Long Way Home

NO PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS, the sign said.

"So," the woman asked me,"Are you a paranormal investigator? Or some kind of writer?"

"Both, actually," I admitted. "How did you know?"

"Well, you have an alien on your shirt. And your belt. And skulls on your sneakers."

"It's maybe possible that I overdo it."

My name is Lou. I'm a writer, historian, tour guide, volunteer, and explorer, but mostly I'm a paranormal investigator. I've been doing it for a while now, and I've pretty much reached the point in my career where I can ask someone if they've recently seen the Mothman with a straight face.

I was waiting to go on a tour of the old haunted jail in Jim Thorpe. My wife, my son, and his little friend were whitewater rafting the Lehigh River. I'm not much for the water, so I'd agreed to hang out in Jim Thorpe for a few hours before they picked me up and we headed off to my family's farm in Slatington.

The jail was known to be haunted, but they were a little touchy about photos an investigations. My plan was to essentially sneak an investigation in during the tour. I'd done dumber stuff.

The tour guide was maybe fourteen, and his name was Alex. 

Jim Thorpe jail is known for a handprint in one of the cells. According to the story, a prisoner put it there before he was hanged, and it's never come off. Now, I am cynical enough to picture a staff member with a sharpie putting the handprint back after hours, but I figured it was worth checking.

"The handprint is in cell seventeen," Alex announced. "Please feel free to look around, but no photographs or investigations."

Everyone in the group---I was with about twenty people---Wandered around the first floor of the jail. I slid my all-in-one out of my jacket pocket and flipped it on.

The device is an EMF detector and a thermometer, which saves me from carrying around a lot of equipment, but it looks like just about nay nondescript electronic. It could be anything, which is convenient. I walked around, checking for EMFs.

Nothing. I switched it over to the thermometer setting, and immediately got a cold spot. I grinned.

There we go. And the employees never had to know.

"So you're a tour guide," the guy said.

I nodded. "Tour guide, writer, investigator."

I was sitting in a bar in Jim Thorpe, having a beer to kill some time until the family arrived. I'd been joined by a nice enough guy who'd struck up a conversation, and we'd been chatting for a few minutes.

"My wife would love that," he said. "She goes out with some of her friends, and they do all sorts of haunted stuff. You have a website or something?"
I handed him my card. "Have her e-mail me. We'll set up a tour."

"Hey, that's great!"

My cell phone rang. It was Michelle.

"We're on our way."
"I'll be in position," I said.

I walked down to Hazard Square, where ten minutes later, the Jeep pulled up and I climbed in. "Everyone have a good time?"

"Yeah!" said Paul, my son, in the back.

"How about you, honey?" Michelle asked. "How was your day?"

"Not bad. Toured a haunted jail." I turned to Paul and his friend Rylan in the back seat. "You guys want to help me look into aliens tonight? There have been some UFO sightings out there. They had a CE-3-D on the Hynek Scale. Someone reported seeing a little black creature they thought was an alien running around after a UFO sighting."

"How did they know it was an alien?" Paul asked. "It could have been a raccoon."

"That's what we'll try to find out. Uncle Jon wants to know if you'd like to learn how to drive the gator while you're there."

Paul lit up. "Yeah!"
"He says he might teach you how to use a chainsaw, too."
"I've seen chainsaws," Paul said,"But only in videogames. I've never seen one in real life."

"Well, Uncle Jon may show you how it works."

I pulled the tent from the Jeep and got it set up. My brother watched with some amusement. I said,"We've had this tent since before we were married. Best tent I've ever owned. It's getting old, but I keep trying to get one more summer out of it."

"Looks like a good one," Jon said. "It goes up nice and easy. You gonna do some ghost-hunting while you're here?"

"Thought I'd look into UFOs, actually. There's been a sighting. Someone saw a small black creature."

"Could have been a fisher."

"Coulda been. I'll look into that."

"You should check out the springhouse while you're here. I was wondering if it was haunted."

"Might be. Got something happening down there?"

"Well, a really bad feeling. A few noises. But it's old, you know that."

"I'll check into it while I'm here."

"Don't go too far in, though. I don't trust that floor, and I don't want anyone getting hurt."

"Been getting bad for years. Want to see some of my equipment?"

"Sure."

Paul was in the grass, playing with Miles, the family beagle. We were near the line of maple trees by the driveway. A leaf came fluttering down, and he reached out and grabbed, almost catching it. It bounced off his hand and fell to the grass.

"Amy says there's magic in falling leaves," he told me. "If you can catch one, it brings that magic to you and means good fortune."

I got out my hard briefcase and opened it up. "Here's my rifle microphone. Michelle caught the kids out in the backyard with it a while back, listening for the ice cream truck. Which is a legitimate use of the rifle microphone. Here's the night vision binoculars."

Jon tried them. "Not bad."
"They're not true night vision---It operates on a green laser light. But good enough for my purposes. Here's the thermal imager. You can see heat signatures with this."

"Hey, that'd be good to test on the beehives."

"Maybe later we can, if you'd like. You want to join me and the kids when we look for UFOs?"

"If I'm taking the dogs out and I see you guys out there, I'll catch up."

"That works." I pulled on my vest. "Usually I have the big bulletproof tac vest, but this is the travel model. Easier to pack."

"Vest light."

I walked out the back door and across the yard in the dark. It brought back memories---All the times I'd snuck out of the house at night as a teenager. I'd done it a million times, slipping out to have some adventure in the middle of the night.

I walked up the road. I had a flashlight, but I didn't really need it---The moon was almost full, and I was guided by a childhood of memories. I knew every step, and it didn't take much before it all came back to me.

