"MISKATONIC OPENS NEW ART GALLERY: Miskatonic University has unveiled their new Thurber Exhibit, which is now open for admission to all the public. The Thurber Exhibit celebrates the life of the late Darcy Byron Thurber, a local resident whose stunning oil-on-canvas paintings have been described as 'an entirely new genre' by one baffled critic." – Arkham Advertiser, October 2014

"You wanna tell me why you called me up at 8:00 in the morning on a Saturday for a jumper Leroy?"

The chilled New England air was billowing over the Bolton Trestle, kicking up Roy Denton's overcoat in a fluid display of cheap discount store cotton. Rain was falling from the bleak grey sky overhead, reminding Roy of the opening lines to Gibson's Neuromancer. One hand clutched a generic black umbrella, while the other held his cheap coat to his chest to keep his tie from blowing in the wind. A discarded newspaper blew from a few feet away and attached itself to Roy's knee. He kicked it away with a dispassionate twitch. He was too tired to even notice it at first. His pale green eyes were hidden behind a film of what Roy, even in his adulthood, called "sleepy shit", not that anyone could notice because he barely had them open. His hair was a clumsy mess of unmade brown. It rolled over his ears and fell nearly to the top of his neck. He wasn't a big fan of self-grooming. That asshole Leroy is gonna pay for this, he thought to himself. Everyone in the Arkham PD knew that Roy regressed to the most basic biological habits on the weekend: eating, sleeping, and crapping.

To top it off they brought him to the scene of some suicide, of all things. Crimes were relatively sparse in Arkham, aside from its unusually high number of missing persons reports, but even so it was beyond him as to why everyone would get so damn excited about a jumper. Not like they should be surprised. The Bolton Trestle had been the scene of all of Arkham's suicides over the last 30 years. It was the Miskatonic region's own little slice of the Golden Gate. No one should care about this one, unless-

"His dad's Chief Doe, otherwise known as your boss," replied Leroy, as if on cue.

Roy put the umbrella into the trunk of the car, which was parked on the edge of the Trestle, and followed Leroy down to the bank of the Miskatonic some seventy feet below. It wasn't a particularly high jump, but the nasty bed of rocks immediately below it ensured a quick (if not exactly painless) death. The path down was steep and treacherous, and much harder to traverse in Roy's dress shoes. He saw that Leroy had already changed into a pair of sturdy work boots, indicating that he must have been out here for a while. Guess I can't complain about the wakeup call, Roy thought.

"What's the kid's name Leroy," Roy said as he made his way down with one arm balancing himself on a tree branch. "I wasn't all chummy with the chief look you."

Leroy chuckled. "John," he said between laughs.

Roy stumbled a bit, taken off guard by the kid's strange name.

"John? John Doe? You've gotta be fuckin with me Leroy."

"Afraid not," Leroy replied. "Either the chief has a weird sense of humor or he doesn't like his kid, in like a passive-aggressive kinda way."

The two police officers finally made it to the bottom of the hill, but not before Roy nearly fell flat on his face after tripping over a little boulder. "Careful," Leroy said, "Your job might be riding on this one Denton."

Nepotism, Roy thought.

Roy first saw the body once they had reached the riverbed. It was washed up just beneath the trestle, nestled between two black, heavily graffitied rocks. The one to the body's right had the message "JUST DO IT" spray-painted across it in gaudy red and purple script. Irony truly was a bitch after all. Roy made a small smile.

His smile promptly disappeared however when he got his first look at John's body, his morbid humor going along with it. The cadaverous flesh had been badly cut up when it landed in bed of rocks below the trestle. Most of his clothes had been ripped off, exposing his buttocks and his back. His spinal cord had ripped out of the skin near the nape of his neck, sticking out like a weird, dead parasite. All his limbs were fanned in awkward angles. His right arm was practically amputated, and only hung from the cadaver by a few thin strands of muscle fiber and a weak bone.

Even worse was the kid's head. It had been split open like a melon. Roy could see that whatever it was that had done the deed started by drilling into his left eye. Most of John's left face had been ripped and driven in by massive, sharp object, likely the size of a stalagmite. Roy looked over his shoulder briefly and saw a few of the likely culprits in the rocks below the trestle. Brain matter had spilled out from John's left face and caked his matted hair in lurid tapestry of organic greys mixed with the violent red of blood. Worse still was the quality of the brain matter. Roy was no medical doctor, but he was a detective and was well versed in his forensics. The brain matter looked diseased, spongy. If he had to guess, it almost looked like John had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease at the time of his death. Gaping holes were splattered across the chunks of grey matter. If his rudimentary understanding of the human body was any indication, it was a wonder that John had the brainpower to commit his suicidal act in the first place.

