Memory Lane

I was on the Susquehanna River. I'd been on the boat a while, been recognized as a paranormal investigator, and been taking photos and scribbling notes for my article. Oh, yeah, and I was talking to a drag queen.

I mean....I've had weirder moments.

"This guy is a ghost hunter," said another guy who was attending the drag cruise. "He was telling us about ghosts last time! The, what, the Siren?"

"The Susquehanna Siren," I confirmed. "Said to be luring people in right along this river."

The drag queen looked interested. "That's so cool," she said. "You do that a lot?"

"All the time," I said. "I investigate, I write about it, I give tours."

"You give tours, too?"

"Haunted tours," I said. "I'm currently planning some in October to benefit a breast cancer charity. Here's my card."
She pulled out her phone. "I'll just take a picture of this, since my hands are full."
"I was kinda gonna just stick it in your bra."

"Oh, that would be okay," she said.

I tucked the LHPS card in the drag queen's bra. I don't think I've ever had occasion to use those words in that order before.

"I need to get ready for my song," she said. "But I'm gonna try not to be a stranger, okay?"
I smiled. "I would truly like that."

She moved off, and I walked through the boat and sat down beside my daughter.

"How's it going, Dad?" Tif asked.

"Doing good," I said. "I think I just made friends with a drag queen."

"Which one?"

"The redhead."

"Good choice. I think I need a drag king persona."

"Starsky and Crutch," I suggested.

"Dad. Jesus."

"Elvis Palsey?"

"How many beers have you had?"

"Three. I think."

"You're working."

"Freelance writers are encouraged to drink on duty. Hemingway did it all the time."

"Hemingway was an alcoholic."

"Tif," I said,"A while ago, you found a Schuylkill Note. Do you remember where you got that?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," my daughter said.

"Schuylkill Notes are those little paper notes, found usually in products and along trails," I said. "They have all sorts of weird conspiracy stuff on them. They seem to pretty much originate in Pennsylvania, clustered around Philadelphia mostly. The first one was documented in Schuylkill County."

"Oh, like that one I found in a box of M&Ms a while back," said Tif.

"Right, that one. I have it on my bulletin board at home. I want to look into this; you seem to have found the first one ever in Lock Haven."

"Really?"

"As far as I can tell, yes. I found a map online. They mostly seem to be around the southeastern part of the state, spreading out a bit as they get further away. There don't seem to be any as far as, say, Erie; they all seem to be closer to Philadelphia. It was inside the M&M box?"

"Yeah."

"Did you eat the M&Ms?"

"Well, yeah."

"Good call. Where did you buy them?"
"I think it was the Dollar Store."
"The thing that gets me is how it all falls apart at a certain point," I said. "Nothing makes any logical sense. Clearly, there's some crazy conspiracy theories going on here, but it can't just be one person. With the amount and distribution of notes, it has to be a whole group of people."

"Sure, that makes sense."

"You'd think. Except, no it doesn't, because that many insane people couldn't possibly keep it a secret. I deal with a lot of flaky nutjobs, and none of them can keep it together long enough to handle an operation like this. I just can't imagine a couple of hundred whacko conspiracy nuts keeping something like this operational and under wraps."

"So it's one person."

"But it can't be. One person can't be distributing these things all over the state at that frequency. It has to be some kind of organized movement. Except the last thing that these crazies are is organized. So what I have to do is a different approach. Start by figuring out if it was planted at the factory, or the store."

"So it's weird," said Tif.

I nodded.

"It's weird," I agreed.

If you're reading about ghosts and cryptids in Pennsylvania, you may have come across some of my stuff. I'm a paranormal investigator and writer. I do that a lot.

My name is Lou. I live in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and I'm basically the go-to guy for ghost stories in the area. It's weird, but I've managed to make a career out of it.

"There's Ella!" Paul cried out happily. "Ella's at my bus stop! Mom, stop the car!"

Michelle stopped the jeep, and Paul climbed out with his backpack for the first day of school. I asked,"You want me to wait for the bus with you?"

"Nope," said Paul. "See you later!"

"Love you, little man," I said. "Have a good day." And that last part was to his back, as he dashed for the corner.

I watched as he ran for his little friend, arms open for a hug. Ellie went right past him and hugged another kid. Then she laughed, and turned around and hugged Paul, too. And I had to go home and do the hardest thing for me....Let him grow up.

When I got back to the house, my cell phone was ringing.

I picked it up off the kitchen table and flipped it open. I recognized the number. "Hello."

"This is Punisher's Clearing House," said the person on the other end. "You've been randomly selected to win two million dollars, but first you're going to have to sing the National Anthem in German."

"Aimo," I said,"You realize pretty much all phones have caller ID now, right?"

Aimo laughed. "I had to try. How you been, Lou?"

Aimo, pronounced about like it's spelled, was an old friend from Slatington. She and I had been friends since the fourth grade. This had, at times, taken a little effort on my part, as Aimo could be impulsive and reckless. 

"Doing okay," I said. "Got a meeting with the Clinton County Genealogical Society coming up; I'm up for vice-president. Paul just headed out for his first day of sixth grade. What's new with you?"

"Funny you should ask," she said. "I'm working on a piece for Bi The Way magazine. You still the guy to talk to about haunted stuff in Clinton County?"

"You know I am, Aimo. What's up?"

"Well, there's an anniversary coming up. Thirty-five years ago, there were two gay kids killed---The Sandman killings---"

"Oh, god, Aimo. Seriously? That was my first week living in Lock Haven. People are still touchy about that. You gotta write about this?"

"Well, it's for the October issue, and they wanted a haunting that had some sort of LGBTQ connection. I remembered this one, and it's the anniversary. And Smith Hall, where it happened, is said to be haunted, so...."

"Jesus, Aimo. You're gonna get hate mail. What makes you want to write about this now?"

"Because it's there."

"It's not there in April?"

"You know how it goes, Lou. Didn't you annoy some people a few years ago, writing about a multiple murder?"
"I did, yeah. And that was fifty years old. This one's much less than that. You can't find some haunted dorm without a multiple murder?"

"Now, what fun would that be? Come on, Lou. I just need a little on-site research, maybe a few quotes from the paranormal expert. What do you say?"

I poured myself a cup of coffee.

"Been bailing you out of stuff since 1979, Aimo. What's one more?"

Chloe and I had gotten into the habit of having coffee together about once a month, almost as if we were normal people. Our get-togethers usually involved me giving her some local history books, teaching her about research, and commiserating about our latest adventures.

"Here's two more cemetery indexes," I said. "Highland and Wayne Township. The Clinton County Genealogical Society put out ten of these; you now own three."
"These are for me?" Chloe looked more delighted with cemetery books than your average teenager.

"They are. You're getting all my doubles out of my office, so thanks for that."

She paged through the Highland book, looking it over. I said,"Got a call from an old friend the other night. Aimo. Her real name is Amy, but by the time we met in the fourth grade, she was insistent upon being called 'Aimo'. Never did find out why. We met in a summer writing class, and we both grew up to be writers."

Chloe smiled. "That's cool."
"She's gay, and she's working on a piece about the Sandman Murders here in Lock Haven. You know those?"

She nodded. I'd suspected she might. "She called me up because the thirty-fifth anniversary is coming up, and she's working on a piece on it. Smith Hall is said to be haunted because of this, and that might be my fault---Some years ago, I included it on a tour. But I may stop up with my EMF detector, and check to make sure."

"Wait a minute. Thirty-five years....Isn't that---"
I nodded. "I'd just moved here. It was my first week in Lock Haven. A gay kid was murdered, strangled in his bed in Smith Hall. His partner later was found hanging in his basement, down on the east end. The cops decided one killed the other and then hung himself, but there were a lot of unanswered questions." I sipped my coffee. "I still remember the night he was discovered. The campus police came around and told everyone to go find another place to sleep that night. He'd been there a while. I don't know, maybe the place genuinely is haunted. Maybe I need to look into it."

"Let me know if you need any help with that."
"Of course I will."

God. Most college students are more annoying than chupacabras. I biked to the LHU library, braving my way through a crowd of fresh, young minds eager to get drunk as hell, and settled down at the microfilm machine, which was blessedly deserted.

I put in the microfilm roll and cranked it until I found the first mention of the murder: Like I remembered. A student had been found dead in Smith Hall, and the cops had shuffled everyone out to find someplace else to sleep so they could investigate. That was my first week in Lock Haven, and it brought back more memories than I'd realized.

A few days later, another student had been found hanging in his basement. There had been an eerie note, signed 'The Sandman," which was the perfect way to get attention. The police, after a thorough investigation that had probably involved taking a smoke break, had closed the case, deciding that one kid killed the other and then himself.

I sat back, and moment. I remembered it; I'd been new here then. I'd moved here in 1990 after having spent a couple of summers as a kid, and this had left an impact. 

I walked outside and down the street, looking at Smith Hall. It hadn't changed a whole lot; it still looked like it had back then. I'd aged reasonably well, too, though I was clearly older then the twenty-one I'd been. 

Thirty-five years in Lock Haven.

More than half a lifetime.

On the way home, I stopped at the local grocery store. The manager knew who I was, which made asking questions a little easier. I stopped by the service desk and said,"Do you have a minute to answer a couple of questions? I'm not asking in any official capacity, just as a paranormal investigator."

"Sure," she said. "What can I do for you?"

I pulled out a copy of Tif's Schuylkill Note and held it up. "Have you gotten any reports or complaints about notes like this?"
She was nodding before I'd even finished asking the question. "Oh, sure, we've had people find them. They've been in aspirins, in those little boxed yogurts. I've found a few myself. It's pretty common."

Score. Pay dirt. This was like the fourth place I'd stopped, and the first time anyone knew what I was talking about. I said,"So they have been spotted in here?"

"Oh, sure. They've also been found in our stores in Jersey Shore and Mill Hall."

"I'm sure you have procedures in place to notice if someone were tampering with a product in the store. But what if someone brought something in from home and left it on a shelf? Would that be noticed, necessarily?"

"You mean, they inserted a note at home and brought the item back?"

"Yes."

"We'd likely notice that, too. We watch for people putting their hands in their pockets too much, acting suspicious. We review the cameras on things like that. If someone comes in carrying a product, we ask if it's a return. I'm not saying it's impossible, but we have some procedures to check for these things."

"You've been very helpful. Thanks."

I walked over to the dairy section. I needed sour cream anyway. I checked out the boxed yogurt she'd mentioned; the lid was glued shut, but there were open seams that a small note could be slipped into. I slid a thumbnail inside; it could be done.

Same with most of the OTC drugs, like aspirin. I picked up the sour cream on my way out. This was progress of a sort. I was still a long way from a conclusion, but it was the first thing I'd noticed that approached a pattern.

