Fanon:The Woods of Bridgeport

Skyler
"This isn't fair!" I exploded at my boss Thursday morning. "It wasn't my fault! Does it ever occur to you that paparazzi figure stuff out alone?" Edmund, a sniveling coward of a head of a detective agency, simply wrinkled up his nose in that infuriating, prim way of his and whined, "I apologize, Miss Wright, but the Hamming case was top secret! That ending up in the newspaper, on top of everything else, puts your job in a very precarious position. I'm afraid I must-- ah -- dismiss you from the  Howards Agency. I will expect your badge within the week." What I did next makes my stomach turn today. I groveled. "Pleeeeeeeease, Mr. Howards. I need this job! There's nowhere else I can work!" "That's understandable," he muttered, then continued louder, proving how much he loves being groveled at. "If you insist, Miss Wright. Within a month, get a case, complete it, make a satisfactory report, deposit the agency's portion of the compensation, and I may reconsider." "Thank you! I won't fail! Thank you!" I ran out of there as fast as possible to avoid barfing all over his front.

It seems like I assumed that cases would be so much easier to pick up now that my job depended on it. But no, it's never that easy without seeming desperate. But within two hours of case hunting, I actually was getting desperate. I loved my job. I was snoopy by nature, and I got paid to do it. Just kidding. I liked being a detective because what I learned about people helped me in my life experiences. I liked it cause I was good at it. There are a bunch of reasons. But lately I'd mouthed off over client confidentiality even within the agency {I was for it} and I'd gotten sick and tired of being expected to let everybody else walk right over me,just because I'm fairly new. I have a big mouth when it comes to my negative opinions. I biked home, which was a small house, but with the indescribable feeling about it that comes of so many memories made in one place. I rented it at the moment, as soon as I found out that I could live here again, but I could lose it again if I got fired. I rested my hand on the door frame, just under where I had scratched my initials as a kid. I'm usually non-sentimental, blunt, but I could lose more than my job and Dad's house. No one else would ever hire me, as being a detective is all I'm good for. I might not even be able to keep an apartment. I sighed and stepped inside. There on the little table next to the door was a picture of Dad and a mom I barely remembered. Only a few good memories, before they started to fight. I woke up, and she wasn't there. As far as I can remember, that was the last time I cried. All Dad told me was it wasn't my fault, but I heard my name enough to doubt him. I shook myself. Why was I thinking about this now? I'd known for years, and I had more crucial fish to fry. I put the picture down. I was exhausted. I flopped down on the couch and fell asleep. In the middle of the night a dull thud woke me up, but I thought it was my imagination.

I stepped outside groggily. I'd overslept, and usually I'm expected at eight for file work. But of course, Edmund was probably far too busy dancing on my termination paperwork to glance at his watch. I sighed and turned the corner of the house to get my bike so I could find a case. There was a guy lying there. I shook his shoulder, and I swear I could feel the heat of his skin right through his tattered shirt. To this day I don't know what made me do it, but I dragged this random guy inside by the arms and set him on the floor. I rolled him over and took off his cracked shades. Man, he's hot, was my first thought.The lower half of his face had super thick stubble, maybe you could call it a beard, and his hair was wild and matted. Between that and his torn clothes, he looked like he walked through a forest all the way from Moonlight Falls. Only an extremely faint heartbeat and his body temperature told me he was still alive. Thinking back on it, I should have called an ambulance or something, but that thought only occurs to me if the person is bleeding a bunch or they don't wake up for two days. Besides, I was too interested {though slightly freaked out} to hand this over to anyone else. A thump in the middle of the night, and this guy shows up, looking like he was chased by monsters, and it looks like he passed out over  minor scrapes and a some weird sickness. My detective's nose was all over the place, and it would stay that way if I got no results for hours. So that's how I ended up fighting sleep in a chair at two in the morning the next day. I'd left the room as little as possible, aided by three jelly sandwiches and a big cup of coffee. Then the guy shuddered slightly. Slowly, carefully, as if afraid of the light, or something he might see, he opened his eyes.

