Dead Of Night

When I got to the top of the stairs, there was a blanket trailing out of the bathroom door. Out of sheer curiosity, I followed it. It led into the bathroom, where my son was curled up underneath it in the tub.

"Do I even want to know?" I asked.

"There's a tornado warning tonight," he said.

"Yeah, our basement is flooding and I can hear the thunder outside."

"The bathroom is the safest place in a tornado."

I sat down. "Well, that's true, but we're not at a lot of risk. Tornadoes don't usually hit the Hill Section very much."

"Think I'll stay here just in case. I got a pillow and my phone; I'm good for a while."

"Did I ever tell you I once camped out in a tornado? I was seventeen, at camp in Massachusetts."
"Cool. Do we have any snacks? You know, just in case."

My name is Lou. I live in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I'm....Well, I always have trouble describing myself. I'm a freelance writer, I have a day job in a print shop, and I'm a paranormal investigator.

For almost nineteen years, I've been with the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers. For about the past seven, I've been the team leader. Due to some turnover on the team last year, we've had to replace sixty percent of our members. So I've wound up being the senior member to the next generation of ghost hunters.

And it had been good for me. Day by day, I was changing a bit. Becoming calmer, more patient. I'd gone from being the daring, hotheaded member to the steady, grow one. And it had only taken me nineteen years.

It's a little like raising kids. With about forty percent more dead people.

I've been working for the local print shop in the Hecht Building for almost two years. When I got to work, because of the storm, my office was flooded. This was to be expected, as it's in the basement. When I'd first started, I'd explored every inch of that basement, which was mostly abandoned. I'd found an alcove and brought in a chair, a computer, some of my books and documents, and built myself a desk out of random basement stuff.

The office part wasn't too bad, but much of the rest of the basement was covered in water. I dried off as much as I could and I was making a sign when my friends arrived.

"Hey, Lou!"

It was Lex, Jay, and Chloe. Three of the other members of LHPS. Lex and Jay are a married couple, and Chloe is a teenaged kid I'd recruited after she'd attended every tour I'd ever given. I grabbed them all and gave them a hug.

"Hi, guys. How you doing?"

"The kid wrangled herself into a trip," sad Lex. I started working on my sign, laying the sticker part on the coroplast backing.

"We're going to Gettysburg," said Chloe happily.

"Leaving real soon," said Jay. "But we wanted to stop by and see you before we went."

"I'm glad you did." I stuck down the sticker part, and slid the squeegee across it, flattening the sticker to the backing. They watched me do it.

"That is really satisfying," said Chloe.

"That looks good," Jay commented.

"You should a seen the first few I did. There's definitely a learning curve." I took a metal spike and started popping the bubbles. Jay circled the table and helped discover bubbles for me. Chloe walked over and began playing in some of the puddles on the floor.

"Actually, now that I think of it, would you mind checking our place and bringing any packages in?" Lex asked.

"Oh sure. I can do that on my way home. Drop in and keep your cats company."

"I appreciate it."
"Let's get together and do something when you guys get back," I said. "It's been a while."

With sixty percent of the team out of town, I decided to spend Labor Day Weekend working on articles. I usually write at least ten of them for the PA Wilds and NCPA. I sat down and started doing some research, and found a bunch of ghost sightings to write about.

It had been quite a while since I'd written about Vincent James Sesto, and I couldn't find any of my old articles. Time to write about him again.

I got out my file, and started working on it. Did I have a photo of the grave? I remembered taking one in the past, but I couldn't locate it.

Time for a little field trip.

"I have to get a photo of a haunted grave," I said to Paul and his friend Amelia, in the back of the jeep. "You guys want to come along?"

"I think we're going to go down to the Regatta, Dad," said Paul. "But let me know what you find."

"Sure," I said. "It's Vincent Sesto, the guy who was murdered in 1905. He went out for a walk, and was shot. At his funeral, weird stuff kept happening around one pallbearer---Things fell over as he passed. When they got out to the cemetery, a strap wrapped around that same pallbearer's leg, and almost pulled him into the grave. The pallbearer was Frank Dominick, who was living with Sesto. The cops arrested him, but couldn't make it stick, and he was released."

"Cool," said Paul. "You can tell me about it after."

After we dropped three kids off, I went up to Saint Agnes Cemetery. I'd come up with Jay and Lex back in December, looking for this same grave, but we hadn't been able to find it. It was a flat one, and I'd assumed it was covered in ice and snow. This time, I found it easily.

Vincent James Sesto. January 13th, 1905. I knelt down and took a couple of photos for my article.

"There was this asshole woman who thought she was a psychic on one investigation," said Lex.

"And there was this Russian group there, and they were really rude," added Jay.

"You guys get out of my supervision for one weekend," I said,"And you're starting shit with the Russians."

The team was back, and we were in the Clinton Trust Building. Lex, Jay, and Chloe had returned with stories of Gettysburg, and I'd arrived an hour later to hang out. We'd been joined by Lex's friend Jada, a dark-haired Yung woman with a vague goth look.

"We investigated a couple of places," said Chloe,"And didn't listen to the psychics, and got some good evidence."

"Proud of you," I said. "You guys gonna be available for the genealogical society meeting Tuesday night? I'm talking about the Tiadaghton Declaration of Independence."

"I'll be there," said Lex. "You guys are like my only friends."

"Yeah, you're basically my entire social life, too."

"So are you running the business meeting afterward?"

"Yeah. I think they've forgotten I'm not actually the president."

"I kinda thought you were," said Chloe.

"So what did you do without us?" Jay asked.

"I got an e-mail about an article I wrote about ten years ago---The Merci Train. There was a train of gifts from France all over the country, and Lock Haven got four of them. The only one that still exists is the ceramic buffalo in the library. A woman from England wants more information on it. I worked on some articles, and learned some more about the Sesto murder. I found the gravestone."

"Remind me," said Lex.

"That was the one we went looking for when you guys first joined the team," I said. "Up in Saint Agnes."

"Oh right, I remember."

"I've learned a few new things," I said. "I know exactly where the murder happened, plus a couple of details, I found the grave ---I knew about where it was, but it's been a while. And I know exactly where the hearing took place now, too---It was the alderman's office, at 140 East Water Street, right around the corner from here."

"We have to investigate this," said Jay.

"I'd love to be a part of that," said Jada.

"Sounds good to me," I said. "When are you free?"

As I headed out, Chloe walked me to the door.

"I'm not going to make it for investigations for a little while," she said. "I'm in a play down in Florida."

"No kidding? Hey, did I ever tell you I was in a play at exactly your age? It's more or less my origin story."

She grinned. "You may have mentioned that."

"Hey, Chloe, promise me something."

"What's that?"

"You and I have a lot in common. When I was almost exactly your age, I went through a suicide attempt. I know you have a lot going on, and I want you to promise you'll come to me if you ever feel like that. Or, if you'd rather, talk to Lex, Jay, or Ashlin. We all care about you. But promise me you'll go to someone if you need to."

She smiled. "I promise I'll turn to you guys. But I feel pretty happy right now, so it's definitely not a concern."

"Okay. Good. I want you happy. But if the time ever comes," I said,"Remember you are loved."

"Time to roll, buddy. I'll see you tonight. Love you."

"Love you, too," said Paul absently, and was out the door for school.

I drank a bit of coffee to give him a little lead time, and then walked out onto the sidewalk. He was halfway down the block, my tall son, with his bulky backpack and his gray hoodie. Seventh grade. I watched him walked down the street to the bus stop. I did this a lot of mornings; he didn't know and he'd hate it if he ever found out.

"Love you, buddy," I whispered on the chilly sidewalk.

I'll never understand the parents who can't wait to send their kids off to school. I hate seeing Paul leave every single day; my life isn't really complete without him. But at least I have my substitute kids, the ones who wear the same symbol as me, the ones I hunt ghosts with.

My phone rang at about ten after nine. I picked it up. 

"Hello, is this Lou? This is Ludivine." A pleasant female voice with a British accent. "I had e-mailed you. I was wondering about your article about Jake the Buffalo and the Merci Train."

"Oh, yes. That goes back about ten years."

"How did you discover this?"

"I used to work for the public library. The buffalo was on display on a mantle in my office. One day, on a slow day, I turned it over, and there was an article taped to the bottom of it. It was from 1949, when the Merci Train came through Lock Haven, and they unpacked the items."

"That's really interesting. Did anyone know about this before you found it?"

"No, I asked the director at the time. She'd been there about thirty years, and had no idea that it came from France."

"And were there other artifacts in Lock Haven?"

"There were. I've tried to track them down, but I haven't been able to find any record of them. I think some may have been lost in the 1972 flood."

"I'm working on a book about this," she said. "This is really interesting. I appreciate your contributing to it."

"Ten years ago, I looked underneath a buffalo," I said. "I didn't know at the time I was creating an international incident."

After we hung up, I got on my laptop and did a little digging. I found the original article from the newspaper on April 1 1949, downloaded the page, and sent it to her. Still the best history researcher in the county, ten years later.

It was dark when we got to Saint Agnes Cemetery. The last time we'd gone up was in December, when Lex and Jay had first joined the team. We'd searched the cemetery, but we'd been unable to find the specific gravestone. It had very likely been covered in snow. 

"We were in the right neighborhood," I said as Lex, Jay, and Jada followed me across the cemetery. "It was very near this tree. Up....Ah. Here it is."

I stood, looking down at the grave. Vincent Sesto, January 13, 1905.

Jay immediately set down her REM pod on it. I handed Jada an EMF detector. "You want to use this?"

"Yes. Thanks."

There was a flash over the hill. Jada said,"Was that lightning?"

"Probably heat lightning," said Lex, who is generally much more observant and thoughtful than she lets on.

I got my all-in-one from the pocket on my bandolier. Jada asked,"What's that now?"

"This is basically the same thing, but a different model. I like these because they also have a temperature setting, so I can carry one piece of equipment instead of two. This is useful for traveling and times I don't want to load down."

"And it has numbers instead of colors."

"Yep. And I'm already getting a reading---one point three, one point eight----No power lines, no lights. There's no reason for me to be getting these readings. Lex, you got your recorder?"

"Holding it right now."

"Let's start."

We sat down on the grass, surrounding the gravestone. Lex turned it on, and I said,"September nineteen, seven fifty-two PM. Saint Agnes Cemetery, the grave of Vincent James Sesto. Lou."

"Lex."

"Jay."

"Jada."

"Is anyone here?" I asked.

"The light came on," said Jada. "It went to yellow."

"I saw that," I said. 

"Can you make the red light go on?" asked Jay. "Can you go to the red light?"

The REM pod went off, giving a long signal. I got out my camera and snapped photos of it; Lex got some on her phone.

"This is good," I said. "A lot of activity."

"I feel a temperature drop over here," said Lex. 

