jumped from a second storey window. (The S.W.A.T. officer is looking out of a window as he is talking) Suspect is headed south into the woods on foot.

(Police officers with tracker dogs approach the woods. Mulder, Scully, Dr. Diamond and the ranger all travel to the woods in the ranger's truck. They come to a stop at the woods and they all get out
of the truck)

RANGER PETER BOULAY: I know these woods, if she's going for cover, she'll be down by the rocks.

(They make their way into the woods. Meanwhile, the police are tracking through the forest slowly. As the others make their way to the top of a rockface, the ranger notices the beast-woman and points her out)

Look.

MULDER: Can you reach her from here?

RANGER PETER BOULAY: I can try.

(Peter aims at the beast-woman and fires, the dart hits her in the back of the right shoulder. She pulls the dart out and continues on her way. Mulder leads the others down the side of the rockface, holding his side, and they run across a bridge. Down by the river, with the bridge still in sight, Detective Thompson comes into view. As the others come to the end of the bridge, they hear gunshots and run in the direction from where they came)

VOICES: I got it. Up ahead. I got it. She tried to take my arm off. Watch it right here.

(A man is sitting holding his arm, as Mulder arrives at the scene of the shooting, blood staining his shirt from his wound, he stops and looks at the scene and advances to the body of the beast-woman)

Right there. Looks like she was trying to bury herself.

(The beast-woman lies dead on the ground, leaves partially covering her lower back and legs. Mulder crouches down beside her and pulls back her hair and moves his hand over her eyes, shutting them. He pauses for a moment and them gets up and walks over to Detective Thompson)

MULDER: Why did you have to kill her?

DETECTIVE THOMPSON: Same reason you kill a rabid animal.

(Mulder stands looking at the detective, Scully moves to Mulder and touches his arm. Mulder looks at Scully, without saying a word, Scully walks off, followed by Mulder. Peter Boulay looks from the detective to the body)

(Mulder is looking at a photos of the body of the dead beast-woman, he puts them with the rest of the file into a filing cabinet. Scully enters the office carrying a file. Mulder sits down, Scully passes
something to Mulder)

SCULLY: Hi, this just came through, it's the posthumous medical exam on the woman's body. They found fragments of human bones still in her digestive tract, they estimated her age to be twenty-five to thirty years. Now they allowed Dr. Diamond to do a medical exam of the body but he found nothing that suggested prehistoric bone structure or physiology. Now the ACPD has her listed as a Jane Doe, and a search for her identity in state psychiatric records has begun, in earnest.

MULDER: Good luck.

(Scully gives Mulder the file she is holding)

SCULLY: They have also released the medical exam from the male body that they found, his age is estimated to be about forty years.

MULDER: There would have been offspring.

SCULLY: The medical exam of the women's uterus does seem to indicate that she may have given birth.

MULDER: She was just protecting her children Scully, it all makes sense. (Mulder gets up and gets his coat from behind the door) The male dies and she comes out of the woods in search of food.

SCULLY: Mulder will you do me a favour, will you just go out and have a beer, will you take the day off. I'll cover for you, will you just, take some time for yourself.

MULDER: Thanks for the offer but I've got an appointment at the Smithsonian with.. (The phone rings)...an ethno-biologist, I can't wait to tell him about this. (Mulder answers the phone) Mulder, yeah just a second, it's for you.

(Scully takes the phone and Mulder rushes out of the office)

SCULLY: Hello?

ROB: Hi Dana, it's Rob.

SCULLY: Oh hi.

(Rob is sitting behind a large desk, in an office or a study, books line the shelves behind him)

ROB: Sorry to call you at work, it's just I have Scott for the night and er, we have two extra tickets for Cirque De Soliel, we thought maybe you'd like to ask Ellen if you could take Trent and join us.

(Mulder approaches a reception desk at the head of a busy office)

MULDER: Requisition for a car please Fran. Thank you. (Mulder is filling out the form when Scully arrives) Who was that on the phone?

SCULLY: A guy.

MULDER: A guy. Same guy as the guy you had dinner with the other night?

SCULLY: Same guy.

MULDER: You gonna have dinner with him again?

SCULLY: I don't think so.

MULDER: No interest?

(Mulder finishes filling in the form and passes it back to Fran)

SCULLY: Not at this time.

(Fran gives Mulder a set of keys)

MULDER: Thanks Fran. (Mulder walks away from the desk and towards a door. Scully walks with him) What are you doing?

SCULLY: I'm going with you to the Smithsonian.

MULDER: Don't you have a life Scully?

SCULLY: Keep that up Mulder and I'll hurt you like that beast-woman.

(Scully stops at the door, her hand on the handle)

MULDER: Eight million years out of Africa.

(Scully opens the door)

SCULLY: Look who's holding the door.

(Mulder walks through the doorway followed by Scully)

(A man and a boy are walking through the woods, wearing backpacks)

BOY: Dad, did you just see something down there?

DAD: Where?

(The boy points to part of the woods)

BOY: Over there.

DAD: Naah, I'm sure it was nothing.

BOY: No, I saw something.

DAD: Hey, did you ever hear the story of the Jersey Devil? You know when I was a kid, my dad
used to tell this story about a creature who lived out down the woods...

(As the father and son walk off, the camera pans down to the ground and from a hole appears the face of a young girl. The offspring of the beasts)

[THE END]