01 - Goblins by Charles Grant - (ebook by Undead) Page B

leaned casually against the wall, hands loose in
his pockets. Scully sat in a Queen Ann wingback that smelled of must and mildew.
Mulder was on a padded footstool, leaning forward, hands clasped on his knees.
    A small room, a Pullman kitchenette at the end of a short hall, a bathroom, a
bedroom barely large enough for the single bed and a dresser missing two of its
five drawers. Framed prints on the papered walls; a false fireplace with no
logs; a jumbled collection of plastic and ceramic horses on the mantel; a
fringed carpet worn through in places, only the ghosts of its original colors
left behind. The bay window was covered with yellowed flocked curtains tattered
along the edges and at the bottom. No television; only a small, portable clock
radio on the end table beneath the lamp.
    Elly Lang wore discolored, thick-soled nurse’s shoes, argyle socks rolled
down to mid-shin, and a simple brown dress without a belt or trim. There was no
telling how old she was. In the lamplight she could have been ancient—no lower
teeth, collapsed cheeks, strings of dirty white hair untrapped by a hair net. No
makeup at all. She kept her hands primly folded in her lap, no rings or watch.
    But Mulder watched her eyes. They weren’t old at all, and of an odd pale grey
that made them appear almost transparent.
    “Goblin,” she said with a sharp nod, and a don’t you dare contradict me glare at the chief.
    Mulder nodded. “Okay.”
    She closed one eye partway as she regarded him suspiciously. “I said goblin.”
    He nodded again. “Okay.”
    “They live in the woods, you know.” Her voice was low, harsh, the rasp of a
childhood Halloween witch. “Came when the army did, back in '16, '17, I don’t
remember, just before I was born.” She straightened her spine, and she faded,
leaving only the shine of her eyes, the bloodless line of her lips. “Things
happen sometimes, and they don’t like it.”
    “What things?” he asked patiently.
    “I wouldn’t know. I ain’t a goblin.”
    He smiled, just barely, and just barely, she smiled back.
    “Miss Lang—”
    “Ms.,” she instructed. “I ain’t blind. I read the papers.”
    “I’m sorry. Ms. Lang. What my partner and I need to know is what you
saw that night. The night Grady Pierce died.”
    “Profanity,” she answered without hesitation.
    He waited, head tilted, watching her eyes, watching her lips.
    “A profane man was Grady Pierce. Every other word out of his mouth a
profanity Especially when he was drinking. Which”—her lips pursed in
disapproval—“he was most of the time. Always going on about his ghosts, his
stupid ghosts. Like he was the only one in the world who saw them.” A slow
disapproving shake of her head. “He never listened to me, you know. I told him
once, I told him a hundred times to stay home when the goblins were out, but he
never listened. Never.”
    Quietly, respectfully: “You were out?”
    “Of course. My obligations, you know.”
    Mulder questioned her with a look.
    “I mark them,” she explained. “The goblins. When I see them, I mark them, so
this so-called policeman can lock them away until they burn up in the sun. But
he never does, you know.” The head turned, and Mulder sensed another glare. “He could have saved that old
coot’s life if he had picked up the marked ones.”
    “I have a feeling that will change, Ms. Lang,” Scully said.
    “Damn right it will,” the old woman snapped.
    “What you saw,” Mulder prompted softly.
    She shifted, pushing back into the love seat. Her fingers began an endless
weaving.
    “I was heading home.”
    “From?”
    “The Company G.”
    Mulder kept his expression neutral. “And that’s… a bar?”
    “A cocktail lounge and restaurant, young man, use the brains God gave you. I
do not go to bars. Never have, never will.”
    “Sorry. Of course.”
    “It’s east of that hideous place Grady always went to, whores and old men,
that’s all that’s there. Around the corner,