"We're going to have a very shirt meeting tonight," said the vice-president of the Clinton County Genealogical Society. "We only have two officers to elect. Our treasurer has agreed to serve another term, and I've turned in my resignation. Lou has kindly agreed to take the office of vice-president for the upcoming year. So, all in favor?"
I sat at the meeting in the old Great Island Presbyterian Church, wearing my black paranormal investigator shirt, looking around the room. Everyone raised their hands.

And just like that, I was vice-president of the Clinton County Genealogical Society.

On my way out the door, I heard my phone ringing. I stopped and dug it out of my pack, flipping it open to look at the screen. Aimo.

"Hey there! Where you at?"

"Just left the CCGS meeting. I'm vice-president now. Where are you at?"

"Here," said Aimo.

"Terrific, Aimo. If I wanted to pick out 'here' on a map---"

"Lock Haven, Pennsylvania."

"Wait....Here?"

"Yup. Want to get together?"

Aimo hadn't changed a lot since I'd last seen her. For that matter, she hadn't really grown all that much since high school or so. Long brown hair, glasses, that same loopy smile. I found her in the parking lot of the local hotel and gave her a hug.

"It's good to see you, Aimo. But what the hell are you doing here?"

"You know tonight's the anniversary, right? The murder happened thirty-five years ago tonight. So I thought I'd drive up from Bloomsburg and see if you wanted to investigate."

"Aimo, you do understand that you can make plans in advance, right? You can call and ask, oh, I'd say up to a few days ahead of time before showing up."

"So is that a yes, or....?"
I grinned. "I usually have some investigating stuff on me, yeah. I can spare some time and go check it out; you actually have me intrigued. But I did want to do one thing first."

"What's that?"
"Sort of an experiment. Want to come along?"

In the local grocery store, I slipped a small piece of paper into the pasta box. It went in easily, just like the other six I'd already done. I looked around. Nobody had noticed me; the very few employees there were stocking and cleaning in an effort to get the hell out of there. I looked down the aisle and saw Aimo doing the same thing, also unnoticed. I nodded to her and gestured at the door, and she nodded back. and headed out.

We met just outside the door. She said,"That was fun! I love the feeling of getting away with something. Why did we do it?"

"I wanted to test and see if the Schuylkill Notes could plausibly be delivered that way," I said. "Turns out they can. If you go in at the right time, you can stick anything you want in those boxes without damaging the box and without being noticed. So that tells me how they're being distributed. Except mine say 'Inspected by 13.'"

She grinned. "Kind of like reverse shoplifting. You up for a little paranormal stuff now?
I lifted my uniform out of my pack.

"Always."

We sat peaceably outside Smith Hall, on a stone wall in the back, under a tree. My EMF detector was between us. Aimo looked me over.

"Looking good," she said. "I gotta say, I like the new outfit."

"Thanks. I gave some thought to it. Time for a change, you know? Didn't want to be dressing like a dumbass."

"You've been dressing like a dumbass since 1981 or so."

"Oh, big talk for the only person who stuck with you after the watermelon incident."

"Don't bring up the watermelon incident."

"Aimo looked up at the dorm windows. "Which one of those was he killed in?"

"Not sure, Aimo. I'm not even certain it was on this side of the building. I didn't spend too much time in the dorms when I was at LHU."
"Always the loner."

"More or less, I guess. Got a team, got a kid, but I'm also pretty good on my own, you know?"

"And yet, you made time to hang with me. You looooove me."

"Oh, Aimo, come on with that already."

A couple of students walked past on their way to the parking lot. We watched them.

"God, how young they look. Were we ever that young?"

"You may have been," Aimo said. "I don't think I've aged any."

"You sure as hell haven't matured since the fourth grade."

"I mean, you find something that works, you stick with it."

I looked out toward the river. "When I moved here thirty-five years ago, I didn't think I'd be settling. I really didn't see myself staying here all that long."

"What changed your mind?"

"I don't know, I guess it happened gradually. Over time, I learned about Lock Haven, and I began to fall in love with it. When I moved here....I had this box. It was the last box I unpacked when I came to Lock Haven. I promised myself that when I felt fully at home here, one day, I'd burn the box."

"Did you?"

"I never did. I forgot all about it, actually. It probably made a few moves with me....."

"Did you take it to Utah?"
"We don't talk about Utah. But I kept it for a while, and then one day, I thought of it again. Couldn't remember where I'd put it. But by that point, I'd been really happy here in Lock Haven for quite a while."

Aimo considered it.

"You could find a substitute box," she said. "Amazon will send you one free with every order. Burn another box, it's like, symbolic."

"You just want to burn something."

"I really do."

The EMF detector went off. It began beeping consistently, spiking up into shocking levels of electromagnetic energy. Aimo looked at it with some surprise.

She said,"Is that---"

"Yeah."

I picked it up and moved around with it, excited. Aimo said,"Explain this to me."

"This thing detects electromagnetism. Now, you have to be careful it's not picking up what's supposed to be there---Switches and outlets, say. But if it goes off....Well, like this....Without any explanation, you may have something, some paranormal activity."

"If there was electricity, wouldn't it usually be consistent?"

"Yeah. It should. That's why this is interesting." I set the detector, still beeping, back on the wall, and got some photos. I got out the laser thermometer, and it stayed consistent at a baseline of about sixty-five. "I can't explain it. Looks like we have some activity here. About eight-thirty PM."

"What time did the kid get murdered?"

"Coroner couldn't pin it too precisely, but probably late evening....About eight-thirty PM."

"We got a ghost?"

"We got a ghost!"

The EMF detector stopped. I looked at it; it had gone to zero.

Aimo glanced at it.

"I take it that's not what's supposed to happen."

"It is if there's a ghost."

Aimo grinned.

"Well," she said,"It's been quite the night."

She dropped me off back at the hotel, by my bike.

"It's been fun," she said. "Let's do this again sometime."

I grinned at my old friend.

"Don't be a stranger, Aimo."

"So, did you get it?" Paul asked while he roasted a marshmallow.

I glanced at him over the fire pit in the backyard. "Vice-president? Yeah." I grinned. "Nobody else wanted to do it."

"So," said Tif,"You're vice-president of the genealogical society now."
"I am. I don't know what it is where I just show up for a meeting, and everyone wants to make me vice-president. I got LHPS this way, too."

I put another log on the fire, then speared a hot dog and held it over the fire pit. 

"Thirty-five years," said Tif.

"Thirty-five years," I said. "Long time."

"You gonna celebrate?"

"You're pretty much looking at it. By the way, I think I've reached a few conclusions on that Schuylkill Note you found."

"Do tell."

"I figured out how it's happening, and at what level. It's all individuals, sneaking the notes into boxes at the store level. It's why previous investigations haven't turned up anything; they've all concentrated on shipping. But it's being done by singular crazies who are getting them into boxes in the stores without being noticed. I'm sure there's one central point distributing the notes, and it would have to be online."

"Dark web? Crazy stuff?"

"Just to test things, I sat down and did a few searches for things like 'Do lizard men run the world'. It didn't take long for me to find about a thousand online conversations from some of these nuts. So they meet and recruit each other that way. And then the source sends the notes online to the individual nut, who prints them and slips them into the products at the store. That way, if anyone get caught, they can't really give up their source. They don't know anything beyond the message board."

"And that's how I found one."

"That's how."

I looked into the fire for a while.

"Back in a minute, honey," I said. "I think I want to go find a box to burn."

Philadelphia Phantom

"How about in August, we go to Philadelphia?" Michelle asked me.

I looked up from dinner. "What's in Philadelphia? I mean, there's a lot of stuff, but what specifically this summer?"

"There's a Chinese lantern festival. I'd really like to see it. I know you've been to Philadelphia plenty of times before, but...."

"I was born near there. But that actually sounds pretty cool. Sure, if you want to, see if you can find us a place to stay." I turned to my laptop and did a search.

"Oh....Wow," I said.

"What?"

"It's very near Fairmount Park," I said. "I've been dying to get to Fairmount Park for years now. You know what's in Fairmount Park?"

"The Philosopher's Stone, kid," I said. "You know the Philosopher's Stone?"

Chloe nodded. "Sure I know the Philosopher's Stone!"
I'd invited Chloe out to Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and a fruity drink she was having. Chloe is a teenager about to start college, and the words "awesome kid" come readily to mind with her. She'd been coming on my tours for a few years, and had shown a strong interest in local history. We'd recently reconnected, and were hanging out and chatting.

"So there's this old legend down there, connected with some history," I explained. "The history part is that there were a group of monks living in Fairmount Park back in the seventeen hundreds. They lived in some caves down there. You can still apparently see the cave of their leader, Kelpius. He died there, but before he died....Here's the legend part...He gave his assistant, Geissler, a box of ancient magical artifacts."
I took a sip of my coffee. Chloe was listening intently.

"Kelpius wanted the artifacts thrown into Wissahickon Creek so that they never fell into the wrong hands. But according to the story, Geissler decided to preserve them for future generations. So he buried them somewhere beside the creek. Now, the magic part is also kind of plausible---The local farmers believed that these guys could do magic; when their crops failed or a cow got sick or something, they'd go to the monks. One of the artifacts that was said to be in their possession....And therefore buried....Is the Philosopher's Stone."

Chloe smiled. "So....."

"So someplace down in Philadelphia, buried, may be the Philosopher's Stone, or at least an item that the monks believed to be the Philosopher's Stone. I've been dying to go after this one for years. So when we go on vacation down there....Now's my chance."

"That's so cool," said Chloe. "I hope you find it."
"That brings me to a favor I wanted to ask you, kid," I said. "When I'm away, it kind of makes me feel better to have someone back home to talk to....A message or maybe a couple of phone calls. Would you mind being my lifeline while I'm away?"

"Oh, sure," said Chloe. "Feel free to message me. I'd love that."

"Great. I appreciate that. It always makes me feel a bit better to have someone to keep in touch with, you know?"
"I can understand it."

"I may be trying out a new paranormal uniform," I said. "I always wear a tactical vest when I'm investigating, because it has enough pockets for all my stuff. But lately....Well, honestly, I just look too much like an ICE agent."

Chloe made a face. "Yeah, you don't want that."

"No. I don't like the image, I don't want to scare anyone by accident. I've been wearing this thing for years now, but I look at photos of these guys and I cringe. So I'm thinking about a temporary change to the outfit."

"Have anything in mind?"
I grinned.

"I've been thinking of something a little more ninja."

"When I was a kid, Pipper, we used to come to Philadelphia," I said. "My dad would bring us; we lived not too far from here. I had some fun times here. Look! There's Boathouse Row!"

"That's cool, Dad," said Paul, sitting in the back of the Jeep. I looked at Boathouse Row, lined in white lights, as we passed along the Delaware River.

"There's a few haunted spots near where we're going to be," I said. "You want to check them out with me later?"

"Sure," said Paul. 

"We have the Chinese Lantern festival tomorrow night," said Michelle. "Should be at the apartment any minute."

