At a migrant labor camp in California, a goat and a young woman are killed shortly after a bright flash in the sky and cascade of yellow rain. An old woman tells Mulder and Scully that a chupacabra is to blame, while another Maria's husband says his brother, Eladio Buente, killed Maria because she did not love him. Mulder finds Buente segregated in INS custody, where he denies killing Maria; Scully thinks that Maria died of a massive fungal infection after seeing her body.
The agents find the bus transporting Buente off the road with a fungal-infected dead driver, and several people running the hell away. Buente is not found, but others say they were running from the chupacabra; Scully suspects a viral infection rather than anything supernatural. A mycologist tells scully that a yellow enzyme isolated from the fungal samples causes rapid fungal growth; Buente also seems to be sweating yellow at a construction site he's working at on his way back to Mexico. Buente's brother goes to attack him, but instead finds the foreman dead in a Port-a-Potty.
Scully thinks Buente might be a carrier of a new disease, and warns Mulder against touching him since that's the likely way the disease spreads. Buente goes to his cousin's house and asks her to flee with him, then manages to elude capture by hiding in a truck full of goats (all of whom show up dead). Buente gets more and more ill, and the agents arrest his brother as he continues his search for vengeance.
The agents realize that Buente is going to face his brother. In telling the story, the cousin says that Buente's brother was also cursed with the disease; an old woman says other chupacabras or aliens took them away, but that turns out to be her mistaking a HazMat team that contains the infection. In the final report, the agents say the brothers apparently have an abnormal tolerance for the enzyme, which Mulder feels has arrived via space debris falling onto Earth. The brothers, deformed by the virus, have managed to elude custody as they try to hitch a ride.
Episode Body Count
Goat and Maria Dorantes: both found dead of fungal infection after a bright flash and strange yellow rain.
Some poor stiff: the coroner is working on a body when Scully asks to see Maria's corpse.
Bus driver: also dies of fungal infection after being on a bus with Buente.
Rick Culver: found dead of a fungal infection in a portable toilet.
At least 20 goats: die of a fungal infection after Buente hides among them.
Store clerk: death by fungicide after Buente infects an area of a grocery store.
Conrad Lozano: an INS agent shot and killed in a showdown between Buente and his brother, and infected in the process.
Barber: previously established as a person involved in shuttling illegal immigrants over the border, dies of an infection while trying to take the brothers to Mexico.
Humans: 7
Creatures: 21
Aliens: 0
Cumulative Body Count (84/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)
Humans: 1,014
Creatures: 80
Aliens: 48
Grand Total: 1,142
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