I got out my laser thermometer and aimed it in her direction. "Going from sixty-eight to sixty-one. That's a significant drop."

"I can feel it. It feels like there should be a breeze, but the tree above me isn't moving at all."

My EMF detector spiked again. I stood up and said,"I'm gonna science this up a little. Let me check and see how far these readings go."

I walked out to the west, turned, and went south. I was about thirty feet away from the others by the time the reading stopped. Jay called,"Lou! More temperature!"

I walked back. "The EMF field extends at least thirty feet from the grave. I can't see any explanation for it; the closest light is way over there where we parked, and there are no power lines running past here."

The REM pod went off again. Lex said,"Can you move toward one of the other lights? The green ones?"

Jada's K2 meter flashed to yellow, then Lex's. She looked at me, 

"Did you...."

"Yeah. I saw it."

The REM pod went off again, a good long signal. Jay looked delighted.

"I'm glad we did this tonight," I said. "We're having a good night. You guys up for coffee?"

I had my coffee on the table back at the Clinton Trust Building. I was sitting on the couch with Lex, and she was running names through a website, hunting for Sesto's wife and killer. I've had far worse Saturday nights.

"Her name was Jennie Perri," said Lex. "Look! She remarried, and she's also buried in Saint Agnes!"

"When I get home, I'll check the map and find out how close she is," I said.

"Here's their daughter," said Lex. "Look at this---Sesto died in January. She got married again in July of the same year."

"She didn't wait too long, did she?"

"I have about an hour of audio to listen to from tonight," said Lex. "Hell, I still have a couple of hours to go through from our apartment last month. It's been busy."

"If you want, we can borrow the recorders and all take shifts," I offered.

She shook her head. "No, I can do it. I just need to find the time."

"It was a good night tonight," I said. "For essentially a practice run, we got a lot of activity."

"I'm happy," agreed Jay.

"We had a busy summer," I commented. "Maybe we're looking at a busy fall, too. All the activity may take a while to die down, and you guys joined up just before the busiest year we've ever had."

Jay smiled. "I'm alright with that."

"Thanks for letting me come along," said Jada. "It's the first time I ever did something like this."

"You guys have come a long way," I said. "I'm proud of how much you've learned."

"We learned from you," said Jay.

I grinned.

"I get by," I said,"With a little help from my friends."

"Hey!" said Lex. "I found the killer!"

Haunted America: Officer Down

"This is the Peter Griffin House. Yes, I know," I said. "It was built in 1904. The windows on top and the pillars out front came from the Queen's Mansion, which I mentioned earlier in the tour."

Chloe and her friend Charlotte watched from the front of the tour. I love doing the summer tours, walking through Lock Haven and showing the historic buildings. There are things that nobody else knows, and you can only learn them on my tours. Of course, Chloe knows them all already. When I'm out on a tour, it's the closest anyone gets to seeing me at my most authentic.

"This was also the house where a murdered hid out in 1934," I said. "Lock Haven has only ever had one police officer killed in the line of duty. Up in Renovo, they bump them off every hour on the hour. But here, we've only had one. Officer Robert Robert Probst was shot by Harry Mayo, a criminal who was caught in the act of burglarizing a building down on....."

I trailed off. Chloe looked at me for a moment.

"What just occurred to you?" she asked.

"The building where Probst was shot," I said. "I think that was Lex and Jay's place."

Back at home, I went straight to my office. I love when this stuff happens. I took the Highland Cemetery index and found Probst''s grave, which gave me the date---August 22, 1934. Then I went to the newspaper archives and looked up that date, and there it was on the front page. Officer killed in the line of duty.

He was shot in Willard's Alley by a man caught in the act of breaking into a building. The Clinton Trust Building.

I was right. It was Lex and Jay's place. LHPS base.

"Tonight's the anniversary," I said. "Ninety-two years ago tonight, Officer Robert Probst was shot while confronting Harry Mayo in a burglary of this apartment. According to the autobiography of the defense attorney, it was a speakeasy at the time." Sometimes when I do this, I feel like a TV doctor looking at the clipboard and summarizing the patient's issues. "Probst was rushed to the Teah Hospital, and died on the operating table. Mayo hid out in the Griffin Building, but was later arrested and served twenty years in jail. He died soon after his release."

I was sitting in the living room. Ashlin had a birthday celebration, and Chloe was in Florida, so it was myself, Lex, and Jay. Lex's nephew, Liam, was sitting on the couch; Lex had invited him for the night.

"How do you know all this stuff?" he asked me.

"It's all out there to find, if you know where to look. I look for deeds at the courthouse to find out who owned a property, and I can find old newspapers online or att he college library. I have a lot of books about the area at home in my office."

Like any ten-year-old, he had a very limited attention span for the research. He waved an EMF detector near Jay. "It says you're possessed, Aunt Jay."

"It's only doing that because you're waving it around," she said. "You have to hold it pretty still."

"People getting possessed is one of those things that they love in the movies, but it's not really like that," I said. "You don't see that in real life."

"Sometimes people get possessed."

"Without sounding like I'm down on them," said Lex,"Some people have mental issues. If they don't take medication, they can seem possessed. It's where people get a lot of ideas about possession, but it's not really happening in real life."

Lex has learned well. I said,"By the way, Jay, you know how you get headaches practically every investigation?"

"Yeah."

"You know that black bag I carry with the extra stuff in it? In the first aid kit, there's now a little green pill container labelled 'Jbuprofen.'"

Lex and Jay both laughed hysterically.

Liam said,"I want to be a ghost hunter."

"We can train you," I said. "We'll teach you how to do it right."

Liam walked around with the KII meter for a while, and found a big spot for EMFs in the middle of the room. He said,"I'm getting a ghost here."

I tried it with the all-in-one, and got higher readings than I was expecting. Jay asked,"Are there any wires in the ceiling?"

I looked up. "I doubt it. You have no overhead lights up there. Before we lose the light, I think I want to go outside and check where the power lines come into the building. Maybe there's a junction box. I'll be back."

I walked outside, into the parking lot. Immediately I could see that there weren't any power lines close enough to give me EMF readings where I'd been. The closest thing was a parking lot light that was still too far. 

Clouds were gathering up above.

I walked to the back of the building, where there was a pole and the power lines running into the place. Way too far to give me readings; in fact I had the be within five feet of it before the meter lit up at all. I went back inside.

"Can we get ice cream before we start?" asked Jay. "I'm hungry. I want some pretzel rolls."

"How do you do that?" I asked. "We just ate. I got paperbacks that weigh more than you."

She blushed. "I don't know, I'm just hungry."

"Well, I'm not gonna say no to ice cream."

My pineapple sundae was pretty good. Back at the Clinton Trust Building, I said,"Okay, get EMFs and temp readings, and make sure you get some photos. Everyone get a baseline before we start an EVP session."

We checked things throughout the apartment. The EMFs were still high in the living room. I got out my laser thermometer and got a baseline of about seventy-three while the laser was chased by several cats.

"Let's sit down for an EVP session," I said. "Lex, you got your recorder?"
She held it up. "Liam, we're gonna have to settle down some for this one, okay?"

We all settled in, as you do before an EVP session. Jay set up her REM pod on the coffee table. Lex went around the room and set the KII meters up so we could see them, and I set my shoulder bag in the couch where I could reach it. 

"Want me to go live?" Jay asked. She's been streaming parts of our investigations lately, 

I nodded. "Go ahead."

She set her phone up and turned it on.

"Is there anyone here?" I asked.

We gave it a couple of seconds, the way we always do. I said,"Can you tell us your name?"

"Can you go near our devices?" asked Jay. "If you can make the lights go off, we'd like that."

"You have the right to remain silent," I said. "If you give up that right....Actually, I'm pretty sure Officer Probst died before Miranda warnings."

Lex nodded. "I think so." She looked at the phone, and smiled. "Chloe's watching from Florida."

"Ah, kid, I love you," I said.

"Robert," said Liam,"Can you make the yellow lights go off?"

"Lou, try the thermometer over here," said Lex. "I'm getting a cold spot right behind me."
I aimed the laser thermometer at her, attempting not to get her mauled by several cats. "Yeah. I got a temp drop to sixty-nine there."

"Here, feel my hands."

I moved to Lex, felt the backs of her hands. "Pretty warm, right? Now feel the back of my arm."

I reached around and touched the back of her arm. "Yeah, I feel it. It's cold."

"Robert, if you're here," said Liam,"Can you make it go to yellow?"

The REM pod went off, with nothing near it. At the same moment, the cat ball on the coffee table flickered. Jay had sprung for the elaborate REM model that included a flat voice that says,"Ghost disturbance detected."

Jay gasped.

"Going to camera," I said, and snapped some photos. "Test it."

Jay stomped on the floor, which did not make the cat ball flash. I said,"Okay, not us, then."

The cat ball by Lex went off, flashing red lights. Jay moved that way and came down hard on the floor, but couldn't duplicate it.

"Do you guys have downstairs neighbors?" I asked.

"Only on the other side of the building," said Lex.

"Okay. Cause it just occurred to me that we're stomping on the floor all night."

There was a lightning flash outside, and we heard a roar of thunder. Lex said,"Storm's coming."

"That could be good for us, though," I commented. "Sometimes ghosts act up during thunderstorms. I know Ida usually does."

Liam was looking at the EMF detector. "I have a question. Can someone make the yellow lights go off?"

He was hitting the "make the ghost do the lights" thing a little hard, but I didn't have any better ideas. 

"They can't always do that, Liam," explained Lex. "It takes energy, and it's not like it always happens."

"Basically," I said,"You have to put everything together. All the results, the EMFs, audio, photos, everything you get. You add it all up and then come to a conclusion."

"Can you come near the REM pod again?" asked Jay. "You can use my energy."

"See, this is why you get headaches all the time," I said.

"Whoa! Did you see that?" Lex said suddenly. Each of the KII meters had gone to yellow, quickly, one at a time in a series. "It just went all the way around the room at once like that."

"Going to camera," I said. "I can't think of any reason that would do that."

"I'm getting chills," said Jay.

It was getting late. I sat on the floor with Lex. Jay was on the couch, reviewing video on her phone, and Liam was still playing with one of the KII meters.

"So what do you think?" Lex asked me.

"I'd rate this one a three point five, under certain conditions," I said. "You have to factor in the anniversary, and the weather. But we did get a lot of activity."

She nodded. "Fair."

"You remember at the beginning of the summer, when I said that it was going to be a busy one because of the anniversary?" I asked. Lex nodded. "It's been pretty busy."

"It's been a good one," she agreed.

"It has," I said. "And the year's not over yet. We have twenty-five years since 9-11 coming up, and my annual haunted tours, and Lock Haven's anniversary. Plus all the requests for investigations we're going to get."

