by Reyna Favis
“No, nothing like that... at least, I don’t think so.” He sighed and looked at me with worried eyes. “You’re not going to believe me.”
“Try me. I’ve had my fair share of weird. This might not be as bad as you think.”
Collapsing to a sitting position on the ground, Joel kept the dogs near him and began to explain. “We were working on an old house in Changewater. We’re doing this one for free for that organization that builds homes for people who can’t afford a place to live. We put in a few hours every day to get the place renovated and ready for move in. Nothing like this has ever happened before.” Joel looked at me desperate for understanding, so I nodded my head for him to continue. “We were working on the oldest part of the house today – a stone farmhouse built back in the early eighteen hundreds. We’re making the house handicap accessible and we were installing a wheelchair lift on the stairs to the second floor. The guy who’s gonna live there is an Iraq War vet and he lost both legs to an IED. His wife is going to have a baby in a few months, so we wanted to have the house ready for them when the baby comes.”
My impression of Joel just ratcheted up a few notches. I always thought he was a decent guy, but the work that he was doing really spoke to his true character. I knew enough not to say anything about what I thought, since it would just embarrass him. Instead, I just nodded again to let him know that I was following what he was saying and asked him to tell me what happened next.
“It started with this awful smell. It was so bad that the guys weren’t even making fart jokes. The smell was like something dead and rotting, but worse. We opened up the windows and door to try to vent it out and that’s when we realized that it was warmer outside the house. The room was freezing. We could see our breath inside, but if you went outside, it was cool but not freezing. We were a little freaked, don’t get me wrong, but the guys on the crew are tough mothers and we promised that we’d have that house ready in few weeks. Everyone just got back to work. Me and a few of the guys started trying to find the source of the smell, so we could clean it up and make the house nice for the family. That’s when things really went to hell.”
Joel took a shaky breath and began to unconsciously rub the flanks of Heckle and Jeckle, who were nestled close to him. He swallowed visibly before going on. “We followed the stink upstairs and the light wasn’t so good up there. We’re working on the wiring, but there’s no power up there right now. Anyways, it was pretty dim and we start looking around, just following our noses, so to speak. In front of one of the bedrooms, I notice these tiny footprints on the floor. The floors are still nice. They got those wide plank floor boards original to the house and they just need to be refinished and they’ll look good. So, the planks are white pine and they’re light colored and the little footprints are dark. They really stood out. I bent down to take a closer look and touched one. It felt sticky and I swear to God, it smelled like blood to me. The little footprints led into one of the bedrooms and the door was shut, but the footprints just kept going. If I was a smart man, I would’ve stopped right there and got out, but no, I had to freakin’ open the door to take a look. Al was right behind me and he saw it too.” He paused for a moment staring into the middle distance. When he continued the story, he began talking faster and faster. “There was this little girl, maybe three years old and dressed in a little white night gown, but the side of her head was caved in and there was blood all over her hair and it was dripping on the floor and she was crying, ‘Papa! Papa!’” Joel stopped and put his face in his hands and rubbed hard, pulling on his short beard. The dogs began nuzzling his face, trying to stick their noses under his hands, all the while trying to lick the pain away.
When he finally looked up, his eyes were red and pleading. “What am I going to do? Even if I could get my crew to come back to work on it, I can’t let them put a baby in that house. And how am I gonna explain that?”
My reflex reaction was to get angry. Here he was trying to do something nice for someone else and he was made to suffer for it. He was practically begging for my help and I knew that this was something I could do for him. I was built for this. I knew I could fix the situation. But then I thought of the dead boy. Was something similar happening to the little girl? I admitted to myself that based on my history, I really lacked the insight to handle this properly.
I heard myself say, “Listen, Joel, I know this guy who might be able to help you. Let me give him a call.”
# # #
Standing outside the stone farmhouse a few hours later, we all agreed that Joel did not have to go back into the house. He would unlock the door for us and then just stay in his truck and wait for us to come back out. Zackie’s nose twitched first at the house and then at the surrounding area. Even Cam looked a little worried, as he scanned the fields around the house. Everyone but Joel could feel it.