"On our way out on Thursday, I'm going to look for the Philosopher's Stone," I said.

"Harry Potter already found that," said Paul. "I saw the movie like five times."

"This one was owned by a group of monks," I said. "They lived in Philadelphia."

We found our parking garage around the corner from the place Michelle had rented. There was a psychic shop on the corner as we passed by, offering tarot readings. Typically for Philadelphia, everything was tagged---The whole city is pretty much held together by spray paint.

"Look over there, Paul," I said. "That's the Delaware River. And across from there is New Jersey. We're on the very edge of the state here."

The apartment was a nice one, with a bedroom and kitchen area, and a living room with a pull-out couch. I dropped our stuff and dug out some of my maps and charts, sitting down at the desk for a while. Then I looked up at Paul.

"Want to go for a walk?" I asked him.

"Sure."

We came out of the building, and I was wearing my new uniform. 

I'd dropped the tactical vest. I'd always loved it, but I don't want to be dressing like the bad guys. So I'd spent some time redesigning my outfit.

I needed something functional that could be carried places, and would hold all my equipment. Something that stood out a little, but didn't mark me as too unusual. And after some work, I'd come up with it.

The fingerless gloves remained. I had a shoulder bag slung over my left shoulder, with a strap across my chest, bandolier-style. It had a couple of small pouches on the strap to hold my most important equipment. And I had a black hood, pulled down.

"What do you think, kid?" I asked. "This is the new outfit. I'm thinking I look like a ninja, or maybe Robin Hood or something."

Paul looked me over.

"Not bad," he decided. "But with the hood up, you look like a kidnapper."

'Not a ninja?"

"Kind of a ninja. But I'm definitely getting kidnapper vibes here. You're not going to wear the forest ranger jacket again, are you?"

"No, that was for Covid. I'm done with the forest ranger jacket."

"Okay. What happened to the skull gloves?"
"I traded them for these plain black ones. You like the skull gloves?"

"Yeah, I liked those."
"Maybe I'll re-add the skull gloves."

"There's a Seven-Eleven over there. Can I get a hot dog?"

"Yeah. I'll buy you a hot dog."

We walked peaceably down the street while Paul ate his hot dog. I was pointing out stores and things I remembered from Philadelphia when I was a kid. I saw a sign and said,"The Betsy Ross House! Do you want to see the Betsy Ross House?"

"Sure."

"Have you learned about Betsy Ross in school?"

"A little. Didn't she put nineteen stars on the flag because there were nineteen states?"

"Yeah, that's right. The house is said to be haunted, maybe Betsy Ross herself." I got my EMF detector out of the pocket, and turned it on. It didn't react for a minute, and then flared up to .14, and then back down. 

"Now, that's interesting. And now it's back to nothing. Yeah, kid, we may have a ghost here."

I sat at the small desk, maps spread out in front of me. I'd sent Chloe a message asking where Benjamin Franklin was supposed to be haunting. I was drinking coffee from the only mug that had been provided---The Airbnb people had left us ten coffee pods but one mug. Michelle came out of the bedroom.

"How's the kid?" I asked.

"Still asleep. Where are you off to?"
"Thought I'd take a walk, do a little exploring and investigating. There's plenty of haunted spots around."

"No Bigfoot this time?"

"You don't get a lot of Bigfoot sightings in downtown Philadelphia. I checked."

"How long are you going to be out?"

"Probably not too long. I promised Paul we'd take him shopping a bit later. I think he might like the Fashion District."

My cell phone blipped. I checked my messages---Chloe had answered my question: Independence Hal.

I smiled.

The kid had come through.

I walked through Philadelphia wearing the new uniform. Turning south, I went toward the City Tavern. It had been a meeting place of the Founding Fathers, when they'd wanted a beer, and if that was the catalyst I figured we should send a few cases over to the White House right now. It had burned down, but a reproduction had been rebuilt, and it was thought to be haunted by a bride who'd died in the fire.

The new outfit was working. It did what I needed it to do, and in the city, it didn't stand out excessively. In Lock Haven, where I was known, I could get away with a lot. I'd wondered about Philadelphia, but it wasn't attracting a whole lot of attention. I'd already passed like six guys with similar chest rigs.

I got to the City Tavern, which was right across from our parking garage. I pulled out the EMF detector and walked around the outside of the building. No readings initially, just like last night at the Betsy Ross House.

I found a small garden on the southwest side, and it didn't look exactly closed to the public, so I walked up into it. Pretty little place. As I walked across, I got a reading on the EMF detector---Just for a moment, and then it was gone.

I walked back and retraced my path twice, and I couldn't get it to come back again. No power lines. No lights. No reason that I could see for the flicker I'd gotten.

So, maybe a ghost. It made at least as much sense as the Philly Phanatic.

Philadelphia knows what it is. The city promotes its historic sites with the same intensity it pushes food trucks on the corner. I walked through the historic district with my EMF detector, reaching Independence Hall.

It's amazing to me, the way you can just....Be somewhere. Two hundred and forty-nine years ago, our entire country was created right here, just a few blocks from where we were staying. And here I was, in the same place that great men had walked. All you have to do is sit in a car forever, and you can just be there, in the same place they'd been. There's really something magical about it.

My EMF detector did it again---A spike, for a few seconds, and then a drop to zero. No reason for it. No lights or cables. I lowered it to the ground to test---Other places I did this routine, I'd attracted stares. In Philadelphia, I wasn't even close to the most unusual thing going on today. No readings, meaning that underground wires weren't causing the signal.

I smiled. I'd have to tell Chloe.

We walked through Franklin Park, looking at the Chinese Lantern festival. I had to admit, it was worth the trip. Elaborate, colorful Chinese lanterns were on display throughout the park, in a variety of shapes. My personal favorite was the bear.

We walked through a tunnel of lanterns, made to look like flowers with bees flying among them,

"Bees," I said. "Why did it have to be bees?"

"Can I get a hot dog?" asked Paul.

We sat at a table with hi shot dog, and he ate half in a single bite. Michelle smiled. "This is wonderful. I've always wanted to come to one of these things."

"I got to go shopping this morning," said Paul. "This is the best day ever!"

"My favorite part, buddy, was walking around the city with you," I told him.

I'd been on plenty of trips with the family. Me being me, I'd always had to have some sort of a side quest---I always tried to find out where the ghosts and cryptids were, have something to sneak off and go investigate. And more than once, I'd been so excited about the upcoming adventure that I'd almost missed the smaller moments.

It hadn't been like that, this time. I'd been enjoying all of it, every little stop along the way. I'd been having a good time with my kid, and not trying to leap forward to the next thing.

Maybe, finally in my fifties, I was learning to enjoy the moment.

"Well," I said,"All I need to do is find a Philosopher's Stone, and I'll be having a pretty good vacation, too."

I sat at the small desk, drinking coffee. Outside, the sun was rising over the Delaware River. I was wearing my black alien T-shirt. It was already looking to be a nice day.

Michelle came out of the bedroom. She said,"Is there still coffee?"

"Should be plenty. How's the kid?"

"Still asleep."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. I got all my stuff packed."

"We have to be out of here at ten. And he has dance tonight."

"We'll be headed home in plenty of time," I said. "I just want to hike out to the Cave of Kelpius, and then we'll be on our way."

"Hermit Lane," I said. "Pull in there. It's named after the hermits who lived here."

"Seriously?" asked Michelle.

"Oh yeah, really. Back around 1700, they were pretty big in the area. Look, there's a playground we can park in. Paul, you want to come with me, or stick around the playground?"

"I think I want to play," said Paul.

"Okay." I got out of the car. "I'll be back soon."

Wearing the new uniform, I walked through Wissahickon Park. I followed the trails listed on my map---I like working in a print shop; I can print off as many maps as I want. The park was a nice place, with a lot of forest area to explore. 

I came out of the forest in what appeared to be a backyard. An elaborate garden surrounded what appeared to be an old mansion. It could be the hermitage where the monks had lived, but it was equally possible that I'd gotten misdirected and stumbled into someone's private property.

No, it was the hermitage. I walked up the stone stairs alongside, and found another trail. After a moment to check the map again, I walked down into the woods.

After a while, the path split off to the right. I took the turn, and made my way along a winding footpath that led up and over a hill....And there it was.

The Cave of Kelpius.

I stopped to admire it for a moment. It reminded me of my father's root cellar, back on the farm. A small stone door built into the hillside sat next to a stone monument that explained who Kelpius had been. I took it all in, standing in the woods. I'd wanted to come explore this place for fifteen years....And now I was here.

I'd actually made it.

I stepped inside and looked around. The stone walls surrounded a dirt floor, a little bit smaller than Paul's bedroom. After a moment, I walked back out into the sunlight.

A path led down to the river. I followed it, and a few minutes later, came out beside Wissahickon Creek.

This was where Daniel Geissler had stood, and thrown artifacts into the water. Or buried them, depending on exactly which version of the legend you selected. 

I walked back and forth along the path for a moment. Then I stopped, and began to make a few concentric circles through the woods, walking with my EMF detector. At one point, I got a faint flicker, and I stopped there and looked around.

In one spot, there was a place where the grass was growing differently than the rest. For about a foot, the grass looked mangled, twisted.

Like there was something underneath it, affecting the way it grew.

I knelt down beside it. I pulled a trowel out of my pouch---I'd loaded the new outfit up with all sorts of useful stuff---And began digging.

About a foot and a half down, I found it.

Something was there. I wriggled it out of the ground. It was wrapped in a sort of waxy parchment paper that fell apart as I lifted it. And as the paper fell away, I saw it.

A stone.

It was roughly egg-shaped, golden and glittering. Like nothing I'd seen along the path. It sparkled in the sun as I held it up.

The Philosopher's Stone. The stone that Kelpius had believed to be the mystical one.

I slipped it into my pocket and stood up. I started walking back up the path. My family would be waiting.

"Well, I'm glad you had a good time in Philadelphia, Dad," said Tif.

She was finishing up dinner at the table. I was washing the dishes. I said,"Yeah, it was great. Did some exploring and some ghost hunting, Paul went shopping, Michelle got her Chinese lantern festival. We had a good time."

"Good."

"So, you want to see the new look?"

Tif's eyes lit up. "Yes!"
I walked out, and came back a minute later wearing the new uniform. She looked it over. "I like it."

"It does what I need it to do. It's functional, carries my stuff, and I've wanted a hood for years now. I think it's got kind of  a ninja look."

"I'm getting Robin Hood, for sure."

"Yeah, there's some Robin Hood in there, too."

"So how about the Philosopher's Stone? Did you find that?"

I grinned.

"Funny you should ask."

It ended the way it began---Having coffee with Chloe.

"So how was Philadelphia?" she asked me, sitting across from me in the little café on Main Street.

I smiled. "It was pretty amazing. We had a great time, saw a lot of cool stuff. We all got to do something we liked. Michelle got her Chinese lantern festival, Paul got to shop...."
Chloe grinned. "I can understand that."