She grinned. "Gonna be a good time."
I grinned back. 

"It's just beginning."

Haunted America: Party Like It's 1888

I'd have to look this up to make sure, but I think I have the world's only under-eighteen ghost-hunting dance group.

Like so much else about my life, that didn't exactly happen on purpose. We'd signed Paul up for dance classes during Covid, figuring it as a reasonably safe way to get him some social interaction. When he'd started doing competitive dance, I'd needed something to do in the down time. As always, I'd done some paranormal investigating, and the girls in Paul's class loved it and liked to participate.

Every year, after things had wound down, there was an annual picnic for the families. This year it was Riverview Park, in Woodward Township. I'd finished my hot dog and a couple if different pasta salads when little Juliet popped up beside me.

"Can we do it yet?" she asked.

I grinned. "We can do it now, if you like. I'll get my stuff out of the car. You go check and see if anyone else wants to help out."

I walked to the car and got out my stuff. I'd promised a couple of the kids that I'd bring all the best equipment, so it included my black investigating bag and the briefcase. I carried it back, where Juliet had rounded up five other girls.

"We're gonna ghost hunt?" asked Eloise.

I nodded. "We are."

"Yay! I've been waiting for this."

I opened my bag and handed out the equipment. "Okay. Who wants the EMF----"

"Me," said Elose, and grabbed one.

"Got a thermal imager here, too. Anyone?"

"Oh, I remember you showed me this at your house," said Juliet.

I gave out all the EMF detectors and laser thermometers, and then said,"I think we should do some checking around down there, that way. There used to be a haunted hotel over there. It was built by Robert Hanna, who was born in 1776. Mostly it dealt with lumbermen going through the area. There's a story of a man killed in a fight in the hotel, and his blood was on the stairs. They said it never came out. When the hotel was a ruin, little kids used to sneak in to look at the blood stain."

"This is scary," said Elise.

"Well, you get used to it," I said.

"My brother called earlier," I said to Michelle. "You up for a family reunion?"

"You're having a family reunion?"

"I'm invited. I'm told it's my cousin Amy setting it up, probably so she gets to be in charge of something. Amy's always been like that."

"Will your cousin Stephen be there?"

"Jon said he would."

"Okay, let's go."

I turned to Paul. "Want to go to a family reunion, little man?"

"With all my cousins?"

"Probably some of them. It's on the farm."

"Yeah!"

The Pine-Loganton Road is said to be the most haunted road in Clinton County. It runs through three townships, beginning in McElhattan and ending in Loganton, and has a whole series of haunted stories along it, Bigfoot sightings, a haunted cemetery on each end, and a horned serpent to the south. And every time LHPS gets a little bored, we go out and do some practice out there.

I walked through the forest with Jay and Lex, all carrying EMF detectors. They'd brought along a friend, Tori, who was young and interested in paranormal investigation. 

"Getting a little bit over here," said Lex. "Going to yellow."

"I'm getting temperature readings," I said, and dug in my pouch for the thermometer. Jay set up her new REM pod, which burbled a little and flashed some colored lights.

"The anniversary of Ida's suicide is coming up," I said. "Next Wednesday."

"Aww," said Jay.

"I usually do a little investigating around that time," I said. "She was born in 1888, and died in 1905. We do seem to have a little more activity this summer because of the 250th, and I'm wondering if that extends to Ida. I was thinking I might pitch a tent in the backyard and sleep out there, near the porch where she died. See if anything happens."

Lex grinned. "That sounds fun. Not for me, of course, but for you."

"Well, I'll let you know. I've actually wanted to do this all summer, and I just haven't had the chance yet."

"You guys want to go check out, what is it, that cemetery in McElhattan?" asked Jay.

"Quiggle Cemetery?" I suggested.

"Yeah, that's it. I want to see the grave of the Fair Play Man who signed the Tiadaghton Declaration of Independence."

"I'm always up for a cemetery," I said. "Let's go."

"So," Dad said,"Would you like an e-bike?"

It was an unexpected question, but my dad was like that. 

The family reunion was great. We were out on the old family farm, with some food on the grill. My brothers were there. My cousins Amy and Megan had arranged the whole thing, and cousins Joe, Michael, Chris, and Stephen had shown up with various spouses and kids, some of whom I hadn't seen in decades. Paul had bonded with some of his second cousins over squishies, and they were now talking together.

"Sure," I said. "Why, you got one?"

Dad nodded. "I have one in the barn that I can't use anymore, so I thought you'd like to have it."

"Thanks, Dad," I said. "I'll use it."

"Dad," said Paul,"Can you ask Uncle Jon how much it is to do the painting?"
I smiled. "He says that's free. Cousin Amy brought stuff for the kids to paint. Have fun."

Paul joined two of his cousins, Mikey and Scarlett, at the painting table, and I circulated a bit and sat down with Amy and Megan.

"So your mom died in 2003," Amy said to me.

I nodded. "May fifth. It was close to the time cousin Wendy died; I remember thinking that I didn't get much of a chance to grieve for Wendy, because there was so much at the time. I adored Wendy."

"Yeah," agreed Megan,"You two were close."

Cousin Michael joined us. "You know, I have a co-worker who knows you." he said to me. "She's from Lock Haven and read your articles. She was really surprised when I mentioned you were my cousin."

I laughed. "Yeah, I get that a lot. People know me; I can't get through the grocery line without someone coming up to talk about ghosts. I get a lot of the crazies, with what I do."

My cousin Chris, whom I hadn't seen since he was a toddler, asked,"What do you do?"

"I'm a paranormal investigator." I gave him the LHPS card.

"Oh, that's interesting," he said. "How did you get involved in that?"

"Almost twenty years ago, I was working at a museum, and a woman was starting a team. She came and asked me for historic information, and was impressed enough to try to recruit me. I told her I didn't have time to get involved full-time, but I could advise. And then I got involved, and when the second team leader stepped down, I took over. Been the field leader ever since. We have five members on the team now."

"I wouldn't be able to do that," Chris said. "Well, I would until I saw my first ghost. Then I'd be done."

I grinned. "You get used to it. Our house is haunted by a girl who killed herself on our porch in 1905."

"Really?" asked Savannah, one of my cousin's kids.

"Yeah, the anniversary is coming up. I was thinking of camping out in the backyard, near the porch where she died, and seeing what happens."

"Do you do this kind of thing a lot?" asked Chris.

"All the time. Especially lately; it's a busy year because of the 250th anniversary. We normally get three or four good invesigations a year, but this year we're already at about nine."

He nodded. "I'm going to have to check this out," he said.

It was the night of the anniversary. A hundred and twenty-one years since Ida had killed herself on my back porch.

Around six PM I went outside and put the tent up. I have a small ultralight tent that I've been using since maybe 2004, and every year I look at it and decide to try and get one more summer out of it. It's held up well, and I have no complaints. One of these summers, it's going to fall apart, and I' going to hate to see it go.

I set it up in a small grassy area within sight of the porch. Then I went up to my office and grabbed the blue ultralight sleeping bag, brought it down, and threw it in the tent. I packed a sweatshirt, a book, my EMF detector, and a camera--No reason to overpack if I'm going to be right in the backyard.

I took it all down and out it in the tent.

Ready.

After dark, I turned on the porch light and sat outside reading for a while. I often did this on the anniversary. I had the EMF detector on next to me on the porch railing.

Around eleven-thirty, about the time she'd died, I set down the book. Quietly, I said,"Hi, Ida. You here?"

Nothing yet. I kept an eye on the EMF.

"Just wanted to let you know I'm here. Been doing this every August for twenty-three years now. I know you died a long time ago, but I remember the anniversary. Always."

A spike on the detector. Up to orange for several seconds, and then down.

I smiled.

"There you are. Happy anniversary, Ida."

Haunted America: Spirits of '76

There is nothing like a cookout. I sat with Lex, Jay, and Ashlin around our fire pit in the backyard, within view of the porch where Ida had killed herself in 1905. Paul was bouncing on the trampoline nearby. 

We'd decided to have a little post-birthday cookout together. We were roasting hot dogs, and Lex had brought her barbecue macaroni and cheese in a crock pot, for which I'd run an extension cord out the window. We'd been discussing some plans to investigate Gettysburg sometime.

"Just so everyone knows," I said,"I'm going on our annual camping trip next weekend. I'll be away from Friday to Monday. If anyone needs me, I'll be checking my cell phone."

"We'll miss you," Jay said immediately.

"I'll miss you guys, too," I said. "I'll keep you updated. The camp where we go is midway between Fort Freeland and Fort Augusta, so I'm assuming there may be some Revoluntionary War ghosts there."

"Gonna do some hunting while you're there?" asked Lex.

I nodded. "I usually find something cool to investigate when I'm away."

"I'm sorry, you can't check in early today," said the park ranger. "There's a tree down, and it took our power. We're working on getting it fixed. I'm sorry."
"Well, that's not your fault," I said. "We'll just kill a little time and come back."

Michelle and I walked out to the car. She asked,"Is there anything you wanted to do?"

"Kind of wanted to see Fort Augusta while I'm here," I said. "It's in Sunbury."

"Okay, what's the address?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I didn't think it was going to be this easy."

It took a little time, but we had plenty of that, and in a while, I was walking up to the front of Fort Augusta. Or at least, where it had stood. There was a museum and a replica of the fort there now, and I cruised around, taking some photos.

I got out my EMF detector and checked around. Nothing right away. I saw a small sign directing me to the old well from the actual fort, which struck me as interesting, so I walked over. It was amazing; a well that was two hundred and seventy years old, right here along Front Street. Not far behind it was the old powder magazine, and I got some EMF readings there. I took photos and walked back to the car.

"Did you see what you wanted to see?" asked Michelle.

I  nodded. "I got photos and a few readings; I'm happy. We can go see if the campsite's open yet."

"Can we get something to eat first?" asked Paul.

The camp was a Yogi Bear camp, which I'd never heard of until I married Michelle. They were very kid-friendly camps with lots of activities. All of which Paul and his little friend Amelia took one look at, and then decamped for the pool.

I got out some of the ghost-hunting equipment and decided to just test around randomly a bit. The cabin was a nice one, right along one of the main stretches, and there seemed to be a small family right next door.

"Nice shirt," the mom said to me.

"Oh. Thanks." It was the one with the ghost drinking coffee. "I'm a paranormal investigator."

"Oh, that's cool."

"You hunt ghosts?" asked the little boy.

"Yeah, I investigate ghosts, UFOs, monsters, all sorts of stuff."

"There's a ghost up by the bathrooms at the pool! I saw it making the door move!"
"Oh, yeah?" I smiled.

"I'm Lily," said the girl. "This is Max. He likes ghosts and stuff."

