Alan Wake

Episode 3.1: Trap

Previously on Alan Wake...

Alice has been kidnapped. I can't tell anyone except for my agent, Barry. The ransom is a manuscript I supposedly wrote, that's coming true before my eyes. I have found only a few scattered pages. The deadline is in two days.

Episode Three: Ransom

"How the hell did she get her hands on the manuscript, anyway?" I asked Barry, closing the car doors while the breeze brushed me lightly on y clothes. I was still doubtful about her.

"I don't know. She's resourceful!" Barry replied. "I told you, you were too hard on her. Listen, I found out all sorts of interesting stuff while I was digging around..." The phone rang and I raised my hand to tell him to pause for a moment while I picked up the call.

"Yeah?" I inquired.

"Mr. Wake? It's Sheriff Breaker," she greeted. "We have an FBI agent here, Agent Nightingale,"

"FBI?" I asked, hoping that I was not hearing things wrongly.

"He's... anxious to see you. You'd better come to the station," Breaker continued.

"Okay, I'll be right over Sheriff," I agreed as the wooden gates opened for us. Next, I turned to Barry. "Let's make this quick, huh?" The wooden gates creaked behind me as I walked into the area.

The area was full of houses scattered around. They were small in size but at least, people had somewhere to live.

"Help you, folks? Name's Randolph, I'm the manager," he introduced himself to us. He had a belly sticking out and was bald. Probably in his 30s.

"We're looking for Rose," I requested. "She works as a waitress down at the diner,"

"Rose. Sure. Nice girl," he replied, waving his hands. "Who wants to know?"

"I'm Alan Wake," I introduced.

"The writer, huh?" he spoke with slight enthusiasm. "I heard on the radio you were visiting. Well, I'll show you her trailer. That Rose, she's a nice girl. Always pays her rent on time," With that, he walked with a limp. I walked with him, staying behind him.

"As I was saying, Al," Barry continued from where I stopped him, speaking frantically. "I found all sorts of weird stuff from the newspaper archives. This place is crazy! Disappearances, mysterious deaths, urban legends come true... and get this, most of this stuff takes place around Cauldron Lake,"

“Well, you ain't wrong, mister. The Indians thought the lake was a doorway to the underworld," Randolph added. "I'm the god-fearing type myself. I don't hold with that sort of thing,"

"Yeah, okay..." Barry agreed with him with a hint of impatience escaping from his mouth. "Anyway, there was an island there, owned by a guy called Thomas Zane. Now, some of the articles I found about him make him out to be a famous writer. But I ran a bunch of searches, couldn't find a single thing he wrote. Zane was heavily into diving, so much so that the place came to be called Diver's Isle. But the volcano under the lake erupted in 1970 and Zane went down with the island." 

A moment of silence hung in the air while Randolph walked to another wooden gate that was at waist-level. He unlocked the gate and it creaked softly when he pushed it open.

"It gets better: a local girl, Barbara Jagger, drowned in Cauldron Lake just a week earlier. They were lovers," Barry filled me in, continuing from where he stopped.

"Sure, Jagger's a local spook story: 'The Scratching Hag'!" he replied. "Comes for you in the dark. Childish stuff like that,"

"Anyway, Al, I'm just getting to the best part: All the articles about this stuff were written by Cynthia Weaver," Barry told me. "I asked around and she's that crazy bag lady you met--"