Scars (1986-2026)

It had been a while since I'd been together with my whole family. But they were all gathered at my grandmother's house in Phoenixville, a whole crowd of them, even people I didn't really know.

I walked outside, onto the back steps. I looked around---It was night, and should have been darker than this. But I could see everything clearly; it was almost like daylight.

Then I looked up.

The moon was out. And then I saw it---Another moon. There were two. No---Four. I could see four moons rising in the sky.

What the hell?

Definitely something to be investigated. I went inside to find my outfit, but my pack wasn't anywhere. I started looking around, then asked one of my cousins. She hadn't seen it.

I went back outside. The four moons were still there. I needed to find my equipment, so I could figure out what was going on.

Then I opened my eyes. I rolled over in bed; it was almost seven. The sun was out; it was tomorrow.

"The world is a terrible place," said Paul.

"All I said was you had to get ready for school," I said.

He walked past me in the hallway and into his room, and I followed. "No, it's terrible, Dad," he said,

I said down on his bench. I wasn't sure I'd yet had enough coffee for this conversation. "Parts of it," I admitted. "How so?"

"I just saw a video online about a mother who drowned her daughter," he said. "They had her son in court about it."

"That is sad," I said. "But it's important to remember that the world is full of good people, too. The main thing is to make sure you're one of the good ones, trying to help and make things better. It's a good world worth working on. I'll always believe that."

He nodded. "Thanks, Dad."
"Seven-thirty, buddy. Get yourself ready for school."

I was putting away the Christmas decorations when I discovered the trap door. This wasn't a completely unusual experience for me; I'd had things like it happen before. Taking decorations out of the front window, I looked up, and there it was, a trap door in the ceiling.

"Anybody realize there's a trap door up here?" I asked.

Kelli looked up from her desk. "I've noticed that before," she said. "Some kind of crawlspace, I think."

"Never noticed that before. It's one of the few crevices in the Hecht Building I haven't explored yet," I commented. "I'll have to check it out when I get the chance."

I took the boxes of decorations down to the basement, and spotted a stepladder propped in one alcove. I carried it upstairs.

"Screw it. I'm going up there now."

I climbed up the ladder and pushed open the trapdoor, looking in with a flashlight.

"Find any dead bodies?" asked Sarah.

"Tragically, no," I said. The whole thing was open across the whole front of the building, and empty. "It's a big space. I could stand up in here. And there's another crawlspace, above the crawlspace, going back over the office area. I never knew that before."

I climbed down and replaced the trapdoor. "Now I'm trying to think of what I can hide up there."

"Don't you already have a secret hideout?" asked Kelli.

"You can never have too many secret hideouts."

I went back into the back room and started printing another run of a rabbit-breeders magazine that we were going to be working on all day. As I noted down the date, I realized it was January 13th.

It was forty years since my suicide attempt. My first real adventure. My origin story.

Forty years ago, I'd made an attempt at suicide, explored what I'd thought was a haunted house, and wound up helping out an abused girl instead. I'd been sixteen years old. A lifetime ago.

I walked downstairs to my secret hideout. When I'd first started work, I'd explored the basement thoroughly, and discovered an alcove with a door and electricity in it. I'd moved in a desk, a chair, and then set up a computer, and now I had a fairly workable office down in the basement, where nobody else ever went.

It was haunted, too. The whole building was haunted by a ghost named Shirley, who'd been murdered in my basement during a robbery back in 1962. You get used to that.

I sat down at the computer. I often had messages from Jaydann or Chloe, and I took a few moments in my workday to teach them about historic research and paranormal investigation.

Jaydann was on. I'd been friends with her for like a month, and she'd become one of the people who kept me busy on slow days. There was a message from her.

I wonder if I can find anything on my uncle. He passed away when he was 12. His name was Jake Myers.

Ah, good. Something to keep me busy.

We can find this. Do you know if he's buried around here?

He's buried up at the cemetery by the high school.

Brown Cemetery? Or Sunnyside?

Like a three minute drive past the high school on the left.

That's Sunnyside. 

I’ve seen his grave one time in my life and I’ve never seen his obituary or like any newspaper thing. I don’t even know if my parents had any.

If it's there, we can find it.

Right there at the computer, I tried Findagrave. I came up with a couple of Jake Myers names in Sugar Valley, but nothing that matched what Jaydann was describing. Quite all right....That was only a beginning point.

I walked back upstairs and started another run of the rabbit magazine. The boss was walking across the floor, and he asked,"Everything going okay?"

"Found a trap door up above the display window."

He grinned. "It's probably been twenty years since I've been up there."

"Just checked it out. We can hide stuff up there."

"Well. Maybe not."

With fifty more copies of the rabbit magazine printing off, I started looking for more information. It;s nice having a boss who doesn't really care what I'm doing all day. The best place to begin looking for Graves in Clinton County is the Genealogical Society's Cemetery records. And guess who printed them, and therefore has extra copies? That's right, the print ship in the Hecht Building.

Those files were kept on a high shelf. I climbed up---I was doing a lot of climbing today---And retrieved the box for the Bald Eagle Township book. Procedure was to keep an extra copy for ourselves in case we needed to refer to it later, but it worked well for my historic research, too. I took out the extra book and looked in the index.

Twi possibles in Sunnyside. The first one was on page twenty-five, and I checked there. It paid off instantly; the times fit. It was him.

I walked back down to message Jaydann.

Found him. James W. Myers, Junior, Sunnyside Cemetery. 1988-2000. Section 1, Row 9, Plot 8. Born March 5, 1988, died February 23, 2000. Picture of a little dog on his grave.

Hmm interesting!!! I’ll have to go up there again sometime.

It's funny how, in every young boy friendship, there seems to always be one smart kid and one daredevil idiot. Mine is the smart one, When I got home, Paul had his little friend Nathan over when I got home from work, and they were playing in his room when I checked in.

"Oh, hi, Dad. How was your day?"

"Pretty good. I printed up a rabbit magazine."
"Rabbit magazine?!"
"It's about rabbits; they don't read it."

"Oh. Cool. We were just throwing stuff out my window. It makes a hard knock when it lands."
I decided I didn't want more details. "As you were," I said, and walked down to my office. he two of them reminded me of myself and my best friend Kline when I was a kid. We'd come up with stuff like that. Like Paul, I'd been the smart one.

I got on my laptop and messaged Jaydann.

Today was the forthieth anniversary of the day I tried to commit suicide as a teenager. You kept me busy and gave me something to work on, so thanks for that.

Oh my goodness .. 💔💔💔I’m so happy I gave you something to distract yourself. I’m so sorry you had to go through something that painful … 😓

Suicide is always hard on everyone. I’m glad you’re still here ❤️ you are valued !

"Goodnight, little man. I'll see you in the morning."

I kissed Paul on the forehead and left the bedroom. With everyone in bed, I got my KII meter out and took it downstairs. Just like work, my house is haunted. Seventeen-year-old Ida Yost had killed herself on the back porch in 1905. Even for a paranormal investigator, I spent an unbelievable amount of time hanging around haunted places.

I walked around the house a bit, getting nothing. In my place, the haunting tends to come in waves. Sometimes it will be active as hell, and then a couple of weeks ago by without my remembering that there's a ghost here. I sat down on the couch, and it spiked to red. I was interested for a moment, until I realized it was reading the nearby space heater. I'd have to tell the team about that.

I moved it over to the other side of the couch, where it calmed down.

"Hey, Ida," I said softly. Sometimes I do this, when everyone else is in bed. "How you doing? It's my anniversary. Forty years ago today, I tried to commit suicide."

Nothing on the KII. Well, hell. It was my anniversary, not hers.

"I think about it sometimes. You and I have a lot in common. I was sixteen when I tried, just one year younger than you. And mine was 1986; we were eighty-one years apart."

Butters came and settled down on the couch beside me.

"Hope you're doing well, Ida. Hope you're okay."

Just a little flicker on the meter. And then it stopped.

