There was a new roof going on the house across the street from us, and for the past few days, there had been guys up there pounding away at it, installing the shingles. I got home and unpacked all my groceries, with the supervision of Butters, who always assumed he stood a chance of getting some, and then I stepped out to look at the progress.
I'd lived on the street twenty years, and I still didn't know much about some of the houses in the neighborhood. I'd never really looked into this one, for instance.
Wonder if it's haunted?
Renovations and repairs often make ghosts act up. Reports have a tendency to spike during home repair jobs, and this would qualify.
What the hell, it had been a little slow lately. I went inside and got to work.
First I sent a message to the team and told them I was checking into ghosts. No real reason to do that, but I like keeping my friends in the loop. Then I went upstairs and pulled the city directories.
City directories are great. They're like a reverse phone book, showing who lived at each address over the years. I checked the twenties through the forties, and came up with a few names.
I gave the assessment office a call. I'm sure this drives them nuts, but hey, I may as well get some entertainment for my tax dollars.
"Assessments."
"Hi, I was hoping to get an age on a building."
"....I'm....I'm not sure what you...."
"I need to know how old a building is. I was hoping you could check the record for me and tell me when it was built."
"Well, my concern would be that these are not very accurate."
"Oh, I'm very familiar with that. That's okay; for my purposes a ballpark estimate is just fine."
He brought up the record. "It says here 1900, but that sounds like just a fill-in for...."
"I know. That's okay; that'll do for my purposes. Thanks."
I hung up. Government officials just don't understand about ghosts. Back to the city directories. I found two interesting things---One man who had lived in the house had also owned the Rest Haven Cemetery, and was in fact buried there. And one of the owners had remarried---His first wife, Catherine, had died at age thirty-one, making her a possible candidate for a haunting.
First thing in the morning. I got out of bed and went to shake Paul awake, the first of at least seven attempts. I started the coffee, leashed up Butters, and walked outside.
The roofers were back at it, hammering away, their van and a pickup truck parked on the sidewalk. One of the guys was at ground level, and I approached him, my cowardly little dog trying to pull away. The roofers had a local radio station playing: "Ooh-eee-ooh, I look just like Buddy Holly....Oh, oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore...."
"Morning," I said. "How long are you guys going to be here?"
"Until one o'clock today, and then back on Monday to finish up," he said.
I nodded. "Weird question. While you've been here, have you seen anything to suggest the place was haunted?"
"Well, no, I haven't," he said. "I'll ask the other guys. Now you have me curious; I think I'll keep my eyes open!"
I smiled. "If you see anything, I'm right across the street."
I walked back across, Butters tugging on the leash the whole way. Paul was still in bed, and I went up to try and get him up again.
Night had fallen. Paul was out at a sleepover with Amelia. I picked up one of my all-in-one EMF detectors---The nice one, with the flashlight included---And walked outside.
The thing lit right up when I turned it on. I was used to that on my property, with a ghost and wiring that predated World War II. I walked across the street, roaming around, checking that property. Nothing---Not a flicker.
Out of curiosity, I walked the entire length of the block, both sides, checking EMF readouts along the way. Aside from my own place, I wound up getting exactly one spike---Down the street at 445, I got a reading in front of the place. I knew there were other buildings on the block that were probably haunted, but this one and my own house were the only ones putting out EMFs.
Gonna have to look into that.
"Thank you for coming on my haunted tour tonight, and helping to support the Tiger Den playground," I said, stopping at the house on Grove Street. "This next house is where the Jersey Devil was seen in 1909. running around on the roof. It's was seen one more time at the paper mill, flying away in an easterly direction."
As we walked on, a man said to me,"I've heard the paper mill was haunted."
"It's possible," I admitted. "There were murders up there, and occasionally people who died on the job. It's in my neighborhood; I'll have to check it out a bit sometime."
I sat outside in the dusk, changing my bike tire. I had a blue bike that had blown a tire about two years precious, and I hadn't really used it until now. But with a couple of tools and a trip to Wal-Mart, I was learning how to change the damn thing myself.
I turned it over and inflated it, then tested it out. Not bad. The sun was setting, and I looked down the alley a bit.
And the paper mill was right down the street.
Two minutes later, I was riding down Grouse Alley on my bike, heading for the paper mill's property.
I pulled up along the very end of South Jones Street, where a fence stood between the dead end and the mill pond. I got out my EMF detector and turned it on, not getting a flicker. The only ghost I saw was a cute cartoony one painted on a neighbor's tree. I turned around and headed for South Jones Street.
