Mulder and Scully investigate a murder and instead discover that the townsfolk have taken to a slightly different food than normal, us.

Dudley, Arkansas. A middle-aged man, George Kearns is led into the woods for you know what by a young woman, Paula. When he loses track of Paula he is suddenly surrounded by a hoard of bright lights and is slashed with an axe by a man wearing a tribal mask behind him.

When our favourite agents come in to investigate this bizarre case (Mulder suspecting foxfire after seeing a 12-foot burn mark round the crime scene) they discover that Kearns was a federal inspector about to close down a local chicken processing plant, Chaco Chicken because of health violations. They also find that Kearns has cheated on his wife so many times that his wife has lost count. Later though, back at the plant, Paula receives hallucinations of George Kearn's disembodied head and takes the plant manager hostage only to be shot by the sheriff.

Scully performs an autopsy on Paula's body and finds that she is suffering from CJD (the same rare disease that Kearns was suffering from) as well as being 26 years younger than the age on her records.

Mulder orders the river to be dragged when he notices the colour of it and the searchers find nine headless skeletons in total. He also notices that each bone of the bodies has a strange smooth end as if they were "boiled in a pot" and notes to Scully that 87 people have disappeared by Dudley in the past 59 years. The polished bones suggest cannibalism, Paula having the same rare disease as Kearns suggests she ate him and the fact that Paula is much older than she appears is due to the fact that it is believed that eating flesh prolongs life. In fact, everything points to cannibalism so the agents travel to the town's records office to see if anyone else is much older than they are supposed to be. Unfortunately, they find the records destroyed in a mysterious fire. Meanwhile, Mrs. Kearns rings Mulder and tells her that she fears that Mr. Chaco (Paula's grandfather and owner of the plant) will kill her just as a man in a tribal mask appears behind her. Scully goes to help Mrs. Chaco while Mulder visit's Chaco's house and discovers a display case filled with human heads.

Meanwhile, Chaco captures Scully and takes her to a bonfire ceremony on the outskirts of the town. Here he argues with the manager of his plant but instead he gets his head chopped off just as Scully is about to as well. Luckily, Mulder manages (just in time) to save Scully by shooting the executioner who turns out to be the sheriff.

The danger is over. The plant has been shut down but currently, 27 people are infected with CJD. As Scully notes in voice over, Chaco lived with a Jale tribe for many years learning the art of cannibalism. It turned out he was 93 years old but his remains have never been found as a workman picks out of clump of grey human hair from a bucket of chicken feed....