The Spice Girls go to the Mall
By Marie and Rachael

     The phone rang, and Scully reached over the piles of paperwork on her desk and
answered it. "Hello?" she asked shortly.
     "Heeeeeeeelp!" someone screamed, then the line went dead. A look of confusion
crossed over Scully’s face. She put the phone down, then picked it up again, and dialed
one of the many numbers she had memorized. "I’d like to trace the last call made to this
number," she said. 
     "Just a moment please!" said a much too happy voice at the other end. Scully waited
patiently, tapping her fingers on the desk. Finally, there came a ringing sound. . . then
another. . . then another, and finally after the fifth ring, somebody picked it up.
     "Uh, like, hi?"
     "Yes, this is Agent Dana Scully. I’d like to speak to the person who just called
349-88233."
     "Uh, like, I’m not sure who that was, y’know."
     "Where is this phone located?" Scully asked as Mulder opened the door to the office
and sat down.
     "Like, the mall. It’s a payphone."
     Super, Scully thought to herself cynically. "Where’s the mall? Or do you know that?"
     "Yeah, I do. It’s over here in Washington."
     "D.C.?"
     "Like, what other Washington is there, lady?"
     Scully sighed, her irritance becoming more apparent to Mulder by the second. "To
whom am I speaking, please?"
     "Uh, Nick?"
     "Nick. . .?"
     "Nick, uh, Crater."
     "Thank you, Nick. Can you tell me if there’s a, um, problem?"
     "Uh, yeah, I guess. Some kids found some alien-bodies. They’re all short and got
really fat hips, and the hair’s all weird."
     Scully’s eyebrows went up; this case was actually getting somewhere! "Okay, okay,
good. I’ll-- we’ll be right over there, Nick. Thanks a lot."
     Mulder watched as his partner hung up the phone and grabbed her trench coat.
"What’s the matter?"
     "Alien corpses at the Washington shopping mall. Got a call in from a payphone.
We’re leaving in a few minutes, I said we’d be there. Get your coat, it’s rainy outside."
     "Yes, mother," Mulder said mockingly.

     As they made their way out the door of the FBI building, Scully told Mulder about her
unusual, slow-progressing conversation. "Sounds like rock stars from outer space," he
remarked as he opened the car door. Suddenly, the alarm went off. He jumped back,
surprised.
     "Uh, sorry about that," Scully said as she took her alarm deactivator/keychain out of
her pocket and shut it off. Then she opened the door for Mulder, went around to the other
side, opened that door, got in, put her seatbelt on, ect. ect. ect.
     As she pulled out of the parkinglot, Mulder leaned over and switched on the radio. A
few commercials came and went, until finally the local news came on.
     "Hi, I’m Eddy Puryear with your capital city news break, brought to you by
McDonalds. Did somebody say McDonald’s?" Mr. Puryear laughed unconvincingly, as
he always did when he said that.
     "That man is an alien," Mulder swore. "We need to investigate that station when
we’ve got time."
     "Hush!" Scully said. "Listen."
     "...An emergency call was phoned in at the metropolitan police station last night. An
unidentified caller from the Omni Shoreham Hotel was recorded in hysterics, screaming,
‘They’re dead, they’re dead, someone’s killed them!’ Police were able to calm her down
and found that the caller was a cleaning lady. She had found five corpses in room 125,
which she said were the dead bodies of the Spice Girls, a British Pop group, scheduled to
perform at the Washington Mall today. When the police arrived, however, the girls had
mysteriously disappeared." 
     Mulder pursed his lips. Scully raised an eyebrow. She kept on driving.

     A small gang of teenage boys stood outside the mall. Mulder leaned out the open
window as Scully drove by, looking for a parking space. "Hold on just a minute, Scully,"
he said. "Excuse me, do you know anyone by the name of Nick Carter?" A few of the
boys looked at him blankly.
     "Uh, yeah, guess that’s me," one of them said, stepping forward. He had blond hair, an
old T-shirt, and torn-up, rather dirty jeans. "You guys the FBI police or whatever?"
     Mulder flashed his badge. "Yes. Scully, I’m getting out. Meet me here once you find a
place."
     "Sure." She unlocked the doors and Mulder hopped out, banging the shiny blue door
behind him. "You reported a, uh, alien body?"
     "Uh, five, actually. They’re over in the back. I got a couple of guys watchin’ em so
they don’t get away or anything."
     "Show me." They boys shrugged, mumbled among themselves, and started walking
around to the opposite side of the mall. Eventually, they got to a little driveway-type
place with several dumpsters at the end. “Over here,” Nick said, pushing past the
dumpsters and waving his hand behind them. Mulder looked and saw five of the most
colorful aliens he had ever seen.

     Scully, breathless from her long journey from the back of the parking lot, stepped up
on the sidewalk where she had let Mulder off. He wasn’t there anymore. She cursed
quietly-- after all, there was a little four-year-old right behind her being leaded by her
mother-- and commenced to search the entire outside of the mall for her missing partner.

     The alien with the stripy, reddish hair moaned. "Wot’s hoppning. . . Hew woz thot?"
     "First time I’ve ever seen an alien with a British accent," Mulder muttered
sarcastically. Suddenly, another "alien" popped open her eyes-- and her mouth, which
appeared to be pierced several times-- and started laughing hysterically. This seemed to
trigger something in the other three figures and they awoke. One of them, a little blond. .
. thing that slightly resembled and eight-year-old girl, jumped up and pulled out a knife
from her purse. Another one who looked like a lion with glasses stood up, swayed around
a bit, and revealed a hand gun. Mulder, puzzled, reached for his cautiously. A third one
stood, then fell down, then stood, and fell down again. The one that had been laughing
pulled her up and they clawed around with each other for a bit, then they too took out
weapons from their purses. Finally, the last one, a really ugly thing yet the most human of
them all, stood and actually growled at him.
     "Uh. . . Scully, could you get over here. . .?" Mulder moaned as he remembered what
he had told her. She must be really mad at me now!  he thought. "Scully!"

     "Scully!" Scully whirled around and ran towards the voice. It seemed a little familiar. .
. suddenly, she ran right into the blond boy she had seen in front of the mall. "Nick!" she
exclaimed, looking up at him. I hate being short! she thought. "Where’s Mulder?"
     "Ya gotta go help him! He’s over there by the dumpster an’ these. . . these things are
circling him! Come on!" He ran towards the dumpster. Scully followed him, running as
fast as she could possibly go on her tiny little legs. She found him in a driveway-type
area, surrounded by. . .
     "The Spice Girls?!?" she exclaimed incredulously. Shaking her head, she pulled out
her gun with one hand and reached for her ID with the other. "Stop where you are! FBI!"
she yelled. One of the so-called"girls" came out of her menacing pose and looked up,
puzzled. "Hey, Geri, wot’s the FBI?"
     "I dunno! Let’s find out!" Another one straightened up and they all crept cautiously
over to Scully, who looked at Mulder questioningly.
     "I think they might have gotten drunk," was the only explanation he could find at the
moment. It turned out to be a better explanation than he had thought.
     "Drunk? Isn’t thot when ya hove tew much beer?" Scully coughed to conceal her
laughter and nodded. "Oh," the Spice Girl replied. "I wosn’t sure how much beer yew
could have before ya got drunk!"
     "You’re all under arrest," Scully said flatly.
     "Wot’s arrest?" the one that looked like a lion wondered.
     "Why don’t we all go find out together?" Mulder suggested sarcastically. He and
Scully herded them towards the cars. "Look's like a lot of Spice Girl fans are going to be
pretty dissapointed at the mall tonight."