I set down the trays of smoking food, and my family piled up their plates. My wife, two daughters, and my four-year-old son all sat around the table.
"Can't wait to go camping in Indiana for the family vacation," said Biz.
"It'll be good," I agreed. "Since you brought it up, here's the itinerary for the trip out. Full of ghosts, monsters, and weird sights." This is what passes for dinnertime conversation in our family. I got out my notebook. "If we make a few stops for photos, I can submit them to the PA Wilds and get paid for this. In Clearfield County, there's the highest point on I-80. Also a diner where they have a Bigfoot statue and a whole bunch of dinosaurs. In Jefferson County, there's a park where an insane person carved a whole bunch of bible verses on rocks."
"Oh, that's fun," said Tif.
"It'll be neat. Trust me. When we get to Clarion County, there's a giant cow statue. We'll get pictures."
"That's what I like about this family," commented Biz. "It's not all about how many miles we can put on. We actually stop and do stuff."
I fist-bumped her. "And then when we get there, you and me got an investigation. The campsite is real near where the Beast of Busco was sighted. It's a giant monster turtle that was seen in a pond in Indiana, but never captured. They call it Oscar. We're gonna look into it."
"Cool," said Biz.
"We are not bringing back a giant monster turtle," said my wife.
"The car's a rental," I pointed out.
"I'm not sharing the back seat with a big turtle," said Tif.
"Actually I'll settle for photos," I said.
"I want to share with a turtle," said Biz.
My name is Lou. I'm a paranormal investigator, librarian, writer, and explorer.
My family's summer vacation is usually in August. This year, we were going to Indiana. My little boy, Paul Matthew, is adopted. He has two younger brothers who are also adopted, and live elsewhere. We'd planned a camping trip midway, meeting up with both of them.
I'd also worked up an itinerary of interesting places to see on the way---Weird historic and paranormal spots. It's kind of my thing. And as a writer for the PA Wilds, I could use this trip to submit an article. I'm not above double-dipping that way.
And, in Indiana, I'd also discovered the story of the Beast of Busco, a mysterious cryptid turtle that had been seen for about a hundred years. On the far end of the trip, it would be worth looking into.
My family doesn't really do normal vacations.
"This is really cool," said Biz as we walked through the rocks. "I wouldn't mind coming back here."
"Neither would I," said Michelle. "We'll have to plan a day trip sometime."
"Me too!" cheered Paul.
I took a photo, then looked closer to examine the letters on one of the rocks. "In the early 1900s, an insane religious guy carved all of these Bible verses on the rocks. His wife died because he wouldn't get her medical treatment, and he spent the rest of his life carving these messages."
"He had no life," Michelle said.
"A fair point," I said. I clicked another photo, and then made a couple of notes in my notebook. "I can write this up for the PA Wilds. I just made like a hundred dollars."
"Cool," said Biz.
"So I guess we're doing okay this trip. We'd also go back and take another look at Bigfoot and the dinosaurs. We have some good stops out this way."
"Now I want to see my little bruvvers!" said Paul.
I nodded. "We'll go back to the car. Soon, we'll see your brothers."
It was late when we pulled into the campsite with the cabin. It was small, with one regular bed, a bunk bed, and a couch. I began unloading the luggage.
"I call couch," said Tif, dropping into it.
Biz turned on the sink, and then made a face. "The water has a really bad smell."
"That's sulfur. It was like this where I grew up," I said. "We'll get some bottled water; can't cost more than about $3.50."
"Can I go see my bruvver, Daddy?" Paul asked. "Can I?"
"Go ahead," I said. "Go knock on the door."
"You knock."
"Come on, little guy," I said.
We walked next door, and I knocked. One of the other families was already there, Nicole and Tony, who had adopted Paul's brother, two-year-old Sully. His baby brother, Oliver, slept in a nearby blanket. Paul and Sully squealed and hugged each other.
"House," said Sully. "House."
Nicole smiled. "He wants to show Paul the cabin."
Paul looked up at me. I nodded, and the two of them raced in and immediately climbed up the bunk bed. The adults joined on the porch.
"How was your trip?" asked Nicole.
"Not bad, except for the construction," I said. "We saw some neat stuff on the way, and once we got out of Pennsylvania, it was smooth sailing. We got backed up for hours because of construction. I despise PennDOT."
She nodded. "Isaac's family said they ran into construction, too."
"We'll be putting Sully to bed soon," said Tony. "You guys got any plans for breakfast? We can all get together up at the cafe."