"....And I got to hunt ghosts. By the way, thanks for helping out with that."

"Well, thanks for letting me. A lot of the time, people will say they might ask for help, but they don't. So it was nice that you followed through."

"Well, I really did need the help. And maybe you helped me find Benjamin Franklin's ghost." And I was pretty sure I'd also found a new partner.

She leaned across the table. "So, did you bring it?"

I brought out the Philosopher's Stone and showed her. "See? It sparkles. It was pretty much right where I expected it to be."
"That's really cool. I mean, what are the odds?"

"There's always an adventure out there, kid," I said.

Will Haunt For Food

Why did I agree to this?

"So, I called you because some spiritual things have been happening," the woman said. "It all started with the death of the pope. He's been coming to me at night and telling me that evil is coming into the world. It's spiritual, you know? And Phil Robertson, you know, the guy from Duck Dynasty? He says so, too."

I sat in the living room, listening to the woman tell her story. She'd come to visit me a couple of years ago, claiming to have photographs of ghosts and aliens, and telling some wild stories. I hadn't seen her since, but recently, she'd called me up with new paranormal claims, and asked for an appointment.

I probably hadn't helped my credibility by wearing the shirt that showed Bigfoot getting abducted. But at least she seemed to be sober this time.

"So I have all these pictures," she said. Which was true; she had several albums sitting on the coffee table. "If you look, they show you what I'm talking about. See, here, in this tree, you can see a unicorn. And in this one, see how you can see the devil? He's making a face, and here's his fist."

I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts.

"You keep saying 'spiritual'," I said. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea about what I do. I'm not a spiritual guy, the way a priest or rabbi would be. I'm more of a scientist. I do research and use equipment to try to find proof of the paranormal."
She looked at me.

"That sounds hard," she said.

"It has its moments."

"How much do you charge to remove a ghost?"
"I don't charge, and I encourage you to be suspicious of anyone who does. But as I said, I look for proof. There is so far no proof that ghosts exist, or that they can be removed. That's the sort of thing I investigate to find out."

"But what about my pictures?"
"Well, there's a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia," I said. "That's when you see some sort of pattern, and interpret it as something that makes sense. Sort of like those traffic signals that show you when to walk. They don't really look like people---Their heads aren't attached---But we interpret them that way. Something like that could be what's going on here."

"But what if that's what the devil wants you to think?"

"Well, again, it's all about the proof. There's no proof, yet, that the devil is actually real."

"Then who's making all these faces in my pictures?"

I tried hard not to sigh. "You should probably know that I investigated this building a couple of years ago. I didn't find any sign of a haunting, but I did find very high electromagnetic fields. Some people are very sensitive to them, and there was a family here at the time who was very disturbed by them." The thought of this clearly mentally ill woman living with some of the highest EMFs I'd ever seen made me cringe.

"So what should I do?"

Probably the best answer was to seek mental help, but I knew I'd never get that one through. I said,"You may want to consider talking to someone in the clergy. A priest, perhaps. They deal with this stuff on a different level than I do." And maybe someone from a church would be compassionate enough to try and get her some help.

She thought it over a moment. "So can you do some kind of exorcism, or what?"

And that's what happens, being a paranormal investigator. You get some amazing adventures, but you get a lot of the crazies, too. They seek you out, looking for some sort of validation. After a while, you develop a thick skin.

You get used to it.

I stopped in the doorway to the front office and leaned against the jamb. The new girl was sitting at Emily's desk, and her name was Sarah.

'Welcome," I said. I'd decided not to hate her for not being Emily. After some consideration, I'd decided that it probably wasn't her fault.

She smiled. "Thanks. Remind me, what was your name?"

"I'm Lou. It's okay, I'm bad with names sometimes too. So, important question for you....How do you feel about ghosts?"

I might as well jump right into it. I was already wearing my shirt that said My other dog is a Chupacabra.

She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I like that stuff.  Is this place haunted?"

"Funny you should ask. We have a co-worker who shows up sometimes in spite of having been killed in 1962. Her name is Shirley."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah, back then we had a murder in the basement. The Hecht Building was a department store then. Come to think of it, the anniversary is coming up. It's August first. I might bring in some of my equipment and look around."

"That's right. Aren't you some sort of investigator?"

"I am. My son and I do investigations."

"Nice!"

"A bit later in the month, I think one of the teams is investigating a haunted Foodapalooza Buffet in Union County."

Sarah laughed. "A haunted Foodapalooza? I love that."

"One employee believes it's a dead relative. You can't exactly rule it out, but we'll have to be careful. I've had investigations where they want to believe it's their loved one so badly, they're not actually interested in hearing any results. This place was along a Native American path before it became farmland, which probably lasted until about 1926 when Highway Fifteen went through there."

"Well, that sounds interesting."

"I think we get free food, too."

August first.

I walked into the main office and set my stuff down. "Good morning, guys."

"Good morning, Lou," said Kelli. "The census book for the genealogical society is waiting back there for you to bind it."

"I'll make sure to get to it," I said. "Because it's the anniversary pf Shirley's death, I brought in my equipment. Look, here's the EMF detector....Sarah, you can have this one on your desk if you like."

Sarah looked it over. "Cool," she said.

"We get a certain amount of electrical impulses anyway, but it may spike to red," I said. "I have a couple of laser thermometers---Now that the bank changed hands and took the temperature off their sign across the street, we can use these anyway. Got my infrared scanner---This can actually get a photo; all you need to do is double-tap."

"Oh, that's really neat," said Sarah.

"Look, if I focus over there, I can see Kelli's body heat."

"That's cool. Where did you get this?"

"Amazon. Downside is, it was a hundred and forty bucks. The upside was, I really, really wanted one."

I walked down in my basement. I was wearing my rainbow ghost shirt, and the holster Tim had given me, with an EMF detector tucked in it. As I walked down the stairs, I pulled it out and turned it on.

It lit right up and shot up, beeping the whole way across the basement. I smiled.

"Well," I said,"Good morning, Shirley."

Most of the time, cleaning the porch is not particularly on my radar. I don't generally spend two minutes a month worrying about cleaning the porch. But, here I was, clearing out space and throwing out some stuff we hadn't touched. I figured I might need the space to spend some time investigating out there on the anniversary of Ida's death. So, if you want your spouses to clean the porch, it's important to make sure you have someone die there a hundred and twenty years previous.

"What are you doing?" asked Sekiya. Paul and the girls next door were bouncing around on the trampoline, and they were paying me some attention too. It's been a while since I was able to do yard work without an audience.

"I'm getting the porch cleaned off," I said. "Gonna do a little ghost hunting out here."

"Right now?"

"Nah, next week, on the anniversary of the death."

"He does this every year," commented Paul. "A few years ago, he got stung by bees, and I had to fix his arm."

"Can I have that?" little Mia asked as I picked up part of an old swing.

"I mean....It's broken and pretty much useless."

"What is it?"

"It's an old swing, pretty much broken. There's no real way to use it."
"But can I have it?"

"Mia...."

"Mia, Mom won't let you keep that," said Serina, the oldest.

I threw the swing into the garbage can, and followed up with an old box. "I figure I'll get the porch cleaned up, which it needs to be anyway, and then come out and do a little investigating out here. You guys are welcome to check it out with your own stuff, if you want."

I picked up the genealogical society's thick 1890 census book. Out of curiosity, I flipped to the Ys and looked up the Yost family. The ones who'd lived in my house.

I smiled, and carried the page out to the main office.

"Gonna make a copy of this for myself," I said.

"And what's that?" asked Kelli.

"It's the census page for the family in my house," I said. "They lived there in 1890. George Yost and his family. This tells me that the mom, Lydia, had parents who were born in Germany. And here's Ida, the ghost in my house, two years old at the time."

"You have a ghost?" asked Sarah.

"I do. Ida Yost killed herself on my back porch in 1905. Next week is the anniversary, actually. I usually do a little investigating around that time, see what I can find."

"Is this before or after the haunted buffet?"

"Few days after."

I stepped outside the back door, onto Mill Street. I looked across at the old Racket Store, the Great Island Presbyterian Church, Jordan's Alley. The sun shone on my face.

I've been pretty happy here.

It's been almost a year now, I've been working for this place, and I've been happy. I'm treated well, I have an entire basement to play with, and I have some pretty good co-workers.

I put my hands in my pockets, leaned against the wall, and I smiled.

Yeah. I like this job.

The Foodapalooza gave us a free meal, which was nice. We had unlimited access to the buffet, which is pretty much my idea of a great meal. The chili-lime meatballs were my favorite.

"Here, walk with me," said Tim, standing up from the table.

I got up, and the two biggest investigators in central Pennsylvania walked across the dining area of a Foodapalooza Steakhouse.

"I'm making you a new uniform shirt," said Tim. "I already have one for MIllie. Hope you don't mind; yours is going to be green. You get why."

I nodded. I got why. I was already wearing the black SPI uniform he'd given me in the past.

"We'll get started once they close and clean up," he said. "The hotel next door is haunted, too, and I'm hoping to get us in there at some point soon. In the meantime, we'll investigate this place tonight."

"Are there any hot spots?"

"Several. I'm going to send Millie and Ashlin to the kitchen, where they have the sound of pans banging. We'll have Vince, Devaughn, and Petey in the event room, where they get activity. They've had deaths in the restrooms---A heart attack and a suicide---So you'll stake those out."

I nodded. "I can do that. Been through suicide attempts myself."

"We've all been there," said Tim. "Some of the staff wants to stick around and help, so we're going to split them up among us."

"That works."

"I figure we'll stick it out until around ten. That should give us long enough."

"Yeah, that's cool, too. Paul found a trashed razor scooter someone was throwing out, and he was fixing it when I left. I told him I'd help him out when I got home."

"Okay. You have everything you need?"

"I brought my whole bag; I shouldn't have to pull from the team equipment. If that changes, I'll let you know."

The second I turned on my EMF detector, I got a flash.

That's not unusual, necessarily. Some buildings are wired that way, and they just bleed EMFs. But this one wasn't as easily explainable---I was standing in the middle of the room, not near any walls or wiring. And it shot up to a .48, which is pretty high. I looked up at the lights.

A couple of the staffers were sitting at a table nearby. I said,"Gonna do something you'd throw me out for otherwise," and I dragged over a baby chair.

As I began to climb up onto it, one of the waitresses asked,"Would you like a ladder?"

"Nah, this'll do. Been a while since I did anything really unsafe on an investigation."

I balanced on top of the chair and held the detector up, closer to the lights. Nothing, no reading. I was using the all-in-one, which is fairly sensitive. I climbed down, and again got a flicker in the middle of the room, about four feet up from the floor. No reason for that.

"We're already maybe getting some activity," I said.
Ashlin was carrying her pink Wicked bag with her equipment in it. I glanced at her.

