Yellow County: The New Paranormal

My new coffee mug said "Mothman believes in you." I finished off the coffee as I pulled on my jacket. Paul was standing on his scooter in the kitchen, watching me.
"Bye, Daddy," he said.
"I'll be home at four, little man," I said. "You be good for Mommy until then."
I felt a little down. I was going back to work, but it was the first time I'd been away from Paul in almost two months, and I was almost ready to cry. It was almost the first day of school all over again, except this time, it was me who was leaving.
"I love you," he said.
I gave him a hug.
"I love you, too."

It felt weird, entering the library again for a workday. My shirt was the black one with the ghost on it, and my mask had little Christmas trees and an alien patch sewn on. I could hear my co-workers at their desks as I walked to mine.
The toy alien I'd left so long ago as a trigger object had moved about an inch. I picked him up and dropped him in my pocket, then tore two consecutive calendar months off the desk calendar. I heard something behind me, some kind of loud tapping. After about the fifth tap, I glanced back. There was a bird whapping consistently against the window, trying to fly through it.
I printed out a couple of paper silhouettes of hawks, and taped them up on the windows. Then I went back to the back room.
"I know we weren't supposed to," said Mel,"But I made coffee." She had a smiley-face mask.
"I'll help you drink the evidence," I promised. "Hey, Zach? Good to see most of your face again."
Zach grinned behind his bright red mask. "You, too."
"If anyone asks, I just taped a couple of hawk outlines on the front windows. There's a robin trying to bust in, and I'm hoping to save the little dumbass's life. I'll be out at the temporary library for a bit."
I walked outside and checked the outdoor shelves. With help from the general public, our collection had grown, but gotten really, really disorganized. I spent about half an hour adjusting everything---Fiction, nonfiction, paperback, children.
Without knowing what to expect from the general public, I'd come in packing like Troop K in 1917. I had my big heavy Swiss Army Rangergrip Knife, my titanium tactical self-defense pen, and my whip in my backpack. I didn't really expect trouble, but there had been headlines about shootings when people were denied entry without masks.
I got the books organized. That was going to last an hour maybe. I went back in, grabbed a cup of coffee, and retreated to my desk to answer some e-mails. The goddamn robin was still trying to blow through the window. He'd taken one look at my hawk, and decided he could take it.
First day back.
I walked around my office, through the oldest part of the building. A home, built to be the mayor's mansion in 1887, later the home of Annie Halenbake Ross. I was back. Back with the 1857 map, the Clinton County Times, the Sanborn maps, the Shoemaker books. I walked around, looking with some wonder at all of it, and then sat back down at my desk.
There was plastic sheeting hanging over the door to the reference room.I looked up as it rippled and blew.
I stood up. There was no draft, no reason the plastic should have moved. I'd noticed an upswing in ghost activity at my own home; maybe during a crisis, it had been happening here, too. It occurred to me that I should probably check out a few other haunted locations in the area.
I pulled the little toy alien out of my pocket and put it back on my desk calendar, tracing around it. Might as well keep checking for ghosts while I was here.

When I walked in the door after work, my family was around the table playing Sorry, Paul's new favorite game. He looked up as I came in. "Daddy!"
"Hey, guys. Hi, Biz." I hadn't seen Biz since the quarantine began. "Don't hug me yet. I'm gonna change clothes and get a shower first."
"Pizza's on the way," said Michelle.
I threw my clothes in the laundry and took a quick shower. When I got back downstairs, Tif said,"How was your first day back?"
"Not bad. A little weird, and if I never hear the phrase The new normal again, it'll be too soon. There was a robin that kept trying to bust its way in through the windows."
"They get territorial," she said. "They see their reflections and try to fight."
"We're all spread out, mostly. The boss is up on the second floor, and we have to stay away from each other. We're pretty much outrageously unsupervised."
"Anyone try to get in?"
I shook my head. "Just the robin."
"Any ghosts?" asked Biz.
"Possibly. Some activity---It seems to be up since the quarantine began."
"Yeah? What're you gonna do?"
"You know, the usual."

