The front door clicked shut behind Chris, the sound a dull thud in the quiet house. The plastic grocery bag from Kroger's, with the bread, coffee filters, and salsa, hung on his fingers. He walked through the living room, past the couch where Pete was engrossed in a fishing show, and down the hall to his bedroom.
He didn't put the groceries away. He didn't even set them down gently. He dropped them on the floor with a crinkling thud, their contents forgotten the instant they left his hands. The adrenaline from the encounter at the grocery store was still coursing through him, a hot, electric current of pure, unadulterated power. He had faced a Level 35 Politician, practically a raid boss, and had walked away with a piece of legendary loot: a secret.
The knowledge of the Minuteman Musket Heist of '98 felt like a charged weapon in his mind, a glowing epic-quality item in his mental inventory. It hummed with a potent, chaotic energy. He was itching to pull the trigger.
He sank into his gaming chair, the worn leather creaking a familiar welcome. This was his sanctuary, his command center. For years, he had used this seat to command armies, slay dragons, and conquer galaxies. Now, he was about to use it to conquer something far more terrifying and exhilarating: local politics.
He swiveled to face his computer, his fingers finding the keyboard with an unconscious grace. His eyes, illuminated by the glow of his primary monitor, were bright with a mischievous light. He opened a private browser window, the dark theme of the browser a fitting backdrop for the clandestine work he was about to undertake. The time for observation was over. It was time for action.
First, he needed a ghost. A phantom. An untraceable online persona designed to look like just another bored, slightly opinionated local resident. He navigated to the Facebook homepage and clicked "Create New Account." The fields mocked him with their blankness. First Name. Last Name. He needed something plausible, something that screamed "West Virginia." He cycled through a few ideas. Patriot_Fan1776? Too aggressive. CoalMinerSteve? Too specific.
Then it came to him, a perfect blend of local high school spirit and shadowy mystique. First Name: Bucky. Last Name: Watcher. Bucky, for the Buckhannon-Upshur Buccaneers, the high school that Mayor Bob himself had attended. Watcher, for what he was about to do.
Next, the profile picture. He typed "West Virginia deer" into an image search. He needed something that wasn't professionally shot, something that looked like it could have been snapped on a cheap phone by someone on a hike. He scrolled past a dozen crisp, high-resolution photos until he found the perfect one: a slightly blurry, low-resolution picture of a white-tailed deer standing in a sun-dappled forest. It was generic, forgettable, and utterly plausible. He saved the image and uploaded it. The deer's vacant, glassy-eyed stare became the face of his new identity.
The "About" section, the personal details, the work history—he left it all completely blank. Bucky Watcher was a man of mystery. He had no past, no job, no listed interests other than, presumably, watching.
With the profile created, he navigated to his target. He typed "Upshur County Community Forum" into the search bar. The page appeared instantly. Its banner was a grainy photo of the county courthouse. The public feed was a familiar tapestry of small-town life: a frantic post about a lost orange cat named Chester, a blurry photo of a pothole on Route 33 with the caption "FIX OUR ROADS!!!", and an announcement for a bake sale at the local Methodist church. This was the digital town square.
He clicked the "Join Group" button. A pop-up informed him that a group moderator had to approve his request. The wait was excruciating. He was a digital operative, armed with a social grenade, and he was stuck waiting for the all-clear from someone who was probably named Carol and spent her evenings moderating the forum while watching reruns of NCIS.
For an agonizing ten minutes, he waited. He refreshed the page every thirty seconds, his leg bouncing with a nervous energy. He checked his phone. He opened a new tab and scrolled through a gaming news site without reading a single word. His mind was entirely focused on the forum.
Finally, a small red notification appeared on the globe icon at the top of the Facebook page. His heart leaped. He clicked it.
"Your request to join Upshur County Community Forum has been approved."
He was in!
He took a deep breath, cracked his knuckles, and opened a new post window. The blinking cursor on the blank white space felt immense with potential, a single point of light capable of starting a fire. He had to get the wording exactly right.
A direct accusation like, "Mayor Bob Thompson stole the Lewis County musket in 1998!" would be too aggressive. It would sound like a lunatic, a political attack that could be easily dismissed and deleted by the mods. No, the key was subtlety. Plausible deniability. He had to make it sound like a piece of half-remembered gossip, an innocent question posed to the community. He was just this guy, thinking out loud.
He began to type.
Draft 1: I heard a rumor that our own Mayor Thompson was the one who stole the Minuteman musket back in the 90s. Anyone know if that's true?
Too direct. It put the Mayor's name right at the forefront.
Draft 2: Does anyone remember the musket heist of 98? I think someone who is now in local government was responsible.
Better, but still a little too on-the-nose. "Local government" was too small a pool.
