"The Chronicles of Hunter - Just a story" by Marijan Sruk

There are forces on this world that only a few understand. Imagine that every mentally ill person in sanatoriums or other facilities is right when he or she says that they see dead people, shadows or hear violent voices. That there are beings that visit them at night, objects moving on their own. I don't expect that my story will change anything or that anyone will beleve in it. But I would not have the peace of mind if I kept it to my self.
I call my self Hunter. I hunt, seek, watch and I learn. I spent my youth in small town called Doogort. It is located on Achill Island in north of Ireland. Old religions and beliefs still circle there. So already as a young boy I was familiar with all kinds of religions and worships. Despite diversevness of religions there was peace and mutual understending. I finished school, got drunk, had a few girls, entered the college... But I have never finished it, though. I always had intrest in supernatural. I couldn't get rid of the feeling that there is more to this world than money, cars, food, shopping and other usual stuff. I was right. Although my family wasn't rich we had enought money to live comfortable. So when I dropped out of college on second year, my father sent me to travel through Ireland. To cool my mind, he said. I saw many beautifull and breathtaking places. Green hills, clear creeks, smell of fresh high land air...that was my country. I visited many pubs and hostels, met many different people. Some of them were violent and kind of crazy, others were quiet and ready to help you. It was on one of this journeys that I met a man who changed my life. His name was Malechai. He was an older man, in his late fifties. He had splendorous gray beard and semi-long gray hair. His teeth were a little yellow from smoking. When I remember him I always see him with a thin, brown cigarette. He enjoyed just to have it in his mouth. Sometimes he didn't even light it up. There was a sea of wisdom and experience in his clear, green eyes. His look was soothing. He had a few scars on his body. Probably made by knife. I never asked. We met in pub during a stormy night. It was cold as hell. I think it was in a pub named Wooden leg, on the road to Cork, somewhere between Watergrasshill and Fermoy. The storm caught me on the road. I was backpacking to the dorm in Cork city. I entered the pub soaked from head to toe. It was quite a busy night, there were lots of people. I sat down next to him and ordered a glass of beer. Some guys were playing pool in the back. There was lot of noise coming from there. A dull sound of pool balls, hitting each other. For a few moments we sat there in silence. I noticed that he is looking at me. After awhile he spoke.
-You are a traveler, yes?-
He had an accent. It was obvious that he is not from Ireland.
-Why do you ask?- I returned the question.
-Just making small talk. No need to be nervous.-
He took a shot of his whiskey. Then he waved at bartender for another drink.
-Yes, I am a traveler. I am on my way to Cork. And what’s your story?-
-Ah, my story is long and sad. But I will not burden you with that. Suffice to say that I saw a lot.-
-What do you mean?-
After that our conversation just went on. We talked for hours. He told me that he was from Finland. After a rough youth he joined Legion of Honor where he served for seven years. They were shipped to Algeria. There he had his first encounter with supernatural. He witnessed what he later found out to be the poltergeist effect. In a sloppy hotel there was this room. Room no. 12. At night hours the strange sounds came from there. You could hear knocking, sound of steps, sound of things crashing, sighs, cries, even screams. In that room flames would burst from thin air and then just extinguish by it self. Hotel manager called a man to help. Man whose job was this kind of things. His name was Aziz. He was skinny, little black man, bald, with great, big, black eyes. He was short. When Malechai met him Aziz told him that he was waiting form him. Malechai was confused. He didn't know this man. How could he then have expected him? Malechai watched as Aziz preformed his rituals in the room. Invisible forces put up a strong fight. Objects were hitting Aziz in the head, doors were slamming, blood poured down from corners… Malechai couldn’t believe it. After the room was cleaned, Aziz and Malechai spent long, night hours in talk, just as Malechai and I did now. Aziz explained to him that there are forces invading this world that are not part of nature. And there are men who can fight those forces. Aziz talked about ghosts, haunted places, demons, possessions, even witches and vampires. All were in some form real, not legends. After Malechai saw what happened in room no. 12 he did not have any problems believing in what Aziz was telling him now. Aziz also told him that he was a fighter of spiritual nature. He had spent almost 30 years of his life on that. And now it’s time to pass it on. He had a vision of a stranger coming to him, a new soldier. He saw Malechai in his dreams. Aziz offered Malechai to join him. After few days of thinking, Malechai agreed. He quit the Legion of Honor and joined Aziz. Aziz trained him, showed him things. Malechai education lasted almost 10 years. Aziz was an old man by then. He could barely walk. He told Malechai that he is now ready to proceed on his own. And so Malechai became spiritual fighter. He stayed in Algeria until Aziz left this world. After he buried old man he began to travel. The world was full of those ghastly creatures. He fought them the best he could. Some battles he won, some he lost. But he made a difference. The road of faith led him here. And a week ago he also had a vision. He knew that the time has come to pass the knowledge on. And than Malechai asked me something that I had not expected. He asked me to join him.
