A/N: Before we begin, I would like to inform the reader that I am an Anti when it comes to the Twilight series and the few characters I like are Charlie and Leah. If you love Edward or Bella or the idea of imprinting or various other characters and concepts too much, just hit the back arrow or close out of this now, as I'm going to be taking the implications of various things and running with it.
Parker recalled the reason for this assignment had something to do with how he didn't have a mission that day, along with his status as an SOA agent instead of SOU agent, and due to O'Brian's insistence that only people who'd dealt with the Queen Zenobia or Queen Semirimas personally would be the pool of people selected for the mission (narrowing it down). Whatever the reason, it didn't matter now, as he and the chief of police in the area, a man named Charlie Swan, drove in Charlie's car down to Forks, Washington. "Thank you, Charles."
"Call me Charlie. Well, we've been having quite a lot of problems lately, something about campers seeing monsters in the area. Started talking to the BSAA." Parker glanced to Charlie, who was frowning now. "So, they only send you?"
"For the preliminary investigation, yes. Normally, I'd have a partner from the BSAA, but they thought that two people showing up to the area under an investigation would be more conspicuous. Bioterrrorists tend to be... paranoid about this sort of thing. Thank you for letting me stay with you."
"Not a problem. Just don't want anyone hurt is all. Those things really that bad?"
"...I've worked in the field for years. Yes, those things are extremely bad."
Parker looked to the road. It wasn't so bad, a bit cloudy out and it sprinkling. It wasn't ominous, a lot different than what happened when Jill and he had boarded the Queen Zenobia years ago. They were on a road, winding through a forest.
Charlie cleared his throat. "So, you'll be staying in my daughter's room."
Parker blinked. "Okay? So, uh, where is she?"
"She moved into her husband's house when they'd gotten married. Nice boy, by the way. Edward Cullen, son of one of the best doctors in the area."
"Oh," Parker smiled slightly. It was nice to hear about normal stuff instead of monsters that lurked about in the dark. "So, how old is she?"
"She'll be 22 in September," Charlie said, a bit quieter this time. Parker didn't say anything about it, but that slight change in tone bothered him.
"So," Parker looked around. They were driving into the town's limits, stopping at a stoplight, Charlie turning on his blinker to go left. A few cars had passed by, heading into town as they headed farther out. Charlie turned the steering wheel. "Is she in college?"
"No. She settled down and had a kid two years ago." Charlie was frowning again, but Parker didn't say anything about it. Maybe they weren't on speaking terms and Charlie was being polite about his questions?
Charlie pulled into a driveway and parked the car. Both he and Parker got out of the car. Parker opened up the trunk and pulled out his bag. He just had a few clothes, a toothbrush, a comb, a razor and some toothpaste. It would have been rude to pack any more than was needed.
Charlie, meanwhile, had opened the door to the back seat of the cruiser and pulled out another bag, a smaller one containing a pistol and some ammunition. "Now, I know you're gonna be in the forest a lot, but you need to be careful, okay? There's black bears in there and Lord help you if you get between a mom and her cubs, especially at this time of year."
"I understand."
The door to the house opened up, a young woman standing there. She was wearing a white shirt and some jeans, her hair black and skin olive. She grinned and said, "Hey, Charlie. Who's the new guy?"
Charlie walked to the door, Parker following. He gestured back and forth between Parker and the girl. He said, "Leah, this is Parker. Parker, this is Leah. He's helping with the investigation."
"Nice to meet you," Parker said, holding out his free hand.
"Nice to meet you, too," Leah said. She shook it and looked back to Charlie. "Mom's cooking dinner right now. I'm going to head out afterward, Charlie. Need to head back to La Push and work on some stuff there." They walked inside, Leah following them and shutting the door behind her.
"Sounds fine. Just make sure you're back at Sue's place by eleven, okay?" Leah nodded in response. Charlie handed Parker the other bag and said, "Just head up the stairs to the second bedroom." Parker nodded and headed up the stairs. He walked down the hall, thinking that maybe Charlie was a widower who remarried.
He opened the door and walked in, looking around. It was a nice, cozy room. There was an older computer on the desk, a phone line running across the floor. He supposed that he didn't need it now and didn't want to tie up the phone line. He set his bags in the corner and sat on the bed. It was covered in quilts of some sort, probably due to the generally cooler weather of the region, but it added a nice touch to it, with soft colors to it.
Parker slipped off his shoes and looked out the window. It was still raining out, a bit heavier than the drive up here. He looked around at the room, noticing the pictures on the dresser. All of them had a girl with dark hair and pale skin (who he presumed was Bella): One of her fishing with Charlie what looked like several years ago, a photo of a high school graduation ceremony with her getting her diploma, a wedding photo of her and an extremely pale man who had reddish-brown hair...
Parker smiled slightly. There was something sweet about how her father had kept these photos here, like he was always welcome with having her visit. He got up and walked to the door, opening it up. He headed back down the stairs and glanced around the hall.
There was a small dining room, adjacent to the kitchen, the walls and blinds bright yellow. Leah and her mother were busy, Leah pulling plates out of a nearby cabinet and setting them out on the table and her mother chopping up a few vegetables. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Don't worry about it," Leah's mother said. She made a gesture toward an adjacent room."You should go into the living room, Charlie's in there. Tomorrow's going to be busy, from what Charlie keeps saying about the investigation, so you should probably get some rest while you still can."
Parker nodded and walked to the living room. Charlie was sitting in a recliner, watching the news.
"-deaths appeared to have been caused by a wild animal-"
Charlie looked up and said, "A couple of years ago, in Seattle, something similar happened. Same sort of injuries found on the victims, then all those deaths and missing persons cases stopped coming in out of the blue. We still don't know what happened to those victims."
"You think it's a serial killing?" Parker said. He crossed his arms and frowned, looking at the footage. Most of it as what he'd seen during the meeting. People ripped limb from limb. Blood smeared and splattered about, but blood missing from the bodies. Some of the corpses were half-eaten by wild animals by the time the investigators had come across them, making it harder to figure out who or what it was.
"Same MO and murder isn't that common here."
"It can't be done by any human, though."
"Yeah," Charlie said. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "It didn't make sense, so Bob called you guys up."
"You would have gotten someone from the North American branch if it weren't for one of the original members. He insisted I or one of my coworkers be assigned to the case." Parker shook his head. "Some of the bodies remind me of an Ooze attack, because of how messy they are, but they normally leave a trail of slime..."
"Ooze?" Charlie chuckled.
"They're humans turned into monsters by a virus. They lose all sense of self, for the most part. There are exceptions, like Rachael, this woman who kept shrieking her coworker's name as she tried to kill my partner for that mission, but they're rare. They can fit into crevices because they ooze around and they drink blood of their victims."
"That sounds like some people I know, only a bit more attractive," Leah said. Parker turned around to look at her. How she'd snuck up behind him didn't bother her, per say, but working in the BSAA made one a little wary of when something or someone popped up right behind you. "Dinner's ready, you two."
A/N: So, I saw a picture on another website and one of my friends made a joke about it, resulting in me writing this. XP
I also had to look up the timeline on the Twilight Lexicon, because there isn't very specific information on the timeline in the books itself (specific dates of events aren't usually mentioned). This fanfic starts off in May of 2010.
-The Sleep-Deprived Writer