“Fresh Bones” is episode fifteen of season two of The X-Files.
The episode opens in Folkestone, North Carolina, and a woman is in bed whilst a child is crying. She tells someone it’s their turn, but there’s no answer. She’s in bed alone. She goes to the bathroom door and asks her husband, Jack, if he’s still feeling sick. He comes out – he’s wearing dog tags. At breakfast, she wants him to go see the doctor, which he gets rather loud in objecting to, causing both her, and their child, to cry. Jack sees his cereal turn into a bowlful of maggots and spits them out, running out of the house. He drives off and sees his face in the mirror, which seems to be rotting. Then he drives deliberately into a tree. On the other side of the tree is painted a symbol.
Mulder and Scully are on the same road. The dead man was a Marine, Private John McAlpin. He died on impact. There was nothing in his system and nothing wrong with the car, so the military are ruling it a suicide. This is the second one in the last three weeks, both stationed at the same place, Folkestone Processing Centre, which is temporary home to thousands of refugees. There was a riot there and a ten-year-old boy was killed. Mrs McAlpin contacted the bureau after the military refused to investigate. They stop at the tree; State Police reported graffiti on the bark. A ritual symbol. Most of the refugees are Haitian. Mrs McAlpin doesn’t believe her husband killed himself.
Mrs McAlpin tells them that her husband came home angry after being transferred to the camp. Mostly at himself, but he took it out on them. He refused to seek help. One of the others from his squad told her what was seen at the scene of the accident. A voodoo curse. The same one was found where the other Marine hung himself. The other member, Harry Dunham, is from New Orleans and believes this stuff. Her child also dug up a conch shell with a similar symbol on it.
The processing centre is not a friendly-looking facility. As they make their way in, Scully is hassled but a kid drives the man away. Then offers to sell her a lucky charm for protection. Which Mulder does buy.
Colonel Wharton, who is in charge of the facility, says he’s bringing in a stress control detachment. They are not in combat; it’s in some ways worse. Policing a place full of a hostile population when they are soldiers, not prison guards, without enough resources. All he knows about voodoo is that it caused a riot in the camp. He was able to find the one responsible, Pierre Beauvais. Mulder wants to speak to Beauvais and Scully wants to examine Private McAlpin’s body. No autopsy was done on the body, which has now disappeared, replaced with what appears to be a dog carcass.
Mulder is escorted to see Beauvais by Harry Dunham, who won’t talk to him. Beauvais says he can’t be involved; he’s locked up. Mulder shows him photos of the symbol. Beauvais says all he wants is to return home. Scully arrives and Beauvais knows what she is going to say. He tells them the spirits will warn them once.
Mulder and Scully are driving back in the dark; Scully thinks Beauvais switched the bodies, or had someone do it for him. Even though there was no trace evidence and she said security was impossible to breach. She says voodoo only works by inspiring fear in its believers. They then have to break sharply for a man in the road. Who turns out to be a, not dead, Private McAlpin.
Scully thinks a gross mistake was made on the death certificate. All things considered, it’s probably lucky no autopsy was done. McAlpin’s bloodwork shows trace levels of tetrodotoxin, which is found in pufferfish. Mulder mentions field work that was done in Haiti where samples of zombie powder from voodoo priests all found traces of tetrodotoxin. In small amounts, it makes the victim look clinically dead. And what about the other Marine?
They arrive at the cemetery to be told by the groundskeeper they are too late; bodysnatchers have already taken the Marine’s body. He can’t keep up with them and the police have other things to do with their time. It’s mostly voodoo types. There’s also a kid digging in the cemetery, the one from the camp. He’s caught to find he had a bag of frogs.
Mulder and Scully feed the kid, Chester Bonaparte, and he says that although fresh bones are valuable, he’s there for the frogs. He gets 50 cents each. According to Scully, some frogs secrete substances similar to tetrodotoxin. Mulder says they were followed and goes outside to confront their follow, Private Dunham. Dunham couldn’t talk with Colonel Wharton there. He’s a definite believer in voodoo.
Dunham makes claims that Wharton is abusing the refugees. This is something the colonel naturally denies; he was hardly going to admit it. Wharton also seems to know more than he’s letting on. Something voodoo related seems to be happening in the camp.