Logan
I might as well have kept them closed, since the light from the one lamp was enough to half blind me. When my eyes adjusted, I at first thought I was alone. I was all set to take a nap, since the floor was softer than the other places where I could sleep for a few minutes, but  then I remembered my dream and I didn't want to sleep. They had told me very distinctly that they weren't done with me. And I knew it was true, because if they wanted to catch me, they would. I raised my head and looked over the room. I hated it. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it was tiny. I felt barely able to breathe. Then I noticed that there was some  really good-looking girl in the room, leaning so far forward in her chair she was practically falling over, her eyes trained on me. "Ummmm...Hi?" from somewhere under the jelly on her mouth she answered, "Hi. Glad you're up." "How did I get here?" "From the way you look,  I'm guessing you walked. I found you in my yard." "I feel horrible." "Like, Need-Medical-Attention horrible, or something that can be taken care of easily?" "Like I'm gonna throw up, and have a rare disease for the rest of my life," I groaned. She raised one eyebrow. "Why were you passed out in my yard?" I scowled. "'Cause that was as far as I got. I didn't get to pick when I gave out, you know." "Who are you?" "Ladies first." "Skyler. Wright." "Logan." "You look like a Logan." "You look like a Lily, or  maybe a Christie." We stopped and glared at each other. I knew I had a smart mouth, and if she had one too, it could go on forever. For some reason I was fine with that. She looked smart enough to keep it up. "Do you usually drag guys from your yard into the house to interrogate them?" I said. She took the bait. "Do you just pass out in people's yards and keep them up at night?" "Yes." Though I lied, it completely takes her off guard, so she has to start again herself. "Okay, just be careful in Moonlight Falls. Weird stuff happens at night, but I guess you'd fit in perfectly." Now I'm the one who's startled. For the first part of her question, I know to take her advice in there, and yes, I guess now I would fit in. And I'm surprised she believes in that stuff. But I was still on my feet enough to put on a disappointed face and say, "Nothing wrong with being weird. I thought that someone who believes in Moonlight Falls legend would know that." She blushed. "I do know that. But I'm not willing to go so far as to go over there with all that creepy supernatural stuff. I hate it." Hm! "Why do you live here, then?" I asked. "Why not Twinbrook, or Sunset Valley?" "Two reasons. I was born here, and I like it enough to stay, and two, I don't believe it when people say there are vampires here, or anything. Just ghosts, because they're everywhere." I almost laughed, though it was too early on to have a absolute reason to. "Seriously," she continues. I didn't do a very good job of holding my laughter. "I think that with all the famous people around, one or two would be vampires, with all the socializing the celebrities do." Elvira Slayer immediately comes to mind. "And celebrities can't keep secrets?" I asked. She looked me straight in the eye. "No. And every morning the paper proves it." How naive. She trusts too much, and me still being here shows that. "Wait... You know where we are?" she said. "Of course. There's the Bridge in Bridgeport, as a friend of mine says, and a giant billboard with Matthew Hamming's face on it. And bars and clubs all over the place. I should know. I took a shortcut through one." She eyed me suspiciously. "Where are you from?" I decided to go by what was technically the truth even though she meant 'where did you come from', as she hated Moonlight Falls so much and would assume that I'm about to start shedding or casting spells or something. "I was born in Twinbrook." She relaxed. In a few minutes or so she said, "Where are you going to stay?" I shrugged. "Here, if you have a shed. I'll only use it to sleep in." She was silent, so I thought it must have been okay with her.

Skyler
I sensed something deep. I couldn't ignore it. It was the huge movie-like mystery most detectives give up on ever even getting, if I was right. If he stayed here, I could get a chance to get him to talk about himself, and how he got here, and then Ed would be forced to take me back so his agency could get the credit of supporting and training me. Perfect. So I said, "Sure. You can use my old room, if you don't mind sleeping on the floor. It's empty right now."

Logan
After a while she said, "Sure. You can use my old room, if you don't mind sleeping on the floor. It's empty right now." Like I said. She trusted too much. So I moved myself in, which was easy since all I owned was a pair of ripped jeans, a shredded shirt, and a pair of underwear. She insisted that I should get more underwear, and though I thought so too, I pretended not too, so she said I don't have to buy more shirts and pants, which are very restricting when perfect. I liked having a house. It was a bump in an otherwise monotonous lifestyle, and they'd never find me here, even if they knew I was in Bridgeport. So a few weeks wore on. Then, with a start, I realized what I was doing. I was being an idiotic hypocrite who insists on making himself vulnerable. I hated Skyler for doing that to me. I'd called her naive, but I was dulling any chance of surviving if they found me, and just assuming they wouldn't. She couldn't keep them from getting inside. I would be better off on the streets. So I found myself stepping out into the moonless night.

Skyler
When I woke up and he wasn't there, I was almost surprised. I told myself that I shouldn't have expected him to stay long enough for me to have an opportunity to get him to talk. But it was disappointing. I wondered what he would do.

Logan
I wandered. I waited. For the pain that would tell me that they were real, and that the alchemists from Moonlight Falls hadn't been in my head. I slept where I could. I ate of of the few fruit trees around. But I was always on edge, just waiting, and watching. I was asleep behind the Eugi's when it came.