"Jesus, Leroy."

"It ain't a pretty sight," Leroy responded, "coupla stoner types found the body around five in the morning. Snuck out for some ganja, you know the story. They weren't too happy to find a corpse in their little hidey-hole."

Roy could now see the butts of several joints hidden in the crags of the two rocks. Looks like we found our graffiti artist, he thought offhandedly.

Roy regretfully kneeled down. The blood-soaked water the Miskatonic lapped chillingly at his ankles. He was much too distracted by the grisly spectacle in front of him to remember that he had been standing in the river for the last minute. He snapped latex gloves onto his hands and turned John's head to the right to get a better look at the facial mutilation.

What he saw shook Roy to the core, and he wasn't easily shaken. Turning John to the right gave him a clear view of the wound on his face. From this angle, Roy could see all the way up the wound and into the diseased, waterlogged cavity that had one been John Doe's skull. What was left of his brains still had that spongy, unhealthy texture to it. Roy subconsciously noted that it also appeared much too fluid to be a healthy brain. The inside of the body's skull was more akin to a bowl of viscous soup than anything else. Roy could feel his coffee churning in his stomach, begging to be released.

It wasn't until the brain-soup moved that Roy finally regurgitated the sparse contents of his stomach. He managed to turn around and vomit into the cold water of the Miskatonic so he wouldn't disturb the crime scene. Leroy put an arm in front of Roy's chest to steady him and prevent him from keeling over entirely.

"Goddamn Denton, let it out," he said as he whacked the detective on the back with his free arm. Leroy was close to barfing himself, but he managed to swallow his stomach acid before it could extricate itself from his throat in a great, biological panic.

Roy finally finished vomiting and turned to Leroy. "Did you see that, man?" he said between chunky coughs.

"No but you're showing me a lot," Leroy replied.

Roy took a deep breath and focused his gaze on Leroy. He didn't need a coworker seeing him so shaken up. Roy Denton had something of a reputation in the Arkham PD. Finally he said: "Leroy, there was something moving in his head. Something was fuckin alive in there!"

Leroy glanced over his shoulder at the corpse. He took a long, painful look into his head cavity, trying to verify Roy's fantastic claims. It wasn't a pretty sight, but he couldn't see anything to suggest animation.

"I can't see shit Denton."

Roy pushed the officer aside and walked towards the corpse. He was in the zone now, and he wouldn't be evacuating anymore of his bowels today.

He took a small LED flashlight out of his coat pocket and searched the cavity laboriously, looking for any sign of his apparent hallucination. Maybe it was just his head. The staff psychologist said police work would get to Roy at some point, he just wasn't happy that it was today, if that is what it was. Guess I'll see the doc after this.

"I swear, there was something in there," he said unconfidently. After several seconds he clicked the flashlight light off and wheeled around to look at Leroy again. "Maybe it was just my imagination."

At that moment, the blubbering mess that was Chief Doe came around the corner of the trestle. He was weeping hysterically. His tears had condensed into a dense fog behind the rims of his glasses. Roy could hardly see his eyes behind them at this point. Sweat glistened off of Doe's prominent bald spot like oil. The poor man wasn't even in his working clothes, merely being dressed in a pale blue pajama suit. His coat hung loosely from his frumpy shoulders. He still wore his nighttime moccasins on his feet. Roy wondered why it took the Chief so long to make it to the crime scene, and then he remembered that he was at a conference in Boston this weekend. A pang of sympathy shot through his heart like adrenaline. The Chief had to drive all the way up here in nothing but his PJs just to see the sickly remains of his dead son.

"OH GAWD LEMME THROUGH," Doe cried horrifically. He rushed to the corpse, letting the Miskatonic drench his moccasins and overcoat. He fell down on top of the body and hugged its blood-soaked remains tenderly, letting the mixture of brain matter and water fall over his clothes.

"Ohh mah gawd Johnny whyda do it?! Whyda do it whyda do it?! Whaddha me and Mavilda do wrong?!"

A motherly female officer rushed over to the chief and cradled him, whispering words of consolation into his ear. Roy turned again to Leroy. Both of them had looks of extreme pity painted across their faces.