"That sounds great," I said. "And then we'll see what else there is to do. There's a legend of a giant monster turtle in this area---The nearby town has a statue of it. I'd love to ride out and get photos of that."
"There's a monster turtle?" asked Nicole.
I nodded. "It was sighted in 1898, and again in the forties. The farmers tried to drain the pond and catch it, but they never did. It's thought to have escaped into the nearby swamps."
"Oh, cool."
"The interesting thing about this is how plausible it is. When you're dealing with water creatures, you run up against the population problem. When creatures are sighted in a lake for hundreds of years, clearly you're not talking about the same one. It would have to be a whole family, which raises the question of how many can fit in the lake, and why they aren't sighted more often under the circumstances. But turtles can be effectively immortal---They die from disease or accidents, but not really old age to speak of. Left alone, they can live for hundreds of years. So it's not too big a stretch to imagine a giant turtle living alone since 1898."
"And you're going to find it?" asked Nicole.
"I'll settle for a photo of the statue."
"Sounds great," said Tony. "We'll plan on that."
Paul, Sully, and Isaac---The three brothers---ran around with their little bubble-blowing guns, spreading bubbles all over the lawn. We'd shown up before the cafe opened, so we'd given them some toys to play with while they waited. I stood with the other adults, watching them all play.
Nicole nodded at my shirt. "Is that Bigfoot getting abducted by aliens?"
I grinned. "Yeah. I got a couple like this."
"I saw one online that said Bigfoot: Hide And Seek World Champion."
"I have that one, actually."
My wife came up beside me.
"We're going swimming after breakfast," she said. "The pool's right over there. You want to come?"
I considered it. "I'll meet up with you guys later. I'm not much of a swimmer. I think I'll take a walk, explore the camp a little."
"Okay," she said. "We'll be in the water."
I nodded as three little boys ran past me, shrieking and blasting bubbles at each other.
With everyone else at the pool, I walked to the cabin. I knelt down and pulled the black bag from underneath the bed.
It was filled with my travel adventure equipment. I selected the black shoulder bag---Cryptozoology. Yeah, I have my paranormal equipment sorted and packed in different bags for different situations. Are you that organized at your job?
I walked down the path, curving around to the beach. I could see Ridinger Lake; I walked down and took a look. There were signs of geese, and the water looked mossy and dirty---I was glad my family was up and swimming in the nice clean pool. I took a water sample in one of the small plastic cans I carry for that purpose.
I'd filched an extra map from the camp office when we'd checked in. Following the map, I walked up and around to the nearby fishing dam. The lake flowed down this way, over the dam, and off to the northwest. I found a small path going upstream past the fence, and followed it down to the creek.
There were ducks and frogs in the water. I dipped out a sample there, too, and then realized my sample jars looked exactly the same. I took a pen and labelled one "L" for lake, and the other "C" for creek, and put them into a side pocket on my bag.
I knelt by the edge. There were snails in the water---Huge snails, some three inches in diameter, clustered up along the edge. There had to be thirty or forty of them. I found an empty shell and dropped it into my bag, then took a photo of them. I'd never seen snails that size before.
So, I wasn't finding a monster turtle, but the snails were gigantic.
"It's Daddy! Hi, Daddy!" Paul called out as I approached the pool.
"Hey, little man! Having fun?"
"Yeah!" He was splashing around in the water with Biz.
"No giant turtle?" Michelle asked as I sat down in a chair beside her.
I shook my head. "No Oscar yet. But I did find some huge damn snails down by the dam. Oscar-got." I made it sound like escargot. "Killer snails. I've never seen any that big before." I showed her the shell.
Tif swam to the edge of the pool. "Hey, cool. Can you get me one of those?"
"Me, too!" added Paul.
"Sure," I said. "I was planning on going back down there anyway. If there's anywhere there's gonna be a giant turtle, that's it. Hey, little man, you want to help me with the color-changing paper later?"
"Yeah! I like color-changing paper!"
Tif gave me a look. "Color-changing paper?"
"Litmus paper. When checking for water monsters, you always test the water to see the acidity. I did it up at Kettle Creek last month."
"You gonna test the sulfur water, too?" asked Biz.
"I'm kind of afraid to."
Nicole grinned at me. "Cool shirt." It was the one that said I'd rather be ghost-hunting.
"Oh, thanks. I have a whole bunch of these at home."
We had a campfire going, and the kids were playing. Some of the parents were roasting marshmallows on it. Paul, Sully, and Isaac were eating S'mores, but not in their entirety---Paul was eating unheated marshmallows, Sully was eating chocolate, and Isaac kept grabbing graham crackers.
