Hi Mom!

I’m really enjoying the vacation, though I’d like to make more friends - Amsterdam is a little too businesslike, so I’m off to… well, it doesn’t matter where. I’m sure nothing bad will happen there. If I disappear, be sure not to call the police, or attempt to find out what happened. People go missing so rarely, I doubt there’s even any procedure to follow - the police certainly wouldn’t be able to detect any pattern of disappearances, would they?

Love, Paxton.

—

Hi Mom!

Crazy goings on in Mystery Town, Mysteryvia. Remember Oli, our church-loving friend from Iceland? He has disappeared - but we’re not too concerned. If there was a horrible conspiracy, they’d have disappeared us at the same time, just to make sure we didn’t accidentally inform any loved ones. There’s a message from Oli saying he went on to Paris, but it’s not at all convincing - no, Mystery Town is certainly the last place he was known to be, and any investigation would be centred around Mystery Town, especially given the perfunctory and dubious nature of the message. For that reason, we’re convinced that it is a practical joke from Oli, who is no doubt still around. Everybody here is very friendly.

Big red buckets of love, Paxton.

—

Hi Mom!

This is crazy - now Josh has disappeared. I’m meeting with some of the locals, who have promised to show me where he went (it’s an art show, apparently). But since Mystery Town is definitely the last place Josh was known to be, there’s no question of foul play. That would be ridiculous. If there were foul play, we’d have seen some signs. As a simple example, people would have taken lots of photos of us against a green-screen - say, green wallpaper of a hostel room - and then they could create fake pictures of us in all sorts of different locations, throwing anyone looking for us off the scent. I’m assuming they’d stop mail from getting out - that’d be easy - but since we all have mobile phones, they’d have taken steps to disable the phones in some exotic way - an overrride switch, or a redirect. Something clever, no doubt, as such an operation would have to be pretty big. For example, they might get us with some pretty ladies (I’ve been good mom, I promise!!! ;-)) and then have them push us in a fountain as a joke, ruining the phones. Then they would generously replace our phones with “special” ones.

Then they’d make sure those phones got used in other countries, with prerecorded messages that they surreptitiously took from us (say, by the aforementioned tampering with the phones). If they were really cunning, they’d get people who superficially looked like us to travel for a bit, wearing our clothes. If they were careless, we might have seen these replacements on their way to the train station, having replaced some poor soul we met at the hostel.

So, I’m not worried at all. It’s probably just Josh and Oli, playing a big joke.

Great geysering fountains of love, Paxton.

—

Hi Mom!

You won’t believe what happened - what a screw-up (pardon my language!). I was locked in a mental hospital for almost an hour - I ended up having to sneak out. Poor Josh had been incarcerated there and killed by an inmate (I assume) - I saw one of the Doctors doing the autopsy. Actually, at the time - you’ll laugh at this - I thought it was a torture chamber for rich men! There were some misunderstandings, but since then I’ve come to realise why it couldn’t have been that. Such an operation would be difficult to hide, even with the resources and connections they had at their disposal, and it was such a clumsy and amateurish hospital (I’m not surprised one of the other inmates got loose and attacked me) I’m now convinced that couldn’t be the case. Why bother with all the attractive women? Why not just snatch us as soon as we arrived, from the taxi? There would be no disadvantage, and it would stop us from potentially contacting people and alerting them that something was wrong. Also, the attractive women wouldn’t have to pretend to be so… attracted (nothing happened, mom!)

If it had been a professional operation, they’d have done more for the customers. For example, although we saw Josh’s Doctor - sorry, torturer - before we got to the mental hospital - sorry, torturarium - we’d have also met my torturer beforehand, while we were wandering the streets of Mystery Town. He might have even been a benefactor of some sort; someone pleasant. And we’d have met the inmate - sorry, rich man - who was attacking the Japanese tourist. They wouldn’t have missed an opportunity like that, introducing the hunter to their prey in the wild! This is a reason why they might not have snatched us right away, too (that, and to make sure they had enough doctored photos and voice recordings to convince people we’d moved on from Mystery Town).

And they’d have definitely done more horrible things before getting into the torture. I wouldn’t have fallen for it, but perhaps Josh would have seen his mobile phone in his cell, just out of reach, on a bench top. He might manage to get to it, and somehow redial home, but the person answering is a stranger, and he would gradually realise that the stranger was right there in the room with him! Then the stranger would reveal that Josh had already moved on to Paris, and wouldn’t be missed - photos, voice recordings, and a superficially similar man wearing his clothes. Professional, and more horrifying, too.

Anyway, I’ll be home soon. I’ve registered a complaint about the asylum with the Mysteryvia authorities. They really have to be more careful - there are inmates all over the place, and some have access to dangerous weapons. The guards have given up and all stand outside. It’s really quite sad.

Huge hacking chunks of love, Paxton.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 10:54 am and is filed under Forensic Analysis, H, Horror, shellshear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.