The X-Files: Squeeze – Eugene Tooms’ Deadly Secret
Another Victim
It was dark when Thomas Werner drove into his driveway. It was a quiet night, and as he walked towards the house, the sensor security light flashed on. Werner looked around, trying to get rid of the strange idea that something was wrong. But Tooms was crouched in the hedges on the other side of the street.
When Werner went in, Tooms moved swiftly as an animal following a scent. He stepped in front of the sensor light, but this time it didn’t turn on. He started to search for a point of entry and thought about the brick chimney.
Werner heard a noise and decided to have a drink to relax. Tooms started to drop down the flue. He could smell Werner’s sweat and blood. Werner decided to light a fire, but as something was blocking the flue, he couldn’t make it. He went to the kitchen and had a chance to scream. The attacker threw him with unbelievable force, and he was unconscious when Eugene Tooms took what he had come for: the liver.
The next day, Mulder found something the police missed: a smudge of ash above the hearth with a familiar shape. Besides, in the mantel, there was a perfectly clean shape of a ring.
After that, Mulder found Tooms in the 1903 census. He was alive! He lived on Exeter Street. And he had a similar profession; he was a dogcatcher. The following day, the agents went to see Briggs, the cop who had investigated the murders in 1933. He told them that he couldn’t forget those murders and that he couldn’t take them out of his mind. He gave them folders from a cardboard box about the case. Furthermore, he told them that the liver wasn’t the only thing he takes; he usually takes another trophy with him.
Finally, he showed them a photograph of Tooms 30 years ago, and he looked exactly the same. Mulder and Scully thought it was time to check out his old home at 66 Exeter Street.
The Nest
Sixty-six Exeter Street was an old, red-brick building with boarded-up windows. Scully led the way down the hallway to the apartment where Eugene Tooms had lived. The room was empty except for some garbage on the floor. Scully was feeling something awful. She was finding something physical, proof that would hold up in court. There was a stained mattress leaned against the wall; behind it was a hole big enough for someone to get through.
They decided to go down to check it out, and suddenly they were in the basement of the building. It was chilly and damp, and it felt worse than in the apartment. But they found Tooms’ trophies on a wooden crate. Then they realized that someone had plastered a strange assortment of things against the wall. It was a nest! It had been stuck together with a greenish-yellow substance.
Mulder made his theory: Tooms was hibernating there. Five livers provide sustenance for 30 years, allowing him to regenerate cells and not age. Scully tried not to gag; the substance was bile.
On the way out, Mulder led. Scully got entangled in something, but then she was abruptly set free. Eugene was there all the time, and he took Scully’s necklace – a trophy for each victim. He had found victim number five.
Working Late
At 7:30 PM, the Baltimore sky was striped with a blood-red sunset. Hundreds of workers were hurrying to get home one afternoon while George Usher was returning to his office. He took the elevator to the fifteenth floor and went to his office. The hallway was long and silent, and the exit signs shone in the dark. But it felt different that night; however, the building was very safe, so nobody could enter. Usher dialed the number of his wife and left a message on the answering machine, telling her that he was at work.
Suddenly, George felt an odd tremor and headed for the coffee machine for a drink. A tiny noise broke the silence, and the cover of an air vent began to move slowly. The screws started to turn, and elongated, skinny fingertips came out of it.
When Usher came back, the light he left on was switched off. He entered, and the door slammed with an unearthly force. Usher wasn’t alone.
Frantically, he reached the door and got hold of the knob, but something had hold of him. Some powerful hands locked around his throat; he couldn’t breathe, and an inhuman strength raised him into the air. Suddenly, he was thrown against the door, and he splintered it. Then, there was only silence, and above Usher’s body, the screws of the air vent began to turn. The carpet was drenched with blood. Something inside was screwing the cover back in the wall, victoriously.
A Profile of the Killer
Scully was in her apartment with her computer. She was writing a profile of the killer. According to her, the killer was a male, 25-35 years old. He was of above-average intelligence, and his method of entry was undetermined. But she was puzzled as she couldn’t find a scientific explanation for that elongated fingerprint.
Then, she was thinking of the use of the liver as a restorative object. This may allow the killer to think he is cleansing himself.
However, they couldn’t predict who the next victim would be, but serial killers sometimes return to the site of the previous murder to recapture the emotional high, so she thought they should target those sites where he had already killed. The stakeouts began that night.
Three days later, Scully went to Usher’s office, and Mulder was examining the duct system since he heard some banging sounds. There was enough space for someone to slip through. Suddenly, something was scaling, and Mulder shouted for backup. A man was inside, and after hesitating, he crawled out. He looked about 20, with a child-like face and a tan uniform in which they could read “ANIMAL CONTROL.” He looked scared to death, like a rabbit caught in headlights. The agents handcuffed him.