"That's cool. Me, too."
"He's always digging in our yard for buried treasure. I fall in the holes and trip."
"I'm told Indiana Jones's sister had the same problem. You guys are, what, six, seven?"

Lily looked impressed. "I'm seven and he's six. You're pretty good at that."

"I got a kid. Max, I'm gonna check up around the doors there later, and see what I can find." It occurred to me that I was talking about ghosts to two children who were about to sleep in the woods. "This place is right between two forts that were built about two hundred and fifty years ago."

"That's when America was started!" said Lily delightedly.

"You're right, it was. And I think any ghosts here might be soldiers, so they were probably pretty good guys."

"Not mean," said Lily.

"No, that's usually not what happens. Most ghosts are pretty cool. I'll let you guys know what I find, okay?"

It was my first lead, so after dinner, I walked up with the EMF detector and looked around. I walked down around the two ponds---The frog pond and the fish pond, though the frogs didn't seem to consider any one pond exclusively their territory. I stood pleasantly by the fish pond for a moment, then walked up to the area Max had described. And the EMF detector lit right up.

I was a little surprised. I checked for power lines, underground cables, engines. Nothing that stood out. In spurts, though, I was getting EMFs. 

I smiled. Max was going to love it.

I walked down to the other end of the park, and into the ranger station. A blue-haired short woman was working the counter; her name tag said MEGAN.

"Hey hey," she said. "How are you doing?"
"So far, so good. Got an odd question for you."
"Okay."

"Are there any interesting haunted stories around? Ghosts, Bigfoot sightings, anything like that?" Was a time I'd felt stupid asking things like that, but that was a long time in my past.

She grinned. "Have you heard of the Todd Sees case?"

"I have not."

She tapped the screen of her phone and handed it to me. I looked it over.

It detailed a missing person---Todd Sees of Northumberland County had disappeared in early August of 2002. A search party had failed to find him for over a day, until a helicopter had spotted his body from the air. His clothes and all his gear were missing. His body had been found in a very dense, hard to reach area under some power lines. Locals reported seeing UFOs near the power lines, which had led to some rumors of alien abductions. I read through it, fascinated.

"This is perfect," I said. "UFOs, a missing person, and it happened right around here on this very weekend twenty-two years ago? This is the perfect campfire story. Thank you, Megan. This is gold."

A bit later, I sat on the front porch of the cabin, and did what I like to do when I'm away from home. I called Chloe.

The kid had promised to pick up the phone when I called, unless she was driving---She'd recently gotten her permit. I tried to call her for information, though the truth is, I always like to have someone to talk to back home. It makes me feel a bit better. For the past year, I'd designated Chloe.

"Hey!" She sounded cheerful. "How are you doing?"

'Doing good. We're here and safe. No big rush, but I need you to look up something for me."

"Sure! You name it."

"Todd Sees. He's a big mystery around here, and I need you to find anything I may have missed. Whenever you get to it; don't drop everything, okay?"

"Won't be hard. I'll get that to you soon. Can I text this number?"

"Sure. It's my cell---It won't get photos or anything, but just words, sure."

"I'll have that to you soon."

"Thanks, Chloe. Love you."

"Love you too."

It took the kid less than an hour. My phone made a noise, and there it was, everything Chloe had dug up for me. And it was weird, allright.

Twenty-two years ago this weekend, Todd Sees had gone missing while out hunting. A search party of over two hundred people had failed to find any trace of him. Finally, a helicopter had seen his body in some brush under a power line, wearing only his underwear. No trace of the clothes had ever been found. The body was in a very hard to reach spot, among heavy brush.

Local fishermen and farmers had reported seeing lights in the sky near those same power lines, behaving strangely and causing the lines to spark. The FBI had jumped in at this point, oddly, taking the body for an autopsy and keeping it for eight weeks. No official cause of death was ever determined, and the FBI had finally blamed it on cocaine.

Chloe had included the report from the National UFO Reporting Center, with a little note saying she wasn't sure how accurate it was. I grinned. She was well aware of how hard I was on other investigators' standards, but NUFORC is actually pretty good.

Max walked by the porch. "I saw a shadow figure that wasn't from us," he told me.

I smiled. "I'll make sure to check that out, too. Thanks."

The sun was beginning to go down. I could, I supposed, do a little investigating. Or I could go inside the cabin and watch TV.

Ten minutes later, I was out in the woods north of camp wearing my shoulder bag. There were trails on the camp property, and I'd taken one of the loops. Then I'd slipped off onto another trail leading north, off amp property, until I'd gotten to somewhere near where Sees had disappeared.

Flashlight in one hand. EMF detector in the other. I turned it on and walked around. After a few passes, it lit up red and beeped. No power lines close enough to set it off, no batteries nearby. Could possibily be the ghost of Todd Sees.

And that had been the easier part. Next up, the UFOs.

Paul and Amelia were in the back room, building forts out of their bunks by hanging the sheets on the top bunks and threading glow sticks into the beds. I watched for a while, then went outside to the path.

I could see the power lines across the mountains in the distance, likely the same power lines where Sees was found. How the hell does that happen, anyway? How do you get lost near power lines, even on cocaine? You just follow them for a while, and they'll always lead to someplace. The more I thought about all this, the less sense it made.

I walked along the path toward the ponds, keeping an eye on the mountains. A few times, I pulled out my optical scope and looked out at the lines. Then I remembered to remove the goddamned lens cap. There were four towers up there, holding up the lines, with blinking red lights. I walked to the pool area, and back, judging the view.

And, in the end, the best place to look was from right on the front porch of the cabin.

I sat down with the scope, lifted it, and found out immediately that it was too dark and I couldn't see shit. So I put it away and watched without it.

The thing about UFOs is they're kind of hard to investigate. You can go to the site and check for clues, but when it happened two decades ago, there's not much point. I immediately did another step, which was to send Chloe a message asking her to find out where all the airports and hospitals were---That might explain unusual lights in the sky. Back in 2002, drones weren't a consideration. So I settled in to do the next step  could think of---Stake the damn thing out and see what I noticed. Designate this one NC-02.

So for the next two hours, I sat on the porch with a cup of microwave coffee, my equipment, and a copy of one of my favorite books. (Steel Beach by John Varley.) I read a bit, got interrupted by Paul a bit, and kept a watch for anything unusual on the mountain near the power lines.

I sat for the next couple of hours, and nothing happened. I hadn't really expected it to, but sometimes you get lucky. 

Finally I gave it up for the night and went to bed.

The next day, it was pouring. I climbed out of bed and had to put on my waterproof LHPS jacket to go get a shower. When I got back I made another cup of coffee and heated up a burrito I'd brought for specifically that purpose, and then retreated back to the porch.

I thought things over while I waited, and none of it made any sense. He'd gotten lost, apparently, in a reasonably populated place with plenty of landmarks. From these mountains, there was civilization around within a hike of a couple hours, tops. His clothes and equipment had been missing, and never found, which is weird to begin with. Even if the lights were unrelated, it was a strange coincidence.

There's a phenomenon called paradoxical undressing, where hypothermia victims remove their clothes, but I didn't find hypothermia to be much of a possibility in early August. And how far could he have gotten without clothes and shoes anyway?

At some point, Paul rousted himself and came out on the porch. Blearily, he looked out at the weather.

"It's raining," he noticed.

I nodded. "Probably gonna be like this all day."

"Can we go shopping?"

"I don't have anything else to do. It's okay with me if it's okay with your mom."

We drove into Selinsgrove, and I convinced the family to let me off at a thrift store while they went to Wal-Mart. I managed to score a pair of nice slip-on shoes and pajama pants with skulls on them. Then we drove over to a nearby mall, which apparently is still a thing.

As we walked through the mall, Paul looked over at a shop that seemed to be all about cryptids. "Hey, Dad," he said.

I veered off and walked in. There was a Mothman sculpture by the door, and Bigfoot shirts hanging everywhere. I liked it. The owners were behind their counter, and a flat-nosed dog came to greet me.

"Oh," I said, and knelt down to pet her. "You're a cutie."

She licked my face.

"That's Raven," said the owner. "She loves everyone."

"So, you guys do cryptids," I said, stepping up to the counter. "Are you familiar with the Giwoggle?"

The woman smiled. "I'm not. I thought I knew them all."

"That one's pretty obscure. It's the official cryptid of Clinton County."

She typed on her laptop, and said,"Oh, here it is. Are you Lou?"

"I am. I wrote most of the Giwoggle stuff."

"You're a writer?"
"Freelance. PA Wilds and NCPA, mostly."

"You know, we work with Strange Knocks magazine," she said. "The editor has been looking for content. Would you be interested?"

I handed her my card. "Sure, I wouldn't mind. I'm not even all that picky about the money. Get in touch." I picked up a couple of Squonk stickers. "I'll take these, too."

When we got back, it was still raining. But they appeared to have opened the splash pad, which Paul took one look at and lit up.

"The splash pad is open! I'm going over!" And the kid who takes forever to get ready for school was in his swimsuit in four seconds, and racing for the pad.

I sat down on the porch with the scope, and sighted it in again. I checked the power lines on the mountain, and had a good enough view through the fog. I zoomed in on the slide tower over at the splash pad, and saw Paul at the top. He saw me looking at him through the scope, and held up two fingers, peace-sign style. 

I grinned and returned the sign, and he disappeared down the slide.

So apparently we had a new thing.

When it got dark, I called Chloe again.

"How's it going?"

"Having fun. Miss you guys; looking forward to getting home." This kid had started out as just The Kid On My Tours, years ago. And then, last year, she'd become my sidekick and occasional coffee meet-up, and now, finally, my teammate and one of my best friends in the world.

"I can understand that. How's the mystery going?"

"I think I'm gonna have to file this one as unsolved for now," I admitted. "I've tried what I can from here, but nothing makes any sense. I'm going to have to work on this one again next time I'm out here."

"It is an interesting one."

"Thanks for your help. Couldn't do it without you."

"It was the least I could do, after all you've done for me,"

"By the way, I'm bringing you a little gift when I get home," I said. "See you soon."

Haunted America: Inker, Taylor

Over the past several months, LHPS headquarters had pretty much become Lex and Jay's place on Main Street. Once it had been Millie's, out on the edge of town, but this was better. We were downtown, meeting in a nice apartment in a historic building. 

It was the first time I'd been there at eight AM, though.

"I wanted to stop by and see you," I said to Jay. "I know today's a rough day for you, so I thought I'd stop by before work."

Jay nodded. "I'm doing okay. I've been thinking about my dad, but I'm doing okay with it. I've talked to Lex, and we're excited about the investigation this weekend."

"I am, too." I smiled. "Thanks for setting us up at your tattoo parlor. I've been looking into the history of the place."

"I can't wait. You can meet us here beforehand, and we'll have tacos."

"That sounds good. I think I'm going to make homemade tortilla chips and corn salsa."

