On my night walks with Allie, I’ve lately found myself listening to the excellent podcast, “Monsters Among Us.” Callers leave their true stories about paranormal experiences. More than once I’ve thought it might not be the best thing to listening to wandering the dark and shadowy streets of Rohnert Park, but, hey, I need inspiration at any cost! The most recent show has the theme of Haunted Houses, and they mentioned about some states having laws where you have to disclose if your house is thought to be haunted – it’s not legally admitting it’s a ghost. Instead the property is deemed a “Stigmatized Property” – same designation if a crime or death has occurred on the property and the idea of that incident (or ghost) could adversely affect the home price. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more legalese than creepy. But it did get me thinking…
Sorry for splitting this into a two-parter. I just wanted to give it space to breathe…

“We absolutely love the place,” the sandy-haired husband declared – was his name Jim? Tim? Andi, the Real Estate agent thought. Something like that…

“Yeah, I think it’s perfect! I can’t wait for the kids to see it…” Janet – the wife, I remembered her name, Andi thought – said.

“Whoa, sweetie,” Jim/Tim warned with a smile. “We have to see about the next steps.”

Both turned beaming faces towards Andi.

This was the part Andi dreaded… You’d think she’d be used to it by now – the house had been on the market now for more than six months. “I’m really glad you liked it,” she put on her brightest smile. “Now, I am legally obligated to disclose something about the house…”

“What, is it haunted or something?”

“Yes, actually…”  

She watched their excited, hopeful faces deflate in front of her. Again, she knew she should have been used to it, but every time her heart sank.

“Technically, it’s referred to as a ‘Stigmatized Property’.”

“Oh,” the couple said in unison and unconsciously stepped back at the same time.

“What happened here?” Janet tentatively asked.

“The owners at the time all died in the house,” Janet said matter-of-factly.

“Oh,” Jim/Tim said. “Like over a period of time…?” he asked hopefully.

“Well, yes… I’m told it was over the span of about five minutes.”

The couple gasped in unison.

“But it wasn’t foul play…” Andi hastily added.

“Then, how…” Janet inquired.

“The best police could reconstruct, the teenage boy slipped on a puddle at the top of the stairs and fell down the stairs, breaking his neck. The father, hearing the commotion, rushed to the banister and slipped himself, falling over the railing. The mother, who was making dinner at the time, ran into the foyer, only to trip over her husband’s body, causing her to fall, impaling herself on the knife she was carrying.”

“Holy shit,” Janet said. Jim/Tim looked at her, aghast at her profanity, then softened realizing his reaction was the same.

“But,” Jim/Tim started, “They died here – no foul play, like you said. That’s it, right? It’s not like there was haunting reported…”

“Well…” Andi started, but Janet had already started for the car.

“We… We’ll call you if we change our mind,” Jim/Tim said as he hurried after his wife.

“Well, shit,” Andi said.

“Well, shit,” Dennis said from the upstairs window.

“Language, young man,” Mary admonished.

“Mom, I’m thirty. I can swear, it’s okay.”

“Dennis, you were fifteen when we all died. Maybe it’s been another fifteen years, but to your mother you’ll still always be that precocious fifteen year old boy.”

“Thank you, Gary,” Mary smiled at her husband. “A precocious boy who shouldn’t have been running in the house,” she couldn’t help but add.

“Says the woman who was running while holding a knife,” Dennis smiled sardonically.

“I mean, we always said don’t run with scissors – no one ever said anything about running with a carving knife,” Gary laughed and fist-bumped his son.

“Har har,” Mary scoffed.

 “Who’s this?” Gary said, looking through the window as a black 1960 Cadillac Eldorado hearse pulled up to the curb behind Andi’s BMW. The doors opened almost in unison and a skinny man and skinny woman stepped out, dressed head to toe in black and made a beeline to Andi who stared open mouthed at their arrival.

“A pair of wankers,” Dennis added.

“Language!”

“Mom…”

“Hi, you must be Andrea Major,” the man said, taking off his sunglasses and carefully placing them into the pocket of his black suit jacket. “The agent for this property?”