I went and got a snack, then sat back down to relax a bit before I went to sleep. You know what they say. It's the little things that make a haunted house into a haunted home.

Dead Reckoning

Ashlin was playing Bingo. Ashlin will attend any Bingo game she can get into. So she spent the time before the investigation marking off numbers and winning some prizes.

Chloe was working on the new Instagram. She'd volunteered to make a page for LHPS, so when she wasn't studying for school, she was working on the page.

Jaydann and Alexis, the new two, were looking into some of the old cemeteries. They'd taken an interest in some of the local spots, and had discovered a burial vault very near where they lived.

And me? I have no life. I spent the week leading up to the investigation digging into the history, looking up the building, and packing my equipment. My outfit was washed, my files were copied and packed. Batteries charged.

Ready for action.

"I'm so excited," said Jaydann.

I was with Jaydann and Alexis in the doughnut shop, which appeared to be becoming a regular thing. We were talking about the investigation that night, upcoming.

"I am, too," I admitted. "This is going to be good. It brings back memories for me....Eighteen years ago, when LHPS first formed, the first investigation where we really came together was a funeral home in Cameron County. Now, with our new team members, we have an investigation in an abandoned funeral home in Renovo."
"Full circle." commented Alexis.

Jaydann looked at her phone. "Oh my god, my spirit box arrived! Do you mind....."

I grinned. "Go get it. I know you've been dying for this."
She ran out to her car while I talked with Alexis for a while. Jaydann was back in ten minutes with her package, and I helped her open it with my Swiss Army knife.

She pulled out a compact electronic box with an antenna.

"It came with batteries, too!"

"Let's take a look," I said.

We spent a few minutes testing it out, checking to see what we could do with the box. I said,"Okay, looks like it has a lot of features---Temperature, EMFs, radio reception. Looks as if the thermometer takes a while to warm up---Which is okay; I got a few like that. If you get too close to it---" I held my finger over the device, and a red light came on. "It can detect both infrared and electromagnetic."

Jaydann's eyes shone. "I can't wait to try it out."
"You'll get your chance tonight," I said. "Investigation in a few hours."

Ashlin and I pulled up in the parking lot and got out of the car. Chloe had already arrived, and I gave her a hug, She was talking with Jaydann and Alexis. We gathered together....Me, Ashlin, and the three newest members.

LHPS. Together again....For the first time.

"Is that a Captain America backpack?" I asked Chloe as we got out of the car. "Are you using that for Ghost hunting?"

"Oh, no," she said. "I found it at the thrift store just before the investigation."

"Because that would be really cool."

We had arrived right on time, and we went into the building and met with some representatives of the Renovo Heritage Foundation, and Chris and Kate. The building was owned by Renovo Heritage, and in two halves. One half was their museum and headquarters, and the other half was abandoned Maxwell Funeral Home.

"Let's start with a walk-through," I said. "Everyone suit up."

I tossed Chloe her new LHPS t-shirt. It was just like mine, except with her name on it. She pulled it on over her turtleneck. Jaydann pulled on her ghost backpack. And I got on my hood and gloves, then the bandolier. And Chris led us over.

I heard the others gasp as we walked in the back door. The place was a big, old building, and it was filled with antique items and display stuff from Renovo Heritage. Alexis said,"Wasn't there some old embalming equipment in here?"

"Oh, that's up on the fourth floor," said Chris.

"Fourth floor? How big is this place?"

"This way to the stairs."

Jaydann's EMF detector immediately began going off when we hit the stairs, and we weren't even all the way up yet. Taking photos and readings, we walked up to the fourth floor, which had barely been touched over the years. Alexis gasped as we walked into the room with the undertaking stuff.

"Knew you'd like this," I said.

She looked it over. There were old, dusty needles and tubes, a facal reconstruction kit, and an autopsy table shoved against one wall. Slowly, taking it all in, she said,"Look....At....This."

"I want everyone to get photos, and a baseline on EMF and temperature," I said. Chloe, to her credit, already had her camera out and was snapping photos of everything she could. "Once we get all that, we'll sit down for an EVP session. I'm thinking we split into two rooms. Alexis and Jaydann, you guys can take this one, and I'll go with Ashlin and Chloe to the room down the hall."

We settled in, and I turned on my digital recorder. I sat down on the dusty floor, and we started our session. We were in the middle of asking questions when Jaydann called down,"Lou? We have a lot of EMFs going over here!"

We moved back over into the autopsy room, where Jaydann had her EMF detector on the table. It was flickering, spiking to red intermittently. Chloe laid hers down beside it, and it started doing the same thing.

"Alexis," I said,"You wanted to try laying down on this table. Now's your chance."

Alexis grinned and climbed up on the table, lying down with the EMF detectors. I watched her---It was just like what had happened eighteen years ago, up in Cameron County, except now I was the team leader, and back then it had been me on the table.

2008: I jumped up and lay down on the autopsy table. Everyone kind of choked except for Ailish, who took my picture. "Come on," I said, as I climbed off. "You're all going to see me like that sooner or later anyway. You may as well get used to the idea."

"You have a hard time being a grown-up, don't you, Lou?" asked Theresa.

"I don't know," I said. "I've never tried."

"You know, way back when, I said that if I was team leader, I'd let me do this," I commented. "A haunted autopsy table makes sense. Think of all the tragedies this thing saw over the years. Murders, suicides, accidents...They all ended up here. Have fun, Lex."

I was headed down the stairs with Chloe when Chris came back in below.

"Hey, Lou," he said. "We have some pizza over there, if you guys would like any."

"We can stop over and take a moment," I said. I hit my comlink. "Lex? You there?"

A moment passed. "I hear you."

"They got pizza in the Main building. We're gonna head over for a moment. You're welcome to join us if you like."

We walked over for a break. Chloe sat down on the floor with a bottle of water. Ashlin had a slice of pizza. A moment later, Alexis and Jaydann came in.

"We were getting more EMF activity up on four, Lou," said Jaydann.

"We'll go back over in a minute, and take a walk through the basement," I said. "I'd forgotten about the basement. Want some pizza?"

Chloe had gotten up and was standing beside the photocopier. I walked over the stand next to her.

"Thanks for joining the team," I said. "I'm proud of you."

She smiled.

"Thanks for inviting me."

I smiled back. 

"Hey. You're my sidekick."

We walked down into the basement, EMF detectors going. I had my laser thermometer out. "I'm getting a baseline in the fifties. Much warmer here than the rest of the building." I glanced over at Chloe. "You okay?"

"I'm fine."
"Be careful. I'm expendable. I don't want you hurt." I was a little surprised to realize how intensely protective I felt toward Chloe.

"I can be expendable," added Alexis. "I have to work tomorrow."

Hanging from the ceiling was a white shape that I assumed to be a glow-in-the-dark plastic Halloween spider, until I looked more closely. It was an actual spider, covered in bright white mold and hanging from the ceiling.

"Hunh. A moldy spider. You guys see this?"

"Oh, hell no," said Alexis.

"There's a few over here, too," said Chloe.

"What the hell is killng all these spiders down here?"

"You guys often see dead animals?" asked Chris.

"I had a bat fly at me once." I glanced at Ashlin. "Were you there for the bat?"

She grinned. "No, but I've heard the story. I love that."

I felt something dragging on my foot, and looked down. I had a piece of lathe board stuck to my boot with a nail, shoved up into the heel. I pulled it free and set it aside. "Careful, guys. I just stepped on a nail. Watch where you step."
"Are you okay?" asked Chloe.

"I'm fine. I'm glad I wore the steel-toed boots instead of my light sneakers, or I'd be headed for the hospital to get a tetanus shot now."

Everyone split off when we went back up to two. Jaydann and Alexis started checking the center area with the EMF detectors, and Ashlin and Chloe went looking at some of the artifacts in storage. Ashlin held up an old newspaper. From across the room, I could read the headline,"WE WIN."
"World War Two?" I called over.

She grinned. "Yeah."

I walked midway up the stairs, to the landing. And I took a moment to look everything over.

