A Socially Distanced Christmas: The 2020 Christmas Special

"Thank you for helping me find that obituary," the woman said. "He was killed in a car accident twenty years ago, and I never knew the details before."

"It's a Christmas miracle," I said.

"What do I owe for the copies?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said. "During COVID, copies are free. Our way of giving back to the community."

As she left, I walked over to my graphic novel section for the purpose of staring blankly at Black Panther. Zach was at the desk. He said,"Did you check your e-mail?"

"Not in the last hour. What's up?"

"So much for Christmas decorations," said Zach. "We've got a meeting scheduled Wednesday. We're going back into lockdown mode as of December."

It was cold outside, but my family and I were in the house. We were gathered in the living room, gathered around and decorating the Christmas ladder. You know, typical holiday stuff.

"So why a ladder?" Biz asked.

"It's the first time in almost thirty years I can't go back to the Christmas tree farm where I grew up," I said. "I could buy a tree locally, but that seems wrong, somehow. So Michelle looked up some ideas online, probably Pinterest...."

"It wasn't Pinterest," said Michelle.

"She came up with the idea of using a ladder. Paul and I took the old ladder that came with the house and painted it green. It'll do, for this year."

"Yeah, 2020 sucks," said Tif.

"Dinner's almost done," I said. "We have turkey corn chowder, mostly with stuff left over from Thanksgiving."

"After dinner can we go on alien patrol?" asked Paul.

"Maybe just a little bit," I said. "It's pretty cold out. Maybe just down to the paper company."

""You know, I was in a book about the paper company," mused Biz.

"Hmm?" Suddenly, she had my attention. "Which book?"

"I don't remember, my old parents told me about it. It was some sort of anniversary book for the paper company."

"I probably have a copy around here someplace," I said.

"I'd love to see it," said Biz. "I was little at the time. I was in some sort of group photo or something. If you can find that, I'd love to take a look."

"I'll look around," I said. "Meanwhile, we have chowder to eat."

The book I thought Biz was referring to was the centennial anniversary book. It was a huge thing stored not far from my desk. I took it with me and paged through it while I worked my lobby shift---With the library locking down again, we needed a door dragon. I didn't see any photos that could have matched in the book; it was all black and white older stuff.

Zach took over the lobby after an hour. I went back to my desk and reshelved the book. There was another paper company book shelved right behind my desk. I like the feeling that I'm right in the middle of all the history. But this one didn't have any photos at all.

I did what I usually do when I can't find something, and went to Tracey.

"Hey, Tracey," I said,"I'm looking for a book on the paper company. I don't know which book; I'm looking for a specific picture."

"Did you try the anniversary---"

"Yeah, I tried that one."

"There was another one behind----"

"Yeah, tried that too."

Tracey considered it. "I can't recall, offhand, if there are more, but check around the Piper stuff. If there's anything much on Lock Haven's industry, it'll be there."

"That's a good idea. Thanks."

The Piper books were shelved in a corner of the old part of the library. I looked past them---I had most of them memorized anyway---And then I found it, another, newer book on the paper company. I took it off the shelf. 

Published in 2002. That was plausible. Biz would have been about fourteen in 2002, just before I'd taken her in. I pulled it off the shelf and looked through it. There were some modern photos, color ones taken not, comparatively, that long ago. I carried it back to my desk; it was probably the right book.

I sat and paged through it, looking at the photos one at a time. There were several that might have been Biz as a little girl. I realized that I'd never seen a picture of her before I'd met her. I marked the pages.

It was cold and cloudy on Main Street as I walked down on my lunch break. I was wearing my sweatshirt with Santa and aliens that said I want to believe Santa is out there. I looked up at the window as I passed the thrift store, and I saw them: Blue pajamas with Yetis on them, hanging in the window.

I hadn't been in a thrift store in months. I put my mask on and walked in,

"Hi, Lou," said the cashier. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Been pretty busy," I said. "How much are the Yeti pajamas in the window? I can't see a price."

"Ten ninety-nine," she said. 

"Deal," I said.

Two minutes later, I left with a bag under my arm. My new Yeti pajamas. Merry Christmas to me.

"Got new Yeti pajamas," I said to Tif as we sat in the living room. Paul was on the floor, playing with Gwen the pug. I was paging through the newspaper, looking over the obits.

"Are those the ones I saw hanging in the window downtown?" she asked.

"Those are the ones. I had to have them."

"Of course."

'Of course. Have you ever seen a childhood photo of Biz?"

Tif thought it over. "Now that you mention it, no. The oldest photos I can remember are her as a teenager. I've given you some photos from when I was a little girl...."

"Yeah, I know what you looked like. I have them in a frame on my desk."

"You know what I looked like," commented Paul.

"Yes, you were fourteen hours old when we met. But I don't think I've ever seen a very old photo of Biz."

"It's like she just popped into existence as a teenager one day," mused Tif.

"That would explain a lot, actually," I agreed. "I may have tracked down the book she was in."

"Oh, that's nice."

"The library has it. Now I need to see if I can find her a copy for Christmas."

When I got in to work, the annual round of holiday exchanges was beginning. There were cards and gifts in my mailbox---A small decoration from the Boss, a mask with the Ross Library logo from Barb. I said,"I love this! You have them made up?"

"I did," said Barb. "I thought it would be pretty cool."

"You thought right," I said, and headed back to my desk to look through the paper mill book.

The book was a limited-edition thing. I couldn't just order it on Amazon. I had to find someone who'd had a copy, and was willing to part with it. Part of the book was a collection of photos of employees---I began paging through.

I saw one guy whose name sounded familiar. Matthew Horn. Where had I seen that recently? Zach came around to pick up the garbage.

"Doing some research on the paper mill, Lou?" he asked.

"You could say that," I said. "Did you know it was founded by the family of a cult leader? Peter Armstrong founded a town called Celestia in Sullivan County because he thought Jesus was coming back and needed a place to stay. His son and grandson moved here and created the paper mill."

"I think you told me that once."

"They don't mention that part in most of the promotional materials," I said. Matthew Horn. Where the hell had I encountered that name?

It occurred to me after a moment.

"Zach, did yesterday's paper come in? Would it still be in quarantine?"

"It should be. You need it?"

"Well, I need a look."

I pulled on rubber gloves and walked back to the gallery. In the Before Times, we'd held art shows there. Now, it was the roped-off quarantine area for anything coming into the library. I looked at the bins---The newspapers were sitting right on top.

I picked up the Express from yesterday, and flipped to the obits. There he was, the paper mill employee I'd noticed in the book. Matthew Horn had just died, and I'd spotted his obit in the paper.

And there it was, down at the bottom of the obit.

Donations may be made to the Ross Library.

I found Barb back in the back office, at her desk. 

"Hey, Barb."

"What's wrong with the schedule?" she asked.

"What? No. What? Not that. I have a question about donations. Have we gotten anything from the Matthew Horn estate?"

"Let me check." Barb flipped through one of her files, and said,"Yes. We got a box of books."

"What happened to it?"

"We sent it into the garage for next year's book sale."

"That's what I needed. Thanks."

"Did you get that request for the obit I left on your desk?"

"Yeah, got that. An inquiry into an old photo of East Main Street, too."

I walked out to the garage. Books were boxed up, piled along the walls. The library van was parked in there, too, which made it a tight fit for me to move around. I looked at the boxes, checking for any labels that might help.

None of them were labeled. I dug through a few, and didn't see anything that looked right. Mostly romance paperbacks. I found a Dave Barry book I didn't have already. There was a wooden ladder attached to one wall, and it led up to a small loft. I'd noticed it years ago, and never really thought much about it after that. I climbed to the top.

Ladders. My goddamn holiday was revolving around ladders for some reason.

There were a few more boxes in the loft. I lifted the lid from one, and saw one of the other paper company books. That looked promising. With one hand, still dangling from the ladder, I reached over and began shoving things out of the way. 

I spotted them almost immediately---Two copies of the book I needed.

I smiled.

Merry Christmas, Biz.

We pulled up outside her place, and Biz got in the car. Michelle pulled out, and we drove through Lock Haven.

"Where are we looking at Christmas lights?" Michelle asked.

"I thought we'd go to Woolrich and McElhattan," I said. "I'm told they've got some good ones out there. We can drive on out and see."

"Nice," said Biz. "Look, guys, this year I won't be able to spend much on presents, but I can bring groceries to Christmas. What do you need?"

"Biz, don't worry about it," I said. "Bring a side dish or something if you like, but you don't have to get us anything. We're just glad to have you come for Christmas."

"Well, I wanted  to bring something."

"Bring soda," said Michelle.

"Speaking of Christmas gifts," I said. I dug into my packet. "I got you one, Biz."

I pulled out the book and passed it to her in the back seat. "I'm about eighty percent sure this is the book you're in. There are a couple of photos in there that fit the description. You can keep that."

"Thanks!" Biz took it and paged through. "I'm gonna have to give that a look later, and see if I can find it."

"Merry Christmas, hon," I said.

#75: Tales From The Cryptid

I set the large envelope on the counter, and the postal employee looked at me.

"Anything liquid, perishable, explosive, or potentially hazardous?" she asked.

"Not today," I said.

"How about ghosts, goblins, or paranormal incidents?"

"Oh....Yes. It's my book about that stuff. I wasn't aware that was a requirement."

She grinned. "How about Bigfoot seen in Bald Eagle State Park? You see that?"

"My family and I just went out there to look around," I said. "It's no wonder there aren't a lot of prints reported. The ground is too rocky to leave any."

"I camp out there sometimes," she said. "Is it safe?"

"I don't see any harm," I said. "The sighting happened in the rustic campground area...."

"Oh, across the lake," she said.

I nodded. "And most of the reports of Bigfoot I've ever heard show no real threat. He tends to be shy, and runs away from loud noises."

