The Hunter's Guide to Monsters - Chapter Six

Are you scared? You shouldn't be. Not because there's nothing to fear, there are monsters out there that can rip you limb from limb; dark forces who'll creep out from under your bed at night and devour you whole. However, you shouldn't fear these beasts, because they can smell fear and feed off of it. If you're scared, you might find yourself being hunted down by tonight's monster . . . the 'BOGEYMAN':

Bogeyman /'bogeeman/ n. 1. An imaginary evil character of supernatural powers, especially a mythical hobgoblin supposed to carry off naughty children.

6. Bogeymen
  by Hunter Jeremiah

One of the strangest, yet most common creatures I've seen in my line of work has to be the bogeyman. They can be found all over the world, calling it a bogle; bag man; bugaboo; bloody-bones; brownie; bogie; black dog; boggart; bugbear; or bête noire, but I know them simply as bogeymen. Contrary to what many people believe, bogeymen are not demons. We know this for two reasons: Firstly, bogeymen don't seek to conquer and reign, like demons do, if anything their main motivation is hunger, not control. Secondly, bogeymen don't need to steal a body in order to survive, as they're not from another realm, they come from here. Bogeymen have a dark, smoky, ethereal form which they can warp and shift at will. This shape-shifting ability is the bogeyman's ultimate weapon and defense and it's what makes them so hard to Hunt. They can use this to camouflage themselves, but it is imperfect as all bogeymen are black and even when they shape-shift, they retain their dark colour. it is for this reason that they prefer to hide in darkness and shadow.
When you stand before the shifting black; with fear for the creature snarling back; calm your mind, and prepare for attack - for fear is your greatest enemy when facing a bogeyman.

The best way to think of bogeymen is as a parasite. Just as bedbugs feed off of us for blood, bogeymen feed off of us as well. They consume our dust and detritus, as well as our fear. Bogeymen have a very mild form of telepathy, almost empathic, which they use to feed off of our emotions. It is this which has lead to legends of "The Monster Under the Bed". Bogeymen thrive under beds, as they can consume the dust, discarded books, socks & rubbish underneath; and as the occupants of the bed sleep, they will seep the fear out of us. As bogeymen grow, they may even use their shape-shifting abilities to terrify the person at night, so that they can feed off the fear when they finally go to sleep.
Thankfully, although this can be terrifying - especially for young children - these kinds of bogeymen tend to be harmless. They mean no harm, they're just hungry and feeding off this veritable fount of fear. However, there have been some cases whereby bogeymen have become too greedy, and rather than feed on just fear and the rubbish beneath the bed, I'm sad to say that some bogeymen have climbed out from under the bed and devoured the sleeping occupant.
This is a most unfortunate circumstance and a terrifying death which I don't wish upon anyone. It is very rare, but it does happen, and it's in these cases when boggarts and bogeymen acquire a taste for human flesh that Hunters have to step in and dispatch the monster.

The Bogeyman diet is quite varied and omnivorous; but not infinite. Although they will eat cotten; carpet fibre; meat; animal fat; hair; wood and many other materials, they will not consume metal; plastic; water or fresh vegetables. The rule of thumb seems to be that they consume flammable materials. It's not known why, some Hunters much cleverer than myself have theorized a kind of "endothermic digestion", but as I've already said, these are some of the strangest creatures I know, so I won't pretend to understand the way these monsters work.
Now, similar to demons, the size of a bogeyman is relative to its strength and abilities. The smallest boggart I've ever encountered was a little critter the size of a tennis ball in the shape of a spider; there are reports of them being smaller, but I've not seen them for myself (or I haven't recognized them, at least). The largest I've seen was a boggart the size of a horse; but I've told they can be even bigger than that.
The more they eat the more they grow and accumulate matter, somewhat similar to a black hole. But what's most unusual is that, the more they feed on our fear and emotions, the stronger their minds become. As though leeching off our thoughts, a bogeyman can become incredibly intelligent.
Also, just as they get smarter, and larger, their shape-shifting ability and mild telepathy becomes greater as well. The strongest bogeyman not only can manipulate their form into other states of matter, like smoke and liquid, but they can project light and flames and even teleport; I've heard no less than four cases whereby a bogeyman whose telepathy was strong enough was capable of entering a person's mind as they slept and giving them nightmares, so they could feed.
Because their strengths, powers, intelligences and sizes are so varied, some Hunters even name them differently, calling the smallest creatures "bogles" or "bogeys"; the mid-sized creatures "boggarts" or "black dogs" & calling the largest, most powerful creatures "bogeymen" or "bugbears". I don't agree with this personally, not only because it confuses the issue but because this naming system is just an attempt at conflating bogeymen with demons by implying a similar "three-tier" hierarchy to theirs, it's just ridiculous - bogeymen are not demons anymore than demons are ghosts; only a fool would confuse one for the other.
But it can't be denied, if one of these stronger bogeymen turns malevolent and decides to eat people, then it will take a skilled Hunter to put them in their place.

Protection
If you find yourself face to face with a bogeyman, don't panic, there are some simple steps to keep you safe:

• A Taste for Fresh − If you leave sweaty socks, dirty clothes, toe-nail clippings & other matter stained with your smell on the floor, bogeymen may become accustomed to your taste. It may seem silly, but you can stay safe by cleaning up after yourself.
• Don't Fight at Night − At nighttime, bogeymen can hide in the shadow, and feed off our innate fear of the dark. Wait until daylight, find a torch or run away.
• Fire with Fire − Bogeymen not only fear the light of fire, but they are severely harmed by the heat of the flame. Even a lighter can scare off small bogeymen.
• Trust your Nose − When bogeymen feed, it smells like burning, if you can smell burning, keep an eye out for monsters.
• No Boggarts Allowed − Bogeymen are attracted to people, as we create mess and feel fear, so keep them outside by offering food outside of your house, don't let them feed inside, or they will make it their home.
• Face Your Fear − Bogeymen will attempt to scare you by shape-shifting into what scares you. But it's not real. Face your fear and you'll see it's not real.
• Don't Panic − Fear feeds them, if you keep your mind calm and focussed, you will be stronger and they will be weaker.
• Watch the Shadows − Bogeymen hide in darkness, so try to reduce them and keep an eye on any shadows around you, In daylight, that's where they'll be.
• Safety in Numbers − Bogeymen prefer solitude, they feel safer when they prey on people that are alone. Hang around in groups, and they can't harm you.

Hunting

Bogeymen aren't devious creatures, they just want to feed, so if they're not doing any harm, leave them be. However, if they've taken a liking to human flesh, or they're terrorizing innocent people unrelentingly, it's your duty as a Hunter to step in and deal with the creature. More often than not, a simple reprimand will pacify the monster, capture them, speak to them if possible then move them elsewhere. However, if you need to kill the monster, the method is described below.

Find
When bogeymen make a nuisance of themselves, they're pretty obvious. After all, if you're not being bothered by their presence, they're not worth hunting - leave them be. But they can be subtle, sometimes reports of unusual domestic disturbances; strange noises or even some cases of supposed "hauntings" are caused by bogeyman interference.
When investigating these cases, the first step is to see the victim. If they've been killed, the body will be missing entirely, but you can still check for any fillings or inorganic medical devices they make have had implanted. Sometimes, with weaker bogeymen, they can't burn teeth, check for half-burned teeth. However, when victims survive the attack, ask what it is that they've seen, so as to gauge the strength of the bogeyman.
Next, check the location of the attack, if the area smells like some kind of ash, or if there are even charred remnants around dark, shaded areas, this is most likely where the bogeyman comes to feed. You should also check for cracks, open windows and holes in walls. Bogeymen aren't ghosts, but they can travel through shadow check for those tight spaces they can sneak through, or hidden shadows.
Once you've determined that you're dealing with a You only really have two suspects, strong bogeymen or weak bogeymen. The stronger bogeymen are larger, more powerful and more dangerous; the weaker bogeymen are small, weaker and less dangerous. But if you treat them accordingly, you can still remain safe.

Capture
Bogeymen may be able to shape-shift and consume almost anything they come across, but they're still physical creatures bound by physical laws. When they are making a nuisance of themselves, you can simply capture them and move them somewhere safer. To accomplish this, You will Need:
"Lantern" - Not only are bogeymen stronger in darkness, but light tends to stifle their telepathic and supernatural abilities. To capture a bogeyman, do so in the light. You can use sunlight, but bogeymen hide during the day, so I prefer a mobile floodlight or a powerful handheld lantern to catch them.
"Leash" - Although they can shift and warp, a bogeyman can still be bound up with chains. Never use rope, they can just bite through it, but if you're well-practised you can bind a bogeyman just by casting your chain.
"Laughter" - You don't literally have to guffaw, but don't take bogeymen seriously. Remember, they fight in solitude and in the dark because they are scared of you. If you're not scared of them, you have the upperhand.

Other equipment you might need includes a vehicle. It's a good idea to relocate captured bogeymen to somewhere far away from their victims, and as I've mentioned before, if they can speak it's a good idea to reprimand them verbally. Fire is always useful, but if your goal is merely capture, then just be careful with it. They're not fond of Loud Noises, as they are solitary creatures, so loud noises tend to unsettle them. Also, although it might seem odd, Alcohol not only makes bogeymen feel full, but it can inebriate them, Lastly, I recommend you wear some form of flame resistant clothing, it's rare that they will "eat" to fight, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Kill
When a Bogeyman kills a human being, or even attempts it, just like a mad dog your only choice is to put them down. Killing a Bogeyman is considerably simpler than other monsters:
Heat will burn a bogeyman, especially naked flame, you can easily burn a bogeyman to death. Light, when it is bright enough - especially sunlight - will ignite a bogeyman and - just like fire - burn them to death; and certain other lights have been known to burn weaker bogeymen as well, it is a useful tool. Although it can be difficult, making a Bogeymen drink Water can cause them to disintegrate; it's a cruel way to go, but if they are willing to eat children, then they should be willing to pay the price.

