Fired Up

"So," I said,"How much would you want to know if I thought I'd found a secret panel upstairs?"

The Boss considered it for a moment. "Let's take a look," she said.

We went up to the old bedroom on the second floor of the library---Her old office before she'd moved downstairs. In the back of the large wall shelf, there was a small hole.

"See, I can hook my finger in here and pull if we remove these shelves," I said. "If you look at the seams around it, it looks like it's designed to be taken out. Maybe something behind it."

"Hmm," she said. "Let's give it a shot."

"You've kind of gotten more fun since I met you," I said, and started pulling at a shelf. It got a few inches, and then stopped dead. I couldn't work it out.

"Looks like They built onto the shelf at some point," she said. "Secured it in place."

"Yeah."

"To get in there, we'd need a crowbar and some other tools," she said. "It could take the res tof the afternoon."

"Yeah."

We looked at each other for a moment.

Five minutes later, we were standing in front of the shelf, holding a crowbar and a couple of hammers.

"Okay," I said. "Let's do this thing!"

"Hey, I get to sit between the new people! Hi, Beech Creek Girl." I sat down at the meeting between Claire, our new tech person, and Beech Creek Girl, who was running the Beech Creek branch. She actually had a name, but one of our trainers had called her "Beech Creek Girl," and now we all called her that.
"Come and visit in Beech Creek," she said. "It's scary being alone in the building."

"Well, I've never heard anything about it being haunted, if that helps."

"I don't know; I've heard noises in there. Someone walking around on the empty second floor."

"Really? I can look into that."

"I tried to research the history of the building, but...."

"Let me guess. You trusted Google."

"Well.....Yes."

"That was your first mistake. The internet is about the worst way of doing this research short of consulting psychics," I said. "I got the Historic Resource Survey Forms downstairs; I'll check into it for you."

As you may assume, I work at the public library. I'm in Adult Services, which means I plan programs a lot. Though I admit that a casual observer would never guess that to be anything like my highest priority.

I started studying  the Beech Creek Library when I got into work. I was working on that half an hour later when Claire came in.

"Finding anything interesting?" she asked. Claire was the new tech person, and we'd immediately become friends based on the fact that she'd worn a Mothman T-shirt to her first day of work.

"Checking into the branch library for Beech Creek Girl. Showing her how Google is crap for this kind of thing."

"Anything good?"

"Place used to be a church---I knew that. Built in 1866. I pulled the Historic Resource Survey Form. Then I checked Linn's History---There was a cemetery connected with the place. These days, it's pretty much open, but back then, it was only church members. Two women were buried there, currently unmarked---Eliza and Lizzie. Both of them died from yellow fever in the later 1870s---Lizzie was twenty-four, and Eliza was nineteen. I'm gonna send it all over to Beech Creek."

"You should come and check out my place," Claire said. "We have some stuff happen."

"You live up along the railroad tracks, right?"

"Yeah, by the river."

"That's the area where there's the legend of the Headless Trackwalker. A guy who was killed in a railroad accident; he's said to still be walking the tracks."

"There was also a woman who burned to death in the basement in a furnace accident. We'd love to have you guys come and check it out."

"I'll talk to the team," I said. 

"Good news, little man," I said to Paul as I cleaned the kitchen. "I'm having a ghost hunting meeting, but it's here at the house tonight. So I don't have to go anyplace."

"Yay!" Paul said. "Will Ashlin be coming?"
"She should. We're going to discuss an investigation next week."

"I'll go wait for her!" Paul announced, and ran for the front door.

"Put on shoes," I called after him. "It's like eight degrees outside!"

As Paul ran out the door, I sat down and turned on my laptop. I brought up my messages.

Three minutes later, I went out and got Paul. 

"Hey, kid. Bad news. Ashlin's not feeling well; she can't make it tonight."
"Aw. Too bad. The others are coming, though, right?"

"Yeah. Well, not SaraLee. She just had surgery; she's been excused."

"Okay."

We went back to the kitchen. I looked at the laptop, and then said,"Damn. Millie can't make it either; she forgot the meeting was tonight. And Heather figures it's not that useful with just the two of us."
"So nobody's coming?"

I shook my head. "Nobody's coming. No meeting."

"Then can I have one of the sodas?"

"Sure."

He grabbed a root beer from the fridge and ran off. Wearing my LHPS uniform, I stood alone in the dark kitchen.

