Room 127 by Malcolm Pierce
Steve
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/12/13, 10:01am
to: [email protected]
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re: fwd: Subject
Yancy:
After my message yesterday you probably think I'm insane. It was hard to send that e-mail because I knew that would be your response. I stayed up late last night waiting for a reply, because I think I need your help on this. It's a good thing I did.
A girl at my office played the game, too, and she sent me a very disturbing e-mail message. I'm forwarding it to you. I immediately contacted an HR rep and informed him that someone needed to check on the girl.
She didn't pick up the phone when we tried to call her, so we called 911. They found her unconscious on the floor of her apartment. She'd had a seizure after making it a good way into the game. Now she's at the hospital. She hasn't woken up.
This is real, and I need your help before this hurts anyone else. I can't let it spread any more.
Steve
[email protected] (Ken Greene) 6/12/13, 11:44am
to: [email protected]
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re: re: Anna
Steve:
How can I stop now? If this game—and the more I think about it, the more I realize its barely a game—is causing these things, I have to keep going. This goes beyond everything we know about video games. This is unexplored science. To think that a computer program, a collection of data small enough to fit on a 1.44mb floppy disk, has the power to alter human behavior...
I can't believe it's true, and if it's true I just want to experience it. I know why you're feeling this way. This game is insidious. I hear the music even when I'm not playing. I see the sprites when I close my eyes. I just want to know what it's doing. I want to see where it is taking me. Stopping isn't a choice. If I stop it's going to hurt even more.
Maybe that's what Dave and Anna did wrong. Maybe the problem wasn't that they played. Maybe they stopped.
Ken
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/12/13, 1:03pm
to: [email protected]
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re: fwd: re: Anna
Yancy, just look at this. I'm sorry for all the e-mails but I think you're the only lead I have and it's getting worse. Don't give up on this. I need your help.
Steve
[email protected] (Yancy Rand) 6/12/13, 1:50pm
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re: Sorry
Steve, I truly apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I admit that your first e-mail made me suspicious. No, it is more than that. All of this makes me suspicious. It feels like a hoax. I have no way to verify what you're telling me. You could be making all of this up and stringing me along. I know how addictive video games can be. I pumped more quarters into the Pac Man machines than I'm willing to admit. This does not sound real.
However, I cannot deny that I am curious. Perhaps when this is all over I will be made a fool for believing you—or at least going along with you. But it is too late to look back. We will keep going, at least for now.
I have some good news for you. I was able to acquire a copy of the 1994-1995 Monmouth Hills yearbook. The class rosters were off limit, but the yearbook was available at their library. Now, there's no way to know for sure exactly which students were in the computer lab during the bomb incident, but then I saw the picture of the school's technology club. Rickett, Mullin, Bourn, and Norris were all members.
This couldn't just be a coincidence. Maybe we're not looking for students who happened to be in the lab at the time of the incident. Maybe this is what we want. There were two other members of the club. Alex Grant and Brenda Fischer.
I wasn't able to find out much about Alex Grant. Apparently, he didn't even make it through the rest of the 1995 school year. His father pulled him out of classes shortly after the bomb incident. The alumni association only keeps track of students who graduated. Unfortunately, he has a very common name.
Fischer is a different story. She's still in Monmouth Hills, working at the county Humane Society. Unlike the rest of the technology club, she seems to be living a perfectly normal life.
Here's her e-mail address: [email protected] . I have a pretty good idea of what you want to ask her, but you can do a better job of it than me. I still have a few old police contacts I want to track down. Even if everything you say is right and this is all connected to this video game, that leaves a question of why someone set a bomb in the school.
Yancy
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/12/13, 2:33pm
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re: Monmouth Hill High School
Ms. Fischer:
My name is Steve Norman. I am writing concerning the 1994-1995 Monmouth Hills High School technology club. You are listed as a member in the yearbook. I have a feeling you might already know what I want to ask about, so I'll get straight to the point.
Does the title “Room 127” mean anything to you?
Steve Norman
[email protected] (Jill Wright) 6/12/13, 2:49pm
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re: Ken
Hey Steve,
I don't know if you've noticed, but Ken's been acting strange lately. I talked to him a short while ago and I asked him what was wrong. He told me I should talk to you.
