I use The Field Guide To North American Monsters more than I use most of my college textbooks. I was at the library making copies out of it when my daughter rolled in on her wheelchair. I was photocopying monsters from Illinois and Wisconsin. As one does.
"When are you leaving, Dad?" asked Tif.
"Wednesday," I said. "Can you check the mail while we're gone?"
"I already said I'd be up to feed the dogs, watch your house," agreed Tif. "I'm going to put Paul's railroad tracks together, make him a big city while he's gone."
"That'll last five minutes after we get back," I said. "We'll be driving to Michelle's cousins in Chicago, and then heading up to Wisconsin to meet Paul's little brother."
The library director, passing the desk, shook her head. "Chicago," she said. "I was stuck there on a layover once. I hate it."
"My wife has relatives there," I said. "It's not as bad as when I go to Georgia to visit her parents, but I do have some backup plans. There's a haunted post office there. It's only a six-hour walk from where her cousins live, so if I can just slip away for....half a day, without her noticing...."
"I have to ask," said Tif. "Have you ever considered just having a normal, regular family vacation?"
"I can't investigate officially," I said. "In Chicago, that can only be done by Paranormal Investigators Union 7363."
The boss shook her head. "Have fun, Tif."
"Hey, this is not my problem," said Tif. "I'll be home in his haunted house with the dogs, eating his food and watching his Netflix."
My family isn't typical. I'm a paranormal investigator in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I have a wife, two adopted daughters, and an adopted little boy who just turned three. For Father's Day, we'd gone out looking for some bootleg whiskey. The word traditional doesn't get used around me very much.
My son has two little brothers, born to the same birth mother and also adopted. One is right here in Pennsylvania, and we'd gone to meet him in Bellefonte in early July. Little Isaac is six months old, and Paul had lit up immediately upon meeting him, hugging and kissing his little brother.
The one we hadn't met yet was Sully. He'd been adopted by a nice family in Wisconsin. This summer, we were meeting little Sully and his family. And, just in case, I was brushing up on the paranormal in Wisconsin and Illinois. You know how it is, when you travel---You stop the mail, arrange for pet care, check for any pertinent paranormal sightings at your destination.
Or is that just me?
"I'm just saying," I said,"I don't understand how you never mentioned this."
Michelle sighed. "It never occurred to me you'd be interested, that's all."
"Seriously? Did you know who you married?" We were in the car, driving along Interstate 80. "In fifteen years of marriage, it never dawned on you that your historian husband might like to know that your cousins live near Jack Ruby's grave. And not in an hour's drive near, but within a five minute walk near!"
"So is my historian husband going to check it out?"
"Quietly. It's Chicago; that can only be done by Historians Union 1833."
"Well, we'll be there in an hour."
"Yeah, we made better time than we thought." I looked at the dark forest around the highway. "Prime Wendigo country up here."
"What the hell's a Wendigo?"
"You've seen them on some of those TV shows that you like. They're an old Indian legend; the Wendigoes are a weird sort of spirit monster that haunts the north. They're created when someone practiced cannibalism in the old days. Down south they have Chupacabra infestations, and up here it's Wendigoes."
We pulled up on the street in the evening, and Michelle's cousin Christine was waiting for us. We carried the luggage into the house, and she called her kids down to meet us.
There were three: Jacob, Emma, and Amy. We introduced them to Paul, and they started playing with him.
"Dese my cousins?" he asked Michelle.
"Yes, they're your cousins," she said.
"We have plenty of toys around here," said Jacob. "We probably have some of our old ones down in the haunted basement."
I looked over at him. "You have a haunted basement?"
"Well, it feels haunted," he said.
"It's a finished basement downstairs," said Emma. "It feels really creepy. We never go down there."
"How old is this place?" I asked.
"My mom bought it in 1987," said Christine. "She says it was built in 1935."
"So it's possible, then," I said. "Did you know I'm a paranormal investigator? We could check for ghosts down there. I usually have some basic equipment on me."
Amy grinned. "Yeah. That'd be fun."
"If it's haunted, I don't want to know," said Christine.
There's always someone.
"Lou!" My wife's cousin Laura gave me a hug as I walked into her house. "It's good to see you again. What's it been, ten years?"
"Eleven," I said. "Last time I was here was 2006."
"And this must be Paul." Laura smiled at my son. "Can I give you a hug?"
