#101: Stop The Presses

I burst through the door and ran down the hall in the haunted house. I was wearing my ghost-hunting uniform, and had a flashlight in one hand and a laser thermometer in the other. I turned and checked inside one room, finding nothing, and then spun to the next room. Nothing. I raced down the hall toward the stairs.

Swiftly, I bolted up the stairs, shoving open the door and getting into the kitchen.

Five people sat around the kitchen table. Glancing around in some conclusion, I said,"Thought I heard a sound come through on the recorder."

One of the men looked at me. "That was probably my cell phone," he said. "It rang a minute ago."

"It was kind of a thumping sound----"

"Yeah, I use a smackdown from WWE."

I sighed. This whole thing was getting out of hand, and I'd about had enough of this one. Turning to the homeowner, a young woman in her early twenties, I said,"There were only supposed to be two of you in the house."
"I know, but they came over, and I couldn't send them home," she said. "My neighbor is a psychic. She's coming over later, too."

"A---"

"She's a psychic. She says the house is haun---"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," I said, holding up one hand. "Psychics aren't real. They don't provide any evidence."

"Yeah, but---"

"Your next line is 'She told me things she couldn't have known.' Right?" I could tell by her face that I'd gotten pretty close. "Stop and think. What exactly did she tell you?"
"When I was younger, I had a miscarriage. She knew the baby's name."

"Uh-huh. You ever post it on Facebook? No, wait---I've got it. Did she tell you an actual name plus the circumstances, or did she say something like 'I'm sensing the letter C' and you filled in the rest?"

"Well...."

"Yeah, I thought so." I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. "Your house isn't haunted. I'm outa here."

My name is Lou. I live in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and I do a lot of things. I'm a librarian. I'm a writer. And I'm a paranormal investigator. Sometimes that's great. Sometimes it's a bust.

I was pulling on my tac vest when my son Paul found me in my office. 

"Where are you going?" he asked. "Is it a ghost hunt?"

"Not this time, not really," I said. "There's a girl with cancer named Ellie. I talked to her mom, and I asked if there was anything I could do. She told me that it would cheer Ellie up a lot to do an investigation with me, so I'm going to go down and play Make-A-Wish foundation; show her some of my equipment."

"Can I come?" Paul asked.

"Get your vest."

A moment later, we left the house, walked one block down the street, and into Ellie's house, which we could see from our own yard.

I'd met Ellie's mom Erin a couple of years ago, waiting in line to vote. I'd never met her kids before. Ellie was a young, blonde college student, and she had a dark-haired younger sister, Allison. As we sat down, Erin said,"Allison is going into kindergarten this year."

"You're gonna love kindergarten," Paul assured her. "You get to sing, and play at recess, and color and stuff."

I smiled. "So, Ellie, your mom says you'd like to learn about ghost hunting."

Ellie smiled shyly. "I'm into that."

"Well, we brought down some of our equipment to show you," I said. "We can plan a ghost hunt in a few days, I think, but I figured we'd start with a little lesson."

Paul tapped me on the shoulder. "Can I give her the present?"

"Sure."

Paul handed Ellie a laser thermometer I'd ordered for her. I said,"That's for you, Ellie. I wanted to bring you a little gift. Don't get discouraged. You're gonna beat this thing."

One of the perks of being me is that I get to just stroll into wherever I want. Like the library after hours, or the local abuse shelter, or in this case, the newsroom of the local newspaper.

It was a slow day. Laura, the editor, and Arianna, the graphic designer, were the only two in the newsroom. I'm old enough to remember it being filled with older, seasoned reporters. And, little by little over the years, the staff got younger. Now it's a bunch of people much younger than me, which I actually like.

"Hey, Lou!" said Laura. "What can we do for you?"

"Wanted to make you guys an offer." I sat down. "I'm looking for a few ways to be more fulfilled in my career lately. Work isn't cutting it.....Anyway, not your problem.....But one of the things I thought of was to go back to my column every week, instead of every two weeks. I used to do that, until we had to cut it back in 2016."

"Was that for that literacy column?" Arianna asked.

"That's the one."

"She drove us crazy," Arianna said matter-of-factly.

Laura nodded. "Sure, we can run you every week. Want to start now?"

"I already have the piece for the tenth in. Let me start after that. I'm not even asking for more money."

"Oh, I'll pay you," said Laura.

"By the way," said Arianna,"If you could send in your October ghost stories a little early and give me a heads-up on the graphics, that would help a lot."

"I can do that. I'm almost done with them now."

"We'd love to get you guys into this building," said Laura. "We think the old editor, Rebecca Gross, is still haunting the place. We could do an investigation and get a whole article out of it."

