How did I get this lucky? Really, how did it happen?
My best friends are ghost hunters.
"We did the intake interview in the Gardens," said Kara. "I'm going to call the client to schedule an investigation."
"Personally, I think it may come down to repressed memories," I said. "A lot of the stuff she was describing, including the feeling of being touched while she sleeps, are symptoms of lost memories of abuse. I'm betting on that."
Theresa nodded. "What else do you have, Lou?"
"Thanks for the help with the haunted tours," I said. "With you guys, I made about two hundred bucks for the library."
"How you doing, now that they're over?" Kara asked.
"There's always a letdown," I said. "I spend months working on these things, and then it's done like that. So right now, I'm feeling blank....I'm just waiting. Waiting for the next big thing to come along."
I've always loved autumn. I love the leaves, the cool air, the feeling of possibility. Other people view autumn as the end, the dying before winter. It's never felt like that to me. Autumn has always felt like the beginning, a new time, the start of endless possibilities.
I rode my bike to the library, and grabbed a cup of coffee. Then I got to work, wearing my Loch Ness Monster shirt. I set up the Sloan Room for a program, worked on an article, looked through the history files. I got online for a while. There was a new ghost-hunting group in Lock Haven that was very bad at it, and they'd plagiarized some of my work to make up for their lack of research. I sent them an e-mail threatening lawyers while I waited for something good to happen.
The trouble with trying to make an adventure happen is that you can't. Adventures come to you, at times you're often not expecting it. You can't force it, no matter how hard you try.
"Hey, Lou, call for you on line one," said Adam. "Says someone referred him to you."
"Thanks, Adam." I picked up the line. "Hi, can I help you?"
"Hi, is this Lou?"
"It is."
"My name's Kevin, and I'm calling from New Jersey. Rich from Renovo referred me to you."
"Ah, I think I see where this is going already."
He laughed. "Do you? I'm calling to ask about Thunderbirds. Is that what you expected?"
"Pretty close, actually. I was betting on Giwoggles."
"You do know Thunderbirds?"
"I'm familiar," I said. "Huge birds, hidden in the woods. Possibly an undiscovered species. The Native Americans believed that they brought on storms."
"So, I hear there have been Thunderbird sightings out there?"
"All over the county," I said. "I investigated one personally in Swissdale a few years ago."
"Interesting," he said. "A lot of these stories seem to have been reported by a man named Hiram Cranmer. Are you familiar with him?"
"Oh, yes," I said. "He was an old guy up in Leidy who told a lot of these stories. He talked about ghosts, UFOs, and creatures. He was like a thousand. Ironically, he didn't die of old age."
"I read that he died in a house fire."
"That's correct."
"Have you heard of the lost Thunderbird photograph?"
"That's a new one," I said. "I admit, I haven't."
"There is said to be a photo, showing men standing in front of a Thunderbird," he explained. "All of them, arms stretched out, to demonstrate how big it was. People remember seeing it, but nobody can find it now."
"I'm intrigued."
"There was a researcher named Ivan Sanderson," Kevin said. "He interviewed Cranmer, and it's thought that he may have taken the photo to him. In which case, it may have burned up in Cranmer's house when he died."
"You know, I'm gonna look into this," I said. "That's plausible. Cranmer was a collector; I've dealt with some of his stuff before. He may have donated the photo to some other organization, and maybe I can find it."
"Thanks for listening," said Kevin. "I was hoping I wouldn't get someone on the phone who would treat me like I'm crazy."
"Nah, I get this all the time," I said. "Besides, this could be my next big adventure."
"When is Mommy coming home, Daddy?" Paul asked.
"Thursday night, little guy," I said. "Mommy is going to New Jersey for work, and she'll be there
for four days."
He sighed. "That will be forever."
"Well, she just left an hour ago."
"Can we get pizza?"
"We can get pizza. I know. You want to go out in the backyard and look for aliens?"
His face lit up. "Yeah! Let's look for aliens!"
"We'll need flashlights and binoculars."
Paul went and found the pack full of adventure equipment that my mentor had sent him for his birthday. He dug out his flashlight and his binoculars. I grabbed my crypto kit, and threw it over one shoulder.
