Author: Bob

Advice for Charles

Like any good American, I have plenty of opinions on matters I know very little about. In accordance with long standing tradition, I feel very comfortable communicating those opinions to everybody whether they want to hear about them or not. Now that he’s had time to get settled in, I have my advice for His Royal Highness, King Charles III of the United Kingdom.

First, there is the context. Not too long ago, the European Union grew strong. They built power both economically and militarily. The strength came predominantly from the three leading nations: Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. This was a bother to other powers such as Russia and China.

One could easily find issues with those three leading nations. France tends to be politically unstable, changing their ruling coalitions regularly, and they have done this for a very long time. Germany itself didn’t become a single country until 1871 and it spent a good part of the twentieth century split in two. The only truly stable part of that three-legged stool was Britain.

The Brits have been ruled by the same family for the past thousand years. Even their civil wars just decided which branch of the family got to sit on the throne. That is a type of longevity not matched by other European nations. On top of that, the late Elizabeth II was queen for so long that most people only knew her as the monarch. Again, this is an extraordinary type of stability.

It’s for this reason that foreign powers encouraged the rabble rousing that led to Brexit, the British split from the European Union. It was easy enough to find manipulable UK leaders to go along with the idea, and the general populace are always willing to vote against the status quo, even if they are being lied to. With this, the European Union weakened, and the UK faced many new problems, many of them economic.

The new Brexit-related problems are not the only issues in Britain. High urban crime rates, especially among the youth, is a big issue. Some of that involves unemployment and other economic problems. There is a large immigrant community that is not integrating well into the tiny island nation. Generally, they are suffering the same issues as most other modern western nations.

What Does That Have to Do with the King?

Due to the lateness of his coronation, Charles is unlikely to rule for as long as his mother; sorry to sound morbid. She was able to be that beacon of stability not just in Britain, but to much of the western world. Even anti-monarch types knew exactly where they stood. Charles won’t be able to build that stability, even though the stability is important.

Humans like stability. As children, we need a stable home life to grow up healthy. As adults, we need our anchors in the sea of chaos, so we turn to “trusted” institutions, even if we only trust them to be there. The British monarchy and Queen Elizabeth provided that anchor to many, again, even if they didn’t like it.

But Charles can’t do that.

What can he do instead? He can take advantage of his position to be disruptive.

As a constitutional monarch, his official powers are limited. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have influence over how things go. By pressing certain issues, he can bring things to the political and social forefront and get them discussed. His words (and wealth) carry weight that few can match. He can direct this power toward things that are needed but may be unpopular or would make political enemies.

For example, the high youth crime and high unemployment could be addressed through mandatory military service. Many countries have this and it seems to work well. Provide a few reasonable exemptions (doing well in school, sole provider, etc.) and send every sixteen-year-old to training and service. Plenty of places in the world could use the British military humanitarian aid, so there are things for these swelled ranks to do. For an island nation, putting more of their population on ships frees up a lot of space.

As for the large number of immigrants, many of whom are of the undocumented kind, make some new requirements. For example, each must swear to place British law above all other laws (including Sharia law). Make sure each has a plan to integrate into British society through education and work, with regular check-ins to assure progress. Tie this progress to not being deported. This processing creates new jobs.

Crack down on outside foreign influence in politics. Make it so that persons, such as the Brexit advocates, must declare any support they are getting from outside sources. Failing to do so makes that person a foreign operative and a criminal subject to prosecution. That would be fun to watch.

There are probably countless other needed but unpopular changes to push. As an opinionated but poorly informed outsider, I wouldn’t know all of them, but the idea is clear. Find the fixes that are harsh and abrupt and push for them to shake things up and fix what can be fixed.

How Does This Help Stability?

Every so often, you need to do a good shakeup to get rid of all the settled crap. There is nothing stable about that. You take out the rug, beat it until everything is out that is going to come out, and you leave it to hang in the sun and breeze for a little bit. Then, however, you take it back in and place it back on the floor where it will stay for a long time.

That’s the thought here. As mentioned, Charles, sadly. will not have the long, stable reign of his mother. However, his son might.