At the end of South Jones, the railroad tracks ran into the paper mill and the front gate was open. It was the very edge of Lock Haven; across the tracks was Castanea Township. The last time I'd investigated anything in the paper mill neighborhood, I'd been attacked by a giant bird. Before that, down the street, I'd had to sneak into a property to look into UFOs.
I got out the EMF detector and checked. Nothing. Maybe I wasn't close enough yet, but any closer would require trespassing, and I had no doubt they had security cameras on. Probably a couple of perplexed security guards watching me right that moment.
I turned and headed home.
Slow month.
"Been looking for a few ghosts," I told Chris as we sat at the pizza shop in Renovo. "I haven't been able to do a lot of research because of all the tours, and Lex and Jay are working, and Chloe's in Florida. I've been checking out my own neighborhood, but nothing so far."
"Well, maybe you'll have some activity tonight," he suggested. "The Renovo tour starts at the funeral home, right?"
"Yeah, got a bunch of other good stories on the tour, too. Hopefully we'll get a good turnout. We did last year. You want to take the rest of the pizza home?"
"Nah," he said. "Feed it to Paul."
"I'd like to thank you all for coming out tonight and supporting Renovo Heritage," I said to the gathered crowd. "My name is Lou, and I'll be your tour guide tonight. I'm a paranormal investigator, field leader of the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers, Clinton County's longest-lasting and most reliable ghost-hunting team. Our first investigation was back in 2007, and we checked out a funeral home. With some turnover on the team last year, we wound up with some new members, and with the new team, our first investigation was this funeral home."
The crowd followed me and we walked through town, sharing ghost stories. I wound up with three teenagers walking close behind me, two girls and a boy, talking about experiences they'd had.
"You know," I said,"You guys could all team up, and do a little investigating of your own. I'd love to see Renovo's first teen ghost-hunting team."
They looked a little surprised. "Oh," said the boy. "You heard us talking, huh?"
I grinned. "I heard you. Sounds like you guys might make a good team."
We rounded the corner and arrived back at the funeral home. The whole tour had taken a little over and hour. I stepped up on the stair and faced the crowd again.
"I always end the tours with this story," I said. "This one is special to me, because this one is mine. My house is haunted by seventeen-year-old Ida Yost."
We stood in the Renovo Heritage office, drinking hot chocolate. Most of the tour had gone home, but there were a few still hanging around, chatting. Including the teens. I'd noticed two of Paul's dance friends in the crowd. I was hanging with Chris.
"Would anyone like to see the funeral home side of the building?" asked Mary George, my contact person with the Heritage Foundation. "We can take you over."
Some of them were interested, and they walked out the front door. I turned to Chris.
"Go ahead," he said. "I got all night."
I ran to the car and grabbed my ghost-hunting bag, threw it over my shoulder, and walked into the funeral home.
"Okay," I said,"I got my stuff. Now it's a party."
We all walked upstairs. I had the AI1 out, checking. No EMFs. One of the teens asked me,"What's that?"
"This is my all-in-one EMF detector and thermometer. I like this model because this way, I don't have to carry two pieces of equipment. Want to try?"
I handed it to her and got out my digital recorder.
"You guys want to try an EVP session? See how it all works?"
Everyone liked that. "Okay, I'm going to announce the details, then we all go around the room and say our names. That way we have a record of who was here. Then we ask questions to see if we can get something on playback."
I turned on the recorder. "October 25, eight-thirty PM. Third floor, Renovo funeral home. Lou."
"Mary."
"Traci."
"Brooklynne."
"Derek."
"Evelyn."
As always, the room went quiet for a moment. Then I said,"Is there anyone here?"
"This is so cool," whispered Brooklynne.
"My new team's first investigation was in this building," I said. "Looks like, so is yours."
"Thanks for the lift, Chris. See you soon."
I closed the car door and walked inside the house. Butters came to greet me at the door; Rosie was curled up on some laundry. Paul was away at Amelia's place for a sleepover.
The TV was playing---It was the movie I'd left on pause hours ago when I'd left the house. It was about twenty minutes past where I'd stopped it. The remote wasn't on the couch where I'd left it---It was sitting nearby, on the little table.
Nobody else was in the room.
I smiled.
"Hi, Ida," I said.
I'd spent the whole month trying to hunt for ghosts on my block, but the most haunted place on the street was my own.
