Quiet, quiet!
Listen to me!
It was a terrible thing.
You're not going to believe me
even when I tell you.
Some say it is a story...
a fairy tale.
But I saw it.
I saw it with my own eyes.
Quiero hombres fuertes.
Rapido.
Oye.
Gracias.
No.
Si.
No.
Let's go.
No.
Maria.
Mm-hmm.
Las cabras.
Maria.
Maria!
Maria.
Madre de Dios.
Mulder, and this happened how long ago?
Tres dias.
¿Muy incredible, no?
Only the smell.
Mulder, you brought me out here under the pretense
of investigating an unexplained death.
Can you tell me why we're standing out here
in the middle of a field looking at a dead goat?
According to eyewitnesses, the death we're investigating
was preceded by a fortean event.
That's a highly unusual or infrequent
meteorological phenomenon also known as a transient.
A transient. Yeah. Witnesses described
a bright flash about 30 degrees off the horizon.
Then a hot, yellow rain fell from a cloudless sky.
Fortean researchers call these liquid falls.
Black and red rains are the most common,
but there have also been reported cases of blue, purple
and green rains.
Purple rain?
Yeah. Great album.
Deeply flawed movie though.
Mulder, this transient,
as you call it--
this bright flash in the sky--
I assume you think it has some connection to...
Fortean events have been linked
to alien encounters, cattle mutilations--
the kind of exsanguinated animal carcass
you were just looking at.
And the victim, Maria Dorantes--
did she die in a similar fashion?
I would assume so.
You assume?
Nobody's examined the body?
Nobody cares, Scully.
The victim and many of the witnesses
are illegal immigrants, migrant farm workers.
I thought it might be important
to talk to them before they migrated.
!¡La migra!
No, no la migra.
No la migra.
No la migra, no la migra.
La FBI. No la migra.
It's all right. We don't want to take anybody away.
Relax. No, it's okay. Tranquile.
What do you want?
We want to know what happened to Maria Dorantes.
Does anybody know what happened to Maria Dorantes?
Did anybody see anything?
El chupacabra.
That's what happened to Maria Dorantes.
¿El chupacabra?
Yeah, it's a Mexican folktale.
El chupacabra, the goat sucker.
It's a small, gray creature with a big head
and a small body and black, bulging eyes.
Si, si.
Si.
Light... then rain.
Then el chupacabra.
It comes and eats away Maria's eyes and face.
Did you see the chupacabra?
No.
But everyone here knows this is the truth.
This woman's a liar. There is no chupacabra.
Chupacabra's nothing but a story told to children.
I know the killer of Maria Dorantes.
Who would that be, sir?
It was my brother,
Eladio Buente.
He killed Maria because she loved only me.
Uh, how do you explain the yellow rain then
and the dead goat over the hill?
It is a trick...
for fools who believe in fools' superstitions.
Thank you, Mr. Buente.
You've been very helpful.
Maria, Maria.
I just met a girl named Maria.
Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, Scully.
It makes perfect sense, Mulder.
Admit it, you fell for it.
Your "fortean event" turned out to be
nothing more than the oldest story in the world.
Two men, one woman. Trouble.
I admit there's a strong suspicion
of motive and intent, but the amount of detail,
the description of that chupacabra...
Mulder, what we've walked into here
is a Mexican soap opera-- and one for the local cops.
Local cops don't care, Scully.
I don't know who does.
Okay. Well, I care,
but what are we supposed to do about it?
Find out what killed Maria Dorantes.
Take a look at her body.
While you do what?
Try to find this man Eladio Buente.
Agent Lozano?
I'm Special Agent Mulder.
I'm with the FBI.
The FBI? Here?
We're investigating the death of a migrant worker.
Really?
I'm looking for a man named Eladio Buente.
He hasn't been seen for three days,
and he's not in police custody.
I thought he might be in INS custody.
He might.
Let's see.
Okay. We have a Jose Feliciano.
We have Juan Valdez.
We have Cesar Chavez.
We have Placido Domingo here,
but I don't see any Eladio Buente.
So you are telling me
that no one here uses their real name.