"You know you make it harder for me to look badass when you carry stuff like that, right?"

She grinned. "I gotta be me."

"Let's get split up," said Tim. "Everyone get in their assigned areas."

I retreated to the restroom area and the lobby outside. I looked over the gumball machines for a moment. I was with two of the male staffers, both of whom had Tim's EMF detectors. Immediately, again, they lit up, the same as the lobby outside.

"See, that's possible activity," I said. "This place is more active than I'd really expected."

Tim called over from the event room. "Lou?"

I stepped out and we met in the lobby. "What's up?"
"I need you to check over in the buffet area with your infrared. We're getting some activity on the pod over there."

"I'm on it."

I'd set my bag on one of the tables earlier. I fished out my infrared detector and turned it on, and walked across the floor, scanning for heat. I moved it back and forth across the room, looking for anything unusual.

A pink blob jumped out on the bottom of the screen. There was something, maybe. This place was way better than I thought it'd be.

For the second time in a couple of days, I was in a good mood. I was doing what I loved, investigating, traveling with the best friends I'd ever had in my life.

How could I not feel content?

I suppose you could call it a tradition.

Ida Yost, at age seventeen, committed suicide on my back porch in 1905 by drinking carbolic acid. Most years, on the anniversary of her death, I'll go around the house or on the porch and do a little investigating. What the hell; I have access to a haunted house. Quality time between me and my ghost.

"You two have a good night," I said. "Get some sleep, okay? Don't be up all night."

Paul had his little friend Rylan over, and the two of them had curled up on the couch. Paul had wanted some sort of blanket fort to sleep in, so I'd brought a canopy in from the garage and set it up as best I could in the living room. A small lantern hung from the center.

"We'll go to sleep," promised Paul.

"We will," agreed Rylan, who I believed marginally more on this subject.

"I left you an EMF detector and a laser thermometer," I told them. "Just in case. You know what tonight is."

Paul nodded. "Happy deathday, Ida."

I turned on the EMF detector, and it went wild, beeping and giving me four red lights. After a moment, I turned it off.

"That's a good sign," I said. "Keep an eye on things."

I went to the kitchen, got a beer, and walked out onto the porch. I sat down and turned on my EMF detector. I cracked the beer and took a drink.

Five years ago, I'd done this same thing. I always found time to sit down on the porch where Ida had died. Five years ago, it had been the beginning months of Covid. I'd changed my uniform to avoid looking like the bad guys. At the time, I'd been pretty apprehensive.

Now....I was content for the moment. I was at peace.

I sat quietly on the porch.

After a moment, the EMF detector beeped.

Hot Pink

I erased the number on the board, and scribbled in a new one. The sign in my office now read 118 DAYS WITHOUT AN ALIEN INVASION.

My office was an alcove in the basement of the print shop. I'd been setting it up for months. I actually liked it down there, and I got a lot of work done. Just about everyone else was scared to go down in the basement of the Hecht Building, so I had the whole place to myself mostly.

When I got upstairs, Emily was waiting by the big printers.

"I thought I should tell you, Lou," she said. "I turned in my two weeks notice yesterday. I accepted a remote position with pay I just couldn't turn down."

"I'm happy for you," I said. "Gonna miss you a lot, but I'm excited for you. You're gonna kick ass at your new job. Don't ever doubt yourself."

"Thanks, Lou," she said. "I'm gonna miss everyone here, too. My last day should be July second."

"Day after Paul's birthday," I said. "It's a Wednesday. I'll be here."

She nodded. "Okay. Good."

"Hey," I said. "I gotta say something. When I came to work here ten months ago, it was a really hard time in my life. I came here figuring I'd just stick it out until I found something better....I've since stopped looking. At the time I came here, I really needed a friend. You've been a good one. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't been here."

Emily smiled. "Thanks, Lou. Thank you for saying that."

The annual Best of Clinton County festival had been going on for something like twenty years now. This one happened to be smack in the middle of a horrifying heat wave---We'd had a record cold winter, and now we had several days that would work for the Appalachian Great Fire Ape. I was downtown with Michelle, Paul, and Rylan, and the kids had already found the booth to get their faces painted.

I saw someone I knew manning the booth for Boxes of Hope, a breast cancer charity. "Hi, Traci," I said.

She smiled. "Hi, Lou. Thanks for that article you wrote about our new headquarters---That gave us a lot of positive attention. Want a tour?"

"Sure," I said. "Michelle, this is Traci---She created this whole organization. I'm gonna take a look at her offices; I'll catch up with you."

"Actually, Dad, I want to come too," said Paul.

"Okay, then," I said. "Come along. We'll all go."

Traci led us up the steep stairs to the offices, where everything was pink. The walls were pink, the floors were pink. All of the desks were pink.

"Nice color scheme," I commented.

"At first I hated pink," Traci laughed. "Now I've gotten to like it."
"You still having some paranormal activity?"

"Of course," Michelle said,"There would be something paranormal involved here."

"I still have things happening," said Traci. "This painting fell off the wall not long ago. We hear noises. The doors open and close sometimes."

"Still want me to come over sometime and do a little investigating?" I asked. "I work right across the street; I could easily stop by after work."

"That would be great," she said. "Let me know when you can come. I can be here pretty much anytime."

"Sounds good," I said. "I'll send you a message."

I brought out the stack of wedding invitations and put them on the shelf. Emily, at her desk, said,"I guess I won't be seeing you do that too much longer."

"You'll be missed," I said. "You've really done a lot for this place." I picked up the EMF detector I'd brought in for work purposes months ago---She'd had it on her desk ever since. "I guess I'll hang onto this until I can train your replacement. Can't have her wondering what the hell we're measuring with this."

Emily smiled. "I'm going to miss this place, too."

"You probably will get messages from me on my days off still," I said. "Texts when I'm out of town."

She laughed. "That's fine."

"Heat's supposed to break soon," I said. "Should go back to just regular hot instead of Melt Shop Ghost levels of hot. You notice I wore my Hawaiian ghost shirt today?"

"Yeah, I like that. Perfect for the heat. A ghost shirt for every occasion."

"Oh god, I got paranormal clothes for every five-degree variance." I was wearing my Hawaiian shirt with ghosts on it and my rainbow ghost shirt for Pride Month. "Next week I get to go across the street and investigate Boxes of Hope."
"They having stuff happen over there?"
"They tell me they are. It's plausible. Back in the pre-World War I days, that used to be an armory. The military was in there, so it's possible there's a war casualty haunting the place."

"Makes sense."

"After the war, Colonel Edward Troutman Miller decided it was ridiculous to have the military running all over town for their stuff, so he donated his farm to make it easier. It's how we got the National Guard Armory over in Dunnstown."

"I didn't know that," she said.

"Most people don't. It's another one of those Lou things. I got my first article published about 2008, and at the time, nobody knew shit about local history. Since then, though, I've seen an increase in interest. More people are interested in local history, and I think a lot of that was my influence."

Emily nodded. "I'd say it was."

I finished my article and sat back. This one was a hard news piece about the Pride cruise, and I'd resisted a headline of "Out Of The Closet, Onto A Boat.". I looked at my watch; I had a few hours. Actually, with Paul in day camp and Michelle at work, I had most of the day.

I walked up to my office. Butters followed along with no clue what was going on. 

I checked the city directories, one at a time, working my way through the twentieth century. Boxes of Hope had been a department store for most of it. I'd been told once, years ago, that employees downstairs believed it was one of the old managers, but it was one of those things I was a little dubious about. I checked the old Sanborn map, and found the armory.

That seemed to me to be the most likely possibility---A war ghost. From the old armory days.

Emily was walking past me at the cutter, and I smiled at her like I always did. Except it wasn't like always. It was her last day. I was wearing the cryptid shirt she'd given me for Christmas---She hadn't commented, but I was sure she recognized it.

"Hey." I reached out and turned off the cutter. "Brought you a little going away gift." I handed her a compass. She turned it over in her hands.

"Thanks! What is it?"
"It's a compass," I said. "Every adventurer should have one."
She figured out how to open the lid and smiled. "I'll add it to my stuff."
"You got it. You know I'm going to miss you."
"I'll miss you guys, too."

"You've been a good friend."

"You have, too," she said. "You really made me feel a lot better about things. You came here and gave me someone I could relate to. I usually try not to get too attached, because everything ends, but...."

"Yeah. I know. Hey, you're always welcome to visit. Send messages, call. Someone's going to do your job....but nobody can ever replace you."

"Thanks for saying that. You know, I will miss the Paul stories."

"Chances are you'll still get to hear them. I can always send a message, and I know you keep up with the dance videos."

"That's true."

"Hey," I said. "If there's ever anything I can do for you....I'm here."

The offices at Boxes Of Hope were entirely pink, making me stand out in my black outfit. I'd shown up wearing my standard ghost shirt and a black bandanna---No vests, no equipment belts at the moment.

"Hi, Traci," I said. She was waiting at the top of the stairs.

"Hi, Lou," she said. "This is my son."

I nodded at the adult man standing in the office. "Nice to meet you. So where have things been happening mostly?"

"Well, for starters, this painting fell off its hook." She pointed to a nice piece of art hanging on the wall by two screws. "I came into the room, and it was just hanging by one of those screws, swinging back and forth."

"Which means it had just happened. Was anyone else here?"

"No, I was alone in the building."

I had my EMF detector out and took a few readings. She led me into another room. "This movie screen fell over one night....."

There was a retractable movie screen propped in a corner. Traci showed me a photo with the screen standing up, and a stack of pink towels and shirts in front of it. "I was in another room, and I thought I heard it fall. I came in here, and it was lying down. But it couldn't have just slid....It wasn't touching the pile here."

"So it was over here?"

"Yes. At first I wondered if it just fell over, but there was no reason for it to do that."
"And it wasn't touching the pile?"
"No."
"Which is weird. So it didn't just fall over; it was almost thrown. What's on the other side of this wall?"

"Just the roof."

"Back of the building?"

"Yes."

"So it's not too likely that there would have been anything outside to knock it over. No trucks going by, nothing like that."

"I tried to think of some way to explain it...."

"No, you're right, I don't see any easy explanation either." I took some photos and did some more EMF readings. "This measures electricity. Now, something I notice that's interesting---Everything you're telling me is happening near an outlet. I'm getting EMF readings, but there's outlets here. This place is pretty well wired for an old building, but I do get a bit of a spike near the outlets, which is to be expected. The part that interests me is that there could be ghosts standing right there for all I know, hiding themselves by the outlets."

"That's really interesting."
"I'm not getting any unexplained temperature readings. I know this place used to be an armory, so I'm wondering now if there might be a soldier ghost using the outlets as camouflage."

Traci smiled. "I like that."

"What I want you to do is keep an eye open. Make a note of anything else that happens, and let me know. See if there's a consistent time or day of the week or anything---Sometimes you get patterns like that. I can come back and do some more checking, and even bring the whole team if you'd like."