"We haven't had a patron in this building for two frickin' months, and I'm still finding books out of order."
I reshelved books newly out of quarantine as I walked through the stacks. Some of my co-workers were reshelving, too, standing yards away in a different part of the room. All of us, wearing our masks. My new shirt said "Bigfoot: Social Distancing World Champion."
"Maybe it's the ghosts," suggested Barb.
"Hell, they've moved other stuff around," I said. "Maybe it's Annie and Mary."
I stopped for a moment, waiting for Barb to pass, and then Holly moved past me. She said,"It's like a game of chess."
"Actually," I commented,"It feels like one of those little plastic games they hand out at the bank, where you have to slide the numbers around to get them in order."
She laughed. "Well, I want to get off this game."
I went back to my desk. Pulling off my mask---The one with the alien on it---I drank some coffee out of my Bigfoot travel mug. I glanced over my shoulder to see my phone cord swinging. There was no breeze, nobody had touched it. If there was some physical reason for it swaying back and forth, I couldn't think of it.
I put my mask back on and stood up. As a general rule I usually keep some ghost-hunting stuff nearby, so I dug my laser thermometer and my EMF detector out and walked for the back door.
"Gonna go check the backup library," I called to Tracey and Mel as I walked past.
I walked out the back, into the alley, and decided to take a walk around some of the closest haunted spots, because it beat actually working.
I walked down the alley and around onto Third Street. On the corner of Church and Third, I was standing between the Sydney Furst House and the Wilson Kistler House, both known to be haunted. I held up my EMF detector and got a short beep.
I saw the owner of the Kistler House coming down the sidewalk. We'd done an investigation for her a couple of years ago. I said,"Hi. How you doing?"
"Oh, not so bad," she said. We were both wearing masks and standing twenty feet apart.
"Seen any upswing in paranormal activity since the pandemic?"
"Yeah, a little," she said airily. "You can't always hear them, but you know, they're there." I remembered suddenly that she'd never once looked at the historic report I'd written up for her.
Down and around in Erie Alley was another combo---The Reuben Brawn House and the John Brown House, again both known to be haunted. As I aimed my thermometer at the Brawn House, I had a moment of hesitation---The thermometer looked a little like a gun, and I'd gotten some comments in the past. Then I laughed. Everyone had this type of thermometer during the pandemic; they were selling them at the local drugstore. For a change, I basically blended in.
The temperature had a steady baseline of sixty-seven, which felt about right. I moved the laser around the exterior of the house, and saw it drop to fifty-two and then go back up again. That was an interesting drop.
In front of the Brawn House, I found Juli, a friend of mine who lived there. She was walking her dog, a cute little Chihuahua. I said,"Hi, Juli. I'd come pet him, but, you know....pandemic."
"Yeah, I get it," she said.
"Weird question, but you know me. Any upswing in ghost activity recently?"
She shook her head. "Nah, not that I've seen. They're usually pretty quiet."
"Hunh. I've been having some more activity up at my place; I been wondering if it's due to the stress everyone's under."
"That's really neat."
"Some fascinating stuff out there," I said.
I walked down the alley, and back into the library. I missed doing stuff; I missed the monthly LHPS meetings and the investigations. I missed going out to look for Bigfoot, doing a serious UFO search. I missed giving tours.
While I'd been out, the toy alien had moved a couple of inches.

