Jack Walters was born in 1890, the youngest of three children. He grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, where he underwent a disruptive upbringing due to the excessive alcohol and gambling habits of his father. Young Jack was often beaten by his increasingly violent father, who eventually killed himself. His mother was forced to work long hours to support the family financially, and eventually died prematurely in 1901. Jack was eventually taken into foster care, joining the Police force a few years later after falsifying his age on his application form.

It was work he naturally excelled at, and he soon became a much-respected member of the community. One day, after a couple of years of distinguished service, Jack received the emergency call that would change his life forever.

The exact events that transpired after Jack answered the report of gunshots at a large house outside Boston, are recreated in Dark Corners of the Earth. Suffice it to say that a mere half hour after arriving on the scene, Jack was found in a state of apoplexy - bloodstained, injured, and with a look in his eyes which haunts his colleagues who found him to this day.

"We eventually found him by following the sound of his screams -- I'd never heard anything like that before, and I hope I never hear anything like it again. When I first saw him lying there, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I've never seen a human being so drained of life, yet still breathing...he just kept chanting some strange words over and over again. It took three of us just to subdue him enough to carry him outside"
-- Robert Armstrong, oral history 1939.

Despite many intensive counseling sessions and all his best efforts, Jack felt he could not return to his job and resigned. It wasn't until six years later that Jack fully recovered from the ordeal at the house, although he was still haunted by flashbacks of the events at that house, and plagued by dreams of strange creatures and enormous alien cities. Eventually, Jack started up his own Private Investigation business, and only took on cases which he felt were linked somehow to that day in the hope that he could find some sort of explanation.

In 1922, he learns of a store manager who had gone missing in the New England fishing town of Innsmouth -- a place that Jack had heard numerous stories about during his own investigations. Jack took the case, packed a few belongings, and traveled to Innsmouth in an attempt to find out more about Brian's disappearance...and maybe answer a few questions of his own.

Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth recreates exactly what took place in Innsmouth, based on the writings in Jack's journal, which were discovered in 1924.