"That would be nice. Do you guys do that thing where you ask questions?"
"We do, yes. Sometimes when it's just me, I skip that part---There's not much point in me trying it alone. But with the team, sure, we do that. I'll do a little digging, and see if I can come up with anything else myself."

"Thanks for coming."

"Of course. We'll keep at it. Keep me posted, okay?"

I biked home. It hadn't cooled down any; the heat was still pounding.

 When I opened up the back door, Rosie and Butters came running to greet me, as they always do. I took off my shoulder bag and carried it up to my office---I was still going to have to decide what to do about my outfit. I set it down and went back downstairs to the kitchen.

I turned on my laptop and sat down. I brought up my messages, and started typing. I wrote about the investigation....And told my good friend all about it.

Music To My Fears

I woke up fifteen minutes before the alarm went off. Then I laid there in bed about another five minutes.

Finally I got up and washed up, put on my uniform, and gathered my stuff. Travel vest. EMF detector. Camera. I grabbed the CCGS cemetery book that covered the north end of the county. 

Then I walked downstairs to have some coffee and check my e-mails.

An hour after getting up, I was climbing into the van with the SPI team and Millie to do a paranormal investigation.

Worth it.

"Ole Bull State Park," I said,"Was named for a famous musician. He came to this area in the mid-1800s, and wanted to set up a series of communities that looked like his native Norway. But the guy who was selling him the land didn't actually own it, in the sense that he'd paid for it or let the actual owners know, and Ole Bull lost money on it. He was building a castle on top of the hill, and he played his violin there for a while, then, according to the legend, threw it off and wandered into the woods."

"Is the castle still there?" asked Tim from the back of the van.

"The ruins. Basically a foundation. It's a short but very steep hike. People say you can still hear Ole Bull's violin playing sometimes, on a dark night."

 "Where's this other place you wanted to stop by?" Vince asked, driving.

"It's in Leidy Township. Back in 1950---Seventy-five years ago, this summer---Two local reporters went up and interviewed Hiram Cranmer, the postmaster. He told them about a headless ghost roaming in the area. They went up and staked it out---It's a cemetery very near a bridge across Kettle Creek---And came back with a photo of a white, smoky shape. Humanoid with no head. It ran on the front page the next day. I've written about this a bunch of times."
"I've seen those articles," said Tim. "Our historian finds some pretty good places to stop."

"Your historian has a tendency to overplan," I said.

"Looks like Ole Bull is right up ahead," said Vince.

"Pull up to the main office," I said. "I want to score a few maps."

We pulled up at the parking area. I walked over to the main office and grabbed a couple of Ole Bull maps, and checked around to see what else they had. I found some maps of Kettle Creek, and I picked those up, too. 

I walked back to the van.

"They have Bigfoot stickers for sale in there, if anyone's interested," I said.

We started unloading. I pulled on my vest---Not the bulletproof tactical, but a lighter one that was easier to pack---And I loaded it up with my equipment. Devaughn and Tim unloaded a power wheelchair for Millie. Millie, my partner investigator for almost twenty years, was getting older, and I wasn't entirely on board with the idea.

"Oh, you brought some walkies," commented Tim. I was taking them out of my bag and putting one in my pocket.

"Yeah, I got three in case we get separated."

"We brought ours, too." He opened a long case containing several comlinks. I looked them over; they were nice models.

"Those will communicate through a mile of concrete," Vince told me. "I put them together out of some spare parts I found for a couple of bucks."

I like hanging with Vince. He's my best chance of getting a functioning teleporter eventually.

"Hell, then, let's use yours." I dropped mine back into my bag.

"Excuse me." There was a man riding by on a bike with his son. "Do you mind if I ask what you're doing? I noticed the outfits."

We do often look a little unusual. My outfit consists of a black vest with extra pockets and a bandanna around my right ankle. Tim's is similar but a little more formal, with a polo shirt with the logos on it and suspenders. And Devaughn's is a marvel---Camouflage, almost a military look, but covered in all sorts of paranormal patches showing cryptids, ghosts, and aliens.

"Oh, we're Swartz Paranormal," Tim explained. "We're here to look into stories of Ole Bull haunting the place. Our historian turned that up."

"Oh, now, that's interesting," the man said. "Do you guys have some sort of website or page that you'll be putting up any findings?"

"You can check us on Facebook," Tim said. I handed him one of the LHPS business cards.

'Which way do we want to go?" Tim asked me.

"The bridge is right over there," I said. "Right across is the monument to Ole Bull. From there, it's a short but very steep hike up to the castle ruins."

"Would the monument be a good place to get a group picture for the Facebook page?" he asked.

"It would," I said.

We walked across the park and over the bridge. I could see the Ole Bull monument from the distance as we approached. It had been a couple of years since I'd been up with my family, but everything was where  remembered it.

We stopped and had a camper take our photo gathered by the monument. Then I said,"The castle is up this way," and we started up.

"Which way?" Millie stopped the power chair at the fork in the trail.

"Either," I said. "It loops, and leads to the castle."

She chose the right path, which looked slightly less steep. The others followed along, helping her in the chair. I  turned left, and walked up the hill, and ended up at Ole Bull's castle ruins.

It was mostly a foundation now, with a sign up describing what it had once been. Standing high on top of the mountain, I looked over everything. I love those moments---Getting to stand where the historic people stood, seeing where things happened over a century ago. Feeling those ripples from history, knowing you're part of it now.

The others came up the path. Devaughn began walking around the trail, looking at the perimeter, while Tim and I started checking for EMFs. Vince got out the spirit box and set it up on a bench, and turned it on.

"Anything?" Tim asked me.

I shook my head. "Not yet. Clearly no power lines or anything up here, but I'm not reading any ghosts, either. Temperature is consistent at about sixty."

The spirit box suddenly blared to life, sounding out several musical notes. They were loud chords, deep and haunting, and they sounded out through the valley below.

Tim turned to look at me.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

"It was rather hard to miss."

"There shouldn't be any radio signals up here."

"And Ole Bull's ghost is said to play music," I said. "I think we have something."

I felt a raindrop. I looked up. The wind was blowing the clouds in over the mountain, and it was beginning to rain.

"Damn it," I said,"It wasn't supposed to rain today."

"You never do know," commented Millie. "It's been pretty wet lately."

"We should get the equipment out of the rain," said Vince.

I nodded.

"Let's get everything packed up."

"Sorry this one as a bust," said Vince as he packed up the equipment in the van.

Tim glanced at him. "Seriously?"

"What the hell gives you that idea?" I asked. "We got some music notes over the spirit box. This was a great investigation!"

"So, if we have time and everyone agrees," I said,"We can stop in Leidy Township on the way home."

We'd found a restaurant along Route 6 and stopped to eat. I was having a shrimp basket, sitting next to Millie, much like we usually did.

"Back in August of 1950," I said,"Two staffers from the local newspaper staked out the area and spotted a headless ghost. It was said to be the ghost of a man beheaded by the Native Americans after trying to steal some of their treasure. They got a photo of it, in fact, which was a pretty good piece of evidence. I'd like to stop by and check it out."

"And you know the place?" Tim asked.

I nodded. "The article said it was in Leidy Township. It mentioned a cemetery and a bridge, right over Kettle Creek. I've checked the locations of all the cemeteries in the township, and there's only one that matches the description. Truth is, I've always wanted to visit all the cemeteries in Clinton County, and this is a chance to check this one off my list."

"Well," said Vince,"If it's along 144, we can take that down to the Renovo Road, which takes us right past Millie's on the way home. It's basically on our way."

"You gonna eat those chips?" I asked Millie.

"Right here. Right here," I said excitedly. "The bridge."

Vince made the turn onto the bridge, and I said,"Right there is the cemetery."

"Where can I park?"

"I guess here on the grass, by the road."

He pulled up. I climbed out of the van and looked at the cemetery, and the others followed. I walked through, looking at the graves. 

"Which one is the oldest in the cemetery?" Tim asked me.

I checked the cemetery book I'd brought along. "I have one from 1907....That one seems to have been moved from Maple Grove, when they built the Kettle Creek Dam. A lot of cemeteries ended up underwater during that project. If we don't count that one, I have one from 1922. I'm seeing some Summersons in here....David Summerson died and is said to be riding a phantom horse in the area."

"Cool."

"The reporters sat up here in their car for a while, probably about where we parked, and then walked down to the bridge. It was there that they saw the ghost. it was described as a headless, smoky sort of white shape. It moved toward them, and they ran back to the car and went for a whiskey."

"Up in Cross Fork?"

"I think down to Renovo, but I'm not sure. Over the drinks, they decided that they needed a photo, so they went back. This time, they saw it again and got a photo, and ran back to the newspaper to develop it and write up the story."

Tim grinned.

"Shall we?"

We walked down the road to the bridge, Tim, Devaughn and me. We looked at the bridge going over Kettle Creek, and I stopped for a moment, looking out over the creek, the same place two other reporters had seen a ghost so many years ago.

The ghost was spotted right down there. And, seventy-five years later, here I am. Tracing the footsteps, looking at the same place. Learning about it, and becoming. A part of history.

When they dropped me off back at my place, Paul and the girls next door were playing in the backyard. I carried my bags around to go inside.

"Hi, Dad!" Paul called, not pausing in his bouncing on the trampoline.

"Hey, kiddo."

"Hi, Lou!" said Love, also bouncing. "Where have you been?"

"Been up north, hunting ghosts."

"Cool! Tell us some stories?"

I smiled.

"Sure. Let me get unpacked, and then I'll tell you all about it."

Thin Ice: Wendigoing Gets Tough

The forest was deep, and dark. I was walking through it, having an adventure. I had my black vest on, and my Mothman shirt. 

Through the trees, someone came. A woman. A woman that I knew.

"I need help," she said. "I need a friend."

And I sat up, breathing, in bed. I was wearing my Yeti pajamas, and it was about two in the morning.

"We need to go to Wal-Mart," Paul said. "I want to buy my valentines early, so I can get something that nobody else has."

"You want unique valentines this year, huh?" I asked.

Paul nodded. "I want something that nobody else in my class is going to get."

Something occurred to me. "Wait a minute....Paul. I work in a print shop."

Paul looked up at me with some anticipation.

I said,"I can get you valentines that we create ourselves."

"Yeah!" said Paul. "I have the coolest dad ever!"

"Missed you the other day," I said to Emily. "You feeling better?"

She nodded. "I'm up and around more. Things are okay. I just wasn't too great earlier."

"Have a favor to ask you. Would you be willing to design Paul's valentines for this year? He wants something that nobody else has. Preferably incorporating his picture. He drew this design for you to work off." I handed Emily a page with hearts sketched on it in marker.

She grinned. "Love to. I'll design something for you."

"You can steal his photo from the school dance off my Facebook."

"Sounds good," she said. "So you guys were designing valentines last night, then? Slow night for you both?"

