Forever: Eternity of Insanity

Episode 12- Curse of Immortals

"The greatest pain in life: to sit beside the person you love a lot and know the fact that, the person can never be yours in this lifetime."  ~ Unknown

Lucas felt his stomach lurch as he walked into the small dark room. The smell of decaying flesh didn't bother him as much as the fact that he knew already who the victim was said to be. He walked over to the body, Jo and Hanson moving aside for him as he did so, before examining the shredding body in front of him as loose flesh clung limply on the blob... It didn't take him long to realize most of the bones had been ripped or cut out of the body, only leaving the axial skeleton behind. The decomposing face was just recognizable for him to make out the empty eye sockets where blood had dried.

"Well?" Jo asked tensely. "Is it him, it is, isn't it?"

Lucas nodded before motioning that Hanson could take the body down. "Yes. As far as I can make out, but I'll have to run DNA tests to be sure."

"We need to catch this bastard." Hanson muttered as he helped Lucas get him on a stretcher to take back to the morgue. "Before we all die or wind up in the hospital."

"The doctors said Henry would be free to come back in a week." Jo pointed out.

"And the dead? Will those other three cops from earlier this week come back from the dead soon?" Hanson ran a stressed hand through his dark hair. "Where's Lieutenant Treen when you need him? He should be here helping organize the cases not up... Where did he say he was going again?"

"He didn't say." Lucas spoke up despite the fact the detective had been looking at Jo. "Just that he was going on vacation... my guess is Florida, it is snowing outside if you haven't noticed. He probably wants to go to one of the last warm places in the U.S."

"Not very good timing." Hanson grumbled.

Lucas did have to agree with that. With the recent brutal murders, specifically targeting the New York Police Department, they needed their boss to help guide them. Without Treen everyone's stress level was through the roof, no one knew who the next target would be. Even he was beginning to get nervous despite no one else he knew personally getting hurt or killed, just on the way here he practically had a heart attack when he thought a black hooded man had been staring at him from across the street while he was going to the car. He had been proved wrong however when another person joined them and they started laughing and walking away. Paranoia was awful. How was he supposed to work on a case like this and get the facts straight with fear hovering over his back?

No, Lucas knew he was safe; cops and detectives surrounded him; he would be fine. It was Henry they had to worry about, the medical examiner was by himself in a hospital... well, Abe was probably with him at the moment, but what would doctors or Abe be able to do against a killer like this? A person who happily stripped flesh, bone, and organs wasn't someone you wanted to meet undefended.

*****

Lucas stepped out of the elevator and walked over to the skin that was laid out on the table, Hanson and Jo were still searching for the organs and remaining bones, leaving him here to sort out any information he could from the ruined mess in front of him. He quickly set to work on the grueling task of figuring out who had done this, if he had been Sherlock Holmes the case would've been halfway done by now, or at least cause of death could've been established. Looking down at the ruined scraps of skin he wished he had someone to help him. But he didn't and Lucas knew he'd never get anything done by just wishing. 

"You just couldn't tell us you were going to be murdered could you?" He sighed and began removing the skin from the skull to get a better view of any wound that could've shown up.