"Well," she said,"My barking dog would take care of that."

I stood in the lobby doorway, looking out at the parking lot. Zach paused nearby. "Standing guard, Lou?"

"Watching the film crew unpack," I said. "I'm being filmed for a documentary today. They just got here."

Zach squinted at me. "Seriously? It's hard to tell with you."

"Oh, yeah. A woman named Jess came in from New Jersey to talk to me. She's doing a documentary on thunderbirds, and I've written about them." I turned from the doorway. "We'll be up in the Sloan Room."

"So what's your theory on thunderbirds?" asked Jess, a young blonde woman from New Jersey. She was standing behind the video camera, sitting on a tripod. I sat in the Sloan Room with my Bigfoot Saw Me But Nobody Believes Him sweatshirt.

"It's hard to say, but one possibility is a normal large bird off their usual territory," I answered. "The Andean Condor can get up to twelve feet in wingspan, but they're usually down in the Andes. If one happens to fly up here....Well, it's notable. It would be viewed as a monster."

"And would you say there's just one thunderbird, or a whole population of them?"

"It would have to be a whole population," I said. "We tend to talk about these things as if it's just one---Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster---But in actuality, one creature couldn't exist for hundreds of years. There would have to be many of them, living out their lifespans. This leads to a problem sometimes common to water monsters---The Population Problem. You have to figure out if their territory can support a whole family of them for any length of time."

"You handle this scientifically," said Jess.

"I try to. When I research, it's all about the proof. Some people don't seem to get that---Recently, I wrote an article about thunderbirds for the newspaper, hoping a witness might come forward. There's a local guy who is oddly obsessed with criticizing my work, and he wrote in, mocking my column. I think I have a new arch-enemy."

"Ooooh."

"I've been wanting one," I said. "I was considering putting an ad in the classifieds. My counterpart out in Iowa, Melody, suggested I call him Moriarty. It's fitting; he's an ex-professor."

"And what are your views on cryptids, scientifically?"

"You never know. People thought that other animals were imaginary, too---Pandas, gorillas, platypuses. All thought to not be real, until someone finally captured the first one. Then we knew it was real. Think what we'll know tomorrow."

Happens all the time. I'm on my way home, and someone flags me down because I'm well-known. I've started to have some understanding as to why Charlie Sheen went nuts. This time it was nice old guy in Mary's Alley, who came running out when he saw me coming on my bike.

"Hey! Lou!"

I stopped. He said,"You wrote that article on thunderbirds the other week. I saw one when I was a kid."

"Really?" I said. "I was hoping someone would come forward."

"It was about 1951," he said. "I was about eleven or twelve. My family had a cabin up along the Renovo Road, and I saw a big bird---I mean BIG. It looked like an eagle, but I've seen eagles. It was way bigger than that."

"I have a couple of friends working on thunderbird projects," I said. "A book and a documentary. Would you mind if they contacted you? They've been looking for witnesses."

"Sure," he said. "I read all your stuff."

I genuinely mean to call my dad more often. I mean, I want to, but then I get busy. I have good intentions, but you know what the road to Hell is paved with.

"Hi, Dad," I said when he picked up the phone. "Been trying to call you."

"Yeah, I saw you'd called a few times but didn't leave a message."

"Well, it was nothing pressing. Grandparents' Day was three weeks ago, but I was counting on you not knowing that."

"I didn't know that, in fact."

"Happy Grandparents' Day!"

"So, what else is new?"

"Paul's in virtual school. I self-published a book to make money for Highland Cemetery recently. How are you doing?"

"Well, since I have you on the phone, I may as well tell you," he said. "I tested positive."

It was a slow enough day that I was reading a Justice League comic book at my desk. Since I order the comic books, it's also quality control, which means I was technically working when Holly, the assistant children's librarian, walked into the old section of the building.

"Hey, Holly," I said. "Looking for something?"

"Just space," she said. "I needed to come down for a minute. It's getting a bit crowded up there; I couldn't stay six feet away from people."

"Ah, gotcha. Feel free to hang out here in the mayor's mansion area."

"I mean, you wouldn't think people would want to risk it."

"My father has Coronavirus," I said.

"Oh, no," she said. "I'm so sorry, Lou."

"He says it's mild," I said. "He says he's experiencing nothing more than a cough, and my brother has tested negative. Dad's been out in the woods mostly, hunting with his crossbow."

"Well, that's good."

"Mostly, yeah. I'm just worried." I leaned forward in my chair. It was the most vulnerable I'd ever let myself be in front of a children's librarian. "That's how it is in my family---Someone could be bleeding out their eyes, and my father would assure us it was no big thing. Don't worry, no problem was the story we got about my mother's cancer, and she died in eight months."

"Are you going to visit?" Holly asked.

I shook my head. "No plans to visit for Thanksgiving or Christmas. We have Paul to think of. It's been a year since I've seen my father, but that's the pandemic, you know? We're staying here in Lock Haven."

"That's the smart thing to do," agreed Holly. "I suppose I should be getting back upstairs now. I hope it's cleared out a little."

"Well, if you need to distance more later, come on down," I said. "Haunted part of the building's usually empty."

"....And if you look in these cemetery indexes, you can find any marked grave in the county," I said. "Any questions?"

Jayne, our new person, shook her head. "Not yet. Can I help you?"

She looked up at LaKeshia, my editor for the Pennsylvania Wilds, who had just walked into the PA Room. I said,"She's here for me. Hi, LaKeshia. You wanted a map, right?"

LaKeshia nodded, looking over her shoulder. "My boyfriend is over looking for a book. I wanted to see about an old map that I could have photographed, so I can frame it for a Christmas present. Do you have anything like that?"

"Yeah, I found a couple." I dug into the file in the closet, and came out with a copy of the 1869 map. We unrolled it on the table. "You have someone to photograph this?"

"I'm thinking Bill."

"Good choice."

"Is there any way I can borrow this without my boyfriend seeing....?"

"Since it's you, I'll authorize it," I said. "You parked in the main lot?"

"Yeah."

"I'll meet you there," I said.

I rolled up the map, walked across my office, and ducked out the porch door behind my desk. I walked around the building and beat LaKeshia to her car.

"Wow," she said. "How did you manage that?"

"I know where all the secret passages are."

We put the map in her trunk. I said,"By the way, there have been some Bigfoot sightings in Bald Eagle State Park recently. Paul and I have been out investigating. Sound like a good article?"

"Sure," she said. "I thought of you recently, by the way. I was at a conference in the Kane Manor, and I thought of that haunted article you wrote about it."

"Let me know if you need anything else," I said, and went back inside.

I needed some time to myself, alone. I felt like a Squonk. Fortunately the library is full of hidden places that nobody knows about. I went up into the attic.

In the spring, when we'd come back from quarantine, I'd discovered a small crawlspace nobody knew about before. You'd think in a building that was a hundred and thirty-three years old, we'd know them all by now, but apparently nobody had ever checked before. I pushed my way behind a shelf---I'd meant to move that back into place, and never gotten around to it---And crawled into the crawlspace.

It was empty, but made a good hiding space. Fortress Of Solitude. Except in the attic. I sat for a while, curled up against the wall.

I'm not sure how long I was there. I sat in the dark and didn't look at my watch. Finally I came back out and walked downstairs.

I stopped at the desk, where Zach was working.

"Back in a few minutes," I said. "I'm going out."

I rode up the Renovo Road to one of the big parks. It was reasonably close to where the thunderbird sighting had taken place, and as it was over sixty years ago, that would do. I parked my bike and walked through the grass and trees.

I looked down at the river. The Susquehanna ran right along the Renovo Road, coming from the Chesapeake and running clear to New York. Technically this meant that Chessie the sea serpent should have been able to visit Lock Haven, but I saw no evidence of that happening. I got my cell phone out of my pack and dialed Resurrection Casey.

She picked up. "Hey, boss."

"Hi, Casey. You got a minute?"

"I got nothing but minutes. I'm out along Trout Creek looking for squonks."

"Finding any?"

"No, they're about as good at social distancing as I am. What's up?"

"I'm near the Susquehanna, checking into thunderbirds. You able to look something up for me?"

"You know, you already own a cell phone. Just a little upgrade, and you could look these things up yourself."

"I'm happier making you do it. I need you to find out if birds migrate using water as a directive."

"Just a second....." I could hear Casey doing something on the other end. Then she came back on. "Quick search says that yes, birds can use water to navigate. You think that accounts for your thunderbird sighting?"

"Could be," I said. "A large bird, say a condor, that's not normally in the area....Something like that could have used the river to come up from the ocean and get off its usual territory. Around the same time, there was also a sighting in Jersey Shore, which is along the river, too."

"Sounds like a possibility," she said. "That answer what you needed?"

"It does, yeah," I said. "You headed back inside now?"

"Nah, I thought I'd stay out a while."
"Yeah," I said. "Me too."

"We got a flood," Paul announced proudly to Tif as she pulled up to the front door in her wheelchair.

"You did?" She looked at me.

I nodded. "Michelle called me home from work on Saturday. The guy came to fix the bathroom faucet and couldn't. Michelle turned the water back on without checking it, and the sink overflowed into the bathroom and ran down to the kitchen. I came home to find enough water on the floor to float Raystown Ray."

"The best part was the corner," said Paul,"Because you could swim there."

"Paul didn't seem to see too much of a downside to the whole thing," I said.

"Will we still be able to do Thanksgiving?" asked Tif.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "We pretty much got it cleaned up. Paul asked if we could keep the plumber's Shop-Vac. Your chair got a pretty god soaking, but we're drying it."

"Thanksgiving at home this year," mused Tif.

"Dad's tested positive," I said. "I been worried. And, honestly, I'm enraged. You have no idea the fury I am feeling right now."

"I've been pretty furious, too," said Tif.

