The End..?

We left Jim's house as fast as we could and once safely out of hearing distance I said what we were both thinking.
"So, Albert's fine. He's hiding in a cabin. It was mere coincidence we got a card and did all this investigation..."
"Not to mention the fact that it scared us half to death! What were we thinking? Ghost stories and communist communities! We live in Morgantown, for goodness sakes!"
Amy and I entered our apartment laughing at how silly we had been. Although Albert Lee had turned out to be just a lame old guy paranoid from his experiences in the 70s, we'd never forget him, or his mysteriousness.

We Learn the Truth...Sort of

"James Monroe, though I assume you already suspected that." said the man in the bathrobe.
"H-Hi," I managed to stammer. "I'm Jen and this is Amy, where did you get that card from?"
"I found it in my mailbox. Look, if you found me then I assume you've done some research, but if you want to know what really happened to Albert come inside. It's not safe out here."
Obviously James Monroe hadn't quite gotten over his days as a convicted terrorist. Though acquitted two years after he entered, the time Monroe spent in prison seemed to make him pretty paranoid.
"Do you get these cards often, Mr. Monroe?" I asked meekly.
"Please, call me Jim. I get one every year about this time. It's been a few years since that old loon messed up and dropped one somewhere else though." Jim noticed our blank stares and continued to explain himself.
"You see, Albert Lee didn't die, he didn't even disappear necessarily. He lives in a cabin about thirty miles away. After the fire..." Again, the blank stares caught him off guard. "You guys didn't find out about the fire! Well, maybe I overestimated your investigative skills. There was a fire at Albert's house. Some say it was foul play on the part of the community. They didn't like him, thought he was a communist you see. And on the account that those losers at the fire department took a good thirty minutes to get to his house only a few blocks away-well it starts rumors. But Albert was smart. He got out before the fire got bad. After that he knew that it was time to flee."
"But who started the fire? What do the cards have to do with anything?" Amy interjected.
"Whoa, slow down little lady. I'm still not sure who started the fire. But my guess is the government, trying to smoke out the reds any way they can, ya dig? As for the cards, good ol' Al sends me one every year letting me know he needs supplies. He must've dropped one on his way."

Coming Home

"Well," I said to Amy as we made our way back home,"At least we figured out who he was, even if we can't find him."
She just stared at me, still creeped out from our trip to the cemetery. We approached our apartment slowly and I noticed something strange in the parking lot. Amy's car was covered in small, white cards. They were coming from every direction, swirling around the parking lot and landing in her car, completely covering it. I picked one up and the all too familiar phrase was written on it.
"I don't understand!" I yelled. "We found out who he was, what happened to him, where he's buried. What more do we have to do!?"
As the last word came out of my mouth one single card came to a halt in my hand. Amy approached me cautiously as I turned over the card to read the inscription:

"You Found Me.
Thanks,
Albert Lee"

View Larger Map

The Cemetary Plot

All signs were pointing to the murder of Albert Lee, or at least the burning of his house. No wonder he "disappeared". Either the community killed him and covered it up, or his house burnt down and Albert saw no point in sticking around. The article sure made it seem more sinister than that though.
"Amy, we have to go to the cemetery." I said "I think Albert's there, I can feel it. He'll be under a different name of course..."
"Jen. Listen to yourself. Are you honestly saying we should go find some guys plot in the cemetery? And what if we find something? Does that mean we have a ghost!?"
I just looked at her and started out the door. Amy soon followed. We had come too far not to figure out who Albert Lee was and what happened to him. Last year we had lived right down the block from the cemetery closest to South Park. That's where we figured an angry mob might bury their victim.
As we approached the cemetery I could feel myself tensing up. We pushed open the gate and began scanning the stones for anyone with the name of Albert, or the correct date. After what seemed like hours I heard a cry from the end of the row I was currently looking at. I ran towards Amy as she sat on the ground staring forward and pointing.
"It-it-it's him." she said.
Sure enough, there he was. Albert L, January 28th, 1978. That was it, two lines on a moss covered stone.

At the Bolshevik's House

I told Amy to meet me at the corner of Walnut Street and Cobun, right down the block from James Monroe's old house. The area now is a mix of old one family houses and houses converted for college living, but we noticed something odd as we approached Monroe's house. It was one of those houses in South Park that you didn't really notice when you passed by. It was falling over and looked condemned, but yet lived in; however, that really isn't that strange in Morgantown. The weird part was the fact that this house sat farther back on its lot than the houses around it, it was almost hidden by the other houses. We cautiously approached the front door and as we did so the door swung open. There in front of us stood a man with graying hair in a plaid bathrobe.
"So, you got a card too?" he said as he held up a white business card with those all too familiar words.