What is this man wanted for?
Possibly the murder of a woman named Maria Dorantes.
Oh, man. The chupacabra?
Yeah.
You've heard of it?
You don't believe it?
No, I believe these people, but their lives are small,
so they have to make these fantasies
just to keep on going, to feel alive.
Because they're strangers here;
they feel hated, unwanted.
Whenever their passions become inflamed,
they resort to violence, and then they cannot
turn to the law, so they make up these fantastic tales.
Call it anything you want,
but this is an age-old story.
I've heard that.
Well, let's see if we can find
your Eladio Buente.
Excuse me. Excuse me.
Can I help you?
I'm Agent Dana Scully with the FBI.
I'm investigating the death of a migrant worker.
Juan or Juanita?
I'm sorry?
Doe. A man or a woman?
A woman named Maria Dorantes.
I need to determine a cause of death
in order to close out an investigation.
It sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't think
I've been able to get to her yet.
Well, I'm a medical doctor.
If you show me the body, I can examine it myself.
It's in the fridge.
I don't think he's going anywhere.
That's her.
Oh, my God.
This must be him.
Why is he segregated like this?
¿Por que lo tiene segregado?
Los otros detenidos lo molestaban mucho.
Ninguno se le acerca a el.
Le tienen un miedo terrible.
He said the other detainees
were giving him a hard time-- causing trouble.
They don't want to go near him.
They think he's the chupacabra.
That may be, but I will tell you
with a tremendous degree of certainty
this guy is not Erik Estrada.
Buente.
El FBI.
Quieren hacerte unas preguntas.
Ask him if he killed Maria Dorantes.
Quiere saber si mataste a Maria Dorantes.
!¡No! !¡No lo hice! !¡Soy innocente!
!¡No soy asesino!
What did he say?
"I didn't do it."
Ask him what happened.
¿Que fue lo que paso?
Huvo un ruido como un relampago muy cerca...
There was a noise like thunder but very close.
...un rayo muy brillante...
And then there was lightning.
Very bright-- it blinded me.
Y caigo al suelo...
I fell to the ground...
Y senti la lluvia caliente
cuando volvi a ver...
And then I felt the hot rain fall on me,
and when I finally could open my eyes and see...
!¡Via al chivo muerto y luego vi a Maria!
I saw the dead goat, and then I saw Maria...
Maria.
Y dijo mi nombre una vez.
Tirada en la lluvia amarilla.
She called my name once.
She was lying in a puddle of yellow rain.
Algo le habia comido la cara.
Something had eaten at her face.
Pero murio en mis brazos, senor.
Then, I held her in my arms, and then she died.
Y empece a gritar y a correr.
And then I got up and I ran, screaming.
!¡Soy innocente!
This guy is better than Erik Estrada.
!¡Chupacabra!
What's going to happen to him?
He'll get his 45 seconds before the judge,
and he'll be placed on a southbound bus.
There any way to delay that?
Why would you want to do that?
Try to solve an unexplained death.
I would think the FBI's got better things to do.
File your paperwork.
By the time they process it,
he'll probably be back here anyway.
Put him in the front.
Up front here.
Okay, vamos, let's go.
Did you find Eladio Buente? Yeah. I found him.
Did he confess to the murder of Maria Dorantes?
Not exactly, no.
Did he tell you what happened?
Flash of light, yellow rain...
Maria! Maria!
He didn't kill her, Mulder.
I examined the body of Maria Dorantes,
and I believe that her cause of death was natural,
albeit strange.
She seems to have succumbed to a massive fungal infection.
A fungus?
Aspergillus, according to the coroner.
It's a mold that's found in dead leaves, compost,
even household dust.
And it can kill?
Not normally. It's actually very common
and quite harmless.
You don't think that's weird?
Well, aspergillus can be lethal
to people with immunodeficiencies,
like AIDS patients
and transplant recipients.
And I found high levels of
methyl bromide in her blood workup.
It's a pesticide
that's used for soil sterilization.
Highly toxic.
I think that her body was so ravaged by pesticides
that a normally benign fungus
may have compromised her whole immune system.