Final Notes
Do not even attempt to confront a bogeyman in the dark. You wouldn't fight a shark underwater, it is folly to fight a bogeyman in their natural habitat of the darkness. Also, don't be afraid to talk to your bogeyman. They can be quite intelligent, so if you are scared of your bogeyman, talking to them not only will familiarize you with them, but you might be able to convince them to leave. They're not demons after all, they're just hungry.

Empty Skies

Everything you regard with affection can be lost in a moment. Even an entire planet, a macrocosm of life, energy, geology, history and destiny can be rendered void. I know this first-hand, for my own world was destroyed in less than one day. My planet, and every other within the Beiyan system.

On my world, the star was known as B'ei and in the language of the Oathacans, it simply means 'The Soul'. B'ei shone like the face of god, a beacon of life for the planets that encircled it. It's distance from Earth is so great, we could not even glimpse a twinkle of its luminescence, but to the citizens of Oathaca, its warmth and light gave and took away life in the great desert.
Until it was snatched from us, by that foul, wretched monster of a thing . . .
In deepest space, it looked like a minuscule speck appearing by B'ei; infinitesimally small in comparison to the heavenly body, however the Nembrian cargo ship was 100 metres long and with engines that took up half of its mass. It orbited on the perimeter of the sun's coronal range at high speed. After a few minutes of orbit, the ship shot a projectile towards the star. Because of its size it was impossible to see the small canister filled with scarlet particles as it flew towards the sun, but nonetheless they penetrated the surface and then ignited.
In absolute silence, the cargo ship left orbit, and entered hyperspace, sealing our fate.

It takes approximately 8.13 minutes for light to travel the distance from B'ei to our planet. Conversely, darkness travels at the same speed. For it took just as long for light to stop travelling to the surface of our planet. Initially, a shadow fell over the landmass, and to those who looked in the sky it looked like a small, black spot in the centre of the star. But the black spot expanded, as did the darkness, until day turned into night; it consumed the sun, but the corona was caught around the edges of what we later learned to be the event horizon, so to us it looked as though the sun was permanently caught in a state of eclipse. However, the reality was that that our sun was gone, The Soul was taken from us and we were left orbiting a black hole, ringed with the trapped light of our dying star; a black hole sun.

The people began to panic. It took less than three hours for the once-scalding deserts to cool; then grow cold and freeze. The darkness terrified everyone. After a lifetime of bright daylight, the open sky being swallowed by darkness had all of the people yelling and screaming. But more than the cold, morseo even than the darkness, what truly terrified everyone was the loneliness. Many of these peoples had a spiritual connection with the sun, and even those that didn't knew that, without the sun, we would die, and we knew that no one could come and save us.

Our only respite was escape. We were not a space-faring people, none of our spaceships had the capability to travel the distance to another planet we could inhabit. However, we did have our portal generator; so, we sent as many people as we could to the Oathacan capital to step through the portal. People fled for their lives, and we managed to save several hundred people. But then, the portal collapsed. Our generator was part of a network which relies upon the alignment of the stars, and as our world shifted, so too did our position in the network. Our portal was useless. Once the portal failed, we realized that we were falling into the black hole.
Some of the smaller planets that had once orbited B'ei began to fall into the black hole, and as their mass was absorbed, the black hole grew in size. People watched in horror as it consumed our neighbouring planets, and even our natural satellites.

From beyond our world, we would fall slower and slower into eternity because of the temporal distortion, but from our perspective, we were falling faster and faster. The black hole sun grew larger in our sky, the darkness spreading. It was chaos.
People were going mad, killing one another for clothing, heat and food; praying to gods they didn't believe in; choosing to die, to avoid the horror of a cold, dark and slow demise. A small group of scientists managed to collect a large mass of antimatter, and they launched it into the black hole, believing the resulting reaction would destroy it. They were hopeful, believing they were doing good; but before I could stop it, the mass collided with the matter of the black hole and there was an enormous nuclear explosion. To us, this appeared as a spark on the ergosphere of the black hole. What these scientists didn't understand, however, is that Black Holes absorb everything; light, sound, heat, matter & energy. Rather than destroy it, the explosion made the black hole slightly bigger. You couldn't even perceive the expansion of its surface, yet this is when the people truly lost hope.

As the sky was filling with the black hole, from horizon to horizon it was pitch black. Gravity was beginning to tear people from the ground, and distortions in the accretion disk caused time to warp and slow all over the world. But then, finally, their hero stepped forth, he was their leader and their saviour; or at least, he had been, once. He stepped into the Capitol, and availed the legitimacy of his prestige. From the spire of the Capitol, a beam of blue light shot into the sky. It encompassed the black hole, and then the darkness diminished. Peeling away from the sky, and shrinking back into a spot before disappearing entirely, the black hole seemed to melt away and was replaced with the night sky.
At first, the people celebrated huddling close for warmth, and lighting bonfires. But their leader mourned. Their star was gone and their planet was adrift; their world was becoming like ice and the people were stuck there with no hope of escape.

He told them that he would help them, he said that he would fix this. He promised them that it would be the way it was before, all they had to do was wait. But then their leader, walked away from his people, stepped into his ship and warped away. In another place - in another time - his people would live. But in this broken reality, the entire population on the surface of the planet died a slow, cold, painful death, and yet I turned my back on them and walked away. I, the Duke of Rathea.

"Every world I set foot on crumbles to dust. Every country burns; every town bleeds & every person I've met has died in agony. Even if I try my best to save them, it all just seems to burn into ashes and slip through my fingers . . ."

The Shade of a Coolabah Tree

I was inspired to write this blog post, and this story, after my Beloved brought to my attention an American children's version of the song Waltzing Matilda, from an old TV show called Kidsong. The song consisted of only the first two verses, replacing some of the Australianisms like 'Coolabah' and 'jumbuck'. To be blunt, I found that rather offensive. Once more, it was an attempt to avoid education by localizing a cultural icon from a foreign land. Now, I'm not upset about it, because that's an old TV show and only a moron would try to water down Waltzing Matilda in this day and age. However, it bothers me that the song was reduced to two verses, because I think part of Australian culture is that creepy, dark side. The part where it's not all fun and games, sometimes a poor homeless man gets hunted down by the police and sometimes people die out in the bush. Because of that, I've decided to explore the song Waltzing Matilda, by trying to expose the actual nature of this song, and why it's one of the darkest stories we've all heard, but don't seem to realize it.

~

Out in the bush, the red hot plains of Australia were spread far and wide, and at midday it could be up to forty degrees in the shade. The sky would be filled with cloudless blue, cicada chittering and the occasional, warbling magpie. Out not far from the droving stations, was a huge waterhole known as Four Mile Billabong.
As the sun was at its highest, a young wanderer had made camp under a eucalyptus tree, by the banks of the billabong. The Swagman was a scruffy, old bugger; he hadn’t shaved in the last few weeks, his akubra hat had corks on string tied around it to keep the flies off his head, and his bare feet were pitch black from a lack of bathing. Just beside him everything he owned was wrapped up in his bedroll in a bundle and dropped on the dirt beside him. But, despite having lost everything but his swag, he whistled cheerily to himself, as he held his billy-can over the fire using an old branch to hold it above the little flames, the metal popping and buckling from the heat.

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?"

A lot of people know that a swagman is, in fact, a homeless person. But what quite a few don't know is that swagmen were people that lost everything during the Great Depression in the 1930s. After World War 1, a lot of people suffered financially and some people lost absolutely everything. It was common for people to carry everything that they had left in a swag, which is a bedroll that could double as a kind of rucksack which they bundled all of their belongings in. They used to travel around the great outback heading between cattle droving stations, towns and other farmlands, asking for work or for some meager task for which they could be paid with money or just food. If they couldn't, they just fed off the land with what meager survival knowledge they possessed.
The term Waltzing Matilda apparently comes from German immigrants. Waltzing comes from auf der walz which basically meant "to walk around, looking for work", a term used for young journeymen learning a trade on the road. Meanwhile "Matilda" was a name supposedly given to women who accompanied German soldiers in their camps during the Thirty Years War and kept them warm at night, just as the swag would keep swagmen warm.
I believe this whole notion represents Australia quite a lot, as it were; this man's down on his luck with no food and no home, but he still manages to get on with his day. Yet, I can't help but feel like the notion of a "jolly" swagman is rather condescending, this is the Great Depression after all, very few people were jolly about it. Perhaps it's something like a joke, Australians do have a twisted sense of humour after all, perhaps we call the swagman jolly for the same reason we call a redhead "bluey".

~

The Swagman’s whistling cut short. He fell absolutely silent as he heard something come trotting up behind him. He turned slowly around, and saw an old sheep meandering through the scant grass. It was a fat, strong buck, a sheep. It wandered to the bank of the billabong and, tilted its head down to drink.
Careful not to move any other muscle, and not taking his eyes off the fat buck, the Swagman carefully lowered his billy to the ground, making sure not to make a sound as metal patted dirt. Then, he reached into his swag, and felt around till his fingers found an old potato sack and he dragged it out. He upturned it, dropping its contents onto his bedroll before he stood up and snuck around behind the sheep. He carefully crept closer and closer, careful not to make a sound.
The sheep lifted its head. Before it could flee, the Swagman leapt. The buck tried to jump away, but he grabbed its hind legs. As though he were sheering it, he turned and grabbed its forelegs in front of him, splayed out and he brought the potato sack over its head.
The hindlegs bucked and kicked, as he tried to stuff it inside, but he couldn’t stop it from bleating and trying to escape. So, in one swift swing, he grabbed its legs and the top of the bag and swung it over his head. The bag swung up in the air and hit the ground with a heart-stopping crack. The only sound then was the Swagman’s heavy breathing as he stood there, the bag now stilled. He finally caught his breath and, after a quick glance around, he started whistling to himself as he finally stuffed the sheep’s legs in the bag and tied it up.

Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong.
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

There are a few theories as to what inspired the song Waltzing Matilda, but what we know is that the song was written by Banjo Paterson, to the tune of "The Craigielee March" (inspired by the Scottish song "Bonnie Wood O' Craigielea"), after hearing the song played by Christina MacPherson, Mr Paterson liked what he heard and put lyrics to it.
As for the words of the song, most people believe it was inspired by the Great Shearer's Strike in the 1890s. On September, 1894, The shearers at Dagworth Station went on strike, but the strike turned into a riot then the riot turned violent with the strikers shooting their rifles and pistols in the air.
One of the strikers, a man named Samuel "Frenchy" Hoffmeister, is believed to have then been responsible for setting fire to the woolshed, killing dozens of sheep. He fled from the station and - it is said - the owner of Dagworth Homestead and three policeman tried to chase him down. But, rather than be captured, Hoffmeister ran to the Combo Waterhole and shot himself. His body was later discovered by police.
Whether this story is true or not, there are similarities to Waltzing Matilda's 'plot', and at the very least it brings us a step closer to explaining why a man caught with a sheep would be willing to commit suicide rather than be arrested for stealing a sheep.

~

The Swagman was whistling to himself, once again boiling the water in his billy-can, when he heard the trot of horses. He glanced over to see a well-kept man with a white beard and shirt riding up on a horse, most likely a farmer squatting at the local shearing station and a few feet behind him were three mounted troopers, each with a rifle over their shoulder. He became quite concerned when, rather than riding by, they rode their horses right up to the eucalyptus tree and stopped in front of him.
  "That looks like him," said the farmer, and without dismounting, the three troopers trotted closer. The Swagman jumped up, so as not to get trampled, and in his mad scramble, he dropped and spilled his billy-can.
  "Hey hey! Watch it, ya bastards!" yelled the Swagman.
  "What's your name?" asked one of the troopers.
  "Get fucked," replied the Swagman.
  "Easy, swagger," said another trooper. "We're not messin' about. We're looking for a cold-blooded killer what beat a little abo' boy to death. Unless you want to get dragged all the way back to town, you ought to tell us what you're doin' out here."
  "Hey, I ain't killed no blackfellas!" pleaded the Swagman. "I'm just restin' mah feet guv', out of the sun. I ain't seen a soul 'round here but the flies . . ."
  "Is that so . . .?" asked the trooper. He glanced over the swagman's meager belongings; but, when he saw the potato sack with a developing spot of blood seeping through it, he pointed his rifle at the Swagman. "What's that you've got in the tuckerbag, mate?"
  "What, that? That's nothing!" said the Swagman, raising his hands. One of the other troopers dismounted his horse and, keeping his distance from the swagman, the trooper opened the bag and held up one of the limp hindlegs.
  "Nah, it's just a sheep, boss," he said, and the mounted trooper lowered his rifle.
  "A sheep?" asked the farmer. "Oi! That's gotta be one of my sheep!"
  "Hey hey, now," said the Swagman. "No you don't, that's my sheep. I caught it myself."
  "It's got clean wool," said the trooper on foot, unwrapping part of the dead sheep from the bag. "And his arse has been mulesed. It isn't a wild sheep."
  "Told you. He's stolen and killed one of my sheep!"
  "What? No, I didn't steal your fucken sheep. This is bullshit!"
  "Alright, mate, come on," said the trooper on foot, "Grab your stuff, you'll be coming with me."

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred.
Down came the troopers, one, two, and three.
"Who's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

This line tends to change around a bit. In some iterations, the third line is "Who's is that jumbuck . . .?" In the sense of a man stealing sheep, that makes perfect sense. But that's not the version of the song I heard. Rather, the line is, as above:
"Who's that jolly jumbuck?"
For a starter, a male sheep which has been stuffed into a bag isn't going to be very happy, which brings to mind what I said above about him being a "jolly" swagman, perhaps the line is meant to be ironic, in that both the sheep and the swagman are far from jolly; in fact. But also, in the second iteration, the question is "who is?", which may seem like an odd question, unless you know about another legend people associate with the origins of Waltzing Matilda. Allow me to tell you the story of Harry Wood.
According to folklore, a young aboriginal boy had been found beaten to death out in the bush. Admittedly, we were still a fairly racist lot back then, but a child is still a child, and murder is still murder; so, the police were looking for the killer.
The man accused of the murder was named Harry Wood, and to avoid capture, he'd done a runner. The police went into the bush to find him, but at the billabong they found the corpse of a recently drowned homeless swagman. His campfire at the waterside was still crackling and the body was warm. It seemed as though the man had seen them coming, thought the police were after him and so jumped into the river in fright.
Perhaps the man was just mad and homeless; perhaps it was a suicide attempt and he had hoped the troopers would save him; perhaps he was the real killer of the boy, had stuffed the body in his tucker bag and was avoiding capture or maybe it's nothing more than a legend.

~

  "No, you can't do this!" yelled the Swagman.
  "Easy, mate, easy," said the trooper, stepping closer. But then the Swagman knelt down and quickly crammed his stuff into his swag, pulling up the corners, not bothering to roll it. the trooper said, "don't make this difficult."
The Swagman swung the swag around and whacked the trooper off of his feet.
  "Bugger off!" he yelled, then he swung his swag towards the horses, trying to get them to back off.
  "Oi!" yelled out the head trooper as his horse reared; he pulled his rifle.
  "Stop right there, you old bastard!" he barked. "You're coming with us."
  "You'll never take me alive!" cried the Swagman.
He then turned and leapt into the lake with a splash. The troopers dismounted their horses and ran to the edge of the lake to swim after him, but the Swagman hadn't returned to the surface.
  "Where the bloody hell did he go?!" yelled the squatter.
  "I don't think he's coming back up," said the third trooper.
And for a while, the men just stood and stared at the lake, in silence.

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong.
"You'll never take me alive!" said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?"

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me",
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?"

All in all, Waltzing Matilda is a sad and terrible tale. In the first verse, there's depression and homelessness; in the second, there's likely animal slaughter; in the third, wrongful imprisonment & in the fourth and last line, there's suicide.
In fact, thinking about it, this whole story of the swagman reminds me something of a boogeyman.
See, in parts of America, they believe there's a bad man called the boogeyman who eats children that misbehave and don't go to sleep. Some people believe the monster lives under their bed, but there's another belief that he comes to steal children away in a sack; known as the Sack Man or Bag Man, he kidnaps misbehaving children.
And what, with the legend of a young, aboriginal boy being beaten to death, and songs about a man that stows animals away in his tuckerbag - remembering of course that the tuckerbag is for storing stuff you plan on eating - I can't help but think that the Swagman sounds similar to this Bag Man, or "Boogie" Man.
After all, Waltzing Matilda is a ghost story . . .

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, that's the story of the ghost - or 'shade' - of the Coolabah Tree; now, who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

The Hunter's Guide to Monsters - Chapter Five

We all have a dark side, a vice which we can call our own; for we all have own sins to bear. But there exist those where the dark outweighs the light, there are creatures whose lifeblood is the night and seek only to conquer, corrupt, control & destroy. Allow me to introduce you to tonight's monster . . . the 'DEMON':

Demon /'deemən/ n. 1. An evil spirit; devil. 2. A person of great energy, enthusiasm, etc.: He's a demon for work.

5. Demons
  by Hunter Jeremiah

There's not really such a thing as evil. Everyone does what they do because it's good for them, and if others suffer, it's because they've found that the suffering of others does them good. Perhaps they need education, but they're not evil. However, I can't deny that there are those whose actions cause the greater amount of suffering, and there are certain ideologies which by their nature cause more harm than good. In the case of demons, their outlook on life is one that causes great suffering. It's just important to remember that they don't kill, hurt, deceive or maim us because they are evil - they do so because they believe that what they're doing is right.
There are many kinds of demon, and if you wish to know them in greater detail then there exist grimoires and reference materials which focus exclusively on this creature. I will mention quite a few, but the focus of this chapter will be on Demon Lords, and Lesser Demons.

Simply put, demons are creatures from another plane of existence. Some call this Hell, the Underworld, the Inferno, the Pit & a multitude of dark and mysterious names, most of them related to some kind of religion. I don't hold favour with that kind of blasphemy, so I merely call it the Demon Realm.
No man has ever been to this realm for the same reason no living human has been inside of a black hole, our physical form cannot survive the journey. In fact, the same is true of demons and our realm, leading me to my first point. Demonkind are too alien to survive in our world; the air itself tears them to pieces for they are beings of magic. For this reason, when a demon enters our world, they can do so by three common methods, which we believe to be their only options:
  1. Possessing and control a physical object.
When a demon steps through into this reality, they might step into an object. It can be any object, however if a demon possesses a rock or a boot, they will only have the abilities of that item, unless their magic gives them greater power to either corrupt that item into a malleable form or move objects around them at will. For this reason, lesser demons tend to possess man-made objects with moveable parts.
Once a demon possesses an object, it then becomes their physical body for them to move around in this world. Because of this, there is some confusion amongst uneducated persons who believe that demons are equivalent to ghosts, and that these objects are their "Haunts" and it's why some call demons evil spirits. However, this is not accurate. Demons do not have souls, and for that reason Hunters make a distinction between ghost-possessed objects: Haunted Items; and demon-possessed objects: Cursed Items, sometimes known as Demon-bound.
  2. Possessing and control a living creature.
A common trick is for demons to slip into our reality straight into the body of an animal. The kind of animal they can control is entirely dependent on the abilities of the demon, and in some cases it can be a sign of their power. Small demons don't have the strength to control large creatures, settling for insects, small pets, wild birds or feral vermin; whereas some of the stronger demons, due to their power, they literally cannot fit inside of smaller animals, and so will control wolves, bears, horses, large dogs & - if they are strong enough - humans.
Mankind is the most difficult creature for a demon to possess, as we can think for ourselves and there have been cases of humans self-exorcising demons through thought and willpower alone. But, when a demon is strong enough, man can fall victim to its will and allow them to walk amongst us, perfectly disguised.
However, because of the amount of power it requires to control a human, if an exceptionally powerful demon possesses a human body, then there is a high likelihood that their magic will physically corrupt their human host, revealing their true nature.
  3. Crafting a new, earthly body for themselves.
 This is the vessel of choice for Demon Lords. Because they have such power granted to them, before stepping through to our world Demon Lords will manipulate our reality to create a body themselves. Usually, this requires some form of deception, ritual or sacrifice in order to accomplish, but sadly it is not unknown for these exceptionally powerful demons to coerce persons in our own realm of existence, like pawns on a chessboard, to put the pieces in place so they can step through into our world and in so doing birth themselves, demon incarnate, into a perfectly constructed body.
In the cases of self-made demonkin, a Hunter's first defence is prevention. These demons can sculpt their bodies to their will, but they tend not to disguise themselves for they have no need. They merely wander the landscape, terrorizing unsuspecting innocents and destroying lives. It's a catastrophic event, and I hope never to see it in my lifetime, not ever again.