James Monroe

It became clear through our research that Albert Lee may have stopped working at WVU because they thought he was a communist. In that era it was common for someone with liberal or anti-establishment views to be seen as a threat, or as "red" and it looked like ultra-liberal Philosophy professor Albert was a prime suspect. His philosophical human reaction tracking projects (i.e. the business card) didn't help his image either.
I went to the Morgantown Library on Spruce Street to do some research on other supposed red activity in Morgantown in the 70s and one name kept coming up, time and again: James Monroe. James Monroe was convicted in 1979 for terrorist activity, but before that, on January 27th, 1978 Monroe supposedly held a Bolshevik gathering at his home. In attendance at this gathering was none other than Albert Lee. The next day he was missing. Whatever really happened at Monroe's house would most likely lead us to the end of the Albert Lee mystery.
I wrote down the address of Monroe's last residence and packed up my bag. Turned out he didn't live far from the library, or from my apartment.

The Fire

Back in our apartment, Amy had made it clear she was done with the search for Albert Lee, but I had one more thing on my mind. What if Albert Lee hadn't completely disappeared, but had only changed his name or something? It seemed weird that someone could just leave and never be heard from again. More over, it seemed weird that his crazy neighbor still held such animosity towards him. I decided to conduct another search for Albert, but I left out the Lee. It was possible he just changed his name, wasn't it? I filtered the search results to include Morgantown and the correct dates, even his supposed Bolshevik connections until finally I found something. On January 28th, 1978 there was a fire in South Park. The details had been lost throughout the decades through, what the article referred to as "suspicious behavior", but the location and date of the fire was known. A house on 715 Par Street had been lost, but no casualties reported.
"715 Par Street?" I thought, "There is no Par Street in South Park."
"Amy!" I called out and Amy came walking into the room.
"What is it? Jen, are you still researching Albert? I thought we were going to give it a rest? It's a joke, or something I don't want any part in or something...."
"I know, but look at this!" I showed Amy the article and she gasped.
"Jen, could that possibly be Park Street? "
"I was thinking the same thing."

Albert's Neighbor

Suddenly the door of 713 Park Street creaked open and a woman, hunched over and wearing a sweater set, emerged. Amy and I tried to look casual, like we were just strolling along, but the woman didn't buy it.
"You there!" she yelled at us, "What are you doing? I've been watching you wander up and down my street for 20 minutes now and I want answers!"
"I'm sorry ma'am," I said to her. "We were just looking for something." I eyed the woman precariously. She was of a significant age, definitely old enough to have lived on Park Street in the 70s, so I decided to venture forth.
"You wouldn't happen to know anything about a 715 Park Street would you? We noticed there isn't one."
"You have no business asking about that nonsense. Back in my day we took care of problems head on and we took care of everything. If there was evil in the house we not only got rid of the evil but the house itself!" The woman was screaming now, waving her hands in outrageous motions and slowly coming towards us.
"Ok! Well, thank you. We have to go!" Amy interjected as she grabbed my arm and begin pulling me down the street.
"Amy! She could've helped us!"
"Helped us? She's obviously crazy. Even worse, if she's not crazy and she's telling the truth...I think it's time to put this Albert nonsense aside. It's obviously not something we should be trying to dig up."
"Did you say Albert?" The old woman was behind us now, literally inches from where we were standing. "There is no Albert, and if you know what's best for you you'll forget you ever heard the name Albert Lee."

We Search in Vain

We were confused. If Albert Lee had been missing since 1978 where were the cards coming from? And why had we never heard of anyone getting a card before? It seemed like somebody would have started some kind of ghost story rumor, or something about Albert Lee and his mysterious cards. We decided that the first place to check would be Albert Lee's house where he had lived during his time at WVU and the last place he was known to have been. Amy and I walked through the streets of South Park looking for the address we had found on the Internet, but we just couldn't find it. 715 Park Street didn't seem to exist. In fact it seemed to have been skipped altogether. We walked up and down Park Street; 711, 713, and 717 were all we saw. In between 714 and 716 was only a grassy hill, barely big enough for a driveway let alone a house.
"Maybe the site was wrong...?" Amy asked me as we stood, once again, in front of the spot where Albert's house should have stood.
"Maybe." I replied. "But, doesn't it seem strange that there is no 715? Almost like it had been here and it just..."
"Disappeared?" Amy finished. We both stared into the grassy hill wondering if maybe Albert Lee's disappearance was more of a mystery than we could imagine.

And Then What...?