-But I am not a shaman. I never had any powers, I never saw anything unusual.- I tried to plea.
-Almost no one is born with powers to see those things. It doesn’t matter. What it matters is that you have an open mind. You never questioned or mocked someone’s religion. You have doubts about this world, about its values. Open mind is a road to the great warrior.-
I believed his story. It was too unusual not to be true. I don’t know, I just felt he was telling the truth. And so I asked him a question.
-Tell me, what do those forces want? Why are they invading our world? What drives them?-
-There is no cause for them. They have no wishes, no motives. Pure evil and madness drives them. And attracts them. So, on evil places and around evil persons you have evil forces.-
-But are those forces attracted to them or are the evil persons created by those forces? Corrupted by them?-
-That, my friend is a question for which I don’t have answer.-
Long story short, that night I accepted “The Call”. I decided to join. The pub was closing and we had to go. Malechai rented a small cottage in a nearby village. There my education would begin. It started with reading. Lots of reading. I wondered where he got all those books. Some of them were very old, from 18 – hundreds. Some of them were about demons, witches, vampires and similar stuff, other were more philosophical, about life after death, about balance in nature and about the right way of living. I called my parents and I lied. I told them that I got a job in Cork and that I will live there for a while. They believed me, as long as I kept in touch with them. We spent about a year in that cottage. One night Malechai told me something that he found out about himself, while he was still in Algeria. He was a child of vampire, so called dhampire. The thing about dhampire is that it is doomed to become a vampire hunter, a spiritual warrior. It can not find peace in anything else. For unknown reason, dhampires have special powers and strength on Saturdays. Dhampires are very rare because in most cases a vampire can not make a woman pregnant. His body and along with it his semen is dead. But there are exceptions. And vampires…that is another story. Unlike what is told in most modern human legends, you can’t become a vampire by bite. Vampires are people who died in sudden death, extremely violent death or who are not buried properly. That kind of bodies leave an open door for dark forces to raise it and use it for their own will. There are many kinds of vampires. The most common is nachzehrer. It can be identified by unusual habit oh holding his thumb with his other hand. He usually kills his relatives by magic, all the time remaining in his grave. He will eat his burial cloth, even his own flesh. While that happens, his relatives get sick and die. When he leaves his grave he usually takes a form of some animal, most common is pig. He gets out and drinks blood from humans. This form of vampire is extremely dangerous because his shadow kills. Who ever crosses with his shadow, dies. To kill this vampire it is necessary to cut of his head. Any names written on his clothes have to be removed before decapitating. There is also a kind of vampiric demon called alp. He can take a form of cat, pig or a bird. He can fly or ride on a horse. In his human form he is very handsome. He is rarely violent to his victims. He wears a hat to which he is very sensitive because it holds all his powers. If he loses it and somebody returns it to him, that person will be under his protection. He enters in human body through mouth, changing his shape to mist. He drinks blood from nipples of men and children, but he enjoys in taste of women and cows milk. He never kills his victims. As I said, I spent a year on reading and theoretical learning. Only after that, Malechai started my field training. The first stop was local cemetery. Of course, we went there by night. Malechai said that spirits are usually quiet during the day. When we arrived he asked me if I see something. I said I don’t. Then he taught me the secret of spirit-viewing, something that I will not explain in this story because not all people can handle spirit world. And under that dark blue night sky I saw them for the first time. Ghosts wondering the graveyard. They retained some of human form. But not all of it. Their “bodies”, if you can call them that, were greenish and transparent. Some of them were only a little more than spooky, green fog. There was this young girl, about 17, sitting beside her own grave, looking at it with sorrow and fear. She couldn’t believe that she was dead. She tried to pick a rose from marble headstone, but she couldn’t. Her hand just passed through it. Than there was this old guy, wearing the clothes from 19th century. He was shouting something, but no sound came out. He couldn’t communicate, none of them could. They would just open their mouths, like fish on dry land.