William, the Prince of Wales, is still young. If he gets to the throne soon enough, he can have a long, peaceful life as the ruling monarch. Following the patterns of his grandmother, he could help maintain that lighthouse of stability for quite a while. It would help if many of the more serious problems of Britain were addressed before he took his seat.

This is where Charles can pave the way. He can make use of his time to beat the rug and get rid of as many issues as he can as fast and as harshly as he can. Then, William can ascend to the throne with a freshly aired out rug at his feet, ready for many years of peace and stability.

If they don’t already have this sort of thing in their handbook, it really should be. The same family has been ruling for quite a while, so they seem to know how to keep that going. It’s not just something for royal families, every leader should understand the importance of stability and the occasional, necessary shakeup.

Why Should Outsiders Care?

As mentioned, there is a stability that comes from the setup in Britain. It is an anchor in western Europe that helps maintain order. All commerce, agriculture, and political discourse relies on that order for progress, even if it slows things down sometimes. The fact that the enemies of the European Union chose to remove Britain in order to weaken the Union shows how important that is.

In the United States, we talk a lot about defeating the British and starting our own nation. Despite that, we have maintained a strong connection, both politically and culturally. When Charles was crowned, many in the U. S. took note, even if it was to complain about it. There was an impact. Again, the long history provides structure to an otherwise chaotic life.

A stable Britain helps maintain a more stable world. For the U. S., it is our jumping off point into Europe. For the western Europeans, it is the cousin they can always complain about, but still remember as strong. For the eastern powers, Britain’s stability is a threat.

So that is why I offer up this advice. His Highness will never see it and it would have no actual impact on the world. Like so many, I’m just shouting into the void of the Internet to get the thoughts out of my head. Still, now the thought is out and I have no control over where it goes. May the winds catch its sails and take it wherever.

My Father’s Drawers

My father bought a dresser at a garage sale. I think he paid about ten to fifteen bucks for it, not very much. Over the next few weekends, he labored in the garage to remove the many layers of paint covering the wood. When done, he had a beautiful oak dresser. I was fifteen years old at the time, and it became my dresser to use. Fast forward to today.

I still use the same dresser and it still is beautiful oak. However, it is also showing its age. I don’t know how old it was when my father bought it, but the many layers of paint suggest at least a couple of decades. I’ve been using it for forty-one years now. That’s a lot of wear and tear on a piece of furniture. Additionally, it has moved from Iowa to Arkansas and back, and been exposed to a variety of weather conditions. It was time for some work.

The three drawers across the top row are small. Two are only a hand’s breadth wide. The middle drawer takes up the rest of the space and has a warded lock that doesn’t work. Below that, stacked vertically, are two drawers that span the width of the whole dresser, one of which also has a warded lock. Those are the ones that needed work.

Over time, the drawer bottoms sagged. As they sagged, they rubbed against the drawer stops (the parts that keep the drawers from going too far in). This gradually scraped a couple of tracks through the bottoms until going all the way through. Since these gouges ran about half an inch wide, patching would not work. The entire bottom panel needed to be replaced.

A typical drawer of this type has a rigid box for the four sides: front, back, left, right. The front and sides have a groove cut near the bottom so the boards that make the bottom of the drawer can slide in. The back panel is shorter, just touching the bottom board. Once all the pieces are in place, a few small nails are driven through the bottom and into the back panel to keep things from moving.

The plan was to get some quarter-inch plywood with a finished side, cut it to fit the drawers, and then replace the old bottoms with the new. Cutting was easy enough with the table saw. Just needed to pull the small nails from the drawer, slide the old bottom out, and slide the new one in. Piece of cake, or it should have been.

As mentioned, the dresser is old. The wood is old and subject to things like cracking, splintering, or just bits falling off. On one of the drawers, that is exactly what happened. Not on the bottom, of course, because that would have been easy to handle. No, the damage was on the back and one of the sides. Not to be left out, the glue in the dovetail joints on the other drawer had disintegrated and the whole thing was ready to fall apart.