"I'm telling you, Casey, you can't schedule anything lately," I said on my cell phone, sitting in the old stairwell. "Between COVID and the goddamn weather, It's impossible to do anything. I'm sick of it."

"At least you have a team," Resurrection Casey commented. "Been trying to build one up out here in Slatington, but nobody seems interested."

"Yeah, that's the Slatington I remember," I agreed. "My childhood was a boring hell."

"You think this is ever gonna get better?" Casey asked. "Or is this just our life now?"

I considered it. "It has to get better," I said. "I won't accept that the rest of my life is just going to be this kind of crap. Things have to get better. We healed after Spanish Flu, we healed after polio. We're gonna come back from this, too."

"Boy, I hope so," said Casey.

"Have to," I said. "I have an investigation coming up, and I'll tell you....I need this. First time I'll be wearing the new outfit for an official investigation. COVID has taken a lot from all of us. I've been running around depressed and scared for almost two goddamn years. It's time for me to come back from that. I need to be what I was again."

"I want that for you," Casey said.

"So what do you have going on?" I asked. "Anything good lately?"

"Got reports of UFOs over Walnutport. I'd like to get a good look at the skies above the whole town."

"Oh hell, there's a place near my dad's where you can see it all. I'll give you directions."

I got off my call and sat down at my desk. A moment later, Claire came over, telling me,"Two guys are fighting over there."

I stood up and walked to the stacks. There were two guys---One, we'd had problems with before. The other was new. The new guy was asking to use the phone to call the cops. I nodded to Zach, who handed him the phone, and told Claire,"Get the Boss."

"I was just sitting there, at the computers, and he was filming me," the guy was saying on the phone. Behind me, I could hear the other guy also talking to the cops on the phone. "I want him to delete it off his phone. I felt a pain in my leg, and I think he put a curse on me." I continued listening as he began saying crazier and crazier things. "There are cannibals here...."

The Boss came out. "Problem?"

"Been a while since we had one of these," I said. "I'll get the incident reports."

It was me, Ashlin, and Heather. We pulled up at seven PM, grabbed our stuff, and knocked on the door.

Claire opened it, her brother and two friends standing behind her. We went in, and I said,"Hi, Claire. Any hot spots in here? Places where the activity happens more?"

"Not really," she said. "It's pretty evenly distributed around the first floor."

"Okay," I said. "Thanks for letting us investigate. It's the first real investigation LHPS has had in...."

"Almost two years," said Ashlin.

"Yeah," I said. "It's been too long."

Claire smiled. "Anytime. I'm glad you guys could come."

"Let's get to work."

I opened my bag, and pulled out the tac vest. I slipped it on, the big vest with the alien patch, the skull gloves, the gauntlet with bottles on it. And once it was on, I felt something surge---Back in action. Back, finally, doing my thing.

"Let's start here. Get photos from every angle. Get a baseline temperature reading, too. Once we get all that, we'll do an EVP session."

We spread out and got photos and readings. Heather had taken my advice and bought several good pieces of equipment. I noticed she had exactly the same brand of EMF detector and digital recorder that I preferred. One of Claire's friends asked me,"Where did you get that outfit?"

"Amazon, mostly. I shouldn't be allowed around Amazon unsupervised."

"It's really cool."

Claire laughed. "That is his dream outfit, with the gloves and the gauntlet."

"I wanted to look a little less like a cop or a terrorist, so I added the little goth touches."

"That's great," said Claire's friend.

"I have a temperature spike," I said. "Baseline in here is about seventy-two, but it just spiked to eighty."
"Isn't it usually a temperature drop?" asked Ashlin.

"Usually, yes."

"But it's not unheard of to have a spike?" Claire asked.

"It's not. Especially in cases like this, when the ghost died in a fire. It would make sense that the temp would get hot."

Heather was checking the room with her digital recorder.

She said,"Did you hear something upstairs?"

"I didn't---Did you?"

"Heard something walking around up there."

"Keep recording. I'll check it out."

I pulled my thermometer and headed up the stairs. I checked the readings in every corner. I admit I dragged it out a bit; being back in business, back in my ghost-hunting outfit again....It felt good. Damn, did it feel good.

We gathered around the table, sitting down to do another EVP session. All three of us had our recorders going, and Heather and I both had our EMF detectors turned on and sitting on the table. We'd been through this before; sitting around and asking random questions in the hope of attracting a ghost.

