Later, Scully finds traces of a thick, mucus-like substance on a rock at the murder scene.

She calls Doggett back in Washington to say that the murder victim, a 22 year-old hitchhiker who by all accounts was in perfect health, actually suffered from osteoporosis and arthritis and had "the spine of a 90 year-old woman."

Doggett seems a bit put out at having to join the investigation already in progress. It doesn't help when she tells him to check the X-Files for cases involving mucus.

While Scully is on the phone, a bus drives by. She follows the bus route to a small, run-down town and stops at the gas station to ask for directions, casually mentioning that she's a medical doctor.

After Scully drives off, the proprietor visits a nearby house. The bus driver is in a bedroom looking after the hitchhiker, who is suffering from seizures. "Help is coming," the gas man says.

Scully's engine dies. She walks back into town and discovers that the "gas" put in her tank was in fact water. The proprietor apologizes and directs Scully to the Millsap place, the only house in town with a phone.

Millsap's phone is conveniently out of order, but he offers her a room for the night. Scully is beginning to suspect that the townspeople don't want her to leave.

With no other choice, Scully accepts the offer of a room. She settles in for the night with her trusty gun in her hand.

Outside, a relatively well-mannered mob of lantern-wielding townspeople converges on the boarding house.

<b>L'il Abnormal</b>

Scully wakes up the next morning to a rapping at her chamber door. Millsap tells her there is a man downstairs in need of help.

The hitchhiker is in bed. When his seizure abates, Scully examines her patient and finds a raw, bloody wound in his lower back. Although she argues that he needs a hospital, there are no cars or phones to bring him help or call for it.

Doggett calls the Juab County sheriff's office, only to learn that Scully never arrived. Doggett asks him to send a car into the desert to look for her.

The patient comes around and thanks Scully for her help. Unfortunately, he can't remember his name or how he got to town. Scully tells him that the townspeople stranded her there in order to nurse him back to health. She promises to get him out of town.

She takes another look at his back. The wound oozes something that looks like the mucus Scully found in the desert. A lump near his spinal column begins wiggling up his back. Scully puts a pair of pliers into the wound and removes a chunk of the wiggling intruder.

<b>Lord of the slugs</b>

Doggett calls the sheriff's department again to report that he traced Scully's call to a pay phone near the murder scene. The only other recent call placed from that phone was made by a backpacker named Hank Gulatarski on the night of the murder.

Meanwhile, Scully tells that very backpacker that the townspeople put some sort of parasite in his body for some unknown reason. After warning him that he will die without treatment, she sneaks out a window to explore the town and possibly find a car. She leaves her gun with Hank for his protection.

When Millsap and the bus driver enter, Hank tells them, "She says I'm dying. We need another swap."

Doggett arrives in Utah armed with a series of files dealing with unsolved beating murders throughout the Southwest. In every case, mucus was found at the murder site and the victims had puncture wounds at the base of the spine.

Scully explores an abandoned building. She finds the bus parked inside. Hank and the townspeople are there waiting for her. Like the first murder victim, he is standing with the help of crutches.

She tries to escape, but they grab her. Millsap says her life "is about to take a wonderful turn."

Hank collapses. The bus driver beats him to death with a ball peen hammer as the townspeople cry "Amen!" She pulls a large, slug-like creature out of Hank's crushed skull.

As they converge on her, Scully screams, "I'm pregnant."

<b>Hostess with the mostest</b>

We next see Scully strapped to a bed, hollering, "What did you put in me? I'm going to get every last one of you bastards." Millsap tells Scully she has been chosen for greatness. He assures he that she is a better host than Hank.

A car pulls up outside. The bus driver thoughtfully gags Scully before going outside to investigate.

Doggett asks Millsap and the bus driver whether they've seen his partner. Inside, the crafty Scully works her leg free enough to kick over an oil lamp and start a fire.

Unfortunately, the gas station proprietor puts out the fire before Doggett notices. Millsap denies ever having seen Scully.

Doggett drives up the road and calls the sheriff's office. He tells the sheriff that he got a bad feeling about the town and asks him to send in a team to investigate.

That accomplished, he sneaks back into town and frees Scully. Since he left his car up the road, they decide to steal the bus to escape.

Since the parasite is by now moving closer to Scully's brain, she instructs her partner to cut it out of her. The townspeople attack the bus while Doggett works on Scully.

Doggett removes the giant slug from Scully's back, throws it to the ground and shoots it several times.

With the loss of their resident parasitic deity, the fight goes out of the townspeople/cultists. Doggett carries Scully out of town as the sheriff's department arrives.

A week later, Doggett visits as Scully in the hospital. She apologizes for leaving Doggett out of the case. Doggett agrees, telling her, "You screwed up." Scully promises not to do it again.