As I said before, there are many kinds of demon. Whether they curse items, possess people or create their own body, they tend to be at some position on a grand hierarchy. Demon families, politics and rivalries are too chaotic for me to possibly explain, however their hierarchy can be explained in a simple three-tier system.

Demon Lords
At the top of the hierarchy are the demon lords. These are incredibly intelligent and very powerful magic users. Some demon lords are more powerful than others, even to the point of being evil gods and they fight amongst themselves for more power, but a demon lord is the highest authority and answers to no other demon's will. These are terrifying monsters and some of them could devour entire cities in one motion, however there is one fact which saves our world from utter destruction. Demons and their magic have mass. The larger a demon is, the more space it occupies. Because of their size, it is difficult for a demon lord to pass through the veil between their world and ours. They may be able to, if they can construct their own body designed specifically to contain their power, however this requires patience, cunning & time. There are many methods demon lords have found to step through and bring their power with them, but if a Hunter strikes before they rise to power, they will be at our mercy.
Mid-tier Demons
This is an absolute mess. This section covers a wide range of demons, but what brings these all under one heading is that they have two things in common. They have the power to command demons lesser than themselves, and yet they still bow to the will of demon lords. This encompasses almost every other kind of demon there is - all of them in the middle - and there are a lot of them.
There are elemental demons; Afirit are fire demons that control minds, djinn are trickster air demons with great power, ghulan are shape-shifting earth demons & maridun are powerful water demons that create storms. There are incubi, which are hybrid half-demons, which attack women to birth demonized children for a succubus, their demon lord mother. There are devils, imps and gremlins, devious lesser demons given the gift of magic and a small, corrupted body, by their demon masters. There are host demons, which are many lesser demons that combine their power into a single entity in one host body.
Then there are many, many more demons which are classified by the object or animal they possess, or the magic they use, the region from whence they come or the colour of their physical bodies; but there are too many to list in this chapter.
Lesser Demons
These are the pawns. Lesser demons tend to be quite simple and dim-witted and they are lacking in power. However, this does not mean we should underestimate them. Just like a pawn on a chessboard, a lesser demon can still kill a king, if you put them in the right place. Also, although they are simple-minded, lesser demons are servants to mid-tier demons and demon lords, so they might still be quite clever creatures, even if this cleverness is not their own. Lesser demons are small, their magic is often limited or weak, but because they have so little power, they are the most discreet. Their power does not corrupt objects from our world, so they can perfectly disguise themselves amongst us.
But, do not be fooled. Although they may not be the smartest creatures, there's more than one kind of 'intelligence', there is a reason people consider demons to be devious. Lesser demons can lie and cheat, and they can trick people into doing their bidding, just like any human thief or criminal. And although weak, you can still find yourself at their mercy. Do not underestimate these weak critters, or they may just inherit this place.

Protection
In the instance that you come across a demon, there are some simple rules to keep in mind to avoid their devilry:

• If it Talks, you Walk − If an animal can speak to you, there's a possibility that it may be possessed by a demon. If it talks, then turn and walk away.
• No Deal − Demons make contracts; although bound to these promises, demons will exploit any loophole. Avoid this, by avoiding demon contracts in the first place.
• Don't Open the Door − Demons are creatures of magic, so they follow the rules of magic. If you do not invite them inside, they cannot cross the boundary.
• Running to Running Water - Running water tends to create a natural leyline, which disrupts magic. Cross running water, and they can't follow.
• Hallowed Be Thy Name − Although powerful demons shield their name, you can use a weaker demon's name to control their magic like any other magic word.
• Exorcise Your Mind − Although difficult, with good mental health you can stop weaker demons from possessing you, by staying calm, confident & remembering who you are.
• Fear of God − For the lesser demons, threatening them with the will of a god, scripture or religious artefacts can frighten them off. Even if you're not religious, they are. They believe in demons and evil gods.
• Demons are Deadly − Demons may use deals, tricks & magic; but never forget that they're killers. Stay vigilant and keep your distance.
• Carry a Big Stick − Demons are physical beings. If you break their physical form, their essence will evaporate. So if all else fails, beat the bugger to death.

Hunting

All demons are devious creatures. They live their lives with a sense of hierarchy and power. It is their belief that you gain power by defeating others and taking their power and magic, and this raises you up the demon hierarchy. The reason they come to our world is because they see us as weak and easy to control, and they kill, harm and manipulate us to prove this control through fear and brutal force.
They cannot be dissuaded from this cause and they cannot be tamed or otherwise pacified, it's just the way they are. The only way to stop a demon is to kill it or return it to the Demon Realm. For this reason, we do not Capture demons, we merely trap them for the purposes of killing or banishing them.
As soon as a demon is discovered, it is our duty to Hunt it down and remove it from this plane of existence.

Find
Demons are difficult creatures to find, not because they are subtle, but because it can be difficult at times to tell which crimes have a demonic influence. When dealing with an elemental demon, or a possessed animal, you can usually follow the trail of destruction, but demons are not always so easy to detect. Hunters are advised to investigate gruesome murders; crop circles or unusual graffiti; theft of supernatural or unusual items; cults or violent gang activity; 'haunted' locations; aggressive sexual assault or rape; torture and mutilation of persons or animals; suspicious kidnappings; violent animal attacks; isolated house-fires & unusual suicides. However, it can be difficult to distinguish the real monsters from the madmen. The most heartbreaking investigation of my life was when I spoke to a brutalized rape victim, only to learn that her attacker wasn't a monster, just a sick human being. But, we must keep a vigilant eye over our towns and cities; it is our duty to keep the innocent safe.
In the case of kidnappings and unusual cases, you may have to resort to using research and cunning investigation skills to find information; but as is often the case, investigate your victim. If they are a survivor, especially of sexual assault, it is prudent to talk to their doctor about their wounds; but a description of their attacker provides vital information, you must ask the victim specific questions so that you can isolate the kind of demon which you are Hunting. If the demon attack was fatal, the body of the victim should provide an abundance of clues as to the method of attack, the strength of their attacker and ways you can protect yourself when you confront them. If you're very lucky, you might even learn the demon's name.
After seeing your victim, if you don't know it already, you should try to discover their motivation, and this is often evident from the crime scene location. In the interests of safety, you should always assume that your demon is involved in summoning rituals. If there's any evidence of collecting sacrifices; sigils or messages written in blood; grave-robbing; patterns or schedules to the certain crimes or evidence of a greater power at play, you must act immediately, so as to prevent the completion of any demon lord summoning. If and when you've eliminated demon summoning rituals, you should look for evidence around the crime scene to determine the purpose of their crimes. Keep in mind that more than anything, demons want Power. Check for any leylines, see if the demon is attempting to source natural magic to empower itself; check for stolen artefacts as well as stolen money, valuable objects or weapons. Occasionally, a demon may commit an attack on the spur of the moment, don't discount the capacity for a demon to kill for fun or commit a crime of opportunity.
So, knowing what kind of demon you're looking for, and knowing their motivation, that should narrow down the list of suspects. Based on the victim and crimes committed, you should be able to gauge the power level of your demon. Blunt force trauma, cuts & evidence of a weapon usually means you're dealing with a small, lesser demon, most likely inhabiting an object or small animal; be on the lookout where these animals or objects usually appear, as they may be hiding there, but this depends on the crimes they're committing, they might be masquerading as someone's pet, toy or property, make sure any major suspects are actually possessed, and not just in the possession of a cursed pet or object.
Harsher attacks involving broken bones, dismemberment, sexual assault, brain damage & burns often are the case of stronger demons, and you may be dealing with large, possessed animals or a demon-bound human; humans will be hiding amongst people, try to get a good description, and keep an eye out for suspicious looking people. Demonic corruption can cause all manner of disfigurement, from horns, red eyes and teeth to cracked, cut or bleeding skin; scales, claws and hair are also known, as well as charred flesh, skin blemishes and warped features.
Large-scale massacres, explosions, plagues & terrorism tend to be the work of demon lords - in these cases, call for backup. The lack of subtlety will most likely streamline your search to following the path of horror in its wake.

Something to keep in mind is that demons, although collectively they seek power and have a tendency to attack and kill shamelessly, they are still individuals. Some are more deadly than others, some more prone to bargain and some seek power more viciously. Like a wild dog, although you may know about them as a species, each creature is an individual and may respond differently to different situations; even demons of the same ilk or kin may have differing degrees of aggression, magic or intelligence.