Ashlin, one of the best friends I've ever had. Chloe, who was sweet enough to look up to me, in spite of my being the world's worst possible role model. And Jaydann and Alexis, who were rapidly working their way into my heart.

I watched, from the steps, looking at my team at work. The new LHPS team. And we were off to a really good start.

"Ghosting" someone means something entirely different in LHPS.

We finished back up on three.

We gathered in a circle, with a couple of EMF detectors on the floor. Jaydann set down her electronic bell and her new spirit box. She handed out a couple of small cat balls, little round toys that lit up.

"You guys can keep a couple of those," she said. "We have a bunch of them."

"I'll keep one," volunteered Chloe.

"I might hang onto one," I said. "They seem to work. You press the button and roll it in. It's like a ghost grenade."

I heard Chloe giggle beside me. Around the circle, everyone began asking questions, giving some space in between. I walked over to look out the big front window.

Eighteen years of this team. I was the only person who still remained from the beginning. And now we'd come all the way back around, with new members teaming up to investigate a haunted funeral home.

"Jesus christ, Lou!" said Alexis. "You scared me to death! I saw your image on the thermal and didn't know what it was at the window!"

"Thought I'd look out the window a moment," I said. "I know I look good that way."
One of the cat balls, the one nearest me, flickered brightly. Jaydann, standing next to me, looked over. "That wasn't you---"
"No," I agreed. "I was standing too far away." I stepped a little closer and tapped my foot on the floor to test it. Nothing happened. "That wasn't me."

"See how the EMF is staying consistently on two greens? That's weird."
"Usually they flicker. I don't see them doing that very much."

"Can you ring the bell?" Aexis asked. "Just go near it, and it should ring."

"That one might be a bit harder than the EMFs," I commented. "It takes more energy to do the bell than the lights."
"They both work off EMFs."
"Yeah, but---And this is called 'What Lou Thinks He Remembers His Dad Saying'----The lights just operate on electrical energy. For the bell to ring, that has to be turned into kinetic energy, which takes more of it. It's harder, on a physics level."

"Well, yeah, true."

I looked at my watch. "We should probably get packed up and ready to go. This thing has already gone on way longer than I'd expected."

"It's been great!" said Jaydann.

"Yeah, great investigation. But we have a drive home, and it's already nine-fifteen."

She gasped. "I didn't realize that much time had passed."

I grinned. "Does tend to sneak up on you, doesn't it?"

And then he bell went off.

Ding.

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 was walking carefully on the ice sheet, sticking mostly to the grass, which had a bit more traction. Jaydann was just a head of me. Alexis, who seemed to have considerably better balance than either Jaydann or myself, was strolling casually across the icy road.

"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. I'd worn the usual outfit with the shoulder strap, which was easy to throw a heavy coat over. I was wearing the heavier hood; it was about twenty-eight degrees out.

"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."

All Well And Good

I was in a haunted house, which was not unusual. I had a cup of coffee, which is also not unusual. Oh, and the haunted house was mine and I live there.

I pushed open the door to Paul's room and walked in. "Time to get up, guys," I said. "We've got a holiday trip to make."

Paul was on the bed, and his little friend Rylan was on the air mattress on the floor. Paul already seemed to be somewhat awake, which was actually a bit unusual.

"Okay," said Paul.

"You guys want breakfast?" I asked. "We won't be stopping until Grandpa's house."

"Um. Cereal," said Paul. "The pink one."

"I'll take the green," said Rylan.

"I'll get them ready," I said. "You guys get up and get yourselves going. Dress for adventure."

"Okay, when we get down to the light, turn right instead of going straight across to the bridge," I said. "That will take us to the cemetery."
"I know where we're going," said Michelle.

We got to the bottom of the hill, and the bridge was blocked off anyway. I said,"Well, I guess we have to turn right regardless."

"I seem to recall this last year, too," Michelle said.

Paul shook his head. "How long does it take them to fix this bridge?"

"When I was eighteen, they did some repairs on the Morgan Bridge uptown, and it took a whole summer," I said. 

"It's already been way longer than that."

We drove up Main and turned at the fireman statue....All of these streets and buildings I'd grown up with. Just outside of Slatington, along 873, I said,"Up here. On the left. There's a church, and then the cemetery."

Michelle pulled in, and I got my camera out. I said,"Here we are. The people who  built Grandpa's farm in 1836 are buried here. You guys can stay in the car or come along with me; either way."

"I'm coming," said Paul. "Let me get my sneakers on."

"I'm coming, too," said his little friend Rylan.

We climbed out of the vehicle. I said,"We're looking for Newhart or Newhard. It's been since before you were born, Paul, but I was here years ago researching the family. I remember them being back this way, toward the back."

We walked across the cemetery together. The graves were about where I remembered them, way back to the far end of the cemetery. Newhart. The family who'd built the farm I'd grown up on.

I spotted two of the graves---Eva, the mother, and her baby. They'd both died in 1922, very close together. I said,"Paul, see this?"

"Yeah."

"When you see a lot of close dates like that, especially young people, it tells me something  You have your phone? Look up '1922 epidemic.' Wait, I'm going to guess it's Spanish flu."

Paul got out his phone. "Nineteen twenty two.....Epidemic?" he asked me.

I nodded. "Yep."

A moment later, he said,"That's right. Spanish flu."

"That explains a lot. If the farm is haunted, these two are possibilities. A mother and child who died of Spanish flu together. Come on, let's get back to the car. Next stop, Grandpa's."

The farm was the way I"d remembered it. It always was. We got out, and my brother was at work, standing by the barn.

I hugged him. "Hi, Jon."

"Glad you made it safe. Hey, Paul, you're looking good!" This was Jon's way of mentioning that he'd noticed Paul's new glasses without actually drawing attention to the glasses.

Paul grinned. "Thanks."

"We've got a present for you. It's down in the house. I want you to learn how to play it."

"So," I said,"It's either a game or a musical instrument. Amy around?"

"She's in the new barn."

I walked over to the new barn, where my sister-in-law Amy was manning the counter, selling jams and giving away hot chocolate. I was wearing my sweatshirt with a ghost drinking coffee. It had warmed up a bit, so I was able to get away with my black puffy vest. I'd basically dropped the vest look, but I still loved this one.

I hugged Amy. "Got a present for you."

I handed her a paperback book with an orange cover. "Ghost Stories of the Lehigh Valley," by Adams.

"Oooh, thank you," she said. "I like reading this stuff."

"My brother told me you were asking about local hauntings, and I thought this one would help. It's used----I was actually going to buy one on Amazon, and then I realized I had an extra in my office. I'm pretty picky about my ghost books, but this guy is good. I met him once; I had a booth next to him at the Albatwtich Festival a couple of years ago."

"Thank you," she said. "I never got much sense that this place was haunted, but...."

"Dad used to tell me stories," I said. "Once he told me one about a shadow figure in the meadow. And when he moved in, he said there was a sound on the stairs like a ball bouncing down."

"Now that you mention it, I do remember him telling that one."

"I was never sure just how much of this was real, and how much to entertain me as a kid."

Amy grinned. 

I said,"I'm sort of keeping an eye on reports lately. In times of national crisis, there tends to be an upswing in activity. Not sure if that's actual, or just people being under stress and misinterpreting stuff. But there's no denying we're under national stress right now."

"No, there's not."

"So with President Asshole tearing down the East Wing, and the 250th anniversary of America coming up, I'm watching to see if there's an increase in paranormal activity. Particularly along historic lines. By the way, that reminds me---We stopped at the cemetery where the people who founded this farm are buried."

"Where's that?"

"Behind the church up along 873. I did the research almost twenty years ago."
She nodded. "Okay, I know that one."

"It looks like you have two people on the farm who died of Spanish flu. So that could be a possibility."

"People have died in the house?"

"Hell, my mother died in the house."

"Oh, that's right."

"So there may be an increase in the next few months. Let me know."

