Will Haunt For Food

Why did I agree to this?

"So, I called you because some spiritual things have been happening," the woman said. "It all started with the death of the pope. He's been coming to me at night and telling me that evil is coming into the world. It's spiritual, you know? And Phil Robertson, you know, the guy from Duck Dynasty? He says so, too."

I sat in the living room, listening to the woman tell her story. She'd come to visit me a couple of years ago, claiming to have photographs of ghosts and aliens, and telling some wild stories. I hadn't seen her since, but recently, she'd called me up with new paranormal claims, and asked for an appointment.

I probably hadn't helped my credibility by wearing the shirt that showed Bigfoot getting abducted. But at least she seemed to be sober this time.

"So I have all these pictures," she said. Which was true; she had several albums sitting on the coffee table. "If you look, they show you what I'm talking about. See, here, in this tree, you can see a unicorn. And in this one, see how you can see the devil? He's making a face, and here's his fist."

I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts.

"You keep saying 'spiritual'," I said. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea about what I do. I'm not a spiritual guy, the way a priest or rabbi would be. I'm more of a scientist. I do research and use equipment to try to find proof of the paranormal."
She looked at me.

"That sounds hard," she said.

"It has its moments."

"How much do you charge to remove a ghost?"
"I don't charge, and I encourage you to be suspicious of anyone who does. But as I said, I look for proof. There is so far no proof that ghosts exist, or that they can be removed. That's the sort of thing I investigate to find out."

"But what about my pictures?"
"Well, there's a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia," I said. "That's when you see some sort of pattern, and interpret it as something that makes sense. Sort of like those traffic signals that show you when to walk. They don't really look like people---Their heads aren't attached---But we interpret them that way. Something like that could be what's going on here."

"But what if that's what the devil wants you to think?"

"Well, again, it's all about the proof. There's no proof, yet, that the devil is actually real."

"Then who's making all these faces in my pictures?"

I tried hard not to sigh. "You should probably know that I investigated this building a couple of years ago. I didn't find any sign of a haunting, but I did find very high electromagnetic fields. Some people are very sensitive to them, and there was a family here at the time who was very disturbed by them." The thought of this clearly mentally ill woman living with some of the highest EMFs I'd ever seen made me cringe.

"So what should I do?"

Probably the best answer was to seek mental help, but I knew I'd never get that one through. I said,"You may want to consider talking to someone in the clergy. A priest, perhaps. They deal with this stuff on a different level than I do." And maybe someone from a church would be compassionate enough to try and get her some help.

She thought it over a moment. "So can you do some kind of exorcism, or what?"

And that's what happens, being a paranormal investigator. You get some amazing adventures, but you get a lot of the crazies, too. They seek you out, looking for some sort of validation. After a while, you develop a thick skin.

You get used to it.

I stopped in the doorway to the front office and leaned against the jamb. The new girl was sitting at Emily's desk, and her name was Sarah.

'Welcome," I said. I'd decided not to hate her for not being Emily. After some consideration, I'd decided that it probably wasn't her fault.

She smiled. "Thanks. Remind me, what was your name?"

"I'm Lou. It's okay, I'm bad with names sometimes too. So, important question for you....How do you feel about ghosts?"

I might as well jump right into it. I was already wearing my shirt that said My other dog is a Chupacabra.

She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I like that stuff.  Is this place haunted?"

"Funny you should ask. We have a co-worker who shows up sometimes in spite of having been killed in 1962. Her name is Shirley."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah, back then we had a murder in the basement. The Hecht Building was a department store then. Come to think of it, the anniversary is coming up. It's August first. I might bring in some of my equipment and look around."

"That's right. Aren't you some sort of investigator?"

"I am. My son and I do investigations."

"Nice!"

"A bit later in the month, I think one of the teams is investigating a haunted Foodapalooza Buffet in Union County."

Sarah laughed. "A haunted Foodapalooza? I love that."

"One employee believes it's a dead relative. You can't exactly rule it out, but we'll have to be careful. I've had investigations where they want to believe it's their loved one so badly, they're not actually interested in hearing any results. This place was along a Native American path before it became farmland, which probably lasted until about 1926 when Highway Fifteen went through there."

"Well, that sounds interesting."

"I think we get free food, too."

August first.

I walked into the main office and set my stuff down. "Good morning, guys."

