Schizogeny - Plot

Plot

In Coats Grove, Michigan, teenager Bobby Rich is berated by his stepfather Phil for not finishing his lawn work outside the house. Bobby runs into a nearby orchard and Phil gives chase. When Bobby's mother, Patti, follows them into the orchard, she discovers Phil's body partially buried, seemingly drowned in mud. Kneeling beside Phil is Bobby, his eyes wide with terror.

Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are assigned to the case. At the scene, Scully hypothesizes that Bobby dug the pit that trapped his stepfather, and speculates that he had an accomplice. Patti tells Scully that, from her point of view, it appeared as if Bobby was attempting to help Phil out of the orchard pit when he died. She also reveals that her son has anger management issues and has been undergoing therapy for several years. When Mulder and Scully meet with Bobby's therapist, Karin Matthews, she describes Bobby as the victim of physical abuse. Mulder expresses his belief that Bobby is not to blame for Phil's death.

Bobby tells a fellow student, Lisa Baiocchi, that she must stand up to her overbearing father just as he had done with Phil. When Lisa returns home, a window explodes and a shadowy, arm-like appendage grabs her father by the throat after he demands she stop seeing Bobby. His lifeless body is discovered lying on the ground outside the house. Though Scully concludes that Mr. Baiocchi died as the result of being pushed out the window, Mulder discovers evidence suggesting he was pulled out by an outside force. Later, the agents learn that Lisa is another one of Karin Matthews' patients.

Mulder finds a small splinter of fresh wood embedded in Mr. Baiocchi's neck, and matches the fragment to a tree outside the Baiocchi home. A short time later, the agents are approached by a man named Ramirez, who claims that the trees are all dying because of a "very bad man." Meanwhile, Karin invites Lisa to stay at her home until her aunt can pick her up the following day. As Lisa listens from her bedroom, she overhears an argument between Karin and a male voice. When she descends into Karin's root cellar, she discovers the skeletal body of a man. Terrified, Lisa turns towards the door, only to have the door close and lock.

Mulder discovers that Karin's father was pulled from the mud of an orchard twenty years earlier. Ramirez tells him that the death brought about an end of a blight affecting the trees. Later, Mulder digs up Mr. Matthews' casket and finds it filled with roots, his body missing. When Lisa's aunt, Linda, arrives at Karin's house to retrieve her niece, she is attacked and killed by an unseen force as tree branches sway in the wind above her. Karin enters the root cellar, and is revealed to be the source of the male voice Lisa heard earlier.

When Mulder and Scully search Karin's house, they come upon the corpse—belonging to Karin's father—in the root cellar. They then find Lisa, frightened but unharmed, in the kitchen. Karin drives to Bobby's house and chases him into the orchard. Suddenly, Bobby is dragged downward into the mud. While attempting to rescue the teenager, Mulder simultaneously encourages Karin to break the cycle and to fight the voice inside her head. A tendon-like root snakes out of the mud and begins to drag Mulder downward. Ramirez appears, his axe in hand, and decapitates Karin, killing her. Mulder and Bobby are released by the unseen force.