"Can't wait to try it."

"Hey." I reached out and touched Jay's face. "Something I wanted to say for a while. I sometimes get the feeling you don't talk much about your tarot cards and your crystals and stuff because you're afraid of how I might react. I want you to be you. Don't you ever dim your light for me."

She smiled. "I just don't talk about it too much. But okay." She hugged me.

"I just want you to know, I love you for you, okay?"

"Okay. I'm not psychic, though, I promise."

"I know."

It was the day before the investigation when I got around to doing the historic research.

Most of this, fortunately, was doable right form my office. I started with the city directories. These are like reverse phone books, showing who lived in any given building during a certain year. I had them back to the 1920s, and I sat down and compiled a list of owners without finding anyone who stood out as a major candidate to be haunting the place. 

Once upon a time, I'd have been dependent on the library for this stuff. But I'd been accumulating my own files for quite a while. I was preparing to leave the library for a couple of years before it actually happened, so I had most of what I needed right at home.

I went to the Historic Resource Survey Forms. If a building is old enough, it may have had one of these filled out, and that's nice, because it means someone's done much of the research for me. This one was 035-LH-245, and I dug it out in a minute.

The building had been built be a Doctor Charles Taylor, who'd died a couple of years after. At age forty. Score. I checked the cemetery indexes for Taylor, and found out that he'd been buried in the old Great Island Cemetery from the 1700s. When the cemetery was moved in 1919, it seemed his body was one of the missing ones.

There it was. Doctor Taylor.

"Doctor Charles Taylor," I told Lex and Jay. "He built the place, and he died a few years later. He was only forty, which makes him the best candidate for haunting."

"I don't know how you do that," said Lex.

I handed her copies of the cemetery index and the HRSF. "Usually these. File them with the paperwork,"

We'd declared it taco night at the Clinton Trust Building. Jay and Lex had cooked tacos, and I'd brought homemade tortilla chips with corn salsa. Lately. we'd started having dinner before each investigation, talking things over, and doing some team bonding.

"What's tonight's number, by the way?" asked Jay.

"Pretty sure it's 2026.08.01," I said. "I knew this was going to be a busy year, with the 250th celebration."

She wrote it on the form. I said,"I think I'm going to have to drop the hood from my outfit."

Jay looked almost disappointed. "Why?"

"You see all those white supremacists that marched on Washington for the Fourth of July? Every damn one of those bastards had a similar hood. I think I need to lose it."

"Every time you come up with a new outfit, the Nazis steal your ideas," commented Lex.

"Yeah, been thinking about that."

"Are you going to see the fireworks later tonight?" Jay asked.

"Michelle and Paul are at a Crosscutters game in Williamsport," I said. "Thought I'd hang out and watch with you two if that's okay."

"Of course," she said. "We can walk down to the pavliion."

"That's a good place for it."

"You're missing family time, though," she said.

I shrugged. "I'm not a sports guy. I'd have gone, but I'd kinda rather look for ghosts than go to a baseball game anyway."

"What time should we leave here?" asked Jay.

I looked at my watch. "We have about an hour. The investigation's not until seven, and it's right down the street."

We got to the tattoo parlor just before closing, which is about right for the average business investigation. The two women at the counter let us in.

"Where do we start?" one of them asked.

"Let's do a little walk-through," I said. "Show us the place, and let us know where any hotspots are. Then we'll get photos and a baseline on EMFs and temperature."

"The hot spot is the bathroom," she said. "Down this way."

Past the lobby, there was a long hallway with a couple of rooms off to the right, and the bathroom at the very end. Lex was checking temperature with her thermal imager, Jay was checking EMFs, and I snapped photos, which would usually be Chloe's job, but she was in Florida tonight.

"Ah, dammit," I said. "Camera battery going dead. I should have charged it before I left; I never thought to check."

"What kind does it take?" asked Lex. "We got plenty of extra batteries---"

"Nah, it's a specialty type made for the camera. Maybe I packed the spare." I dug through my pouch for a moment before coming up with it. "Here it is! I was hoping I'd left this one in here."

"Remember to charge the other one when you get home," commented Lex. I changed out the battery and dropped the old one in my pouch.

"Up to red," Jay said. "I'm getting high readings in here."

I got out my own detector from my pouch. I was wearing the shoulder bag and the fingerless gloves---Not the hood tonight. I turned it on, and the lights immediately shot up to orange. I switched to the all-in-one model and tried again, and it skyrocketed up, beeping.

"I've never heard it do that before," said Lex.

"High EMFs here," I said. "You guys know the concept of a fear cage?"

They glanced at each other. "No," said Lex.

"An enclosed space that has extremely high EMFs can cause anxiety. It can make a non-haunted place seem haunted, and a hundred place seem worse than it is. This would be one. Last time I saw a fear cage was years ago, on the bottom floor of Sloan Hall." I turned to the employees. "Is there a break box around here?"

"Two. One for this floor, around the corner. One in the back for the whole building."

I checked the closer one. It read higher than average. "Can I see the other one?"

She walked me to the back of the building. The other breaker box was bigger, and my detector shot up the second I got even close to it. When I went back out to the others, I said,"High EMFs in this building, guys. Normally I get around a five or six reading. This one was three hundred and nine."

"Wow," said Lex. "I got a two-degree drop in the bathroom."

"That should be more consistent," I said. "Get your recorders. Let's do an EVP session."

We all gathered in the restroom, and settled in. Lex had her recorder on before I did, so I just clicked mine on and let her lead.

"Thirty East Main Street, it's seven-twenty," she said. "Lex."

We all went around and announced our names, and then began to ask questions and try to get a response. Sometimes you get lucky. Jay said,"My EMF detector is already flashing red."

Lex said,"Hey, he was a doctor, right? I just remembered, we have something he can check. I still have my surgery scars."

"Forgot about that," I said. 

She held out her hand where she'd had her carpal tunnel surgery. "Doctor, take a look at this. How did the surgeon do? Did he do okay?"

"Getting a reading," said Jay.

"Mine, too," I said. "I'm getting steady yellow, pulsing to orange."

"Yours isn't al that sensitive," said Lex. "It never does that."

"No," I agreed. "Looks like Dr. Taylor is active. I was able to find his grave up in the old Great Island Cemetery, and I could pick out the building on the old maps. It was listed under his wife's name on the 1857 map---"

Another spike on both the detectors. Lex said,"Whoa, he really reacted at the mention of the 1857 map."

"Getting a lot of EMF activity tonight," commented Jay. "This is awesome."

"Paging Doctor Taylor," I said.

We sat in the dark under the pavilion, looking out over the Susquehanna River.

"It's beautiful," said Jay. "Look at the mountains over there. I love this."

"I love Lock Haven," I said. "There's so much here. When I'm giving my tours, it's....Well, that's really the closest you get to seeing the real, unfiltered me."

Lex nodded. "When I lived in Avis, it was a really quiet place. I thought I'd hate it here, but the apartment we found was the only one we could get. I love it. Living in Lock Haven is wonderful."

"Plus, you're in a historic building," I said.

She grinned. "And I get to hunt ghosts."

"Plus that. Yes."

The fireworks started----Big explosions downriver of white, yellow, blue, and green. Jay said,"Ooooh."

"There it is, guys," I said. "Happy July."

Haunted America: Private Investigation

I walked along the stone wall with my laser thermometer, checking the temperature. Behind me trailed several children.

"This is where the old Great Island Cemetery used to be," I explained. "It dated back to the 1700s. It was here until 1919, when they moved it, but they left a lot of bodies behind. They didn't get them all; there are still bodies buried under there. So the place is probably pretty haunted."

Paul had brought a couple of his dance friends, Tall Addie and Juliet. I loved these kids; they were very intrigued by the idea of ghost hunting. I'd been meaning to get to the old cemetery blocks for a while; it was down the street from my house.

"This wall was probably here when the cemetery still stood," I continued. "The cemetery was the burial place for a lot of the early settlers. Jennie Reed was buried here; she lived on Fort Reed two hundred and fifty years ago."
"So during the Revolutionary War?" Tall Addie asked.

"Exactly. So I'm probably going to be checking throughout the summer."

Tall Addie was holding the EMF detector, and it beeped and spiked to red. I said,"Now, look, no power lines very near, so that's something."

"Cool," said Juliet with some enthusiasm.

I entered the Clinton Trust Building and went up to the third floor. Chloe ran to give me a hug when I came in. I always greet Chloe with a hug.

Lex was on the couch, a bandage wrapped around her hand. I leaned over and gave her a gentle hug, too. "Hey, pal," I said. "How you doing?"

"I'm fine," she said. "The doctors say I should be getting feeling back in my hand today. Jay was worried about the Carpal Tunnel surgery, but it went fine."

"Yeah, we were trying to make her feel better messaging her this morning," I said. "The kid and I will hang out some while she's at work. You need anything?"

She shook her head. "Nah, I'm doing okay."

One of the cats jumped up on my lap.

"Not sure I'll make your first tour tonight," said Lex.

"That's okay; I understand. You get some rest. I'll let you know how it goes."

"I'll be there," said Chloe. Chloe has been coming on my tours since she was ten.

"I'm excited about the tours for the 250th....I remember the Bicentennial in 1976. My family was in the parade. My mom made us little Colonial costumes, and my dad pulled my brothers in a wagon. At the time, it never occurred to me that I'd still be around for two hundred and fifty, but here we are. I've had this coming for half a century, and I'm going to enjoy it."

Chloe walked to the kitchen for a soda. I said,"It's two years since I died in the ER and got CPR."

"And nobody ever said 'stat'," commented Lex.

"No problems since then," I said. "But I think about it, around the anniversary. I could have died."

"Glad you didn't."

"Me, too."

"You walk down the dark passageway and find three kobolds," I said.

"I knew it was gonna be kobolds," said Lex. "There's always kobolds."

"I want to cast fireball," said Chloe. 

"You always want to cast freaking fireball," said Lex. "You wanted to cast fireball to get through the door when I coulda just picked the lock."

"I like fireball. I'm gonna cast fireball on you."

"No fireballs in the house," I said.

"I'm using my magic sword."

"You guys excited about the investigation tonight?" asked Jay.

"Hell yeah," said Lex. "Based on the interview, this is going to be a good one."

"The deeds were kind of a mess for a while," I said. "Based on what I found, the house seems to have been built in 1858, partially burned in the fire of 1918, and then rebuilt from what was left. The most likely candidate for a haunting is Larry Barner, a private in Vietnam. He was missing in action, and declared dead in 1966."

"You think he's the one?" asked Jay.

"He's the best fit I found. The place also bears a distinct resemblance to a Shoemaker legend, where a woman flirted with another man while her fiancé was fighting the Civil War. She felt so guilty that she haunted the place, moving furniture around when nobody was there."

