La Cocachina - An X-files Fan Fiction Story

Chapter 13: La Cocachina

"What's a Cocassin?"

"According  to Wikipedia," said Mulder and read aloud, "Cocassin is the English translation of the  Spanish Cocachina, which, in turn, derives from the Incan word Cocojinn used by the Guatemalan Incas to describe a tree spirit."

Scully raised her eyebrow in a skeptical grimace. "Tree spirit," she repeated flatly.

Mulder continued to read. "A  reference to this mythical creature was found in a letter written by Pascual Vazquez, one of the foot soldiers of Francisco Pizarro, the conquistador who, following the success of his distant cousin Fernando Cortes, had set out to conquer the Incas in South America.

Being of short stature and of weak character, Vazquez had been largely unhappy and unsuccessful, both at home in Spain, and as a member of Pizarro's army. His luck changed in the year of 1527, when he and a small splinter group of Pizarro's men left the lands that comprise modern day Peru, and headed North to Central America.

Vazquez reached the Incan lands of nowaday Guatemala, and returned a changed man. Albeit still very short in height, he had acquired unprecedented strength, which earned him respect and admiration. Subsequently, he had a short but successful career as the governor of lands conquered by Pizarro."

"I'm not following," said Scully, confused.

Mulder continued to read: "Before he died of a sudden inexplicable illness, which turned him into a madman, Vazquez wrote a letter to a girl back in Spain who he had always admired and had hoped some day to marry. In his letter, he attributed his turnaround of fortune to La Cocachina, a tree spirit that inhabited the Igapó forests of Guatemala. La Cocachina granted Vazquez strength and prosperity. English translation of his letter stated the name of the tree spirit as Cocassin."

"Spirits and supernatural strength are common elements of folklore in many cultures," noted Scully.

"Maybe for a reason," said Mulder. "The  Cocassin was both respected and feared by the Incas," he continued to read. "That is because it was both a friend and an enemy. It emerged  from the forest to help those who were weak in spirit. It pervaded their bodies  and gave them superhuman abilities. But, it didn't give without taking away. Its price was to enchain their souls."

Scully smiled, both impressed and amused. This was Mulder thinking outside the box. He had the uncanny ability to piece together fragments of ancient myths to explain  otherwise inexplicable observations. Scully's role had always been to question his leaps of logic and ensure  scientific rigor in his conclusions. She slipped right back into  it.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "You are suggesting that Tony and Dan were posessed by a mythical tree spirit?"

"It fits what we know so far," shrugged Mulder. "Cocassins help those who are weak in spirit. Both Tony and Dan needed such help. Tony had recently lost his father. Dan had a difficult  life from the get-go: an orphan, working to support himself and trying  to graduate from high school. But then, similarly to Vazquez, both boys had their lives turned around,  which is what a Cocassin apparently does. Both started to excel in  sports and became popular among their peers. Both seemed to have  acquired exceptional strength. And finally, both boys lost control of  their lives. They found themselves unable to free themselves from their savior, who was both a saint  and a tyrant."

"And came in the shape of a size ten sneaker," interjected Scully.

"Or with the sneaker!" corrected her Mulder.

Scully looked squarely at him. "Haunted shoes," she said flatly.

"Bear with me," said Mulder. "The glue for the sneakers came from Guatemala, and it was produced by a tribe of Incas.  If anyone would know anything about Cocassins, that would be the Incas,  right? The Cocassin -- whatever shape or form spirits like this come as --  could have come with the glue."

"And what about the cocaine in the blood of both of these boys?" asked Scully.

"The cocaine could be how the Cocassin controls his hosts -- victims -- for lack of a better word."

"Spirits don't typically have access to controlled substances," observed Scully.

"Maybe  the Cocassin was able to produce it for them, or teach them how to make  it," suggested Mulder. "Scientists may not know how to synthesize  cocaine from basic ingredients, but there may be creatures that do. Bees know  how to produce honey from nectar collected from petals. The Coca plant knows how to produce that special a-ha ingredient in Coke you were telling me about. Maybe Cocassins knows how to make cocaine from Coke."

Scully considered his reasoning.

"It's a nice story Mulder," she admitted. "You do have a talent for finding these."

"But you are not buying it."

"Not  until I start believing in spirits," she said. "However, there  is one great point that you've been trying to make all this time, and I kept missing it earlier. Whatever happened to these boys does  seem to be related to these and only these two pairs of  sneakers they both bought. If indeed someone was supplying the boys with cocaine, they  did not have to do that to two kids who bought the same unique, identical,  one-of-a-kind type of sneakers. They could have picked any two kids with  any kind of sneakers. You were right from the very beginning -- there  has to be something very unique about these sneakers. You may be right now too. It may  very well be related to what happened to that Guatemalan glue when it  was processed by that non-existent government lab in California where Dan seems to be heading."

Mulder tapped on the screen of his iPad. "Cocassin," he said with a sly smile. Scully laughed and shook her head.

The police radio on their dashboard suddenly came to life.

"Team four to base, team four to base, do you read me?"

"Reading you loud and clear team four."

"Heading to check out a disturbance at Sam's Goodies in Clayton. A kid's causing some kind of trouble. Owner has a baseball bat and isn't  letting him out of the store."

Mulder pulled up the map on his  iPad. The leading dot of Dan's trajectory, which had been on a collision  course with theirs, had gotten very close. Both trajectories were  converging at a spot at the edge of the town of Clayton, New Mexico.

Scully stepped on the accelerator, speeding up East on Route 412, while Mulder looked up Sam's Goodies on the GPS of his cell phone.