Miles, the family beagle, watched as I walked around the kitchen with my EMF detector, taking a few readings. I wasn't getting anything much yet. Paul loved Miles; the two had been born very close together, and had grown up together. My brother had gotten Miles as a puppy when Paul was only a couple of months old.

"Is that your ghost detector?" Dad asked me.

"More or less. It's an all-in-one EMF detector---It detects electromagnetic fields, but also does temperature. It's nice when I don't want to be carrying around a lot of different pieces of equipment." I was willing to talk about ghost-hunting in general, but I wasn't about to start explaining EMFs to a retired electrical engineer.

The place had nothing, EMF-wise. Which I'd about have expected, offhand. Dad would have the house wired up very professionally, which meant my baseline would be zero. Which was, in its way, good news---Any flicker was likely to be something unexplainable.

Paul and Rylan were eating the pizzas Michelle had heated up for them, and Miles was lurking about in the hopes he might manage to get some, too. I walked outside.

At the jeep, I got in my pack and pulled out the travel outfit for ghost hunting. It was a small pouch on a shoulder strap, smaller than the one I'd use at home, but easy enough to carry in my backpack. I slung it over my shoulder; now I was ready to go.

I looked around the farm, not as it is currently, but trying to view it as it would have been in 1836. This was harder than usual; while I could easily see this stuff in Clinton County, this wasn't some historic site---This was just the place I'd grown up. It took some effort to get myself into the right mindset.

The barn was odd. I'd never noticed it before, but the barn was a much older architecture than I'd realized. I was used to barns being double-level and having some sort of ramp access to the second floor, which would have been typical of the late 1800s. This one didn't have that, which put it much older---Previous to a lot of the large farm equipment that would have existed later.

The house was definitely pre-1840 design. I'd never noticed that as a kid, but now it jumped out at me. The house, the springhouse, the old servant's quarters---My room had once been the old servant house. It was now connected and part of the main house, but it hadn't always been. I wondered who the servants might have been. I could maybe find that out if I could get my hands on the census records.

No EMFs near the house or the barn. I walked down across the yard, looking around. This was the place I'd grown up, the place I'd basically begun. My origin story. Generations of people had lived here, and I was one of them. I;d grown up here, having adventures in these woods. I'd looked for ghosts, monsters, and buried treasures throughout my childhood, and never really outgrown that. One of these days, I was going to visit for the last time, and I'd never even know it. One of these days, one of us was going to be the last sibling alive. Odds are it wasn't going to be me.

I knew there was an old well down in the forest near the old pond. I'd discovered in in the woods when I was a kid; it was likely older than the house. I walked down that way.

The pond, in which I'd tried to catch water monsters when I was young, was largely overgrown these days. I could see the old well through the trees. I walked around a bit, waving the EMF detector.

There. A flicker---It rose a couple of points and then went back down.

"That's more like it."

No power lines nearby. No reason there should have been a reading here. I walked around, circling the well, getting spikes here and there. Settlers in those days would likely have dug the well before they'd even constructed the house---You need water before you need shelter, and crops and cattle weren't going to wait around until you'd constructed your living room. So as I investigated, this would be a hot spot.

Of course---The story Dad had told me about the ghost in the meadow. The stream began up here and ran down that way. This was all connected with that one small waterway; if I followed this stream down, I'd end up in the same meadow. I'd investigated that a few years ago, and got a photo we couldn't entirely explain.

I walked back to the barn, where Amy was making a wreath. She asked me,"Find any ghosts?"

"Well, maybe," I said. "You never do know."

"So, what did you learn in the cemetery today?" I asked. I was sitting in the Jeep, two Christmas trees tied to the roof, doing my annual panicking for the entire trip home.

"Nothing," declared Paul. He was playing his present, which had turned out to be a keyboard. He was actually making some progress at sounding good with it.

"Nothing? No?"

"Oh, wait....Yeah. When you see the same year a lot, check for epidemics and stuff."

"Especially in younger people. You got it."

"Are we stopping for dinner? I'm getting hungry."

"We'll stop as soon as we see a good place," said Michelle.

About half a mile down the road, Paul made the kind of discovery that he likes to make.

"Look! There! A Taco Bell!"

Water Under The Bridge

"Next on the tour," I said, stopping at the corner of Grove and Water Streets,"Is the Susquehanna River. You can't see it because of the dike right now, but you all know it's there. This is the home to a water cryptid known as the Susquehanna Seal. The Susquehanna Seal was reported in newspaper articles back in the 1800s, a large, snaky creature living in the river."
At the front of the crowd was a kid, who was getting more and more excited as I spoke. He held a hand up, and I said,"You have a question?"

"He just wants to tell you something," said the kid's father. "Go on."

"This creature was known to brush up against lumber rafts, dumping the lumbermen into the water. People reported hearing it howling at night. It's theorized that it might have been a leftover Hynerpeton, a prehistoric creature whose fossil was discovered here in 1993."

As we walked down Water Street to the next stop, a haunted hotel, the kid told me,"I saw that! We were fishing near the bridge down there, over there....."

"The Jay Street Bridge," added the father.

"And I saw this thing in the water! My cousin and me saw it! It was long and black, and had like a hump on the back."

"They both really freaked out," said the father. "Something there scared them very badly."

"About what time of year was this?"

"About seven o'clock," the kid said. "It was a Saturday....."

"What time of year?" his father prompted.

"Oh. About fall, I guess. Back around a year ago."

"Well," I said. "Things have been a little slow lately. I'm going to have to look into this. You've just given me my next investigation."

"Dad, can I open your package?" Paul likes opening packages that come in the mail. He doesn't much care what's in them. I was cooking dinner, so I kind of waved my hand and let him do it.

He slid a small box out of the package. "What's this?"

"That's my new Swiss army knife," I said. He was turning it over in his hands.

"It's too big," he declared. "Look at this!"
"It's got more stuff on it than the old one. Got a compass, a wrench. The pliers has two settings."

The thin was bright red, about an inch thick. It had a curvy, smooth, aerodynamic handle and weighed about a pound. It had at least fifty different tools on it. I could repair anything with it. I could fix La Llorona's marriage. I could repair the Silver Bridge.

"Too much stuff for me to memorize," he said, and handed it to me. "I don't like it."

"I'm gonna give it some time, see what I think," I said. "I'll carry this one around a while and see how it works for me."

I was n the middle of folding brochures when Tom called back,"Lou? Kelli wants to see you when you have a minute."

"Coming up now," I said.

I stood up and walked across the print shop to the front office. The office manager, Kelli, was sitting at her desk with a map up on the screen.

"Did you know Bigfoot's been sighted neat Penn State?" she asked.

I love my current co-workers.

I grinned. "I saw that this morning! I was drinking my coffee and I saw a news article about it. Thinking I might look into it."

"Want me to print you out a copy of the map? It shows exactly where he was seen."

"Sure. That helps. It always pays to go take a look at the site, if possible."

"Coming through. In color." She printed it out on one of the big copiers, and I picked it up and folded it in half.

"Thanks, Kelli. I'll let you know what I find."

After work, I biked over to the Jay Street Bridge. It was a clear, cool day. I biked midway across the bridge---Over the Lock Haven city limit into Woodward Township. I got off and looked at the area.

Always visit the site. It's what I try to teach people. You never know what you might discover, so always visit the site of the paranormal experience if you can. This was where the kid had spotted the Susquehanna Seal.

I got out a pair of compact binoculars and looked out over the river. Nothing yet. There wasn't much point in getting out the litmus paper and doing a test on the water; I'd tested the Susquehanna dozens of times before. I knew it could support life. 

My cell phone rang. I dug it out my my pack.

"Hey, little man. What's up? Yeah, I'm on my way home. Yeah, I can pick up a sub for you. Meatball? Okay. Home in about ten minutes, kid."

I stood in my son's bedroom, disassembling his giant bunk bed so I could put together the new bed. When you're a parent, you wind up doing things like that.

"You remember the Bigfoot sighting along I-80?" I asked Paul, who was sitting at his desk in the chair.

He nodded. "I remember you told me there was one, yeah."