We basically went around the table, asking questions. "Can you tell us your name?" "Is anyone here?" "When did you die?" I'd been through this a million times before with Ashlin, and Heather was doing well for her first time out. I heard a noise, and glanced at Claire.

"That's the furnace kicking on," she said.

I nodded. Then both EMF detectors lit up, immediately spiking to red.

Heather leaped up, surprised. Ashlin immediately got photos of the table. Good girl. I pulled my thermometer and began taking readings.

"Is that normal?" asked Claire.

"Not really, no," I said. "We got a spike on both of them at the same time; that's pretty unexpected."

'They're down now," said Heather. "Both green."

"So just got a surge for a moment there, when the furnace came on," I said. "When the ghost here died in a furnace fire. That's a win."

Carrying my bags, I walked up the porch steps and into the house. As always, Rosie ran to meet me at the door, not backing down until she got to lick my face. Paul wheeled into the room on his hoverboard.

"Daddy! I missed you!"

I gave him a hug. "I missed you, too, little man."

"How was your ghost hunt?"

"It was good," I said. "We may have some evidence of ghosts."

"That's great!" he said. "Hey! Mom! Dad caught a ghost!"

Green Lanterns And Aliens

I sat on the edge, eating my lunch, my feet dangling over three stories and a huge whale.

With our COVID precautions tightening again, I'd begun seeking out private spots in the library to take a lunch break in. I'd been bringing in lunch that I either bought, or let Paul pack for me, and then retreating to some little unknown corner. Finding all the little hiding spots in the library had been one of my sources of fun for the past ten years, so it all worked out.

I'd already had a few lunches in the Sloan Room, a corner of a storage room, the attic, and the small stairwell. Now I'd found a spot on the third floor, just outside the boiler room, in a back staircase. If I sat at the edge, by the railing, I could see clear down to the bottom, making it a sort of small balcony. Just below me was the door to Children's, where some stuff got stashed, and there was an eight-foot whale that had been there ever since I could remember.

I polished off the sandwich, shoved all the wrappers into the grocery bag, and walked back into the hallway. The staircase led down to only an exterior door---There was no point in going all the way down. I walked down the hall to the elevators and headed back to my desk.

I had some research to do. I opened the big volume on Renovo and began paging through---You never know what you might find. I found a UFO sighting in September of 1952, which was interesting. Several witnesses in the Renovo area had seen a big, shiny-looking thing heading southwest. It passed over the Green Lantern bar, then over Westport and out of the county.

I brought it up on the microfilm---Front page of the Record, and it only took a moment to locate. I realized that the article down below it was connected to another creature---The Flatwoods Monster. Cryptid, or alien? Only your paranormal investigator knows for sure.

I was printing it up when Chris walked in.

"Hey, Lou," he said. "Working on anything good?"

"Funny you should ask," I said. "Check it out." I handed him the article.

"UFO in Renovo again," he said. "That makes, what, two this year?"

"Yeah, I know," I said. "Aliens keep trying to invade Renovo. It flew over the Green Lantern bar, so I'm designating this one GL-52. But look at the other article, just below it."

He skimmed that one, too. "West Virginia?"

"Same night. They're talking about the Flatwoods Monster."

"You're going to have to fill me in on the Flatwoods Monster."

"The Flatwoods Monster," I said,"Is probably the most famous West Virginia cryptid aside from Mothman. It was seen in September of 1952, when some locals saw something crash into a hillside. A few minutes later, they saw this tall green thing with red eyes and a sort of spade-shaped head approaching them. Turns out, it might have flown over Clinton County before it crashed in West Virginia."

"You think this was the same thing?" Chris asked.

"It sort of stands to reason," I said. "I checked the map. It flew over us, heading in that direction, at exactly the right time to land in Flatwoods when it did. We have Bigfoot, we've been visited by the Jersey Devil, and now we have a connection to the Flatwoods Monster, too. This one involves a UFO, a cryptid, and a Green Lantern."

"Brushed your teeth?"

"Yes."

"Got your clothes all ready?"

"Mom and me did."
I sat down in the chair by Paul's bed, as he and Rosie curled up under the quilts. "Good. First day back at school tomorrow."
"I know! I'm excited."
"Well, you get some rest tonight, little man. Big day tomorrow."

"Daddy? What's going to happen in second grade?"

I smiled. "Well, pretty much the same thing that happened in kindergarten, buddy. You'll have classes, and see your friends. Have lunch. Probably have art or gym at the end of the day."

"I hope it's art!"