Banish
Demons, by their very nature, are too dangerous for civilized society. For the safety of all humankind, demons should be killed on sight. However, when they possess the bodies of living persons, you cannot kill them for this will also kill the cursed host. The only option that remains is to Banish them. To accomplish this, You will Need:
"Ring" - Your ring is a basic, magic sigil. A ring on the ground or ceiling (drawn parallel to the floor) with a pentagram or star of david drawn within it. With stronger demons, more symbols can be added, as well as more pentagrams and a more complicated shape or mystical words. If you know the demons name, you should add another ring, and write the demon'ss name, evenly spaced within this circle. I highly recommend that Hunters keep a notebook of powerful sigil patterns, for reference. In practice, this can be drawn with spray paint, carved into a wooden floor or drawn in pen. One trick I prefer is a rolled-up beach towel or tarp with a complex sigil drawn upon it, to quickly and easily lay down a powerful trap.
"Rope" - You should bind your demon, for safety. I prefer to use chain, especially silver chain, as it resists demonic influence, but a mere rope binding the hands can come in useful for a lesser demon. This prevents the demon from attempting to escape from their trap; as even a weak demon given enough time can escape the bonds of a sigil. However, simple bondage can prevent demons from magically escaping their sigil trap.
"Rod" - Admittedly, demons are dark and mystical creatures, and so the best way to exorcise them is with magic, as it directly affects them and that serves this purpose well, I'm afraid. However, there are other ways of banishing a demon. For the non-magical man, such as myself, the method is to scare and torture the demon until they have no option but to leave. I prefer a large ritual dagger, for intimidation; for actual pain, a taser is useful, or fire in extreme cases.

After Hunting down your demon, you should attempt to bind them. This isn't always possible, but you should bind them in rope or chain before stepping them into the sigil ring. The key thing to remember is that you're still dealing with a human being. So, you should attempt to spare the rod. But, other equipment you can use to scare them out include a Bible, hymn book or some kind of religious text, especially for the weak and gullible demons. Your weapon of choice, if you are skilled with it, you should know how to attack without cutting, or ways to use it with flair; in extreme cases you may need to use it, but it can be a useful intimidation tactic. Music can disturb certain demons of discord, which find harmony distasteful. Chalk can come in useful, if you threaten to summon the demon lord of your captured demon.
The greatest tool for scaring demons is your own Confidence. A stern voice and commanding presence is the first step towards a succesful exorcism. However, if you have access to some form of arcane power, or Magic, then it can stop these beasts, but if you ask me that seems too much like using fire to kill an arsonist. At that point, you might as well enter into contract with the demon and convince it to go away by sacrificing your firstborn.

Kill
When a demon is not possessing the body of a human, or some other precious living thing, I'm afraid your task is to destroy it. It really is the safest option. So as to not put everyone at risk, there are several methods for doing this at your disposal:
Amputate the core of your demon's body; be it heart, motor, head, gem, brain, fireplace or some other central aspect and the demon's essence will naturally bleed out. Eviscerate the demon by cutting it open and exposing its matter to the air, and once again it will evaporate. Incinerate A demon's form and it will burn with its body. Obliterate their form completely with magic, and the demon within will be annihilated. Undertake the body of your demon, by burying it in the soil underground; the soil will bleed out their magic slowly killing them, and if they attempt to escape, they will disintegrate. Just ensure that you don't bury them near a vessel which they can possess, and that you bury them deeper than they are capable of excavating.

Final Notes
Under NO circumstances should you ever make a deal with a demon. They are sneaky devils and their ultimate goal is the domination of this reality. Do not afford them that opportunity. It is true that demons are not truly evil, and to them our way of living together peaceably is horrifying, corrupt and backward. This is why they kill us so easily, we seem as evil to them as they seem to us.
But because of their demon culture, we cannot make peace, we cannot ceasefire & we cannot surrender. Until every single demon in this reality is destroyed and the portals which allow passage between our worlds are closed, they are the closest thing to evil which we will ever encounter.

Phobia File: Mannequins

I like shopping. Apparently, that's not much of a "guy thing", but I quite enjoy it. Admittedly, it's not for the actual purchasing of things, I just like to get out of the house, walk around, look through the bookshop and potentially go out for lunch or get a coffee at a café bistro with people that are close to me. I even don't mind clothes shopping; I'm very opinionated (that's one of the reasons I started this blog), so I do have fashions that I do and don't like and I offer my opinion on clothing if I'm out shopping for clothes with others. In fact, when I go shopping with family I sometimes wonder what it would be like if my girlfriend was there, and what it would be like going out with her and having fun, buying things, checking out clothing and going for a coffee.
There's a lot to love about shopping. But there's one thing that always stops me dead in my tracks, and that's the propped up corpses in the middle of the clothing section. The Word of the Day is: 'AUTOMATONOPHOBIA'

Automatonophobia /aw'tomətənəfōbeeə/ n. fear of animatronic creatures, wax statues, mannequins or any inanimate object that simulates a sentient being.

I don't understand why people make those contoured and detailed shop mannequins with the faces, I really don't. When I go to a shop, it's to look at the clothing, and I can see it well enough on the rack. If you want to see what it looks like on, you can wear it yourself - that's what changing rooms are for. Okay, yeah, it's really just to advertise them and show them as full outfits without having to hire models, but even then, what about those cool wooden mannequins?
Why is it that they have to have faces? That's what I'm saying. Because if you try to sculpt a human face, then no matter how well you do, that face will be inanimate. And do you know what a human face looks like when it doesn't move? It looks dead. So, when I see mannequins, I just feel unsettled.

You know what I'm talking about; and that's not just an idle comment, you know what I'm talking about because most people experience it too, although not always with shop mannequins. This is a phenomenon known as the Uncanny Valley, and originally it was used in reference to robotics, and the ways we can make robots (or droids/machines) appear more human. But for today, I'm sticking with two-dimensional simulations.

On the bottom of the spectrum, there's emoticons: ☺
When something is referential to a human, but not human, it's easy to deal with and easily understandable. However, it's also not very empathetic, since it's not expressive, there's not enough to it. Most people don't think of a smiley face as a subject, they think of it as an object. So, to make humans feel more familiar with it, we need to make it more lifelike, so then we look at stuff like anime.These images are much closer to humanity, and people can empathize with anime characters, since they have more features, more expression, more of that human quality like hair and eyebrows, so we can see more of ourselves, and we feel more comfortable thinking of anime characters as people.
Now, let's briefly skip up to the end of the spectrum, where we find photos.
People get photos, photos are good. You recognize people in photos, and if they're not pulling funny faces, then you can see yourself and others in photos, you recognize them as human, it's pretty simple.
If you were to graph this, then as images get more life-like, then our empathy, familiarity and appreciation of these images rises, in a perfect incline. However, there's one step between human-like & human with adds a huge dip in the incline; this 'dip' or valley is known as the Uncanny Valley and for the purposes of this "two-dimensional example", the Uncanny Valley is represented by photoshop.
These can be images that are human, but they are off, they're tweaked so that they're not quite right, and they can be unsettling, especially if an artist messes with the dimensions of a person's face.
So, as you can see, the spectrum goes humanish = "okay, cool"; human-like = "hey, you look like me"; near-human = "AH!! Kill it with Fire!" & human = "Oh, hi Mum."

For me, mannequins sit right in that uncanny valley spectrum. The weird part is, it's mostly the faces. I don't quite know why people like mannequins without heads, they're still kind of creepy (especially the hands), but when I see them I tend to joke about it: "I guess 'decapitated' is the latest fashion."
It's the heads that creep me out, because faces are hard to do right. I remember, the absolute and creepiest mannequins I'd ever seen (which weren't trying to be creepy) were from the hairdresser's. When I was younger, just a little boy, my mother would take me when she went to the hairdresser sometimes. Not only did the whole place smell like wet and oily hair, but along edges of the ceiling, there were rows and rows of these dull-eyed, female mannequin faces on high shelves. All of them had exaggerated blue-painted eyelids and eyelashes, and red, never-smiling, serious lips; each stared into the middle distance as though they'd forgotten what life felt like. They were meant to model a bunch of old wigs, to show off potential hair-styles, despite the fact that no one ever tended them, so the hair often looked frayed, dusty and dried out from the Australian heat.
When I was young, I'd look at that and think "yuck".
Now, if I ever saw them again, I'd think: "That looks disturbingly like a trophy shelf."

I wish, like with my spider-story of my youth, I could use that to explain why I am now automatonophobic, but that's not the case. It's nothing so poetic, rather plainly and simply I'm disturbed by them because they look dead. I don't like dead things, and they look dead, dull-eyed and - perhaps worst of all - they look emotionless.
Even when they make them smile by sculpting their faces with curved lips, they still look like they aren't actually smiling. It's too inhuman, too imperfect, too . . . unalive.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, be a doll for me and stick around for part two of that story from yesterday, I plan on posting part two on the 30th. But in the meantime, there's even more scares to share.

The Writer at the End of this Blog Post

I look up from the first sentence of this story, at the title above.
  "Well, that's maddeningly unhelpful."
  "Word?" asks Dictionary, sitting on my bed next to a pile of unsorted books. "/werd/ 1. See also, Word of the Day?"
  "No, I don't need a Word of the Day, I'm writing fiction today," I say, picking up my Tashi collection and putting it on the side shelf. "I've only been writing Duke Forever for so long, I think it's time that I did some original fiction. I just don't know what to write about. I've got this 'Writer at the End' title from my notes, but I don't know what to make the story about."
  "Foreshadow," Dictionary replied simply, "verb. To presage or suggest something in advance: Didn't you foreshadow the return of the Necronomicon?"
My gaze drifts down to the bottom shelf of my bookshelf, where I keep reference materials.
  "Well, yes . . ." I say, leaning down. "I did say it could make for a nice plot point."
I grasp the fleshy bindings of the old grimoire, and it's unusually warm to the touch. I believe the book is sleeping, as it doesn't react as I pick it up and glance over the skin that forms its cover.
  "But last time I went on one of those adventures, it was pretty dangerous. I nearly lost you, Dictionary, and I could have been seriously hurt."
  "Wimp," says Dictionary.
  "HEY! I am not a wimp!" I say.
  "/wimp/ noun. 1. You," says dictionary, and I see a sketch of my face in its pages.
  "Shut up," I say as I stand up, kicking the book shut and standing on cover. Then, after a some hesitation, since I'm really not sure I want to do this (I mean, really, it's a freaking grimoire full of demony shit and it sucked that Encyclopædia into oblivion, I really shouldn't open this thing) I finally summon the courage from deep in my loins to stop procrastinating with this run-on sentence; so I pinch the corner of the cover and turn over to the first page.
A waft of stale air, that smells unnervingly like bad breath billows from the book and into my face, in a cloud of smell that would have been coloured yellow-green if this were a cartoon.
The first few pages are covered in words from several languages I recognize, and many more which I don't, in a mad, scrawl that twist and turns around the page like the web of a drug-induced spider.
I turn through a few of the pages, passing the title page reading: 'NECRONoMICON'
  "Well, someone had fun playing with the font tool," I murmur idly, as I find one of the friendlier looking pages, which is covered with text. For a moment, it looks like some of the marginalia around the edges of the page disappear like cockroaches when you turn on the light, making me clear my throat awkwardly to build my nerve, but the words look nice enough, and I can actually read them, so I decide to delve into this page of the book. I realize, after reading the title then first sentence, that this is actually some kind of short story.
  "Ooh, I love it when there's a story within a story," I say with a smile. "Sawgrass Sandy and the Dag-nabb'ed Dandy . . . sounds a bit chipper for a grimoire, but okay." I sit down, cross-legged on my bed and read quietly to myself. The page reads:

Sawgrass Sandy & the Dag-nabb'ed Dandy

The wetlands were a farspread landscape of chittering, burbling life and brown-colored waters, isolated from cityfolk. Within this wild wonderland lived Sawgrass Sandy, the sweetest gal of the South, with a twinkle in her black eyes, the widest smile and a heart full of love for God’s green earth. One day, as Sandy was tending her fern gardens, a dark storm-cloud started to shift across the land, sending a mighty dark shadow over the lands from North to South.
  "Well, darn-tootin'," said Sally, looking up at the dark nimbus above, “looks like one o’ those darn’d jungle bunnies ‘ve bin playin’ the devil’s tricks ag’in.”
Standing up straight, and licking her chops, Sandy leaves her garden, and starts wandering down the waterway, headed for the heart of the storm. As she entered the shadow of the clouds there was a crack of thunder, and purple lightning streaked from cloud to cloud in the sky above her.
  “Well butter ma’ bread! Looks like heathen’s hoodoo!” squeaked Sandy. “If that’s Zipper Daddy’s work, I’ll have to show that gator-bait gee willickers!”
Wetting all of her toes as she stepped through a clump of weeds, Sandy began walking towards the 

  “Huh?” I say aloud. I peer closely at the last few words, but they trail off the page, and slip into the crease of the book. It must be some kind of printing error, there are no other words on the other page, the story seems to slip into the middle of the book and out of sight.
“Come on, at least tell me where she was walking . . .” I say, I grab the sides of the book tightly with both hands, and pull, prying the pages out, to peel apart the centre crease. I can see the letters ‘th’
  “Walking towards the ‘thuh’ . . .” I read aloud, then I repositioned my hands with my thumbs both sides of the crease as I pry it apart. “Thuh- . . . ee. Ee-MMmmmm,” I say, reading an ‘e’ and an ‘m’.
As I pull the crease apart, trying to read, it seems to get easier to pull the paper apart. The crease seems to grow deeper as I try to read the words, bringing my face closer and closer.
  “Theee . . . Theme! towards the ‘theme’ . . . paaa-” as I keep pulling, suddenly, the crease opens wide into a gaping hole and I find myself falling “-AaaaAAaaAAAAAARRRCK!”
I find myself sliding through a slippery dip of weathered paper. the line of words beside me is streaming past too quickly to read as I fall headfirst into the depths of the book. Then suddenly, the paper slide opens and I see a flash of green before - THUMP!
I land facefirst onto the grass and my body is unceremoniously dropped beside my head with a flop.
  “Ugh . . .” I murmur, as I roll off my face and onto my back, trying to ignore the new headache. I look up and see an odd-looking opening, two pieces of parchment, leading up to infinity and folded out like a flower.
I frown for a moment before, with a flutter, then the strange dimensional portal folds out of itself, and with a rip! noise, like someone thumbing a deck of cards, the pages combine into two hovering stacks before a cover wraps them from behind and the newly-formed Necronomicon slams shut with a Thoomp! and drops out of the air, landing on my chest heavily. “Oof! . . . ow. Where the hell am I?”
To answer my own question, I sit up and look at this new setting. To my immediate right, there’s some kind of standing booth. To the left, there looks like there are little tents and stands with novelty candy stores and carnival games. In front of me, I see a large ferris wheel and a rickety, old rollercoaster.
  “Theme park,” I say, like Captain Obvious. I climb onto my feet, picking up the Necronomicon as I do so, and look around, as I- “AAGH!!”
 I scream when I see a zombie in the booth beside me. The zombie flinches and holds up its hands, looking shocked. Its face looks mouldy and rotten, with its jaw leaning to one side, an eyelid missing and no lower lip
  “Hhhrrung-guhkraargh . . .” gargles the zombie.
  “Z-z-zombie . . .” I say, dumbstruck.
  “Zrrarr-uh?” says the zombie, looking around, confused, then glances at its hands and flinches again, shocked. “ZRRARR!”
The zombie looks terrified, and starts smacking around the booth, smearing some kind of dark, decayed, bodily fluid against the walls as it struggles.
  “(What in the name of Holy Fuck is going on?!)” I ask myself in a harsh stage whisper.
  "Although the flesh is dead, their memories of life are fresh. In death, these monsters are blind to their macabre fate," says the Necronomicon, in an epic, ethereal voice.
I very, very, very slowly turn to look at the ancient grimoire of the dark arts in my hands.
  “You can talk now?”
  "Like my brethren before me, I possess an inconceivable tongue by the laws of this reality,"
  “ . . . okay. Do you have to talk like that?”
  "Just as it is the nature of the Scorpion to sting, I must speak in the manner-"
  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I say. Before me, the booth has begun to rock back and forth from the hysterical zombie. “Is there something I can do about that?”
  "Forget. Like the horrors that dwell in the deep, forget and live - or die - in ignorance."
  “Uh, okay . . .” I say, stepping forward.
“Hey, hey hey Zom- . . . uh-” don’t call him zombie, you idiot. What’s that nametag say? “-uhh . . . ‘Cad’?”
The zombie stops beating the booth, and it rocks to a stop as he looks up at me.
  “Guhh . . .” he replies.
  “Yeah, that’s right, Cad. Hey, calm down you. Forget about what I said before. You’re perfectly . . . alive-like. Very living, yeah? So, calm down.”
Zombie Cad looks at me and grins, but in his conniptions, one of his eyes had popped out and was dangling sickly on his cheek, making me want to vomit. I manage a smile-like grimace in response.
  “Uhrnn uhh . . . guh Gruhh-eh?” asks Zombie Cad, and stares at me expectantly.
  “Uhhhhhhhhh . . .” I stare around blankly, continuing to ‘uhh’ dumbly, before I see the words 'Ticket Booth' written on a sign under the booth window. “ . . . uhhh . . . a ticket? Yeah, sure.”
"Grnn . . . blurghh . . .", says Zombie Cad, as he leans down, grabs something under the counter, then stands up and slaps a red-stained piece of card on the counter in front of him. Then he glances up, with that creepy, expectant smile again.
  "This cadaver desires you to seize this fragment of paper." said the Necronomicon.
  “I know, I’m just . . .” I hesitate again, before stepping forward carefully and with one hand, I lean forward and pinch the ticket between my fingers. It’s wet, so I have to be careful not to tear it. “Thank you.”
  “Cruhhh-grah,” replied Zombie Cad, turning his hand over and holding it out. I quickly realize he wants money.
  “Okay . . .” I mutter, transferring the Necronomicon under the arm holding the ticket, then I reach into my pocket and find my wallet. After an awkward moment, I retrieve a few gold coins and drop them in Zombie Cad’s hand, careful to drop them so that I don’t have to touch the decayed flesh.
"Urnghh . . . grr uh Rrarrhh . . ." says Zombie Cad, nodding, and as he does black spit spills from his mouth.
  “Uh . . . you’re welcome,” I say. I return the wallet to my pocket, then stand there for a moment.
After another moment, Zombie Cad leans out and points his left arm. His finger is missing, but he points to a dark building a few feet to the right of the booth.
  “Okay then,” I say, heading towards the building. “Hey, Necro -you don’t mind if I call you that, do you? 'Necro'?”
  "Your method of addressing this meagre vessel is immaterial." replied the Necronomicon.
  “Okay, cool.- So, Necro, how exactly do I get out of here?” I ask, as I step into the dark room, the only light come from some standing lamps by the doors, and I find myself standing on a platform beside some tracks.
  "We have fallen into the dark abyss of Narrative, our only respite rests on the final page." said the Necronomicon. As I stand on the platform, I hear a rattling sound, and what looks like three small, flat-bed train carts roll down the track and stop before the platform. Once they stop, I realize that there are short chains on each corner of the three carts, with large cuffs on the end of each.
  “Is this the last page?” I ask.
  "No." said the Necronomicon. "This is the First."
Then, three zombies stagger through the door behind me. I jump and try to step away, but one of them grabs me by the wrist, and I drop the Necronomicon.
  “No no NO!” I scream, “Let me go!”
The zombies don’t listen, and in a zombie-businesslike fashion, they drag me towards the three carts. I yank and try to pull free, their rank, cold breath seeming to stick to my skin like rancid jam. With a pull, it feels like my arm comes loose, until  glance at my wrist and realize that the zombie’s hand has come loose. I scream and throw it off, but one of them pushes my chest and I’m forced down onto the cart.
 “No no! Necro! Help me!”
 "Our paths will cross again, I promise you that . . ." threatens the book.
Before I know it, all four of the chains are clasped around my wrists and ankles and the zombies stand up.
  “Okay . . . okay, okay, okay . . . okay,” I say, glancing around. “Not so bad. ‘First page’, I just need to stop panicking . . . stop panicking . . .”
With a clank that makes my stomach drop, the carts begin to rattle forward, I’m headed feet-first down the track and have to crane my neck to see as a curtain brushes over my legs, leading into the dark ride.
  “Oh . . .shit!” The curtain passes over me, then suddenly, the cart turns down and I plunge straight downwards. The rattling of the carts turns into a scream of metal and wind lashes at my face. I clench my teeth to stop from yelling out, then the track dips and I feel like I’m upside down as the track dips and rolls, sends me around and around. Then I hear a squeal of brakes and I feel pressure as the cart slows down, and again we start rattling along. At first, I think the ride has ended, but then I see a flicker of light. To the left, there’s a small scene, behind a pane of glass. I turn my head and see what looks like store mannequins, all posed life-like, but without clothes, it’s a little unsettling.
Then, to my right, another light comes on, lighting up a scene of more mannequins, but this time the scene looks like one of the mannequins has torn off the head of the other mannequin. I notice myself whimpering.
  “What the hell?” I stutter.
A third light flickers on, this time there are three mannequins standing at attention, in a row, staring straight forward. The cart rattles slowly by them, but as I watch, one of them snaps their head and looks straight at me!
  “Aagh!” I scream. That’s when I start to hear the banging. A loud, but hollow thump, thump.
The fourth light flickers on, and I realize what it is. There are two mannequins, standing in the window there, but they’re both moving, banging their hands on the glass.
“No no no no no . . .” I stammer. I feel sick in my stomach. Then I realize that the thumping noise isn’t just coming from that window, I can hear it behind me. All of the mannequins are banging on the glass. I hear a crash and a tinkle of fragments falling to the ground.
  “AAH! NO! NO NO NO!” I cry out. “Not Mannequins! Please . . . anything but mannequins!”
I hear the creaking of their joints as they climb out of their windows and chase after the cart.
  “No PLEASE! STOP! What kind if sick fuck would do this?! Please, I don’t want to do this anymore!” I scream, and tears stream pitifully from my eyes and wet the flatbed beneath me.
I hear them coming closer and closer, and hear the thump as one of them climbs onto the carts behind me.
I just shut my eyes tight and sob.
  “Please . . .” I stammer. Suddenly, all around me, I hear a loud pop, all the lights turn off, then a whir of machinery winding down. All I can hear is my heavy breathing. I open my eyes, and all I see is darkness.
  “I’m sorry,” says a feminine voice over a loudspeaker, echoing through the chamber. “I’m so very sorry.”
There’s a heavy clunk as all the lights turn on, and I can see two black walls leading up to a concrete ceiling. With a whirring sound, a platform with yellow railings descends from the ceiling, a little lift, all the way down to the ground and stops with a clack onto the rails. I hear the squeak of a gate opening, and the crunch of footsteps on gravel.
  “Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to scare you that badly. I thought you were scared of spiders, not mannequins.’
I crane my neck to look up to the sound of the silk-smooth, honeysweet voice.
  “Beloved? What are you doing here?” I ask. A petite, Indian girl with dimples wearing a business jacket and skirt walks up and starts uncoupling the cuffs from my legs. It’s my girlfriend.
  “You mentioned wanting me to write a story for the Halloween Countdown, so I pulled out this amusement park tale I wrote as a teenager and dusted it off. Didn’t know it would scare you, since it’s a bit too much like Goosebumps.”
  “I don’t remember there being mannequins in Goosebumps,” I say, rubbing my wrists after she uncouples them.
  “Slappy the dummy. Freakiest doll out there.”
  “Fair point,” I say with a smile, then lean forward and give my girlfriend a kiss. She kissed back, rubbing her fingers over my beard stubble. “I’m sorry, I forgot that I asked you to help with the Countdown . . . but, if you were behind it all, I guess this makes you the Writer at the End of the Story?”
  “‘Blog Post’, dear,” she corrects me. “We both have to make it to the end of the story. No one dies, but you have to have a few guts. Fortunately, no spiders at all. Just have to enjoy the ride.”
  “Isn’t this the end? It looks like the end. We’re at the bottom of the webpage.”
  “Cliffhanger,” replies my Beloved. “And not one that’s a cop out. In part two, we start where we left off here, exactly at this moment. Unless you want to take a snack break.”
  “I’ve lost my appetite,” I say, glancing at the frozen mannequins around us. “But where’s Necro?”
  “Necro?”
  “Necronomicon. Evil book, bound in human skin? Sounds like Death from Discworld?”
  “Oh. That book. He appeared in my hands for no reason and started spouting morbid knowledge. I left it on the elevator.”
I glance over my girlfriend’s shoulder to see the grimoire, mumbling to itself in smallcaps.
  “Okay then, everything’s set,” I say with a smile. “I guess now we head up. Ready to go on an adventure, princess?”
“I’m always ready, especially with you. Maybe this can count as our first date.” She smiled.
Then together, hand in hand, we strolled towards Part 2.

