Do You Fear What I Fear: The 2025 Christmas Special

First thing in the morning, I took the dogs out. I plugged in the Christmas lights on the tree. I started coffee, and I was in the middle of making breakfast when the phone rang.

It was Chris. "Hey, Lou, I wanted to tell you this before you saw it on social media."
"Yeah?"
"Kate and I are having a baby."
I gasped. This was the best news I'd heard in about a year and a half.

"Oh my god oh my god! That's great! I am so happy for you!"

Chris laughed. "I wanted to tell you myself, as soon as I could. You deserve that. You're one of my best friends."

"You're mine." This had been true for about fifteen years, but I wasn't sure we'd ever admitted it aloud before.

"We're due sometime in early June. Right in the middle of the America 250th celebration, actually."

"Paul was born during Clinton County's 175th. He's going to be delighted. He'll want to play with your kid a lot."

"That won't be a problem."

After I got off the phone, Paul was stirring in his room. From upstairs, he called down,"Who was on the phone, Daddy?"

"That was Uncle Chris, little man. He called with big news. Uncle Chris and Aunt Kate are going to have a baby."

From the top of the stairs, Paul squealed with delight.

 

I walked into the doughnut shop and sat down across from Ashlin. "I kinda like meeting here," I said. "On Sunday nights, it's basically deserted, and we have the place to ourselves."

Ashlin nodded. "I'm all for it."

I handed Paul a gift card. "One of my editors gave me a card. There's twenty-five dollars on this, kid. Go nuts."

He ran off to the kiosk. I sipped my coffee. "We have one new member, Chloe. I've invited a couple of others, including my friend Chris. I think he'd been a good member, if he can find the time."

Ashlin grinned. "I'd invite someone, but I don't know anyone. At least, no one I'd trust on an investigation."

"We've got a couple of good ones coming up. I hope to schedule a return to that Main Street house in December---You remember the one we did a couple of years ago? They're having activity again. And there's another place in Sugar Valley that's contacted me. And, hopefully in January, there's an abandoned funeral home in Renovo."

"Oooh, that one sounds good," she said.

"You'll love it. Some of the equipment is still there."

"So I get to lay down on a morgue table."
I laughed. "I did that on the first investigation LHPS ever had. It was a funeral home up in Cameron County. I was about your age, and I did, in fact, lay down on a morgue table."

"I mean, how many chances do you get?"

"Usually just the one. I think we may get an upswing in activity soon. You know how construction can make the ghosts act up?" Ashlin nodded. I continued,"Well, the White House is said to be very haunted. As far back as the Lincoln administration, there were sightings. With Trump ripping down the East Wing, it may stir something up."
"It's always something with him. I miss the days we had boring presidents."

"Yeah. Me too. I e-mailed the White House to ask if there was an increase in activity. They said it was too soon to tell. And now I'm probably on three or four watchlists."

"Worth it."

"I've noticed that sightings see to increase in times of turmoil. The Civil War. Covid. There's always an upswing in paranormal activity. Well, nobody can deny that the country is in turmoil right now. I'm expecting there may be a lot of activity. We may be pretty busy."
Ashlin grinned. "It's about time."

One of the bad things about being a high-profile paranormal investigator is that people will find you. It can also be one of the good things. I wasn't sure which one this was yet.

I was in the doughnut shop drinking my coffee when the two women came in. Both young. One dark-haired, one lighter-haired with glasses.

They sat down with me, and I said,"So you're Jaydann and Alexis."

They nodded. "We've been on your tours," Jaydann said. The dark-haired one.

"I thought you looked familiar! Sorry it took me this long to recognize you."

She waved that away. "We wanted to learn how to hunt ghosts."
"We did Gettysburg recently, and wanted to learn more," added Alexis.

"You should know that I don't work with psychics," I said. "I've had some bad experiences with people who claimed to be psychic, but were actually either just pretending, or straight-up con artists."

"That's okay." said Jaydann. "We're not claiming to be psychic."

"I'll believe that some people might be, but not as many as they think," said Alexis.

"Okay, that's reasonable. You already have some equipment?"

"EMF detectors, cat balls, recorders, a thermal camera."

"That's a good start. My advice is to just go ahead and buy all of it. You're gonna end up with it all anyway, so you might as well get it over with. Do you know how to do any of the historical research?"

"Not yet, no," sad Jaydann. "But we were hoping that's something you could teach us."

"Do either of you have any first aid experience?"

"Both of us," said Jaydann. "I'm a home health aide."

"I'm certified in CPR and AED," Alexis told me.

I considered it, and decided to take a chance on these two. I dug into my backpack and pulled out two applications, and slid them across the table.

"Interested in joining the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers?"

Jaydann smiled. "Yes!"

"Fill out these applications and get them back to me. We've had some changes lately and I've been looking  for new members. I think you two would be good. We'll arrange some sort of a training session for you; maybe one of the local cemeteries. I've gotten a lot of reports of a house in my neighborhood being highly haunted, but we don't investigate private homes unless we're invited. We have one of those coming up in January. I'm trying to rebuild our team, and looking for the best of the best."

"We won't let you down," said Jaydann.

"I know," I said. "I have a good feeling about you two."

"Hey, kiddo." I looked in Paul's room from the hall. He was sitting on the bed with his phone. "Get this. There's a comet going by Earth; it's called 3I Atlas. I've been following the news for a couple months. It's from outside our solar system, some people think it's created by aliens, and it'll be at its closest point to Earth tonight. Want to go check with me later, if it's clear?"