"Well, maybe it was just your imagination?" I replied. I told Amy I would walk home and we could investigate this mysterious shadow together. She opted to stay in the apartment until I arrived.
When I got home I pulled Amy out of the apartment to show me exactly what had happened. She was obviously spooked, but I just couldn't figure out why. She showed me that when she was about to get in her car a shadow appeared on the passenger side. It was shaped like a man, but in the quick glance she got of him Amy couldn't be sure if it was a real man or not. I walked to the passenger side of her car and noticed a small piece of paper, much like a business card lodged between her tire and the gravel. I picked it up and on the reverse side were only the words:
"Albert Lee can you find me?"

The Disappearance of Albert Lee

I decided to conduct one more internet search for Albert Lee before we hit the streets. I typed Albert Lee and the date into the search box and only two replies came up. They both referenced the Professor Albert Lee and his mysterious project that he conducted at WVU when he was here. Basically, being a Philosophy professor, Albert was interested in the inner workings of the mind when left to its own devices so he developed an experiment where he left his business card next to someone and then tracked their reaction to it. The project was extremely risky in a time where people were still being labeled as communists because of the Cold War. Someone like Albert who was tracking and following people, was treading on dangerous ground.
Albert Lee fought the university and his peers for ten years while at WVU until one day, January 28th, 1978 exactly ten years after he began teaching, Albert just didn't show up for work.
Students of Albert's flocked to his residence in search of their beloved professor, but the house was empty. Police and residents figured Albert had fled, perhaps he had been a communist all along, but no evidence was ever found. No one ever heard from Albert again, except that since 1978 it is said that occasionally business cards were found with only the words,
"Albert Lee, can you find me?"

The History of Albert Lee

Being the savvy internet users that we are, Amy and I set off on our computers to find out everything we could about Albert Lee the mysterious character that had entered our lives. We searched Morgantown records and databases until we got a break! Turned out that Albert Lee was a professor that taught at WVU back in the 1960s and he lived right in our neighborhood, historic South Park. We even found the address of his house when he was a professor! Oh the wonders of the Internet, eh?
Unfortunately, there were no records of Albert since the late 70s, but we decided to hit the streets manually and search for traces of Albert ourselves. We figured out that Albert was 27 when he began teaching in the Philosophy department at WVU. The first records of him were from January 28th 1968 and the last from the same date, but in 1978.
"Well that's really weird, isn't it?" I asked Amy. "That he started and went missing on the same day, just ten years apart."
Amy was quiet, so I glanced over at her. Her face was as white as a sheet as she stared at me.
"Jen," she said, "Today is January 28th, 2008. It is forty years since he started teaching, and thirty years since he went missing."
I checked the calendar and sure enough, she was right.


*Now it is your turn to control the story. Which way do you want to go?*
storyline 1
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The Business Card

"Amy," I call out to her, "Do you know anyone named Albert Lee?"
"No, why who is he?"
I showed Amy the card and she looked up at me quizzically.
"What can that mean?" she screamed.
"Someone is probably just trying to play some kind of joke on us." I said, trying to calm her down. After all, we do live right next door to the high school and there are always teenagers around playing tricks and being rambunctious.
We took the card inside and laid it on the kitchen counter, not quite ready to just toss it in the trash. I headed into my room with my backpack and took out my books, deciding to get an early start on some homework. After a while I fell asleep and awoke to my American Literature book plastered to my face. I rolled over towards my nightstand and screamed.
"What, what is it!?" Amy yelled as she came running into my room.
"Did you put this in here?!" I yelled back as I handed her the Albert Lee card which had been precariously placed on my nightstand.
"What, no! I haven't touched it, I wouldn't touch it!"
We both stared at the card in my hands for a minute and then I threw it down to the floor.
"That is it." I said, "Something weird is going on here. Maybe we should try and figure out who this Albert Lee character is and get back at him."
So, Amy and I set forth on our search for Albert Lee.

The Mystery Begins

I stood waiting in the Stansbury parking lot waiting for my roommate, Amy, to pick me up like she was supposed to. She is not the kind of person who is usually on time so I didn't worry when a few minutes went by. After five minutes my cell began vibrating in my pocket and I looked down at the screen. "Amy Calling" I read and think to myself, surely she must be on her way.
"Hey, where are you?" I answer.
"Well, I'm still at the apartment." she responds. I start walking through the parking lot towards home. I know she's not coming now.
"See something happened," Amy begins, "I was walking to my car in the parking lot and I saw this man. Well, it was more like a shadow of a man."
She sounded really freaked out, but I couldn't figure out why. Amy was always a little easily spooked. Over the summer when I wasn't in the apartment she tied a bell to my bedroom door in case any lurkers tried to come through it! But a shadow of a man didn't seem like something she would be scared of.
"A shadow?" I asked, "Well, what happened next? There has to be something else if a shadow scared you back into the house!"
"I know it sounds crazy, ok? But, it was just weird the way he...it stood there. Real, but not real."