Searing. Plasma-boiling. Paralyzing. Just a few words I could use to describe it. I'd been waiting, but it didn't even occur to me what was happening. I was numbed from the ground beneath me, the faint rain, everything but the agony. I began to writhe. "Hey, you okay?" a guy's voice came through the fog. I could barely see his face. Somebody yelled, I think it was me, and then it was over. I lay there, breathing heavily. "You okay?" He repeated, looking down at me. I stared up at him, gripping his wrist. He saw my eyes, now red. "What the..." he didn't have time to finish before I drained his blood. His friend stared at the plasma dripping from my hands, my mouth, the victim's wrist. My thirst gone, I left completely changed.

Skyler
I picked up the paper Wednesday morning to a disturbing headline.  VAMPIRES ATTACK! Or something like that. I glanced once before moving on to the story. Some guy had been attacked by a vampire, and his friend had reported it. If I didn't have to job-hunt, I could have known about this sooner! There was a picture of the guy who was almost killed. Plasma was everywhere, particularly his arm. Another picture was fairly clear except for a large gray, brown and  blue blur from the middle to the edge. I doubted vampires, but I decided to take it to an old friend. Just in case.

Josh is the photographer for the Bridgeport Bugle. He has all sorts of camera and picture gadgets, and he took the pictures, so he can tell me what he thinks. So first he took his computer and blew up the picture of the victim. He centered the screen on the guy's neck, and then tried his arm. "Got it!" he pointed at the forearm."Sure, but does the wound look like fangs to you?" "Yep. There were even the indents from the other teeth when I got there. And look," he brought up the other picture. "Is it just me, or does that bit of the blur look like a face?" he grabbed a tool and dragged a box over a section of the blur. He dragged up a slider, and I could see distorted features that were somehow familiar. I suddenly felt sick. I'd been living with a vampire.

I suddenly hated Logan, for everything he was. A liar, a attempted-murderer, and worst of all, a vampire. Call me racist, but I hated vampires. With everything they could use well, they kill. And I know it's stupid, but I like to be able to understand things, and vampires always have to be so mysterious. And this only added to how much I hate them. I kinda-sorta have-- I had a crush on this guy, and he could have KILLED me! Aaaaaaagh! Sorry. And I lost my case, I thought sadly. I lost it for absolutely nothing. Wait...If I investigate him, make sure he's the right guy, record a confession and give it to the police, I get revenge and my job back! Ha! But I have to hurry. I only have three weeks. I have a wig. I used it in a play in high school. It's orange and conspicuous, but it works as a disguise. And the worse the makeup, the better the disguise. I found this horrible aqua-blue eyeshadow I couldn't imagine myself wearing, and bright red lipstick. I would stand out, but not in a recognizable way. So, buried in old clothes, smears of eyeshadow, layer after layer of blush, and blinding lipstick, I set out to secure my job.

Logan
It was over.They'd have to leave me alone now that the transformation was over. The alchemists had won, and I wasn't trapped anymore. But now I had a new problem... I had to stay hidden. The newspaper had announced everything, and apparently while I was leaving the other guy had taken a picture. And it was only a matter of time before Skyler figured out that I was a vampire, and that I killed the person in the paper. So I lived at the Abandoned Warehouse, as long as I worked there. I was a decoy until I showed them what I could do. Then it was my job to get other people out of jail, or preferably the police car. There was this really weird orange-haired lady who showed up once. She wasn't good at pretending to be lost, {her heart rate skyrocketed} but Selena always tries a stealthy approach, so she asked me to track her rather than catch her right there. I tracked that lady to a house that looked somehow familiar. I looked through a window and saw the excited-looking weird girl walk in and sit at a desk. She ripped off her orange hair and scratched her head like crazy, letting out her huge mass of nearly-white blond hair tumble down. Like I said, just a matter of time. Skyler was smart enough to find me. So when she left the room I gently pushed on the pane of glass, barely catching it before it fell. I set it down and climbed through. She'd left an ugly bag on the floor. Dumping everything out, I found some notes, quickly scratched on the back of old receipts. Aha! I grabbed all of them and was about to leave when she came back. She almost dropped her salad, then got a hold of herself. "Hi, Logan," she said, trying to smile."What are you doing here?" She put one hand in her pocket. I decided to get to the point. "What were you doing at the warehouse earlier?" She pulled down her eyebrows. "Huh?" "Don't try. Your wig is right there. You're wearing the exact same clothes." "As who? Are you okay?" "What were you doing at the warehouse?" "L- Which warehouse?" "Skyler." I was starting to get mad. She was too smart for this. She clenched her teeth. She obviously thought she could keep this from me. So I guessed. "You found out that I was becoming a vampire when you met me. You found out that I attacked that guy in the newspaper. You wanted to catch me and turn me in." She didn't move. "Sorry, Skyler. I'm not going." She opened a drawer, quickly for a human, and drew a gun. "You are going to jail. I am going to keep my job. This," she drew her phone from her pocket, "Is going to convict you." she pressed a button, and I heard my voice saying, "-ire when you met me. You found out that I attacked that guy in the newspaper. You wanted to catch me and turn-" she shut it off."I've won." I looked her straight in the eye. "You can't shoot me. You couldn't even try." She shrugged. "You willing to test me?" I smiled. She smiled back. And I realized that she was too dangerous to have on my trail. She wouldn't back down. And once again, she had the upper hand, and I was vulnerable. I lost it.