"We've been doing this since fucking March," I said,"And it's dragging out because people won't cooperate. And now people are traveling for Thanksgiving. I haven't seen my father in a year. So glad selfish assholes get to have a great Thanksgiving with their families. Meanwhile, because of them, I have to spend the holiday worried about my father."

"Have you called your brother?"

"It's the busiest season on the farm. I don't want to bother him unless I have to."

"Stuffing's ready," said Michelle, setting it on the table. I was standing by the stove, carving the turkey with the big knife. I always stated with the drumsticks and neat, clean slices, and then deteriorated as I want until I was basically just ripping chunks off.

"I want a drumstick," said Paul.

"I want a drumstick, too," said Biz.

"Drumsticks for the two youngest," I said, delivering the tray to the table. Everyone started taking food. I took a stick of celery with cream cheese---That had been a tradition in my family, and to this day, I have no idea whether it was really a thing, or my grandmother invented it herself.

"The white meat isn't dry at all," said Tif. "Let's go around the table and say something we're thankful for."

"Youngest goes first," said Paul. "I'm thankful for my family. And my dogs. And Ida."

"I'm thankful," I said,"That I have a family that gets into my adventures."

"Are you crying?" asked Michelle.

"No. I been drinking."

"I want a devilled egg," said Paul. "I helped make them. And I'm going to use my knife and fork, because manners."

"So when are we going on another adventure, anyway?" asked Biz. "It's been a while."

"Well, I do want to get out to Wildwood Cemetery in Lycoming County sometime," I said. "I've heard rumors of banshees out there."

After dinner and a couple of board games, I went up to my office. I sat down and wrote an article on voter fraud in Chapman Township in 1837. Then I picked up the phone and dialed Dad's number.

Just when I thought it was going to go to the answering machine again, he picked up. "Hello."

"Happy Thanksgiving, Dad. How you doing?"

"I'm well."

"That's good. I been concerned. Last time I talked to you, you'd tested positive."

"I'm fine. I had a couple of very bad nights, and then I got checked, and it came back negative."

"That's good to hear," I said. "I'm glad."

"Back in a minute, guys," I said at the desk. "Gotta run downtown a bit."

I walked down the staff stairs, grabbed my bike, and ran down Main Street. I parked in front of the post office and walked in.

"Anything liquid, perishable, explosive, or potentially hazardous?" the woman asked.

"Nope," I said. "Just my recent book. I'm sending it to my Dad."

Tours De Force

I walked out of the house in my black ghost shirt and my waterproof blue overcoat. Paul followed me as far as the porch steps.

"Back later tonight, little man," I said. "Gonna see how my new bike works, and give a haunted tour. Make some money for the library."

"Yeah!" he cheered. "Haunted tour!"

"Yeah!" I cheered back.

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"YEAH!"

"YEAH!"

Michelle and Tif came out onto the porch. I said,"Hopefully I'll be back before bedtime."

"This is gonna be every night for a while, isn't it?" asked Tif.

I nodded. "Due to COVID, I'm only allowed ten people per tour. So I had to split them into two weeks' worth of tours, pre-paid. Tonight's the first---I get out among the ghosts. I admit I'm a little jumpy. It's been a long time since I did a tour."

"Good luck, Dad."

"Let's hope it works," I said. "You wanna haunt this town? Then tonight, you work for me."

Monday, October 19

"Thank you for coming," I said to the young couple. "Thanks for braving the rain to support the Ross Library. Have either of you ever been on one of my tours before?"

The woman raised her hand. I said,"Okay, well, this one has some new stories and some old stories. My name is Lou, and I'm field leader of the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers. It's important to note that I can prove everything I say---All of this is researched. I take pride in that---If I say someone died in a house, I can show you a document that proves it. Our first story is right here, the Ross Library, haunted by our founder, Annie Halenbake Ross. You guys ready to have some fun?"

Tuesday, October 20

"Hundreds of years ago, the Native Americans called the Susquehanna River Valley 'Otzinachson'," I said to the crowd, which included three children. "It meant 'The Demon's Den,' and they believed the area to be haunted. Much later, when Lock Haven was settled, a lot of it was built over their burial grounds. One of the sites was the Catholic school, right over there."

I pointed, and the kids got all excited. The little girl said,"That's our school! We go there every day!"

"I'm gonna tell all my friends!" said one of the boys.

"If you'll follow me, we'll talk about some more haunted sites in Lock Haven," I said. And I walked to the sidewalk, everyone following. 

An hour later, I got to the final stop on the tour. "This church, in 1905, was the site of a haunting, when the ghost of the murdered Vincent James Sesto appeared at his own funeral to accuse his killer."

The kids got all excited again. "That's our church! We go there every Thursday!"

"I wonder if Father Orr knows!" said the little girl.

I forced a smile as I continued the story, and murmured,"I'm gonna get hate mail from the Catholics again."

Thursday, October 22

I walked into the back room, where Zach and Tracey were working. "As of tonight," I announced,"I broke my old record."
"That's great!" said Tracey, who somehow manages to still sound appreciative when I get like this.

"Back in 2016, I set a record of four hundred and fifteen dollars," I said. "With the money coming in from all the tour bookings, I'm now over five hundred, and still going. I might even break six hundred by the time it's all done."

"That's not bad," said Zach. "A pretty good profit."

"Especially considering nobody, including me, has to work all that hard for it," I said. "All I gotta do is walk around and talk about ghosts, and honestly I'd do that for free. This is gonna be a hard one to beat, though, but that's next year's problem."

Friday, October 23

"....And if you're wondering if the Fallon Hotel is on the haunted tour, don't be silly," I said. "Of course it is." I stopped on Water Street, turning to face the crowd, the old hotel behind me. "Built in 1854 for the Queen of Spain, the Fallon has had plenty of people die within its walls. Some of them have been unidentified, and buried in potter's fields in the county. Now, it's important to note that the queen never stayed here, but several famous people did. In the 1870s, one of those was Mark Twain, and---"

Several people in the crowd gasped, looking up. I glanced back. "What's up? We having some activity?"

One woman pointed. "The curtains on the second floor just moved."

"No kidding? Looks like we may have some company tonight." I smiled. "Could be a draft. But it could also be we have a visitor on the tout---Maybe the fact that I'm talking about the place every night has made them active. Keep your eyes open, okay?"

I unlocked the staff door to the library and walked inside, counting the money. I had thirty-five dollars to add to what I'd already taken in. I walked up the steps and into the main library.

I looked up. At the end of the hall I saw a light---The elevator was rising by itself. I was alone in the building, but something had started the elevator.

I smiled.

"Hi, Annie."

Saturday, October 24

"Another in the category of 'obviously on the haunted tour,'" I said as I stopped in front of the building. "The Simpson House."

The house behind me rose three stories, towering above the street. It looked genuinely haunted, as if it belonged in an old black-and-white movie where the young couple's car breaks down out front. I said,"What you're looking at is two buildings in one. This started out as the Jackman House, a small, square, plain-looking brick building. D.K. Jackman sold it to Wlliam Simpson, who took some teasing from his so-called friends for being a lumber guy and having a brick house. So he had wood panels carved, and built up around the Jackman House. He didn't damage the structure at all, just basically wrapped it up. Now, I understand we have two women with us tonight who lived in this building, and I'd be an idiot to pass up this chance. I'm going to give them the chance to talk about what happened to them here. This is called 'Getting the public to do my job for me'."

Monday, October 26

"Thank you for coming out and supporting the Ross Library," I said to the crowd. "I hope everyone's ready to hear some ghost stories tonight. Now, I'm making a little change to the tour from here on in---I'm bringing along some of my equipment. As I give the tour, I'll be doing a little investigating." I held up the laser thermometer. There was a homeless guy on the patio behind me.

Everyone gasped, a small round of applause rippled through the crowd. I said,"We had a little activity at two of the sites the other night. I think the ghosts are getting a little more active. So I'm going to do a few tests, and see if we can catch any evidence."

Tuesday, October 27

"What time you need me tomorrow?" Tif asked. "Noon, or one?"

"One, tomorrow," I said, walking beside her on the sidewalk. "Gotta give a tour after work. I have a \n author coming on my tour---The guy who wrote the Pennsylvania Fireside Tales series."

"Well, that's cool," she said. 

"It feels weird," I said. "I mean, he's a really nice guy. But the famous ghost writer is coming on my tour? Who the hell am I?"

Tif laughed. "You know people feel that way about you, right?"

"Yeah, that feels weird, too."

Thursday, October 29

"Hi, I overheard a guy the other night saying someone died in the building? I wondered if I could hear more about that?"

"You want History," Zach said. "Guy at the desk back there."

The homeless guy from the other evening came around the corner. "Hi," he said. "I overheard you the other night....You were giving a tour or something? Said someone died in the building?"

"Well, died while still living here," I said. "Annie Halenbake Ross and Mary Elizabeth Crocker both died while still living in the building. Annie's funeral was held about here, at my desk."

"I was playing with an app on my phone at the time," he said. "It reviews radio frequencies. And at the time, a voice came through. A female voice that said,'I'm aware you're here.'"

"Oh, yeah?" I grinned---Not that you could see it behind the mask. "That's pretty cool. We've been getting some activity lately; I think my constant talking about the ghosts has riled them up."

"I thought you'd like to hear that," he said.

"Yes," I said. "Thanks for letting me know."

Friday, October 30

I stood in the library's restroom, drying my mask off under the hand dryer. It's incredible how damp those things get after you wear them all day. When I was done, I shoved it in my pocket and walked to my desk. 

I could hear the elevator going up and down, all by itself. Again. I smiled, and checked the weather. Gonna be a cold night.

Pulling on my coat, I went outside.

To my delight, SaraLee was waiting outside when I got there for the final tour. I gave her a hug.

"I know we're supposed to be socially distancing, but...."