The Hunter's Guide to Monsters - Chapter Four

Do you sleep well at night, believing in a life after this? Is it hope, or fear, that makes us believe in an existence beyond? And once that dark comes to take us, will we be free to walk this world of the living, or trapped forever in the hereafter. Whatever comes next, tonight we'll be discussing . . . the 'GHOST':

Ghost /gōst/ n. 1. The spirit of a dead person imagined as wandering among or haunting living people. 2. Only a shadow or trace: Ghost of a chance. 3. (Cap.) A spiritual being: Holy Ghost. 4. T.V. An annoying secondary image. 5. Give up the ghost, a. To die. b. (of machinery) To break down completely. ♦v.t. 6. To work as a ghost writer for (someone).

4. Ghosts
  by Hunter Jeremiah

In all my years, one of the more unsettling creatures I've ever come across would have to be the ghost. The creatures themselves are not bothersome, most are not even dangerous, they tend to keep to themselves . . . However, that's what makes them so unnerving. Although some people - fools, in my opinion - claim that ghosts are demons, doubles and tricksters, it can't be denied that these creatures are the spirits of those past. I've seen men, women and children die, only to return as ghosts. Often pale, not entirely opaque, sometimes looking rotten and dead and others looking more alive than they ever did in their time. All of these spirits are more than just memories, they are the souls of the passed on, which tends to unsettle folk. But for me, even more disturbing are the dead that don't return as ghosts. I have to wonder what became of their spirit, but I'll never know. Not in this lifetime, anyway.
In any case, there are malevolent and harmful ghosts. If there weren't, then I wouldn't be telling you how to defend yourself from them. Like frozen mist, a strangled gasp, and broken voice, a scraping rasp, some ghosts will reach with deadly grasp - and seek to squeeze the life out of you as well.

The most important thing you need to know about ghosts is that they're dead people. It seems obvious, but don't lose sight of those two facts: They are dead, so they can't be killed; and they are people, so you need to treat them with the appropriate respect.
Ghosts are immaterial, and as such they have no definite form. However, that's not to say they are shapeless, ghosts will always look like some aspect of their original self. It could be their inner child, their ego, their ideal self, their corpse, their doubts, their inner demons or their dark side; a ghost can take any and all of these forms, and those experienced enough may shift between them at will.
Also, it is very much true that ghosts can walk through walls, and they can turn pale, transparent or invisible. However, it is believed that their opacity/physicality is not a wilful ability, but rather that a ghost's strength of self and willpower tends to be reliant upon their mental health. If a ghost is weak, confused, scared or sad, they can turn invisible and intangible, but when strong, determined, happy or angry not only will they be visible, but they can even affect the physical world, which is why it is a good idea to treat a ghost with respect; you can't kill them, but they may still be able to kill you.
It is not known what exactly their physical form constitutes. However, due to the prevalence of the term in popular media, Hunters have taken to calling ghost-matter "ectoplasm".

Ghosts often gain some abilities in their new form; as they are no longer bound by physical laws. They can affect their surroundings and move objects with their mind; many can disappear and reappear somewhere else in an instant; they may be able to see beyond walls, distance and time; some ghosts even have the power to possess the bodies of the living & although rare, in some cases ghosts have the been known to have the ability to use hexes and curses.

A ghost is created when a person dies, but is unable to leave the world of the living behind. When you or I have regrets, it can weigh heavily on us; but we have the strength to move through them. However, for the ineffable spirits of the dead, these weights are like anchors that hold them down. This is what many Hunters refer to as a ghost's Burden.
A Burden can be caused by many things, good or bad. Suicides that feels guilty for leaving their family to grieve; Children that were killed too soon; Lovers that never married; Artists that never finished their masterpiece; Sinners that never said sorry & many, many more. There are an infinite number of Ghost Stories and each with their own solution. It is the duty of a Hunter to aid these people in their transition from Here to There, often by listening to a ghost, discovering their Burden and resolving their unfinished business so they can finally move on, Unburdened.
Just as an anchor has a chain, a Burden will often have some form of tether, which restricts the movement of a ghost and binds them to an item, person or place which is known as a ghost's Haunt. Due to the individual and often metaphorical nature of a Haunt, a ghost's Haunt may not be strictly defined and many are not related to their Burden or Ghost Story at all, allowing ghosts to move freely.

However, not all ghosts are benevolent, and some have a much more malignant Burden. It is not unknown for criminals to return as vengeful spirits, whose "Burden" is that they didn't murder enough people to satisfy their bloodlust; some victims return with the "Burden" of wanting all to suffer as they have & even some madmen return "Burdened" with the need to discover a one-ended stick, or some other equally impossible or reprehensible task.
In these instances, when a Hunter cannot or will not Unburden a ghost, their only remaining solution is Exorcism.

Exorcism itself can be a simple task. However, this becomes complicated if a ghost does not want to be exorcised; and most don't, as the experience is not only painful and volatile, but it is believed that it can destroy a soul for good. Never exorcise a benevolent ghost, it is inhumane and undoubtedly a sin.