“Yes, you can call me Andi,” she said a little dumbstruck.

The woman offered a thin smile probably intended to be sympathetic. “Your office said you were here. We were hoping to catch you and save you from making a second trip.”

“Ah, okay… and you are…?”

“Where are our manners,” the man smiled in a way he probably read somewhere was supposed to put people at ease. “I’m Gavin, this is my wife Sophie. We’re the Reeds.” He said “the Reeds” like it was obvious who they were.

“The… Reeds?”

“The hosts of the ‘Haunt Pursuit’ podcast?” Gavin said.

“The top-rated podcast on Apple, Spotify, and SiriusXM?” Sophie added.

Andi shook her head as she said, “Pleased to meet you…” She then changed the subject, “Would you like to see the property?”

“Yes, well…” Sophie started.

“We’re more interested in the activity previous owners have reported that have led to this being a ‘stigmatized property’” Gavin added finger air quotes around “stigmatized property.”

“Well, technically the deaths of the family were enough to relegate the property to the stigmatized designation, but the other families have reported various things like electrical issues that couldn’t be explained by electricians, the feeling of being watched, cold spots. Nothing concrete, but none lasted more than a couple years…”

Gavin and Sophie exchanged cold smiles. “We’ll take it,” they said in unison.

“Umm, I’m sorry?”

“It’s perfect,” Sophie said. “We’re going to move in and record everything for our podcast.”

“We’ve been looking for the perfect haunted property, and this fits the bill,” Gavin added.

“Oh, well, okay, then if you want to follow me to the office I can start the paperwork…” Andi motioned to her own car. Nods were shared and the Reeds moved towards their hearse.

“What in the hell…” Gary said as the cars drove off.

“What’s a podcast?” Mary asked.

“Like a radio show, honey,” Gary explained.

“Those pretentious pricks…” Dennis shook his head.

“Language, Dennis,” Mary started.

“No, I think he’s right, dear. These look like some pretentious pricks,” Gary agreed, folding his arms thoughtfully.

“Well, then we’ll to scare them like we did the Johnson’s,” Mary said with a little too much enthusiasm.

“You really had that late night wail down, mom,” Dennis smiled in memory.

“Thank you, Dennis.”

“No…” Gary said slowly.

“No?” Mary asked.

“No,” Gary said, “We don’t do anything.”

“Excuse me?” Dennis asked.

“These podcasters want a show. We’re not going to rise to their bait. We’re going to be the most boring ghosts they never saw.”

Dennis smiled mischievously. “You’re one twisted bastard, Dad.”

“Thank you, son.”

“Language!”

It was a busy day today, so I’m going for a short one tonight.

On our trip to Monterey, my best friend, Abby, said I snored. I told her I didn’t, but she swore up and down I did. I’ve never snored a day in my life and I took real offense to her accusation.

When I got back home I went on the app store and immediately downloaded the number one snoring app to prove (pseudo) scientifically that Abby was wrong. The app is called SnoreTrack and you just leave it running by your bed when you go to sleep. It records you sleeping and promises to “Unlock Better Sleep with AI-Powered SnoreTrack: Our advanced algorithms analyze your sleep breathing patterns to detect snoring and provide personalized solutions from our heuristic database, tailored to help you sleep soundly every night.”

That night, I fired up SnoreTrack, set my phone on the bedside table, and went to sleep, totally expecting an error in the morning because SnoreTrack didn’t detect any snoring because I don’t snore, Abby!

But that’s not what happened.

Well, there was an error. But it wasn’t because I didn’t snore – SnoreTrack said I did (lies!). But it also indicated I talked in my sleep and isolated the segments where I spoke.

