Leif's log

(NOTE: This is a sequel to "The Skunk". I suggest you read that first.)

Hello, My name is Leif

After hearing all of these stories about the "skunk virus" spread around on the internet. I thought I would add my story, to help set the record straight.

I worked at HR publishing during the few years before the incident happened. Danny didn't mention me in his interview with Brad, yet again, most people don't as all of the shit I do for that asshole Ron goes on unappreciated.

In Danny's story, he did mention somebody named "Rottenbaugh", from his last name Rodbaugh. His real name was Ron and that is what he prefers to be called. I will be calling him that for the sake of this story, because in the event that this gets leaked, I don't want to get fired.

Danny was actually pretty accurate in describing Ron's behavior. He was an 80 year old fart who constantly acted like a douche to everybody. He would bark at us while we did all of the work. Needless to say he was pretty unpopular.

He was particularly mean to this one girl named "Chelsea". Here's the thing about being female in this company. If you aren't hot, Rod will treat you like shit. Which is a shame, because Chelsea was actually a really nice girl. Her and I would run out for coffee and donuts on break, and more importantly vent all of our work related frustrations to each other. Spending time with her was great. I would go as far as to say I had somewhat of a crush on her.

Chelsea joined the company roughly a year ago. She says that she wanted to be a writer, and figured that by joining a publishing company, she would be able to do so. But unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Rod had her doing menial shit like sorting paperwork and cleaning the restrooms. Rod kept telling her that she had to earn the ability to become a writer, meanwhile all of the male writers were hired instantly.

While on break, Chelsea would show me some of the stuff she writes in her free time, and she is actually pretty talented. She goes on about how the world doesn't give her the opportunity to express her creativity, and how frustrating it is.

Specifically, she always told me about some website called "The creepypasta wiki" and how she was frustrated that all of her pastas kept getting deleted. I don't know much about the creepypasta wiki, having only visited several times. What I can tell you is this. The thing is run by these hot shots known as "admins". These people are the sole deciders of whether a pasta is good or bad. If a few people don't like your pasta, they can shit-can it at will, and there's not much you can do about it. Not necessarily a democratic system, but it's not the only place on the internet to upload creepypastas, so I'm not too worked up about it.

Chelsea did always say one thing that was kind of disturbing. She told me  "someday these tasteless hacks will pay, I'll find a way to make sure that happens"

Now, back to Rod. I was his "assistant manager" which sounds like a prestigious title, but it basically meant that I was Ron's bitch. Whether it was that the printing machines were out of ink, or the coffee machine was out of beans, I was there to remedy the situation, and never even heard "please" or "thank you" once.

I'm typing this from the new Miami office. Why is HR publishing in Miami instead of Serasoda now. Well, that brings me to my personal encounter with the skunk virus.

You know how Ron never appreciates how I bust my back for him, well this little event is the epitome of that. So this new worthless blonde chick gets hired, she can't tell a photocopier from the hole in her ass. But since Ron has the hots for her, she gets the office directly across the hall from his, which just so happened to be mine. Where was I moved you asked. Well, there was an extra room in the basement, and Ron decided that I could have that.

The basement was cold, dimly lit, and smelled like old shoe polish. My new office was directly between the HVAC room, which sounded like a 747 taking off, and the mainframe room, which had enough flashing lights to give a nightclub a seizure. The only light that came in was a small 60 watt bulb in one corner, and a tiny window in the other corner. Wasn't exactly ideal working conditions, but I had to make it work, or join the unemployment line.

Now, you've probably heard about this whole skunk virus. This came into public light during the whole incident in 2005. I'm sure you've at least heard of the strange demonic book that came out of that, if not having seen it personally. In the original story, the skunk was supposed to feel bad about spraying the fox. And the skunk apologized to him. It was supposed to teach kids that "revenge is wrong" or some bullock like that. Lame, I know, But to a five or six year old, it was fucking Shakespeare.