The loose joints were easy to fix. I popped all the boards apart and cleaned out the joints. After applying new glue, I clamped them and left them to cure. The new bottom slid in easily. A few tacks later and the drawer was ready for a good oiling to help with the dry wood.

The rough drawer took way more work. Its joints were also loose, so I disassembled the whole thing. This made it easier to work on the broken pieces. The back board had splintered along the bottom and was missing quite a bit of wood. Most of it would not reach the bottom when assembled.

The damaged side-board was broken along the groove for the bottom piece. Much of the lower section of the side showed rounding from years of friction. That made it harder to fix since it did not provide for a straight clamping surface.

For both of these items, I measured their lengths and thicknesses and bought some wood to match. The new pieces would be too big, but that’s what I wanted. After taking many measurements and double checking everything, I used the table saw to remove the damaged sections from both original boards. Then I glued the new boards onto the freshly sawn straight surfaces.

Glue takes a while to set if you do it right. That meant that my simple bottom replacement had now taken two days and still wasn’t done. Still, better to do it right.

The next day (making day three), I cut the replaced parts down to size. In the side board, I cut the groove for the bottom board. These are times when it really pays to have a table saw, even a cheap one. With all the parts repaired, I reassembled the drawer and clamped everything up.

Day four came around, and I could remove the clamps, oil the drawer, and put it back into service. Well, not into service yet. I really want to make sure the wood oil is not going to soak into any clothes, so I will wait about a week. Then, it would be nice to add a useful and decorative drawer liner. Also, I need to have a moment without laziness so I will go through the effort of putting the clothes away. That’s a lot of waiting.

Now, my forty, fifty, sixty, or more years-old dresser is ready to take on a few more decades. With proper care, it could last centuries, though I don’t know if I can still get proper oils then. It would be nice to fix the two locks and get some keys, but that’s a lower priority.

My next furniture project would be to repair a chest I made in junior high school. It has been to more states than the dresser, as far as I know. Its oak and walnut are cracked, despite my best attempts at care. The thing was dropped at one point when fully loaded with weight, and that damaged some of the joints. My current dovetail jig is not wide enough to redo the sides, so I may go with simple finger joints. Anyway, that will have to wait until I have more time and a lot less laziness.

In Progress

After fighting with the prior version of this site, I’ve tried something new. The CMS has been changed from Drupal to WordPress. Unfortunately, there is a learning curve to any new software, so this may take a bit.

Deputies on the Scene: Rumpe Farm Investigation Part 7

The SUV from the sheriff’s department pulled to a stop near Mike’s. Mike had moved his away from the house after we finished in the night. He didn’t want to be closer than he needed to be. The deputy’s door swung open and he stepped out. He seemed to scan the area, getting a feel for things. Then he said, “Did one of you call about a dead body?”

Mike and my sister were still sleeping in Mike’s SUV. After he moved it, the two of them formed a pile in the back seat, covered themselves with their coats and a blanket, and hadn’t made a peep since.

The Tech Team snoozed in the back of Matt’s van, along with Max, the Beta Team camera operator. Sarah and Danny decided to walk around the house and barn in daylight to make sure things were still good, especially now that they knew what happened there.

That left me, standing between the van and SUV, and the dog, who was tied to the back of the van and tugging against his leash. “Hi,” I said. “Yeah, we found a couple of skeletons in a hidden basement in the barn.”

The deputy approached, giving a suspicious glance at the sleeping lump in Mike’s SUV.

“That’s my sister and her boyfriend. They had a long night.”

As he got closer to me, he took out his notebook and a pen. “What were you folks doing in the barn?”

That was a very good question. Fortunately, I knew the answer, otherwise it would have been an even better question. “Dawn Miller from the Historical Society invited us down to do a paranormal investigation of the place before it gets bulldozed. We had one group in the house and one group in the barn all night.”

“Paranormal investigation? And there’s two groups of you?”

“My sister and her boyfriend, asleep over there, and me, I’m their camera guy, we were in the house. Danny and Sarah, with their camera guy Max, were in the barn. Then our tech guys, Matt and Fleet, his real name’s Tyler, were in the van watching the equipment. I guess that’s three teams altogether. Anyway, Danny and Sarah are over in the barn now looking at it in daylight. The rest are still sleeping in the van.”

