 Part of my job entails tracking and cataloging the various types of demon persona that roam this earth. My name is Fremont Earhart, and I come from a long line of demon catalogers. And before you ask, no, there is absolutely no relation to the human Aeronaut, Amelia Earhart. I am absolutely overworked, underpaid, and have received absolutely zero benefits, health, dental, or otherwise, upon starting this job. My cousins, the esteemed Montclair family, would also like to argue that my job is decidedly less sexy and weightless cool than their position as the crown's premier demon hunters. I, of course, would like to argue otherwise. Sometimes I have cool days, alright? The other day, for example, I had been tracking this thing from across the Pacific Northwest, watching as it went from town to town wreaking havoc. Think the climax fight scene in the Transformer movies. Fire, debris, everywhere, skyscrapers destroyed, bodies in the street. I tracked it to a small town outside Patterson, New Jersey, and was listening to the shriek of the police scanners as the engorged demon tore apart the streets in search of more human meat. I brought my trusty MacBook Pro and was busy sitting in a nearby coffee shop hard at work. I'd been having kind of a tough day. The entire morning had been spent with Tums, lots of Advil, and with an upset tummy. Now demons obviously aren't from this plane of existence. Philosophers, historians, and scientists all have differing theories about where these particular beings of energy originate from, theologists, too. But since they're so completely off base, I've decided to not include them in this roundup. Alternate dimensions, karmic energy recycled, fallen beasts from overlapping universes. I've heard all the ideas. The truth is, no one really knows. What we have done, however, is identify them. But anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself. This day, I think it was a Tuesday, was a particularly cool one. I'd track that demon to a defunct paper mill outside the main strip. A group of humans had taken refuge there, hoping that the fixed steel walls would provide some kind of protection. They were a simpering bunch, whining and wailing, and calling out ritualistic words that I've heard used in prayers to their sky god. Absolutely no one thought to draw a perimeter or attempt to barricade the steel doors. The demon saw this as an opportunity for a tasty snack and displayed the aggressive predator skills that I've observed before. The hooked dew claws tipped with poison, the hardened armor plates around the vulnerable underbelly, and the displayed blood red fan around its eyeless face. Not unlike the fan-throated dragon lizard here on earth. But as it went in for the kill, I noticed it hesitate. I was absolutely dumbfounded. It's a hard month. This killing machine doesn't hesitate. So what was going on? Claws out, teeth out. This thing was prepared to shred these humans into spaghetti-os. However, now it was frozen in place, crouched over the weeping, jibbering humans who had backed themselves into a corner of the mill. The humans had backed themselves into the tight space underneath these giant metal stairs that accessed all three levels of the old decaying paper mill. The stairs themselves were falling apart, clearly a safety hazard and major workplace violation. Large swaths of the stairs were coated red with rust, with corroded metal piling up an inch thick. Hmm, rust, iron, maybe that had something to do with it. I was crouched nearby to the scene of the crime, furiously taking notes. I'd been distracted that morning thanks to my upset tummy, and it accidentally left my hotspot at home. So I wasn't able to use my MacBook Pro all the way out here. Unfortunately, I'd found my old black book, Blood Ink Pen, and a voice recorder in the backseat of my black Prius, so I was using those instead. I could see the hard month straining, the poison dripping from its claws as it labored furiously to reach the whining bags of meat. It clearly wanted to reach the humans, but there was something stopping it from reaching its end goal of creating lots of little piles of human meat. But what was it? Ah, yes. There, a human girl, front and center, darker complexion, brown curly hair. Clocking her at 15, maybe 16 years old, clutching a large cross to her chest. Silver, possibly iron, chanting the same prayers as the other humans. Other humans are still crying, yes. However, this human girl, I paused. This human girl hasn't broke eye contact with the beast, I said into my recorder. Interesting, very interesting. Seems that the hard month is having a reaction to the prayers, or to her, I recorded. She's one to keep an eye on, we'll circle back later. Observation recorded, and the phenomena catalogued. It was time to clean up this mess and call in the cousins. I pulled out the suitcase BLU 82 and tuned in to the frequencies to match the human's heartbeats. After a messy case almost 2000 years ago, involving the Romans and a large cult following, basically a small group of renegade humans had made exposure of the Lilith demon. We were on the cusp of almost almost subduing, which resulted in wide scale exposure. The crown had then tasked us with creating a weapon that could target only certain individuals, resulting in immediate results with only minimal damage. Thus, the BLU 82 was born, set it to certain frequencies such as location, heartbeats, a crowd number, hell, even a mugshot, and the resulting blast would only affect them. In this case, after putting in the correct calculations, I set it off to make short work of these human meat suits. But not before letting that particular human girl go. I'm not a fan of humans. In fact, I find them vile and impulsive and downright fleshy, but I do admire the ones that show the tenacity to survive. Then, I called in my cousins. They came riding in on their literal white horses and made short work of the demon itself, sent back to the dimension in which it came from. All that was left for me was the case paperwork, which I finished back in my Brooklyn loft with hot cocoa and my heated blanket. All in all, a pretty cool day. My job involves the tracking and classification of the five major types of demons. The largest of the five. It is strong, beastly, angry, and nearly impossible to put down. Its earthly body looks not unlike a large bloated lizard, usually dark green, black, or a dark blue black. The Hargmonth has ten massive hooked claws on each of its four legs. The hooked claws are tipped with the deadliest poison on earth, which has the ability to paralyze in seconds. Once its victim is completely paralyzed, the Hargmonth will drag its helpless victim back into whatever cave or abandoned mine that serves as its layer, unless it's been encouraged into a killing frenzy in which it'll just tear the town apart. The Hargmonth has a large blood-red