"Sure," said Paul.
There was a teenaged girl standing in the kitchen doorway. Laura said,"This is my daughter, Erin."
"Hi," said Erin.
"Hi," I said.
"I told Erin about you being a paranormal investigator," said Laura. "She's really interested in that sort of thing. I was hoping you could talk to her about it."
"Oh, sure," I said. "You're into ghost-hunting?"
Erin grinned. "Yeah. I'm really interested. I'd like to learn."
"Let's sit down; I'll teach you some stuff. The bottom line is always Prove it. What I do is scientific investigation---I'm looking for measurable, provable results. Photo, video. No matter what, we're trying to prove it."
She nodded. I continued,"I have some equipment in my pack, back at your aunt's place. While I'm here, we were talking about doing some testing in their basement. You want in?"
"Yes," she said. "I'd love that."
"Someone did die down there," said Laura. "Back when we were renting it out, a guy named Marty died of a drug overdose."
I nodded and made a mental note of that. I wasn't sure I'd share that information with the younger kids. "I look into all kinds of stuff. Ghosts, UFOs, Cryptozoology. You know the Wendigo?"
"Yeah! I know about the Wendigo."
"Interesting thing about the Wendigo is what the legend represents. You can tell a lot about a culture from what it fears. The Jersey Devil legend begins with a childbirth that went bad, which is about right for a location that was miles from any real medical care. The Wendigo comes from cannibalism, which suggests how scared they must have been when the winter came and they couldn't grow more crops."
"Do you mind if I put you on the phone with my friend Haley?" Erin asked. "She's got some questions about this stuff."
"Sure, go ahead."
"Okay. Haley? You're on speaker now. This is the guy I told you about, the ghost hunter."
"Hi," said Haley's voice from the phone. "I wanted to ask you about something. I had an experience at the John Wayne Gacy House, near here....My dad was turning around in the driveway, and I saw something weird on his backup camera. A sort of funny flashing light. Could that be a ghost?"
A storm was beginning outside. I said,"With a place like the Gacy House, it's entirely possible What I would do is go back to check some more---Not that I'm encouraging you to trespass, you understand. I'd go and try some photos and audio recordings, and see if anything comes up that will corroborate the sighting."
"Cool!"
I glanced out the window at the storm. Lightning was flashing. Erin said,"It's getting bad out there."
"Wendigo weather," I said.
The next morning, I walked out of the house at nine. Time to find the grave of a killer.
I'd brought along a small black pouch. It was my adventure travel kit---I had a spare jacket in there, concealable, waterproof. Loaded with all the stuff I needed for adventures: Tool, compass, signal mirror. I was wearing the jacket as I walked west through Norridge.
Norridge, Illinois is a suburb of Chicago that's not really a suburb. It exists as its own community, with independent government and services, but it is entirely surrounded by Chicago. So no matter which way you go, you can be in Chicago in a few minutes, but ti seems that all the Chicago traffic completely bypasses Norridge. And people tell me Renovo is weird.
I found the cemetery easily. It was pretty much in a straight line from the house. There was an entrance along the street, and I walked inside and turned right. I had something of a vague direction to the grave I wanted.
I followed along the path, parallel to Ozanam Avenue. I could tell I was getting close when I saw a whole field full of Rubensteins, and I looked for an elaborate brick house. About four rows in, I found the grave, twenty minutes after leaving the house.
It was a small stone, with the name and dates on it. It would have been easy to miss if I hadn't been specifically looking. I knelt by it a moment---The man who had killed JFK's assassin.
"Wow," I said softly in the empty cemetery.
Fifty years ago, this guys had made national history. And I was here.
I placed a small stone on his grave.
Everyone was in the pool. It was a cool, cloudy day, but Michelle's aunt has a pool, so everyone had gone and jumped in. The whole family would rather swim than go and see the grave of a killer, the weirdos. I'm not much of a swimmer, which has caused me some problems when I'm investigating water creatures. So I was left roaming around the kitchen.
I was a little lonely. I can only be out of Lock Haven for just so long before I begin to get homesick. I'm like Aquaman---I can't be out of my territory for very long.
I got out my cell phone and dialed Jazmyn.
"Hello?"
"Hi, kid. It's Lou. Did I call at a bad time?"
"Lou! No, I'm just hanging out on the couch. Nothing too dramatic here---No snakes downtown or Bigfoot sightings. How's your vacation?"