"Cool," said Chloe.

"On the way, I'd like to stop and show you guys Sulphur Spring," I said. "There's a Shoemaker legend there, too, about the Sulphur Serpent, a lizard creature that roams the area. It was believed to be a healing spring, but I'll never know as I can't get the water down because of the sulphur scent. And on the way home, maybe we take the Pine-Loganton Road, Clinton County's most haunted road."

"Awesome," said Chloe.

"I'm rolling to hit," said Lex.

We pulled up by Sulphur Spring, where a small pavilion stood over the actual spring. All of us got out of the vehicle, and walked over to the pavilion.

"My god, I can smell the sulphur from here," said Lex.

I nodded. "There's a very heavy sulphur content in this water."

"Who's gonna try it?" asked Chloe.

Lex shook her head. "Sure as hell not me."

"I've tried," I said. "I can't do it. I don't mind you drinking from a healing spring, though."

Chloe took a taste. "Perfectly normal water, aside from the smell."
"We gonna take a sample?" asked Lex.

"Hell, we can test it right here," I said. "I have the litmus strips." I went and got the kit from the car, tore off a strip, and handed it to Lex. "Just stick that in the water."

She dipped it in the water, and it immediately turned a dull green. I held it against the little chart and said,"See, that means it's acidic. Drinkable, but fish couldn't live in it."

"How much are those litmus kits?"

"About $3.50." I turned to the creek behind the pavilion. "Think I saw jewelweed down here---I want to show you guys this."

I walked down and picked a leaf. "Yep, this is jewelweed, alright. It grows in wet areas usually. If you crush up these leaves, it relieves the itch of poison ivy."I handed the leaf to Chloe. "Stick it underwater. It turns silver."

Chloe doubtfully submerged the leaf. She smiled as it took on a shiny, silvery sheen. "That's so cool!"

"That's how you know you got the right plant. Come on, let's get to the house."

Parts of the house looked old, with the rest showing newer parts. It checked out with my estimation that it had been built twice, essentially, again after the fire. Jay immediately settled in at the table with her spirit box picking up frequencies, so I went upstairs with the others.

"They've been getting things moving around in the attic," said Lex. "Do we want to go up there?"

"For a few minutes," I said. "That tallies up with the legend, but I don't want tus spending too much time in the heat."

"Yeah, it's pretty bad out," agreed Chloe.

We walked up the stairs to the old attic. Ashlin took up a position by the stairs. I said,"Everyone be careful---There's nails sticking out of the beams. Don't hit any."

"Yeah, I've learned that," said Chloe.

I turned to her in a brief panic. "You hit a nail?!"

"Not now. Years ago, when I was little."

I breathed a sigh of relief. My worst nightmare is something bad happening to Chloe on an investigation.
Lex and I set up our recorders and turned them on. I checked around the the laser thermometer. "It's up to a hundred and two up there on the beams."

Lex turned with her thermal imager, aiming it at me. "Lou, this is surprising, but you are the coolest thing up here."

"I tend to be the coolest thing in any room."

"This mirror creeps me out," said Chloe. There was the frame of a standing mirror, with no mirror installed in the middle, standing along one wall. "Like it's a portal to another dimension or something. Like I'm afraid to stick my hand in it."

"Another dimension would be cool," I commented, and reached for the mirror.

"Don't stick your hand---"

"It's okay," I said as my hand went through the frame harmlessly. "I mean, I had to try."

We walked back down to the bedroom and met Jay, carrying her equipment. She said,"Do we want to do a session up here?"

"They reported that the kid has been experiencing shadow figures," I said. "Let's do it. Who has their recorders?"

We got everything set up. Everyone sat down and got comfortable; you have to sit pretty still for EVP sessions, so it's important to find someplace you want to sit for a while. Lex and I wound up on the floor, against the wall, with Ashlin, Chloe, and Jay sitting on the bed. Lex had her recorder on. I turned mine on and said,"June thirteenth, eight-fourteen PM. Loganton house. Lou."

"Jay."

"Chloe."

"Ashlin."

"Lex."

I try to always start the same way. "Is there anyone here?"

We went around the room randomly for a while, watching the EMF detectors. Chloe said,"Something's happening. I'm getting spikes to orange."

"Me too," I said. "And mine usually doesn't do that."
"Yours is like you," she said. "It's not as sensitive and doesn't jump to conclusions."

Lex took some photos. "You guys all have resting bitch face. It's amazing."

"Every time I take a photo of Lou, he's standing there all dramatically like he's in a movie or something," said Chloe. "I don't know how he does it."

"All the photos I see of myself on investigations, I look like an action figure," I commented.

We sat in companionable silence for a while.

"Did you fight in a war?" I asked the ghost. "Or know someone who did?"

The EMFs all jumped. Jay said,"Did you see---"

"Yeah. That's something. Was it Vietnam?"

The bell went off. Ding. Everyone turned to stare at it.

"There we go," I said.

"Chills, guys," said Lex.

"Can you do that again?" asked Jay.

"Are you Larry?" asked Chloe.

Ding.

"Oh my god," said Jay.

"Did you play cards? Did you gamble?" asked Lex.

The EMF detectors immediately spiked. I said,"You know, a lot of the time, they did do some gambling in Vietnam. It was a way to fill their down time. I've still got my D&D dice...."

I got out my glow in the dark dice and rolled them across the floor. Lex began playing with them. The detectors spiked again.

"Larry? Can you communicate with us?" Chloe asked.

Ding.

"Can anyone grab their phone and play something by the Doors?" I said. "They played a lot of Doors music in Vietnam; it's in like every movie you see."

Ashlin picked up her phone and started playing, and "Riders On The Storm" came on. Suddenly, we were all sitting around in our uniforms, listening to the Doors and rolling dice, and it recreated as best we could under the circumstances, a scene from Vietnam. Immediately, the EMF detectors shot to orange.

Ding.

"Oh my god, this is incredible," said Jay.

"I'd have to rate this place a three, three-point-five," said Lex.

"We have a lot of activity here," I said.

"Chills," said Lex.

It was dark as we drove up the Pine-Loganton Road, Ashlin at the wheel.

"This is the most haunted road in Clinton County, guys," I said. "A haunted cemetery on each end, a ghostly dancing cupboard along the way, a whole bunch of ghost stories here, and Bigfoot sightings."

Lex was up front, bedside Ashlin. Jay, in the back, was already reviewing some of her videos from the night. Chloe had fallen asleep on my shoulder.

"There's a raccoon," said Lex.

"That's something."

"What a great investigation, guys," said Jay. 

I'm glad I lived.

Two years ago, my heart stopped and I was rushed to the hospital. I'm glad I made it through. I would not have wanted to miss this.

I love these people, the best friends I've got. And I'm glad I got to experience this moment.

"Is she asleep?" Lex asked me, looking at Chloe.

I smiled. 

"The kid's all tuckered out."

Haunted America: Afterlife, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

The area along Highland Street was a nice residential neighborhood, except for all the dead bodies.

To be fair, I was probably the only one who knew they were there. The neighborhood, a couple of blocks from my home, was the site of the old Great Island Cemetery, once the oldest cemetery in the county. It had been moved in 1919, and houses built there, but the move had been done by the lowest bidder, and a lot had been left behind. It was safer to say they'd moved the top half.

I had my EMF detector out.

I walked the streets, taking readings. The cemetery had been created back in the 1700s, and it had some Revolutionary War soldiers buried there. Some of them still were. With the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of America happening this summer, I was expecting a surge in activity.

I got some spikes along the way, the readings going up and down as I passed some of the houses. 

Pleasant night.

My name is Lou. I live in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. You might know it as halfway between Penn State and Williamsport, or the home of Piper Aviation. If you're really good, you might know it as the birthplace of James Bacon, or Jimmy Carter's favorite town.

I know it as one of the most haunted, adventure-filled places in the state. I'm a paranormal investigator and the field leader of the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers, and it was shaping up to be a fairly busy summer. With the 250th anniversary of the country coming up, there was a lot more paranormal activity happening recently.

When your life ends, my workday begins.

Chloe and I arrived at the same time, heading up the stairs to Jay and Lex's place in the Clinton Trust Building. I dropped by jacket on the floor for the purpose of the cats lounging on it, which they always do, and dug in my backpack.

"Jay, I got the cemetery book from Chapman Township for you. And here's a copy of my Wayne Township book. We saw the Shadle family from the fire when we were in Saint John's Cemetery the other day."

"Oooh, thank you," said Jay.

"Chloe, got you a copy of the Worst-Case Survival Handbook. My mother gave me one years ago, I think because she was resigned to the fact that I was going to get into these situations."

Chloe paged through it. "This stuff has actually happened to you?"

"About half of it."

"How to wrestle an alligator."
"You never know."
"Well, I do go to Florida. How to jump off a bridge into a river."

"In my younger days."

"How to escape from killer bees."

"Could happen."

"How to jump out of a moving vehicle."

"Twice."

"How to escape from a bear."

"A few times. So I want you to learn all this stuff, and then never get into situations where you might need it."

"What time do we want to leave for the investigation?" asked Jay.

"I figure half an hour early or so. I'd like to stop out at Dunnstown Cemetery with you guys. Dunnstown is the oldest community in Clinton County, and I wanted to show you a few graves. The oldest marked grave in the county is out there."

"That sounds good," said Jay. "Is it time to eat yet?"

You have to wonder what's gone wrong with your life when you spend half your time running around cemeteries. I walked through the Dunnstown Cemetery with the team following, Chloe clicking photos with her camera.

"Here it is," I said. "William Baird. The oldest marked grave in Clinton County. September of 1792."

"Wow," said Jay. The stone was so old it had had to be encased in an extra layer of concrete to hold it up. 

"Dunnstown was only recently founded during that time. William Dunn bought all the property from the Susquehannocks for some whiskey, beads, and a rifle. Over here is Peter Grove, a Revolutionary War soldier. Grove Street is named after him."

I stood by a stone, looking it over, touching it. Behind me, Lex and Chloe were whispering something about how I don't get any older, or something---I don't know. They do that sometimes. Jay stood next to me, looking at the stone.

"Oh my god, you guys," I said. "You know what I just realized? It's not called this anymore, but very near here was a village called Liberty back in the 1800s. At the beginning of the America 250 summer, we're starting off with an investigation near Liberty."

"Yes!" said Lex. "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of the paranormal."

"Give me Liberty and give me death."

The client was an old friend of Chloe's family, a nice lady in a wheelchair. We sat in the living room as Lex filled out some of the paperwork for the investigation.

"We hear things," said the client. "There was one time when we thought we saw someone in the hall, and they left a trail of footprints through the hallway. When I went to sweep them up, it was a sort of very fine black dust. I never did figure out what that was."

"That's interesting," I said. "I wonder where that could have come from."