Just a kid and his dad, discussing cryptids. Parenting moments.

"Been looking into that. I've checked the maps and made a few calls. It might help if you could come up with some excuse to get your mom to drive us to State College; we could stop and check the site along the way."

"I'm on it," said Paul. "I would have anyway. I'm thinking Crumbl Cookie."

"Right now, my working theory is that it's a hoax. Probably a prank from some idiot Penn State fratboy; they're known for stupid shit like that. I checked, and it happened the night before Homecoming. And, yes, the State College Spirit Halloween did have Bigfoot costumes."

"Hey! You went to Spirit Halloween without m---"

"I didn't go there, I just called. It is not so easy to explain that you don't actually want a costume, you just wanted to know if they previously had them. But they did, which is where the costume could have come from. A visit to the site will explain more."

Paul nodded, looking over my work. I took out my new knife and started unscrewing a bolt. He said,"I still don't like the new knife. Too much stuff for me to memorize."

"You'll get used to it."

"Will we have the new bed built in time for bedtime?"

"Probably. This is coming along okay. But I'll let you sleep on the couch until I do get it done, if not."

"Okay. Bet."

"Dad, you want to do something? I'm bored."

Paul had woken up with a stomachache and a sore arm from the day before, so I'd decided to give him a mental health day from school. The illness had lasted until about eleven-thirty, at which point he'd decided it was safe to be up and around.

"You got something in mind?" I asked.

He shook his head. "If you can think of something we can do....."

"How about we take a walk down to the river? I was thinking of taking a walk. The river is low because there's a drought right now, and I wanted to take a look."

"Can we ride our bikes?"

"I don't see why not."

A few minutes later, we were riding our bikes down near the water. We stopped and got off, looking at the river from the top of the dike. I climbed up on a guardrail and looked.

"You know we're right on the city limit?" I asked.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You know what city limits are?"

"That's where you leave Lock Haven and you're in Castanea."

"Pretty much, except here it's Woodward Township. That's right there, across the river. We can see it from here."

"So if we go over there---" Paul gestured out across the river. "---We're in Woodward?"

"Yep. Did I tell you I got a Susquehanna Seal sighting?"

"I thought it was Bigfoot."

"Him too. But also the Susquehanna Seal. I've been checking, but nothing has turned up."

"Is the Susquehanna Seal hibernating?"

"Could be. You know hibernation?"

"We learned about hibernation in school. Isn't that where animals sort of sleep, but for the whole winter?"

"Yeah, that's basically it. Bears do it. A lot of fish and reptiles do it, too. So it's reasonable to assume the Susquehanna Seal might, as well."

"Are we going to see the Susquehanna Seal in the spring?"

"I mean, we can hope. You want to go home and watch that horror movie on Plex you've been wanting to see?"
Paul lit up. "Yeah!"

"So I'll have to check out the Susquehanna Seal later. It's like it always is with the Susquehanna Seal....The case has gone cold."

I was watching the mile markers as we rode along the highway toward Centre County. I saw the sign on the county line, and I said,"The Bigfoot sighting is up ahead, about six miles."

"Oh yeah?" Paul said, looking up from the back of the car. He said,"It's on the way to the movie?"

"Well, it's on the way to State College."

"I really wanted to see the movie in State College. I'm gonna eat about $3.50 worth of popcorn. It's why I asked Mom." I was going to have to up the kid's allowance.

"Bigfoot?" his little friend Noah asked. "Really?"
"Yeah, there was a sighting right up ahead."

"Is Bigfoot real? If I saw Bigfoot, I'd have to kick him and run away."
There was a lot to unpack there. I said,"Well, nobody knows if Bigfoot's real or not. Or any cryptid. It's why I investigate. Panda bears, gorillas, and platypuses were all thought to be imaginary, until somebody found one for sure. So nobody knows for sure if Bigfoot's real."

"Really? Pandas?"

"Yeah, they were thought to be made-up. Now, there really aren't a lot of credible reports of Bigfoot actually attacking people. They mostly seem to run away. They're probably pretty shy."

"Have you ever seen a UFO?" Noah asked.

"A couple."

"Really? Were they cool?"

"Pretty cool. Mostly just lights in the sky...."

"Remember that one we saw in Maryland?" Paul asked.

"I remember."

I watched the side of the road as we approach mile marker 169. Always visit the site, even if it's driving by. Along I-80, there's no place to stop. 

I could see across the edge of the highway and the nearby field, where Jacksonville Road swerved surprisingly close to Eighty.

I looked at the layout; always visit the site if you can. Bigfoot had been spotted within an easy walking distance, moving away from the overpass. Farm Lane ran down and underneath I-80. I looked down that way.

It was basically clear, much clearer than most of what bordered on the interstate. The trees were clear for a bit, and I could see where someone could easily jump the guardrail and run down the bank to get to a waiting car.

Paul asked,"See Bigfoot?"

"Pretty sure I see the answer behind that sighting," I said. "Looks like it was a college student, probably on a dare or something. Put on a discount Halloween costume, got spotted along the highway, then ran down the bank to a getaway car."

"At least you solved one," said Paul.

I nodded. "I'll take it as a win. I'm happy to figure these things out, even if it turns out to be a hoax. I got the Bigfoot sighting, and the Susquehanna Seal isn't going anywhere."

I sat in the theater, watching the second "Wicked" installment. Paul sat next to me with his popcorn, and a bottle of soda. He leaned over and whispered,"Can I use your knife, Daddy?"

I handed him the new knife. He opened the bottle opener and used it to pry open his soda bottle before handing it back to me.

"Maybe the new knife isn't so bad," he said.

Poultrygeist

I knelt down on the front walk with a wrench, loosening the bolt on Tif's wheelchair. Behind me, she sat in the porch chair and watched.

"Are you going to be able to raise that footplate?" she asked.

"I should be. These bolts are tight; it'll take a little while, but it can be done."

"I think I saw my cat last night."

"You saw him?" Tif's cat had died recently at the age of twenty-one. At her request, we'd brought him up to the house and buried him in the backyard.

"I would swear I did. He looked like in his younger days. Could he be haunting the apartment?"

"I wouldn't rule it out," I admitted. "I've dealt with pet hauntings before. All mammals, I've noticed. If you look at the credible reports, hell, even if you look at the old legends, they're all mammals."

Tif thought that over. "That's true, isn't it? You don't hear of lizards...."

"Right, no lizards, fish, birds ever haunting anything. It's always dogs, cats, horses. I've had a lot of experience with that."

"Can you check it out for me? Can you come up sometime and find out?"

"I can bring up some of my equipment and take a look," I said. "Let me know when."

It was getting dark earlier and earlier as the days went by. I love autumn. I walked out on my porch and across to next door, knocking on the door.

The woman who was staying there came to the door---Little Serina's aunt. I said,"Hi, Twila. Do you have a moment? I wanted to ask you something."

"Oh, sure," she said, stepping out onto the porch.

"I saw the fundraiser online to raise money for the burial, when your baby died," I said. "I am so sorry. That's heartbreaking."

"Thank you," she said.

"You haven't gotten to know me very well, but I'm a tour guide," I said. "Sometimes I do tours to raise money for good causes. I wanted to ask if I could do one for you, and see about bringing in some money."

"Oh, thank you," she said. "Yes."

"I did one for a girl with cancer down the street, a couple of years ago," I said. "I raised a few hundred. I can't promise tons and tons of money, but I can get a bit for you."

"Anything will help," she said. "Even five dollars will help."

I smiled. "I think I can do better than five dollars."

I love giving tours of Lock Haven. Getting out there and walking around my city, showing people how special it is....It's the closest I come to really being me. 

I was waiting at the corner as everyone showed up. It was getting dark, and the moon was rising over the Bald Eagle Mountains. A car pulled up, and I was pleased to see Chloe get out with a friend of hers. She gave me a hug.

"Good to see you, kid," I said. "Thanks for coming."

"I love your tours," she said.

"How old are you now? Fifteen, sixteen in May?"