fan that folds over its eyeless face. It is usually folded over, unless the Hargmonth is displaying aggressive behavior, in which it will undulate like a flower in the wind. Lilith. One of the smallest of the five. The Lilith is particularly tricky as it has the ability to change shape. One of its preferred forms is the human female. The form is usually small, unassuming, but with a hypnotic spell that easily draws in droves of humans. There, it will nearly always use the ability to incite mass riots, genocides, purges, and other nefarious deeds. Liliths have been spotted at major points in the human's history. Jesus's crucifixion, the Trojan War, the Salem Witch Trials, the stabbing of Caesar. World War II, the list goes on. When not presenting in its preferred human form, the Lilith is a small, gelatinous, blob-like creature with two dark eyes and waving tentacles down the two sides of its form. Iron is fatal to the Lilith, and in fact, the increasingly widespread use of iron is partly the reason why humans will occasionally survive it, and therefore has given rise to many of the myths and fairy tales of witches and fairies. Undesutus. This monstrous demon dwells primarily in large bodies of water. Although it's been a hundred years or so, the last time an undesutus was spotted was deep down in the Mariana Trench. In fact, the last time this monstrous, enormous lizard shark was spotted, it inspired stories and legends that eventually helped influence Godzilla. It highly resembles the modern shark, but bigger, scarier, with more rows of teeth and is far, far more intelligent, because it only resurfaces every 100 to 200 years. Not much is known about this particular demon, but fellow catalogers like myself think it emits a certain sound like a whale's call. But instead of something soft, serene, this particular sound will cause humans to throw themselves overboard or take the entire ship with them. It doesn't even eat humans, it eats plankton. We suspect it just enjoys the kill. Montyrum. This demon is found primarily in the mountainous terrain, Appalachian, Rocky, the Sierra Nevada. These demons are unusually unique, as they don't seem to enjoy the thrill of the hunt for humans. They instead focus their diet on local fauna, wild goats, deer, etc. The grizzly bear, especially, is one of their favorite snacks. Over the years, we've become pretty lenient with these demons, and it's only when they accidentally cross paths with a human backpacker when they're put back on our radar. Montyrum are typically between 15 feet tall, close to 700 pounds, with either pure white or dark black fur, and standing on two legs. The occasional human sighting, and those that manage to get away, have fueled the yeti and bigfoot legend. Does the bigfoot exist? Well, if it did, the Montyrum probably ate it. Increasingly throughout the past few years, the Montyrum have started coming down from their mountain layers and snatching people at the edge of cities. Just over the last five years, we've recorded several instances of this happening in Denver, Colorado. As of last week, the Crown has moved this to our priority case. But ah, yes, I've saved you the best for last. We call it The Umbra. The Dark. Even now, 500 years later, I still find myself terrified of this one. I've only encountered it once, and I still can't remember much from that day. In fact, there's not even much to learn about this demon from the books. Fellow catalogers recall encounters with this entity, and the following PTSD proves to be too much with high counts of memory loss, mental hospitalization, even suicide. Here's what I know. One, it takes the form of a tall, dark, faceless man. Two, it likes to hide in dark spaces, such as in closets or under beds. And three, if it catches you, it likes to make a bargain. Give me something you love. My colleague survived an encounter with the Umbra. It was the same day I encountered it. We'd been battling a Harg month in an abandoned mall in southern Kentucky. It was big, ugly, and resisted all efforts to subdue it and send it back to its home dimension. We called in reinforcements, more cousins, and had retreated to the loading dock to wait while the Harg month tore up an old Navy and clairs. This is where it gets fuzzy for me. I remember rushing in and scrambling to barricade the gate behind us. The Harg month had been following us, so we took extra care to chain the two parts of the gate together. A small gap was left because in our haste, we couldn't get the chain tight enough around the broken lock. I can still remember how cold the metal felt under my fingers. Odd, considering it was the height of summer in southern Kentucky. There are three things that happen next. One, we heard rustling behind us. I could feel my coworker turn to look. Two, I felt him suddenly freeze. Now listen, this man doesn't freeze. A hardened vet and a beast of a man, he'd been in the game for longer than I'd been alive. And that's saying something. I'm north of almost 500 years old. But on that day, I felt him freeze like a mouse, trapped under a hawk's gaze. Three, like a child, I felt myself being picked up and shoved through the small gap we left in the fence. The fence tore large gouges in my face, neck, and chest, but it was nothing in comparison to the agony I heard in my colleague's screams. Then I blacked out. I woke up a month later in the ICU in a rural Kentucky in hospital. I had no identification on me, and in the chaos the Harg month left behind that day, there'd been no one left to check on me. After I woke up, tore out the peripherally inserted central catheter and made my way home. I learned what had become of the fate of my colleague. He was gone, of course. He was a strong man, and he wasn't willing to let someone he loved be taken by the Umbra. For as much as we still don't know about the Umbra, we do know what happens when one of us is taken. The Umbra is unique, and that it's the only demon that will take you back to the dimension it comes from. And nothing good happens there. Only to your flesh, your heart, and your soul. His daughter knows. Once a year on the anniversary of her father's death, the Umbra visits her and shows her exactly what has happened to her father. And on that day, the Umbra gives her a choice. You are someone he loves. Give me you. So far, as far as I'm aware, she has said no. I'm not sure which one I'm more afraid of. The Umbra itself, or someone I thought I loved, letting the Umbra take me. But that's enough monster stories for now. In the meantime, I've got loads of case files to finish, a full dishwasher that needs emptying, and piles of laundry left over from my last excursion. My little two-bedroom, two-bathroom flat needs a sturdy cleaning, and my little black kitten, spooky, needs a bath. He occasionally spits fire, so I'll see how well this goes. Till next time, my fellow demon hunters.