The process of publishing a book basically goes like this. The writers come up with an idea, and write a rough draft, then it is sent to editing. The people at editing review it, clean up any grammatical issues, then send it to publishing. At publishing, the book is given one final review, then they hit "print" and the files are sent to the machines. The reason I bring this up is because there are many points of intervention along the chain where somebody could have seen the changes and put a stop to it. The people in the final editing stage did not report anything strange with the book before hitting print. Which means the file was tampered with somewhere between the computer in the editing room and the printing machines. In other words, whoever made this virus knew what they were doing.

While this virus may be something fun for people to tell stories about, I had an encounter with it that was a bit more personal.

One day as I was filling out some financial information in the computer, when I began to notice some strange things occurring. The typical rave of flashing lights from the server room turned to a constant red flash. I walked down the hall, toward the server room. As I approached it, I could feel the air around me getting hotter and hotter. By the time I reached the server room it felt like a full on sauna. All of the indicator lights were flashing red. I thought nothing of it at first.

I walked back to my office and continued to fill out the financial information. I noticed a strange smell, it was a very faint smell at first, you could just barley tell it was there. It sort of smelled like melting plastic. As time went on however, the smell grew, and eventually filled the room. It was getting to the point to where I was about to vomit. I just wanted to get this financial bullshit done with so I could get out of there. I tried to back the information up to the main server, but then my computer got an error message saying "Network is unavailable" followed by a violent crash, and then a creepy ass picture of a demonic skunk with huge eyes and the words "smell something, Leif? After that it just blue screened.

I was about to go upstairs and tell Ron what happened, when all of the sudden the room fills with smoke. I quickly ran out of that office and into the hallway. I could barley keep my eyes open because of all the smoke. I looked down at the server room and saw a bright orange haze. Holy shit!, I screamed. I ran upstairs as fast as I could and ran straight to Ron's office.

"Ron, we need to get out of here, now! It's an emergency"

Ron thought I was kidding and told me to get back to work.

"No, I'm serious, There is a fucking fire, I saw it with my own eyes"

Ron still wouldn't take me seriously. So I grabbed his office chair and pushed him frantically into the hallway. Ron may have been an old jerk. But he still didn't deserve to die in some kind of weird computer fire.

Ron began to smell the smoke, he tried to pull the fire alarm, but something was keeping it from activating. Maybe somebody tampered with the wires, I don't know. All I knew was we had to get out of the building fast.

Everyone began to smell the smoke and made for the exit. I pushed Ron's old fat ass out that door, and not a moment too soon because just as we made it to the parking lot, the place was engulfed in flames.

I had no idea what could have possibly happened, until Danny's original story became widespread. Danny's story was interesting. But I think there was more to it.

I do believe that Danny had made the skunk virus. He had decent coding skills, and a bone to pick with Rod. I also believed that Danny's intention in creating the skunk virus was to turn things demonic.

What I can't buy however is  that Danny included something that would disable a cooling system in a virus. After all of the torment that Danny went through in high school, I doubt that he would want to bring that upon somebody else.

The police and fire department did an investigation to find the cause of the fire, and it was revealed that it was a failure in the mainframe's cooling system. This had to have had something to do with the skunk virus, because this happened a mere week after the whole book misprint fiasco. Combined with that creepy skunk picture that came up on my computer and we have something that is far more than coincidence.

I have a theory. Somebody other than Danny must have gotten their hands on the virus. But who could that have possibly been. Danny was the only one who even knew it existed up until the misprint fiasco.

Unless...

Well I do remember something, maybe a bit of evidence that could lead me in the right direction. The morning before the fire happened I was working on some shit in my office, when I looked out into the hall, and I caught a glimpse of something strange walking past my office. It was a large black and white fuzzy thing. I looked out into the hall and was able to recognize it as a person in a skunk costume. I saw it walk into the server room, holding a flash drive. This could be our culprit.

(Yes, there will be a third one)