I kept my eye out for a graveyard because that would be a good explanation for why we sensed so many dead in this place. Not seeing anything, I finally asked Joel if there was a cemetery nearby or maybe a small plot for the family who built the house and cared for the land.
He shivered involuntarily. “Nothing I know about.” As he fumbled for the key, my eyes swept the fields and empty windows of the house. “Found it. Here you go.” He handed me the key and then walked briskly to his truck. Cam, Zackie and I approached the front door of the house and let ourselves in.
As I eased the door shut, we lost what little light we had from the setting sun and the house became dark. We turned on our flashlights to survey the room. The wheelchair lift lay in pieces near the bottom of the stairs, but nothing else seemed to be in disarray. The atmosphere felt charged, but the rank odor that Joel complained about was absent. The air was definitely dank, but not fetid. Looking deeper into the foyer, I was distracted by quick little sounds of something small slapping on the floor upstairs.
Cam cocked his head. “Do you hear that? I hear the patter of little feet upstairs, like a running child. Lets go upstairs and have a look.”
Just as I was about to agree, we heard the sound of a commotion outside. I opened the door to take a peek and saw that several cars had pulled up, including a red Nissan. “Cam, I think we have company.” A camera crew was setting up and Joel was out of his truck, speaking to another man on the front lawn of the house. Off to the side, I could see Lucas fiddling with an electronic contraption.
“Damn it!” Cam brushed past me through the door. Zackie followed him out and went straight to Lucas, immediately slamming her muzzle into his crotch. Apparently, this was the greeting she reserved especially for him.
“Crap!” Lucas said as he twisted to dodge another greeting. “Would you call your dog off?”
Cam ignored the command and instead went on the offensive. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“Let me explain,” Joel interrupted. “Al over here called these guys in. He heard they were filming over at the Moravian Cemetery and thought they could help.”
Lucas looked at Cam and me. “And why are you two here?”
Joel shrugged. “I asked them to come to help. Fia said Cam had a way to clean the house of the ghost. I gotta keep the renovation on schedule for the family, so we’re ready when the baby comes. I don’t have time to waste on this, so I don’t care who does the clean up. Either or both of you guys can do the work.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes at us as he listened to this. I glared back. I did not want this clown dealing with the little girl in the house. As I was about to weigh in with my recommendation on how to proceed, the text alert went off on my phone and simultaneously, Cam’s phone gave an alert.
Cam gritted his teeth as he looked at his phone. “We have another call out. Perfect damned timing…” Checking the text, it said that our teams were needed to locate an overdue hiker at Merrill Creek Reservoir. The missing woman was an epileptic and it was possible that she had a seizure somewhere on the trails.
“I have all my equipment in my trunk.” I pulled out my
car keys and started walking. “I’m going straight to staging.”
“Me too. I’ll meet you there.” Cam turned to Joel and spread his hands helplessly. “Joel, sorry, but our SAR teams are needed to find a hiker. We’ll be back in touch directly, once the search gets sorted out.” As we left, I saw Cam give Lucas an uneasy look. I felt the same way, but there was nothing we could do, given the situation.
CHAPTER 6
Arriving at staging, we dressed for the woods and equipped ourselves with packs and lights after signing in. The briefing indicated that the missing woman’s name was Marina Rosenfeld and she had been out for a day hike with a friend. Lucy, the friend, was waiting anxiously on scene for news of Marina. I could see their car near the front of the parking area. It had been surrounded by flagging tape to prevent anyone from accessing the vehicle.
