The journey that you are about to embark combines the thrill of a scavenger hunt with a whimsical serial starring YOU, dear reader. You have been tasked with guiding Dr. Jenkins Jeepers around campus to capture a pesky spirit. Follow along from the comfort of your own bed or travel to each location to be fully immersed in the story. At the end of each installment, there will be a riddle. The answer will be your passcode to continue to the next clue. For future reference, passwords have no spaces, are all lowercase and do not contain “the.” Good luck and have fun with The Maneater’s first interactive online scavenger hunt!
As you step into a complex of offices in downtown Columbia, the receptionist sitting at the front desk nods a cordial “Hello.” You briefly show her an ad you saw in one of the local newspapers and she directs you to the elevator. On the advertisement, the number 1300-01 is written in a fancy script font and underneath is the name Dr. Jenkins Jeepers, Paranormal Expert and Exorcist.
The elevator dings once you step inside and the doors close as you press the button that leads to the 13th floor. A shiver travels down your spine, but you lean up against the back wall and wait for the elevator to take you to your destination.
The floor has a dingy carpet and smells faintly of rotten wood and a tinge of alcohol. You shudder again, but press forward. Unfortunately for you, the elevator took you up to the very end of the hall. 1300-01 is all the way on the other side from where you arrived.
Once you reach 1300-01, you read the chipped plaque off to the side. Yep, this is the room all right. You take a deep breath and attempt to knock on the door, but it swings open on its own.
Sitting at the little desk in the corner is a man slightly older than your father, with salt-and-pepper hair and thin, wiry glasses that have slipped just a tad too far down his bridged nose. He is fiddling with his scraggly white beard and flipping through numerous documents and case files scattered around his workspace.
You clear your throat and the man looks up, bewildered. He almost knocks down a bottle of cognac with his elbow as he swivels his rolling chair around to get a better look at you; that explains the alcohol smell in the hallway, you think.
“Ah, hello,” the man says. He catches a glimpse of the paper in your hand and straightens up in his chair, setting the bottle off to the side. “You must be a student from the university — if you’re holding my advertisement there. My name is Dr. Jenkins Jeepers. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
You nod, and Dr. Jeepers smiles in satisfaction.
“Wonderful,” he continues. “You may call me Jenn, if you wish. I presume you’ve read up on the situation at hand? About the ghost that’s been haunting your campus?”
You nod again.
“Good, good. I would like your assistance in finding the bright green ectoplasm riddles the ghost has been leaving so I can find it. The cheeky bugger left one at my doorstep just a few days ago that I thought hinted to one of the university’s famous landmarks, but I admittedly don’t know my way around very well. Putting that ad in the paper was a good idea, I think, seeing as it landed in your capable hands.”
You tilt your head to the side, confused. You have no experience with hunting ghosts, and if you do, it probably isn’t much — maybe just a few glowing spots in pictures from when you were a child or a stuffed animal caught moving on tape without assistance. But nothing like this.
The doctor offers you a chair, and you take it graciously, sitting and looking over his shoulder. He takes a photograph out of the case file belonging to this specific specter and sets it down on the desk so you can see it a little bit easier. The photograph is blurry and dark, but bright white letters — presumably the glowing green ectoplasm the doctor mentioned — show up right in the middle of it:
“Destroyed by the light of a flickering flameIt rose from the ashes strong, but the sameWhich side is its back? Which is the front?Perhaps its large dome will aid in your hunt.”
“This is the riddle I was confronted with the other day,” Dr. Jeepers says. “Do you think you know where this location is?”
You think for a few moments, reading the riddle another few times, but soon you nod and stand up from the chair.
Dr. Jeepers smiles. “Lead the way then, my friend.”
Edited by Ever Cole | ecole@themaneater.comCopy edited by Emily Rutledge