She grinned. "You got it. Fifteen, sixteen in May."

"When you turn eighteen, I want you to join LHPS," I said. "I won't take no for an answer."

"You won't have to. I'd love that."

"Well, let's get started," I said to the small group. "My name is Lou, and I'll be your tour guide tonight."

We walked down the street, me stopping to point out the haunted and historic homes along the way. A few minutes later, we were stopping in front of my house, and I was telling the story of Ida Yost, the way I always do.

"I always tell this one on my tours," I said. "This one is special to me....Because this one is mine. I moved into this house this month in 2003. I did the historic research, got back as far as 1905, and found Ida Yost."

We walked up the block, telling stories of an abandoned community, the Jersey Devil, the Bald Eagle Mountains, and the old Great Island Cemetery. Circled back around to the beginning point. As everyone started to disperse, Chloe said,"Lou, can I take you aside a moment before we leave?"

'Sure," I said, and we stepped off a bit down the sidewalk.

Chloe looked a bit nervous. "I don't want to seem like I'm trying to get attention, but...."

I put my hand on her arm. "Chloe, you're my apprentice and my friend. I trust you."

I genuinely do. Chloe is one of the smartest, most reliable teens I know.

"When we were at your house, I thought I saw a silhouette in the upstairs window," she said. "It looked like someone might have been up there."

"That's our bedroom window," I said. "I don't think my wife would have been in there while I was gone, but I'll check. Could be you saw something."

"It wasn't anything scary," she said. "It looked like a blurry sort of figure. I definitely felt a sense of security there....I'm not sure if I was feeling Ida, or if it's because I know it's your place."

"Well, I'm glad you felt safe," I said. "Could be that you're the first person ever to see Ida on one of my tours."

She smiled. "That's pretty cool."

It was dark when I got to the doughnut shop on Bellefonte Avenue. The kind of dark that happens in the fall, about five PM. Ashlin was waiting at a table for me. Paul and I sat down with our drinks.

"Thanks for meeting with me," I said as I sat down with my coffee. "Tim dropped me from SPI because I won't work with psychics, and Millie doesn't seem to be talking to me. I'm not about to go telling anyone to choose sides, but I won't compromise my principles, either."

Ashlin nodded. "I'm Team LHPS all the way."

"I appreciate that. Though Tim can remove me from SPI, leader of LHPS is an elected position. Which means that the only one who can take me out of LHPS at the moment is you."

Ashlin rolled her eyes. "Right, Lou. You're outa here."

"And, of course, this leaves you as the second in command."

She looked at me with some alarm. "Wait, what? We gotta recruit some new members!"

"I think we do. Not that I have any objection to working with you specifically. But we do need a bigger, more versatile team. I'm thinking between four and seven people. If you have any suggestions, I'm happy to consider them."

Ashlin shook her head. "I don't know all that many people."

"I want to vary the age ranges a bit, so you're not forced to hang out with old people all the time."

"Lou. I go to Bingo like six times a month. You really think I have a problem spending time with old people?"

"I have a couple of thoughts. Maybe a couple of the Teen Paranormal kids, grown now. And there's one kid I know....She's fifteen, and it's really too bad we have the eighteen-year-old rule, because she's brilliant."

Ashlin grinned. "Well, it's just you and me now. We can make our own rules."
I grinned back. "I guess we can, can't we?"

My phone rang while I was at work. Paul, of course. I picked up the phone and said,"Hey, kid. How's it going?"

"Can you pick me up at Sissy's house after work? I came down here because you and Mom aren't home." Paul had two days off from school, I was working, and Michelle was out of town on a business trip. 

"Sure, I can meet you there. Enjoying your day off?"

"Yeah. I went to McDonald's, and then Genevieve's house. And then Sissy took me to KFC. I think it's haunted."

"What makes you say that?"

"I saw a black shape while I was eating."

"Well, if you like, we can eat dinner there Wednesday and check it out."
"Yeah!"
"Tell your sister I'll be over after work. Tell her I can check her place for ghosts if she'd like."

Paul was on the couch when I got there, which is his usual position. I set my pack down and took of my jacket, and got out the digital recorder and the EMF detector.

"I'm just gonna let this run," I said, turning on the recorder. "Jude was a very vocal cat, so maybe we'll catch him yowling. I'll review the recording later." I turned to Tif. "Paul says he saw something at KFC. Might be haunted."

"Sure, by the ghosts of thousands of dead chickens."

"Poultrygeist." I turned on the EMF detector and walked around the apartment. "The property used to be the home of the Clinton County Times, so there are some possibilities there. They wrote articles about ghosts all the time. Not getting much. He liked to be on the bed, didn't he?"

"That and the wheelchair," said Tif.

I ran the detector around the bed. Paul pointed out,"It was always the old wheelchair." Tif had recently gotten a new one, and the old one was in the corner. I walked out and moved the EMF detector around the chair, not getting any readings. I switched to the thermometer and tried it again.

"This is interesting."

"You got something?" Tif asked.

"I'm getting a temperature drop. Four degrees, which isn't much, but your place is pretty warm and consistent. This might be something." I walked around the room taking readings. "It's consistently about seventy-five. But over there...." I tried it again. "Now it's gone."

"He used to jump off the chair and go hide in the closet."

"Maybe he's still here," I said.

I've always wanted to have a secret office in a basement or something. Working at the print shop, I'd achieved that. I had an office with a small desk, a computer, a recliner, a bulletin board, little red lights running the ceiling, and all the space I needed for whatever paranormal escapade I had going. I sat down in my chair and dialed Chloe.

"Chloe," I said,"Would you be interested in joining LHPS?"

She gasped. "I definitely would! I don't know how much help I'd be as just a fifteen year old, but I'd gladly do what I could!"

"You're not 'just' anything," I said. "I talked it over with my partner last night, and we agreed to bend the age rule."

"Thank you so much! What can I do to help LHPS?"

"You can help me with historical research,  help during investigations, and pretty much anything else you can think of to contribute. "And I couldn't wait to see what she could come up with.

"So what did you see?" I asked. Paul and I were sitting at KFC, which definitely did not sponsor this episode. We were eating our sandwiches, our last night before Michelle came home.

"I saw a little boy, over there, where they order. But Sissy and me were the only people in the place."
"Well, this was the site of a local newspaper. They reported on ghosts all the time, so you never do know. Before that, it was a gas station, and before that, the parking lot for a laundry building."

"Is this on your tours?"
"I hung a flyer up on the bulletin board over there. Sometimes I walk up this far, but I'm not sure about it this year."

I had my EMF detector out on the table. I said,"Maybe I should come in with the team sometime."

"And me."

"And you. You know, I've really been enjoying the last few days with you, buddy."
"Me, too," said Paul.

I stood up to throw out the garbage. I found my tour flyer on the floor---It was lying near where I'd hung it up on the bulletin board. 

I smiled as I picked it up.

"Maybe there is a ghost, after all."

That night, I sat in the house after everyone had gone to bed. I looked around the room.

Tif had lost her cat. I understood that. We'd had six dogs who'd lived here, all of whom had been loved.

Sam....Kat...Mickey....Kasper....Gwen....Duke. I missed them all, and sometimes I thought I saw signs they're still around, keeping an eye on us.

Butters was on my lap, and Rosie was asleep on the couch next to me.

Appreciate what you have while it's still there.

I walked out the front door and over to the porch next door. Knocked on the door.

Twila answered it. I handed her an envelope.

"Here you go," I said. "There's a hundred and forty dollars in there from my tours. I hope this helps."

She smiled. "I'm sure it will. Thank you. Can I give you a hug?"

"Of course," I said, and she hugged me. "I'm glad I could help."

"Thank you again," she said.

#150: Moth To A Flame

It was a nice evening.

I was leaving the store with some crackers for an upcoming trip, and some root beers for Paul. I got on my bike and pulled into Kite Alley, when I found a friend of mine walking over.

"Hi, Wendi. How are you?"

"Hi, Lou! Doing good, how about you?"