"I know," she said. "Screw COVID."

I turned to the crowd. "We have a special guest with us tonight. My partner SaraLee, from the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers, came along tonight to join us. Now, I'm hoping for more activity tonight---We've had plenty this week. I just saw the elevator moving on its own inside the building." I smiled at the crowd. "Thank you for coming out to support the Ross Library. I'm a member of LHPS. My name is Lou."

Exhausted, I unlocked the back door and walked into my house. Duke and Gwen were curled up, asleep on their dog beds. I dropped my pack in the corner and dumped my coat on the chair.

I walked up the stairs, quietly, and changed my shirt and my sneakers. I glanced into Paul's room.

My son was asleep, sprawled out in his bed. I leaned over and gave him a kiss while he slept. He stirred just a little bit, and then settled.

I looked at my son for a moment, my little growing boy, sleeping in his room.

Home.

Sasquatches In The Mist

"Lou? Phone's for you."

"Thanks, Zach." I set down a stack of books on Pennsylvania hauntings, and picked up my line. "Hi, can I help you?"

"Hi, I was wondering if you have a book about Bigfoot sightings in Clinton County."

It was an older voice, female. I said,"Specifically Clinton County?"

"Well, yes. I have a brother who moved to West Virginia. He's really interested in that, and I was hoping to send him a book about where Bigfoot has been sighted around here."

"Well, that's pretty specific, ma'am," I said. "We have plenty of books about Bigfoot, and some on Pennsylvania, but nothing I'm aware of that's localized to Clinton County."

"Oh....I was hoping you might have written one."

"Haven't gotten to that yet," I said. "I have done a few articles. If you'd like to stop by, I can print off a few for you."

"I can do that," she said. "I'll be there in an hour."

I sat down at my desk and opened my e-mail. It was packed---I deleted all the junk mail, and then was left with three messages forwarding me a Bigfoot sighting not too far away. Several people had considered that worthy of notifying me. Apparently when Bigfoot comes up in conversation, I'm the guy who comes to mind.

This happens. Someone writes about a local ghost, a monster, a buried treasure---And my network of friends all have to send it to me. It's one way I stay informed on these things.

I did a search on myself---Yeah, I google myself, get over it---And found a couple of my old articles about Bigfoot. I printed them off.

"Anything new and interesting, Lou?" Zach asked as I walked to the desk.

I shrugged, picking up my printouts. "Bigfoot sighting. The usual."

A woman stopped at the desk. She was wearing a mask with panda bears on it.

"I'm looking for Lou?"

"That'd be me," I said.

"I called," she said. "About the Bigfoot articles."

"Oh, yes. Here you go." I handed her the articles. "Hope this helps."

"I was hoping there was a book that I could send him," she said. "He's really interested."

"Well, that's a fairly narrow topic, ma'am," I said. "I mean, there are Bigfoot books, and books about Clinton County in general. But I can't think of anything that combines both."

"Oh. Do you have nay Bigfoot ones for sale?"
"Not here, no. But you might want to look into 'Weird Pennsylvania'. That's a pretty good one about Bigfoot in a lot of areas."

"But not Clinton County."

"Not specifically, no."

"Well, I don't believe in this, but he does."

"You never know," I said. "Panda bears were considered mythical, until a live one was captured."

She looked at me in surprise. "Really? I love pandas!"

"I noticed the mask. Yeah, early explorers to Asia came back with stories of black and white bears, and they were told there was no such thing. They were considered a myth. Until the first one was captured. Now we know them to be actual animals. So don't discount Bigfoot, offhand---New species are discovered every day."

I parked my bike in the garage---New bike, a jet black thing with blue and green trim, and I was being careful with it. Carrying the grocery bags, I walked up to the haunted house. You get used to it when the haunted house is yours.

I walked in the back door. A little elderly Schnauzer was lying on the kitchen floor, crying because he couldn't stand up. I set the bags on the counter.

"Oh, Kasper," I said. I knelt down and picked him up. He nestled his head into my shoulder. 

Almost three years ago, we'd taken in two sweet little senior Schnauzers who'd needed homes. Mickey and Kasper. Mickey had died from cancer a year ago, and Kasper was getting older and older. I'd been resisting thinking too much about that. More and more, he'd been unable to stand and walk.

I laid him down in his bed. "Here you go, little guy. Take a nap. I love you, little buddy."

He was still lying on the bed the next morning. His breathing was shallow, and he was barely moving. I was glad Paul wasn't awake to see this. I sat down on the couch and looked at him.

"I love you, Kasper," I whispered. "I've always loved you. Ever since we got you, you've been a good dog." I started to cry. "We're gonna take you to the vet, and he's going to make it so you're not hurting anymore, okay? You'll be happy and playing with Mickey soon. I love you, Kasper. I love you. You've been a good dog."

That night, Kasper was gone.

"Daddy?" Paul looked around the corner of the doorway. "I can't sleep. Can I sit with you?"

"Five minutes," I said. "Then back to bed." Paul hates to sleep. Anti-bedtime is his only actual strong political position. We go through this practically every night.

He crawled into my lap. "I miss Kasper."

"I miss him, too," I said. "I miss the little guy a lot."

He began to cry. "All I want is for Mickey and Kasper to still be here."

It doesn't sound like much when you put it that way, does it? I hugged him. "I know, little man. Me, too. But they knew we loved them. And maybe they're playing together now."

He cried for a little while, and I held him.

"Are you working tomorrow, Daddy?"

"No, I'm off tomorrow," I said. "I'll have all day to spend with you."

"Can we do something fun?"

"Sure," I said. "Maybe a hike?"

"I love hikes."

"Well, about three different people have sent me an article about Bigfoot down in Bald Eagle State Park."

"Where's Bald Eagle State Park?"

"Remember when we went to that firefly program? That's where."

"Okay," he said. "Let's look for Bigfoot."

"Tomorrow," I said. "Right now, it's time for bed."

"Where was this Bigfoot sighting?" my wife asked as we drove through Bald Eagle State Park.

"Hard to tell," I said. "I'm a little dubious on the reliability of it, in all honesty. The witness mentioned Pine Creek, which isn't even in the same county. But I know he was camping in Bald Eagle State Park, and got up to go to the bathroom. He said he saw the Bigfoot walking near the creek that night."

"This is really remote," said Michelle, looking around.

"We oughta camp here sometime."

"I don't know," said Michelle. "What about bears?"

"Bears are a concern anytime you camp anywhere. The trick is knowing what to do."

"Well, then, you need to teach us what to do."

"Paul?" I said. "What do you do with a wild animal?"

"Lift me up," said Paul. "And pick up your jacket so you look big."

'There you go," I said. 

"There's restrooms up here," said Michelle. "Should we park there?"

"As good as anyplace, I suppose," I said.

We got out of the car. The weather had gotten colder, and I was wearing my black Bigfoot Saw Me But Nobody Believes Him shirt and my lack leather jacket. I said,"All living things need water. We'll walk down toward the lake. There's a path over here that's not listed on the map."

Paul looked at the sign. "Log....Slide....Trail," he read carefully.

He started walking down the trail. Michelle said,"It is safe to let him run ahead like that?"

"He's wearing a Rainbow Dash jacket and pink tights," I said. "Kid dresses for visibility. He's also loud as hell pretty much constantly. We're not gonna lose him."

We walked down the trail. I said,"Look at all this rocky terrain. It's not a surprise I don't hear more reports of footprints out here."

"I heard a noise, Daddy," said Paul. 

"What did it sound like?"

"Sort of like arrrrrrrrooooooo."

"Well, that does sound like Bigfoot, allright. And what does the Loch Ness Monster say?"

"Three-fifty."

I stopped on the hill and looked into the woods. Michelle said,"What is it?"

"Probably nothing." There were broken branches propped up against a tree in a more or less conical fashion. "I've heard reports of Bigfoot shelters, where people find sticks propped up in the woods. Almost certainly campers or hikers, but it doesn't hurt to check."

I took a couple of photos of the branches, clearly deliberately placed against the tree. I walked around the tree, examining the ends of the branches. 

"What are you looking for?" Michelle asked.

"Well, any indicators," I said. "These branches weren't sawed off, they were snapped off. Which doesn't prove anything, actually. Obviously it was done by someone without access to saws, but that doesn't rule out a camper up here."

"But nothing says it wasn't Bigfoot," said Michelle.

"No," I said. "That's true. Nothing rules it out."

"Daddy? I can't sleep."

Again. It was every night lately. Paul was having a hard time dealing with the loss, which is understandable when you're six. I said,"Come here, sit down a minute."

He curled up with me on the couch. He said,"I wrote this."

He handed me a torn piece of paper. On it, he'd scrawled I LOVE YOU TOO MUCK MICKEY AND KASPER.

"Oh, buddy." I hugged him. "You can't love someone too much. There's no limit. We loved Mickey and Kasper, and we made them happy to live here. We're going to miss them, but it was good to have had them here. I'm sad, too....But things will get better again."

"Daddy? Can I sit here with you for a while?"

I nodded. 
"For a while, little guy. Sure."

The Fall Of The House Of Fishburn

There weren't supposed to be kids in the Tiger Den.

I was on my way home from work after a busy day with a three-hour webinar from hell. Last year at this time, I'd have stopped to lock up the Tiger Den, the local playground in my neighborhood. But that was in the Before Times, when Coronavirus hadn't closed everything down. The Tiger Den was supposed to be locked to avoid spreading the virus.

