We Spoke With Frank!

Wow, pretty eventful night. Here's a quick rundown of what happened.

Ok, I was on AIM, and I was talking to Luke and Sylvia in the chat room. Katrina Plessing's screen name (shesheisi) signed on, and it was Frank.

He told us that, when he killed himself, he found himself in a big room with hundreds of other people. He said he stood there for what felt like years, and then he heard Katrina's voice. He looked up and the ceiling of this room turned to water, and he saw Katrina looking down at him. That's really creeping me out, to be honest. The lake is a room? Things are getting really weird. So anyway, he said he convinced Katrina to drink out of the lake, which put him in her body.

We asked Frank if he knew what VUDOFO is, and he said no. He then said that he has the same birthday as Jakob Plessing, which surprised us (obviously.) I went looking, and I realized that in his Oct. 17th blog post he said his birthday was November 17th. I guess I just never made the connection.

Frank was just about to tell us something about Miss Corinn when the connection cut out. Katrina posted on her blog saying Frank was gone.

I'm going back to the PFC HQ tomorrow, to try and find something interesting. I'm gonna tell Mr. Erik (whose name anagrams to I WORK HERE. pretty weird.) that I want the job, and see what happens.

I'm still on AIM, by the way... probably will be for a while.

Explanations

Well, I've finally figured out why Frank killed himself. He wanted to save Katrina...

I went looking on Frank's hard drive, and I found a file called Nimbus. Obviously, that made me think of Katrina's message from Frank about the cloud. In the file was an email, and here's what it said:

DATE: Nov. 2, 2006
From: “XXXXXXX” plessingphoenix@yahoo.com
To: “Frank Dawes” frankdawes@yahoo.com
Subj: Instructions
Frank, we have Katrina locked up. We will release her upon confirmation of
your death.

I'm pretty pissed off right now. They didn't stick to their end of the bargain, and now Frank is dead anyway.

I'm going back to the PhoenixFire Headquarters tomorrow to see if I can find Katrina, or maybe just get some more information on whatever's happening on the 17th.

I'm on AIM, if anyone wants to talk. You know my s/n.

I Went To The PFC HQ Today

Well, I went to visit the PhoenixFire Corporation today. I didn't tell them who I really was, obviously... I said my name was Luisa Ekmel to see if it would get a reaction, and it didn't.

The building itself is pretty big. I guess they have some kind of factory in there... I don't know. It's ugly, too. Like, really gross. The front door is made out of glass, and it's pretty much the only glass on the entire front of the building that's not broken. I opened it and went inside, and I was pretty surprised at how modern it was.

The floors were silver, like metallic, and the walls were whitewashed. They had flourescent lighting and some pretty big-ass potted plants along the walls. The room you go into at first has some couches, and a table full of magazines... kinda like a hospital waiting room. There's a desk at the far end of the room, and a hallway leading off to the left and the right of the desk. I went up to the desk, because the receptionist was the only person I saw.

It was a guy. He had short black hair and glasses, and he was wearing a white lab-coat looking thing. His nametag said ERIK HEWOR. So I guess that's his name. I said, "Hi, I'm interested in applying for a job here."

He looked up from the book he was reading (which had the name CORINN where the author's name should be... I guess she wrote a book! I couldn't see the title, though.) "Hello there. What's your name?"

His voice was, like, really automatic-sounding. Like he'd rehearsed the lines over and over and over so much that he didn't even know what he was saying any more.

"Luisa Ekmel," I said.

"Well, hello, Luisa!" Erik said. "What kind of job are you interested in?"

"Well, what do you have available?" I asked.

"We're looking for an event coordinator."

"I can do that," I said. Not that I've ever coordinated events before. "When's the event?"

"November 17," he said. I almost asked him what VUDOFO means, but I decided not to. "It's short notice, we know, but..."

Then, for some reason, I really felt like I needed to get the hell out of that building. "Too short," I said, and turned around and walked away. I don't know why. Something in that place is very, very wrong, I'm sure.

So, I chickened out. I'm going back, you can be sure, and I'm gonna do better next time.

Talk to everyone tomorrow!

----

By the way, I'm feeling MUCH better. I'm starting to get over Frank's death.

And, I've been looking for the cloud, whatever that means... haven't quite found it yet. Clear skies today.

Never Coming Back

Frank shot himself! He shot himself in a motel room across Milford. He shot himself and he's dead.

I followed the police car to the motel, and they were bringing his body out covered in a sheet. I got out, and the police guy was going to turn me away but he saw how upset I was. He asked me if I knew who this might be, so I said yes, yes I knew him.

He led me over to Frank's body on the stretcher and asked me if I wouldn't mind identifying the body. I said I would like to, just to have some closure for myself, and he said OK. He warned me that they had found Frank's driver's license in his back pocket, so they already knew it was him, but some police procedural thing said someone involved had to ID the corpse.

So anyway he lifted up the sheet and oh my god there was so much blood... he shot himself in the head and now he's dead and I don't know what to do. I'm so depressed... I've been sobbing for the past three hours. They wanted to take me down to the police station but I wouldn't let them. The policeman was nice enough but he shot himself and...

My god. I'm not going to sleep tonight because I know I'm going to have nightmares.

Maybe I'll be on later to talk to you guys, but maybe not. It depends on how I'm feeling.

It's amazing. I didn't really know Frank that well, but he seemed so... with it. He seemed to know exactly what needed to be done to undermine this company. And he offered me a place to stay when the Coven was after me. And he was so nice while I was here... He even offered to get us bagels.

But that's the trouble, wasn't it?

