Ghost with a Knife
Proton Packs and Particle Throwers are fine—but what if the ghosts learn to fight back?
Following our recent look at G.I. Joe’s Flash, today we dive into his character tropes in fiction; specifically that of “experimental weapons.”
As I write this, our beloved Seattle Mariners just lost Game 7 of the ALDS. My child is absolutely gutted. The entire city is a bit dejected. Appropriate then for me to dedicate this column on ghosts and the afterlife to the Mariners’ 2025 season.
Oh yeah, and for Halloween.
Anyway, as much as I appreciate the military realism of G.I. Joe, it’s the experimental weapons that stand out the most to me. Cobra Commander doesn’t carry a standard .45, he has some weird laser pistol with a gridded barrel. I don’t even know what it does, disintegrate people?
Same with Flash. Unlike the rest of the figures in his wave, carrying their M-16s, M-60s, and (yawn) crossbow, Flash carried an experimental laser rifle that required protective armoring, mirrored visor, and its own power pack.
The Ghostbusters had a similar set-up, with their Proton Packs and Particle Throwers (the official name for their rifles, although Neutrona Wands is also used). Unlike Flash’s laser rifle, the Ghostbusters’ rifles interacted with ethereal and intangible ghosts… albeit with some spillover into the material world (which we see in the very first minute of their very first field test).For this article, I wanted to run a little worldbuilding writing exercise. Let’s call it, ghost with a knife.
If the Ghostbusters’ particle throwers work against ghosts, let’s imagine a world in which ghosts develop weapons of their own against the living.
For that, we’re going to need to start with a population of ghosts. And somewhere among them, find a particularly crafty inventor. One (like our dear sweet Egon) who’s invented a reverse Particle Thrower…
A Ghost Walks into a Bar…
So, first some worldbuilding. For this story, we’re starting with the premise that ghosts are not only real, but have a fairly extensive population. Perhaps even a comprehensive population; meaning, what if everyone who died became a ghost?
But how would that work? It’s a little disconcerting if ghosts exist, proving an immortal soul persists after death, and yet none of these souls fully move on in the afterlife?
And then there’s more practical problems of having so many ghosts in our world. What do they do all day? Where exactly do they manifest; concurrent with the material world? Are they always visible to us? Even from a spatial consideration, it gets tricky. If everyone dies and becomes a ghost, they’d quickly build up after just a few generations. Left unchecked, the spirit world would overwhelm the material world in very short order.
So we better first solve for this.
In most stories involving ghosts, there’s a necessary scarcity of them. There’s just no capacity to have everyone die and become a ghost. Thus, they appear only at certain times, to certain people. They haunt; their fleeting presence is part of what makes them scary. Their rarity makes them unbelievable, and causes those they haunt to question their senses, even their very sanity.
There would also be a troubling moral implication if there were an afterlife (a Heaven or even Hell), but none of the deceased are able to reach it. In which case, there’s often a specific reason why ghosts are still here, regardless of their final destination. They have unfinished business in life. And it’s this purpose that often drives their story.
Ghosts in the Machines
All right, so in our worldbuilding, ghosts exist. We’ll say that these ghosts are a more recent phenomenon. That’s one way to help resolve their population; yes, they are more common now, a larger population, but not so much that their overwhelm the living world.
Perhaps these ghosts are not truly souls trapped in this plane of existence, so much as echoes or persistent memories of people (as some views of ghosts already would have it).
So in our story let’s say that advancements in human brain cybernetics, neural pathing and memory capture, etc., etc., have reached such a state that digital echoes of people are consistently, if inadvertently, captured. This is compounded by also having more digital “canvasses,” or near-omnipresent digital displays in our world (think of the individually targeted digitally advertising taking place in Minority Report); thus, these captured echoes are now also consistently, if inadvertently, rendered.
Our ghosts: after-images of people, captured in life and unable to fully escape a world of digital interaction. That also explains why they’re here, without any moral judgement on why they haven’t transcended to Heaven.
Now, some of these ghosts are former scientists and inventors who retain their creative, inventive capabilities. They are not mentally stagnant; they may no longer have living brains, but the digital space allows them the same kind of processing power. Only, now they must advance their fields from the position of the afterlife.
Some of these ghosts and their creations are, by their nature, benevolent. Others, nefarious.
And let’s continue from there…
The Ghost Knife
Our story begins with a locked room mystery.
A victim lies dead in some impossible circumstance. They’ve secured themselves in a safe room that no one can reach, so how were they killed?
It’s a mystery, so our story needs an investigator. After they pursue more logical paths (was there a secret entrance to the room, was the victim killed before they entered, etc.), the investigator must explore a more farfetched solution…
NOTE: There are already plenty of ways that ghosts interact with the material world, in various media. Possession of a living host is one obvious way. They might also have telekinetic powers, able to move objects and even throw people around (just ask Mrs. Freeling). For this worldbuilding, I’d also look at such characters as the Twins, from the Matrix Reloaded, or Ghost in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who have powers of intangibility.
As it turns out, one of our more nefarious ghosts has developed a way to physically access the living world. As a reversal of the Ghostbusters’ Proton Packs, which capture ghosts, there are now ghost “knives” (perhaps even guns) which can be wielded in the spirit world but that affect ours. A reversal of superheroes with intangibility, these ghost knives have the power of tangibility—able to wielded in the spirit world; and, when needed, target victims in the living world.
In our story, our investigator should also have a partner (naturally!). But this one resides in the spirit world, able to explore and converse within this world, and educate the living detective from their perspective. A classic buddy-cop set-up. Maybe the two were partners in life, maybe professional rivals—in fact, maybe the ghost isn’t a former detective at all, but a criminal (48 Hours-style) that the living detective may have even killed themselves.
(How they end up working together, we’ll figure out later.)
In any case, together they must hunt down this ghost with a knife before they can kill more people, by working across the living and the spiritual worlds.
Some other details to consider. If a ghost knife can work against the living, then a response of some kind will need to be developed. Armor. Clearly, our investigator will seek out such protection, before the final showdown.
Now, if our worldbuilding is more supernatural in tone, this may mean invoking certain blessings or charms.
However, if it’s more scientific, this may be anti-particles of whatever mechanism allows these ghost knives to interact with the living world. (And if the investigator is working with their deceased partner or rival, this armor may be developed by our antagonist’s still-living partner, who has knowledge of their experiments and access to their former lab).
Likewise, unlike Proton Packs which merely capture ghosts, other weapons may be developed in response that directly harm ghosts. They’re already dead, so it’s not like you can kill ghosts again… or can you? An opposing “living” or “holy” knife might disrupt a ghost’s energy (our investigator uses one such weapon to dispatch our story’s antagonist ghost), dispersing them from the spiritual world altogether—or banishing them to yet another plane of existence, one which does not directly connect with the living world.
Which, in true storytelling fashion, this allows us a future opportunity for a defeated ghost to fine some new way to escape that prison, and return to our story!
Happy (early) Halloween, everyone!
Next time: A thing in a jar! It’s a thing in a jar!!
