Well you kids won't be seeing me around anymore.
I've accounted for The Infernal 101 - a hundred of the most vicious, slabbering, demonic phantasms ever to be unleashed upon humanity. And a piece of ghost history all of themselves, as they were all tormented souls gobbled up, twisted, and spat out by the Lincoln County Wraith Wars of 1878.
It started out just like any other gang war - in the old west or anywhere else. Businesses fighting for territory, hiring guns and calling in hits. But then the warlocks got involved, started raising the biggest and baddest of the shootists from the dead, and that's where things got out of hand.
A big chunk of the New Mexico Territory became a ghostly wasteland, and right-minded folks took the long way around when they needed to get to the other side. But there were a number of folks who maybe weren't so right in their minds and tried to stay on. Folks who had nowhere else to go, and stood their ground on the only piece of dirt they ever had.
Lottie Fuentes was too young to own a saloon, but after her mother died there was nobody else to take over. I'd had special feelings for Lottie since before the Wraith Wars began. Even when things started to go bat$#% crazy, there was no way I could get her to walk away.
In the end, neither of us were able to walk away. When Grayson and his spectral hoard showed up outside, there was nothing we could really do. We didn't have any training in fighting ghosts, and the priests and the shamans had packed their bags and left long before.
When you lose your life in that kind of supernatural maelstrom, it's mighty disorienting. You end up causing damage just because you're confused and more scared than you've ever been in your life. I lost track of Lottie on that day, both of us swept up in the screams and horror and fright and death.
Somehow I eventually headed north, and landed in the Sangre de Cristos. I gained control of my faculties there, with the help of some local monks who took pity on a poor, lovelorn ghost like myself. There they taught me all they knew about ghost hunting and trapping, and I devoted my entire being to it.
Now, after so many years, not only have I bottled the last of the most wicked spirits born in that uprising, but I have found the spirit I have really been searching for all these years - my darling Lottie.
And I couldn't have done it without you meddling kids! @
Nate Sun and the rest of you got the ball rollin', and eventually my Ghost Boxes did their trick. Not only are all the original 100 of the wickedest wraiths now in custody, but my Lottie has been recovered too.
I've driven my RV into deep into the woods and parked it. It's full of racks and racks of those evil ghosts, neatly deposited individually into child-proof ectoplasmic klein bottles. And there's one bottle - a special deluxe edition of my own design - where I will be joining Lottie for the rest of what you young people call eternity.
Don't try to find my RV - I've got a century of experience on you kids in terms of the eerie ins and outs of hiding in the woods. And it's essentially full of toxic spiritual material, with a half-life. Stuff you wouldn't want to mess with. As you know. Give them a century or two to decant and they won't be a danger to anybody anymore.
So, thanks again. You kids are alright.
I'm heading in. It's been a long time comin'.
Now do I repay a period won.
My job is almost done.
You kids have been a handful. I know a few of my Ghost Boxes were vandalized, but overall my haul has been ok. And you kids have been doin' a good job stayin' away from 'em. Way to go, @
*Atlantica* ;)
I've got a checklist of all the worst ghost varmints there are, and I'm checkin' them off as they come. A lot of old enemies, and a lot of old friends. Tom "The Salamander" Green, Charles "Knuckles" McMarshall, Jim "Garfield" Davis, Sir John Galvin, Tom "The Knife" Cullens, Brainy Palmer...
There's just one more fish I'm hopin' to land till we call this rift sealed.
Keep it up, kids.
Whoops - got another. Wet sanitary rat in a stew!
Ghost Boxes are not toys.
I've spent too much time fishin' you kids out of my boxes. If you get too close, the thing's gonna get you. It's that simple. If you are not irresistibly drawn to the flame of the ghost bait, then DO NOT TOUCH.
I'm all about catch and release. If you're not the evil doer we're trying to get off the street, then we're gonna let you go. We only keep the ones that are troublesome.
In my RV I've got rows and rows of tiny boxes where we file away the bad ones. I know who I'm lookin' for - if you're not a known and wanted feral spirit, you kids got nothin' to worry about.
Oh, hey, got another one on the line.
A nut for a jar of tuna.
Calhoun Mysteries, LLC., works within full compliance of the whole of the Law. We obtain all licenses and permits required by the relevant local regulatory bodies, including the ancient, the eldritch, the prehistoric, the psychogenic, and the futurity-based.
You kids don't know the danger that an unmitigated ghost infestation represents. I've been in this business for a mighty long time, believe you me, and I've seen things you young people wouldn't believe. The Jersey City Specter Scourge, 2003. The 1962 Fresno Phantasm Plague. The Lincoln County Wraith War of 1878.
I'm just here to do a job, and you'll all be safer if you just go about your business and stay away from the boxes. If'n you're not a ghost, that is.
Duty calls. Stab nail at ill Italian bats.
Calhoun Mysteries, LLC., kindly asks all new and returning students to stay well away from the Ghost Boxes we have installed throughout campus. They are highly sensitive instruments, and won't react kindly to any tomfoolery by you kids.
The mechanism inside each of them is an intricate and delicate construction of tiny mirrors, gyroscopes, and music boxes that play backwards. There's also a meta-dimensional "honey pot" inside, inscribed with tiny palindromes.
A warning - ghosts do not love lap dancing, as @
Nate Sun mistakenly thinks. Well, not most ghosts. There was one, once, that got away. But you kids are too young for that kinda story anyway.
Ah, Satan sees Natasha. Gotta go.