"Well, I'm looking into a Wendigo," I said.

"I miss one day of work...."

Another day at the print shop. I was working on envelopes, and wearing my rainbow alien sweatshirt. Speaking of cold weather, it was sixteen degrees out, with no end in sight.

"So the thing about Wendigos," I explained,"Is how they reflect the culture. The legend involves a monster that lives in the deep cold, and eat people. This comes from valid fears of the time---The legends always reflect the mindset of the culture. Wendigos are from northern Native American tribes, and they lived in very cold areas. The legend sprung up in an area and time when the fear of having to eat dead relatives so you could survive was very real."

Emily nodded. "I always learn something from you, Lou," she said.

"One of the Swartz Paranormal guys shared a podcast about Wendigos the other day," I said. "A guy was talking about an old book about Pennsylvania, written by a reverend. It mentioned a woman from Clearfield area who was traveling to Great Island back in the 1700s. He said that she was trapped in the snow and had to eat one of her children before she was rescued, and she became a Wendigo. So, you never know, we may have a Wendigo running around down on Great Island. Right across from there is Memorial Park, which was once a burial ground, so we may have her buried around there."

"That's really neat," she said.

Nineteen degrees out. Paul and I stood on the corner among a cluster of kids, waiting for the school bus. I was wearing my cold-weather vest, heavy coat, hood, and gloves. Paul was wearing a sweatshirt, and, at my insistence, the puffy vest I'd given him for Christmas.

"Don't forget, Dad, I have dance practice this weekend," Paul reminded me.

"I think your mother has it on the calendar," I said. "I forgot to tell you, I have a report of a wendigo down on Great Island. Want to run down and investigate it with me sometime soon?"

"Sure," said Paul.

One of his classmates, Willy or something, looked up. "I could go," he said. "I'd look for a wendigo. My mom knows who you are, she'd let me."

"Would she, now?" I said. 

"Yeah! That would be fun!"

"Well, we'll see," I said. "It's going to be cold out. We'll see."

Paul was in school. I wasn't going anywhere. I had the house to myself for a while, so I wrote an article. I checked the food supply---With the weather getting bad, I'd stocked up on canned and frozen foods; I now had enough to last for a month. If ancient people had had access to freezers and canned food, we'd have a lot fewer wendigo legends.

Then I got my cell phone out of my pack and dialed a number I'd had stored for a couple of years now. She picked up immediately.

"Hello, buddy," she said.

"Hi, SaraLee," I said. "How are you doing?"
SaraLee had been in LHPS for a while. I have a low tolerance for the psychic types, but I'd known her a long time, and she was a very good friend.

"Been a bit busy," she said. "How about you?"
"Doing okay. New job. I wanted to check in with you, see if you were okay. I had a dream about you that kind of made me wonder."

"Now, I'd be very interested in hearing about this dream." She was graceful enough to not try to claim she'd sent me a telepathic message, though the thought had crossed my mind.

"I was out in the forest on an adventure," I said. "Exploring around. You kept coming to me, saying you needed a friend."

"And that's about it?"
"That's about it."

She was quiet for a moment. "That's very interesting," she said. "I'm glad you called. I have had some difficulties lately with work and personal life."

"You need to talk?"

"A little. You and me don't talk enough lately."

"Yeah, we really should get together next time you're in Lock Haven. I have a wendigo sighting here."

"Now, that's cool," she said. "Tell me more."

It had dropped to sixteen degrees out, and Paul, unable to go outside and play, had taken to hitting a tennis ball around the house with a racket we'd found on the porch. I had some sympathy for the kid being stuck in the house for days, so I'd just cautioned him to not break anything too important.

"Mom's taking me to dance class, Dad," he said. "What are you doing?"

"Checking into the wendigo sighting. I'm sending an e-mail to my editor, who lives in Clearfield, and may have heard the story. I'm also going to see if I can find a copy of the book that this came from, and study it to see what else I can learn."

He set down the racket. Rosie immediately grabbed the tennis ball and ran from the room with it. He said,"Well, it's time for me to get to dance."

"Wear your coat," I said. "This cold is nothing to mess with."

He rolled his eyes. "Dad, I know."

Paul and Michelle left for dance class. I had the house to myself for a while. I checked on the oil supply downstairs. It was starting to snow out. Twenty-two degrees and dropping.

I was having essentially the same problem I'd had during COVID. There were adventures to be had, things to be explored, but I was basically stuck in the house. It's not easy being a stay-at-home adventurer.

I had a little time. Part of this had to be running down and checking out Great Island and Memorial Park, and I had nothing better to do for the next couple of hours. I looked at my watch.

I was tired of hanging around the house. What the hell.

In the snow, it took about twenty minutes to bike to Memorial Park on the east end. I left my bike in the empty lot, and walked around, taking a few readings. 

Great Island had been a big place for the Native American tribes along the Susquehanna River. What is now Memorial Park had been a burial ground; when they'd built the dike in the nineties, they'd found bodies and had to stop and do an archaeological dig. If the woman in the story had been buried locally, it was likely here.

I walked around a bit. The thermal imager showed nothing but blues and greens---I was the only source of heat in the park. Highs of  nineteen, lows of twelve. The Susquehanna was partially frozen.

I wanted to poke around and do some digging, but there was no way in hell that was going to happen with the ground frozen. So I made a mental note to come back when it was warmer, and walked back to my bike.

And I found that the chain was frozen. The bike was going nowhere.

I could call Michelle to pick me up. No, wait, I couldn't. She was off with Paul at dance. Chris was out of town. Tif didn't drive. I was on my own.

Okay. I was stuck in the snowstorm for a while. Don't panic. I'd been in bad situations before. I'd been trapped by a flood in a cursed park. Lost and almost dehydrated in a haunted forest. I'd even survived a pandemic. I could get through this, too, with minimum risk of hypothermia. It was going to come down to what I knew....And what I'd brought along with me.

I was wearing my heavy coat and my puffy vest, and underneath that, the Yeti sweatshirt. My heavy gloves and black hood. Okay. I'd dressed warmly enough. Now I had to see if I'd prepared my backpack for situations like this.

I had a small survival kit in there, which was a help. It had a foil emergency blanket. No, wait....I had two. I'd worked one into my coat pocket. I unfolded that one and slipped it into my coat, wrapping it around myself to trap in body heat.

There was a picnic pavilion in the park. I went underneath it and sat down at one of the picnic tables. Two rocks anchored the other emergency blanket on top of the picnic table, where it hung down and could form a bit of a windblock. I wheeled my bike underneath the pavilion. So far, so good.

Some searching around the edge of the park turned up a lot of loose sticks and brushy stuff, which I gathered into a pile. I found a beer can thrown away in the brush, and I gathered that up, too. Littering was about to save my life.

I got out my Swiss army knife and used the can opener to cut off the top of the can, leaving it open. I set down the beer can near the picnic table, underneath the cylinder of my bike. One pocket of my coat had a firestarting kit of my own devising---A pill bottle, probably from Rosie, with matches, lint, and a striker inside it. If I were going to quit society and go be a hermit, the one concession I'd make to civilization is a lighter or matches. I put the lint way down in the bottom of the can, and then started placing small sticks and twigs on top of that.

It took me four or five matches before I was able to get it to stay lit, but I got the sticks burning. As it burned, I added progressively bigger sticks until I had a small fire burning in the can. It worked---The heat rose, warming up the bicycle chain. and reflected off the emergency blanket, keeping me from freezing to death.

And then I waited for an hour. You'd think a survival situation would be more thrilling. I warmed myself as best I could with my small, can-contained fire, and waited while the heat hopefully thawed out my bike. I kept feeding sticks to the fire. I wished I'd brought a book to read.

If this didn't work, I was going to have to either walk back, or try to wait it out until morning. In which case I stood a reasonable chance of being in Highland Cemetery within the week. Lou, local paranormal investigator, died on January 19, 2025, pointlessly chasing a wendigo during a snowstorm....

Sixteen degrees. I fed some more sticks in the fire. The sun had gone down entirely, and I was basically sitting in the dark. The snow reflected what light there was, illuminating the park and relieving me of having to turn on a flashlight.

I reached out and touched the bike pedal, giving it a spin. It felt looser. I tried again, and it spun freely. The fire had heated up the chain enough that it could move now, and should get me most of the way home.

I piled a bunch of snow into the can, extinguishing the fire. Then I rolled my bike out to the road---I had to make this as quick as possible, before the thing could re-freeze. I got on and tried it.

The bike worked! I rode down the hill to Water Street. If I just kept it going, I should be okay. I headed down Water Street and got the hell out of there.

"...So I spent the rest of the night wrapped up in a blanket, researching on my laptop and drinking hot chocolate and ordering more emergency blankets," I said.

"God," Emily said. "I'd never know what to do in a situation like that. Probably call my dad."

"Well, that's an option," I agreed. "Actually I thought of calling Michelle, but she was out at Paul's dance class."

"So did you find your wendigo?"

"Kind of," I said. "I found a copy of the book online and studied it. There's a fair amount of racism to some of these books; this one is about Native American tribes and published in 1881. So the writer pretty much wrote it to make them sound uncivilized; he inserted this story in a chapter about food."

Emily made a face. "Oh my god."

"So the whole wendigo thing was a legend, but it came about mainly because the writer, a white missionary, was trying to cast the tribe in a bad light. Of course, that didn't stop me from nearly getting myself killed down at Memorial Park."
"Well, I'm glad you made it," said Emily. "I wouldn't even know how to start researching something like that."

"I can teach you sometime, if you'd like," I said. "Sometimes I'm not sure, either, so I just check everything."

"By the way," she said,"I have something for you."

I walked into the house and dropped my pack on the chair. Rosie and Butters came running into the kitchen, and a moment later, and marginally more calmly, Paul showed up.

"Hi, buddy," I said. "How was your day?"
"Good."

"By the way---Got something for you."

I handed him a stack of valentines, based on his own design, with his photo on them.

Paul grinned and giggled. "This is great! How many are there?"
"About a hundred. And now, you have valentines that nobody else is going to have."

"Yay!" said Paul.

Thin Ice: Cold Open

LOCK HAVEN — Following a severe winter storm that paralyzed central Pennsylvania on Friday, forecasters say residents should prepare for up to three inches of snow Sunday night into Monday, which could make Monday morning travel hazardous.
AccuWeather’s latest projections indicate that the Lock Haven area should anticipate one to two inches of snow accumulating primarily between 4 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Jan. 6.
Fortunately, the storm is not expected to be accompanied by serious ice, sleet or freezing rain. However, the ongoing Arctic cold front is expected to keep temperatures below freezing throughout the week, with lows potentially dropping into the teens and wind chills pushing “real feel” temperatures into the single digits.

"Good morning, guys," I said as I walked in the door to work. "Twenty-four degrees out right now."