"Grab your coat, little man. It's cold out there."
Shining our flashlights, we walked out into the back yard. We walked down to the edge of the lawn, by the garage.
"I see a alien, Daddy!"
"Where?"
"Over there! In Bonnie's yard!"
"What's it look like?"
"It's all colors! And it's going like this!" Paul waved his arms around liquidly and made a noise like Blugga-blugga-blugga.
"Yeah, that does sound like an alien."
"Hey! I see lights!" He pointed northeast, at the blinking red cell towers on the mountain. "Those are aliens!"
I smiled.
"You got it, little guy. You're finding aliens."
I looked over the table of baseball-related items and snapped a photo. I was in the back room of the Express with the publisher, the editor, and the subject of my article, one of the men who'd won the Little League World Series for Lock Haven in 1948. Paul was there, too. We'd gone down to meet with the newspaper and the former player, see some of his souvenirs, and get some pictures.
"Well, thanks a lot, sir," I said. "I'll call if there are any other questions. I appreciate it."
"Daddy?" said Paul softly in my ear. "I thought we were going to see the attic."
"We will, little man," I said. "You're being very good." I turned to the editor. "Lana, I have two favors. One is that the library's event for tomorrow has been rescheduled for the twenty-ninth. Can you run a notice?"
"Sure."
"The other is, do you still have an archive of photos in the attic? I'm looking for one that may or may not be here."
"Sure, go ahead. You've been up there before, right?"
"I have. This way?"
"Yep."
Holding Paul's hand, I walked up the stairs and pushed open the door. Paul looked around. "Is this the attic, Daddy?"
"Yeah, it's the attic," I said. "I need to look for pictures."
There were several green file cabinets on the east wall. They'd done some organizing since I'd last checked. I found the two folders most likely to have a lost Thunderbird photo, Hunting and Groups: Unidentified.
"I'm getting hungry, Daddy," said Paul.
"Just gonna be a minute, little guy. We'll get you some food as soon as we get home."
As fast as I could manage, I flipped through each photo in the folders. I found some really interesting ones, but nothing that matched the description of the Thunderbird photo. I filed the folders back into the drawers.
"We done now?" Paul asked.
"Yeah. We're done now."
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Lana asked as we walked down the stairs into Editorial.
"No, you guys don't seem to have the photo," I said. "But at least that means I can rule one thing out."
"It's pretty dead in here," I said, looking out the library window at the snow.
Barb nodded, walking past. "We're on a skeleton crew. About half the staff couldn't make it in today."
We'd been hit with the first big storm of the season, and snow was pouring onto central Pennsylvania. The library was open, because it takes a statewide crisis to close us, but nobody was around. There had been barely any snow plows out, because in spite of having been based in snowy Pennsylvania for the entirety of its existence, PennDOT never seems to understand that winter is going to arrive. I stared out the window looking for Yetis for a while, but they're rare in Lock Haven, except as exchange students. So I took the opportunity to go hunting for the lost Thunderbird photo.
First I checked the index, under both Cranmer and Thunderbird. There were mentions of Cranmer, but nothing that indicated he'd ever donated a photo. Which meant I could rule out the numbered albums---If we had it, it was in one of the uncatalogued files.
A few years ago, I'd had to look into Cranmer and figure out if he had the Holy Grail. It's a long story. I'd pulled his will from the courthouse, and I'd put it on file in the library. I thought I remembered it being in a file folder near my desk, and after a few minutes of searching, I found it in the blue file cabinets.
It contained nothing surprising. Most of his stuff had been given to the local historical society, which hadn't had a building yet. Which meant that most of it had been placed at the library.
I walked upstairs to the attic, startling hell out of Zach, who was already up there gathering holiday decorations.
"Jesus! What're you doing up here?"
"Oh, sorry, Zach. I'm looking for a photo that may or may not exist."
"Well. Good luck."
The attic had no heating system, having not once been upgraded since 1887. It was chilly up there, and the windows were rattling in the wind.
I'd spent six and a half years foraging through this attic. Any photos were going to be framed, and on the shelves. I walked through, looking at the old books and newspapers, but the Thunderbird photo wasn't there.
