The Ghost Master

Foreword

Ghosts, Hell! I never believed in ghosts, spirits, or any of that other supernatural hogwash that still prevailed in a large segment of the population at mid-twentieth century.  I must have been born of tough pioneer stock, for it was told that I was born with a double-bit axe in one hand and a shotgun in the other. That might have been an exaggeration, but all my young life I was taught either to chop it down or blow it away, so I had no reason to fear or even to believe in something as silly as a ghost.

Darkness held no fear for me as I spent many nights sleeping on the cold ground with one arm wrapped around on old hound dog and the other around my shotgun, listening to the sounds of the forest.  As the years passed I tracked many a deer down the dark trails, slept in the deep snow by the sparkling river, and learned to identify all the sounds of the night.  If something moved in the darkness I either heard it or sensed it, and I could easily distinguish the difference between the hopping sound of rabbits and the soft rustling sound of raccoons as they scurried about looking for food.

I sat around many campfires and listened to the old timers tell tales of ghosts and spirits from another dimension, and they never said anything about a good ghost.  As far as they were concerned, all ghosts were malevolent beings bent on the destruction of mankind, and I wondered why.  My inquisitive nature as to why ghosts are always perceived to be endowed with evil tendencies and never any beneficial ones piqued my curiosity.

Maybe that's what has made me the world’s most renowned authority on ghosts and apparitions over the years.  It might sound like bragging, but I have no peers as I stand alone at the top of my profession, for I have observed from afar all the phony mediums, spiritualists, and necromancers that tend to cloud men’s minds with childish dribble that only an idiot would believe.  After an age of lies and deception by devious personalities bent on nothing more than financial gain, the truth shall prevail, and the real story of ghosts and apparitions can now be brought to light.