Chapter 1. Our story begins with a very curious creature, which seemed lost forever from the history of our civilisation. It's name was Baz, and nobody had ever actually seen him, not until he materialised right in front of me in a pub in Waverly. As you may recall, my name is Jeremy, and I was living in New York when I was approached by a friend in Melbourne, who I hadn't seen for some time. It was late at night, and I had been out on the town for a few beers. He suggested that we meet in an old pub in Sydney Street in Melbourne, and as we stood in the smoke of the little bar that my friend introduced as the Rabbit Hole. "You won't believe this, Jeremy, I don't know how you feel about it, but I ran into this old friend of mine the other day, and he wants to show me some stuff. I couldn't tell you how weird it was," he said in his characteristic Brooklyn accent, which had become somewhat more posh over time. "He said something about, you know, old memories and stuff. Anyway, he had this funny old thing, and he offered it to me to look at. He said it was the sort of thing that everyone's seen, but is forever lost from history." He paused to take a sip of beer, and to let out a breath that had gone on for a couple of minutes. I listened intently. "I'm sorry, there's something strange here, you know? Anyway, as he handed me this old thing, I could tell by the smell that it was very, very old. Like he must have had it hidden away in some antique store or something, you know, old dirty clothes, you know what I'm saying. Anyway, he said it was a piece of history, just that he found it in a cellar in some house he rented when he first came to Australia. Anyway, he found this thing while he was renovating the house, you know, fixing it up. It was in the attic, kind of in the corner, under a rug, just hidden by a bunch of old junk. Anyway, he said he could smell it, and it was just horrible. It was a smell like you can't imagine, it was like some kind of, like..." He paused again, again sipping his beer. The conversation was taking a little while to pick up. I finished my bottle, and I looked around the bar. The Rabbit Hole wasn't particularly old, just a pub in downtown Melbourne with a few years on the walls. It was a typical bar - old wooden bar, long wooden bench on each side, tables at the back for smoking and the inevitable group of blokes who congregated at them. I saw a couple of guys that I recognised from a few weeks ago that I was sure were going to die within a year, and a few young trendy looking ones who probably didn't know either of those things. "Anyway, I was looking at the map, you know, thinking about it. That's when he told me where he was from. He told me he'd been to America, but not the New York, that he was from America, but the one in Australia, near Melbourne. I know the one he was talking about. I was there just a couple of months ago, down in the outback, you know, Queensland, near the aboriginal settlement. Yeah, that's the place. Anyway, he told me that one day he was on a holiday there, but one day he decided to just drive around, and eventually he came to a little town in the outback of New South Wales. I forget where, but I think it was this town that had the old movie theatre, you know, where they filmed all those cowboy films from the old days. Anyway, he said he found this shop out of the town that was about to be converted into a restaurant or something. Anyway, the sign said, 'Ranch and Outpost', something like that." The story was fascinating, but I didn't really care where it went from there. The conversation had changed a little, and was beginning to get a little boring. The two of us knew that the bar was closing, so we turned our attention towards our drinks. "So, he found this shop. Can you picture it?" he asked, as if I was being stupid. I didn't say anything, and he looked around to see if any of the locals were watching. "This is why he told me about it, you see? I think he was a bit worried that he was in some sort of trouble, that he was going to be asked about it, and all that." He laughed, nervously, "You know what I mean?" I was getting tired of him. "So, you just showed up there, and they told you to leave?" I asked, sarcastically. "Oh no, no, no, they didn't let me in at all. I told you, he was, you know, his memory, it wasn't great, and anyway, I was just a stranger, just a guy there. I was just supposed to go to the door, and I was supposed to see this stuff, and then go home. Oh, wait, he said something else, you know, just before. I asked him about the store, the restaurant, I asked him where it was, and he said the name was 'Ranch and Outpost'. He said it was a place that sold this stuff in boxes, you know, in little boxes, you know, in that warehouse, that place in downtown Manhattan. It's how they used to do it before everything changed. Anyway, he said it was all closed up, that they didn't need any more. I think he said they got out of that stuff a long time ago. So anyway, he said it was probably closed. But he had this stuff, you know, this old bit of junk, he wanted to keep it. He thought it might be valuable, you know, someday." "What was it?" I asked. "Oh, it's weird, the guy that ran the place, you know, you'd see him around, you know, in the old days. He worked in some restaurant for a bit of time, and I suppose he lived in town. Then he just went on some private mission somewhere, you know, some religious kind of thing. After that, he just disappeared. I don't know, like I said, he didn't have much to say. I didn't really care, to be honest, he was just a bit of a wanker." "What was it?" I asked again. "I don't know, he said it was a box. Not a box with, you know, in it, but one of those, you know, boxes, you know? For shipping, or something." "It was an old box?" I asked. "Well, it was old, but it was one of those boxes that were for shipping. Not one of those cardboard boxes, you know, with those little compartments for... you know... 'things', you know?" he asked, as if I might not know. I nodded at him. "It was one of those. It was pretty old, you know, but it wasn't that old. I saw it, the old guy that ran it, I saw it, and I saw he had one of those old boxes in the back. I think it was an old, old box. The boxes for shipping used to be, I don't know, you know, brown, or something. It was an old brown box. No, it was yellow." "How about what it was for?" I asked. "I don't know. I don't know if it was for anything. It was an old box, you know, one of those. It had this sticker on the front that said 'Ranch and Outpost', that's all. It's not like anyone had a picture of it or anything. So, the guy just said it was a box, and I thought you'd have to pay me to get rid of it. But he didn't want me to just throw it away, and didn't want to be charged, and I didn't think it was worth much, and I wasn't going to ask, because I knew he'd say no. So, we didn't say anything about it. But I have it, you know? You can come back and get it, if you want. They may be in the back. I have to admit I think they might be in the back. I mean, I know we can find it again. The guy I was talking about, the old guy that worked there, I know where his house is, it's back there somewhere, that little lane out of town, to the left of town. I'll ask him. He's probably moved though. It's been a couple of years, I think." I sighed. "Why don't you just go and get it?" I asked. "I want to know about that box." He was shaking his head. "I don't know. I don't know. It's a box, what's inside it? You never know. I guess if it's a box, the box doesn't want to be opened." "Well, come on, if it's so dangerous, why don't you tell me what it is. I could always ask one of the others, if you want