"Doing good. Planning my haunted tours for the year. You want to come?"

"Oh, of course I do. You know I love that stuff. Hey, while we're on the subject, I wanted to tell you about something!"

"Oh?"

"Yes, I was picking my daughter and her friend up in Beech Creek and we saw Mothman. It's not much, but...."

"No, Mothman is one of my favorites! Tell me about it."

"We were picking her and her friend up in Beech Creek. In the woods, we saw something really quick---Big and black, wing ten-foot wings, flying. It was only for a moment, and then it was gone."

"Well, this is gonna give me something to look into," I said. "I love the Mothman. Now I gotta do some investigating."

I'd seen the old lady before, occasionally. She'd approached me a few times over the years to ask me questions about local history, or tell me things she thought I didn't know. When I got to work, she was in the front office, making some photocopies. Tom was helping her. When I walked in, she showed one to me. It looked to be a newspaper story about thunderbirds.

"Ah, cool," I commented.

"They've been seen around this area," she said.

I nodded. "I've written about some sightings."

She continued, giving me no sign she'd heard me. She was the kind of person who only heard what she felt like hearing. "Thunderbirds have been seen out near Bald Eagle Creek, you know. Out near the Castanea Fire Hall."

"Have they? I didn't know that."

"Oh, yes. I've seen them out there. There used to be a man who knew my dad, he lived out near the old storage building, and he would talk about seeing them."
"Well, now I'm interested. Oh, that reminds me." I turned to Tom, still making copies. "You live in Beech Creek. You ever see the Mothman down there?"
"Wait, what?"

"Or any weird flying creature that you can't explain. I've had a Mothman sighting in the Beech Creek area."

"Mothman?"

"Sort of a big bug-person creature. Usually sticks close to West Virginia, but he's been seen in Chicago lately. I haven't heard of Mothman being out this far in central Pennsylvania before."
"Oh. No, I haven't seen anything. I'm not really out enough to see anything like that."

"Well, if you happen to be out at camp or something, and you have a sighting, let me know. I got a job to do."

"B...Forty-two. B....Forty-two." 

I walked across the Bingo hall and sat down with Michelle. She was playing two cards at once, while I'd been walking around helping out. It was a fundraiser for Paul's dance class; Paul himself was back in the small kids' room playing with some of his friends.

"Just got done telling the kids some ghost stories by request," I said. "How's it going?"

"Okay," she said. "How you doing?"

"Kind of a rough day," I said. "Tim fired me from SPI this morning for my refusal to work with psychics."

She looked at me in some shock. "What happened?"

"Tim included a fucking psychic in our last investigation. When I had to submit my report, I stated that we'd damaged our credibility by including a fraudulent psychic, and the whole investigation should be scrapped and done over due to the whole thing being compromised. Tim ran it past the lawyer, who said that I could be in trouble for defamation. And Tim dropped me from the team."

"Could you really be sued for defamation?"
"I'd love to see her try to prove in court that her abilities work."

"Are you and Tim still friends?"

"I guess so. I'm pissed as hell right now, and I think it's going to be a while before I want to hang with him. But I don't plan on cutting off contact or anything."

"Did you have to say that in your report?"

"I think it was the only ethical thing I could do. I do historic research and prove what I say; I can't go letting people make stuff up as if it's actual documentation."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know, look into Mothman and the thunderbird a bit; I've had sightings. And Chloe asked me to do some research on her house."

"I mean about the team."

I shrugged. 

"I still have LHPS." I could see Paul signaling to me from across the room. "Gotta go. The kids want more ghost stories."

I get home from work every day about four, usually just in time to beat Paul inside. I walked the dogs and brought in the mail, and when the kid got home, I tossed him a small package.

"What's this?"

"Your new ghost-hunting outfit, if you want it," I said.

He tore it open and pulled out a fanny pack, black, with a thick strap. He looked it over, and said,"I approve."

"With me changing mine so I don't look like an ICE agent, I didn't want you running around in a tac vest, either," I said. "You like to wear these across your chest, and I thought that was a good look. I'll transfer your equipment into it. You still want the skull gloves?"

Paul nodded, heading for the refrigerator. "Yeah. I like those."

"Okay. Good. With me out of SPI, it looks like it's likely to be you and me doing investigations for a while. Just got a Mothman sighting down around the county line; you want in?"

"Sure."
"Maybe down to Bald Eagle State Park one of these weekends to take a look? Sometime after we get back from our bus trip to Baltimore."

"Maybe. I asked Rylan if she could come along."

"What'd she say?"

"She's going to check with her mom. But she wants to wait until her mom is in the right mood."

"I get that. I used to do that." A thought occurred to me. "Do you have to do that?"

"Not really. Well, sometimes with Mom. But you're usually in a pretty good mood, except for when there's problems with your friends."

"You mean like this thing with Tim and SPI?"

"Well, yeah, like that."

"Well, I'm not too bothered by that, buddy. And don't worry about asking me stuff---A lot of the time, when things are bad, you cheer me up considerably."

"Okay, buddy. Have a good day at school."

Paul headed out the door and down to the bus stop---He doesn't let me walk him down there anymore. I went to the kitchen and poured myself another cup of coffee. Alone with Rosie, Butters, and the hamster.

I sat down at my computer and looked up the number for the Mothman Museum in West Virginia. I tried calling, but they had a long, rambling message, so I settled for e-mailing instead. Then I stepped out on the porch with the coffee and looked outside.

It was pouring out. I sipped some coffee and looked at the horrible rain, considering. I had some stuff I'd wanted to do, but it wasn't pressing. I could stay home and avoid the rain.

I smiled.

On the other hand, is there better weather to investigate a thunderbird?

Across town, I did the title search on Chloe's house at the courthouse annex. I got as far back as 1945, where the deeds suddenly dropped---Someone may have typed a wrong number in 1951, leaving me clueless after that. I scribbled down a list of names and dates, and then gathered my stuff and walked out.

Since I was on the east end of Lock Haven anyway, I biked out to Castanea. Still pouring. I turned and rode down past the Castanea Fire Hall, and down along Bald Eagle Creek. The irony is that I was practically right across from my own house; Castanea Township begins about two blocks from where I live. But because there's no bridge across the creek, I have to go the long way around.

I stopped along Lower Creek Road and got off the bike. I was wearing the huge poncho I'd bought a while back, and still getting wet. I worked my way through some trees and thorns, beating my way back to Bald Eagle Creek.

The slope had turned completely to mud, making the footing somewhat hazardous. I clung to some trees as I carefully worked my way down to the creek, standing on some large rocks.

No signs of thunderbirds. I hadn't exactly expected one to be sitting around and waiting for me anyway. I knelt on the rocks by the creek, looking things over.

Bald Eagle Creek routes from the Susquehanna, which in turn runs down and into the Chesapeake Bay. When you're looking into a flying creature especially, you have to consider what's called an OOPS---Out Of Place Specimen. In other words, a creature that isn't usually seen in a certain area. Stop me if I'm getting too technical for you.

Theoretically, thunderbird sightings could easily be caused by an especially large bird, say a condor, flying too far inland where they're not supposed to be. A logical route would be for them to follow the water, form the ocean up the Susquehana into Castanea Township. Water is where prey is.

I looked down the creek and saw it; I remembered it being there before. An old Native American fish trap---A V-shaped weir in the water, designed to funnel fish into a spot where they could be easily caught. Fish clustered in one spot would certainly be a food source for a large bird, which might explain the thunderbird sightings.

I climbed back up the bank. I still had time to buy groceries before I headed back home.

From my office in the basement, I sent Chloe a message. I loved having a small office in the basement; I'd always dreamed of underground hideouts when I was a kid. It helped that the boss didn't really care much what I was doing down there.

Because of all the rain, the south end of the basement was leaking badly. Up near the ceiling, water was pouring in through a pipe, making a sort of pretty waterfall down the wall. It all pooled into a pond on the floor, and ran into two holes in the floor before it drained. Excess water ran across the floor to the north and into a pit under the stairs. So when it rained hard, my office had a water feature.