Still doesn't explain the flash of light
and the yellow rain.
And el chupacabra.
Mulder, I know you don't want to hear this,
but I think the aliens in this story are not the villains,
they're the victims.
Look at that.
Isn't that the INS bus?
Mulder.
What does it look like?
Appears this man died of systemic shock
brought on by what appears to be
another massive fungal infection.
The same fungus that killed Maria Dorantes?
No. It looks dissimilar.
I don't know what this is,
but its speed and its aggressiveness are frightening.
The infection's covered 90% of his body, Mulder,
through both layers of skin.
Did you find him?
We were able to round up most of the people
who escaped from this vehicle,
but Eladio Buente wasn't among them.
No one knows where he ran?
Agent Lozano, this is my partner, Agent Scully.
They all ran the other way, away from el chupacabra,
the man they say is responsible for this tragedy.
Eladio Buente didn't kill this man; he didn't kill anybody.
I'm not so sure about that, Scully.
Mulder, this is the work of a pathogen,
of some kind of a highly virulent strain.
I'm not questioning that, but right now,
Eladio Buente is the only connection we have
to this death and to the death of Maria Dorantes--
which is why I need you to spare any manpower you can
to try to find him. Manpower?
We don't have the resources to go
chasing after one poor illegal.
Mulder, whatever you hope to learn
by finding this man, we have to first
make a definitive classification
of the fungi taken from the victims.
I need to isolate it and I need to get a sample of it
to a mycologist as quickly as possible.
Good. You should do that,
while Agent Lozano and I try to find el chupacabra.
Te molesta que te vea asi.
¿No es cierto?
¿Por que habia de molestarme?
Soy tu mujer.
Senor.
Pero no me di cuenta.
Te diste cuenta perfectamente
pero eso no importa.
Lo importante es como lo mirabas tu a el.
Federico...
!¡Si, lo mirabas!
Senor? What do you want?
You want to go back?
¿Estas loco?
We haul mucha basura with that truck.
What makes you think we haul it back?
How long have you been in this country?
!¡Ni credito!
Ni caridad.
Aqui es America, you dumb wet.
Truck stop at dusk.
No dinero, no ride.
¿Comprende?
Si. Dinero.
Dinero.
Construction.
I need two construction workers-- dos.
Okay. You two in the back.
Let's go.
I only need two, amigo.
Dos.
Hey, out of the truck.
I got work to do.
Hey! Where are you going?
You'll have to do.
What you're looking at, Agent Scully,
is the most ubiquitous fungal spore
known to mankind-- dermatophytosis.
Athlete's foot?
One of the great survivors of countless extermination efforts.
Historically underrated
and unfairly overshadowed by the ever-popular cockroach.
But our body has natural defenses
against this kind of invasion.
I mean, even in the absence of an immuno-response,
fungi like this one
or like the aspergillus sample that I gave you--
don't they need the right environment to multiply?
Yes.
Unless they have help.
What's this?
It's an enzyme I isolated from both your specimens,
but that's about all I can tell you.
It's unlike any enzyme I've ever seen.
So it's not the fungi but the enzyme that kills.
Acting as a catalyst.
As an accelerant.
Let me show you.
This is Puccinia graminis.
Black stem rust.
It's been the cause of a fairly containable
crop blight here in the valley.
Now...
Oh, my God.
I must say,
if this were to get out
into the environment,
dermatophytosis might give the cockroach
a run for its money. Hmm?
Culver, Culver, se llama.
Gracias.
He was here, all right.
They say he got into the truck of a foreman named Culver.
Story's out.
Oh, yeah. I told you.
These people love their stories.
It's the one thing that keeps them from going mad
when they're out there standing on a street corner
all day waiting for work.
So they really don't think he's the chupacabra?
No. They're certain of it.
Did you tell them about the fungal infection?
Yeah. They wouldn't listen.
They are only interested
in what will become of Eladio Buente.
What will become of him?
When his brother finds him?
He'll kill him.
Yes, probably.
A man cannot live with vengeance in his heart.
So we got to find him first.
My mother used to say
that blood should be left to cleanse itself.