It felt good to actually be able to pop downtown for lunch again. During the pandemic, some of the local businesses had stayed open, but it had been advisable to stay home as much as possible. I'd been kind of getting used to leftovers and spam. I biked downtown, and then had a sandwich at my desk.
I hadn't been up to the attic in over two months. With possible ghost activity all over the building, it was worth checking. I got my keys and walked upstairs.
The Ross Library's attic is an old space consisting mostly of wood and dust. The stairs end up in a small, round central room with doors leading every direction. I chose the northeast door, into the Newspaper Room.
I walked around in there for a while. The Newspaper Room was where most of our old documents were stored. Shelves along every wall contained old newspapers, old issues of the Clinton Democrat and the Express. There were also Native American artifacts and a stuffed bobcat, too. I'd worked at the library since 2012, and exploring the attic hadn't really lost its thrill for me yet.
I walked among the old newspapers, not seeing anything paranormal. There was a window that faced Erie Alley, and I stood and looked out a bit. Below me, pink buds were blowing around the lawn.
I looked out at the roof, and standing like that, I realized something. The roof outside extended a few feet further than the wall I was facing. The conjunction of spaces didn't quite fit together. There was too much extra space in between them.
It meant that there was some sort of crawlspace I'd never been aware of before.
I wonder if there's a door?....
I got down and crawled along the floor, for the first time ever looking past the shelf of newspapers and at the wall behind it. And about halfway down, hidden behind the shelf, yes, there was a small door to the crawlspace.
It was about three feet tall, wooden, with a shiny latch. I was wearing my watch that doubled as a little flashlight, and I clicked it on, shining it in there. The latch was on the south end of the door, which meant I'd have to start from the front of the room if I ever wanted to get in there. I gave the shelf an experimental pull---Though it was free-standing, all the paper made it too heavy to move.
I went downstairs and found Zach at his desk, which is basically standard operating procedure in these situations.
"I just found a crawlspace we never knew about before," I said.
He jumped up immediately.
"Well, you got me curious," he said.
We walked up to the attic, staying six feet apart.
"The boss know you're running around exploring the attic?" he asked.
"Boss thinks I'm in a webinar learning public relations."
I stood back and pointed him at the small door behind the shelf.
"There," I said. "I never saw that before, and I've worked here eight years this month."
He knelt down, shining his cell phone into it.
"I never noticed that, either," he said. "That crawlspace has to be pretty decent-sized, considering."
"Yeah, I tried to move the shelf, but the paper is pretty heavy. Don't think I'm not gonna try getting in there, though."
"Hell, I'll help if I can." He peered through the shelf. "That's in pretty good condition, for how old it's gotta be." He reached through and rattled the door a little. "Nope, not nailed shut. Wow."
"I know. I thought we'd discovered every little crevice in this place years ago. But now, here's a new one."
"It'll take some effort to get into, though."
"That doesn't mean I'm not gonna try."

When I walked into the library in the morning, I had my coffee. The damn robin was still trying to bust his way in through the window. My alien toy had moved, and the ghosts seemed to be active.
I mean, Mondays, huh?
"How was your weekend?" asked Zach.
"Not bad. Paul and I went looking for UFOs. Wrote a couple of articles."
"Anything good?"
"Did one on a theft from a butcher's place in Salona. I called it Meat The Thieves."
I checked on the backup library, sat down at my desk and dashed off a couple of drafts for the Boss, and drank some coffee. Then I went up into the library and began moving heavy stuff.
Small bits, that was going to be the key. One newspaper isn't very heavy. Fifty is. So if I just moved stuff around in little bits at a time, I should be okay.
I began unloading old copies of the Clinton Republican, and shifting them to other shelves. The papers were from the late 1800s, and could reasonably be assumed to be free of COVID-19. I got one area done, and wiggled the wooden shelf. Still too heavy. It would move eventually, though; I could feel it. I began moving down the line.
I had a system. I'd carry papers off one section of shelf, then test it to see if it would drag. I'll do hard work when it's something important. I found a brick down at one end, oddly wrapped in some sort of heavy paper. It had writing on it. I set that one aside to investigate later. I didn't disturb any of the old Native American artifacts on the other shelves. What with the Coronavirus, I didn't need to go unleashing an old Indian curse again.
When I got most of the newspapers off the shelves, I gave the far end a pull, and it shifted. I dragged it as far as I could, up against the other shelf. I twisted my wrist doing it, and it began to ache. Worth it.
I tried to squidge my way in behind the shelf. There wasn't much space; I'd have to be built like Plastic Man. I pushed a little harder, got dust all over my Sasquatch Research Team shirt, and popped through.
I crawled over to the door and gave it a yank, and it was swollen shut. God is my co-pilot. I pulled harder, and finally it popped free.
I activated the little flashlight on my watch. I love having little extra tools with me at all times. I crawled inside, shining the light around.
There was nothing inside. Some dust. That was it. Otherwise, it was just a crawlspace. Maybe eight feet long and dark.
I worked my way out and went back downstairs, pulling my mask back on. Zach looked up from his desk. "Where have you been hiding?" he asked.
"Oh, around," I said airily. "In unrelated news, there's nothing in that little hidden door upstairs."
He grinned behind his mask. "I knew you were going to try that, sooner or later. So, nothing's in there, huh?"
"Nope. So the next question is, what can we put there?"
"Yeah," he said. "I was thinking that."

