XXII: In Which Steve Receives a Clue

“White people! I swear to god.”  Nate threw his hands in the air. “The f**k’d you go back for?  After I done told you old dude was spying on your ‘Book Club’ you just go right ahead back.”

“Hey, I swept for bugs before I sat down.”  Steve said weakly.

“Your funeral, my man, but if you get caught up in some bullshit, a n***a ain’t bailin’ yo a*s out, y’feel me?”  Nate stared intently.

“I feel you.”

“A’ight. We gotta get to work, catch you in the mornin’.  ‘Quan, you about ready?” Nate yelled at ‘Quan’s bedroom door.

“Yeah, just gotta get my Jordans on.”  ‘Quan said, opening the door.

After his roommates had left, Steve fired up his computer while he ate a quick ramen dinner.

First order of business was to check his e-mail.  Aside from the usual spam, there was an e-mail from his english-lit professor, reminding him of the upcoming test this Friday.  Delete, delete. As he scrolled, one he almost missed jumped out at him.

“Where is she?”  Read the subject line from a sender called TwystdLogiq.  Steve opened it to find a you-tube link as the sole text of the e-mail.  Curious, he clicked on it and found himself watching a black screen, listening to the sound of heavy breathing.  Slowly the scene brightened to reveal a young woman tied to a chair, struggling against her bonds. Her mouth was taped shut and Steve could hear her whimpering.  Just after the two-minute mark, a hand came into frame as the camera focused in on her face. The hand caressed her cheek as she pulled away, then grabbed the tape and ripped it off.  Her earsplitting scream rang in Steve’s ears as the video cut out.

Stunned, Steve sat stiff in his chair.  He exited full-screen and saw that the video was posted today and already had 37 views.  He looked and saw that the poster was the same TwystdLogiq that sent the e-mail. Then he saw the video description.

“Fruu hxd kn jkun cx orwm qna?” Followed by a string of Hexadecimal numbers.

It was a goddamn ARG trailhead.  Before last week he would have been thrilled to get it.  He loved dabbling in alternate reality games, but now that he was in a real-life horror-mystery, not so much.  Well, maybe. He bookmarked the site to look into later if he was interested.

The next two hours were dedicated to homework, mostly consisting of research for the paper he had to do on Johannes Trithemius.  Joke’s on you, professor. Wikipedia may not be a ‘Reliable Source’ but the references section of the Wikipedia pages was full of reliable sources.

After working on his paper for a while, Steve decided to take a break from his research to do a different kind of research.  Over the next hour, he learned more about the history of Kanetown and surrounding areas than he ever wanted to know. Wikipedia was a hell of a drug.

He was still pissing around when he heard the knock at the window.

Tap Tap Tap

Jake was back.  Steve was almost beginning to suspect that the bird had abandoned him after delivering its weird invitation.  He rolled his chair over toward the window and opened the curtains. Sure enough, there was Jake, sitting proudly on the windowsill like he owned the place.  As soon as he saw Steve, he did an elaborate curtsy/bow, half-spreading his wings.

Reaching down with his beak, Jake plucked at something white, made sure Steve saw it, then flew away.

With a lot more confidence than the first time, Steve opened the window a bit and retrieved what turned out to be a white envelope marked with the now-familiar eye symbol.  It was heavy. Reaching in, Steve found a couple of polished rocks at the bottom. For a moment, he wondered what they meant, then it hit him. They were for weight, so the envelope wouldn’t blow away.

Steve set the rocks on his desk.  Ron would probably know something about them.  He reached back into the envelope and pulled out a handful of photographs.  All of the photos were of the same subject; a young girl somewhere between grade school and junior high.  She was a cute kid with red hair, green eyes and freckles, and all of the pictures showed her looking at the camera with a big smile.  Until the last one.

As soon as he flipped to the last picture, he threw the whole pile on the floor.  Skin crawling, he silently collected himself, steeling his nerves. He had to look again, make sure that’s really what was in the photo. He flipped it over with his foot.

The photo hadn’t changed.  There from the floor it burned itself into Steve’s mind.  The same girl stood in the photo in only her underwear, her smile replaced by tears.