I didn’t know I snored, let alone talked. I had no interest in listening to snoring, but I queued up the sleep talking bits. The first clip was an hour after I fell asleep and it’s more of a mumble: “No! I don’t… mumble mumble *snore*” Okay, the snore was super embarrassing…

Second sound came about an hour later, clear and distinct: “You breathe like I used to…”

Kevin burst into the late-night diner. He’d sent me a breathless text a half hour ago saying I had to meet him somewhere public, somewhere anonymous because he had huge news – he couldn’t tell me more over text. I suggested the Denny’s off Petaluma Boulevard because neither of us had been to that location and it’s like twenty minutes from either of our houses, so, you know, anonymous. He texted back that that was a good idea. He’d be there in like ten minutes (ten minutes in Kevin time is generally forty minutes – I checked my watch as he burst into the diner looking around wildly for me; he was early for Kevin time).

I waved to get his attention. I met Kevin through another friend and we hit it off right away – mostly owing to our mutual interest in the paranormal which none of our other friends shared. Kevin was a big guy in a teddy bear kind of way, sandy hair disheveled as he sat down a little breathless.

“Ben, oh my God, you’re not going to believe it…”

“Hi hon,” the waitress interrupted. “Can I get you something?”

Kevin looked up, surprised. “Oh… Umm… Moons over My Hammy?”

“Anything to drink?”

“Coke.”

She threw him a practiced smile, “Thanks, hon.” Then, to me, “Yours is comin’ right out.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Ben looked at me and cocked an eyebrow. “What’d you get?”

“Cali Club Sandwich,” I said.

Kevin nodded thoughtfully. “Good call. Mind if I steal some fries?”

“Anytime.”

“Awesome,” he smiled.

“So… what am I not going to believe?”

The switch flipped and Kevin was back into hyperactive mode. “Bro, I saw a UFO.”

“Get out!”

“No, seriously! I was driving on River Road and I saw lights come out of one of the vineyards. I had to pull over to film it. Here…” he fumbled with his phone and pulled up a dark, shaky video of… sky. He looked crestfallen as we reviewed the footage. “I don’t get it, it was right there – a saucer-type shape with bright flashing lights…”

The waitress brought my club sandwich. Kevin snagged a few fries, which was fine; I wasn’t going to be able to eat the whole thing anyway. “Saucer-shaped? Not like the dark triangle you saw a few months ago?”

“No,” he said around fries. “Definitely saucer-shaped…” He studied the video again. “I don’t understand why the phone didn’t capture it…”

“I mean, it was dark… you know how hard it is to get a good picture of like a giant full moon…” just then a light streak came from the side of the frame. “What’s that?”

“Oh, man, that’s another thing! I was filming on the side of the road, watching the saucer rising and this car blows by me—that’s the lights—and boom, right into floodwaters!”

“Floodwaters?”

“Yeah, I didn’t realize the road had flooded ahead. Dude went straight in up over his hood.”

“Holy shit! Good thing you saw that saucer!”

“Right?”

Kevin had an uncanny proclivity for paranormal encounters. Before the UFO encounter, he told me about going ghost hunting at an abandoned asylum up in Lake County that had been condemned. He and another friend were inside. On the second floor, Kevin saw an orb back downstairs. He went down to investigate. His partner kept going and fell through a rotted section of floor and broke his leg.

Another time he was camping up in Six Rivers National Forest up in Northern California and had a bigfoot encounter. He was asleep in his tent when he heard grunts and footsteps and then the tent started getting pummeled by sticks and branches. He tried waiting it out but eventually the sticks turned to rocks and he grabbed what he could and made a break for his car, hightailing it back to Leggett.

“We should go camping out there, Ben!” he suggested after telling me about that encounter.

The pragmatist in me thought hiking out into the middle of bigfoot country with a guy who is clearly a paranormal magnet sounds like a recipe for disaster. On the other hand, another part of me really wanted to go and see for myself what’s going on.

Okay, confession time. I see ghosts. I don’t talk about it to anyone – it’s always awkward. It’s just easier to keep it to myself. Besides, life is a lot less complicated when ghosts don’t know you can see them. So, if I act like I don’t see them, they don’t bother me and I don’t look like a crazy person talking to thin air and everyone wins!

But I’ve never seen a bigfoot!

The next weekend Kevin pulls his Jeep Wrangler onto a goat-trail of a dirt road.

“Umm, do you know where you’re going?”

