Grave New World

Most people don't get to spend much time in a haunted house, at least not knowingly. I spend most of my life in them.
I walked through the second floor of the Ross Library. When I was new, I used to routinely get lost up there---It's a big, twisty set of hallways and rooms. I made it to the end of the hall, and looked into the New Boss's office. The old Director had retired, but was somehow still getting mail here. Which is not surprising---Library founder Annie Halenbake Ross was still getting mail here, too, and she's been dead since 1907.
"Hey. We got the free blood pressure program going on in the lobby. If you wanted to come get a free test...."
New Boss laughed. "I'm working on grants up here. I don't want to know what my blood pressure is. Don't let me stop you, though."

I sat with my arm in the inflatable thing, squeezing it into the shape of the Gloucester Sea Serpent.
My name is  Lou. I work at the local library in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I'm also a historian, paranormal investigator, urban explorer, museum curator, and freelance writer. It keeps me pretty busy.
I'm a little bit famous.
The woman looked over the reading, let my arm loose, and then frowned. She turned the machine around.
"Here's your blood pressure."
I read the numbers, and then raised my eyebrows. "Seriously? That's not a blood pressure, that's a Somerset ZIP code. That's way higher than I expected."
"You can bring it down," she advised. "Cut back on caffeine and alcohol...."
"The irony being, that would kill me anyway," I said.
"....Changes in your diet, no tobacco, and get some exercise. You may want to speak to your doctor; there are certain medications...."
"I'll grab some of your literature," I said. "Thanks."

"My blood pressure is alarmingly high," I said in my office. I was at the Piper Museum with Kara. Kara is an LHPS member, has purple hair, and is a really good friend. "I had a program at the library the other day, and got it tested. That was a mistake. According to the colorized chart from the American Heart Association, I rank in at bright orange, which is not good."
"Your bloodstream is basically coffee," said Kara. "And you do tend to stress. Have you considered learning to relax a little?"
"I've been called intense," I said.
"You ever just try to calm down?"
"Sometimes I sit in the Tomahawk and make engine noises."
"I'm not sure that's the same thing."
"I mean, come on, let's be real. I always figured I was more at risk of death by a haunted attic collapse or something. Getting bit by a sea monster. If I die, spread the story that I got bit by a sea monster."
"Of course," said Kara. "You should really consider getting on medication. When was the last time you went to the doctor?"
"I was at the doctor in January."
"This January?"
"January 2014. I think. Have you seen my file on UFOs in New Jersey?"
Kara handed it to me. "You know there's a blood pressure machine in the Church Street drugstore? You can keep up with this."
"I'll try that. In the meantime, let's look for some photos for the television thing....And want to go look for some lost artifacts with me?"
"Where they at?"
"Up the Renovo Road. This one goes back a while---About a year ago, I turned over a buffalo sculpture in the library and caused an international incident. Turns out it was part of a post-World War II shipment of gifts from France called the Merci Train, and there's a whole committee to find the rest of this stuff. All of a sudden I was getting all these e-mails in French."
Kara laughed. "You're kidding."
"Seriously. So ever since, I've kind of poked into it a little, now and then. And I found out that nationwide, the 60&9 Clubs were responsible for handing out the gifts. So I have a friend who bartends at the local club, and I asked her if I could go look. She says they have a big storage area, and I could get in if I wanted. So we're going to go and check."
Kara smiled. "I'm in."

I sat down in the drugstore, looking at the automatic blood pressure machine. I took a few deep breaths. My sweatshirt was on the floor with my pack; I was wearing only my T-shirt. MOTHMAN: West Virginia University Cryptozoology Department. Slipping my arm into the cuff, I hit the green button and felt it squeeze, trying to think calming thoughts.
Cemeteries....Yeah. Ghosts. Water monsters....Mmmmmm, water monsters. I envisioned myself walking through a haunted cemetery with Bigfoot in the middle of the night. Piper Aztecs. Buried treasure. The machine beeped.
I looked down at the readout.
"Aaaargh. Come on! I ate a salad!"
I looked around the store. Nobody seemed to have heard me, or at least nobody was paying attention. There was one guy I recognized behind the counter. The cashier glanced over at me as I pulled my sweatshirt back on.
"Are you Lou?"
"Yes, that's me."
"I love your articles."
"Oh, thanks so much. I always appreciate hearing that."
"I really liked the one about the 1918 Ice Flood."
"Ice, Ice, Baby? Yeah, that was a neat one." I picked up a tiny unicorn toy and set it on the counter. "Can I buy this? My little boy loves this stuff."