Protection
In the instance that you come across a less-than-friendly ghost, there are many ways you can keep yourself safe from their ghastly influence:

• Do Your Homework − Before approaching any kind of Haunt, it is good to read up on its Ghost Story, so you won't be caught off guard.
• Don't Go In There − Most ghosts are tethered to their haunt, if you know of a malevolent haunted item or place, stay beyond its reach and you'll be safe.
• Sheathe Your Sword − You can't kill a ghost, so don't even try; if anything, a weapon will anger a ghost, making them stronger, so leave weapons at home.
• Play Nicely − If you treat them like monster, they will act like monsters. Treat a ghost as though they're a normal, living person and they will often respond in kind.
• Hocus Focus − You can protect yourself by keeping healthy and staying calm. it may seem silly, but singing a song to focus your mind can protect you.
• You've Seen a Ghost − Don't freak out, scream or panic at the sight of a ghost, screaming might scare them and encourage them to attack.
• Leave in Peace − If a ghost doesn't want to be unburdened and isn't causing any harm, then leave them be. Some ghosts prefer to deal with their Burdens alone.
• If in Doubt; Talk it Out − Ghost are manifest spirits and emotions, if you're in trouble, negotiate with the deceased and try to calm them down.
• Salt & Iron − The only weakness of a ghost is salt and iron. They cannot pass through iron, and they are weakened when they come into contact with salt.

Hunting

The most important thing to remember about ghosts is that they deserve respect, the same as the living. If they wish to pass on, then we should do our duty, talk to them and help them to solve their final duty. It is wrong to force a ghost to move on if they are not prepared to.
However, just like people, if a ghost commits a crime, injures, kills or disturbs others or in some way disturbs the natural order, then their rights are forfeit and we must punish them.

 s is that they are still people like us. These aren't the Dark Ages anymore, we don't kill monsters for being monsters. If your discover a werewolf is merely massacring livestock, scaring people or defacing property then you have no right to murder them. However, in the instance, of a werewolf turning in a public place; killing or attacking another person or stalking human prey, then the Hunt is on.

Find
Ghostly disturbances tend to be quite noticeable. As they're often committed in anger, there are often notable phantasms, such as unseen yelling, crying or screaming; reports of persons walking through walls or floating through the air; objects being flung around the room or operating of their own accord & transparent spectres of terrifying people. However, that doesn't mean that finding a ghost is simple. To begin with, if a Haunt is portable, or capable of moving like a train or a ship, then it won't be so easy to narrow down its location. More importantly, a Haunt can be as small as a coin or as big as a castle, and its range can cross counties, so you'll need to put your investigator's skills to the test to hunt down your ghost.
Before you get ahead of yourself, it is best to start by investigating the victim. If the victim survived their attack - or have returned as a ghost themselves - meet them at a safe location and speak to them about their experience. Your goal is acquiesce the ghosts abilities and identity. Violent ghosts tend not to be subtle, so this will be a wealth of information. If the victim has died, your goal will be to check their wounds for any unusual blunt force trauma, or perhaps even for ectoplasmic residue, which is the sign of a very powerful ghost.
Once you've gained all the information you can about the attacked, it's now a good idea to learn about the attacker. Although it might be easy to determine the ghost's position from this information alone, you must research your suspects before proceeding. It's good to check local libraries for newspapers and reports of grisly deaths or hauntings; visit local churches or even the town hall for records of births, marriages and deaths & it's good to ask around town for any unusual or recent deaths in the area. If you're lucky, from this information you may discover a ghost's Burden, and be able to despatch it without even stepping foot into their Haunt; but assuming that isn't the case, this will also provide you with information as to their weaknesses, attitudes, mental faculty and severity. Know Thine Enemy.
But, with all of this investigated, the final piece is all about location, location, location. Ghosts are bound to their Haunt, so you will almost certainly find them at the scene of their crime. But, that's not enough. Your goal is not just to find the perimeter of their Haunt, but also the focal point of their Haunt, the object, person, concept or thing which the ghost is bound to. The best option is to organize data of ghost sightings and find the very centre, but you can also discover this information from your victim and witness interrogations as well as suspect research.
Once you know the what, who & where of your ghost, the next step is the Hunt itself.

Capture
Some ghosts can be just a nuisance, be they poltergeists or troublesome spirits, they might be pulling pranks, harassing women or scaring townspeople. In these instances, it would be inhumane to banish them, they may just be restless. In these instances, your best option is to capture and bind them. To capture a ghost, You will Need:
"Song" - Incantation affects the psychic-state of a ghost as well as focusing your mind, so that you may actually touch a ghost. Many religious types use biblical verses or mantras, but I prefer poetry; The works of John Keats have proven most swift and effective. It's best to choose verses, lyrics or mantras which are relevant to your prey.
"Sword" - You need to protect yourself and keep the ghost at bay. You may do this with salt & soil (particularly graveyard dirt) as they bind with ectoplasm, seeping power from dangerous spirits. Also, iron is the only element which a ghost cannot pass through, use this to defend yourself. Some Hunters use iron armour or armoured vehicles. I use my sword when ghosts get too close, but that's not advisable, which is why I keep salt close at hand.
"Spirit Trap" - Some assembly may be required. A spirit trap is a container a Hunter uses to artificially bind a ghost, like a man-made 'Haunt'; you need to get the ghost inside of the trap, then close them. This can then be taken away from the haunting area.

There are several methods to creating a spirit trap, many magic-users craft their own using witchcraft and hocus pocus, but there are three methods I know of.
The Ghost Jar: Wash a large jar and its lid in sea water, leave it to dry. Place the cremated remains of the departed; a photograph or something equally precious in the jar. Place a candle in the jar, small enough to close the lid on it - adhere it to the base with melted wax, if need be - and light the candle. Place the jar within a sigil drawn on the floor for greater effect.
To Use, merely close the lid, snuff out the candle.
The Spirit Box: Find a box large enough to contain the ghost's Haunted Item; iron or iron alloy is preferable - safes are most desirable. Carve the departed's name on the inside of the box, several times so that it is written on each surface, including the lid. Fill the box with enough soil to cover the base (preferably from the departed's burial site). Acquire iron chains and an iron padlock. Place your ghost's Haunted Item inside of the box. For greater affect, place the box within a sigil.
To Use, close the lid, bind with the chain and lock the padlock to secure.
The Coffin Sack: Acquire a large, durable sack or bag - I prefer a cheap gym bag with a zipper. Inside of this bag, place a significant portion of the remains of the departed, bones preferable & any other significant items you can find. Fill the sack with three handfuls of salt and an equivalent amount of iron preferably shrapnel. For greater effect, draw upon the bag sigils and religious symbolism (preferably that of the departed's belief). Acquire a length of natural rope.
To Use, close the bag tight and bind up with rope to press the contents together.

There are other manners of creating a spirit trap, but I tend to prefer a good ghost jar, it's quick and easy. I just warn that the 'coffin sack' can be quite troublesome and doesn't always work.
Some other equipment you might want to consider carrying would be an EMF Detector, as ghosts do cause electro-magnetic disturbances, or some form of communication, be it ouija board or spirit radio, but I find them useless, as if a ghost is unseen and unheard without specialist equipment, it's not much worth hunting, but you can use them for non-violent spirits.
I tend not to use it, as it can be dangerous and expensive, but electricity is also known to disrupt ghosts, they can't easily pass through it and it can dissipate their ectoplasm, although it might seem odd if you have some form of taser or electric fence, can come in quite handy.

The goal is simple, you use song to weaken the ghost and calm your mind; you use your steel or salt to further weaken them and guide them into the trap, then you shut them inside of the trap. The trap itself, if properly made, should summon a ghost to you; if not, you should find their Haunted Item and wait for them there.
If there's any trouble, such as a ghost being too strong to capture with the tools you have at hand, you can try again, but it's prudent to either contact some form of supernatural authority or - in dire circumstances - attempt to remove the creature entirely via banishment.

Banish
You cannot kill a ghost, it is already dead, but a significant equivalent involves destroying a ghosts connections to this living realm. There are three methods for doing this at your disposal:
Breaking a ghost's Haunted item, and you may release it from its bonds to this world. Once the ethereal tether is broken, a ghost will drift away like a balloon with its string cut. However, this task is not always simple, especially if a ghost's Haunted Item is exceptionally strong, or dangerous like military equipment, or in rare circumstances if the Haunted Item is a person. Also as each item is different, although a baseball bat or knife might destroy a portrait or a music box, it may not be possible to "break" a Haunted Item. I've known of ghosts that Haunt lakes, graveyards & even reflections, making their destruction quite impossible.
Burial of a ghost's Haunted Item, especially in a graveyard will render them impotent. However, this is considered quite cruel, as this is essentially condeming them to an entire afterlife of solitary confinement; and thus, should only be used in extreme cases. Similarly, placing Haunted Items away from the populace in deserted buildings or deep in the ocean would provide the same effective, but nonetheless cruel, punishment.
Burning the remains of a deceased person's corpse, and it should burn them from this world. By unearthing their bones, salting them, pouring over them something flammable - I prefer kerosene and - then setting them alight. Some chant as they burn, but that's not necessary, you merely need to ensure that all of the remains - especially the bones - are either totally burnt or heavily charred. If a person has already been cremated, then scattering their ashes might work, but this does not always work, as not every ghost is particularly "attached" to their body.

If none of these serve to remove a ghost and you cannot capture it & it is impossible to unBurden it, then the only remaining option is to get some kind of magician to do the work for you. It may seem like deferring the problem and I highly warn against it, but their hocus pocus can literally tear a ghost from this existence, and render them annihilated, so it's a good idea to know one of their kind.

Final Notes
There are many methods of capturing, banishing & fighting ghosts, but I cannot say this enough they're people, just dead. Nine times out of ten, the ghosts I come across were regular people. Policemen, mothers, farmers, bankers and nurses; they just died and weren't ready to move on. In fact, I've even seen friends of mine return as lost spirits, with tasks left undone.
And although it might be unsettling to meet a disembodied soul, I consider it an honour and a privilege to allow them to take their next step in their existence. Every ghost has a Ghost Story worth listening to, and you should never forget that.