What's going on?
Jill
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/12/13, 3:15pm
to: [email protected]
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re: re: Ken
Jill,
It's the game. It's Room 127. He thinks he has to finish it, but I've told him what I think will happen. He doesn't want to hear it I don't know if he'll listen to you, but try... I'm really afraid of what will happen the further he gets into the game.
Steve
[email protected] (Jill Wright) 6/12/13, 3:55pm
to: [email protected]
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re: re: Ken
You're going to have to explain a bit better than that. I've been out of the loop on this game. Is this was what Dave was playing before he disappeared?
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/12/13, 6:12pm
to: [email protected]
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re: Call me
Hi Sam... When you get a chance, could you please give me a call? I tried calling you but I think your phone is off. I need to talk.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/12/13, 8:41pm
to: [email protected]
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re: Anna Walker
Yancy:
I am glad you're still on board. I already emailed Brenda Fischer. Once she gets back to me, I'll let you know.
I thought I would give you an update on Anna Walker. She's the girl at my work who played the game—the one I told you about. I'm still shaken up about everything that happened. Especially now.
This afternoon I went by the hospital on the way home from work. I wanted to see how she was doing. Turns out that she woke up around noon today. I was happy and I was excited. I thought that I might be able to get a chance to talk to someone who played deep into the game.
Almost as soon as Anna woke up, she started screaming. She ran to the window, broke it, and used a shard of glass to cut out her own tongue.
I feel sick even thinking about it. Why would she do that, except that she was afraid to talk? She didn't even want to be able to communicate what the game showed her.
I wish I'd never even started this. I wish I'd just thrown that disk away. No one would have been hurt. None of this would have happened.
[email protected] (Yancy Rand) 6/12/13, 9:39pm
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cc:
r
Steve:
I am sorry to hear about your friend. When you write things like this, I admit that I hope that you are just making this up. If this is all the truth, it is almost too horrible to conceive.
At least I was able to make some progress today. Like I told you, I was able to speak to some of my old friends in the police department again. They filled me in about the investigation of the bombing incident. Remember, I told you that for a long time they believed that a substitute teacher was responsible for planting the explosive. Then they realized that he couldn't have. He'd left the state, let alone the school district.
Afterward, the focus shifted to a new suspect. He was a parent of one of the students at Monmouth Hills. His son was having difficulty at school and was on the verge of being expelled. Apparently his car was seen near the school the night before. They thought that he fit the profile they were working with. They believed that their bombed wanted to damage the school but not hurt anyone. He'd set the bomb for twelve minutes, realized that it was accidentally set for twelve hours, then called in the threat to make sure it was disarmed before it exploded.
The police were never able to solidly connect the man to the bomb. He ended up pulling his son from the school district before he could be expelled. I wasn't able to find much information on him.
His name was too common. How was I supposed to find someone named Thomas Smith?
Yancy
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/12/13, 10:02pm
to: [email protected]
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re: re: Anna Walker
That's the man who e-mailed me. That's the one who started this, and who told me to pull my article. It was Thomas Smith. It was a throwaway e-mail address, but still used his own name.
We have to find more about this man, no matter what it takes.
[email protected] (Brenda Fischer) 6/13/13, 12:13am
to: [email protected]
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re: re: Monmouth Hills High School
in all my years, i never thought i would meet another.
what do you want to know?
how do you keep the screams at bay?
[email protected] (Yancy Rand) 6/13/13, 7:48am
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re: Thomas Smith
Steve:
I'll do everything I can to track him down. I can't promise much, but if the last suspect the police had for the bombing is the same man who e-mailed you and told you to pull down your article about the game, I think we're getting close to tying both everything together. We just need to understand where the pieces fit
Yancy
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/13/13, 9:09am
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re: re: Monmouth Hills High School
Ms. Fischer:
If you have played the game, I have a lot of questions for you. What do you mean by “another”? Do you mean that I've played the game, too? I haven't completed it. The only person who I think completed it ended up dead. Someone else got really close and she's in the hospital.
How far did you get in the game? Where did it come from? Did you play it at your school? What is it? What did it do to you? What did it do to the others?