Kelli nodded. "We've been keeping an eye on it. We can see the temperature at the bank across the street. You have any trouble getting in on your bike?"

"The brakes froze again, but overall it was okay. I've learned to bundle up a lot."

"Damn, Lou," said Emily. "I'm impressed you can bike in this."

"Well, I gotta get to work," I said. "And much like yourself, the weather will be in the twenties for a while."

"Your Christmas present came," Emily said with a smile. "I hope you like it."

She handed me a package, and I opened it. It was a T-shirt, with four cryptids crossing the street like that Beatles album cover. Bigfoot, Mothman, a Wendigo, and Chupacabra. I grinned. 

"I love it! This is perfect!"

"We had trouble guessing your size," said Kelli. "We were waiting for you to take a break so we could run back and check your coat, but you've been busy lately."

I laughed. "I noticed you guys asking about my break a lot. I love this, Emily, and I'll be wearing it a lot as soon as it warms up again."

The phone rang, and Kelli picked up. She handed it to me. "It's your daughter."

I have two, but only one is likely to be calling me at work. I took the phone. "Hi, honey. What's up?"

"Hi, Daddy. Can you meet me after work and walk me home? I'm a little worried about the snow and ice with my wheelchair."

"Sure I can."

"What time do you leave work?"

"Four today. Will that work?"

"Yeah, that's fine. Meet you in Triangle Park?"

"I'll see you there."

"Tickets to cut." Emily brought a stack of brightly-colored theater tickets and set them on the cart behind me. "No rush, though."

"I'll get them done," I said. "Don't worry about that; I have the time."

"Okay, good. Thanks."

"With it so cold out, and not able to get out much, I thought I might start researching the Minnesota Iceman."

"Oh, that sounds interesting." Emily is generally appreciative of these things. Or maybe humoring me.

"The Minnesota Iceman is a bipedal hairy cryptid that is frozen in a block of ice, possibly a hoax," I said. "It was making the carnival rounds in 1967. The owner gave several different stories as to how he got it, and it may have been a real creature, a fake, or several fakes. Apparently it went up on Ebay in 2013, and was bought by a Texas museum."

"Oh my god, really? That's so cool! It would be neat to see that."

"I first learned all this in The Field Guide To North American Monsters, which I swear is a real thing. I figure since I can't go out much because of the cold, I might as well do some studying on the Iceman."

"That's really neat, Lou. You'll have to let me know what you find out."

"You'll be the first."

I got the tickets cut and boxed. Then I logged into the computer, and printed out a box of five hundred envelopes for an insurance agency. I packaged them up, too, and walked both to the front office, where I found Emily at her desk, doing a google search for "Minnesota Iceman."

"Ah, got you interested."

"Well, this stuff is pretty fascinating. Did you know there were some researchers who went to look at it?"

"Oh sure. One of them, Ivan Sanderson, actually visited Clinton County on another cryptid hunt."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he visited Hiram Cranmer up in Leidy Township. There's an old thunderbird photo that was said to be in Sanderson's possession, and he may have lost it here. Cranmer died in a house fire, and the thunderbird photo may have gone with him. So, in a way, the Minnesota Iceman has a tenuous Clinton County connection."

"That's so cool. How do you plan to research this?"
"Might give the museum a call, see what I can find out. It helps that I have no life."

The temperature was about nineteen and dropping. I was bundled up, walking along with Tif up Bellefonte Avenue. I was glad I'd worn my cold-weather outfit---Plus, appropriately, the Yeti sweatshirt.

"Gonna look into the Minnesota Iceman," I commented.

"Check under overpasses?" Tif asked. "Does he hang out under them all day like the Virginia Rabbitman?"
"It's....What? No, it's the Virginia Bunnyman, and the Minnesota Iceman doesn't spend time under overpasses. He doesn't do much of anything, having been frozen in a block of ice since 1967."

"Well, at least he's easy to catch."

"Well, the mystery is basically what his story is. If he's real or a hoax. The original owner claimed to have found this thing, essentially a Bigfoot frozen in a block of ice, and ran it around the carnival circuit. It's in a museum in Texas now, and I'm curious as to how real it might be."

"You know, some dads just sit in an office all day."

"Some dads are boring as hell."

We walked a little while, and I said,"Paul has his school dance Friday night. He's been excited about it for weeks."

"Oh my god. He's ten. Does he have a date?"

"He says he's going with two people. Apparently the rules on dating have changed since I was young, not that I ever got a lot of dates. He's getting all dressed up; he's been planning his outfit for a month now."

We hit Jones Street, and Tif said,"This looks okay. I can make it myself from here. Gonna have a cup of coffee."

"You have a good night, honey. See you Friday for family dinner."

"Spent last night staring at photos of the Minnesota Iceman," I said to Emily. "You know, there's remarkably few of them online, considering it's been around since 1967. I've seen more photos of Raystown Ray, and he's not even real."

Emily grinned. "I was wondering how that was going."

"You busy?" We were each standing at one of the big printers. "I don't want to interrupt...."

"Waiting for my file to convert. I got all day."
"Great, then I'll entertain you while my job prints."

"I noticed that there don't seem to be many photos of the Iceman."

"No, you can only find a couple of them. Which is weird. Normally cryptid photos are blurry but plentiful. So I found a couple of the good ones and compared them. I know some of this has to be a hoax, some sort of dummy---The position of the Iceman changes. He's a little different in different photos. Which means at least some of them are a hoax. The question is whether there was a real Iceman and a couple of fakes, or all fakes."

"That would make sense," admitted Emily.

"So I'm going to keep checking into this until I figure it out, and then hope it warms up enough I can get back to haunted cemeteries."

"There's a cemetery near my place," Emily commented. "I've always wondered about it. It's very small, and I wondered what the story is."

"I can find out for you in about five minutes," I said. "The genealogical society published books of every known grave in the county a few years ago. I'll pull the book and look it up, let you know."

"That'd be cool. Hey. Got something for you. Wait here." Emily ran to her desk, and reappeared with a jar of hard candies.

"Thanks, Emily! You brought me some of your mom's homemade candies!"

"Well, you liked them so much when you were picking them off my desk, I thought I'd bring you some. I told my mom you didn't need the big jar, but...." Emily shrugged.

"No, it's great. I love these. Thank your mom for me. I'll be eating these tonight while Paul is at his school desk and I'm looking up cemeteries."

I was thrilled when the genealogical society published books of the local cemeteries. They'd documented every known grave, and it eliminated the need for me to go racing around checking every single gravestone. That was in 2008. Since then I'd acquired all ten volumes.

I found the one Emily had asked about, and marked the page. Then I sent my friend Kevin a message; he's a Thunderbird expert from New Jersey. He had a lot of good Sanderson information, and sometimes it pays to consult.

Paul came into the room. The kid was looking good. He'd dressed in jeans and a black shirt, combed his hair, and probably taken a shower. I said,"You look good, buddy. Nice job."

"The doors open at seven," he said. "I'll need a little money for snacks."

"I'll give you money."

"Don't flirt with too many girls," said Michelle, coming into the room.

"Mom," Paul said. "They flirt with me."

On the weekend, I woke up to find that it had snowed overnight. I went out and shoveled the front walk, and helped my neighbor shovel. Then I went inside and had some coffee, looked up the number for the Austin Museum of the Weird, and called it.

Then I hung up and waited another hour, because I always forget about the time zones.

It's nice being a freelance writer---I can use that as an excuse to ask all sorts of insane questions, and nobody ever thinks twice about it.

"Hi, my name is Lou," I said. "I'm a freelance writer from Pennsylvania. I was hoping you could tell me about the Minnesota Iceman." I've reached a point in my career where I no longer feel stupid when I have to say things like that.

The girl laughed. "Oh, this is cool. We have had the Minnesota Iceman for quite a few years now. The owner of this museum saw it as a kid, and when he grew up, contacted the family who owned it."

"Do you have any kind of a provenance?"

"A what?"

"A provable chain of ownership, showing who owned it down the line."

"Oh, yes. He has all the papers from when he bought it from the family."

Which was not exactly the story I'd seen online; stories about the Minnesota Iceman seem to keep changing about monthly. "And he's been kept on ice ever since?"
"Yes, we have him in a specially frozen booth where people can view him."

"And he's been frozen ever since?"

"Oh, yes."

"Okay, thanks. If I have any other questions, I'll call back."

Flurries were coming down as I walked into work in the morning. I brushed the snow out of my hair before I leaned over Emily's desk and set the CCGS cemetery book down.

"Busy day already," said Emily. 

"Yeah, well, I got something that might excite you to start off," I said. I flipped the book to page forty. "Here's your cemetery. Garman Lutheran Cemetery. I looked it up a couple of nights ago. It was founded about 1846...."

"Wow," said Emily.

"Oh, this gets better. They didn't keep a lot of paperwork in the old days, so there weren't any maps or records. So the gravedigger would sometimes dig a grave, and find someone already there. This resulted in some double burials."

"Oh my god," said Emily. Across at the other desk, Kelli was listening to this with interest.

"And, in addition, Ida's great-grandfather is buried there. You've got a connection to the ghost in my house."

"That's so cool," said Emily. She looked at the photo of the cemetery, and pointed at a structure in the background. "Hey, this is our barn!"

I grinned. "You can hang onto the book and photocopy that part, if you like."

I walked to the back room and hung up my coat and pack. I started adjusting the printer, getting ready to print envelopes. A few minutes later, Emily came back with the book.

"I'm done. Thanks."

"Anytime. Researched the Minnesota Iceman over the weekend, too."

"Oh? Anything good?"

"I think it's probably a hoax, and has been from the start."

"So that's your conclusion, huh?" Emily grinned. "That makes sense, actually. What makes you think that?"

"Well, the story keeps changing, for one," I said. "I cannot pin down a consistent story about this thing, including the current owners. Because of that, and the fact that it made the carnival rounds from the start....I mean, the thing was traveling through state fairs and stuff for decades, and it's been consistently frozen for the past sixty years?"

"Yeah, I kind of wondered about that."

"Sanderson said it was real, but Sanderson was like me---A writer who got into cryptozoology. When the Smithsonian inspected it, they said it was a fake. If it ever comes down to a dispute between me and the Smithsonian, go with them unless I can make a really good case. They have more training and resources than I do."

Emily laughed. "I always learn something good from you, Lou."

"Well, I hope so. If it doesn't warm up, I'm gonna start looking into thunderbird sightings up toward Renovo. My friend Kevin e-mailed me about them when I checked things with him, so that gives me something new to do."

Temperatures dropped overnight, which led to Paul and I sitting up late on the couch, watching TV. The kid was wrapped in a quilt, and I was wearing one of my heavy fleeces.

"I hope it warms up," said Paul. "I want to have outside recess again."

"Well, we'll see," I said. "In the meantime, you can help me do some paranormal investigations. A few thunderbirds, maybe. What do you think?"

"Sure," said Paul. "Can I have a piece of candy?"