October 1st, 2018
Kid’s are dumb, don’t get me wrong, but most of them still know not to play around train tracks. I also couldn’t find any reports or news articles pointing to this being a prank or some wayward dare. What little I could scrounge (hey, there’s only so much I can do and I’m not terribly good at getting into computer systems. Yet) pointed to Jasmine being alone when she was hit by the train.
Unfortunately, there weren’t any cameras on the station that caught it, otherwise I might’ve been able to glean something extra from the incident. Might be something mundane (maybe she tripped or something?), but I’m going to look into it anyways. Especially since the article that drew me this way indicated that this wasn’t the first time someone’d had a run with the train.
Just this was the first fatal time. Got an early morning so I can get into town ‘round noon so I’m putting the pen down for now.
October 2nd, 2018
Rolled into town a little earlier than I expected to. I got a room at the local motel, threw on my suit, and went out to the train station. I flashed my most generic and official looking ID, claiming to be an insurance investigator for the railway, and got to wander around the space unimpeded. Hell, they even gave me a set of keys so I got to explore the entire place.
EMF meter went off around the midpoint of the loading bay of the station. This is a little weird since the report, again provided by the station master, said that Jasmine was hit by the train where it left the station. I’d’ve expected my meter to go off where she died rather than a randomish spot in the middle of the station.
Since a séance was out of the question in the middle of the day (and dangerous to boot since I’m not entirely certain what I’m dealing with), I left the station and hit up the local library.
Pro-tip: most places have a library (even the tiny towns) and those libraries usually have old copies of newspapers that you can use to research. If you’re lucky, those records will be digitized and you can use a search feature.
I was lucky.
The librarian helped some, but mostly I spent my evening plugging away at digital microfiche. I was able to turn up a couple of different reports of people dying by train. Seems the first one happened a couple of decades ago. That might be the origin of my ghost, but I’m not fully convinced.
October 3rd, 2018
Okay. So after a talk with Miku (I had a hunch), I think I’ve identified this thing as a Teke-Teke. This spirit haunts the train station where they died. The traditional legend goes: a person of cruel intent and demeanor was scared, pushed, or otherwise coerced onto the tracks of the train where they were bisected and killed. Being cruel in nature during life, they returned in death to continue spreading misery and despair. The creature is named for the telltale sound it makes whilst pursuing its victims (which, apparently, sounds just like an approaching train).
After a review of the copies of from the library, guess what I found?
Yup. The first victim, back in 1993, was hit by a train under suspicious circumstances. No one was ever brought to justice.
This has classic ‘unresolved business’ written all over it. That’s on top of matching with lore that describes the creation of a Teke-Teke. We’ve got a solid idea.
But how does one fight such a thing? Well… it’s a ghost.
Ghosts are all dealt with in the same fashion: find, salt, and burn whatever is tying the spirit to this mortal realm. A visit to the cemetery is in order to.
October 4th, 2018
So, vandalism is fun. Just going to put that out there. Also: all cemeteries should consist of mausoleums instead of sticking bodies under feet of dirt.
I went out to the cemetery and found Georgina Steffan’s final resting place. I broke open her crypt and dragged (note to self, bring help next time. Coffins are HEAVY) her worm box out of the wall and burned the contents. I was even nice enough to return the coffin to the crypt and put the name plate back. If we’re lucky, no one will notice my intrusion and the family can continue to exist in peace. Just because the deceased wasn’t a pleasant person (by all accounts I could find) doesn’t mean the family needs to be disturbed because I went through the grave.
Just to be thorough, I also went out to the train station again. It was well after midnight at this point so the master key I’d pocketed from the station master came in handy. It’s much easier to break into a place when you have a key.
I walked the space to be sure I’d nailed the anchor. Good thing I opted to take that extra step as while I was exploring the station after hours, the terrifying ghost manifested before me. She hardly looked human with bone scythes for arms and a distinctly missing lower half.
Rocksalt shotgun rounds, my iron club, and a liberal amount of salt-laced Molotov cocktails later and I’d barely avoided burning the train station down while banishing the Teke-Teke to whatever afterlife awaited it.
When dealing with a spirit like that, it would seem it’s best to also thoroughly check the place it’s haunting just to make sure you sever all the anchors. There’s no half-assing this job.
Used in this post is a newspaper template from TheGoodocs.com
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