So, you're finished with your first week back," Tif commented as I cooked dinner.
"Yep," I agreed. "Got some stuff done. A little at a time, we're getting ready to reopen. You remember that door I found? Turns out there was nothing inside."
"Aww," said Tif. "That's too bad."
"Well, hell, it worked for Geraldo."
"I was hoping for a mummy."
"That'd be cool, but no," I said. "On the other hand, now I get to stash something inside, I suppose."
"I wondered about that. What're you thinking?"
"Ghost activity monitoring station maybe," I said. "Let's eat."

Pandemic: Sounds Like Teen Spirit

"Daddy, I'm full," said Paul.
This happens a lot. Paul reaches his limit pretty quickly, especially when he realizes he didn't feel like eating what he asked for, after all. The main difference was this time, we were eating bologna slices outside in his play tower.
"Okay, go ahead and throw the rest of that to the animals," I said.
He climbed down the ladder and began tearing the bologna up, laying pieces down. "I'm making a trail for the animals. Maybe they'll come in my tree house."
I climbed down after him. "One of these days, I need to teach you to make a deadfall trap."
"Can we do it now?"
"You want to learn now? Okay."
I gathered up a couple of sticks and a log, and knelt down near the pine tree. I drove one stick down into the dirt, and carefully propped the log up in the Y-split. Then I picked up one of Paul's plastic dinosaurs. A Triceratops.
"Okay, we need bait. What do you think the dinosaur will eat?"
He handed me a shard of baloney.
I speared it on one of the protruding sticks, and said,"Okay. See, we prop the big log up here. Then we wait. Let a trap do your waiting; it's more efficient. When the dinosaur comes along and tries to get the baloney...." I moved the dinosaur forward, jostling the stick. The log immediately wiggled loose, and came slamming down. I just barely managed to get my hand out of there.
"Cool!"
"That's how you can catch animals if you need to," I said. I put the log back where I'd found it---The last thing I wanted was to come out and find an actual squirrel under it or something. "So remember that."
"Can I have a banana now?"
"I suppose, sure."

I led my family along the outer edge of the soybean field in Wayne Township. I was wearing my grey ghost shirt, and carrying my backpack. Michelle was behind me, and Paul followed up, carrying a bottle of bubbles and a wand and leaving bubbles behind us.
"Should be right up here," I said. "See that place where the trees kind of stick out of the forest? That's it. The Stech-Simcox Cemetery. Long abandoned, created in 1815."
"That's further than you said," Michelle pointed out.
"I didn't remember exactly. It's been about ten years since I've been out here. Mentioned it in the book, though." I walked ahead. Paul had his shirt off and was soaking in the sun.
I saw the fence as I approached. An old metal fence, rusted and damaged. I could see some of the gravestones. The biggest one, which had once been an obelisk, had been knocked over.
"That wasn't like that last time I was here," I commented.
I walked around the outside, and found the way in on the far side. I had no idea how they'd gotten into it in the old days, but now I could get in through a section of fence that had fallen over. I walked among the stones, which were all overgrown and falling down.
"What do you think, little man? Check this place out."
"Boring," said Paul.
"Oh, I don't know, kid." I walked through the small, sad cemetery. "I think it's pretty cool."
"Can we go to McDonald's on the way home?"
"Sure." I took a couple of photos. "We'll get you some food."

