What Happened in the Forest

The Assignment

Mara sighed as she glanced around the diner. There were only a handful of people there as the lunch rush had ended an hour ago. She was on her second cup of coffee since finishing her chicken salad and the waitress had already given her more than one pointed look, as did the few folks still hanging around.

She supposed the polite thing to do would have been to leave and go work from the privacy of her motel room, but she needed to be out in the town. It was the only way she'd get a feel for things. Get a sense of how people were dealing with the recent tragedies.

Though from the looks of things, they were more concerned about her presence than the three hikers who recently died.

Forks was a small town, so Mara wasn't surprised by the looks. She was an outsider and was sure that everyone knew her name, or at the very least, what she was there for. She looked down at her open laptop, staring at the blank email. She had been in Forks for almost a full day and still didn't have much, earning her several angry text messages from her editor, Richard. He wanted a story and he wanted it now. But the local police were stonewalling her and refusing to give her anything worthwhile.

It was just animal attacks, the local police chief had told her this morning after she finally met him face-to-face. That was followed by, "We're not talking to the press right now," before he sent her on her way after she had sat outside his office waiting to speak to him for nearly two hours.

"Animal attacks, my ass," she muttered, glaring at the computer screen.

Sighing, she then grabbed her notebook and flipped through it, reading the notes she had. Most of it were her own ideas as to what could be going on. A few general comments on the town itself. Mara couldn't help but feel a chill as she drove back to the motel last night after her first attempt at meeting with the chief. The forest that surrounded Forks had a bit of an ominous feeling to it, though she wasn't sure if it was the dark or the fact that she knew three people had died in it over the past few weeks.

This was her first big story for The Seattle Times and she was determined to do well, even though it wasn't much of a story, if she were being honest. She wanted to do well for the families of the victims – telling the victims' stories was part of the reason she wanted to be a crime reporter after all - but she also had something to prove. To herself. To her boss. To everyone. Without this story going well, she was sure to be back writing up the police blotter. Or worse - sent back to the gen news desk writing about town hall meetings and other mundane, boring topics. This was her chance to finally prove to her editor that she could handle stories with some substance.

And to finally try to move out of her father's shadow.

But in order to do that, she needed to prove that there was something strange going on in the small town. As soon as Richard mentioned it in the budget meeting, she got a feeling in her gut there was something there. The other reporters had laughed at her when she immediately volunteered to go, but Richard was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. He told her to check it out. If it was nothing or she couldn't handle it, she would need to come straight back.

"Suppose it's something you can get your feet wet with... should be straightforward..."

If only she could get her hands on the damn coroner's reports. At least then she would have something besides a weird feeling to prove these weren't just your run-of-the-mill animal attacks.

As if on cue, her phone buzzed. She looked over at it, frowning as she saw her editor's name flash on the screen. Sighing, she answered, looking around the diner as she tried to keep her voice down.

"Hey, Richard," she said breezily, steeling herself for what was sure to be a tongue-lashing.

"I'm still waiting on your update. You've been there since last night. What's going on?" he growled.