Cam and Zackie had been tasked with determining which trail Marina may have followed. I was added to the task to flank them. According to Lucy, she and Marina stopped outside of the visitor center when she noticed a broken shoelace on her hiking boot. She told Marina to go ahead and she would catch up, since it looked like there was only one trail to follow from that location. When Lucy had finished adjusting what remained of her shoelace to make it work well enough for a short day hike, she hopped on the red trail and entered the woods only to discover that it quickly diverged into a red trail and a blue trail. Lucy called out and received no answer. She next tried to call Marina on her cell phone to ask which trail to take, but Marina did not answer. It was discovered later that Marina had left her cell phone in the car. Lucy tried following the red trail and did not find her friend. She back tracked and then took the blue trail, again with no results. It was still early, so she figured they’d meet up at the car when it was time to head home. When the sun started setting and Marina had still not appeared, Lucy became worried and called 911 to report what happened.
Cam approached Lucy and introduced himself. “Has anyone been in the vehicle besides you and Marina?”
“Just the cop who came after I called 911. It’s Marina’s car, so he wanted to look in the glove compartment to see if she had taken her meds with her. He also checked her cell phone for emergency contacts.”
Cam nodded and then asked another question. “Did you or Marina drive?”
“Marina usually drives, but today I drove her car part way because she needed to take a call from work.”
Cam turned to me and asked if I could find Lucy’s cop and bring him to the car. I headed to the visitor’s center where they had set up incident command and after asking around, located Officer Jakes. We returned to the car and found Cam and Lucy still talking.
Cam broke off his conversation with Lucy and began to fill us in. “Lucy says that Marina had a number of seizures in the last year. I think it’s likely she’s had another, so she may be out there and incapacitated.” He pointed to Zackie and explained what was going to happen. “Zackie is going to show us which trail Marina took, but to do this, she needs to know Marina’s scent. Since the car and pretty much everything in it have been touched by both of you, she’ll need to rule you out. I’m going to give her an acclimation circle around the car and then let her sniff both of you. I’ll then put her in the car and tell her to take scent. When she comes out, she’ll take us along the route Marina took.”
Officer Jakes looked at Cam with naked admiration. “Damn! You mean to tell me that dog can subtract?”
“Indeed, she can.” Cam proceeded to carry out his plan and when Zackie emerged from the back seat, Cam took her in a circle around the vehicle. When she hit Marina’s scent she took off, pulling Cam behind her. Leaving the police officer and Lucy behind, I trotted after the canine team and radioed in that our task was departing.
Zackie and Cam headed towards the back of the visitor’s center and then made a beeline for the trail head. We followed the red-blue trail southwest towards the reservoir and then broke right to follow the blue trail northwest. After a short distance, we found ourselves near the ruins of the old Cathers farmhouse. All that was really left was a stone foundation that was protected by a split rail fence. Zackie suddenly stopped dead and raised her head, scenting the breeze and turning towards the stone foundation.
“Uh oh.” Cam looked uneasy. “This is not Marina. This is Zackie’s version of crittering.” Cam unhooked Zackie from her harness and we both looked intently towards the ruins of the farmhouse, reaching out with all of our senses to find the cause of Zackie’s distraction. A shadowed presence close to the ground loped out of the darkness. It was not illuminated by our headlamps and it came directly to Zackie and then lowered itself in front of her. We could now make out the shape of a dog and as Zackie touched the shadow with her nose, more features became evident to us. The face had a black and tan mask that was framed by short, floppy ears. The fur was short and mostly white with a black saddle, but the frame was too lean. This was an old dog with a gray muzzle and wasted muscles. It was also clearly not a living dog.
Cam put out his hand. “Hand me the radio.” I gave him my radio as I watched the ghost dog in wonder. Of all the dead I’ve encountered, I’ve never seen an animal spirit.
“Incident Command, this is Task 11. Do you read me?” After getting confirmation that IC received his transmission, Cam continued. “Our dog has lost the scent. We were following the west side of the blue trail. We’re currently at the Cathers farmhouse. Send in an air scent dog to check the east side of the blue trail. We’ll take a break and then try to recover the scent trail from where we are.”
Turning to me, Cam handed back the radio and then tilted his head towards the old dog. “This will be a challenge for you. Animal thoughts are not like human thoughts. Tell me what you sense.”
I concentrated on the black and white dog and after a very long minute, I finally got something. “He’s alone. His owner left and he stayed and waited. That’s all I’m getting.”