“This is a tip I got for a campsite from one of the bigfoot Reddit forums.”

The road ended and we hiked in another mile until we were truly in the middle of nowhere.

“Want some help with the tent?” I asked Kevin.

“Nah, I’m good,” he said as he laid the flat tent on the footprint and started putting the poles together. “Why don’t you find us some firewood?”

“Yeah… sounds good.” I started down what looked like a trail. It ran straight for about a hundred meters and then abruptly ended at a dramatic overlook with a steep drop off. A dead tree had fallen a few meters from the edge and I managed to cut some branches and bring them back to camp by the time Kevin had our tent pitched and our packs inside.

Night fell while we were cooking dinner over the fire. I startled at the sound of coyotes off in the distance.

Kevin snickered. “Not much on camping?”

I shrugged, “Not since I was in boy scouts. And even then, I preferred day hikes to camp outs.”

Kevin smiled. “Hopefully we’ll hear something other than coyotes tonight.”

“Yeah,” I said equal parts hoping and hoping against hearing anything. The “Not hearing anything” part lasted until we were comfortable in our tent. We’d turned out the flashlights and were just settling in to bed when we heard footsteps outside.

“Ben, did you hear that?” Kevin whispered.

I nodded, then realized Kevin couldn’t see me nod in the darkness. “Yeah.” I listened carefully. “Maybe a bear?”

More footsteps around the camp outside our tent. Then a deep grunt.

“That’s no bear,” Kevin whispered.

“I mean, it’s probably a bear…” I started.

“It’s bigfoot!” Kevin hissed as he slipped into his boots and started unzipping the tent.

I struggled with the laces of my hiking boots, “Hey, Kevin, wait!” but he was already climbing out of the tent. In my mind I couldn’t imagine what he was hoping to happen if he did startle a bigfoot in our camp, right?

I was out and shining my flashlight around. “Kevin?” I called.

“He went this way!” I saw Kevin’s flashlight bobbing fast up the trail I had gone to get the firewood earlier… right towards the cliff.

“Kevin, wait!” I called, breaking into a sprint after him.

“I think I see him,” I heard Kevin’s voice ahead. I was gaining on him, but I didn’t know if I was going to catch him in time.

“Keving, be careful! There’s a..” before I could finish my warning, I heard an enormous crash off to the left. Kevin’s flashlight beam snapped towards the sound of the crash and he started in that direction, away from the cliff. I hurried after him, catching him as the thick brush slowed his progress.

We were both out of breath when we came upon the tree that had fallen, likely causing the crash we heard. “Whoa, look at this!” he said, shining the light around looking for a trail. “We need to find a way around it to follow the bigfoot!”

I looked towards the base of the tree and gasped when I saw a short old woman with curly gray hair in a faded lavender dress, a pearl neckless, and out of breath. Her eyes met mine and she looked as surprised as I was. A ghost.

“What? What’d you find?” Kevin asked.

“N-nothing,” I said. “Just surprised a tree this size fell.”

“Right? I bet that thing came through here and felled the tree to keep us from following.” He searched again with his flashlight. “We need to find a way around it!”

I looked back at the old lady ghost who shook her head.

“Kevin, I think we should head back to camp.”

“But the bigfoot was right here!”

“And he’s clearly gone. He came to our camp for a reason – maybe he smelled our dinner? He may be back for the same reason?” I was making it up as I went along.

In the beam of my light I could see Kevin thinking it through. “Yeah…” he said finally. “You’re probably right. Let’s head back.” He started back the way we came.

I turned to the old lady and said to Kevin, “I’ll catch up. I got some crap in my boots as we were chasing the bigfoot. You go ahead, it’s going to take me a minute. I’ll catch up.”

“Alright,” he said, “If you’re sure.”

“Absolutely,” I said and waited until the beam of his flashlight disappeared in the forest before I whispered to the ghost. “Who are you and what are you doing in the forest at night?” Then added incredulously, “Did you knock this tree over?”

She nodded and stepped closer. “I did. I needed to get his attention. He was heading right for that..”