A short bark caught our attention.

“Oh yeah, that’s Rumples. He’s Danny’s dog. We use him to help find raccoons and things that might be making spooky noises.” I made the air quotes around the word “spooky” so the deputy wouldn’t think I was a nut. Of course, that ship may have already sailed.

Rumples had stopped pulling against his leash and began staring toward the barn. We followed his lead and saw Danny and Sarah walking back toward us. The both waved and switched from a walk to a jog.

The deputy and I waited for them to get to us.

Rumples turned his attention back the other way and started straining again. There was probably a rabbit or something over in the garden.

“Good morning, Deputy!” Danny said with way too much enthusiasm. “You’re gonna love what we found. I think we figured out what happened to Jacob Rumpe, you know, the farmer who disappeared back in the thirties.”

“We’ll come back to that. First, I’m going to need some particulars. Let’s start with your names.”

He quickly jotted down our names and had us roust to the other members of our group. Emily and Mike were not happy about leaving their hiding place, but the sight of sunlight helped.

As he finished, a late model brown sedan pulled into the driveway, past the deputy’s SUV, and even with where we were gathered. It came to a quick stop with the window rolled down. The woman driving stuck her head out and shouted, “Good morning, Deputy Fairmont. I think there might be a big misunderstanding. I think these are the people we asked to be here.”

We stood and waited while she got herself unstrapped from her seatbelt, gathered several handfuls of notebooks, and struggled to get out of the car.

As she got closer to us, the deputy nodded to her. “Good morning, Mrs. Miller. I was going to call to confirm that part of their story.”

“We should have let you know that we made the arrangements,” she told him. “Honestly, we just didn’t think about it. Anyway, it’s ok that they’re here. They’re just doing a little looking so we can record everything for history.”

“I’m not here just because they’re on county property. One of them called this morning to report a body.”

The woman stepped back, literally. “A body?”

Danny piped up, “Oh yeah, I think we found Jacob Rumpe!”

That didn’t seem to help. She was still thinking about a body, and attaching a name just made it a little more real. “Ok.”

Rumples took that moment to finally break free of the knots holding to the bumper of the van. He ran directly to the edge of the garden, barked once, and sat down with his tail wagging wildly.

I leaned toward Danny and said, “You better go get your dog.”

Danny gave a mildly embarrassed grin, shrugged his shoulder, and jogged toward the garden.

The deputy scowled a little while looking toward the garden. “Where’d you get that dog?”

“Rumples?” I said, “Danny got him a couple of years ago. He’s a retired cadaver dog or something. I think his joints got too worn out so he couldn’t do his job anymore.”

Before I finished, the deputy was already headed to the garden.

Danny had gotten to the garden and was staring at the ground near where Rumples sat.

I decided to follow, a little worried that my camera rig was still in the van. Still, I wanted to see what was there.

As I came up, the deputy, who was now also looking at the ground, held up his hand behind him to signal that I stop.

Even from that short distance away, I saw what had them agitated. The root ball of some dried, dead plant had rolled up out of the ground, carrying with it a human skull.

“Ok,” said the deputy, “I’m going to need all of you to move back and stay away from this area.”

Danny stood staring, not moving.

Deputy Fairmont tapped him lightly on the arm. “Tell Rumples he’s a good boy and take him back and give him a treat. He’s earned it and I need you to vacate the immediate area.”

Danny nodded. “Right, good boy.” He blinked a couple of times, shuttered, and redirected his attention to Rumples. “Good boy, Rumples! You’re a good boy. Come on, let’s get you a treat.” He grabbed Rumple’s collar and led him back to the vehicles.

The deputy gave me a look to suggest he was serious about me backing off, and I was happy to do so.

Fairmont headed back to his SUV, walking past our Historical Society representative as he did so. “Looks like we’re going to have some more history for you, Mrs. Miller.” Reaching his SUV, he opened the door and grabbed the microphone for his radio. Rumpe Farm was going to get visits from many more sheriff’s deputies, and maybe even the sheriff himself, whoever that was.