"One more thing," said Lex. "Confidentiality."

"We can keep everything to ourselves if---" I said, but she waved her hand dismissively.

"I don't care. Tell whoever."

Lex checked off the box and had her sign, and handed the form to me. I said,"Since there's no real hot spots, let's start here. Chloe, get lots of photos. Check EMFs everywhere. The temperature baseline seems to be about seventy."

I put on the full outfit---shoulder bag, fingerless gloves, hood. The clientg looked at me curiously. "Are you gonna stay covered up the whole time?"

"No, this is just part of the outfit. I'm prepared for a couple of things."

We spread out through the room. I walked around, taking EMF readings. I didn't have to pay too much attention to the others; they know what they're doing.

"Do you have a lot of activity on investigations?" asked the client.

"Some more than others," said Lex. "Our first one this year was an abandoned funeral home, and that was really active. I got to lie down on an autopsy table."

"Oh, that's neat," said the client. "I want to see an abandoned ffuneral home."

"It was my first time," said Chloe. "I was scared to death."

I looked over at her. "I didn't know you were scared."

"Well, I wasn't going to admit it to you."

"I have a spike over here," said Jay, in the kitchen. "Spiking to red."

Chloe walked in. "Mine, too."

"The cat balls are going off."

"Okay, since we're getting activity here, let's start an EVP session," I said. "We have our recorders?"
'Got mine," said Lex.

"Turning on," I said. "Let's get started."

"If you like, you can go in the basement," said the client.

"There's a basement?" I asked.

"Right over there."

"Let's split up," I said. "Lex and I will take the basement, and Jay and Chloe can handle things up here."
"Sounds good," agreed Lex.

We walked down the stairs. The basement was finished, mostly, a nice little living space. We walked around and took a few readings, and spotted the hole in the wall.

The hole was a square cut out of the wall for the purpose of getting at the pipes and electricity. I glanced at Lex.
"So you know we gotta do this."

"Hell, yeah, we do."

I climbed into the hole. Lex followed a moment later. We walked behind the wall, all the way to the back of the house. I got high EMFs at the fuse box, which was expected. There wasn't too much to explore within the hole, and we climbed back out a moment later and went upstairs.

"You guys mind if we take a turn in the basement?" asked Jay.

"Sure," I said. "Go ahead. We'll hold the fort up here."

Chloe and Jay went down the stairs. I sat at the table with Lex. She said,"You think they're gonna go in the hole?"

"If I had to put money on it, I'd bet no."

"Yeah, I don't think so."
Jay and Chloe came back up a moment later. Lex asked,"Did you go in the hole?"

"No," said Jay. "Of course not."

"There was a hole?" asked Chloe.

"Called it," I said, and Lex and I high-fived.

"Why would you go in a hole?" asked Jay.

"Why wouldn't you go in a hole?" Lex said just before I could.

There's two kinds of people.

"You know," said Chloe as we packed up,"If we hurry, we have time to work in another cemetery visit."

"I've always wanted to show you guys Highland," I said.

She lit up. "We can go to Henry Shoemaker's grave!"

The EMF detector spiked to red suddenly. Jay said,"Did you see that?"

"I guess we're on for Highland," I said. "The ghosts want us to visit Shoemaker."

I still can't believe I get to experience moments like this.

Jay and Lex had never been up to Highland Cemetery. They hadn't spent a whole lot of time exploring cemeteries until I'd shown up. I directed Lex to the top of the hill, where we parked and got out to look around. Chloe was wearing my jacket; it was getting a little cold out.

"Up here, guys," I said. "Over near Soldiers' Circle. Here's Henry Shoemaker."

I'd been to the grave so many times I didn't even need to look. Henry Wharton Shoemaker, the writer and historic figure, was buried at the top of Highland Cemetery with his wife. 

I knelt down by the stone.

"This is it, guys. This is him."

The team gathered around me in the moonlight.

"Chills all around," said Lex.

Shirley You Can't Be Serious

"Kelli, has anyone stopped in asking for me?" I asked when I got into the office of the Hecht Building.

Kelli shook her head. "Not yet. Were you expecting someone?"

"Two of the team. Since we've had a lot of activity lately, we thought we might stop by and take a few readings if that's okay."

"Oh, sure. Did I tell you about the bag full of stuff that fell over?"

"Yeah, while the store was closed. Nobody was even here."
I walked across the street to the Dollar Store---Also haunted---And picked up a Pepsi, and by the time I got back, Lex and Jay were arriving at the print shop.

I gave them a hug. "Hi, guys. Thanks for coming. I figure since we're getting a spike in activity, might as well..."
"Might as well check it out," said Lex. "Hell yeah. Let's go."

"Do we need the recorders?" asked Jay. We set our packs on the table.

"I figure this will be a quick one. Maybe we'll depend mostly on the EMFs for this. Come on, I'll show you where some stuff fell off the shelf in the back room."

"Did anyone die in here?" asked Jay.

"We had a murder in the basement in 1962," I said. "Back when this place was a department store, a guy robbing the place shot a clerk named Shirley down in my basement."

"Oh my god. Really?"

"Really. Got all the newspaper articles about it at home. I'll show them to you later. There, that shelf---That's where something fell off for no reason. And it's not like anyone was over here; this stuff sits on the shelf for months at a time."

Jay held up her EMF detector. "I'm getting a reading. Is that...."

"There's a wire behind it," said Lex.

I tried with my detector. "Yeah, that's definitely hot."

The boss came down and walked to the color printer. I said,"Hey, boss. Since it's slow, I thought I'd show my friend around and we'd take a few readings if that's okay."

He grinned. "Sure, that's fine."

"Come on, I'll show you guys my haunted basement."

"We get to see your cave?" said Lex with some delight.

"Sure, nobody goes down there but me. Come on."

On the way down the steps, Jay's detector spiked all the way to red. I said,"Now, that's weird. I practice down here a lot, and I don't get too many readings."

"Nice detector," said Jay.

"I like this one. It's the all in one model; it does EMFs and temperature, and even has a little flashlight on the back."

"Where did Shirley die?" Jay asked.

"Right about there-ish. This is all one building, and it used to be a department store. This wall wasn't here, and her body was found right on the other side of it. See, that hole there is where, if I wanted to crawl through the ducts like Die Hard, I could get over into the furniture store."

We walked back through the big basement---I'm so used to the place by now, sometimes I forget just how much space is down there. "That's where we keep the holidays decorations. Up here is where I work; I made that table out of an old palette. This area up here is all this open space, so sometimes I come down and play with some of the sports equipment that the boss's sons left back in the Nineties."

Jay glanced at the pink string lights through the small window. "What's in there?"
"That's my office."

I opened the door and flicked on the lights. Jay looked inside and said,"Oooh."

Lex saw the signs on the door. "Warning, High Ghost Area. Raystown Ray Not Allowed. Do Not Feed The Jersey Devil."

"I make those sometimes while I'm warming up the laminator."

Sometimes I forget that my office was just a little storage space before I'd moved in. I'd cleaned some stuff out, left a recliner, brought in a chair, constructed myself a desk from two small tables, and added a computer. And now I had a quiet, cozy little office space all my own.

"This is actually nice," commented Lex. Chloe and Paul had both visited me in my secret underground hideout, but very few other people even realized it was there. It was a little like having Green Lanterns in the Batcave.

"I spent a lot of time down here unwinding. You know how in a lot of workplaces, you have that spot you go to cry? I don't really need that because this is a pretty good job, but I do have this little place all my own down here."

"Getting another reading," said Jay. "Does Shirley ever come in here?"

"I think so. I've told her she's going to be my secretary. If you hire a ghost, you don't have to worry about cost of living raises."

"Did you find anything?" Kelli asked when we got back up.

"We got some readings on the detectors," I said. 

"Are you going to stop next door and check it out? You said there had been some stuff happening there, too."

"You know, that's not a bad idea. I bumped into Misty in the alley, and she told me the TVs had been turning on by themselves."

"We got time," Lex pointed out.

The woman at the counter smiled at me when I walked in. "Hi! Got another poster for us to hang up?"

I grinned. "Not this time, no. We're doing a little paranormal investigation, and I was wondering if you'd mind if we checked things out in your basement a bit."
"We haven't had much happen...."

"Well, the TVs have been turning on by themselves," said the man next to her.

"We should check with Will," she said. "Go get him."

The man took off. I said,"We don't want to be a problem---"

"Don't worry. I think he'll like this."

A moment later, a Hispanic guy came from the back room; I'd chatted with him in the alley before. "Come on down," he said. "I kind of want to watch this."

We walked downstairs and unloaded our backpacks. Jay was showing some of the equipment to Will, and Lex elbowed me. "Look at her, teaching him everything."

"She's come a long way." Just a couple of months ago, Jay had been very hesitant about any kind of public appearance.

I pointed the laser thermometer around the room. "Temp steady at mid-sixties."

"Look at these beds," said Jay.

"If I were haunting this place, I'd spend all day lounging around on these mattresses," I commented.

"Well, now I won't want to come down here anymore," added Will. "Let me turn the lights on for you back here."

We walked into one of the back rooms, taking readings. I said,"This place is way bigger than I realized."

Lex had her thermal imager out. I like the thermal imagers, and hers is even nicer than mine. She said,"Jay, just stand there where you are a minute."

"Something interesting?" I asked.

"Yeah. This concrete floor is so reflective that I'm seeing the heat reflecting on it." Lex showed me the screen, and I could see the red and orange of Jay's body, and, yes, there was a blue reflection in the floor underneath.

"Huh. I've never seen that before."

"Right?!"

"So what's the scariest thing you guys have ever seen on an investigation?" asked Will. "I mean, what scares even you?"

"Some of the clients," I said immediately.

"There was a house in Gettysburg," said Jay. "The Farnsworth House. Lex won't go in that one anymore."

"Oh, yeah, that one," said Lex.

When we got back upstairs, Jay immediately said,"Babe, look at this couch." She sat down on it. "Isn't this nice? We should buy it."

"Jay, we just got a couch."

"But we didn't get this couch."

Lex rolled her eyes. Will said,"If you two need a couch, I'll make you a great deal. You can come in anytime."

"Babe," said Jay. It was her strongest argument.

"You know, if you guys aren't doing anything, we could always see if we can find Shirley's grave," I said.

"Could we?" asked Jay.

"I don't see why not. I just need to stop back at the print shop a minute before we leave."

I walked to the shelves in the print shop, by Tom's desk. He said,"You're back!"

"Yeah, we're going to go find Shirley's grave. I figured I'd just stop in here for the records instead of running all the way home, because we printed them."

I flipped through the box; I'd used the cemetery records so many times it was easy. A moment later, I was back out in the office, where Jay and Lex were waiting.

"She's in Rest Haven," I said. "Let's go."