“For the cliff,” I interrupted. “I was trying to get him to stop.”

“That boy,” she shook her head then looked at the fallen tree. “Guess that’s just grandmother ghost strength,” she laughed.

“You’re Kevin’s grandmother?”

“Eleanor Levy, nice to meet you…?”

“Ben, Ben Adkins. You watch after Kevin?”

“Someone has to! That boy just blunders into everything like a bull in a China shop!”

The pieces fell into place. “Wait a minute, you’re the one causing the things he sees! The UFO?”

“I have no idea why he was out on that flooded road in the middle of the night. He would have drowned!”

“The orb in the asylum?”

“Oy, what was that boy doing there in the first place?” she threw her hands up. “And that friend of his ended up breaking his leg…” she pointed an accusing finger at me, “You’re not going to take him into some crazy dangerous setting, are you?”

“No, I was trying to stop him barreling towards that cliff.” She considered my comment as something else niggled my brain, “Hey, what was around our camp that got us out here in the first place?”

“That? Oh, bigfoot.”

“Holy crap,” I said.

“Yeah, he bounded down the cliff – they’re athletic like that. Kevin,” she shook her head, “Not so much.” She regarded me. “So you’re not some crazy adrenaline junky…”

I laughed.

“So, you’ll help me keep my Kevin safe?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Good.”

I looked back in the direction Kevin had gone and couldn’t see any trace of a trail. “Umm, Eleanor? Can you help me find the trail here?”

She laughed, “Follow me.”

I got back to camp without anything more than some branches scratching as I followed Eleanor through the think forest. Kevin was already in his sleeping bag talking about almost catching the bigfoot. I was tired and sore and climbed into my sleeping bag and both of us were out within minutes.

The next morning the fog had moved in thick and wet as we made breakfast and broke camp. We hiked back to the Jeep and talked about when we could come back out to find bigfoot. Kevin managed to steer the Jeep down the rutted dirt road, getting us back on the twisty back road.

The thick fog kept visibility to barely in front of our headlights, so we navigated the serpentine road slowly. Suddenly, Kevin jerked the Jeep to the side of the road, the Jeep at an awkward angle as he leapt out, calling, “Will-o-the-wisps!” as the door slammed behind him.

“What the heck is he going on about?” Eleanor asked from the back seat.

I stared after Kevin, “Will-o-the-wisps are ghost lights…” then I saw what drew Kevin’s attention – a pair of lights dancing off the road in the fog. But the two lights seemed to move too in sync with each other. “Oh shit, that’s…”

“A truck!” Eleanor said as she disappeared out of the Jeep.

I leapt out after Kevin, calling, “Kevin, wait!”

“You see them, right?” he said, pointing at the lights coming towards him. Now that I realized what they were I could tell the truck was just slowly following the winding road around the curve of the hill and that it would shortly bring it right upon Kevin.

“Kevin, those aren’t ghost lights!” I yelled as I hurried across the road.

“What? Of course they are,” he called back. “Look at how they’re moving!”

The lights were getting closer and Kevin was in the middle of the road.

Off behind him, I saw a luminescent figure step out of the forest. Even though the figure was nondescript, I knew it was Eleanor creating a diversion. “Kevin! Behind you!” I bellowed.

Kevin turned, saw the figure step into the forest and he bolted after it, just as the logging truck sounded its air horn and barely missed me and the Jeep on the narrow road – and absolutely would have taken out Kevin if he hadn’t vanished in the forest just in time.

A moment later, Kevin emerged from the forest as I crossed the road. “Wow, did you see that logging truck? That was close! We should probably get off the road…” he walked past me towards the Jeep.

Eleanor walked out of the forest and stared after Kevin as he climbed into the Jeep. She sighed and shook her head, “It’s going to take both of us to keep him from killing himself.”

“I’m figuring that out..” I laughed.

“Ben! Let’s go! It’s dangerous out here,” Kevin called through his open window.

“Thanks,” Eleanor said.

“It’s going to take a supernatural village,” I said as I headed back to the Jeep.