Skyler
He flung himself at me so fast that the one shot I had time to fire missed by a mile. He crouched over me and knocked the gun out of my hand, snarling. I looked into his savage, crimson eyes and saw his intentions. My silence. My blood. He leans toward my throat. Mercifully, my mind blacks itself out.

Logan
The first time I bit someone, it was a victory. I enjoyed it because of that, even though his plasma was flat. This is different. So much better in one way. So much worse in another. Her plasma in incredible. I could live off of it. All I wanted was more. But I hated her because this victory was empty. Not a victory at all. She had so much more fight in her. She was powerful, in a human way. It turned the plasma dry when I realized this. I tried to get more, wanting to revive the sensation, but there was almost no plasma left. If I wanted to win it, she would have to live. So that's why I left her at the hospital doors. When the next nurse came outside and found her, I left. I didn't know where to go. But I was free.

Skyler
I woke up slowly, in weird lurching moments of awakeness and sleep, and for a while the world was a moldy slushie, which means it was very fuzzy. A nurse came in and mumbled while she poked and prodded at me, then she walked away looking satisfied. The next day, Logan was there. I almost screamed, then I realized he was waiting for a reaction like that. So I smiled and said Hi, like he wasn't the reason I was here. He sat down on the edge of my bed, and smiled back. If he's still waiting, I thought, he's going to be very disappointed. And I probably guessed right, because one of the smiles disappeared, and you can be sure it wasn't mine. "So...What's up? And why did the nurse leave?" I don't know how he got in at all. then I noticed that he shaved somewhat, and used somebody's money to buy normal clothes. It was probably mine. "Well, apparently," he replied, "I'm Logan Wright, your husband or something. Acting worried and anxious is easy enough that they believed me." "You didn't have to show ID?" Nope. I made the nurse think she could trust me. And while I was in her brain, I found out that apparently, I'm the best-looking guy she's ever seen." That made two of us. "What are you doing here?" he asked, as if I wouldn't remember. "You know better than I do. How did I taste?" He sighed and smiled, and I took that as approval. Dang. I was hoping I had made him sick. He sat there, with a perfectly smug, secure smile on his face. He thought that because I hadn't tried to attack him or get him out of there, I had given up and was going to be completely docile. I had not decided to stop fighting him. The only thing that was keeping me from scratching that look off his face was because I would collapse if I tried to reach. Then all of a sudden, he glared at me, but he wasn't looking at me. His thoughts were somewhere else.

Logan
I was angry because she was being kept here, not using any of her mind at all, just getting soft. I wished she would hurry up and heal so we could be back to hating each other. But the field wasn't level anyway. I would have my advantages no matter what, but I wished she could almost beat me. I wished she were a vampire. I let the silence go on and she began to squirm. "What?" she demanded. I didn't know what to say for once, but some part of me took care of that problem. I swear, I didn't intend to do what happened next.

Skyler
He kissed me! It was bittersweet. It was amazing. Half of me felt good about it, like this was right. But the other side hated how much I loved the feel of his lips on mine. It screamed No, you hate him, you can't let him put you in this position, he's just going to try to kill you again, this is wrong. You can't like him like this! Emotion only gets in the way of investigation. I pushed that part to the back of my mind, or I tried. Than I just hated him more, and I hated myself for letting him do this. He was weakening me. I shouldn't let him do that to me. I guess he felt that way too, because he straightened abruptly and walked out of the room without another word.