"Good morning, Lou," said Kelli. "The census book for the genealogical society is waiting back there for you to bind it."

"I'll make sure to get to it," I said. "Because it's the anniversary pf Shirley's death, I brought in my equipment. Look, here's the EMF detector....Sarah, you can have this one on your desk if you like."

Sarah looked it over. "Cool," she said.

"We get a certain amount of electrical impulses anyway, but it may spike to red," I said. "I have a couple of laser thermometers---Now that the bank changed hands and took the temperature off their sign across the street, we can use these anyway. Got my infrared scanner---This can actually get a photo; all you need to do is double-tap."

"Oh, that's really neat," said Sarah.

"Look, if I focus over there, I can see Kelli's body heat."

"That's cool. Where did you get this?"

"Amazon. Downside is, it was a hundred and forty bucks. The upside was, I really, really wanted one."

I walked down in my basement. I was wearing my rainbow ghost shirt, and the holster Tim had given me, with an EMF detector tucked in it. As I walked down the stairs, I pulled it out and turned it on.

It lit right up and shot up, beeping the whole way across the basement. I smiled.

"Well," I said,"Good morning, Shirley."

Most of the time, cleaning the porch is not particularly on my radar. I don't generally spend two minutes a month worrying about cleaning the porch. But, here I was, clearing out space and throwing out some stuff we hadn't touched. I figured I might need the space to spend some time investigating out there on the anniversary of Ida's death. So, if you want your spouses to clean the porch, it's important to make sure you have someone die there a hundred and twenty years previous.

"What are you doing?" asked Sekiya. Paul and the girls next door were bouncing around on the trampoline, and they were paying me some attention too. It's been a while since I was able to do yard work without an audience.

"I'm getting the porch cleaned off," I said. "Gonna do a little ghost hunting out here."

"Right now?"

"Nah, next week, on the anniversary of the death."

"He does this every year," commented Paul. "A few years ago, he got stung by bees, and I had to fix his arm."

"Can I have that?" little Mia asked as I picked up part of an old swing.

"I mean....It's broken and pretty much useless."

"What is it?"

"It's an old swing, pretty much broken. There's no real way to use it."
"But can I have it?"

"Mia...."

"Mia, Mom won't let you keep that," said Serina, the oldest.

I threw the swing into the garbage can, and followed up with an old box. "I figure I'll get the porch cleaned up, which it needs to be anyway, and then come out and do a little investigating out here. You guys are welcome to check it out with your own stuff, if you want."

I picked up the genealogical society's thick 1890 census book. Out of curiosity, I flipped to the Ys and looked up the Yost family. The ones who'd lived in my house.

I smiled, and carried the page out to the main office.

"Gonna make a copy of this for myself," I said.

"And what's that?" asked Kelli.

"It's the census page for the family in my house," I said. "They lived there in 1890. George Yost and his family. This tells me that the mom, Lydia, had parents who were born in Germany. And here's Ida, the ghost in my house, two years old at the time."

"You have a ghost?" asked Sarah.

"I do. Ida Yost killed herself on my back porch in 1905. Next week is the anniversary, actually. I usually do a little investigating around that time, see what I can find."

"Is this before or after the haunted buffet?"

"Few days after."

I stepped outside the back door, onto Mill Street. I looked across at the old Racket Store, the Great Island Presbyterian Church, Jordan's Alley. The sun shone on my face.

I've been pretty happy here.

It's been almost a year now, I've been working for this place, and I've been happy. I'm treated well, I have an entire basement to play with, and I have some pretty good co-workers.

I put my hands in my pockets, leaned against the wall, and I smiled.

Yeah. I like this job.

The Foodapalooza gave us a free meal, which was nice. We had unlimited access to the buffet, which is pretty much my idea of a great meal. The chili-lime meatballs were my favorite.

"Here, walk with me," said Tim, standing up from the table.

I got up, and the two biggest investigators in central Pennsylvania walked across the dining area of a Foodapalooza Steakhouse.

"I'm making you a new uniform shirt," said Tim. "I already have one for MIllie. Hope you don't mind; yours is going to be green. You get why."

I nodded. I got why. I was already wearing the black SPI uniform he'd given me in the past.

"We'll get started once they close and clean up," he said. "The hotel next door is haunted, too, and I'm hoping to get us in there at some point soon. In the meantime, we'll investigate this place tonight."