"It's good. I miss Lock Haven, though."
"What've you been up to?"
"Saw a historic grave today. Jack Ruby, the guy who killed JFK's killer. And I'm gonna do a little ghost-hunting---I have some teens out here who might be interested in that."
"That's cool. You do tend to attract them."
"Well, I'll let you get back to what you were doing. Thanks, hon. Miss you. I'll see you when I get back."
"I'll stop by," she said.
"We here now?" Paul asked from his car seat.
"We're here now," I said as we pulled into the driveway in Wisconsin.
"Yay! We here!"
We got out of the car as the gathered family waited. I didn't have a Wendigo shirt (yet), so I was wearing my black shirt that said It's a Chupacabra thing; you wouldn't understand. As we let Paul out of the car, a tiny little black boy walked up to see him.
"Who's this, Paul?" I asked.
Paul smiled.
"Dat my bruvver!" he said.
He reached out and hugged Sully. Both of them beamed. And everyone gathered around smiled.
And for just a little while, I forgot all about dead people.
I didn't know if the basement was haunted, but it was definitely creepy. It consisted mostly of a tight hallway, with a kitchen at one end and a small living room at the other. About half of the lights were out. The hallway floor was about half flooded due to the storm.
The kids led me down: Erin, Jacob, Emma, and Amy. I was letting them use some of my equipment; I'd handed out laser thermometers and EMF detectors to them before we'd come down. I had my I'd rather be ghost hunting shirt on.
"The first thing to do is a sweep of the property," I said. "Get photos everywhere; check temperature and electromagnetism. Cover as much space as you can. Get a sense of the place."
"About seventy," said Amy, holding the thermometer.
"This is really creepy," said Emma.
"This is awesome," said Erin.
"What we're looking for are things we can prove. Something we can test, record, and show to others." I was snapping photos. "We're as scientific as possible. That's what I teach my kids back home."
"I got a signal," said Emma. "It beeped."
She was holding the EMF detector. I looked it over. "Do a quick sweep, and check to see if there's any reason for it. An outlet or something. And then we'll do an EVP session."
We sat down in the living room together, and I got out my digital recorder. I said,"We'll start with the date and location, and then go around the room and say our names. Then we'll ask questions and listen for a response. Leave some space between questions, so we're not tripping over each other. And if there's an outside noise, like a car or a dog, we tag it. We say what it is, to make sure we can identify it later. Everyone with me?"
"Yeah," said Erin. "This is cool."
I started the recorder.
"We're recording; it is 11:39 August fourth, we are in Norridge, Illinois, doing an investigation. Lou."
"Emma."
"Jacob."
"Amy."
"Erin."
"Allright. Is anyone here? Can you tell us your name? Did you live here? You guys can jump in and ask questions, too, if you'd like." You usually feel kind of stupid doing an EVP session at first, though I'd long since outgrown that.
"When did you die?" Erin. I'd known she'd be the first.
"How did you die?" Emma.
"How old are you?" Me.
"Did you have any kids?" Amy.
Erin turned to me. "And you do this stuff all the time?"
"Back in Lock Haven, pretty much. I'm with a team, and I teach a class on it. I write about it a lot for the local papers. There's an old prison we've investigated, and the airplane museum I run. I get to investigate a lot of stuff like that." I looked at the recorder. "It's been about six minutes. Normally, we'd do about twenty, but for our purposes, this is good enough. I'm going to end it here."
I turned off the recorder and stood up. "I now declare you guys the official Chicago chapter of Teen Paranormal. I'll let you guys know what I find."
"We have to come visit you in Pennsylvania sometime," said Erin.
I grinned. "I'd like that."
Sunday morning.
Time to go.
I packed the car, and we said goodbye. I looked over the map, and we got on the road. Drove out of Norridge, out of Chicago, and south toward the border. It was time to go home, time for me to get back to the library and what passes for normal.
We got into Indiana, and on Interstate 80.
Somewhere around Lake Michigan, I got curious and pulled out my recorder. I plugged the headphones in and played back the audio of our investigation.
Around three minutes in, in response to a question from one of the kids, there was a sound. A sort of faint groaning noise. I backed it up and replayed it a couple of times to make sure.
I smiled.
The kids are going to love this.
Pennsylvania was ahead.
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