Logan
I screamed at myself about what happened back there. I told myself that that was exactly why I left the house in the first place. I was throwing away my survival for stupid human distractions. I couldn't let myself relax. I escaped to the edge of Bridgeport, telling myself that I should leave the city entirely. But I wanted to stay. I didn't want to run into them again, even though it was over. And I wanted to stay because of Skyler, even though that's why I should go. She was one of the most terrifying things I'd ever seen. She wasn't really frightening, I guess. Just deadly. In the top three things likely to get me killed. {1: Them. 2: My stupid assumptions. 3: Her.} I couldn't let her put me in that position. I ran through the forest, then stopped cold. Stumbling through the forest, moonlight glinting off their empty eyes, revealing their pale green skin, making no heart beat, were the dead.

Skyler
I couldn't sleep for most of the night, so I was awake when the door swung open. I expected the nurse and pretended to be asleep so she'd leave me alone. I felt somethings hard slip under my knees and my neck. Then I was being lifted up. I was starting to fall asleep, so I didn't open my eyes until whoever was carrying me jumped. Then we were falling from my window to the ground that seemed much more scary than usual. At the impact I nearly fell out of my arm-cradle thing. Then I saw that that the arms were Logan's. Crap. I had no idea what to say, if anything, about yesterday. Luckily for me, he ran at his top speed and I could only focus on not falling or screaming or throwing up. When we reached the beginning of the woods at the end of town, he picked me up and set me on a tree branch, then climbed up after me. "What?" I hissed. For some reason I felt like I should whisper. "Look," he said, pointing below us. I was glad I had enough blood in me to stay upright. If I fell off, I would land in the middle of a mass of weird-looking people. "So? Some dead-tired guys are in the woods. You practically flung me out of the hospital to see that?" He rolled his eyes. Then I noticed something as my eyes strayed. A little bundle of fur and feathers. What looked like a squirrel looked up at me, and its formerly cute little face was covered in the dead bird's blood. I almost did fall out of the tree. Then I noticed one of the people crouch at the bottom of an apple tree. She tore at the roots and trunk, and where her oddly-colored fingers scratched, the tree began to die, decay spreading throughout each branch. The apples withered and fell, and a raccoon started to eat one. The raccoon sank into the ground in blue mist, and when it came out, I noticed the similarities between the animals and the 'campers'. Shuffling. Blank eyes. The pale green skin. They could only be zombies. Logan clapped one hand over my mouth. I glared at him, but changed my mind as a zombie attacked some mushrooms at the base of our tree. If I made too much noise, he might see us. "They're fairly new," Logan whispered. "Their senses haven't deteriorated yet. They're faster than older ones, too. They're more of a threat. To you, anyway." "Thanks for your confidence," I said as quietly as I could. "So why did you bring me here for this? You can take out these and squash any possible invasion. I couldn't even get down there without them infecting me." " Even If I killed those guys thoroughly enough that they stayed down, there would be more. Who knows what else they've infected. People, animals, plants. This is just a small section. We need to find the core and work from there out." "So you expect me to go and be like some monster-hunter or something? Sorry, but that's the last thing I'm good at." "No. We need a cure. If we kill every zombie there will be nearly no one left, no one to pass on the antidote to the next town with a zombie problem. You find a cure, we spread it around. But I don't know how because I don't care about alchemy." "So, what first?" "Get cracking. Like I said, I don't know." "Too bad there's no Vault of Antiquity around here." "What's in there?" "Old tomes, records, pretty much everything ever known about the supernatural." "That would be good. Or we can go gravedigging." I barely remembered to whisper. "What? Why? Why the heck would we go gravedigging?" "While I was in Moonlight Falls, before I was a vampire, I knew this supernatural alchemy magical fan group of alchemists. My brother was one of them, and he mentioned this old lady's grave in France. Supposedly she had a huge collection of every supernatural book, and it's still in her tomb." "We have time to go to France?" "The zombies are going to spread anyway," he pointed out. "Do you have a better idea?" So we were going to go to France.

Logan
Skyler bought the tickets and we boarded the plane. We didn't talk at all. To break the silence without breaking the silence, I read her mind. Crap. She was thinking about when I kissed her, with mixed opinions. I didn't like how many of them were positive. She could completely let me if I tried to drink from her. So I was going to have to bring up an awkward subject. "How would you react if I tried to drink your plasma?" There. Better than drawing it out. Her shocked expression quickly turned to a glare. "I would shove you out the airplane window. If I end up as a vampire sometime on this trip, I'll poison your progiciel de sang." Good. She won't allow me to make her a vampire either. "That's French for package of blood, right?" She rolled her eyes. "No, we're on our way to France, and I'm talking about poisioning you, and I decided to say 'orange bald rabbit' in Chinese." Now that she'd thought about me biting her again, she was wishing she'd brought her gun, even though she missed last time.