Here I have compiled several of the more important documents pertaining to the recently discovered species tentatively named Foedissimum Os. Below are: the initial report written upon finding the first live specimen, a statement by the leader of the group who obtained the first live specimen, a timeline of significant Foedissimum Os sightings, and a short essay by myself speculating on the more peculiar aspects of the species.
- Dr. James
Initial Description of the Recently Discovered Foedissimum Os Specimen
Dr. Hammil, Dr. James, Dr, Lapston, Professor Atkins, Professor Sheldon
Method of Discovery
Although much documentation has been made of Foedissimum Os in the past several years, this is the first instance of one being studied by professionals before the accelerated decomposition the group is known for set in. The specimen was captured by the private group "Marcus and Blaine's catchers" at 4:55 PM, in room 231 of the Day's Inn in Capitol Texas on July 21, 2010. Unfortunately, the specimen was injured before the catchers arrived, and it died at 9:10 the same day. Tests on its behavior had not begun yet and so this report will not be complete until another specimen is found. This report will deal with the specimen's appearance and details of its capture.
Description of Specimen
The specimen's body is approximately 1.5 meters long and half a meter around in its relaxed state. When tense it was observed to almost double its length. The specimen has no limbs and resembles a long tube.
The outside is covered in skin. The skin is thin and flimsy; capable of moderate stretching but easily broken, feeling similar to a human neck. Skin is of a pale creamy flesh tone. At the base of the specimen are a collection of spherical fleshy protuberances hang loosely from the body. There are seventeen of these. They appear to be fat stores of some sort. Directly behind and around these is a dense, mostly tangled bunch of short black feathers. Several longer feathers
extend back from the bunch, up to 3 meters. All feathers are coated in a mixture of sewage and oil. The specimen's body splits into three mandibles at the front. These mandibles are reversed, opening outwards rather than in. Each mandible has between four and five teeth arrayed along its length, they are widely spaced and angled downwards. They bear a striking similarity to human molars.
The inside is covered in a thick, flexible carapace. The carapace is composed of multiple plates to allow it some freedom to twist and turn as well as to accommodate its tense state. The plates are of a deep reddish-brown color.
Details of Capture
Employees of "Marcus and Blain's Catchers" had been tracking this particular specimen for nearly a week. Having narrowed down its hunting area to a four-block area, they had successfully tagged it with a radio chip. However, while attempting to trap it, it startled and escaped into the Day's Inn sewer system. They tracked it as it moved erratically through the hotel for several hours, eventually stopping in an occupied room, 231. Entering the building under the guise of animal control officers, they found the heavily wounded specimen in the bathroom, it is likely the occupant of the room attacked the specimen when it emerged from his toilet. The specimen was badly bruised, was missing three teeth and had a number of porcelain shards deeply embedded in its body.
More postings have been sent out for a live specimen, upon finding this will be revised and completed.
Statement by the Leader of the Catcher Team: Tom Jenkens
Statement recorded by Dr. Hammill at 5:30, the day of the catch
"So er, when we first arrived at the room we could hear a commotion from inside, banging and yelling. Sounded like a fight. I was still making up my mind on what to do about it when a guy burst out of the room; ran down the hall yelling, he was scared out of his mind, didn't even look at us. I think he was holding a bat. We went into the room and heard a high shrieking noise coming from the bathroom, there was a bunch of water and sewage running out the door and broken porcelain everywhere. The smell was horrifying.
We had all studied up on these things and knew all about the way they "hollowed out" people, but none of us had ever gotten a clear look at one before, only blurry photos, so we were all pretty nervous. I came around the corner first and it was disgusting, covered in deep cuts and bruises; it was trying to shove its, well I guess it doesn't really have a head, mouth I guess, down what was left of the toilet, which was completely smashed and pouring water everywhere. Odd thing was, it couldn't seem to fit. Its teeth alone were twice the width of the pipe, no clue how it got out in the first place.
None of us wanted to touch it, the nasty thing, so we sent for an Aim sheet, those things can wrap up worse creatures and we didn't want to injure it anymore, or let people see what we were carrying out of the hotel. While we waited we tried testing it, to see if it was dangerous. When it had first noticed us it spread out its long feathers, on each side and started flapping them like it thought it could fly, of course, it couldn't, it only had like four of the big feathers per side. It was drenched in sewage and its own blood, those cuts were pretty deep, so every time it brought its "wings" down it flung a stripe of filth down whatever was beside it. Daniel came near it and it stopped, which was good; none of us liked the idea of being painted. But as soon as Daniel got closer it lunged at him; tensed up and hit him square in the chest with its mouth, knocking him back out into the hall, thankfully it didn't do much damage, all Tom got was some bruising, he actually hurt himself worse knocking his head against the wall. It started coming towards us at that point, but it was real slow, just kind of lurched around on the floor, it didn't have any legs, you know. We just led it in circles and watched it. It seemed to have a couple of good lunges in it, but it wasn't that great an aim, dented up the walls pretty bad…
Well, at that point the Aim sheet got there and we wrapped it up fine and got out fast before the police arrived. It was hurt pretty bad though, we did our best not to mess it up any more, but it lost a lot of blood while struggling, I doubt it'll make it."