He leaned back, staring at the screen. He had to plant a seed, not drop a bomb. He needed to connect the dots without drawing the lines himself. He put himself in the mind of Bucky Watcher, a just a simple guy reminiscing. He began to type again, the words flowing with a newfound clarity.
"Just thinking about old high school rivalries while unpacking groceries. Does anyone else remember when the musket from the Minuteman statue at Lewis County High went missing back in '98, right before the big rivalry game? Wild times. Funny how some people from the Buckhannon-Upshur class of '98 get into politics after pulling pranks like that."
He read it over. It was perfect. The mention of "unpacking groceries" made it feel spontaneous, a thought that had just occurred to him. The question was posed to the community, inviting engagement. And the final line... the final line was a work of art. It didn't name Mayor Bob directly. It just mentioned his graduating class and his current profession. It let the reader make the connection themselves.
For the finishing touch, he added the hashtags. A masterpiece of misdirection and plausible deniability.
#Throwback #UnsolvedMysteries #BuckyPride
The #BuckyPride was the chef's kiss. It framed the entire post not as an accusation, but as a nostalgic celebration of a legendary high school prank. He was just a proud Buccaneer, reminiscing about the glory days.
His finger hovered over the mouse, the arrow of the cursor poised on the bright blue "Post" button. A tremor of hesitation, of nervousness, ran through him. This was a significant step. The Nudge in the grocery store had been subtle, untraceable. This was public. This was poking a Level 35 bear with a very large, very digital stick. The post would be out there forever, a permanent record of his meddling.
Then, a vivid image flashed in his mind: Mayor Bob's smug, condescending face, his voice booming across the checkout aisle. He saw the mortified, teary-eyed expression on Jessica the cashier's face. This wasn't just a prank. This was a blow against the pompous, the entitled, the bullies of the world. This was for all the times people that had to stand by and say nothing, their voices too small to be heard.
His resolve hardened. With a final, decisive click, he sent the post live.
The grenade had been tossed.
For a full, agonizing minute, the post just sat there. A lonely island of text in a sea of Chester-the-cat updates. It had zero likes, zero comments, zero shares.
Chris's stomach tightened into a cold, hard knot of anxiety. Did he miscalculate? Was the reference too obscure? It had been over twenty-five years, after all. Maybe no one cared. Maybe he had just screamed into the void, and the void hadn't even bothered to look up. He felt a familiar flush of shame. Of course it didn't work. He was an idiot.
Then, it happened. A notification popped up in the corner of his screen.
"Brenda G. liked your post."
Chris sat up straighter. Brenda G. He knew that name. Everyone in Upshur County knew that name. Brenda was a sweet, sixty-something grandmother who commented on nearly every post in the forum. She was also the central node of the local gossip network, a human switchboard whose informational reach rivaled the CIA's. If Brenda saw it, the entire town would know about it by lunchtime.
A moment later, the first comment appeared. It was from a user named Tim M.
"Wait what is this about? Who are you talking about? LOL."
Another notification. This one from a Debbie P.
"OMG I remember that! My uncle still talks about the missing musket! The Minutemen were SO mad! They never found out who did it!"
The fuse had been lit. The ripples were spreading.
And then the ripples turned into a wave, and the wave turned into a digital tsunami. The post was shared once by Debbie P., then five times, then twenty. People started tagging their friends, anyone who had graduated from Buckhannon-Upshur in the late 90s.
"@FrankRizzo wasn't this your class??"
"@JennyLutz you remember this???"
An argument erupted in the comments. A user with a Buccaneer helmet as his profile picture wrote, "Whoever did it is a LEGEND. Best prank in BU history." This was immediately followed by a reply from someone with a Lewis County profile frame: "It was vandalism, not a prank. Typical classless move from Buckhannon." The old rivalry, dormant for years, flared back to life in the comments section.
Someone posted a grainy, scanned photo from an old yearbook, showing the Minuteman statue with its hands empty, a forlorn, weaponless sentinel. The post exploded. Within the hour, it had over a hundred likes and dozens of frantic, speculative comments.
And then, the moment Chris knew he had truly won. A meme appeared. Someone had taken Mayor Thompson's official campaign photo—the one with him smiling benevolently in front of an American flag—and had added a caption in bold, white Impact font.
"WILL SERVE THE PEOPLE... AND STEAL THEIR MUSKETS."
Chris leaned back in his gaming chair, a loud, delighted laugh escaping his lips. His phone, sitting on the desk beside him, began to buzz nonstop, a constant vibration of Facebook notifications. He didn't check it. He just watched the chaos unfold on his monitor, a digital storm of his own creation. He had thrown a single, well-aimed stone, and now a hornet's nest was erupting. The troll had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.