Back to the Books

Mrs. Miller, still slightly stunned, decided to revert back to her more usual manner. “I, uh, I brought some notebooks. We have newspaper clippings and reports that members have written about the farm. I thought they might help with your investigation.” She turned and walked quickly to her car and set her books on the hood and began opening them. I got the impression that showing her clippings was her way of ignoring the dead bodies thing.

We gathered around her car, all of us except Sarah and Mike. They still stood huddled together by the van, not noticing anything, locked in their own little safe place.

“Now, most of the best articles are about that federal agent who was killed out here,” Mrs. Miller started. She stumbled a little over the word “killed” but was able to push through. She flipped over a couple of pages in the notebook to show an old newspaper clipping.

The headline proclaimed, “Fed Hanged in Shootout at Rumpe Farm”. Beyond the sensationalism of the line, many would want to read just to figure out how you get hanged in a shootout.

Then, it was our turn to be horrified, shocked, dumb-founded. All of us around the car took a step back as we saw it.

The paper showed a photo of a smiling federal agent in his suit and short haircut.

Danny pointed at the image and said what each of us knew. “That’s Bub. That’s the guy who showed us around last night.”

Now that it was out, all of us reacted differently. Sarah and Danny hugged and jumped around, ecstatic that they’d had another supernatural experience. Matt’s face flashed through his full range of confused and contemplative emotions. Fleet took on an expression of hopelessness, clutching his cut and walking backwards in small circles.

I wasn’t really sure of my own reaction. Obviously I was shocked, but I think I coped by going into camera man mode and just watching everyone else. In class, I learned about photojournalists, including the videographers, who must exist in the moment but not participate. As soon as you are part of the story, you can’t accurately capture it on film. I think that’s what I did. I don’t know what I looked like on the outside, how I expressed myself, because I stopped seeing myself as part of the situation.

What I did see was the confusion on Mrs. Miller’s face. “What do you mean, last night? Didn’t you just get here?”

Sarah and Danny stopped jumping for a moment for Danny to answer. “Last night, when we did the investigation.”

“Didn’t you get my email?” Miller went on. “We didn’t have anyone available to meet you, so we needed to postpone until today.”

“No, we didn’t get any email. We showed up last night. The best part is that we did get shown around. That guy did it.” Danny pointed at the clipping on the car hood.

“Ooh, I hope he showed up on camera!” Sarah squealed.

“But,” Mrs. Miller muttered, “but he’s dead. He’s been dead for decades.”

With all these emotions, I really wished I had my cameras.

Mrs. Miller turned slowly, walked back to the driver’s side door, opened it, and got in. She sat in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel, and staring forward.

More Deputies

Within half an hour, a couple of other deputies arrived. They set up a boundary around the garden area and taped off the garage. By the time all of that finished, a total of seven sheriff’s department SUVs filled the drive. We didn’t get the actual sheriff, but we got a sergeant.

Each of us was pulled aside for interviews with the sergeant. After his talks with Emily and Mike, who could not be separated, I got called over.

“You are Josh Graves, is that correct?” he asked, notebook at hand.

I had been instructed a long time ago how to interact with law enforcement personnel. “Yes, sir.”

“Alright, Mr. Graves, I’m Sergeant Hargrave and I’m trying to understand everything that happened here last night.”

I nodded. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to understand last night.

“Emily Graves is your sister and Mike Pedersen is her boyfriend. Is that correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“Is it a healthy relationship?”

I didn’t expect that question. “As far as I know.”

He made some notes in his book. “They seem, how to describe it, a little freaked out this morning. Are they always like that?”

“No, sir,” I answered.

I braced for the next question, but he just kept staring at me, like he was waiting for me to finish, but I was finished. What else would I have to say? It was just a moment, but I was very uncomfortable as though hours passed.

“Normally, they’re full of energy and curiosity. She’s real level-headed, she’s an accountant.”

He nodded and made more notes. “And what do you think got them all shook up this morning?”