I went back down to the second floor.
I opened the door to the Sloan Museum Room, and looked around. It was where we stored all the photos, of which there were probably a thousand. I'd already checked the index, so I knew I could probably rule out the numbered albums. I dug through the file cabinets.
I found the folders I remembered being there. Three folders full of unidentified photos. I took them and retreated back to the Sloan Room, which was warmer and more comfortable. Setting them on the table, I started flipping through old photos.
It took about half an hour. I found a photo of the disappearing woman statue from Zindel Park. Not what I'd been looking for, but intriguing. I set that one aside for later. I found a stack of old, black and white hunting photos, and I got excited for a moment, but the closest I came was five guys holding up a medium-sized turkey. None of the photos had any indication where they'd come from.
I put the folders back, and went back downstairs to my desk.
I sat there for a while, biting on one fingernail, then I pulled the Cranmer file again. I thought about Henry Shoemaker, my hero and a local writer and historian. I knew Cranmer had been one of his sources, and I took a moment to consider that Shoemaker might have ended up with the photo, until I realized that Cranmer hadn't even acquired it until after Shoemaker's death. I had no doubt Henry Shoemaker was haunting someplace as a ghost, but he was unlikely to be carrying a lot of photographs.
I found the articles about the house fire. It had happened in 1967, and was covered in both of the major newspapers at the time. Cranmer had died in an attempt to get out of the house through a window. Photos of the place showed the house flattened---Nothing left.
Back to Annie Snyder's drawing board.
"Personally, I think it may come down to repressed memories," I said. "A lot of the stuff she was describing, including the feeling of being touched while she sleeps, are symptoms of lost memories of abuse. I'm betting on that."
Theresa nodded. "What else do you have, Lou?"
"Thanks for the help with the haunted tours," I said. "With you guys, I made about two hundred bucks for the library."
"How you doing, now that they're over?" Kara asked.
"There's always a letdown," I said. "I spend months working on these things, and then it's done like that. So right now, I'm feeling blank....I'm just waiting. Waiting for the next big thing to come along."
I've always loved autumn. I love the leaves, the cool air, the feeling of possibility. Other people view autumn as the end, the dying before winter. It's never felt like that to me. Autumn has always felt like the beginning, a new time, the start of endless possibilities.
I rode my bike to the library, and grabbed a cup of coffee. Then I got to work, wearing my Loch Ness Monster shirt. I set up the Sloan Room for a program, worked on an article, looked through the history files. I got online for a while. There was a new ghost-hunting group in Lock Haven that was very bad at it, and they'd plagiarized some of my work to make up for their lack of research. I sent them an e-mail threatening lawyers while I waited for something good to happen.
The trouble with trying to make an adventure happen is that you can't. Adventures come to you, at times you're often not expecting it. You can't force it, no matter how hard you try.
"Hey, Lou, call for you on line one," said Adam. "Says someone referred him to you."
"Thanks, Adam." I picked up the line. "Hi, can I help you?"
"Hi, is this Lou?"
"It is."
"My name's Kevin, and I'm calling from New Jersey. Rich from Renovo referred me to you."
"Ah, I think I see where this is going already."
He laughed. "Do you? I'm calling to ask about Thunderbirds. Is that what you expected?"
"Pretty close, actually. I was betting on Giwoggles."
"You do know Thunderbirds?"
"I'm familiar," I said. "Huge birds, hidden in the woods. Possibly an undiscovered species. The Native Americans believed that they brought on storms."
"So, I hear there have been Thunderbird sightings out there?"
"All over the county," I said. "I investigated one personally in Swissdale a few years ago."
"Interesting," he said. "A lot of these stories seem to have been reported by a man named Hiram Cranmer. Are you familiar with him?"
"Oh, yes," I said. "He was an old guy up in Leidy who told a lot of these stories. He talked about ghosts, UFOs, and creatures. He was like a thousand. Ironically, he didn't die of old age."
"I read that he died in a house fire."
"That's correct."
"Have you heard of the lost Thunderbird photograph?"
"That's a new one," I said. "I admit, I haven't."