"If it's not tomorrow, it will be soon. And then you'll come home, and Rosie will be waiting for you."

"Okay."

I kissed my son on the forehead. "See you tomorrow, little man. Get some sleep."

It was cold in the morning, snowy and eleven degrees. I stood on the corner, watching as Paul talked with his little friends from the neighborhood. For almost two years, I'd been at home with him most of the day. Now....The whole family was vaccinated. I'd given up hope that there would be any kind of end to COVID anytime soon. It was time to send him back.

The bus pulled up, and Paul got on happily. I watched as it pulled off down the street, and then turned away.

"Barb," I said at the desk,"I need a favor."

Barb is our assistant manager. She's short and terrifying. "What do you need?" she asked.

"I need a bit of schedule rearranging. I've been asked to join the board of a local charity. It'll require me to be out early on one night a month for meetings. I'd like to keep this between us; I don't want to make a big deal of it."

"I can do that," said Barb. "Let me know what nights you need."

I wandered around in the stacks for a while, adding to my display. I went into the back staircase and had lunch sitting on the steps. I missed the little guy. I wasn't even at home; I was at work and he was having a great time in school. But I missed him.

So I did what I always do, and lost myself in the research.

I sat down at my desk and checked the website for Braxton County, West Virginia. It gave me a few details on the Flatwoods Monster sighting. It also gave me the number of the local tourism place, which doubled as the Flatwoods Monster Museum. 

On company time, I went upstairs to make a call about the Flatwoods Monster. You can get away with quite a lot if you've discouraged everyone from paying too much attention to you.

I went up to the third floor. I was wearing my "Yeti For Action" sweatshirt; it was heavy and we'd had a pretty intense snowstorm the night before. I could see the snow from the big windows. I sat down at a table and dialed the number.

"Hello, Braxton County and Flatwoods Monster Museum," a cheerful-sounding guy said.

"Hi. My name is Lou, and I'm a writer from Clinton County, Pennsylvania. I'd like to ask a few questions about the Flatwoods Monster."

There'd once been a time I'd felt stupid saying things like that, but I'd long since gotten used to it.

"Right now?"

"If someone's available."

"Sure, I can answer some questions. What would you like to know?"

"Whatever they saw in the sky that night. What direction did it come from?"

"They were at the elementary school when they saw it....That would make it roughly north."
"Hmm. Did they ever identify it? Or find any remnants?"
"No, but the military had a unit out here searching afterward. So, if there was anything...."

"It may have been confiscated immediately, sure."

"May I ask what your interest is?"

"I'm working on an article. Here, locally, we had a UFO sighting the same night. It seems to have been headed in your direction. The Flatwoods Monster may have flown over us before getting to you."

"Really? What time did yours happen?"

"About six PM."

He said,"Wow."

"I know, right?" I said. "The timing works out well."
"Where did you say this happened?"

"Renovo, Pennsylvania. You'd never have heard of it---"

"I have it up on Google Maps. I'm doing directions to Flatwoods, and....Yeah, that's about where it came from, allright."

"I think we got a visit here before he chose you guys."

"There was an author who wrote a book on the sighting---He compiled a list of other UFO sightings that same night. You might benefit from that."

"You may be hearing from me again," I said. "I'll send you a copy of the article when it's done."

"That'd be great," he said. "Thanks."

I went back downstairs. Fishing around in the desk drawer, I pulled out an ILL form. I took it back to my desk and filled it out, then took it to Mel's office.

"Oh, good," she said. "Something to do."

"Well, don't get too excited," I said. "It's only for me."

I walked up and rang the doorbell on the old building. After a moment, a voice came through the speaker. "Can I help you?"

"Hi, it's Lou. I'm new to the board. I'm here to sign some paperwork."

They buzzed me in. There was a woman sitting at a table in the first room.

"Hi, Lou," she said. "I'm Laci. Welcome to the board. I love your columns."

"Oh, thank you. Appreciate that."

"Especially the ghost ones."

I smiled behind my mask. "I get that a lot. I've heard rumors about this place."

"Yeah, me too," she said. "I'd love to know more about it."

"I can come down, sometime, bring my equipment," I said. "We'll pick a slow day, do some investigating."

She smiled. "That'd be really cool."

Once, long ago, the back upstairs room of our house had been the bedroom of Ida Yost, the ghost who haunts the place. Now, she was willing to share with me, and it was my office. I sat at the desk with my laptop, working on an article about the Ingleby Monster. Paul had a couple of little friends over, and I'd ducked into my office to avoid the inevitable chaos.