God curses the man who stands between two brothers.
Well, in this case, he'll curse the man who doesn't.
¿Senor? ¿Senor?
¿Jefe?
¿Senor Culver?
¿Jefe?
Hey, jefe?
Eladio Buente?
Eladio?
Eladio Buente.
!¡Asesino!
Gabrielle!
Gabrielle, por favor.
Eladio!
Mulder, it's me.
Hey, Scully, where are you?
I'm at the state university bio department.
Mulder, listen to me. I think you're right.
I think Eladio Buente is responsible
for those two deaths.
Responsible how?
By spreading an enzyme produced by what appears to be
a new strain of conidial fungi.
How's he spreading it?
My guess is by touch.
I saw this man, Scully. He was unaffected.
He could be just a carrier then--
a kind of Typhoid Mary.
Are you saying it's a new strain?
Yes.
Mulder, it is extremely important
that you not come into direct contact with this fungus.
You must not inhale it, you must not touch it...
Lozano. Careful. No.
Scully, I've been thinking.
I know that's dangerous, but just bear with me.
These fortean transients-- what the women described--
they could have been caused by an object falling
at a high rate of speed through the atmosphere
creating a sonic boom and a flash of light--
what astronomers call a bolide.
A bolide?
Created by a meteorite
or a piece of extra-planetary material,
of which 2,000 tons fall to the earth every day.
Now, now, this yellow rain--
the space debris could've fallen in a nearby lake,
superheating the water and sending it skyward,
which would mean that this is alien.
Mulder,
I think this is beside the point right now.
Oh, and the fungus...
Mulder, let me work on the fungus, okay?
What you need to do right now is
to find the man who may be spreading it.
Okay.
So, you got your own stories, too, huh?
Hey. It's El Barbera.
Hey, Lozano.
I hear you're looking for the chupacabra.
For a modest fee,
I can tell you where he might be found.
Eladio.
Stop!
Don't touch him.
Hey!
I lost him!
More goats.
Agent Lozano...
how does this man keep eluding us?
These people are invisible.
You look at them, and you don't see them.
Just workers--
cheap labor to pick crops and clean houses.
To most people, they are aliens
in the true sense of the word.
Ay, chupacabra.
Okay, calm down.
Calm down.
Can a man do this?
Can Eladio Buente do this?
Eladio-- he went to his cousin Gabrielle's house
asking for money.
When? Today.
He said he kill nobody.
But, Soledad-- he went to Gabrielle's house
trying to kill Eladio.
Calm down.
¿Quien es?
Gabrielle Buente?
This is Agent Lozano, INS.
Open up.
Where is he?
¿Que?
Don't give me your que.
You know who.
Where is he-- Eladio?
He is not here, please.
I would not let Eladio Buente in here.
Please, you must believe me.
Maybe you should check the back.
What about his brother, Soledad?
No.
He's not here!
No one is here! I'm alone!
Have you seen either of them?
Si.
But I'm afraid
because of what they say about Eladio.
About el chupacabra.
There is no el chupacabra, Gabrielle.
Eladio is a very sick man.
If he comes here, you must not let him in.
If he comes to this door, you must call the police.
Do you understand?
There's nobody.
I'm going to be watching you, chiquita,
every move.
¿Comprendes?
Si.
I think we should hold up a minute.
For what?
Something's going on here.
Hey, Jose, this ain't no restaurant!
You know you have to pay for all that.
Hey! What the hell you think you're doing?!
Come back here!
Hey, you're going to have to clean that up!
Hey!
That's our man.
Eladio Buente?
No, that's his brother, Soledad.
Bueno.
Eladio?
Si, Gabrielle.
Eladio?
Eladio?!
Soledad Buente!
Stop, stop!
Drop your weapon! Drop the gun!
Drop it! !¡Fuetala!
Put it down! Now!
!¡Apurate!
Drop it! !¡Fuetala!
!¡Solo quiero vengarme, pues!
Eladio!
Mulder.
He's been here.
¿Quien es?
Eladio.
Eladio?
No.
Mira.
No.
No!
No! No!
Eladio? Eladio Buente?
