The agents travel to the small town of Dudley, Arkansas after George Kearns, a Federal
Poultry Inspector, mysteriously disappears. Aided by Sheriff Arens, Mulder and Scully
examine a field where a resident had reported sighting a foxfire burning. They find evidence
that some sort of ceremony had taken place in the field. George Kearns’s wife is then
interviewed, but she believes her husband, a known womanizer, ran off with someone
younger.
A visit to Chaco Chicken, the meat processing plant that George had threatened to close
due to repeated health violations, leads to Paula Gray, the woman with whom George had been having
an affair. She suddenly grows violent and tries to kill Jess Harold, a supervisor at the
plant. The sheriff draws his gun and fires, killing her before she can slash Harold’s
throat.
The agents interview Walter Chaco, the owner of the plant and Paula’s grandfather. He
grants them permission to perform an autopsy on the girl’s body. After the autopsy, Scully
concludes that Paula suffered from a rare degenerative illness called Creutzfeldt-Jacob’s
disease — the same illness carried by George Kearns. She also learns the youthful-looking
Paula was actually 47 years old.
After a near-miss with a chicken delivery truck that plunges into a polluted lake, Mulder
orders that the water be dredged in hopes of finding George’s body. What the agents find
beneath the lake, however, is dozens of human bones. Mulder runs a missing persons
check and confirms that as many as 87 people within a 200 mile radius of the town have
been reported missing in the last 50 years. He begins to suspect that a cult of cannibals is
systematically killing people and eating their flesh to prolong youth.
Doris Kearns approaches Walter Chaco and tells him she can no longer keep what she
knows about the town a secret. Jesse Harold warns Chaco that the woman is unstable; but
Chaco insists it is the FBI they should be worried about. Nonetheless, Harold has Doris
Kearns killed. When Scully arrives at the Kearns’ residence, she is taken captive.
Mulder returns to Chaco’s estate and finds a multitude of human skulls stored within a
cabinet. When he realizes Scully has been abducted, Mulder races to the site of a blazing
foxfire. The townspeople turn on Walter Chaco and execute him. As Sheriff Arens, a cult
member, prepares to eliminate Scully, a shot rings out. Mulder, gun in hand, rushes to
Scully’s aid. Pandemonium breaks out, and the cult members rush from the scene, trampling
Jesse as he tries to retrieve a gun.
Scully later concludes that the outbreak of Creutzfeldt-Jacob’s disease was spread by
cannibalism.
THE X-FILES “OUR TOWN”
#2X24
Original Air Date: 05/12/95
CAST:
DAVID DUCHOVNY as Special Agent Fox Mulder
GILLIAN ANDERSON as Special Agent Dana Scully
GUEST CAST:
JOHN MILFORD as Walter Chaco
CAROLINE KAVA as Doris Kearns
GARY GRUBBS as Sheriff Tom Arens
ROBIN MOSSLEY as Dr. Randolph
JOHN MACLAREN as George Kearns
HROTHGAR MATHEWS as the Mental Patient
GABRIELLE MILLER as Paula Gray
TIMOTHY WEBBER as Jess Harold
ROBERT MOLONEY as the Worker
CARRIE CAIN SPARKS as the Maid
WRITTEN BY:
FRANK SPOTNITZ
DIRECTED BY:
ROB BOWMAN
