“Darkness Falls” is episode twenty of season one of The X-Files.
The episode opens in Olympic National Forest in north-western Washington State. A group of loggers are arguing, saying that something will kill them all. One suggests one of them hikes out for help, but another says that they wouldn’t get to the road before nightfall. He thinks they should split up and take their chances, so they do. That night, one of the loggers falls and another approaches him. The first says he thinks it’s broken and he doesn’t think he can make it. Before they get much further, a glowing green swarm of tiny insects descends from the canopy.
Mulder has a photo of the loggers and he’s telling Scully to take a look at it. She asks what she’s looking at. Rugged, manly men, 30 loggers working a clear-cutting contract in Washington State. What should she be looking for? Anything strange, unlikely. Maybe a boyfriend. Scully says she gives up and Mulder replies that the Federal Forestry Service has as well. All 30 vanished. He shows her a photo of two more men. Monkeywrenchers, who spike trees and sabotage logging equipment. Ecoterrorists. The loggers sent a message saying that the monkeywrenchers had gone on a spree. A week later, all radio communications ended. The lumber company asked the Federal Forestry Service to look into it. Two men were sent in but never came out. Scully suggests that perhaps the monkeywrenchers have been doing more than just sabotage. Apparently, that’s what the company and the FFS think, and have asked the FBI to help. Mulder wanted the case. Because, in 1934, long before the ecoterrorists, another group of men working in the same area vanished without a trace. No, Mulder does not suspect Bigfoot. How does Scully fancy a nice trip to the forest?
They meet up with the FFS man, Larry Moore, and his truck. Which bears a bullet hole in the windscreen. Yes, most likely ecoterrorists, as it was a .22 and there isn’t much besides FFS people to hunt with that sort of ammo. Moore has no problem with the ecoterrorists in principle; it’s their methods he objects to. Would they go as far as to kill? Well, 30 men with survival experience have all vanished. Another man, Steve Humphreys, head of security for the logging company, also arrives.
They are heading a long way into the forest and, when asked why they are going in so deep, Humphreys says that’s because it’s where the trees are. They have driven past who knows how many thousand already; apparently, that land is untouchable. Before they get much further, they hit a home-made tyre spike. The ecoterrorists scatter them all over the roads. Lacking a spare means they have to go in on foot.
The camp is empty, with food still on the table. The vehicles have all been sabotaged and the generators broken. The radio is broken as well. Moore finds rice in the radiator of one truck and sand or sugar in the crankcase. Scully agrees it isn’t Bigfoot and Humphreys heads to fix the generator.
The other three head into the forest and find a cocoon – a big one – in a tree. Scully is winched up and is cutting it down when she notices fingers protruding. There’s what was probably once a man inside; Scully says all of the liquids seem to have been drained from him. Moore suggests a spider nest or a cocoon. Scully asks what sort of insect could get a man that high in a tree. Probably not one you’d want to encounter.
Humphreys is working on the generator when he hears a noise and grabs his gun. Inside the hut a man is eating the food. His name is Doug Spinney, one of the monkeywrenchers. Spinney says that he doesn’t know what happened to the men but he doesn’t know, only the same thing will happen to them when the sun goes down. Darkness is their enemy. He claims that they come from the sky and took a man to devour him alive. Humphreys does not believe that but is told what the others found.
According to Spinney, their truck has a dead battery and they drew straws to come and steal one. It’s more than a day’s hike and you don’t want to get caught in the dark. Humphreys doesn’t believe any of this and goes outside to prove there is nothing wrong. However, on the dark side of a tree, something is moving and insects are triggering the zapper. Mulder suggests sleeping with the light on.
They head into the forest the next day and come across a marked tree that the loggers apparently shouldn’t have felled. Humphreys says the ecoterrorists sometimes mark trees themselves; Moore points out it’s clearly an old one. There’s a ring in the trunk that Moore doesn’t recognise. He takes core samples as Humphreys heads to the truck. You can guess what’s going to happen to him.
In the ring are bugs and it’s suggested that, when the loggers cut the tree down, they were released. Glowing green bugs that don’t like the light. Only, they are miles from anywhere with limited fuel for the generator and no functioning vehicle. Not a great situation to be in.