"Shit Leroy, we've gotta figure this out," said Roy.

At that Leroy took a small ziplock bag out from the folds of his coat. Through the bag's translucent walls, Roy could see what looked like a blood-soaked wallet. He assumed it was John's.

"Take a look," said Leroy.

Roy removed his soaked latex-gloves and took the bag from Leroy. He pulled the wallet out and opened it, where he was greeted by the surprisingly handsome face of John Doe beaming up at him from his Massachusetts driver's license. It was hard to imagine John even having face, let alone a good-looking one. The rest of his wallet was occupied by credit cards, discounts, health insurance etc. Roy looked at it with a puzzled expression on his face. He rummaged around its many crevices, looking for any indication of whatever it was that Leroy found so interesting. Eventually, he found a small scrap of paper hidden behind John's drivers license. He unfolded it and held it up to Leroy. Leroy nodded slightly.

Roy turned the paper over and read it:

John,

As a friend I must recommend that you see a doctor sometime soon. Regardless of how you feel abut my work, your comments lately have indicated a deeply troubled mind. This is not something to be ashamed of, nor considered a weakness. I only want to see you get better. Come see me soon and I can help you. I worry about you.

D. Thurber

Roy studied the note carefully, and came to the conclusion that it was a solid lead on what had driven John to suicide. He turned to Leroy.

"This 'D. Thurber' sounds like a lead. Any hits?"

Leroy nodded. "I thought so to. I think I've got something: an artist on French Hill. I checked into the kid's past. He went to Miskatonic and was majoring in art history. He wanted to work at a museum when he grew up."

Roy was amazed to see a tear trickle out of Leroy's left eye. He felt his own getting heavy at the sight.

"If this note's any indication," Leroy continued, "it looks like John might have been having some problems before his death. I think we should figure out what those problems were, and we'll start by talking to Thurber."

Roy nodded solemnly and once again folded the paper up, placing it back in the ziplocked wallet. He put the bag into his own coat pocket and looked over Leroy's shoulder at the Chief.

"Alright, let's do it," he said. Then he added, "No parent should have to bury their child."

"I agree with that," Leroy sniffled.

Suddenly, the Chief's cries turned from sobs of despair to screams of terror. Roy was so startled by the Chief's scream that he drew his gun. Leroy followed suit and they ran over to the Chief and his female companion. The Chief was scrambling madly away from John's body now, deep into the waters of the Miskatonic. The officer who was accompanying him actually had to dive into the water to prevent the Chief from floating downstream. She dragged him to the bank of the river and held onto him.

"Chief, what happened?!" exclaimed Roy as he began holstering his weapon.

The Chief once again began to sob. "Something, oh gawd, something came outta mah boy. Ohmahgawd why why WHY! WHAT WAS THAT THING!" The Chief was practically shrieking now.

Leroy walked towards the corpse. He hadn't yet holstered his gun like Denton. He peered into his skull.

Roy was certain that the folks all the way in Kingsport could hear Leroy's scream. He ran over to him, once again drawing his weapon. He had a hard time stifling his own shriek when he saw what was hanging flaccid from John's skull cavity.

It's appearance was something between that of a massive tapeworm and a jaundiced tentacle. It alternated between hanging out limply from John's skull and flexing weakly, as if to fight off Roy and his companion. To their mutual horror, they could see more of the wormy tentacles further back in the skull, swimming around in the fleshy soup like two aquatic snakes preparing to strike. It appeared that whatever the hell these things were, they didn't have much life left in them. That fact alone caused Roy to let out a deep sigh of relief. He holstered his gun, but backed away cautiously from the body. Leroy followed suit.
"I guess you were right Denton," Leroy said, clearly shaken.

"Let's get some guys down here from forensics to examine the, uh, parasites," replied Roy.

"Parasites?"

"What else do ya want me to call 'em," said Roy with strained sarcasm.

Leroy eventually turned from the macabre display to go and console the Chief, who was still yelling like a scared child. After a few minutes, Roy drifted absent mindedly from the crime scene, clutching the ziplock bag in his coat as if it were a vital organ. He was shocked, appalled, and driven to get to the bottom this fast. This was no longer work, this was providing a father closure. This was personal. Roy had gone form joking about the kid's death to be deeply shaken by it in the timespan of less than ten minutes. He had to find this Thurber.

He walked up to the car, and drove towards French Hill.