I opened my e-mail, and my co-workers popped up. Zoom meetings. Christ, I hate doing everything digitally. On the bright side, I did get to drink a beer in a staff meeting for the first time ever, as long as I kept it in an opaque travel mug.
"We have our guidelines from the State Library," said New Boss on the screen. "We won't be opening to the public for a while, but staff will be coming in on Monday."
Monday. Next week.
She continued,"We'll have to have some desk reassignments, and wear masks. We won't be open to the public for a while yet, and we'll have to prepare for that. Once we do, we'll only be doing book pick-ups in the lobby. Some people aren't going to like that, and we'll have to deal with them. It's going to be difficult with the public for a while. People are still scared. Statistics show that alcohol use is up."
"Interesting," I said, taking a drink of my Corona.
"We'll work out hours and shifts. We're going to have a lot to do. We'll be taking temperatures at the door. I have a non-contact thermometer  ordered."
"I already have two of those," I commented. "Ghost-hunting equipment."
Paul came in and climbed up on my lap. He was carrying his chocolate milk.
"Does anyone need a mask?" asked New Boss.
"I could use one," said Holly.
"My wife made me two," I said. "One's got Batman on it. Because nothing symbolizes the pandemic like the guy who wears a mask over everything but his mouth."
"E-mail me with any requests," she said.
Monday.

"Alien patrol!" Paul took off down the sidewalk ahead of me. He was carrying his Green Lantern flashlight. I'd wanted the Green Lantern flashlight, but he'd commandeered it, leaving me with the plain black one.
It was nine PM. Over the summer, Paul and I had gotten into the habit of going out on "Alien Patrol"---A walk along our street to check the skies for UFOs. With school out due to Coronavirus, we'd started taking up the practice again; there was no reason not to.
"What's that sound?" Paul asked.
"Oh, that's the paper factory. They make paper products there."
"Ida says she knows that factory." Paul had lately taken an interest in Ida, the ghost haunting our house. He'd had quite a few conversations with her, and they seemed to have become buddies. Ida was taking the rap for a lot of things lately---Paul had accused her of things like getting into the candy without asking.
"Yeah, this factory was around when Ida lived here. She'd remember it. You want to walk down there?"
"Okay."
I looked up at the sky as we walked. There weren't any UFOs. There weren't even any airplanes, not so much as a Tri-Pacer. Or cars on the street. Aside from the sounds of the factory, I couldn't hear anything. I'd never seen Lock Haven so quiet.
On the up side, if there were any UFOs, they'd be easy to pick out. But it looked like the aliens might be social distancing, which was probably wise.
"The Jersey Devil was seen at this paper factory back in 1909, little man," I commented. "A night watchman saw him."
"Maybe we'll see the Jersey Devil!"
"Maybe."
"Is that him?"
"I think that's just a stray cat."
We walked peacefully down Shamrock Street, and then turned back up onto South Fairview. Paul and I headed back up to the house.
He handed me his flashlight and darted for the TV. I put the flashlights on the counter where they belonged, and heard a noise---A sound like something being knocked over, but nothing was moving.
I did what I always do when this happens.
"Ida? That you?"
You get used to it.

I don't know what possessed me to check my cell phone. I almost never do. Like most other electronics, I hate cell phones---I'd refused to upgrade from the basic phone I'd been using for the past decade. But the next afternoon, while Paul took a nap, I remembered that I might need to renew my service soon.
So I dug it out of my pack and turned it on, and found a two-day-old message. Resurrection Casey. I stepped out on the porch and gave her a call back.
"Hey!" Casey said on the other end. "How's it going? You know you sent me bus fare during a stay-at-home order, right?"
"Use it for anything. Buy lunch. I don't care. How you been?"
"Pretty good. All my classes are online at the moment. I hate it."
"I don't blame you."
"Been keeping busy a little. Looking into a UFO sighting near Walnutport. Hoping for a dogman, but, you know, they're rare."
"Yeah, I get you. I haven't even seen any UFOs. Been doing some stay-at-home ghost hunting. We've had a lot of Ida activity recently."
"No kidding?" Casey knew the story of my house; she sounded interested.
"Yeah, been hearing some noises and stuff. I don't know if it's the pandemic....I been trying to develop a candlelight vigil plan with some of city council....Been doing some video tours for the library, and I did one of my place and talked about Ida's story. Maybe it's that."
"I guess that could do it," Casey mused.
"Hey. I better get going. Kid's gonna wake up any minute."
"Good talking to you," said Casey. "You stay safe."
"You, too."