"There is said to be a photo, showing men standing in front of a Thunderbird," he explained. "All of them, arms stretched out, to demonstrate how big it was. People remember seeing it, but nobody can find it now."
"I'm intrigued."
"There was a researcher named Ivan Sanderson," Kevin said. "He interviewed Cranmer, and it's thought that he may have taken the photo to him. In which case, it may have burned up in Cranmer's house when he died."
"You know, I'm gonna look into this," I said. "That's plausible. Cranmer was a collector; I've dealt with some of his stuff before. He may have donated the photo to some other organization, and maybe I can find it."
"Thanks for listening," said Kevin. "I was hoping I wouldn't get someone on the phone who would treat me like I'm crazy."
"Nah, I get this all the time," I said. "Besides, this could be my next big adventure."
"When is Mommy coming home, Daddy?" Paul asked.
"Thursday night, little guy," I said. "Mommy is going to New Jersey for work, and she'll be there
for four days."
He sighed. "That will be forever."
"Well, she just left an hour ago."
"Can we get pizza?"
"We can get pizza. I know. You want to go out in the backyard and look for aliens?"
His face lit up. "Yeah! Let's look for aliens!"
"We'll need flashlights and binoculars."
Paul went and found the pack full of adventure equipment that my mentor had sent him for his birthday. He dug out his flashlight and his binoculars. I grabbed my crypto kit, and threw it over one shoulder.
"Grab your coat, little man. It's cold out there."
Shining our flashlights, we walked out into the back yard. We walked down to the edge of the lawn, by the garage.
"I see a alien, Daddy!"
"Where?"
"Over there! In Bonnie's yard!"
"What's it look like?"
"It's all colors! And it's going like this!" Paul waved his arms around liquidly and made a noise like Blugga-blugga-blugga.
"Yeah, that does sound like an alien."
"Hey! I see lights!" He pointed northeast, at the blinking red cell towers on the mountain. "Those are aliens!"
I smiled.
"You got it, little guy. You're finding aliens."
I looked over the table of baseball-related items and snapped a photo. I was in the back room of the Express with the publisher, the editor, and the subject of my article, one of the men who'd won the Little League World Series for Lock Haven in 1948. Paul was there, too. We'd gone down to meet with the newspaper and the former player, see some of his souvenirs, and get some pictures.
"Well, thanks a lot, sir," I said. "I'll call if there are any other questions. I appreciate it."
"Daddy?" said Paul softly in my ear. "I thought we were going to see the attic."
"We will, little man," I said. "You're being very good." I turned to the editor. "Lana, I have two favors. One is that the library's event for tomorrow has been rescheduled for the twenty-ninth. Can you run a notice?"
"Sure."
"The other is, do you still have an archive of photos in the attic? I'm looking for one that may or may not be here."
"Sure, go ahead. You've been up there before, right?"
"I have. This way?"
"Yep."
Holding Paul's hand, I walked up the stairs and pushed open the door. Paul looked around. "Is this the attic, Daddy?"
"Yeah, it's the attic," I said. "I need to look for pictures."
There were several green file cabinets on the east wall. They'd done some organizing since I'd last checked. I found the two folders most likely to have a lost Thunderbird photo, Hunting and Groups: Unidentified.
"I'm getting hungry, Daddy," said Paul.
"Just gonna be a minute, little guy. We'll get you some food as soon as we get home."
As fast as I could manage, I flipped through each photo in the folders. I found some really interesting ones, but nothing that matched the description of the Thunderbird photo. I filed the folders back into the drawers.
"We done now?" Paul asked.
"Yeah. We're done now."
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Lana asked as we walked down the stairs into Editorial.
"No, you guys don't seem to have the photo," I said. "But at least that means I can rule one thing out."
"It's pretty dead in here," I said, looking out the library window at the snow.
Barb nodded, walking past. "We're on a skeleton crew. About half the staff couldn't make it in today."
We'd been hit with the first big storm of the season, and snow was pouring onto central Pennsylvania. The library was open, because it takes a statewide crisis to close us, but nobody was around. There had been barely any snow plows out, because in spite of having been based in snowy Pennsylvania for the entirety of its existence, PennDOT never seems to understand that winter is going to arrive. I stared out the window looking for Yetis for a while, but they're rare in Lock Haven, except as exchange students. So I took the opportunity to go hunting for the lost Thunderbird photo.
