August 3rd, 2017
Mary says it’s important to keep a journal of my monster hunting. She said that it’s an important way to keep our sanity. To that, I say “we hunt the stuff that goes bump in the middle of the night. What sanity do we still have?”
But more to that point, she said it’s good to leave a record for how to hunt things with tidbits of what worked in the past and how to identify things in the future. It’s important not just to me but to whomever actually reads my journal after me. To that, I don’t really have an argument against. It just feels silly to write things down when there’re monsters out there literally eating people.
As much as I want to rush through things, that can lead to mistakes and Mary’s first rule is not to rush and make mistakes. So, I guess an introduction is in order. To whomever is reading my journal: monsters are real, these pages aren’t a work of fiction.
I don’t recommend a grain of salt because one of two things is true if you’re holding this in your hands and reading it:
I’m dead and that sucks. Try to learn from my mistake (if it’s recorded) and do better. Beat the things in the dark and come out the other side of things better than I did.
You’re a good friend of mine and I’m sharing this with you for our mutual benefit. In that case, Hi future friend, I hope I’m not too much of a dick.
I guess there’s a third option: future me is reviewing this to find other clues about something I’m hunting. If that’s the case, good luck. Survive for both our sake.
August 18th, 2017
Right, three unrelated drownings? When the town didn’t have any before then? Sounds like something up my alley. Time to get on the road and scope the place out. No harm in visiting the place after all.
August 21st, 2017
I knew this was something worth looking into. What the newspaper article didn’t include was that there were significant chunks taken out of each of the three victims. Sure, they drowned, but something munched on them afterward. Something with suspiciously humanlike dental pattern.
A quick note for future me: get a new US Marshall or FBI ID made. I think the current one was nearly made for a fake. Still got me into the records though. Just a little too close for comfort.
I’m rambling. Mary always preached keeping things succinct. I don’t have a lot of information to add that wasn’t touched on above: victims drowned and had human mouth-sized chunks missing from the right arm, jugular, and left thigh. The bits were taken post-mortem. Each victim was discovered the morning after a particularly foggy night.
No real link between the victims outside of gender: male Asian, middle age, male Hispanic, young adult, and male Caucasian, boomer age. Have to look into what preys on male victims. Though, to be fair, that might just be a coincidence at this point.
August 22nd, 2017
Visited the family of the most recent victim, the Asian guy.
They’re recently relocated from Japan and the guy, Riku Tanaka, and didn’t even like being near the water. Struck his family as odd that he was found in the river.
Get this: he walked out of the house the night of his demise saying he just needed to go for a long walk. The family was a little tight lipped as to whether or not this was out of the ordinary. Wondering now if there was some spiritual tether on him that drew him out into the foggy evening?
Spirits or ghosts don’t tend to take chunks out of people though. Maybe it really was nothing more than a wild animal chewing on the corpses.
Need to do my homework and see if there’s some local legend.
August 24th, 2017
This town is deader than a pile of dust in the midst of the desert. Nothing has happened here in the last four decades and then it was some prankster tying things together. So much for digging up something going on in the town.
Back to the books and interviews. Some folk are wondering why I’m sticking around since the deaths were already ruled accidental. Gotta wrap this up.
August 24th, 2017
Yeah. Double entry. Wrote the other one while at Deena’s and guess who sat down in my booth across from me. Miss Tanaka. She told me something rather interesting. Her grandmother told of an old folktale about an evil Yokai that would lure people to their demise and feast on their flesh.
She called it an Azuki Baba and said that it dwelt in rivers and streams.
Something that lures humans out to the water’s edge and feasts on them? Definitely worth some more research. And if one followed this family over from Japan? Things line up ever so slightly nice for this.
August 25th, 2017
Rereviewed the police reports for the victims. All of them went missing on a foggy or rainy night. All turned up in roughly the same place. I did some digging and found a river flow report and think I have an idea of where along the Alan River this thing manifests.
Now on to how to best this beast: there isn’t a lot of lore on it. Especially in English. Best I can figure, this Azuki Baba is like other Yokai, a form of spirit or something similar to a ghost.
For a ghost, I’d want to find the body to salt and burn. Or do the same for whatever tether I can find.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case with this. Fortunately, I’ve got a couple days before the next predicted rainstorm.
August 26th, 2017
Tonight’s the night.
Precautions to take:
Ear plugs, the Azuki Baba appears as a hag in white and mesmerizes victims with a song that mimics a good spirit’s song
An iron knife, spirits in general are vulnerable to iron and this one may be vulnerable to iron as well
A silvered knife, lots of things have an allergy to silver
If this is my last entry, try something different or come out with a partner. All the victims so far have been solitary, including me.
August 27th, 2017
The silver knife did the trick and I’m glad I had ear plugs with me. While I was tangoing with her, one got dislodged and I don’t think I’ll get the song it sang out of my head: “Azuki araou ka? Hito totte kuou ka?”
It’s the hallmark of an Azuki Baba and even in the brief moment I heard it, I could feel its mesmerizing pull toward oblivion. If you encounter another one: WEAR EAR PLUGS and be ready to get scratched.
used in this post is a newspaper template from https://thegoodocs.com/newspaper-templates/breaking-newspaper.php
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