"Okay, probably," said Paul.

"Maybe we'll go around the corner and check out a haunted property, too," I said. "People have been contacting me about 425 South Highland, and it's been a little slow lately. Want to come along?"

"Sure."

I walked down the hall to my office. I had a couple of hundred years of research and files lining the walls, and I sat at my desk and pulled the city directories.

I could hear the wind blowing outside. Winter had arrived; we had cold weather and an ongoing windstorm for the last few days. Yeti weather.

425 South Highland. The best way to find out about a haunting is to find out who lived there, and then who died there. In 1926, the place had been owned by the Honetor family. George Honetor. I went to the cemetery directories, and looked him up. He was buried out in Rest Haven, but he had two babies not far away in Fairview. 

Kenneth Honetor had been born in 1931, and died after two days. Harry Honetor had been four days old when he died in 1937. It appeared that the family had been living in the house at the time.

There they were. It was always something; chances are when I looked into it, I'd find the reason. That was the reason behind 425....Two dead babies.

The winter solstice---Shortest amount of daylight in the year. I looked outside to see if it was dark enough to see the stars, and it was---It had begun getting dark around four-thirty. I went upstairs and looked into Paul's room, and found him asleep on the bed. Robin never does this to Batman.

I went downstairs and pulled on my coat. It was about twenty-eight degrees out. Nice night for a walk.

In the yard, I looked around at the sky. I saw a bright light that may have been 3I Atlas, and watched it for a while. Then I walked down the street, looking at the Christmas lights. Several of the neighbors had their lights on in a cluster of homes; the street was lit right up. There was a really cool-looking reindeer made of lights in a yard half a block down. Someone had Christmas music playing: Silent night....Holy night....All is calm....All is bright....

I turned onto South Highland. I'd lived in this neighborhood for over twenty years; I knew which house was which. As I walked up the block, I turned on my EMF detector.

It was the all-in-one, which had a thermometer on it. I wasn't getting any sign of EMFs, but I noticed something as I got closer to the house---The temperature was reading fifty-five.

I had a heavy coat and my hood on. It was nowhere even remotely near fifty-five.

The lights at 425 were off; nobody appeared to be home. I walked around the yard a little bit, and the detector spiked as high as fifty-seven. When I walked away on the sidewalk, it began dropping again, until it hit the twenties. Still no EMFs.

Now, that was weird. I turned and walked past again, and this time, nothing. No temperature spikes, nothing.

I'd have to do a little more digging. I headed back to the house. It was cold out there.

"Careful on the ice."

We pulled up in Saint Agnes Cemetery and got out of the car---Me and the new two, Alexis and Jaydann.

"I brought my new pack," commented Jaydann.

I grinned. "You got the ghost backpack!" Her new pack, with all her equipment in it, had sketches of little ghosts all over it.

"The grave we're looking for is over here," I said, leading them across the cemetery. "A murdered man whose ghost was reported as attending his own funeral. When they got out here, the strap that was being used to lower the coffin in wrapped around a pallbearer's leg and almost pulled him into the grave. The pallbearer was arrested as being the murderer, but not convicted."

"Whoa," said Alexis.

"About here, near this tree." I looked around. "Maybe under the snow. I didn't completely think this through. But it's right around here, so let's check it out."

Alexis got out her thermal imager and began checking around. Jaydann borrowed mine, and said,"This thing is about to die."

"Really?" I glanced over. "Yeah, looks like I need to change the batteries. Yours is better anyway. Let me get a few photos."

I clicked some shots, and Alexis said,"Do you hear that?"

I stopped and listened. "I hear something---"

"From up there. I'm hearing what sounds like footsteps."

"An animal maybe?"

"Would have to be an awfully big heavy deer. It sounds like a human."

"I don't see anything. I'm getting photos." I got out my camera and snapped several shots, which is procedure.

We walked out from under the tree, into more of a clear area. I heard the footsteps again, up above us on the hill. Alexis said,"There---"

"Yeah." I got some more photos and set my digital recorder on a gravestone. "Going to recording. December at six-forty-five PM, Saint Mary's Cemetery. Lou."

"Jaydann."

"Alexis."
"Is anyone here?"

I liked these two. I couldn't help it. They were enthusiastic, dedicated, and willing to learn. They were also kind of fun to spend time with.

Alexis was clicking photos with her phone. She said,"Look at this one."

Her photo showed the cemetery, looking downhill, but it had an odd streak in it. I said,"Is it still snowing? It doesn't really seem to be, does it?"

"And it's going sideways," said Jaydann.

"It is," I agreed. "The wind isn't blowing enough to make it go horizontal like that."

"You think we have something?"

"We might," I agreed. "You two are good. I spent a couple of months considering people for new members, and none were quite right. And the you two showed up. You're the best Christmas gift I could ask for. You want to see Fairview Cemetery on the way home?"

For the record, I wouldn't much mind being visited by three ghosts for Christmas, but that hasn't yet happened to me. Occasionally I encounter the one I live with. Mostly, it's just the family and me getting together for Christmas dinner.

"Paul," I said,"I have one more present for you." I reached into my pocket and handed him my old Swiss Army knife---The one I'd recently replaced. "This is for you now. You've earned it. Take care of it."

Paul smiled. "Okay," he said.

"I thought, since you liked this one better, you can have it," I said. "If you don't really want it right now, I can keep it until you're ready."

"No," he said. "I want it."