It was a pleasant day, and we sat in the grass around the small gravestone. Shirley's stone.

"I've been working at the print shop for almost two years now, and this is the first time I've ever been out here," I said. "I never saw this one before."

"Now you're here," said Jay.

"I got you a photo," Lex said.

"All this time, I never got to the grave. I've worked where she worked, where she died....but this is the first time."

I looked down at the grave, mounted in the grass.

"We've had a pretty good day," I said.

Over My Dead Body

"I know what I wanted to ask you, Lou," said my boss. "There's a small cemetery out in Woolrich, near Crestmont. I saw it the other night. You know the one?"

"Sounds like the Rich Family Cemetery," I said. "I'll double-check that, but that's probably it. It's where the whole Rich Family is buried, the ones who founded Woolrich clothing."

"I was wondering," he said, and went up to his office.

I stood up from where I'd been laminating some menus. Slow day. I walked over to our file archive---We have our old files going back years along one wall. I'd been put in charge of keeping them organized and clearing out the old ones, so I'd arranged them to my satisfaction, which meant all the historic ones in one easily reachable place.

I pulled the file for CCGS, Dunnstable Township. The compiled cemetery indexes. I paged through and found the one---It was only two pages. I made a copy, refiled the original, and took the copy upstairs to the boss.

"Here you go," I said. "This is the cemetery you asked about."

He looked it over and smiled. "This is the one," he said. "My gosh. How did you find this?"

"All the cemeteries are indexed," I said. "I have them all at home, but why wait? We printed them all."

It was the most excitement I'd had in a while.

Since getting home from Utica, I'd been kind of at loose ends. I had no new adventures planned, and nothing had yet come out of the woodwork to interest me. Sooner or later something would, but in the meantime, I was mostly just going through the days, being bored.

The problem with trying to make an adventure happen is that you can't. No amount of trying to force it will really get something exciting to happen. So all I could do was wait, and talk to Chloe, and hope for something good to come along.

"Well, I got a message this morning," I said. "A woman in Mill Hall wanted to know if we do house cleansings."

"Cleansings?" asked Jay. "You mean like...."

"Yeah, like you walk around and try to exterminate the ghosts," I said. "I told her we didn't, that we're researchers who handle things scientifically. And, it turns out, she's interested in an investigation."

I was sitting with Lex and Jay in their living room. They have an apartment downtown, and between thirty and forty cats. We each had a cat on our respective laps. I had a cute little stripey one. There was a small fat yellow one I hadn't seen before---That one had been too shy to come out from under the bed before, but was now coming out to make friends with me.

"Well, good," said Lex. "I can use an investigation."

"Me, too, to be honest," I admitted. "And Chloe's back from Florida, and she said she's looking forward to one, as well. The client is in an apartment complex in Mill Hall; I'm going to see what I can find out about the property. She says she's experienced sounds, items moving, and full-bodied apparitions. She has lost two brothers recently, so I want to handle her gently."

"When can we plan this one?" asked Lex. The cat jumped off my lap, and was immediately replaced by a bigger, stripier cat with a patch of white covering half its face.

"We do have the sixteenth available. We all talked about that. I think I'm going to see if I can set it up then. Jay, I'll get you her number, and you can start the paperwork."

I love researching in the courthouse annex. I actively despise having to get into the courthouse annex. I chained my bike in the parking lot, pulled out the spare pocketknife I carry at these times, and left it with the bike. I really miss the pre-2001 days when you could get into these places without being treated like a potential terrorist.

I signed in and put everything from my pockets into the little bin. "What can I help you with?" asked the security guard.

"Coming in," I said.

"Where?" he asked me.

Into a public building funded by my tax dollars, where I will look up legally public information. "Register and Recorder." Asshole.

I went upstairs and started going through the deeds. This one was much easier than many of them; the deeds went back in time in big jumps, and mostly seemed to be within the same family. They had spent a total of about six dollars on this property over the past century. I wound up with the information the Michael Jobson, Civil War veteran, had bought it with his wife in 1886 and started a farm there. They'd given it to their daughter Jennie when she'd married Thomas McLean, who'd died in 1937. That was something. Then their kids had inherited it, and mostly kept it between them, eventually buying the others out until T. Scott McLean had sold it to the current rental company in 1983.

I copied all this down into a little notebook I'd made myself at work, then stole a few paper clips before I left. Might as well get some of that tax money back.

I could find out the rest of what I needed without ever leaving my office. First I checked the owners against the cemetery records, and found most of them buried in Dunnstown. I found out that Thomas had died of an ulcer at age sixty-four. Okay, that's old to be going off to college, but young to die. I marked him as a candidate.

Using the cemetery records, which I keep on a shelf by the wall, I checked every member of the family. It turned out there were two granddaughters, as well, who'd died at very young ages. Okay. There was always something. I added them to the list.

If you got it, haunt it.

"Lou!" Chloe leaped up and ran down the hallway to give me a hug as I got into Lex and Jay's place. "I've missed you!"

"Missed you, too, kid," I said. "Happy sixteenth. I have some presents for you."

Jay was getting her team shirt on. "Ow," she said. "Ow ow ow. This is rubbing on my new tattoo, and it hurts."

"Jay, you're not required to wear the uniform. Just pick something with short sleeves."

"I can't. There might be selfies. Is the food done yet?"

"Be patient," said Lex.

"Chloe, I'm gonna let you direct Jay to drive to the investigation tonight," I said. "It's basically your territory, you know Mill Hall. You know the easiest way to get there."

"Okay," said Chloe.

I sat down on the couch and opened up the black pack I'd brought. "Some of this, kid, is stuff I've wanted to give you for a while. Some of it's birthday stuff. You can even keep the pack." I pulled out a couple of bandannas.

"Yes! Bandannas!"

"You told me you only had the black one. I have some extra colored ones for you. And....Here's a couple of Henry Shoemaker books. I had doubles."

"Oh, yes."
"And here's the last seven of the cemetery indexes. You can now look up any marked grave in the county. Up until 2008, and anyway, we don't really deal in anyone that recent."

"Check that out," commented Lex.

"My goal is to give Chloe all my resources," I said. "I'm not gonna last forever, and someone will need to take over." I pulled a stuffed Bigfoot out of the bag.

"That's adorable!" Chloe said.

"Someone gave me this who, it turns out, wasn't a very good friend. Make good memories with him. Give him a good home. Now, my grandmother died in 2007, and I inherited her teddy bear collection. Like three hundred of them. Every now and again, I meet someone worthy of owning one. Here you go." I handed her a small teddy bear, with a hat and a little bag. 

"I love it!" said Chloe. "Thank you!"
"Happy birthday, kid."

"Is it time to eat yet?" asked Jay.

"We should turn up here," said Chloe, in the back of the car with me.

I looked out the window. "Before 1983, this was all farmland. It was in the same family for almost a hundred years."
"Careful where you park," Lex told Jay. "I think they're really touchy about parking here."

Jay pulled in, and the client, Patty, came to the door and met us.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

"Thanks for having us," I said, and we went in.

Chloe had her camera out, which, of course. Lex and Jay were moving around the living room with their EMF detectors. Jay said to Patty,"I just need to finish a little paperwork, and have you sign the confidentiality form. Are there any hot spots here?"

"Well, mostly down here. It's where I spend the most time."

"What's the move, Lou?" asked Lex. "You're in charge. What's the first step?"
They'd actually already been doing it, without being told to---Photos and an EMF baseline. I said,"Well, this is a democracy."

"Great. We elect you. What's your orders?"

"Once we're done checking the EMFs, let's sit down for an EVP session. Who has a recorder?"
"Got mine," said Lex. "Ashlin couldn't make it, and she usually has the other one."

"I have one." I said.

Chloe smiled. "Of course you do."

We sat down on the floor and turned on the digital recorders, and started the session. Dates and times, locations, everyone goes around and says their name. Procedure. Lex said,"I'm showing a weird temperature drop on the stairs."

"Check it out. Get photos."
Lex and Chloe moved for the stairs. I stayed with Jay and the client in the living room, continuing the EVP session for a few minutes.

"Lou?" Lex called. "Do you have some painkillers? Chloe's not feeling well."

I pulled them out of my pack and gave Chloe two of them. "Are you okay, kid?"

"Just....Something affecting me," she said. "I'm not feeling goog, all of a sudden. I don't know why."

"Do you need to get outside, get some air?" Lex asked.

Chloe nodded. "Yeah. That'd be good."

We walked outside to the backyard, which was pretty nice for an apartment complex. The land dropped on a slope, and we had a pretty nice view. Chloe took the painkillers with a can of soda Lex got her from the car.

I looked at her. "You okay, Chloe?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Let's do this."

We went back in, and took up positions on the stairs. Everyone sat down; Lex and I were at the top, Jay and Chloe midway down on the landing. Lex said,"I'm feeling something here, too. The air is....I don't know, heavy. Something's affecting us."

"I'm getting no EMFs." I said. "This place is well wired. So that's good news/bad news. It's good that any EMFs we get aren't immediately explainable, but bad that I can't write off your feelings to high EMFs."
"Does that affect people?"

"Some people. EMFs can cause mild illness in some people, headaches and nausea. I had an investigation a few years ago where the place wasn't haunted, the family was just affected by very high EMFs."

"I'm starting to feel it again," commented Chloe.

I walked down the stairs to her and took her hand. I've always felt intensely protective of Chloe, and for a moment, there was no investigation, no apartment---Just me and the kid. 

"Hey. You don't have to do this. Nobody's gonna force you to push through it."

She squeezed my hand. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? We can fold right now."

"Do you trust my judgement?"

"I do."

"Okay, then. I'm good."

"Okay."

I got back into position.

"I can't believe you don't feel that, Lou," said Lex. "I'm about to go all autopsy table again."

"I'm not very sensitive to these things," I said. "I'm pretty impervious."

"Got a weird photo in that room over there," reported Lex.

"Temp drop right over here," said Jay.

"I'm getting that on the thermal," Lex said.

I looked at it. "Oh, that is strange."

The sun was going down when we left. Jay and Lex were standing in the doorway, and I was standing by the car, talking to Chloe.

"You okay? How you feeling?"

"I'm fine now. Something in there was setting me off. I don't know....I didn't want to act like I'm psychic...."

"You were definitely feeling bad," I said. "That's not in question. As long as we don't jump to conclusions about it, it's fine. Something was causing it."

"But I'm okay now," she assured me.

I nodded. "You know, Chloe, you're one of the things that makes me glad I lost my job at the library. I think if I were still working there, you and I wouldn't have reached out to each other, and we wouldn't have gotten this close. You'd still be just the kid who comes on my tours. And I wouldn't want to miss out on knowing you."

She smiled. "Me, either. I'm glad you got fired."

I grinned. "Yeah. Me too."