Timeline of Related Events
Excerpted from the article "Recent Appearance of Multiple Unknown Species" by Dr. Atlas Jones and Wtch. Chunnie Miller. Originally published in "Forsythe's Public Journal of Outsider Biology"
4, July 2006 - A dead specimen is found hanging from telephone wires in the suburbs of Bradshaw Texas. Multiple photographs were taken and shared online. The specimen rotted away before authorities could extract it. it appeared to be hanging by its teeth.
Notable because this was the first specimen. Specimen was half as large as those seen since, and appeared to have more entrails hanging from it than the current specimen. Also, it is unclear as to how it became entangled.
17, November 2006 - What appeared to be near forty specimens were discovered inside a water storage tank in Houston, exact location is unknown. Judging from the photographs taken, the specimen had only recently begun to rot.
Notable because there was no way for forty specimens to get inside the tank, (it was not connected to anything, and because the specimen were twice as large as the one previously found, (though now this size is average) however they had just as many entrails as the first specimen.
21, March 2007 - After this date, more reports of victims being found "hollowed out" in their bathrooms rose to two a month. However, this is not initially attributed to the Foedissimum Os as the deaths tended to occur in higher population, more crime-oriented areas of large cities, and also because the local authorities appeared to be covering up the attacks.
Notable because at this point the local government became involved, making it hard to track exact numbers of sightings
25, November 2007 - A specimen is found in a flooded basement. Many pictures are taken, but again the exact location is not known.
Notable because the specimen lacked the extra organs found in previous specimen. Oddly, all of its feathers had red tips.
17, June 2008 - A specimen is found in a hotel in capitol Texas, badly injured but alive. Members of the Hand were able to acquire the specimen, but not keep it alive. It was dissected successfully before it began to rot.
Notable because this is the first specimen successfully acquired.
Further Study and Speculation
Dr. James
Upon further dissection of the "toilet monster" a large beady blue compound eye was discovered inside one of the fat storage sacks. This eye is fully functioning, but the thickness of the skin around it is such that it blocks out all light This is not the only odd thing about the specimen:
- It was noted to make high pitched squealing noises, though it has no conventional mouth openings of any sort.
- It has large feathers, though it lives in an aquatic environment.
- It is inside out, the flexible smooth carapace would serve as an excellent shell for sliding thorough pipelines, yet exists on the inside. instead exposing its internal organs to raw sewage.
- Its mouth is far too blunted and wide to cut through anyone, yet we have several documented cases of it doing so.
- Its mouth is also far too large to fit into any of the pipes it has been documented as fitting into.
- The subject moved through the hotel pipes quickly and easily, evading the catchers until it was beached, despite the fact that the pipes do not form any kind of network in which this would be possible.
- It has absolutely no muscles of any kind, even on its jaws.
If anyone is unfamiliar with the "cheese-graters" that spread across remote areas of Texas in the late 70's: they were a similarly nonsensical animal. Their mouth, a large cavity, was completely empty save for lots of ribs which formed a sort of cage slightly smaller than the mouth so there was some small space outside them. The ribs were very sharp along the edges. At the top and bottom of the cavity were two sphincters: one which functioned as lips and led outside, the other opened into a very powerful lung. Whenever a "cheese grater" felt anything fall inside it, it would open the two sphincters halfway and begin to rapidly inhale and exhale yanking and dragging its captive across its ribs slicing them into thin strips. It's why they were called cheese graters. They generally lay buried in sand with their lips at the surface waiting for an unfortunate to step on them.
The problem was, if anything ever fell in it was likely to tear through the bottom sphincter and land inside the animal's lung. Even Worse the "cheese-graters" had no way to tell what was on their lips, only being able to sense pressure. Often they would kill themselves by ricocheting rocks about their own chest cavity and shattering all of their ribs.
All the creatures seemed to do was die, they would starve to death, have their lips eaten off by dogs and vultures, become a nest for a myriad of insects. A whole field of fresh ones would spring up overnight, just to be filled with rotting pitfalls by the end of the week
I bring these animals up, because they also had a blue compound eye buried inside themselves, they also had long feathers that served no purpose, they also had a bizarre and unconventional mouth. They were just as nonsensical and nonfunctioning as Foedissimum Os. The primary difference between the two species is that Foedissimum Os functions anyway, it seems to defy common sense simply to function how it feels like functioning instead of simply dying a lot.
Four days before the first Foedissimum Os specimen was found, every "cheese grater" known to us disappeared. The ground was filled in, and in several cases plants that would have taken years to grow covered the spots. It looks as if they had never existed, and now, just two years later, evidence points towards Foedissimum Os having always existed in their current populations.
We know they haven't, we have the first sighting well documented. They were different only two years ago. they were smaller and had more than just fat stores sticking out of them, they kept getting stuck in weird places. We know this, but all of the sudden we are finding fossils of what look like our current model of Foedissimum Os, deep underground and all traces of the "cheese graters" are gone.
If you want to suggest some rapidly evolving nonsense-species that defies sensibility when we aren't looking, I won't laugh at you, but I will point out that such things are hard to prove. For now, I think these monsters are all in our heads.