It seems that I find myself sitting up at the front desk of the crematory for yet another anxiety riddled night. All the stiffs on today’s schedules have been burned through and I find myself twiddling my thumbs for the last few hours of my shift.

Mr. Arbogast, my boss, had left hours earlier and left me in charge of the building until morning came. It’s not wise to leave this God forsaken place unsupervised for too long. Truthfully, I would have never gotten into this field if I knew what horrible things it entailed, but I digress. I took the job, the pay is decent and my name might as well be written in blood on the contract.

We’re a fairly small ‘business’ in terms of the... clientele we accept. The bigger crematoriums in the larger, neighboring cities will send us their undesirables, whether that ranges from the innocent souls trapped in purgatory or the malevolent beings who exist only to inflict pain. Pretty cool stuff, right?

I would wager than nine out of the ten who get wheeled through our door are relatively harmless. They usually take up residence within the confines of Arbogasts Crematorium. In fact, over the last few months that I’ve worked here I’ve come to make friends with some of these spirits, including Leslie, an older woman who’d spent her Earthly days as a barista. It wasn’t uncommon to find a freshly brewed pot whenever I found myself in the break room alone.

Others can be a bit nefarious, similar to the kid in your choir class who’d pull your seat out from under you just before you sat down. Not particularly dangerous, but occasionally annoying. Herman, a gentleman who’d died of a massive heart attack during a particularly intense session with a prostitute, would fling papers and pencils off my desk any chance he got. Poor bastards probably mad when the coroner found him in his car with his twig and berries hanging out his fly. I always made sure to stick up a middle finger when the pencil I was going to reach for suddenly zipped across the room, I’d like to think he got a good laugh out of it.

As these bodies are prepared to be superheated into a fine powder, some of them, not all but some, will made subtle movements as they lay on the prep table. A finger or a toe might curl and relax a few times, sometimes an arm would slump off the table. I figured it couldnt be the wind, considering our building was surrounded by dense woods. That’s just a little lie I would tell myself during the first few weeks I started working here, it helped ease my anxiety a bit.

Of course, now the truth was irrefutable folks. There certainly are ghosts, spirits, demons and specters that exist among us. We’re not so different from them, obviously they used to be one us.

There are certain rules that do apply to these variety of ghosts (I won’t call them demons for obvious reasons) however, they don’t need to be written or followed quite as stringently as they need to be when it comes to a more conniving, evil spirit. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the saying “glorifying the dead”, like when grandpa dies and everyone gathers telling stories of how innocent and sweet he used to be even though grandmas suffered one too many black eyes for it to be just the doors fault.

It turns out, this old saying does hold some water. Outside of Herman, I find myself biting my tongue around certain spirits would walk these premises. Let’s take Samantha for example, I wouldn’t necessarily classify her as an ‘evil spirit’ so much as a child who got too big and found out she could whoop moms ass. You see, Samantha tends to hang around Mr. Arbogasts office and when I find myself looking for a certain document or piece for a ritual (we’ll cover rituals another time) that I can’t seem to find, it’s best not to curse her name.

It was a couple months back that I was looking for a particular set of candles, a piece for one of the rituals, and found it in a completely different place than it should’ve been. I knew instantly who must’ve done it, and that night I was hopped up on one too many Red Bull’s and my nerves were twisted into a knot.

“God damnit Samantha! You’re gonna get me killed!”, I’d shouted, and just before I could exit the office, the door slammed shut and consequently shattered my nose. My nose now leans a few centimeters to the left more than I’d like, but I definitely wouldn’t be making that mistake again. I’d hate to imagine the idea of a living Samantha, let alone the ghastly asshole who roams my bosses office now.

Again, that might sound bad and grounds for quitting even a decent paying job. But as I said, the contract is signed and I’m tied to this place for the next eternity or so. Besides, that’s nothing compared to the true evil which finds itself on our doorstep, the real bastards of this life who can’t seem to stay away from tormenting other human beings. The demons.

Again, I will get to them in just a moment. I’d like to go ahead and cover another one of the ‘unspoken rules’, the ones that don’t necessarily put us in deathly harm is they’re not precisely followed. This rule is pretty much all-encompassing, applies to those who are not only dead but also alive.