But I was seeing it---Gate open, lock missing, and kids playing on the swings. I stopped for a moment and watched. One of the girls from the grocery store across the street was watching, and she said,"I thought the parks were supposed to be closed."
"Yeah, they are," I said. "I should call the mayor." I always feel pretentious saying stuff like that.
I dug my cell phone out of my pack. Five minutes later, Mayor Joel was getting out of his car.
"What the hell?" he said as he approached the gate.
"Yeah, I know," I said. "Lock's completely gone."
He looked it over. "Someone just took it off the chain," he said. "Could be someone making a political statement."
"Yeah, I thought about that."
"I have a temporary one for now," he said. "I'll send somebody to replace it with a better one in the morning." He clipped one on. "I mean, who would do this? Makes me mad."
"Yeah, I knew you wouldn't be thrilled about this."
Joel laughed. "Nah, you did the right thing by letting me know. Thanks."
"You know how to find me if you need anything," I said. "Gonna go home and tell my son how I teamed up with the mayor to save the Tiger Den."

"Dutcavich....Etters....Fegler..."

I stood in my office, filing the obituary cards for the Pennsylvania Room. The Ross Library has newspapers going back as far as 1813, and a new part of my job was to file the new index cards as they came in. I'd been at it maybe an hour.

So I took a break for a moment. Messing with history wears you out. I sat down at my desk and checked my e-mail, and I was surprised to find a message from someone I hadn't heard from in a while.

I flipped through the index, and then stopped, looking at one of the cards. I laughed. Pulling it from the drawer, I walked over to my co-workers at the desk.

"You guys gotta see this," I said. "Death of a kid in 1876. Look at the name."

Mel squinted at the card. "Fishburn. Edgar Allan Poe Fishburn."

"Edgar Allan Poe Fishburn," I repeated. "The perfect find for October. I wonder if his parents were fans."

"You have to assume so," said Barb. 

"Let me guess," said Tracey. "You're going to dig into this a little more."

"I think I will," I admitted. "I might find something I can use on a tour, actually, or write about. I mean, how do you not look into a kid named after Poe? I'll see if I can find his grave, but personally, I'm hoping he's buried under floorboards, or sealed in a wall or something."

"Got an e-mail from John today," I told my wife.
"John...."
"Piper Museum."
"Oh, right, the president," she said. "They want you back?"
"He asked if I'd be willing to take on the Piper newsletter again," I said. "They haven't had one since I left, and he said it was often a pretty good fundraiser."
"You gonna do it?" Michelle asked.
"I'm thinking about it,"  I said.
A few years ago, I'd been curator of an airplane museum on the east end of Lock Haven. Though I'd loved the work, I'd felt I wasn't spending enough time with my son, and I'd resigned two years ago. Since then, I'd gone on to some other things that took up less time.
"I'm going to meet with him," I said. "Sometimes I miss the museum, though not as much as I'd thought I would, and I really miss John. We'll sit down in his office like we used to, and talk things over."
"Are you taking Paul down?"
"Thought I might," I said. "He always loved the place. It'll be good to see the Aztec again."

It had been two years.

I hadn't seen the inside of the Piper Museum since I'd resigned in 2018. I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed it until I walked inside with Paul, seeing all the artifacts and displays again.

"They still have the Super Cruiser model," I said. "I hung this up myself."

The receptionist, Stacey, came around the corner. She was visibly surprised to see me. "Hi, Lou," she said. "What can I do for you?"

"Came to meet with John," I said. "Is he around?"

"He's out to lunch. You remember how that goes."

"I do. I'll get with him later if I have to. Okay if I go walk through the hangar?"

"Sure. Help yourself."

Paul and I walked down to the hangar, and strolled around the planes. I touched the Aztec, which had always been my favorite plane.

Hello, old friend. I've missed you.

"Daddy, don't touch stuff," said Paul.

"Yeah, you're right," I said. "Look. This green one is new---A new Tri-Pacer. This wasn't here when I was."

"Cool," said Paul.

I started with the newspapers.

It took me a while, with the microfilm. The further back you go, the screwier it gets, but I'm probably the person in the county who is most used to that. Finally I found it in a blurry column at the top of page four, the son of Dr. J.H. and Rebecca Fishburn, with a scribble of poem included.

I checked the cemetery records, and to my surprise found most of his family buried in Highland. His mother, brother, and sister were buried in Section 11, over the top of the hill. I checked the rest of the county---Sometimes weird things happen---And didn't find Edgar anywhere. His grave was unmarked, which was probably about right for a kid named after Poe.

So I grabbed a city directory and looked for the houses. Interestingly, his brother had grown up to live on my street, and married the daughter of Mayor William Elliott, who lived next door. His mother had lived at 315 East Main Street.

Every one of them had died young, including Mayor Elliott.

Nevermore.

"Maybe there will be people on top of that building again," Paul commented as we sat down at the table with our Chinese food.

"Maybe." The city had been opening up downtown areas for outdoor dining on the weekends---One little positive effect of the pandemic. Michelle dug into the bag and passed out our food.

"I chose something to surprise you," she said. "Picked it from the spicy menu."

"Looks good," I said. "I could use a little bit of spicy today." I opened the egg rolls. "When we're finished, you want to take a ride up to Highland Cemetery?"

"Yay! Highland!" said Paul.

"We got nothing else to do," Michelle agreed.

After dinner, we rode up to Highland Cemetery in the Prius. Michelle said,"Where are we going?"

"Section I."

"I have no idea where that is."

"Take the lower loop, the back way around to the hill."

"Just tell me when to stop."

"Turn left."

We pulled up along the back end of the cemetery, and I got out. A moment later, Paul was following, wearing his black dress.

"I'm sinking, Daddy," he said.

"That's because you're wearing high heels."

"What are we looking for?"

"Graves with the name Fishburn." This kind of thing is a little easier now that Paul is learning to read.

I saw it almost immediately. Partway up the slope, I spotted the graves of Rebecca and her other children. "Here they are," I said.

Paul came over. "You found Fishtail?"

"These are the ones I needed," I said. "And here's a space, right here...."

"What do we do now?" Paul asked.

I knelt down. "This is where Edgar Allan Poe is buried," I said.

"How do you know?"
"I can tell by looking. See how there's a space here? The grass is a little greener, and the ground takes a dip. This is the grave of a child."

"It looks like I won't be going back to Piper, after all," I said, sitting down at the table. "They hired a new weekend guy, and the board thinks he can do the newsletter."

"Ah, sorry, Dad," said Tif. We were on the third floor of the library for my lunch break. "I know you were looking forward to that."

I unwrapped my sub. "Well, I'll survive. Spend more time at home with Paul. Write another book. Find a few adventures. But it was good to go and visit the place again."

Paul looked over at me. "If they need you to help sometime, will you?"

"Probably," I said. "I always did love that place. If they asked, I'd help."

"Can I come, too?"

"Sure," I said. "You can always come along and help."

"And see the planes?"

"And see the planes."

Deader Than Ever

FIVE WEEKS LATER

The imprint could have been a Sasquatch print. Could have been a puddle. It was kind of hard to tell.

I knelt in the mud, looking down at the ground in the Wayne Township forest. Upon completion of the new nature trail in the township, they'd suddenly gotten Bigfoot sightings. The township supervisors had capitalized on it by putting a wood carving of a nine-foot Sasquatch along the trail. I was doing some investigation.

"Daddy? Come look over here."

I stood up and pushed my way through the brush. I was wearing my new professional paranormal outfit---Black Bigfoot shirt with day-glow yellow stripes, yellow bandanna around my right ankle, and a black jacket with all sorts of zippers and buckles on it. I walked over to my son along the trail.

Paul is six. He was wearing his gray shirt with "Queen of Everything" written on it, and blue terrycloth shorts. I looked at what he was pointing at, in the mud.

"A Bigfoot print!" he announced.

"Hunh," I said. "You might be right, little man." The print was indistinct, but visibly a footprint. I could clearly see toes. It appeared to be about fifteen inches long---Not impossible for a person, but unusual. 

"Here's what we do," I said. "If you don't have a ruler, you lay something down beside it before taking a photo. That way, you can show how big it is." I set down my Swiss Army knife beside the footprint and fished out my camera. "Just call me Jack Link, because I am messing with Sasquatch."

"Also, I think Bigfoot went to the bathroom over there," said Paul.

"Get a sample," I said.

My name is Lou, and I live in Lock Haven.
Don't ask me what I do for a living. That's hard to describe.
I'm sort of the history expert at the public library, but I also do a lot of paranormal investigation. I write about it all for the local newspapers, a website, and the occasional magazine.
There was no box for this on the college applications. I kind of fell into it over the years, as I discovered I was really good at it.
If you got it, haunt it.

It was a cool, pleasant morning. The colored leaves were falling as I rode my bike down West Bald Eagle Street. I turned and headed toward Bellefonte Avenue, where an exercise class was doing stretches outside the local coffee shop. The instructor saw me riding by, and waved. He called out,"It's Lou! Hi, Lou!"

I waved back as the whole class turned and called out greetings. I rode into work---The Ross Library.

I put on my mask, walked in and took my temperature, and then headed up to the third floor. I walked into the monthly staff meeting. 

"You're late," said the New Boss.

I frowned. "We're supposed to be here at a time?"

"Hey, Lou," said Holly. "We took a vote while we were waiting, and we decided that the last person in should take the minutes."

I sat down. "Well, you'll definitely regret that."

"Let's talk about the annual book sale," said Mel. "It's coming up next week."

After the meeting, I walked down the back way. It's my favorite route to my desk. As you leave the third floor, you can enter the oldest part of the building, an old mansion built in 1887. I can disappear in the twisty hallways upstairs. I passed the attic door and cut past the Sloan Museum Wing, going down the back stairs to my desk.

Our founder, the woman who gave us the library, was Annie Halenbake Ross. Her funeral was about where my desk now sits, which I've always found cool. I sat down at my desk in the old, haunted building, and to type up my half-assed meeting notes.

"Let's find the brick sidewalk, Daddy!" Paul said happily as we walked down the street in the dark. It was our usual Alien Patrol---Since sometime last summer, we'd been going out at night and checking for possible UFOs. Protecting Lock Haven from aliens since 2019.