That was a tough one. I wanted to tell him, or show him the video, or, better yet, bring him back at sundown and let him walk around in the basement. Oh, the basement. That was definitely the issue. Not the distant combine lights turning into a shootout and the hanging death of our guide. Definitely the basement.

“I’m not sure. It was a long, cold night, so they’re probably tired. We had some weird lights, but we assumed they came from some distant combine working late on the harvest. Then we had an equipment malfunction down in the basement.”

He raised an eyebrow. Oops.

“The basement, that’s funny. Your sister and her boyfriend insisted that nothing happened last night, and they were extra insistent that nothing happened in the basement. In fact, they assured me that there was absolutely no reason to go into the basement at all. Why do you think that is?”

The memory of the basement brought up the absolute terror of being grabbed from all sides by disembodied hands, the flashing light and screaming beeps of the REM pod flooding my senses. Wait, that was it. That was something I could talk about.

“We had that equipment malfunction. The thing is called a REM pod and it detects disruptions to magnetic fields, like if a person or animal walks past it, the field changes and the machine knows. Well, it’s supposed to give off beeps and flashing lights to notify you that something’s there. Well, the one in the basement went wild for a while, flashing all of its lights in fast, weird patterns, and the buzzer was just shrieking. The whole thing was really disorienting in the dark. That, added to being really tired, might be messing them up today.” It was a tapdance, and I wasn’t sure he was buying it.

He seemed to finish writing. “This REM pod, is it still in the basement?”

“It should be. We haven’t collected all our gear yet. We were waiting till the sun was a little higher and everyone was rested up.”

He nodded. “Do you think it would pose a danger to any of my deputies if they went into the basement?”

Good question, and I had no idea. “It should be safe. It runs off batteries that should have run down by now. If you get to the stairs you would be able to hear it before going down.”

He made a couple more notes before calling out, “Fairmont, Thompson, get over here.”

Quickly as they could, two younger deputies came up, one of them the first one that arrived that morning. The sergeant issued orders, “Follow Mr. Graves here as he shows you how to get to the basement of the house. You are trying to retrieve a piece of equipment called a REM pod. Mr. Graves will describe it to you.” He looked at me as though challenging me to refuse to help.

I had absolutely no plans to get on the bad side of this living law enforcement professional. I had my fill of a dead one the night before.

As we turned to go, he added, “See if you can borrow the dog to accompany you.”

The dog? Rumples? The cadaver-sniffing dog? Why would we possibly need a cadaver-sniffing dog to go into the basement to collect the REM pod? What good would a cadaver dog do in a spooky, dark basement where hands reach out of the ground and walls to tear at your body? Oh crap.

I stumbled on my next step.

The deputies caught me by the arms. “Are you ok, Graves?” asked, I guess it was Thompson.

At times like that, I hated being named, “Graves”. I really needed to do a name change. Maybe something cheery.

“Yeah, I’m ok. It’s just been a long night.”

Not only could we borrow Rumples, but Danny was totally in heaven that we might find another body buried somewhere on the site. I couldn’t help but think that boy needed to switch to decaf.

Return to the Basement

We made it to the top of the stairs and stopped.

“What’s the REM pod thing we’re looking for?” Fairmont asked.

“It’s a small, electronic device. It sits on a short tripod that lifts it about nine inches off the ground. There’s a small speaker on top for beeping and a couple of small lights. I’m not hearing it, so the battery may be dead now.”

Thompson pointed his flashlight down the stairs. “Is there anything else down there we should know about?”

Nothing I was going to talk about. “It’s dirt floor, rough walls. There used to be shelves, but those are long gone. Mainly, there’s no light.”

Rumples barked once and took off down the stairs.

The deputies watched, turned to look at each other, then took off after the dog.

My filmmaker instincts told me to follow, to see what was going on. Memory of the night before froze my feet to the floor. It couldn’t be that bad. The sun was up. There were deputies with guns there to keep me safe. That was their job, sort of.

I broke free and headed down.

All the lights of the REM pod were off. Something had knocked it over in the night. Best not to think about that.

More importantly, Rumples sat quietly and stared at a spot on the floor, his tail wagging excitedly.

