Scully and Mulder are two FBI agents that were sent to investigate murders that took place in a New Mexico town, just out side of an Indian reservation. The murders were first discovered when a lady, Annie Hatch, found two tourists bodies while she was ridding her horse. The bodies were laying next to a van. When Annie went closer to the bodies, she could see that there was hundreds of flies on them. When she looked closer she could see that they had been skinned. The following day a teenager, Paulie was out side behind his families trailer with his little sister, Patty. It was dark, so dark that they could not see in front of them.
Suddenly they both heard footsteps from somewhere , then they heard whispering, the whispering became hissing. His flesh was thrown everywhere. At this point the FBI was called in to investigate. Before Mulder and Scully got to New Mexico, they both went over the case and studied the autopsy reports that were sent to them. The autopsy report said that the bodies were flayed. The pictures they were sent along with the report made both Scully and Mulder sick to their stomachs. When they arrived in New Mexico Agent Garson was waiting to show them around and warn them to take it easy because of the heat.
Scully and Mulder interviewed Patty, but did not get any more information on the case then what they already had from the report. She saw nothing because she had got hit in the face with a branch that knocked her out. After the interview, they went to get some dinner, where they met the doctor who wrote the autopsy report. She told them that the report she wrote was wrong. She was told to write the wrong details because the sheriff did not want the press to get a hold of it, because New Mexico has been trying to upgrade its image for years.
The real Truth was that the people have been scoured, like being held up against a high-speed spinning drum covered with coarse sandpaper. As they left the restaurant a man stared at them across the road, as mulder drove past him, he still stared. Mulder than made a U-turn and then another, so that the car was pulled up next to the man. He introduced him self and told them he was Ciola. Mulder and Scully knew his name because the sheriff told them before that Ciola is a likely suspect for the crimes because he has killed a man before.
Both Mulder and Scully felt weird by his presence, and Scully especially did not like the scares on his face. Their next stop would be to talk to Donna Falkner, a craft seller for the Konochine Indians who worked with Nick Lanaya, an Indian who left the reservation to go to college. He came back after he became educated. When they arrived she had suitcases packed on her living room floor, getting ready for a trip. Donna told them that the Konochine did not like outsiders, and if someone went into their reservation, they would get chased away. She also told them to investigate Ciola because he was probably the killer.
That interview got them no where. From her house the two FBI agents went to the police station to examine the van that the first two people who were killed drove. A car that had been run off the road in a mysterious way was also there. Both vehicles had paint that was scratched off in a way that only sandpaper or something similar could have done. Scully found an Indian-made bracelet, the kind that Donna Falkner would sell. Mulder called Agent Garson and told him to get Donna back home, so she would miss her flight. Donna was very upset that they made her miss the flight.
She stormed into her house throwing her bags against the wall. When she settled down she went into her kitchen and thought she heard her hose running outside. She went outside and found that the hose was off. Behind her she heard whispering then humming. Flesh was thrown all over her house, as she fell to the ground. Scully and Mulder had to do something before more people got killed, so they had Nick Lanaya, a member of the Konochine bring them to the reservation to question the Indians. When they got there they talked to one of the six priests. He said he knew nothing about the murders.
When they were done talking, Scully and Mulder went out side of the house they were just in, when they stepped out side, they saw no one, not even the priest who was just behind them. They both noticed that even the kids who were out there when they came were gone, it was silent. They were stuck out there in the heat. Suddenly they heard the hissing. Then the humming. They ran as fast as they could. Mulder saw the spinning cloud of dirt behind him. They both saw Annie Hatchs house in the distance, this became their destination. Scully was very close to the whirlwind, it nicked her shoulder and a few seconds later got Mulders leg.
As they came closer to the house Nick Lanaya spun up behind them in his pick up truck, not to save them, rather to push them away from the house and into the whirlwind. Mulder saw the connection. Nick could control where the whirlwind went. Mulder took out his gun and started shooting at the car. Scully yelled, hoping someone in the house would hear them. An they did. Annies husband came out with a shot gun, that he used to shoot the truck with. Mulder ran for the truck, and when he got to it, he jumped in. Nick was dead. Mulder noticed the medicine bag on his chest. He took the medicine bag and blew it up with his gun.
The whirlwind stopped. Mulder stopped the truck and walked over to the house where Annie served lemonade. Mulder and Scully decided that Nick was after power because he was rejected when he came back from collage. He thought that power meant respect and used fear to get that power. The whirlwind was made when the six priests meditated in a circle. The power of the meditation became part of the wind when it gathered up. In the past when the power was produced, it would go unguided killing a few animals, but now when the whirlwind was made, Nick learned how to control were it went, and who it killed.