He's not here.
He's gone.
Gone where?
To Mexico...
where he can hide his terrible face!
How's he going to get to Mexico?
I gave him all my money.
You gave him your money?
Yes, because I was afraid.
I was afraid the chupacabra would kill me, too.
What can I say?
How are we going to find this man?
Good luck.
I'm going to go process the brother.
You know, what she said
about Eladio Buente, about his face...
I don't know what to believe anymore, Scully.
These people sure love their stories.
Mulder, he could be anywhere right now.
If he were to enter a metropolitan area
with what he's carrying...
He won't.
If he's going to Mexico...
She's lying. If this man really thinks
he killed Maria Dorantes, he won't be going to Mexico.
Then where is he going?
The same place Agent Lozano
and Eladio's brother are going.
He's going to face his brother.
I don't understand.
"God curses the man who stands between two brothers."
Get on your cell phone and have a hazmat team assemble.
Eladio Buente!
Come on out!
Be a man and face your brother!
Madre de Dios.
Eladio, no!
Y me dicho la chupacabra.
They came from the sky.
More chupacabras
coming to save Eladio.
I slammed the door and prayed
that they would not come to kill me, too.
What will happen to Soledad?
He was taken up by a chupacabra.
He will suffer for his treachery.
He's made to suck the blood
of only the sick and dying goats
when the chupacabra comes to feed.
But that's not what Gabrielle said.
What does Gabrielle know?!
I was there.
I saw it with my own eyes.
Gabrielle said that she lied to la FBI,
so that her cousin Eladio might live.
But la migra Lozano knew Soledad could not live
with vengeance in his heart.
!¡Alto!
Turn around and face the man whose love you killed!
You killed Maria
because she wouldn't love you--
because her heart belongs to only one man.
Don't make me shoot you in the back, Eladio!
Turn!
See my tears!
Turn around like a man!
No.
"Shoot! Shoot!" la migra shouted,
but Soledad began to cry.
"No! No!" cried Soledad.
"I cannot shoot my brother!
"He is my brother.
My flesh, my blood."
Shoot him! He's el chupacabra!
...shouted la migra.
Cannot let him go!
"He is the goatsucker,
and he must be killed!"
But, Soledad-- he could not kill Eladio
because he knew I would never forgive him.
!¡Cobarde! No, no!
La migra Lozano tried to pull the gun from Soledad's hand,
calling him a coward!
"No!" cried Soledad.
"He is my brother!"
And the gun went off!
Bang! Bang!
And la migra Lozano fell dead.
!¡Pero, no!
La migraLozano brought Soledad to kill Eladio
so that he would not be cursed.
So, God...
cursed Soledad for his treachery
and turned him...
into a chupacabra
like his brother.
No.
Together,
they run...
to Mexico.
El chupacabra?
Yes, sir.
Frankly, I'm confused by this story.
I don't blame you.
We can't exactly explain it ourselves, sir.
At any rate, we arrived just after the hazmat team.
They established a perimeter that secured the area.
An eyewitness was found, but her testimony was questionable.
The hazmat team were able
to contain the fungal infection within the migrant camp.
No other casualties were reported,
and we found no other traces of the accelerating enzyme.
Except on the body of Agent Lozano.
We found him dead at the scene
with a bullet wound to the chest.
And with the fungal infection
already starting to eat away at him.
What happened to the brothers?
They were nowhere to be found.
Lozano's revolver turned up ten miles away,
near the car of a man known locally as "El Barbera."
Apparently, the brothers paid this man
for a ride to Mexico, but they didn't get very far.
So these men are still at large
carrying a highly contagious fungus
that can kill a man in his tracks?
It's not a fungus, sir.
Actually, it's an enzyme,
to which the brothers had an abnormal tolerance,
and which came from what I believe to be
an anti-enzyme gene.
And this enzyme came from where?
Outer space, sir.
So this is the story you're asking me to report?
You would think with the resources we have,
we'd be able to find these men.
I'm not hearing a good explanation
why this hasn't happened.
Well, sir, they, um...
they have a way of being almost invisible.
The truth is...
...nobody cares.