"I think it's right up here," I said. "One of my friends on city council asked me to look into it. He wants to know if the brick is original to the city, or placed later." I shined my flashlight down on the corner. "I think this is it, right here."

We knelt down, looking at the sidewalk. Down below, near the corner, it was ragged, almost randomly placed bricks. But as it went uphill, it was better preserved, and formed an actual walkway, all dark brown brick.

"Daddy! Look! This one has words on it!"

I shined my light on the brick. Stamped on it, it had the words PENN BLOCK CALDER PA. "That's a pretty good clue," I said. "We gotta look that up."

Back at the house, I pulled out my Pennsylvania map. There was no Calder on it, which was interesting. I got online, and searched the term. I found it on a page run by the Cameron County Historical Society.

I found Paul back downstairs. watching TV. I said,"Guess what, little man?"

He looked up at me. "What?"

"Those bricks came from Cameron County, way up past Kettle Creek," I said. "The town on them, Calder? It doesn't exist. A guy named Calder built the Penn Block Brick Works, and wanted to found a town with his company homes. He started making bricks with the name Calder on them, but then couldn't get the license to start the Calder Post Office, so his plan failed. So he wound up with a bunch of bricks with the name of a nonexistent town on them. When the place went out of business in 1920, a local bank bought them and sold them at a deep discount. Those bricks have probably been there a hundred years."

"Cool," said Paul.

"I'm gonna do some more digging," I said. "I can probably get an article out of this."

I used to hate meetings. Then COVID-19 hit, some asshole invented Zoom meetings, and now I hate those even more. Whose idea was it to take terrible meetings and mix them with technology so you can now do them from home?

I sat down in my office, turned on my computer, and brought up the link. The camera came on, and I saw SaraLee sitting there, wearing her gray ghost-hunting shirt.

At least this one was with someone I like.

"Hey!" she said with a smile. "How are you doing?"

"As well as anyone," I said. "How about you?"

She shrugged. "So, you said you had some ideas about the team?"

"Kind of, yeah," I said. "I think we're gonna have to start getting back out there. Things are opening up, and we have clients who've been waiting like forever. I think we're gonna need to start investigating again, but with some precautions."

"Agreed," she said. "What did you have in mind?"

"Small and limited," I said. "Maybe two of us at a time, for shorter investigations, on a volunteer basis. Masks and gloves. It's not ideal, but it's way better than nothing."

"I think you're right," she said. "Let's pitch it to the others."

"I feel bad for you, actually," I said. "You just got on the team, and then this shit happens, and we have to go on hiatus."

SaraLee laughed. "I know, right?"

"I'll contact a few clients on the waiting list," I said. "See if they're still interested. If we can't manage that, we'll go do some exploring on our own."

"Good."

"Hey," I said. "I misjudged you. I really did."

"How's that?"

"You know I had reservations about you joining the team," I said. "You know how I am about the psychics. But I was wrong. You're smart and you're active. You're exactly what we need right now. I misjudged you, and I'm sorry."

SaraLee smiled. "You mentioned that back when we met in February. You were forgiven then, and you're forgiven now. Let's do this thing."

"Hey, Ari," I said, leaning over the table. "You know those posters you made to advertise my haunted tours in October?"

Ari, our new tech person, looked up at me. "Yeah?" she said.

"Can you make a smaller version?" I asked. "Four to a page, so we can cut them and hand them out at the book sale?"

"Let me check," she said. "I think I can. I'll definitely try, and see what I can come up with."

I smiled. "I have every faith in you, Ari."

I walked through the lobby and out the library's back door, into the book sale on the patio. It was insane---People were in the aisles, staying six feet apart, and still managing to form a crowd. We had mask rules in place, arrows showing people which way to go.

I walked through the sale. I was wearing my new black sweatshirt with the little alien on it. It was easy to forget, for a little while, that we still were in a pandemic. But everyone was wearing masks, and the library staff had been ordered to be cautious.

Ari came out, holding out a stack of little flyers for the tours. I took them.

"You're a genius, Ari."

I think she smiled behind her mask. "Let me know if you need more."

I put them on the table, and went inside. I walked into the Pennsylvania Room and sat down---I had the whole place to myself. I pulled History of Cameron County and looked through it. 

Nothing on Calder or the brick works. But I found a huge entry on the Dent's Run gold.

Dent's Run was the supposed place that some gold had been lost during the Civil War. I'd dealt with this before---It was the first article I'd ever done for the Pennsylvania Wilds. I'd become a little dubious of the existence of the actual gold, in fact; a lot of the details didn't make a ton of sense. I read through the story.

It contained more detail than any account I'd yet seen, which was interesting. I had to wonder where some of this had come from. Dates, names, and a detailed description of the route, which I hadn't thought existed.

Zach looked in. "Lou, can you cover the desk a little early? I gotta get out to the sale and run the register."

"Oh, sure," I said, and stood up.

"Sorry to interrupt you---"

"I can do this at the desk as well as here," I said. "It's cool."

"So I was looking for information on bricks, but I found a long entry on the Dent's Run gold," I said. Then I mixed the chicken into the casserole.

"There's gold?" Tif asked, sitting at the table. Paul was outside, running around with his little friend from next door. I think both of them were wearing black dresses. Meanwhile, our senior Schnauzer, Kasper, was wandering around the kitchen.

"Well, maybe, but I'm a little dubious," I said. "The story is that during the Civil War, a shipment of gold was taken through Pennsylvania, but the crew largely died. The one remaining guy, Connors, made it as far as Lock Haven, and the gold never turned up. I worked on this one a few years ago."

"Has anyone found it?"

"Nah, not yet. I'm not convinced there's anything to find. Efforts have been clownish and badly researched. The earliest mention of this was in a magazine from like the fifties. A lot of details don't match up. I've begun to think it's most likely a myth."

"Be cool if you could find the gold, though," said Tif.

"I think it's more likely I'm gonna find proof it never happened," I said. "Which would also be cool. With the details I have from the Cameron County book, I should be able to track some things down. It would have made the news at the time. If there's a total absence of news, that'll tell me something."

"I mean, how can you tell?"

"With this new information, I have the date Connors supposedly came to Lock Haven. That'll be big news if it really happened. If I go through the newspapers and don't find a mention of it, that tells me a lot. If I do find something, even better. Either way, I can get an article out of it."

"And your title?"

"Baby, It's Gold Outside."

"Jesus christ. That's the worst one since the one about the guy who tried to blow up his girlfriend in Renovo you called An Explosive Romance. It would be cool to go to Cameron County and look for treasure, though."

 I put the casserole in the oven. "Well, keep next Friday open. Not Cameron, but we're going up to Potter County."

"What's in Potter County?"

"After dinner, we're gonna take a drive up to Cherry Springs State Park. It's the furthest place away from any streetlights in Pennsylvania. Darkest place in the state. We're gonna sit and look at the stars."

"Sounds good," said Tif.

 In the morning, I walked into work, hung my backpack on the hook, draped my jacket over the chair, and immediately was hit with a question.

"Lou, do you know where we can find the book Doctor Nina and The Panther?" Barb asked me.

I rolled my eyes. "Are you serious? This again?"

"A book club wants to read it."

"It should be in Pennsylvania Biographies, but I wish they'd knock it off with that stupid book. It's supposed to be about a woman doctor who lived in this area, but historically, none of the details check out. It's likely a fraud, and people come to me all the time asking when I'm going to write about it. At this point, I'm sick to death of hearing about Doctor Nina and the Goddamn Half-Wit Panther."

Barb went to check biographies. I went to the card file. 

Speaking of things that probably weren't true. Nothing under Connors or Castleton. I checked the biggest books---Linn, Meginness, Furey. No mention. I went to the newspaper archive.

We have a little card file that nobody knows about but me. I keep telling people how to use it, and everyone keeps forgetting that it's there. It shows what newspapers we have from which years, and where to find them. It saves me tons of time.

I flipped through it, checking to see what newspapers we have from 1863. I know newspapers got a little sketchy during the Civil War, and it could be chancy finding them. To my delight, there was one entry for the Clinton Democrat, with spotty issues throughout the year. It had a notation.

ASK STAFF FOR ASSISTANCE.

That meant the attic. I was the staff they'd ask for assistance, so I knew roughly where to look. I walked up the stairs and into the attic, in the newspaper room. The shelf was all pulled out and rearranged from my attempt to get into a secret door back in May. Sometime I'd have to come and straighten that up.

I dug around---The newspapers in the attic aren't in much of a discernable order---Until I found the ones from 1863. I unwrapped the brown paper around them, and started paging through.

When I got back downstairs, Barb was back at the desk. "Someone filed it under fiction," she said.

"Probably a good idea," I said. "It wasn't in the attic. I checked."

"Is there someone on that roof?" I suddenly asked, looking at the Larsen Building across the street.

Tif, Michelle, and Paul all turned and looked up. We were sitting in one of the city lots, eating subs for dinner. Michelle said,"I don't see anyone."

"There was someone there," I insisted. "They ducked down. Can't see them now."

"What would someone be doing on the roof?" she asked.

"Personally I'm hoping sniper. It would liven things up around here."

"They'd definitely be after you," said Tif.

"Fair," I said. "Been doing a lot of work on the Dent's Run gold."

"Does it exist now?"

"Likely not," I said. "I pulled the old---There he is!"

We all looked up. Looked like a couple of young people were doing something on the roof. Michelle said,"Huh. There is someone."

"I told you."

Paul stood up and shouted,"THANK YOU FOR ENTERTAINING US!"

We all laughed. I said,"So, no mention of the lone survivor of the Dent's Run incident in any of the best books, for one thing. No mention of a guy staggering into town and then later being claimed by the Army."

"Which would have been big news," said Tif.