-They are trapped in earth’s spiritual world. They can not pass on, but of course they couldn’t keep their bodies. So they wonder, lost and in fear. Searching for peace.-
-Why can’t they pass on?-
-They have some unsolved problems, some unfulfilled wishes. They have some strong bound, holding them to this world. And so they stay, until it is solved. Sometimes they get mad. They start to throw things around. Then you must help them to find their peace.-
I was impressed with my new field of vision. Here and there I would see some kind of force, dwelling in corner, or just wandering around. A week from that, we visited nearby mental institution.
-Why are we going there?- I asked.
-Mentally ill persons act like antennas. They receive signals from surroundings, only they can not process it.-
-So…what you saying is… that they are not actually crazy?-
-Some of them, yes. Only confused.-
-That is sad.-
Malechai paid off night guard to let us in. It was creepy how anyone with enough cash could just wonder in this kind of institution. In there, Malechai taught me how to use those persons to our advantage. We could learn and harvest information from them. After that Malechai dragged me to the real exorcism. We left Ireland for that. We were in Scotland now, in a town of Perth. Perth has a rich history. It was known as the ancient capital of Scotland, a status it held until James I, king of Scotland, was murdered here in 1437. In 1298 Perth was captured and fortified by Edward I, king of England. It was retaken in 1311 by Robert Bruce. The town was again held by the English from 1335 to 1339. Perth's port, of importance during the Middle Ages, is now of relatively minor significance. We were in some kind of barn. The priest – exorcist was present. There were also psychiatric, doctor and parents of the possessed boy. Malechai and I were there as observers. And so I observed. I looked as the light dimmed, disappeared like it was devoured by some invisible force. The chills embraced us. Cold pockets of air. From dark corners I saw mean, red eyes watching us. Just blinking. The boy was restrained to some kind of bars. He tried to set himself free. The priest kissed the cross and pressed it to the boy’s forehead. A kind of vapor burst from the cross. It left the mark on boy. Everything was being recorded by video camera, in case something goes wrong. Of course, those kinds of videos are never seen by public. The praying began. The boy was tossing himself from side to side, he contracted, screamed, he spat on priest, talked something in weird languages. It was not a pretty sight. The exorcism lasted for whole two days. We had pauses, of course. Some kind of strong demon entered boy’s body and it didn’t have any intention of leaving it. When it was finally banished, in dawn, the boy “woke up”, not remembering anything. Thank God for that. I had a few more lessons, after that. Malechai explained to me how to recognize and remove curses, how to fight vampires, how to recognize and use real prophets and so on. We traveled across the Europe. We visited France, Spain, Belgium, Monaco, Monte Negro, Romania and Russia. But then, when we returned to Ireland, something unexpected and terrible happened. Malechai got sick and died, just in few days. Lung cancer, the doctors said. He had it for years. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn’t. The trouble was I never finished my schooling. I haven’t become spirit warrior. Some of Malechais knowledge will never be passed on.
So, now I am searching for persons like him. I don’t know if there are any. In the meantime I fight demons, dark forces the best I can. I don’t fool my self, I know my weaknesses. I avoid hard cases. So, this is my story. One day, I hope to tell you what happened next. A sequel, if you will. Until then I wish you best and I hope you never run into dark spaces.

Yours truly, Hunter!