"Can I get the skull for Thursday night?" I asked Sue in her office.
"Oh, sure," she said. "Let me get int touch with Lycoming."
The skull is something I've worked with before. For the archaeology lesson for Teen Paranormal, there's a kit. It comes with a skull, and I liked to pass it around and let the kids figure out gender and race. This was always a big hit, and required me to ask my co-worker to order a skull. How is your workday going?
"I'll send her an e-mail," said Sue. "We should be able to get it for you by Thursday night."
"Thanks." I hesitated. "Does it seem weird to you that I just stroll in here and ask for a skull, and you know exactly what I'm talking about?"
Sue smiled. "I know who I work with."
I went to my desk. Getting online, I opened a couple of windows. In one, I sent a message to my friend at the 60&9, asking about when she'd be in. In the other, I began to do a search for how to lower blood pressure.

"Glad you're here," said Stacey when I walked into the office. "We just got a call from the city water department. They wanted to know if we have plans of the property showing the water and sewer lines."
"Can't promise, but I can check," I said. "I brought the video camera from the TV thing, so I'll be getting footage of all the planes, too. I'm in for a busy morning. Oh, hi, Kara."
Kara had just entered in a blaze of purple hair and Star Wars sweater. "Hi, Lou. What do we have going on today?"
"Walk with me." We walked down to my office. "Gotta see about finding plans with water lines in them. This is fun. We have tons of plans; last summer I was looking for a secret tunnel into the old factory building, and I pulled them all out. John later told me, very casually, that there was a secret tunnel. He's used to this from me."
"So where are the plans?"
I led her to one of the shelves, and we looked through the rolled-up plans stacked there. I began unrolling them to check. "In other news, we're scheduled to go out to the 60&9 on Friday morning, if you're up to it---"
"I am."
"And we can look for the other Merci Train artifacts. There was a set of books, which I guarantee we'll never find, a figurine of a French couple, and a photo of the German surrender. We might find them in there; we'll have to check."
"Sounds good. How's your blood pressure?"
"Well. It's still high. When I stopped in to get it tested, I noticed that one of the employees is one of the people who put up those Nazi flyers I fought last summer."
"Oh, no."
"Yeah. So that did nothing for my blood pressure. I maybe need to find a Nazi-free blood pressure machine. You know, that common problem."
"I can always give you a lift to Wal-Mart if you like."
"Might take you up on that. And, you know, I feel another article fighting racism coming on. The Chisholm family was killed by the KKK in 1877, and I figure it's time for a column about them. In the meantime, let's find some old plans."

I hit the button, and the thing squeezed on my arm. I was having my blood pressure taken so often I was beginning to develop a bruise where the thing tightened. I thought about ghosts, and haunted houses, and the Honey Island Swamp Monster for a while. The cuff released, and I looked at the numbers. Still high.
I sighed, and put my jacket back on.
A few minutes later, I walked into the library, where Zach was decorating for Easter. He had eggs and plastic rabbits all over the display case.
"Hey, looks good," I said. "My son is gonna love this."
"Thanks," said Zach. "I got the Sloan Room set up for your teens."
"Awesome. Thanks."
Zach picked up one of the rabbits. "Check this out. His head turns all the way around." He took the rabbit's head and swerved it around a hundred and eighty degrees. "It looks like...."
"Yeah," I said. "Possessed rabbit. That's frightening." I picked up the rabbit and made my voice low and scratchy. "Your mother rots in hell!"
We laughed together. This is the kind of screwing around that always entertains us. I set it down and lifted my Saint Benedict ring. "The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!"
Tracey came out of the back room to find Zach and I doubled over with laughter, staring at the twisted rabbit. She shook her head.
"I don't even want to know. I just came out to tell you guys that there's popcorn and crackers in the back room if anyone's hungry. Someone bought the low-salt popcorn."
"That was me," I said. "I have high blood pressure, and that's everyone's problem." I followed her into the back room. "Last week, when I had the blood pressure people in here, it turns out I'm frighteningly high."
Tracey grimaced. "Oh, no."
"I looked it up, and it seems celery can help. I saw where four sticks a day can help bring down blood pressure. Do you know how hard it is to eat four sticks of celery a day? It's like a punishment at Guantanamo."
Tracey laughed. "So do you have any good articles going?"
"Yeah, I'm looking into the Chisholm family. They were killed by the KKK in 1877, and buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery. But because of vandalism, their graves were moved, and nobody knows where. We have documents that suggest Arlington, though there's other possibilities."
"That's interesting," said Tracey.
"Yeah, I gotta pull a couple of pieces off the microfilm," I said. "Time to get to work."