First I checked the index, under both Cranmer and Thunderbird. There were mentions of Cranmer, but nothing that indicated he'd ever donated a photo. Which meant I could rule out the numbered albums---If we had it, it was in one of the uncatalogued files.
A few years ago, I'd had to look into Cranmer and figure out if he had the Holy Grail. It's a long story. I'd pulled his will from the courthouse, and I'd put it on file in the library. I thought I remembered it being in a file folder near my desk, and after a few minutes of searching, I found it in the blue file cabinets.
It contained nothing surprising. Most of his stuff had been given to the local historical society, which hadn't had a building yet. Which meant that most of it had been placed at the library.
I walked upstairs to the attic, startling hell out of Zach, who was already up there gathering holiday decorations.
"Jesus! What're you doing up here?"
"Oh, sorry, Zach. I'm looking for a photo that may or may not exist."
"Well. Good luck."
The attic had no heating system, having not once been upgraded since 1887. It was chilly up there, and the windows were rattling in the wind.
I'd spent six and a half years foraging through this attic. Any photos were going to be framed, and on the shelves. I walked through, looking at the old books and newspapers, but the Thunderbird photo wasn't there.
I went back down to the second floor.
I opened the door to the Sloan Museum Room, and looked around. It was where we stored all the photos, of which there were probably a thousand. I'd already checked the index, so I knew I could probably rule out the numbered albums. I dug through the file cabinets.
I found the folders I remembered being there. Three folders full of unidentified photos. I took them and retreated back to the Sloan Room, which was warmer and more comfortable. Setting them on the table, I started flipping through old photos.
It took about half an hour. I found a photo of the disappearing woman statue from Zindel Park. Not what I'd been looking for, but intriguing. I set that one aside for later. I found a stack of old, black and white hunting photos, and I got excited for a moment, but the closest I came was five guys holding up a medium-sized turkey. None of the photos had any indication where they'd come from.
I put the folders back, and went back downstairs to my desk.
I sat there for a while, biting on one fingernail, then I pulled the Cranmer file again. I thought about Henry Shoemaker, my hero and a local writer and historian. I knew Cranmer had been one of his sources, and I took a moment to consider that Shoemaker might have ended up with the photo, until I realized that Cranmer hadn't even acquired it until after Shoemaker's death. I had no doubt Henry Shoemaker was haunting someplace as a ghost, but he was unlikely to be carrying a lot of photographs.
I found the articles about the house fire. It had happened in 1967, and was covered in both of the major newspapers at the time. Cranmer had died in an attempt to get out of the house through a window. Photos of the place showed the house flattened---Nothing left.
Back to Annie Snyder's drawing board.
It ended the way it began.
I sat in the living room with Millie, Kara, and Ashlin. "So we're agreed, we need to keep an eye on this new team," I said. "I've already called them on plagiarizing my work, and they removed the entry. They're terrible at this; I don't think they're gonna last very long."
"They may do a lot of damage in the meantime," said Millie.
I nodded. "That's why we watch them."
"Maybe they'll come to our next seminar," suggested Ashlin.
"In which case, we let them," I said. "We can take their money for the library, show them how it's done, and let them know what clowns they are."
Ashlin grinned. "I like that."
"In other news, I've been looking for the Lost Thunderbird photo," I said. "An old photo that may have disappeared in this area, showing a bunch of hunters with a Thunderbird."
"If it existed," added Kara.
"If it existed," I conceded. "I take it the Record doesn't keep some sort of old photo archive?"
She shook her head. "Just a few sports photos. Nothing like what you're looking for."
"So there are Thunderbirds?" asked Millie.
"Well, that's kind of up in the air," I said. "The photo could show a condor or some kind of oversized bird. We'll never know without it. And, after checking everywhere I can think of, I can't find it. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's not there anymore. I think it went up in the fire that killed Hiram Cranmer in 1967."
"So it's gone," said Millie.
"If it existed," Kara said again.
I nodded.
"If it existed."