"Right. With the new date I found, I checked through the newspapers at that time. We have them for June and July 1863, which is allegedly when it was happening. No mention of any of it, which is telling as they reported all sorts of other Civil War stuff going on at the time."

"They would have said something," noted Tif.

I nodded. "With all the Civil War news, they'd have said something. I noticed something else, too---There was a lot of recruiting being done, but they all were catching a train to Harrisburg. If there had been an actual Army outpost in Lock Haven at the time, the way the legend says, they'd have signed up right here. There's nothing supporting this legend."

"So there's no treasure to find," said Tif.

"No digging required," I said.

Paul was waiting on the sidewalk with me when SaraLee's car pulled up. Rolling down the window, she said,"Hi, Paul! How are you?"

Paul, who to the best of my recollection had never met SaraLee before, cheerfully said,"Good!"

"Are you doing school online?"

"Yeah," said Paul. "It's fun."

I hugged him. "Back soon, buddy."

"Will you be back before bedtime? You promise?"

"I promise."

I got in SaraLee's car. I had a black mask with a single ghost on it. Hers had ghosts and bats and stuff all over it. We were both wearing our gray ghost sweatshirts, and I had the jacket with all the buckles and zippers on it.

"Right around the corner," I said.

"On Highland," SaraLee said. "I remember."

"Right, I keep forgetting you grew up in this neighborhood," I said.

"Paul's cute," she said.

"He's a great kid. We're having some clinginess problems lately....Since the lockdown, he doesn't want me out of his sight. He gets scared when I have to go to the grocery store."

She nodded. "I've been feeling like a terrible parent, when I need five minutes alone. I get it."

"Right up here," I said.

By 7:30, we were set up and investigating the house. The clients had left us alone---Occasionally clients do, though it's uncommon. I looked at SaraLee and said,"Bring any of your equipment?"

"I have a recorder, but I forgot it," she said. "With my kids home, I wasn't as organized."

"Understandable," I said. "Here, you can use my spare laser thermometer and EMF detector. Let's get started in the living room."

We sat down on the floor. I turned on the recorder. "Is there anyone here?"

"Can you say your name?" asked SaraLee. "Do you have a message to pass on?"

There was a sound, a little tap, near the stairs. SaraLee looked at me and pointed, and I nodded. I leaped up with my camera.

7:53 PM. We were upstairs in the hallway. Recorder running. "I mean, I just wanted to get out and do my thing again, you know?" I was saying. "It's been so long since we got to do anything."

"Sixty-nine degrees," said SaraLee, aiming the thermometer. "I know. Believe me, I'm so over this."

8:16 PM. Down in the kitchen. 

"You know what really drives me nuts? The bags at the grocery store---You can't get them open anymore! You can't lick your fingers with a mask on...."

"Oh, I know," said SaraLee.

I said,"I mean, during the lockdown, I felt so useless, you know? All I could do was sit at home and teach Paul survival skills. And I love the little guy, but I wanted to get back to work. And that made me feel guilty, too."

"I know. I felt bad going back to work....Instead of being home, spending time with my kids. My son asked me when he got to spend a day with me."

"And doesn't that just stab you through your heart?" I said.

"Having a night out is good," said SaraLee. "I needed this."

I nodded. "Me, too. We should get back to doing this more, even if it's just me and you."

"Agreed."

I looked at the recorder. "Might as well wrap this up. I did promise Paul I'd be home before bedtime."

She slid the laser thermometer across the counter at me. "Here you go."

I slid it back at her.

"Keep it," I said. "You've earned it."

It was dark in Potter County. I mean really, truly dark. You may think you know what dark is. I assure you that you do not. Not the kind of dark that comes with being miles and miles from any available streetlights.

We sat in the dark, looking up at the stars. The Prius was parked in the middle of the field at Cherry Springs, and we had lawn chairs set up. Tif and Michelle sat in two of them. Paul was running around in the field, and I sat on the ground. I was wearing my dark blue sweatshirt with the rainbow alien on it, and my backup paranormal jacket, black denim with white spots.

"Daddy, I'm scared," said Paul.

"What are you scared of?"

"There might be ghosts."

"I've never heard any stories of ghosts at Cherry Springs," I said. "Besides, what are you worried about? We look for ghosts all the time."

"Yeah, but it's really dark here."

"It's too bad Biz couldn't make it," said Tif. "She's not feeling well. At least we're still doing this tonight."

"No way I was missing out on this," I said.

"I can see the Big Dipper," said Paul. "And I see Cassiopeia!"

"Very good, little man," I said. "Hey---What's that?"

There was a bright white light above, moving through Cassiopeia toward the horizon. It began to stop, hover, and then continue, growing brighter and dimmer as we watched it.

"What the hell?" said Michelle.

"It's a UFO," said Tif.

"It is a UFO," I said. "It's not identified. I don't know anything that behaves that way. Heading north-northeast. Eight-thirty five PM. I can't think of what that might be."

It hovered, dimmed again, and then disappeared.

"Wow," I said.

"We just saw a genuine UFO," Tif commented.

I crossed my arms. "This turned out to be a pretty good night."

Half an hour later, we were riding home along Route 44. It was dark, Michelle driving, Tif in the seat beside her. I was in the back with Paul, who had fallen asleep with his head on my shoulder.

Yeah. This is why I adopted a kid.

As we rounded a bend, he stirred, opened his eyes briefly. "I lv you, Dy," he murmured.

"Love you, too, little guy. You have fun tonight?"

"Mhm."

"Last few days, we've looked into Bigfoot, ghosts, a buried treasure, and a UFO. Been a pretty busy time, huh?"

I looked down. His eyes were closed.

He was asleep again.

Designation Green: Ida's Deathday

"The Brady Bunch is over, Daddy," said Paul. "Can we go out on Alien Patrol now?"

Currently, Paul is obsessed with two things: The Brady Bunch and quality time with me. I said,"Get your sneakers on. We have time for an Alien Patrol before bed."

Last summer, we'd begun going on walks at night to check the skies for UFOs. We'd actually seen a couple, given the caveat that "UFO" means "unexplained light in the sky" and not "little green men." It had become something of a nightly ritual for us, going for a walk in the dark. Paul had seen and learned about constellations and other planets, bats and slugs, global directions, and some of the local buildings.

We'd started just walking up and down Fairview, our street, but lately we'd branched out. Mostly these days our route went up and around on Highland Street, around the block and returning home.

"Look, Paul, there's the Big Dipper," I said. "It's a clear night out; we can find the North Star."

"And that points north," said Paul.

"Right." During the quarantine, he'd learned a lot of survival skills, and retained most of it. "Look, up by the moon---I think those two lights are planets. Jupiter and Saturn, I think."

"Jupiter's back?" Paul said excitedly. We'd seen Jupiter last year, and he'd gotten fond of the concept.

"I believe so. I think I remember hearing that we might see Mars this summer, too. Could spot some Martians."

"Martian, Martian, Martian," said Paul.

We turned the corner and walked down Fairview. Paul pointed and said,"Dad! A UFO!"

I looked up. It was a bright white light, unblinking, appearing very high up, moving east at a fast pace. Not a commercial airline. Not atmospheric. No sound.

I said,"I'll be damned. What is that?"

"Let's chase it!"

The thing was already moving rapidly toward the mountains. "We'll never catch that thing, little man. It's going too fast."

"What is it?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Sissy and me heard Ida yesterday," Paul announced as we stood on the back porch.

"Oh, yeah? What happened?"

"We heard the door open, but nobody was there."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," I said. "She does that." Ida is the ghost in our home. She committed suicide at seventeen in 1905 by drinking acid on the back porch. I leaned down and picked up a cardboard box. "I suppose I better clean up this porch so we can do some investigating sometime."

I picked up a few things, and about ten bees flew up into the air. Before I could react, one of them had already stung me on the wrist. "Ow! Shit!"

"What happened, Daddy?"

"Off the porch. Now."

We rushed in through the kitchen door, and I held ice on the sting. I said,"Got stung by a bee, little man, and I'm mildly allergic. Gotta treat this."

"I'm getting a stick!" Paul declared, and ran out the front door.

He was back in two minutes, carrying a stick and two of my bandannas. I didn't know where this was going until he began wrapping them around my arm, making a splint. I'd taught him that a while back, during the quarantine.

"There," he said.

I laughed. "Okay, that'll help. Thanks, little man."

"I think you should wear it to work," he said.

We were outside on the sidewalk when Tif showed up, half an hour later. Me, still holding the ice pack on my wrist, Paul wearing his black dress, and Kasper the Schnauzer.

"Daddy got stung by a bee," Paul announced.

Tif looked at me. "You're not gonna pass out or anything, are you?"

"If I made it this far, I'll be fine. Stay away from the back porch for a while."

"Well, I'm not allergic. If I get stung, it's no big deal."

"I don't want either of you to get stung. Not so hot on myself getting stung, either, but here we are. Paul mentions you guys encountered Ida yesterday."

"Might have, yeah. We heard someone come in the back door, and nobody was there."

"That's the door her father carried her in through when he found her dying on the porch. It makes sense; we're coming up on the anniversary of her death. This month it's a hundred and fifteen years."

"And you're celebrating by getting stung by bees."

"I was cleaning the porch in anticipation of investigating. I think the takeaway here is to never clean the porch."

Years ago, when we'd moved into the house, I'd done the research on the property and come up with Ida's story. As time went by, I'd filled in bits and pieces, gathering old documents. I'd learned where she was buried, how her father had been charged with neglect, who her relatives were.

Some parts of this had always been unknown to me. I had very little information on her mother, Lydia. She'd died four years before Ida had, but I'd never learned the details. Fortunately, things had been a little slow lately. Even as the county went Green, the library wasn't working to capacity.

