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— A LOT OF STRANGE THINGS HAPPENED THAT SUMMER THAT WERE VERY DIFFICULT TO EXPLAIN. The first day of student's summer holidays seemed fine. They were out of school, the sun was warm on their skin and their pools were the perfect temperature, as were the milkshakes from Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe. It was all very ordinary.
Archie Andrews was working at his dad's business.
Jughead Jones spent most days in his favourite booth at Pop's, trying to figure out his writer's block.
Betty Cooper and Kevin Keller had planned on just chilling out most of the summer and maybe stop being so paranoid about two missing boys.
However, the first day of summer break would be particularly harsh for Riverdale's Sheriff Station.
The moment Sheriff Keller got that 911 call for a dead body, his blood went cold. Quickly rushing from the station, a million thoughts pounding angrily around his skull.
News travels fast in a small town like Riverdale. Soon, many people had fled to the outskirts of the woods to watch the yellow tape being set up.
Within the hour, news had spread about the body's identity.
And for the first time in two years, the King's family had some form of final closure.
Because the body found, beaten and broken, bloody and mutilated, had been none other than Vincent King.
He'd looked different, that was for sure. He'd developed a sharper, more square jawline over the two years and his chin was riddled with tiny scars and marks. Muscles were more pronounced, as if it was some way to show the passage of time. His eyes used to be so lively and warm. But now they were dead, unblinking and sunken as if he'd hadn't slept in months. His lips were red with dried blood and disastrously chapped, but for some strange reason the ends of his lips had been tilted slightly upwards. As if he'd been smiling during his last moments, which was a crazy thing to assume because he had a pink scar traveling down from just behind his ear, to just above the curve of his hip, long and thin, as if a blade had been dragged through his flesh.
How could anyone be smiling after an event such as that?
He looked terrible.
He looked dead.
Which is something you never want in a dead body, for them to actually look dead. Because it makes it all the more difficult.
So much for forgetting paranoia.
So much for a peaceful summer.
— WORD TRAVELS FAST IN A SMALL TOWN. That wasn't new for Riverdale. In hours, everyone had heard of the dead King brother.
People mourned a young boy that had his life taken from him too soon, and the King's family grieved for a child they'd lost.
Unsurprisingly though, people were more concerned with the who rather than the how. Or more so, they were more concerned with the unidentifiable killer.
Sheriff Keller worked day and night, but even after Vincent King's autopsy, there wasn't enough to point them in a definitive direction.
So again, they're left wondering where the boy had been for two whole years.
Or why Jonathan King wasn't on a steel table next to his brother, with a tag on his toe.
Information about the autopsy was released, and the results were those of a horror movie.
He'd been beaten, carved into, partly blinded, starved, frozen, affected with different harmful chemicals, the list went on and on. There was barely a part of Vincent King's body that was left unscarred or unbruised. Which made his undead smile all the more confusing.
—AFTER THE RESULTS OF THE AUTOPSY WERE RELEASED, KEVIN KELLER AND BETTY COOPER DIDN'T LEAVE THE HOUSE. They stayed in Betty's room for days, moping and mourning, only leaving to go to the washroom.
Kevin observed people from Betty's window, just people that passed by, and tried to profile each one of them.
Could he have killed him? Could she have kidnaped them?
Then he'd turn his back for two seconds to grab one of the pieces of cheese Alice Cooper had brought up on a tray. After, he'd return to profiling people.
It really did seem like the whole town was on the edge of their seat, waiting for something to happen. It was like some sick movie theatre where the viewers were wide and starry eyed riverdale folk and popcorn were police reports, which they ingested with any new information they could.
And now it was only Jonathan's posters that smiled at them when they walked by.
His warm brown eyes seemed to follow every move they made, as if he wanted to jump out of the poster and reveal every secret of what had happened but couldn't.
Everyone hoped against hope that Jonathan King would return unharmed, but how likely was that?
And it was this summer tragedy, where Jughead Jones became an inspired writer.
The disappearance and death of one of Riverdale's very own Kings. It was like the childish beginning of a spooky campfire story.
Only this one was real.
Each event that Jughead wrote had actually happened.
As if people needed some sort of reminder.
— VINCENT KING'S BODY WAS RELEASED FROM POLICE CUSTODY AFTER A FEW DAYS. His coffin was dug up and reburied with him inside. Only a handful of people came to this reburrial. Those being the boy's friends and their families.
The undertaker did a good job, all things considered.
Vincent looked healthier. He looked happy almost, but after what the onlookers had really seen, it felt like some sort of lie.
Or at the very least, a kinder truth.
They paid their respects, said their condolences and whispered their goodbyes before his body was lowered into the ground in a shiny red-brown casket.
Afterwards, people left.
The Coopers were the first. Fred and Archie followed. Jughead stayed around for a while, refusing to look at either grave before sighing, bowing his head, then leaving. Rupert King lead his wife inside and brewed some tea.
And that left Kevin, who stared at the engraved headstone of Jonathan King.
Thoughts ran through his mind at a mile a minute and he lost track of each one.
He reminisced and wondered where his close friend could be. He had an internal fight with himself trying to think of different locations and suspects and reasons why.
Each idea clashed viciously against his skull and felt like hammers to his temples, but he couldn't stop that internal battle.
Onlookers would only see a boy with tears escaping his eyes, sitting cross legged in the grass with his forehead against the cold marble of Jonathan King's dark headstone.
— IT SEEMED LIKE THE SUMMER WAS GOING TO BE MUCH MORE TROUBLESOME THAN SOME PEOPLE HAD HOPED. Vincent's confirmed death hit a hard home run against the town. No one had been prepared for it. No one wanted to believe it.
After everything the King's family and friends had experienced, it was clear that they needed a break.
But it appeared that the tragedy was far from over.