I'd done this the night I'd tried to commit suicide. January 13, 1986. I'd wanted to kill myself, but then decided to live, for the people I'd cared about. And I'd slipped out of the house, gone looking for a ghost, and managed to help an abused girl.

At the top of the hill, I looked around. I got out the binoculars and turned on the night vision, scouting the area. Trees, mostly. I saw the Big Dipper, bright in the sky. I'd gotten used to the lights of Lock Haven---It was darker out here, making the stars more visible. I saw a plane.

There was a bright light to the north, moving across the sky. I couldn't identify it offhand. I watched it for a while, moving east. Then I heard something behind me.

It was in the woods across the road, something moving back there. I turned on my flashlight, but couldn't see it. I moved toward it, but it crept away, disappearing into the woods.

Paul and Rylan were in the living room. Rylan was already asleep on one couch, and Paul was watching TV on the other.

"Find anything?" he asked me.

"Maybe an animal in the woods. I think the alien someone saw was probably an animal---There's certainly enough of them out there."

"Maybe in the morning I'll go with you."

"We can check the springhouse for ghosts. Uncle Jon thinks it might be haunted."

"Cool. Will you watch Harry Potter with me before bed?"

"Sure." I sat down with him, and he threw his legs over me. One of the Harry Potter movies was on; he'd loved those as a little kid, but it had been a while.

We sat comfortably together and watched for a while. He went to sleep sometime around ten; I heard his breathing change and he was out.

I gave him a few minutes, then went out to the tent and went to sleep myself.

I woke up around seven in the morning. I shrugged myself out of my purple sleeping bag and went into the house, still wearing my Chupacabra pajamas. I poured myself a cup of coffee and found Dad out of the porch.

"How's everything?" he asked.

I sat down beside him on the porch swing. "Doing okay. Slept fine, for in a tent. Michelle's still out."

"I saw Paul on the couch."
"We won't be seeing him for a while. Once he's out, he's near impossible to wake up. I gotta make like six tries every single morning for school."

I took a sip of my coffee. Dad asked,"So how's everything with your heart? Any news there?"

"Still no idea. I've had follow-up appointments and all sorts of crap, and nothing. It was really just that one day, and then it was over."

"Did the doctors give you any directions?"

"I barely even saw doctors. They told me to drink more water, and that was the most helpful thing I heard. I'm not feeling too hot on the medical profession right now."

"Yeah, I can understand that."

"But I'm okay. Lost some weight for some reason, but no further heart problems. I was on the heart monitor for thirty days, and it recorded nothing. So I'm doing okay."

Breakfast was blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs, cooked by Jon's wife Amy and begged for by Miles and Peggy.

"Find any ghosts last night?" Amy asked me.

"Last night I was sort of concentrating on UFOs," I said. "But didn't find much. We're going to check the springhouse for ghosts this morning."

I was actually surprised at how much Paul and Rylan ate. They barely eat breakfast at home. Afterward, I put on the vest and took some of my equipment out of the travel case, stocking my pockets.

"You guys going with me to the springhouse?" I asked the kids.

"Yeah," said Rylan.

"Which one is the springhouse?" Paul asked.

"The building with the pink shingles out back, by the path," I said. "We used to camp there. I learned first aid in that house, learned Morse code. We had a million adventures in that old springhouse when I was a kid." I picked up the box of equipment. "Who wants what?"

Rylan took the laser thermometer, and Paul took the little EMF detector. We walked down to the springhouse, on the path behind the house.

The springhouse is a big old house with pink shingles. We'd played in it and camped in it constantly as kids. Now, my brother was right---It wasn't in the best condition.

I stopped and looked at it, remembering.

I got out the all-in-one and turned it on. I said,"Check the outside first."

We walked around outside the springhouse for a moment, checking the readings. Then I tried the door, which was jammed---It had pretty much always been like that. I did what I'd always done as a kid, and kicked the lower corner.

It popped open. I stepped inside. The floor was covered with walnut shells; clearly squirrels were using the place. Dust and junk was throughout the room, and the floor sagged badly. It had buckled up in the middle, and I could see a clearly rotted spot that I wouldn't dare to go near.

"Can we come in?" asked Rylan.

"Yes, but not far. Stay behind me," I said.

Paul and Rylan stepped inside, looking around. 

"Wow," commented Paul.

I said,"We shouldn't get any EMFs from electricity in here---Dad shut off the power to this place years ago, when they built the new barn."

Rylan moved the laser thermometer around the room. "Got a cold spot over there," she said.

"I'm showing that, too," I said. "Going to the thermal imager."

I got the imager out of my pocket and turned it on. I could see the shades of red and orange, and for no reason, a blue blob in the middle.

"Yep, we have activity," I said. "Got a cold spot right there. Let's get out of here, before the floor collapses."

We moved back out the door---We'd only gone about four feet into the building. My brother had come down the path and was working on the tractor,

"Find anything?" he asked.

"Couple of cold spots," I said. "Place may actually be haunted. You know all the people who built this farm are up in the old cemetery by 873?"
"I remember that," he said. "The Newhards."

"German immigrants. Did the research on them years ago."

Paul tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear. I grinned.

"Paul wants to know what the chances are of him getting a lesson on the gator."

Paul and his Uncle Jon sat in the front seat of the gator, a big green cart that Jon used on the farm. 

"Okay, I'm gonna keep my hand on the emergency brake. You steer, and work the gas. Just a little at a time, to start."
Paul was grinning. I watched as he started driving, slowly and jerkily at first, then smoothing out. Clearly, he was having a good time. With Jon in the seat beside him, he steered the gator across the lawn. My brother and my son.

A leaf was falling from the maple tree.

Without thinking, I reached out and caught it.