I'd taken to making weekly grocery store trips, not necessarily easy when you're on a bike. Also not easy to stay six feet away from people when everyone recognizes you as the ghost hunter from the newspapers, and wants to come up to you and chat. The mask helped some.
I carried the bags into the house and dropped them on the table. Paul came into the room as I was unpacking.
"Did you get more gumballs for my gumball machine?" he asked.
"Bad news, little man," I said. "I couldn't find any gumballs. For a while, your machine is gonna have to tun on...." I held up the package. "M&Ms!"
His eyes lit up. "I love M&Ms!"
"I know. Let's fill it up."
We took the M&M package into the middle room, and I poured them into the coin-operated gumball machine that he'd gotten for Christmas. I heard a noise near the top of the stairs, a board creaking. I saw Paul turn and look.
"Yeah," I said. "I heard it, too."
"It could be Ida!" Paul said.
I checked the floor; all three dogs were downstairs with us, presumably waiting for an M&M to drop. Paul said,"Let's go check!"
We walked upstairs. There was nothing there that we could see; it's often that way with ghosts. Paul said,"I think she's in my room. Let's check!"
"Just a second." I walked into my office. On the back of the door hung my LHPS vest, and I got my laser thermometer and my EMF detector out of the pockets. I turned to Paul. "Which one do you want?"
He snatched up the thermometer.
We entered his room, looking around. I'd taught Paul a couple of years ago how to use the thermometer, and now that he was in kindergarten, he could even read the numbers. "Sixty-four," he told me, moving the laser around the room.
"That's about right." I ran the EMF wand around the walls, checking for fluctuations. On the north side of his window, it went off, flashing the red light and beeping erratically.
"Did you do that?" Paul asked me.
"No. And there's no reason it should be going off. There shouldn't be any wires in this wall." I ran it around the rest of the window, up and down the wall, and it stopped dead. "Hunh."
"I think we found her!"
"Well, I did just release a video tour of this house, and I talked about her a lot. Maybe she likes that."
"I think she wants M&Ms," said Paul.
"Do not go leaving M&Ms around your room for the ghost."
"Dad." Paul, age five, rolled his eyes at me. "Everybody loves M&Ms."

"Back in just a second." I hit the car door as my wife parked the Prius by the side of the cemetery lane. In back, Paul was climbing out the door.
Together, we walked up the hill. The stones of Highland Cemetery towered above us. As it got steeper, I took his hand.
"Right there, little man," I said. "Under that tree."
We walked to the tree, the family plot of the Yosts. I stood with Paul over the small stone that I'd paid to put there.
"Can you read it, buddy?" I asked.
Paul sounded out the letters.
"I...da. Ida."
"That's right, buddy." We looked down at the grave. "This is where Ida's buried. This is her stone."

At nine PM, I got a candle out of the junk drawer. You know the junk drawer; every household has one in my experience. I'd personally picked up the habit from my grandmother, who'd taken the Great Depression a little too much as inspiration, and never thrown away anything that might become useful. I'd been slowly passing the concept on to Paul as we made fishhooks out of can tabs, fish traps out of bottles, and camp stoves out of cans.

I walked out onto the sidewalk. The sun was going down to the west. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, and then lit my candle and held it high.

Down the block, I saw another candle light up. And further down, a few others.

I watched as the lights went up on my street. All across Lock Haven, others were doing the same thing. I held my candle, connected with my city.

There was hope.

There's always hope.