I picked up the genealogies from the Pennsylvania Room before my lobby shift. There were two genealogy books that covered Ida's family. It had been a while since I'd taken a look. I went out to the lobby.

"Hey, Jim," I said. "I'm your relief. Any more ghost sightings?"

"Nope, not today," said Jim.

"I'll check back. Paul and I saw a UFO the other night."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Nothing like, you know, actual aliens, but we saw a bright light we couldn't explain. It was really high up, and going really fast."

Jim considered it a moment. "Could have been the International Space Station."

"I never thought of that."

"We can check that on the NASA website," said Jim. He picked up the tablet---We were supposed to be using it for library business, but we all surfed the internet during lobby shifts. He brought up the website awfully fast; I suspect he had it bookmarked. "Would have been visible around nine-thirty, and been heading roughly northwest."

"....Yeah. It was. That's a pretty good possibility."
"Mel said she was going to go out and see it."

"Well, we didn't mean to, but Paul was really pleased when he saw Saturn and Jupiter," I said. "He's going to be thrilled."

I sat down and began looking through the genealogy. There was a photo of Ida, sitting with her sisters. It had been a while since I'd looked at it. I spent a couple of minutes looking at her, this young girl who'd come to be part of my home.

Then I backtracked, working my way back to her mother and grandparents. I found a little bit of history for Lydia, and the will of both of the grandparents---All reprinted in the book. I'd never really gone that far back before. There was some interesting stuff.

When I got home that afternoon, the kids were out back. Paul and his little best friend from next door were splashing in the pool, and Tif was sitting in her wheelchair nearby and watching. I pulled up a lawn chair and sat down next to Tif.

"You notice no matter where you sit, you get splashed?" I asked. "I could be indoors; the water would hit me."

"I have noticed that." said Tif.

"You think I'd look good in ripped jeans?" I asked her.

"You have this way of starting a conversation in the middle, did you know? Most of your jeans are ripped at the knee anyway."

""They're not, actually," I said. "I guess I just look like the kind of guy who wears ripped jeans."

"Really? Huh. Well, I guess it would work for you, then. You thinking of a style change?"

"To my professional ghost-hunting outfit, yeah. You know the one---Black shirt with the LHPS symbol, black jeans, tactical vest. It works for me, except I've seen my photo in magazines and newspapers. I look like an action figure. It has a sort of cop, military look. And in the current political climate...."

Tif nodded. "With people protesting the police, that's bad."

"Yeah. I look like a Portland Homeland Security officer. Gonna get shot reaching for my thermometer. So I'm thinking of going as hippie-like as I can. I considered growing a beard, except...."

"You can't grow facial hair."

"Yeah. I can't grow a beard by the time Trump leaves office. If he gets re-elected, I still can't grow a beard by the time he leaves office."

"Get a motorcycle jacket."

"You know Ida's mom died here, too?"

"You just did it again, you know."

"I did some research today. Ida's mother, Lydia Yost, lived here. Turns out her father died in 1890, and left his money to his wife, to be dispersed equally among the kids on her death. But she changed the terms---Left the money to only one of her kids, and it wasn't Lydia."

"Holy shit. That's low."

"For nine years, Lydia lived here with that abusive asshole, George, in the hopes of getting enough money to maybe make things better. Then her mother died, and she got nothing, and was stuck. Lydia died here two years after, at age forty."

"And Ida committed suicide, what, four years later?"

I glanced at the porch where Ida had died. "Yeah. Lydia died young, too. I think we may have more than one ghost in here."

"Too bad there's no way to find out."

I looked up at the house.

"Maybe there is."

"Hey, I got one for you, Dad," said Biz, looking at her cell phone. "You ever hear of the Squonk?"

I laughed. "I love the Squonk. Creature only found on Pennsylvania."

"Oh, you know it!"

"Oh yeah. The Squonk is in my Field Guide to North American Monsters, which I use more than most of my college textbooks."

Tif looked up from her dinner. "What's the Squonk?"

"A forest creature in Pennsylvania so ugly that it cries all the time," said Biz. "If you see one, it'll cry so hard it dehydrates. Look, here's a picture."

"There are stories of lumbermen catching one in a bag, and bringing it home to find the bag just filled with Squonk tears," I said. "Now that you mention it, I need a Squonk T-shirt. Why do I not already have like six of them?"

Biz did a quick search on her phone. "They make them," she reported.

I laughed. "I'm gonna have to order some of them. Yes, we can go on a Squonk hunt sometime."

"Oh, yes," said Biz.

"Bedtime," declared Michelle. I gathered Paul up off the couch, and we started up the stairs.She was ahead, and she turned into the hallway. And then she screamed and ducked into a crouch.

"What the hell---"

"Bat!" Michelle shouted, turning and running back downstairs. "There's a bat!"

I could see it, flitting back and forth in the hallway. Michelle and Paul ran downstairs. I walked up, staying low. It flew into my office, and I followed it, closing the door.

Okay. Now I was trapped in my office with the bat. I stayed in a crouch and crawled across the floor. The north corner of the house had two windows, and I opened them both, letting the cool night air in.

I turned around. The bat was hanging on the curtain, between me and the exit. I picked up one of my Bigfoot slippers and threw it in the general direction of the bat, which disturbed it enough to start flying around the room again. I ducked under it and moved out the door, closing it firmly behind me.

I walked downstairs.

"Bat's sealed off in my office," I said. "The windows are open. Chances are he'll fly out on his own by morning."

"Should we sleep downstairs?" Paul asked somewhat hopefully.

"Nah, it's okay," I said. "The bat can't get out. He'll leave; he doesn't want to be in here either."

It was the first thing Paul wanted to do the next morning. "Dad, can we check and see if the bat's still there?"

"Jesus, Paul, I haven't had my coffee yet." I considered it, and relented. "Okay. Give me a minute, and we'll check."

I threw on some clothes, and we carefully opened the door. The room was cool and breezy; the windows had been opened all night. We stepped in, looking all around. No bats.

"Looks like it worked," I said. "The bat took off overnight. He's outside now, and probably a lot happier."

"Will he come back?"

"Probably not. That's only the second bat we've had in this house, and we've lived here since 2003. I gotta get dressed for work."

I walked into the library in my new outfit. I took my temperature and checked the box---New post-COVID procedures---and then dropped my stuff off at my desk.

Zach looked up, and looked me over. 

"I like it!" he said.

I was wearing the new professional outfit. Ripped jeans, tie-dyed bandanna, my new Squonk shirt, and a new jacket with all sort of buckles, zippers, and metal decorative pieces. I said,"I'm making a few style changes to my ghost-hunting outfits. Glad this one passed the Zach test."

"Are those real metal, or just plastic?" he said, looking at the bits on my shoulders.

"They're real metal," I said. "This thing weighs like twenty pounds."

"It looks good," Zach declared.

I went to work. I had some publicity work to do, and obits to look up, and I was working on cleaning out my desk. But I pushed all that aside and went back to the Yost genealogy.

I flipped through, starting with Ida and working my way back, the way I had before. There was a photo of Lydia I hadn't seen before, standing in a group shot. She looked just like her daughter. I made a photocopy.

I checked the index file for Lydia's obit. It was in a September issue of the Clinton Republican, which we did not have on microfilm. God is my co-pilot. I got on Findagrave, which I despise, but you gotta go with what you have. Someone had found an obit from a different paper, and listed it.

It showed her as dying from "a short illness," which wasn't very specific. She was buried in Highland Cemetery, which I knew. 

Looked like I had everything I was going to get this time.

Dinner was Cuban food that my wife brought home from a restaurant near work. Afterward, I went up to my office and gathered a few things. On the advice of SaraLee, I picked up an old copy of Black Beauty that had once belonged to Ida. I strapped on my leg rig, which didn't look too military---Mostly that looked like a middle-aged guy trying to be cool, which was accurate enough. And I gathered up all my equipment to take my son and search for the girl who'd killed herself in my house. You know, wholesome family shit.

Paul was putting on pajamas in his room.

"You ready?" I asked him.

He nodded. "Yeah."

We set out a couple of trigger objects, little dogs I'd gotten out of a gumball machine. Gumball machines are a great source of trigger objects. You set them on a piece of paper, trace around them, and see if anything moves them. Then we went out to the porch....The porch where Ida had killed herself.

I set my recorder on the railing and turned it on.

"Start recording, nine-thirteen PM on South Fairview Street, August 19, 2020. It's been a hundred and fifteen years since Ida Yost died on this porch. Lou."

"Paul."

"Is anyone here? Ida? Lydia?"

"Any ghosts here?" asked Paul.

"Check the EMFs," I said. We each pulled out a detector and checked around....Nothing yet. 

"Thermometers," I said. 

We got out our laser thermometers, and checked around. Paul reported,"Seventy-one, sixty-eight...."

I said,"Paul. Look at this."

He leaned over and looked at my little screen. He said,"Twenty-two."

"Yeah, Twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit."

"That's like winter."

"Yeah. It is; it's cold like winter. That's way too low. There's something going on here."

Later, after everyone had gone to bed, I had a moment to myself.

I went upstairs and set my leg rig on the desk. I let the recorder run, which was something of a tradition on the anniversary. Back downstairs, I got a beer out of the fridge. On a team investigation, that was a big violation of the rules---No drinking. But in my own home, alone, I figure it was forgivable.

I sat down on the couch. On the stairs, I heard it---The sound of soft footsteps. I stood up and looked.

There was nobody there.

"Hi, Ida," I said. "You're a hundred and thirty-two now. You want to have a beer with me?"

The next morning, I woke up and opened my eyes. I crawled out of bed, trying not to wake up the pugs. I was wearing my Justice League pajamas.

I walked down the hall, and glanced it the door to my office. The leg rig was lying on the floor, where I hadn't put it. It had been moved overnight.

I smiled.

"Well, Ida," I said. "Good morning."