The curtain pushed aside, and a little blonde kid stepped into the room. Paul has this little friend who follows me around the house. He's a cute little guy, but he won't leave me alone---I'm constantly fielding requests to play with him.

"Hi, Dennis."

"Wow," he said, looking around the room. "I didn't know anything was in here."

I have the house secured to defend against Sasquatches and gray aliens, but Dennis manages to walk right in.

"Yeah, this is my office. I come up here to do some work without being disturbed." I typed off an e-mail request to a local geology professor I knew, asking how fast meteors can go. Specifically, if they could pass through Clinton County and then end up in, say, West Virginia within the next hour.

"Can I play up here?"
I sighed and picked up the laptop. "I was just heading downstairs, actually." I plucked the mouse out of his hand, where he'd picked it up, and closed the door as he followed me out into the hall.

We went downstairs, where Paul and Dennis's sister were coloring at the table. I set my laptop down, retrieved my mouse from Dennis again, and sat down to write.

"Want to color with us. Dad?" asked Paul.

"Sure," I said. It was pretty clear that I wasn't going to get much done unless I went and hid in the basement behind the dryer, and maybe not even then. I picked up a few crayons and began sketching.

"What're you drawing, Dad?" asked Paul.

"It's the Flatwoods Monster."

"That's the Flatwoods Monster?" Paul asked. "When are we gonna catch him?"

"I'm working on it. He lives out in West Virginia. You remember who else is from West Virginia?"

"Mothman." Paul said immediately.

"How do you know that?" Dennis asked him.

"My dad teaches me," said Paul.

I heard my cell phone ringing in my backpack. I fished it out and answered it.

"Hello."

"Hi, Lou. It's the president of the board; you'd asked about helping out?"

"Yes! Just a second." I went back upstairs and locked myself in my office, kicking a doorstop into place as a preventative against Dennis. "My son is back in school, and I'm discovering I have a ridiculous amount of free time on my hands."

"Going through some empty nest, huh?"

"You got it. I was wondering if there's anything I can do to help out."

"You know, it's funny you should ask. I could use someone to go down and take a look at the building, see if there's anywhere that needs some paint or repair."

"I can do that," I said. "The staff may think I'm looking for ghosts."
"Let me know if you find any of those, too."

"So I just got an ILL book to research an alien monster," I said to Tracey. "A lot of people from my past are kind of disappointed in me these days."

Tracey laughed. "You've made an interesting career out of this, though. Find anything?"
"Well, the book is pretty conspiracy-heavy, but it did contain some valuable information," I said. "The Flatwoods Monster was seen in Braxton County, West Virginia, in September of 1952. It seemed to have come from a meteor that landed there. Turns out, probably the same meteor flew over Clinton County, up in Renovo near the Green Lantern. The book says that one was sighted in Independence Township, Beaver County, at about the right time, which is right on the route. Flatwoods Monster came to Clinton County."

"I'm not familiar with that one," said Tracey.

"No, the Flatwoods Monster is pretty obscure. I had to special order the shirt."

Tracey laughed.

"I just got an e-mail back from the geologist I'd asked about this," I said. "I e-mailed her while I was hiding out from my son's friend." Tracey gave me a funny look. "It's a whole thing," I said. "Nevermind....The geologist says that a meteor could very easily make West Virginia from here in that hour allotted.  Looks like the Flatwoods Monster passed over us before it landed in West Virginia."

"That's really neat," said Tracey.

"That I constantly deal with strange unknown monsters?"

"How you figure these things out. That's pretty neat."

"Anyway," I said,"Gotta run out for a couple of minutes."

"Take your time."

It's a lot easier to keep your destination a secret when nobody cares.

I walked out to my bike and climbed on, riding down the street. Again, I went to the building and buzzed in. It was a little quicker this time, with the staff getting used to me. One of the staffers, Juli, asked me,"Are you here to see anything specific?"

"No, just a general checkup. Look for a few ghosts, maybe."

She laughed. "Help yourself."

"The building was built about 1885 as a parsonage for the local church, so you never know."

I got out my flashlight and camera, and slipped a laser thermometer and EMF detector into my pocket. Then I started walking down the hall, taking a few readings.

Neat old building. I walked around with the equipment, checking it out. This could get to be fun.

"Yeah," I said in the empty hallway. "I could get to like this."