"That'd be cool," I said. "I'd actually love to do that. Let me talk to the team."

"I'll ask the publisher. We may be able to do this thing."

"That'd be great. I could actually use an investigation like that. You have no idea."

"Hi....We're here to see Lou?"

I heard it from back at my desk. It's one of the side effects of being right out in the open, in the oldest part of the library. I dream of one day having walls. I was expecting this one, though. I stood up and met Erin and Ellie as they entered my office area.

"Hi, guys," I said. "Come on up. Let's do some investigating."

I led them upstairs, to the old bedroom. Ellie looked around with some wonder---The place was built for a mayor of Lock Haven, and really is impressive. "Whoa," she said. "Look at all this."

"We're working on making it into a break room, but no idea when that's ever going to happen," I said. "Here, you can borrow my EMF detector, if you like. Let's get some readings."

We walked around the room, checking temperature and electricity, taking photos. Erin said,"Thank you for giving Ellie something to look forward to, Lou. This means a lot."

"Of course," I said. "The surgery is Friday, right?"

Ellie nodded. "We're going to Danville Friday morning."

"I'll send you a couple of my books, to read while you're resting. Also I remember hearing something about a haunted cemetery in Danville, someplace near the hospital. I'll look that up; maybe you can see it from your window."

Ellie smiled. "Thanks."

"We're nervous," said Erin.

"Understandable," I said. "Working on the money situation, too. I've seen your fundraising online."

"It's all going to be tough to afford," said Erin.

I had a thought.

"Erin, I'd like to do a haunted tour for you guys," I said. "I can't pay off all your bills, but I can help out a bit, maybe make a couple hundred dollars. I can do it up in our neighborhood, but I won't do it without your permission. What do you think?"

"That would be really cool," said Ellie.

"Yes," said Erin. "Thank you."

"Is Lou here?"

I can hear people come in at the main desk around the corner, but I can never be sure whether to hide or not until it's too late. Claire said,"Yeah, he's right at his desk."

Older guy, stained T-shirt. Gray hair that looked like he'd combed it with, at best, a mop. He stopped by my desk and said,"You wrote that article about the Flatwoods Monster."

"Yes," I said. "I did."

"That's pretty good. You read the book about the Flatwoods Monster? A guy investigated that. I had a teacher once who told me what really happened with the UFOs in Washington in 1952. The whole Air Force got surrounded. Now, how did they cover that up? You know what else they covered up? Lovecraft. Some people think the Necronomicon isn't real, but it is."

Shoulda hid.

I get these conspiracy nuts, some of them genuinely insane, who come to talk to me form time to time. They don't have a whole lot of people who want to hear this, so they latch onto me. I don't much want to hear it either, but they don't care.

"Now, I got a buddy who tells me about that bus accident, out on the railroad tracks near the prison. Is that real?"

"Nope," I said.

He somehow managed to look honestly surprised. "No?"

"No. What you're talking about is a gravity hill, where a train kills kids on a bus. And cars roll uphill, out of the way. These are stories all over the country. Now, you're the first person I ever heard who put this one by the prison. I've heard other locations, all of which incidentally are on top of a hill. If you don't know your car is going to roll downhill, I can't help you."

"So that's just a, what, a urban legend?"

"Yeah. It is."

"Hunh," he said, and left, pondering that.

I turned back to my computer and checked my e-mails. Nine times out of ten there's bad news, or some crap I gotta deal with. But this one was good. This one was from Laura.

We were on for the investigation at the Express.

On Friday morning, I put Paul on the bus to school. Then I went home; it was just me, the dog, and the hamster. I drank some more coffee, wrote an article, and then biked down to the grocery store and bought a box of cookies and a large pack of paper towels. I withdrew forty dollars from the register, asking for it in fives.

Then I biked down to the nonprofit I volunteer with, checked in, and dropped the paper towels and cookies on the table. Julie let me in.

"How's it going?" she asked.

"Got my tour tonight," I said. "I needed some starting change, so I thought I'd treat you guys to cookies. And I  know you always need cleaning products, so I'm donating it. I made the grocery give me all fives."

She handed me a five-dollar bill. "I'm not sure I can make it for the tour, but let me donate to her."

"Thanks. You're the first."

Lacey came into the break room. "Hi, Lou," she said. "How's everything?"

"So far, so good. How about you?"

She grinned. "Hope I can make it for the tour! How's that coming?"

"Little nervous," I admitted. "I'm hoping for a crowd. Ellie deserves this; her family needs the money."

"You'll do fine. You always do."

It's actually kind of nice to do a tour within walking distance of my house. Paul and I walked down the street before it began, as the sun was going down. He peered ahead down the street, and reported,"There's already people there."