"Can we do the color-changing paper now, Daddy?" asked Paul.
"Sure, little man." I set my bag down on the table, and got out the samples and the litmus paper. I opened the sample cans, which had blessedly not leaked, and set them on the table. "Go ahead, dip the paper in."
Paul dipped the paper into the water. Isaac sat next to him and watched this intently. In each case, it went from yellow to a deeper green.
"It's green!" Paul announced happily.
"What's that mean?" asked Biz.
"It's alkaline, but not enough to not support life," I said. "Things can live in it, but it's on the upper end of that."
"So you do this for a living?" Travis, Isaac's dad, was standing next to me and watching.
"I have no idea how to describe what I do for a living. I've been called the county historian. Mostly, I'm a librarian, but I do writing, I study local history, and I look for ghosts and monsters and buried treasures. There was never a word for this when I was in high school. I'm pretty sure I invented my own career."
"It helps to do something you love," he said.
"So how do you go about this?" asked Tony, Sully's father.
"Depends on the type of investigation, but I'm always looking for provable, measurable evidence," I said. "Ghosts, monsters---The bottom line is to prove it. I do tests, I measure what I can."
He nodded. "That's a good way to go about it. I looked up your Giwoggle online. I found a lot of your articles."
I grinned. "Yeah, most of what's online about the Giwoggle, I put there. It's Clinton County's official monster; I campaigned for that back in 2011. You can get Giwoggle T-shirts."
"And the turtle you're looking for....Beast of Busco?"
"That's the one. It was sighted not too far from here. They have a statue of it; I'd love to go and see it."
"Sounds great," said Travis. "Let's take a drive out tomorrow."
I walked back down to the creek in the dark and knelt by the water. I was smoking one of my cigars; I'd brought a few along. I smoked fewer of them since we'd adopted Paul. It wasn't a conscious decision, I just didn't have the time.
With my small flashlight, I looked at the water. The day before, there had been a huge group of monster snails clustered around. Now, there were still some live ones, but something had been at them. There were empty shells dropped along the creek; something had been there eating them.
I picked a couple up and examined them. I chose one for Tif and one for Paul, and dropped them into my bag. I looked at the water again. Bobbing in it was about half of a skeleton. Leaning closer, which I really didn't want to do, I was able to identify it as most of a frog.
I could hear things moving around out there, in the water. I tried taking a couple of photos, but it was too dark. One of those professional risks in paranormal investigation. So I waited a while, but nothing too exciting happened.
After a while I finished my cigar, and walked back to camp.
We had a fire going for our final night of camp. Some of the adults sat around it while the boys mostly ate the individual pieces of S'mores without assembling or heating them. I said,"This has been a good trip. And it's been great to spend time with all of you."
Tony grinned. "I ordered Nicole a Giwoggle T-shirt."
"Allright! Clinton County's official monster."
"Dad, can you cook me a hot dog?" asked Tif, sitting on the cabin steps with her book.
"Sure," I said. I walked to the picnic table and began spiking one on the long metal stake.
Biz sat down next to me. She was holding baby Oliver.
"So, how'd the quest for the turtle go?"
"Well, not bad. I didn't see the Beast of Busco, but I did find the statue. I found the killer snails. So now I know---A- The creek can support life, including oversize life. B- Something ate the snails, which means they have a predator there someplace. So, C- It's possible there's Oscar, the giant turtle living in the swamps here."
"Well, that works out better than some of your investigations."
"True enough. I'm happy with it. It's been a good weekend."
"Sorry you didn't solve the turtle mystery, though."
"You know what, Biz? Mystery is where you find it." I smiled, looking at the boys all eating at the picnic table together.
"Guys....It's been great."
Final morning. I stood in the yard between the cabins with the other families. We'd been up at about eight AM, packing and cleaning. I'd gotten everything into the car. Paul had been the last one up---He and Sully had worn themselves out.
"We'll have to keep the boys in touch," said Nicole. "We'll skype with Paul."
"That would be great," I said. "Paul? Come say goodbye to Sully."
Paul gave Sully a hug. "I miss you," he said.
"We'll be talking with him on the computer," I said. "Would you like that?"
"Yeah! Can we go to Old MacDonald's?"
I laughed. "We'll get breakfast on the way home."
We hugged each other and said goodbye, and got into our cars. Michelle strapped Paul into the car seat, and pulled out into the path.
"Home by tonight, guys," I said. "I have a couple of stops in Ohio planned. There's a graveyard in the parking lot of a movie theater, and a fifty foot statue of the Virgin Mary."
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