"Are there any hot spots?"

"Several. I'm going to send Millie and Ashlin to the kitchen, where they have the sound of pans banging. We'll have Vince, Devaughn, and Petey in the event room, where they get activity. They've had deaths in the restrooms---A heart attack and a suicide---So you'll stake those out."

I nodded. "I can do that. Been through suicide attempts myself."

"We've all been there," said Tim. "Some of the staff wants to stick around and help, so we're going to split them up among us."

"That works."

"I figure we'll stick it out until around ten. That should give us long enough."

"Yeah, that's cool, too. Paul found a trashed razor scooter someone was throwing out, and he was fixing it when I left. I told him I'd help him out when I got home."

"Okay. You have everything you need?"

"I brought my whole bag; I shouldn't have to pull from the team equipment. If that changes, I'll let you know."

The second I turned on my EMF detector, I got a flash.

That's not unusual, necessarily. Some buildings are wired that way, and they just bleed EMFs. But this one wasn't as easily explainable---I was standing in the middle of the room, not near any walls or wiring. And it shot up to a .48, which is pretty high. I looked up at the lights.

A couple of the staffers were sitting at a table nearby. I said,"Gonna do something you'd throw me out for otherwise," and I dragged over a baby chair.

As I began to climb up onto it, one of the waitresses asked,"Would you like a ladder?"

"Nah, this'll do. Been a while since I did anything really unsafe on an investigation."

I balanced on top of the chair and held the detector up, closer to the lights. Nothing, no reading. I was using the all-in-one, which is fairly sensitive. I climbed down, and again got a flicker in the middle of the room, about four feet up from the floor. No reason for that.

"We're already maybe getting some activity," I said.
Ashlin was carrying her pink Wicked bag with her equipment in it. I glanced at her.

"You know you make it harder for me to look badass when you carry stuff like that, right?"

She grinned. "I gotta be me."

"Let's get split up," said Tim. "Everyone get in their assigned areas."

I retreated to the restroom area and the lobby outside. I looked over the gumball machines for a moment. I was with two of the male staffers, both of whom had Tim's EMF detectors. Immediately, again, they lit up, the same as the lobby outside.

"See, that's possible activity," I said. "This place is more active than I'd really expected."

Tim called over from the event room. "Lou?"

I stepped out and we met in the lobby. "What's up?"
"I need you to check over in the buffet area with your infrared. We're getting some activity on the pod over there."

"I'm on it."

I'd set my bag on one of the tables earlier. I fished out my infrared detector and turned it on, and walked across the floor, scanning for heat. I moved it back and forth across the room, looking for anything unusual.

A pink blob jumped out on the bottom of the screen. There was something, maybe. This place was way better than I thought it'd be.

For the second time in a couple of days, I was in a good mood. I was doing what I loved, investigating, traveling with the best friends I'd ever had in my life.

How could I not feel content?

I suppose you could call it a tradition.

Ida Yost, at age seventeen, committed suicide on my back porch in 1905 by drinking carbolic acid. Most years, on the anniversary of her death, I'll go around the house or on the porch and do a little investigating. What the hell; I have access to a haunted house. Quality time between me and my ghost.

"You two have a good night," I said. "Get some sleep, okay? Don't be up all night."

Paul had his little friend Rylan over, and the two of them had curled up on the couch. Paul had wanted some sort of blanket fort to sleep in, so I'd brought a canopy in from the garage and set it up as best I could in the living room. A small lantern hung from the center.

"We'll go to sleep," promised Paul.

"We will," agreed Rylan, who I believed marginally more on this subject.

"I left you an EMF detector and a laser thermometer," I told them. "Just in case. You know what tonight is."

Paul nodded. "Happy deathday, Ida."

I turned on the EMF detector, and it went wild, beeping and giving me four red lights. After a moment, I turned it off.

"That's a good sign," I said. "Keep an eye on things."

I went to the kitchen, got a beer, and walked out onto the porch. I sat down and turned on my EMF detector. I cracked the beer and took a drink.

Five years ago, I'd done this same thing. I always found time to sit down on the porch where Ida had died. Five years ago, it had been the beginning months of Covid. I'd changed my uniform to avoid looking like the bad guys. At the time, I'd been pretty apprehensive.

Now....I was content for the moment. I was at peace.

I sat quietly on the porch.

After a moment, the EMF detector beeped.