I'm sorry for throwing all these questions at you, but I'm afraid I might not have much time.
Steve
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/13/13, 9:41am
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: Ken
Jill, Room 127 is indeed the game that Dave was playing. It's a really long story, but if you want to talk about it we can... But I'd prefer not to get anyone else involved. The game has a way of sucking you in that I still can't explain. I think Ken even believes me that it's dangerous now but he refuses to stop. Anna from IT knew it and she still booted it up. I'd rather not risk losing anyone else to this game.
Steve
[email protected] (Ken Greene) 6/13/13, 10:03am
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re: Room 127
Steve:
I'm stuck in the distillery again. I thought everything was going smoothly. After the guard tower, the interior of the main hallway changes and there are new rooms to explore. I have two more vials of liquid. One is green and one is red. I can't use any of them in the distillery. I need to keep going, though. I feel like I'm close. Do you have any idea what you have to do next? Even a guess?
I know you refuse to play the game but at least let me be the guinea pig. I want to see what happens next.
Ken
[email protected] (Brenda Fischer) 6/13/13, 10:51am
to: [email protected]
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re: re: Monmouth Hills High School
i was luckier than the others. it shows us all different sights. i found a way to control it. the others here dont like to do it. the animals have to die, there are just too many of them. but they say it makes them too sad, so they let me do it.
i like to watch the lights go out.
you should really finish the game for yourself, steve. i wouldnt want to spoil you on the ending :) just be ready for it. nothing will ever be the same :)
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/13/13, 12:12pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: fwd: re: Monmouth Hills High School
Yancy:
I don't think we'll be getting anything out of Brenda Fischer. Check this out.
Steve
[email protected] (Yancy Rand) 6/13/13, 2:24pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: The Plot Thickens
Steve:
I spoke with my contact in the Burlington school district—the one who used to be an assistant principal in Monmouth Hills. It was probably a bad idea, but I told him what the police had passed along to me. This was information the school had never been privy to. Thomas Smith was never formally charged with anything related to the bombing and he wasn't an employee of the school, so the administration was kept in the dark about this part of the investigation.
Remember Alex Grant? The member of the technology club that didn't graduate in 1995 because he was pulled from the school? He was Thomas Smith's son. Adopted son, that is. That's why there's no record of Grant. I should have put it together. I should have guessed that the two students who disappeared—Grand and Smith's son—were one and the same.
So where does that leave us? In early 1995, the teacher who supervises the technology club has an extended leave of absence and is replaced by substitute Corey Thatcher for a little over a month. The substitute isn't well liked, quits, and leaves not just the school but the state. Weeks later, Thomas Smith—the father of one of the students in the technology club—plants a bomb in the middle of the night. When it doesn't go off, he realizes that he he set it for twelve hours instead of twelve minutes. He calls in a bomb threat and the explosive is discovered before it can hurt anyone.
Thomas Smith pulls his son out of the school and they both disappear into the ether. The remaining members of the technology club all end up deranged, dead, or both. Including the teacher. At least one of them, and probably all of them, played the computer game that killed your friend.
Am I missing anything? What's the next step? If we can't find Alex Grant or Thomas Smith, maybe we need to ferret out Corey Thatcher. His abrupt departure from Monmouth Hills can't just be a coincidence. But how do we find him?
Yancy
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/6/13, 3:49pm
to: [email protected]; [email protected]
cc:
re: I need your help
Brett, Jill:
By now, I've talked to both of you about what happe
I want to put something up on the site. It's a follow-up to my Room 127 article. It will be short, unobtrusive, and won't look like anything but a continuation of what I've already published. But it's real purpose is to hopefully stir up one of the people involved in the history of the game.
I strongly suspect that there is someone out there that wants this game to be played. This person sent us the disk. Maybe they are even watching from afar as it tears us apart. I don't know. But this isn't the first time something has happened with this game. My first article got the attention of a couple people, but the one I really want to talk to disappeared. If I can scare him out again, maybe I can get some answers.
The reason I'm coming to you guys is I'm not sure how Ken will react. He's way into the game now. Thankfully, he's been so busy with E3 coverage that he hasn't had too much time to play, and I suspect he's not particularly good at weird adventure games.