Oh, I just don't know what to think any more. I'm so depressed, I'm repeating myself, aren't I?

Too much death lately. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm cursed or something. Jakob ; _ ; / Cal / and now Frank. Maybe it's all my fault. Frank is gone and I'm alone...

I Think Frank's Gone

I hear sirens. Sirens in the town. An ambulance just drove past the Hattree Inn and there goes a police car.

I'm going to follow them.

Pray for Frank, please.

Frank Is Going To Kill Himself

Well, thanks to Alia and some of the other folks on my buddy list, I found out that Frank stugged the image that was on his Flickr. Apparently stugging is hiding a text file inside of an image file... anyway, what Frank said was he was going to end it all.

Considering he posted that image yesterday, I'm afraid it's too late to do anything to stop him. I'm sending him frantic emails, but I don't know if I have enough time. If only I had known about stugging before, I could have done things differently.

Well, I guess all there is to do now is sit back and wait for confirmation that Frank is gone. I'm having a hard time with this... I'm sobbing like a baby. A month ago, my life was fine. I don't know how things can change this quickly. Why does this happen?!

To Frank:

I don't hate you. I understand completely that you're having a hard time adjusting to the difficulties we've been encountering, and I understand that you need some time to yourself. However, Frank, we need you. Why do you want to just give up the fight like this? You seem to be semi-interested in helping the Victims of Miss Corinn, because you sent me the link to the Silver Garden website, so... What's wrong? I really wish you would contact me and let me know how you are. I'm worried about you. Your realtor said you never moved into the house. I don't know how you're staying clean, because you left all of your clothes in your car at the hotel. I guess you're out there somewhere, and you obviously have access to a computer, even though your laptop is in the hotel room. So I'm hoping you see this message. Please, come back and help us out. We're getting closer to finding Katrina every day... She is definitely alive and she seems to want you, even if she doesn't know it.

Frank, I miss you. And I do not hate you.

-Lucy

OK, so this is what I've been able to find so far.

On the first page of the Silver Garden website, Miss Corinn asks if we're ready to begin looking for answers. So, the answer is yes. Add yes.htm to the end of the URL, and you get

http://www.freewebs.com/silvergarden/yes.htm

That tells us to find the path. So...

http://www.freewebs.com/silvergarden/path.htm

That's very interesting. It asks us where the path leads to next, and if you look at Katrina Plessing's latest post you can see the stop on the path after the bench is the tree. Thus...

http://www.freewebs.com/silvergarden/tree.htm

Go us. Read over there, and it asks us to "play out the string" to the next location. According to Katrina, the path goes from the tree to the rock.

http://www.freewebs.com/silvergarden/rock.htm

And that's where the path ends, for now... Miss Corinn wants us to rest. Whoop Dee Do.

That website gave us a lot of information. It seems to me that Katrina is NOT dead... I think it's the PATH.HTM one that talks about someone giving Miss Corinn no choice, and she had to do what she did, and now "she" screams until she has no voice. That sounds to me like Miss Corinn has Katrina locked up somewhere.

Another thing... probably just a coincidence, but if you ask me the layout of the Silver Garden seems a lot like Stephen King's made-up world "Boo'ya Moon" in his latest book, Lisey's Story. I think I wrote about that book before... but whatever. I don't wanna ruin the book for anyone.

I'm feeling much better today than I did yesterday. This hunt through the Silver Garden has really gotten my spirits up... it seems we're getting closer to the answers. Did you all see the update on http://www.freewebs.com/phoenixfirecorp/red24.htm? Something is happening on November 17th. Vudofo... whatever that is.

Ok, well, I'm going to go to the library, see if I can't find me a good book to read right now. I need something to pass the time.

Talk to everyone sometime soon!

Communication

Well, I opened up the paper just now and you're not going to believe what fell out.

In case you can't read that (damn cell phone camera) here's what it says:

Lucy- this is probably the last time you're going to hear from me. I'm
going away. Please, though, don't hate me. Unravel the mysteries at
this site... came across it by accident. http://www.freewebs.com/silvergarden.

Haven't had a chance to go there yet. I've been so busy trying to get the damn picture online, it's taken all of my energy. I'm gonna post this, and then go check it out...

Nothing Yet

No word from Frank yet. I'll let you know when something happens.

What's Going On?

OK, I'm freaked out a bit.

I just got an email from Frank.

To: "Lucy Middleton"
From: "Frank Dawes"
Subject: (no subj.)

Be ready. I will contact you again tomorrow.

-Frank

Frank doesn't sound like himself... if I had to guess, I'd say that Frank was captured and someone is posing like him. It starts tomorrow, I guess! I suppose I'll have to be ready for whatever "Frank" throws at me.

Yikes.

Dimmick Inn A Dead Trail

Sorry, I forgot to post last night when I got back from checking out the Dimmick Inn and Steakhouse. I was dead tired, so I just fell right asleep and woke up about a half-hour ago. The Dimmick Inn is a really nice place, but I didn't see any signs of the Coven. Sylvia, I guess we were reaching a bit with the whole PA's Steakhouse/ Pennsylvania Steakhouse thing. There are no hidden trails leading off into the woods, because the Dimmick is in the middle of town. No woods near here. Also, there's nothing that looks like it could be the Silver Garden. I thought I might have finally been onto something, but I guess not.

So, did everyone hear Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death for what he did to those poor people in Iraq? I wish the same thing would happen to the Coven.

I'll be on AIM later if anyone wants to talk. I'm hoping Frank will try to contact me again so I can make sure it's really him who sent me that note.