“Not bad. Try to see the owner through the dog’s eyes.”
Closing my eyes, I forced my perspective to be closer to the ground. Instead of sight, I ‘saw’ scent and this crossover of senses really confused me. The scent made me feel like home and gave me a sense of safety and security. The dog definitely craved the scent. I caught earth and livestock in the scent and the feeling of happiness. The scent then changed and I sensed something else that was familiar, but stronger than in the dog’s past. Gun powder? I thought I sensed gun powder and then all the scent went away. Shaking my head, I told Cam what I experienced.
“Very good. You’ll get better information the more you do this.” He nodded his approval and then launched into the dog’s story. “So, Sam over here was the resident farm dog many years ago. His owner enlisted to fight in the Great War. I got a sense of the uniform, so I think this is correct. He was dressed as a doughboy. To prepare for the fight, the man did quite a bit of target practice with his hunting rifle before he left for basic training. That’s why you sensed more gun powder towards the end of the read. The man never returned from the war. I assume he was killed in action. Sam grew old waiting for him to return and eventually passed. He will not leave here because he continues to wait for his master.”
“Can we do anything for Sam? Or is he going to have to stay here waiting forever?” I watched as Zackie groomed the new dog like a puppy. Sam made soft, mewling sounds and I felt sorry for him, but I didn’t know what to do to help. He had been here for such a long time.
“Zackie will take care of Sam, don’t you worry,” Cam said. I bent down and ruffled Sam’s ears. It felt odd. I sensed fur, but there was almost a static charge against my hands. I stroked his face and wished I had someone in my life who was that faithful.
As I pulled back to give the dogs some room, there was a sudden crashing through the woods and Merlin emerged, his bell clanging brightly. He sniffed briefly at Cam and me and then gazed at Zackie and Sam before retreating back into the woods. We next heard five short barks and some more crashing sounds. I
n short order, Merlin re-emerged from the woods with Steve and a flanker in tow. Keeping his head low, Merlin made his way to Zackie and delicately licked her muzzle when they made contact. I saw Sam’s ears perk at this, but otherwise, he didn’t react and just remained lying at Zackie’s feet. It was odd watching Merlin’s gentle behavior when there was such a size disparity between the two living dogs. The Belgian Malinois breed is a favorite of the police and military, so I was expecting a more assertive presentation. I also found it interesting that while Merlin had acknowledged Sam, there was no interaction.
“Oh, it’s you guys,” Steve said. Turning his attention back to Merlin, he thumped the dog’s flank in approval. “Good boy, Merlin! Go find another!” I watched as Zackie touched Merlin with her nose, releasing him to go do his job. Steve kept an eye on Merlin’s path as he ran off again and then looked back at us. “How’s it going?”
“We’re good, just taking a break.” I reached for my water and took drink. “We’ll try to recover the trail once Zackie reboots.”
“Okay, let me go catch up with Merlin. I’ll see you all later.” Steve forced his way through the brush as the flanker reporting Task 14’s new heading to IC.
I watched as Steve and his flanker departed.“If Marina is out there, Steve and Merlin will find her.” Cam just nodded. While this was reassuring for the search, I think we both felt slightly disoriented by the constant distractions and interruptions we were experiencing. “ADD anyone?” I shook my head slowly from side to side. “What do you think the odds are of finishing just one thing tonight?”
Cam sighed his agreement. “Let’s just stay put a moment and let Zackie sort this out. Have a seat.” Cam sat down with his back to a tree and I followed suit. We watched as Zackie continued to minister to the old farm dog. As she licked and murmured, I could see her strip away the years. The gray muzzle began to darken and the dog’s frame filled out. The muscles on his back legs became strong again and his eyes cleared. Amazed, I saw Sam grow younger and younger until he became a fluffy black and white puppy. Sam yipped at Zackie and put his hind end in the air, punctuating his joy by furiously wagging his tail. Nudging him first with her nose, she picked him up by the scruff and carried him off.