GREET YOUR GOD DAMN GUESTS

Yes, that’s it, that’s how I like to classify and file that rule away in my mind. Whenever I find myself punching in for yet another day of work (woo-hoo!), no matter how pissed off the guy in the lifted Ford F-950 rode my ass the entire way to the crematorium, I must always greet the place with a jovial “Hello, everyone, I hope you’re all well”, even if I look like a psychopath talking to an empty room. Sometimes Mr. Arbogast would be there to greet me at the beginning of my shift, which made me feel a little less stupid when I had to say it.

Really, this is the first rule I figured out upon taking over the job of his previous assistant (again, I’ll get to this another time). It was an oppressively cold day when I pulled up early for one my first shifts, even though I had blown a tire and had to put on the spare in the freezing snow, I still managed to make it with a few minutes to spare. In my haste to catch a fresh cup of Leslies steaming, hot coffee, I neglected to greet our otherwordly visitors. Mr. Arbogast had made it clear to me before I was hired to follow this particular rule, even though I didn’t pay him much mind because I thought it was ridiculous at the time. As I threw off my jacket and tossed it haphazardly on the coat rack, I did one of those awkward half run, half walks to the break room, only for the carpet accompanying the front door to pull out from beneath me with startling ferocity.

After a cup of coffee and a cigarette, I was good as new, even though the bruise on my tailbone lingered for the next few weeks. It was a pain in the ass to sit down, literally, though I never forgot to greet my ghostly friends thereafter.

I suppose it’s time to talk about the Demons, the part I’m sure you’ve read on to this point for.

We’re fortunate enough here at the Arbogast Crematorium to have a few tools to help detect these creatures. Upon arrival of any new cadaver we are to run a device along the length of their body, the best way I can describe it is like one of those metal detector wands that airport security use. This device is lovingly referred to as the ‘Paranormal Spectrometer’. Im not entirely sure where my boss got the idea, let alone the parts, to put together such a machine, though it’s never let us down to this point.

After thorough inspection of the cadaver using the P.S. device, it will read a number ranging between 0 and 8. What do these numbers mean? Essentially, it detects the concentration of evil, of wrath and hatred within a particular being. Anything below 4 is considered normal (Samantha clocked in at a 3.9, unfortunately) and can be cremated as usual, no rituals or anything otherwise. Anything between a 4 and a 7 should be treated as an imminent threat to your safety, and one of the two methods for removing the demon should be undertook immediately. Finally, there is anything that clocks above a 7. In the event that the P.S. picks up a level this high, then it is advised that you grab your ankles and prepare to be thoroughly fucked into oblivion.

I’m only half kidding. There is another method to removing a demonic spirit of this caliber, however it entails sacrificing your life and being doomed to walk purgatory for all eternity. Not ideal, obviously.

Mr. Arbogast told me a story of a creature so inky black that it could seep into the shadows and take their form, morphing into things so insidious that it would drive an average mans mind to insanity. They can manipulate space and time, infecting your very soul upon just gazing at the thing. He said that the creatures P.S. level had clocked in at a 7.7, almost completely unheard of. The body which it inhabited belonged to an unidentified body, a ‘John Doe’. Anything above the level of 7 belongs to the likes of Ted Bundy and Josef Stalin, people so heinous that their evil carried on even into the afterlife. Not too bad, right?

There are three ways to expel these Demons.

Method 1 - Ritual This method is usually reserved for the demons with P.S. levels between 4 and 5, they can be expelled using everyday items most people keep around their home (thankfully, I can walk you through!). First, the body must be laid upon an even ground, such as your living room or kitchen floor. A salt line is then to be placed along the outskirts of the body, similar to the marker they use to outline crime scenes. Then, a bundle of sticks, some mint leaves and a lock of the victims hair must be burnt just above their head. If the demon fleas the body before the salt line is completed, then please refer to Method 2.

Method 2 - Fight Unfortunately, you will most likely not be equipped with the necessary items to use this method. Much like the P.S. device, we have a specialized piece of headwear and goggles (state of the art, as far as I’m concerned), that it makes it possible to see beyond the material plain. Unfortunately, their are some drawbacks of using this machine, which include lifelong hallucinations and the inability to view the real world the same way again.

It is nearly impossible to fight a demon without this equipment, however I have some tips and tricks I can share with you all soon in the event that your home becomes infested with creatures of the demonic nature.

I can hear the birds chirping and the sunshine is beginning to wash over my desk... morning has arrived! I will write you all again soon, perhaps I’ll even divulge a few of the stories I have regarding this place and my battles with the Demons.

It’s nice getting all these thoughts written down.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns (or even some tips of your own!), then feel free to share! Until then, I will be relishing my time away from this place.