"Good," I said. "I've been stressing about the weather all week, but it ended up being nice out. Now all I need to worry about is the crowd."

There were already several people waiting. I collected five dollars from each---Some people overdonated, giving more money than required for Ellie. Chris and his wife Kate were there, and Lacey made it with her son. Laura was there. As eight PM arrived, I saw Ellie in a wheelchair, pushed by Erin as they came down the street.

I activated my speaker system---It's a nice little speaker that clips on my belt, given to me by the Jersey Shore Historical Society a couple of years back. It had been a while since I'd had the chance to use it.

"Here's the guest of honor!" I said. "Ellie, good to see you." I turned to face the crowd, spread out along the sidewalk. Had to be about thirty people. "I'd like to thank you all for coming and supporting this family. It's a good night to take a walk and hear some ghost stories, so let's get started. Our first stop used to be a dairy, but before that, a family lived here, and their daughter died of diphtheria at age fourteen. Her name was Ruth, and she is still believed to be haunting the house...."

We got to the Express at seven, and Laura let us in the front door. I'd been there plenty of times, but never at night. Like most places, it looked a little different in the dark.

"Thanks for coming," she said. 

"Hey, thanks for having us."
"Do you need some sort of headquarters, or...."

"Place to drop our stuff, sure," I said. 

"You can use my desk."

We walked up the stairs to the office. The Express has a LOT of stairs. Up in the newsroom, we dropped our stuff. I dug out my tac vest and put it on.

"Do you guys have some kind of system?" Laura was snapping photos with her elaborate camera.

"More or less. We're going to go around and take some photos, get some readings. That's what we do first. Then we'll sit down and turn on the recorders, do an EVP session. Are there any hotspots in here? Places where you get a lot of activity?"

"The publisher's office," Laura said immediately,"And the conference room. Sometimes at night I hear typing from back there when I'm alone."

"I'm going to start with my recorder now," said Millie, sitting down at one of the desks.

"Good idea."

Millie began the continuous recording while Tami and I circulated and got some photos. I said,"Getting some weirdly high EMF readings on this window back here. Is there a power line outside?"

"I don't think so," said Laura. "No wiring back there, either."

"It's odd. This place has been maintained---Even at your outlets, I'm not getting a lot of EMF bleed."

I saw Tami snap a photo over her shoulder, casually, as if trying not to attract attention. Very cool move.

"Let's try the conference room," I said.

We went and sat down around the table. Millie set her EMF detector down, and I set down both of mine and turned on the recorder. "Seven-thirty PM on September 18th. Lock Haven Express, second floor, conference room. Lou."

"Millie."

"Tami."

"Laura."

"Is there anyone here?" I asked.

"Did you work here?" Laura asked. A moment later, she said,"We think it might be Rebecca Gross. She ran this place for decades."

"It would be in character for her to still be working," I said. "She died in, what, ninety-nine?"

"Ninety-eight," said Laura.

I stood up and walked around the room, taking a few readings. I walked out into the press room, and looked at the bulletin board.

"Hey, Laura," I said,"You guys got a sticker here with the twenty-four hour phone number of the Pennsylvania UFO Center. Got anything you want to tell me?"

"We do?!" Laura came out and looked. "I didn't even know that was there. This building is full of surprises."

"Getting a reading on my EMF detector," Millie said.

I looked down. Her EMF meter was spiking to orange as we talked. I said,"Is that someone? Rebecca? Do you want to communicate with us?"

A moment later, mine started doing the same thing. My all-in-one stayed steady, with no jumps or temperature fluctations.

I circled the room, snapping photos. I said,"Did you hear a clicking....?"

"I heard it," said Tami. "In that corner."

"Yeah." I got more photos.

"That's about where Rebecca Gross had her typewriter," said Laura. "That wall wasn't here then; it was added later."

The EMF meters spiked again, the lights running to orange. I said,"This is great. Laura, you'll never see something like this on the TV shows, but this is a really good night."

I handed Erin the envelope. "Here you go," I said. "Three hundred and fifty-five dollars. Use it however you like."
She hugged me, then hugged Paul. "Thank you both so much."
"How's everything going?" I asked.

"It's good," said Ellie. "I have to go all the way to Danville for radiation five days a week, but the surgery got all the tumor. So it's good."

I smiled. "I'm glad. Let me know if we can do anything else. We'll get out of your hair."

Paul and I walked outside, onto the street. As we walked down the street in the dark, he said,"That made them happy."

"Yeah," I said. "We made them very happy. We used our skills to help them a lot, which is good. And it's the kind of thing I want you learning as you grow up."

As we walked down the street, Paul's little hand slipped into mine. "I love you, Daddy," he said.

I smiled. "I love you, too, pal."