Frederick Hughes
Mental State: Focused.
Physical State: Wide awake and mostly healthy
It was coming up on eleven when the train ground to a slow halt outside the station on High Lane, and whilst many of his fellow passengers had since awoken and pulled themselves to order, Frederick nonetheless found himself amongst the first to disembark into the dreary soon-to-be-afternoon Arkham day.
Ignoring the slow trickle of other passengers out from the train as he took his cases across the platform and towards the street outside the station, he set them down on the concrete before rummaging through his coat pocket. A moment later, a folded-up piece of paper was out and open in his hands, showing a somewhat faded map of the town; with a red ink circle surrounding and highlighting a large chunk of buildings a distance south of the station, across the Miskatonic River his train had crossed on the final stretch of its journey.
“West College Street… West College Street…” Mumbling that to himself to ingrain the rough area of his destination into his mind, he folded and tucked the map back into his pocket before taking his cases in his hands again. It was a fair walk, but if he wasn’t mistaking his current location, it wasn’t a complicated one; if he took the left turn from the station, he could take the bridge his train had passed under to cross the river, and then it was just a matter of walking three blocks down.
With just a slight shiver that he attributed to the shock of passing from the warm air of the car to the unpleasant chill of the winter morning instead of anything else in the air, Frederick started to walk again, continuing to outpace the rest of the disembarking passengers as they began to flow onto the street like spilled water from the platform above.
____
The walk to the Miskatonic campus was uneventful, to put it simply. After what had likely been the kind of busy early morning you’d find in any town, Arkham’s late morning seemed to have become similarly routine in its slow pace, as if waiting for midday to energize it once more.
However, there was something about the uneventful trek that made Frederick feel suspicious of his surroundings in a way that he hadn’t before. Even at this time in the day, there should have been more people about the streets than there were after he crossed the bridge over the Miskatonic river, more students going about their business in the immediate surroundings of the campus; and there seemed to be something a little
off in some of those he did see navigating the narrow streets alongside him, a sense of quiet dread about them that crept out into the air.
His imagination might have drawn something deeper out of that, if not for what he saw when he finally reached the campus.
“Oh my.” That was about the only response he could manage as he passed the final block to the Miskatonic University campus, and found himself greeted by the unpleasantly familiar sight of a tape barrier.
He hardly needed imagination to discern what had caused the dread in the people he’d passed on his way over. Whilst the barrier could have meant many things, none of them meant anything
good.
An officer from the middle of the scene seemed to notice the stranger’s presence and jogged over to the border, the last physical divide between the normal world and the one that cast a shadow of fear over Arkham.
“Um, sir, you can’t come down this way. Active investigation. If you need directions, I, uh, can try to help? I mean, I did grow up around here...” He didn’t even look like he had finished growing up yet - face bereft of the expected facial hair, skin free of the bags and wrinkles that invariably attended those who had spent their lives chasing criminals only to be sent to war, voice lacking that deep boom of authority. Practically a child compared to Frederick.
“Don’t worry, son, I’ve been behind enough of these barriers to know the drill.” Frederick sighed; this was beyond inconvenient, but he supposed it would just be best to rearrange his plans and go set up and unpack at the house instead of pushing the man who’d come over to warn him off. Poor fellow looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over, so clearly he was looking at some kind of worst case scenario behind there. “That said, I did have an appointment here- are you allowed to talk about what happened?”
“I - oh!” The uniformed officer shivered, and not from the chill rising off the icy snow. “I’m sorry, sir, I - I don’t think I’ve seen you at the station yet. Peter Bailey. Guess you were on vacation?” Clearly, the young man had misunderstood to some degree. “Well, just - a witness described it as a suicide but, well, our boss thinks there are some rather unusual circumstances behind it. Right now, until he says otherwise, we have to treat it like a homicide. You know?” He glanced back at the scene. “The, uh, body got removed yesterday, but we keep finding pieces.”
Frederick blinked, staring at Bailey as he revealed the reason for the barrier. A suicide? Unusual circumstances? “... Vacation sounds about right, Station back home arranged an appointment with Miskatonic about a security position that was open. Is there anything more you can say about the suicide, or is it need-to-know? ”
“...oh. Oh no.” Bailey blanched. “I - oh, jeez, I thought you were a senior officer!” He sounded just a tiny bit panicked.
“Relax, son, relax!” Frederick tried to keep his voice down, for both his sake and Bailey’s; there didn’t seem to be anyone about besides the two of them, but that could soon change if either of them made too much noise. “I can keep a secret, no problem. Doubt it would have been too long before I found out about what happened, anyway.”
Bailey stared at Frederick as he spoke, but his breathing did seem to slow a bit and finally returned to a more proper rhythm. “Well... maybe not the part about the homicide. That’s not in papers yet.” He flinched a bit. “I guess at least I didn’t give the witness’s name...” Though still not entirely reassured of his competency, he cleared his throat. “Well, rest is in the papers. Yesterday morning, a teacher on campus, Dr. Atkins, was seen jumping from that building-” He pointed up at the building behind him, in front of and to the right of Frederick. The building was easily the highest point on the campus. “He, uh, obviously didn’t survive the impact. His lectures are all being delivered by a temporary substitute until they can get a new professor in, I think. Right now, the official story is that officers are still cleaning up the scene, and-” Bailey grimaced. “-we kind of
are.”
Frederick managed to withhold a wince as he looked at the sheer drop that Bailey pointed out. No wonder the barrier was up; the thought of the state the poor bastard’s body must have been in was getting him green around the gills, God only knew what the actual sight might have done to him.
“In which case, I think that might be my cue to mind my own business.” With that, Frederick quickly checked his watch; it was starting to come up on midday, which meant he’d have to move if he wanted the best chance of getting to the house on time. “Thanks for telling me what you could- in any case, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to take my appointment today after all, if everything’s all shaken up after this. I’d probably be best going and finding where I’m staying, but do you happen to know where I could find anyone to arrange a formal appointment with?”
“Erm, yes. South a block, head down that road to the large brick building with the hydrangea shrubs lining the front. They’re a little, uh, leafless right now, but they’ll look much better once the cold clears out.” Bailey pointed down the street as he gave his directions to indicate ‘south’. “If you’re a counter, fourth building down. That’s the main administrative building - you should be able to talk to one of the secretaries for help. They’re all very pretty, so at least that’s good.”
“Alright, thanks again, and Godspeed.” And with that, Frederick turned in the direction that Bailey indicated, bidding him farewell with a friendly wave and a smile.
He wouldn’t say he’d been lying through his teeth when he said he’d mind his own business, but nonetheless, he had absolutely no intention of letting the suicide stay an unpleasant cliff note to his stay in Arkham. Bailey had mentioned something about ‘unusual circumstances’, and for the first time that day, his imagination was flared up.
Perhaps those chills hadn’t just been the winter morning nipping at his heels, but rather his instincts raising their heads in response to a nightmare to come.
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