I dug through the old trunk, and closed it up. I looked up at Kara and Katelynn, who were standing in the old shed with me.
"Looks like it's not here."
"Well, darn." Katelynn is one of my former Teen Paranormal kids. She'd spent a couple of years with me in the group, and had learned well. She'd grown up to be a pretty good amateur investigator.
"It was a long shot," I admitted. "I thought, since the 60&9 Clubs  were in charge of handing out the items, they may have kept one. But if they did, it doesn't look like it's here anymore."
"Where else?" asked Kara. "The college, the high school...."
"Joby up at the college looked into this for me, and he didn't find anything," I said. "I'm just gonna have to do some more digging, make this my hobby for a while. Sooner or later I'll stumble on something."
Kara and I went back to the car. Sitting inside, she said,"So where to now?"
"Let's go to Cedar Hill," I said. "I want to see if I can figure out where the Chisholm family is buried."
"You think you can find that?"
"Last night at work, I got the Cedar Hill map and cross-indexed all the people who were buried around the same time as the Chisholms," I said. "If I can't find that spot, I'll retire. I need a win."

"I thought Cedar Hill was out here somewhere," I said. "It was along this road, but it's been like ten years since I've been here."
"Take my phone, and search for Cedar Hill," said Kara.
I looked at her phone. "What in our history together would make you think I'm capable of that?"
"There's a little square symbol on the bottom. Press it---"
"It's asking if I want to close forty-eight windows."
"Jesus, no, don't close forty-eight windows. Click where it says search----"
"This thing?"
"No, the other----"
"Here it is." I looked up and saw the cemetery appear randomly to our right. "I knew I could find it."
Kara gave me a look, and we pulled over and got out of the car. I was wearing the black jacket with all the equipment sewn into it. I pulled the photocopied maps and documents out of my pocket.
"They were in Section One, over this way. I have a list of some of the names who were buried around the same time. It's a good guess...."
"Right, that they'd have been pretty near each other. What are the names?"
"Seyler, Herr...."
"This one says Crotzer."
'That's one. Okay, there's another. It was right here, right in this area." I turned in a circle, looking around. "Those trees aren't all that old. They could have been planted about where the Chicholm monument stood."
Kara glanced around. "This is an open area. That would make sense."
"I think I'm at about the right spot, and this will make a good column. I'm gonna call this one solved." I looked up the hill a bit. "Oh my god. That's the Perry stone!"
I raced up the hill to it, a square white stone. Kara caught up to me a moment later. "You took off like a little kid."
"I've never seen it in place before," I said. "Did I ever tell you about this? It disappeared a hundred years ago, when Great Island Cemetery was moved."
Kara stood beside me. "You've mentioned Great Island Cemetery."
"This is cool," I said. "Let me tell you about how it turned up, totally unexplained, in 2014. And how I broke the story."

I closed my eyes and let the cuff tighten on my arm again. It was all getting very familiar to me. A moment later, it deflated, and I opened my eyes and looked at the monitor.
I was down ten points.
I smiled. Things were looking up.

"So remember, always be responsible when you do archaeology," I told the kids. I was standing at the front of the Sloan Room, with Kara at the table, and Alex, Aubrey, Olivia, Emma, and Skylar all watching me. "Dig carefully. Use the sifter. Document everything, Any questions so far?"
I looked around the table. Nothing. So I reached for the windowsill, and picked up the box with the skull in it. "Okay, then. Let's say you dig something good up."
"Whoa," said Alex. "Is that a skull?"
"It is. I borrowed it from Lycoming for you guys." I grinned, and looked them over. "So let's check it out, huh? Figure out who it came from. Let's get to work."