I sent her the historic information I'd found on her house. She was online.

I got fired from a ghost hunting team I'm on because of my refusal to work with psychics. So I needed a little cheering up!

She responded a moment later.

If it makes you feel any better about the ghost hunting team, I'm glad you stood your ground. As someone who is definitely a people-pleaser, seeing you stand your ground and not give up your beliefs is something to look up to.

That helps, actually. Thanks. Makes me feel a lot better. 

I agree with you completely. If you're gonna pretend to be psychic, at least be creative. It really paints a completely misleading picture for the field of ghost hunting, and makes it seem like it's based on instinct instead of research.

Exactly! You get it. You're making me feel a lot better, actually. Thanks for that. I figure if I did something that you can respect, I probably did the right thing.

I'm glad I could help! I look up to a lot of what you do, your serving as a great role model for me right now! Especially regarding how you don't back down when your beliefs are threatened.

So, excitement tomorrow---My family is going on a bus trip to the Baltimore Aquarium! My wife's company does these trips sometimes. I hope to do a little research into water cryptids, and show Paul some good stuff, and maybe look out the window for a Maryland flying cryptid, the Snallygaster, on the way. Because what else will I have to do on the bus?

That's awesome! I just found out today we booked a trip to Gettysburg for Sunday/Monday! I am so freaking excited!!!! We are staying at the Farnsworth house in  the McFarlane room. I'm planning on bringing my EMF detectors. I want to ask if you have any other tools I might possibly be able to borrow for my trip?

Absolutely I do! How about a laser thermometer? I can easily loan you one.

I smiled, down in my basement hideout. I like talking to Chloe, and trying to be a role model for her. Sometimes the young kid needs reassurance.

And sometimes, so does the older one.

Paul and I looked down on some manta rays and other fish from the upper balcony. The Baltimore Aquarium is an enjoyable place, and it was the fourth time I'd been there---The first for Paul and his little friend Rylan, who'd come along. They were both carrying orange sodas that had cost about $3.50.

We walked into a dark hallway with a tank of anemones. Paul gasped, looking at the bright colors. Rylan was staring at them, and a moment later, the water in the tank burst with bubbles.

"What did you touch?" I asked Rylan.

"Nothing!" she said. "I swear!"

The next tank had some crabs in it. Rylan asked Paul,"What's your favorite part of this?"

"All of it, I think."

"I liked touching the jellyfish."

"I think this is fun," Paul said,"But I liked the Pittsburgh Zoo better."

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, interested. "Why is that?"

He shrugged. "They had all the animals separate. They were all in their own cages."

"I see."

Michelle asked,"What do you guys want to see next?"

"I want to check out the boats outside," said Paul.

Outside the aquarium, on the Chesapeake Bay, there was an operation that rented small boats to ride around the harbor for half an hour at a time. We'd gotten a pirate ship with a kraken on the side, which I liked, and Paul was steering it. I got a photo of another boat shaped like a sea monster.

"Closest I've ever come to finding the Chesapeake Bay serpent," I said.

"There's a serpent out here?" asked Rylan.

"Yeah, Chessie, the Chesapeake Bay cryptid. We've encountered that one before." I'd looked into Chessie years ago, on a family trip to Virginia. 

"What's that?" Paul asked.

I glanced over. There was something swimming in the water by the buoy, sticking a long neck up out of the water. I took a photo and got all excited for a moment, until I realized what it was.

"It's a duck," I said.

It came up out of the water, and then a moment later, flew away.

After a long day at school, Paul likes to relax by going insane on the trampoline. He and Serina were bouncing around, burning off any inexplicable excess energy.

"Find any ghosts?" Serina asked me. She's always interested in these things.

"No ghosts recently, but I did bike out to Castanea to look for thunderbirds the other day."

She looked surprised. "You went all the way to Castanea?"

"It's not that far. Truth is, we live practically next door to Castanea. Castanea Township is right over there. But everyone thinks we live far away, because you have to go the long way around. We could just walk right to it if there was a bridge over Bald Eagle Creek...."

I trailed off. Paul glanced over at me, and said,"Dad?"

"Just had a thought," I said. "Be right back."

I went inside and came back with a Clinton County map. I unfolded it and said,"Okay, so I've had a thunderbird sighting in Castanea and a Mothman sighting in Beech Creek. The Jersey Devil was seen at the paper mill in 1909. Now, it's normal for some birds to follow along waterways; that's where the food is. People see large birds sometimes, out of area specimens, and mistake them for cryptids."

"Have you seen cryptids turn out to be large birds before?" Serena asked.

"Egrets? I've had a few. Beech Creek runs into Bald Eagle Creek, which runs into the Susquehanna River, which ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. So large birds could theoretically fly up the river right in from the coast. Which means....They'd end up at the paper mill. It's why there are all those ducks and geese in the mill ponds."

I looked up from the map. they were both staring at me.

"So I need to check out where all the birds go."

It was autumn; the sun was going down earlier, and it was almost dark when we picked Paul up from dance class. I made him a pizza---He's always starved after dance, plus most of the rest of the time---And he sat down at the table to eat it. I went up to my office and changed into my outift.

Sling bag with the bandolier. Hood, Fingerless gloves. I was ready.

I walked downstairs. Paul asked,"Where are you going?"

"Down to the paper mill to look for the Mothman. I'll be back in a bit."

I got my bike out of the garage and rode toward the paper mill, a couple of blocks away past the Lock Haven city limit. It was a bright moon, not quite full. I turned toward the paper mill.

Birds had been flying up Bald Eagle Creek for probably a hundred years or more. Once I saw it, I couldn't quite unsee it---Even the alleys in this neighborhood were named after birds. Grouse Alley, Finch Alley, Crane Alley. The ponds at the paper mill were a good stopping point for traveling birds, even ones not generally seen in the area.

I pulled up at the gate. Mostly I forget just how close I live to the very edge of Lock Haven. I was in the parking lot of a local bar, which was reasonably quiet on a Thursday night. The ponds with their usual flock of geese were right beside me, past the gate.

I walked along it, looking through, checking for cryptids.

Something moved behind me.

It rustled through the tall grass as I turned.

Showtime.

"JESUS CHRIST!"

It was giant---At least four feet tall. Dark grey. It came at me, making a crowing sort of sound, and I flailed out at it, punching and kicking.

The Mothman!

I punched out, scraping up my knuckles, and then kicked. It backed off. I'm not gonna get killed by a cryptid; I'm gonna have a heart attack sometime. Once I got my pulse back under control, I realized that it was a bird---A huge one, some sort of crane.

It came at me again. I backed up and kicked. I wasn't using any kind of specialized martial art, I was thrashing around in pure panic hoping to hit something. I raised my arms, and held up my shoulder bag, hoping to make myself look bigger and more threatening.

The crane bought it and took off. I chased after it for about ten yards before deciding I really didn't want to do that. I fell to one knee in the parking lot, catching my breath, as it launched itself over the fence and disappeared.

"Birds of a feather," I said.

I was printing envelopes at work when the back door opened and Tif rolled in with her new wheelchair. "Oh, hi, hon," I said.

"Hi Dad," said Tif. "I came to get a copy made. What the hell happened to your hand?"
I looked down at my right hand, scratched up from the night before. "Oh, this. I got into a fight with some kind of sandhill crane."

"On purpose?"

"Not really; the bastard snuck up on me and mugged me. I thought it was the Mothman."

"And you were so disappointed it was a bird that you had to start a fight with it?"

"It started a fight with me. I didn't even see it coming. Apparently they can be aggressive to humans if they're defending their territory."

"Don't some of those things get about five feet tall?"

"This one looked like it was close to Paul's height. It was pretty alarming."

"So the crane accounts for the Mothman sightings?"

"They often do. A sandhill crane was probably responsible for the original sightings in 1966, but nobody really wanted to hear that."

"I think people need cryptids," said Tif.

I grinned.

"I know I do."