The deputies stared at the floor as well, slowly passing their flashlight beams across the soil.

Fairmont noticed me and pointed to the REM pod. “Is that the gadget?”

“Yes, sir.”

He reached down to collect it. “I’ll take this to Hargrave and get the dog’s owner. You wait here.”

He turned and motioned me up the stairs. I guessed it was the other deputy who was to wait. Boy, was I happy about that.

We headed up and out, sending Danny to give Rumples a treat and tell him he was a good boy.

Hargrave took the REM pod and said they would give it back when their investigation was over. I was good with that.

I don’t know why, but I asked, “Are you guys going to dig up the, uh, you know, the bodies?”

He shook his head. “No, we’re waiting for specialists. These folks have been dead long enough that there’s no hurry; we just want to be thorough.”

Another thought occurred to me. “Do we need to wait around for the experts too?”

He gave me a short, weird smile. “No, we’ll be done with you folks soon. We just want to make sure we have the whole story. Anything we can ask now means we don’t need to find you later to ask. It shouldn’t be much longer.”

My turn to smile. “Thanks.”

“When you do go, you may want to have your sister and that Mike guy get checked out by a doctor. Their strange behavior may be exhaustion but there may be something else. Maybe they got exposed to some mold or some old chemicals. Any time there’s a severe behavior change, there’s usually a reason and exposure to something unusual is a common reason.”

That I could agree with. We had definitely been exposed to something unusual. I wasn’t going to talk to the sergeant about it. Unless all of that showed up on camera, talking about it would just get me locked up and medicated.

I walked over to where Danny was tying Rumples back to the van bumper. Mike, Emily, and Sarah joined, so I hung back a little, still within earshot though. A little brother is gonna do what a little brother was gonna do.

Sarah put her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Are you guys alright? You’ve seemed a little disturbed since last night.”

Emily just blinked and leaned into Mike, placing her head on his chest.

Mike answered for her. “We had a bad, uhm, experience last night. It was real bad. We saw things, felt things. It was, it was bad.”

Danny added his hand to Mike’s shoulder. “Oh man. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

Mike nodded. “Yeah. Emily and me, well we were already thinking about getting out of doing the investigations and, well, last night cemented that. We’re not going to do it anymore.”

Danny’s face drooped in sadness and caring. His head tilted a little to the side.

Mike went on. “We discussed it. You and Sarah, you seem like you really like doing this, so you can have all the stuff. All the equipment, the organization name if you want it, even the SUV soon as we get home. I don’t want us quitting to affect you.”

Sarah leaned in to put her arms around Emily and Mike in a big hug.

Danny leaned in and hugged too. “Don’t worry about it. We can figure things out later. Right now, I’m just worried about you two. Whatever happened, we need to make sure that you are alright.”

They just stood like that in their group hug for at least fifteen minutes.

Matt called me over to the side door of the van. “The cops said we can collect our stuff from the barn and the house. You cool with helping?”

“Yeah, I’m alright, I think.” The REM pod in the basement was already “collected” so it was just the other things in the house. With the bright sun running through the place, it was a different building. The ghosts of the night were gone. More importantly, it kind of felt like they were going to be gone anyway. Their stories had been resolved. The bodies were found. There were no more mysteries to bind those souls to the location.

It was over.

And it was over for us as well. About an hour and a half later, we were bundled up in our vehicles and headed down the road.

The sheriff’s department vehicles still filled the driveway. We could barely see them through the dust as we trundled down the dirt road.

Epilogue

After the police investigation, the county decided not to bulldoze the entire site. The house was too far gone to save, so they took extensive photos, and video tour (shot by yours truly) and brought in some virtual reality people to take 3-D scans. With everything recorded, they tore it down. They placed memorial markers where John and Mary Rumpe’s bodies were found.

The barn was in good enough condition to save. The Historical Society held a fundraiser to convert it into a museum. Law enforcement took all the firearms from the barn basement, but left the crates for display. The liquor bottles were likewise emptied. The trap door was locked in the open position, with a thick, glass floor placed over the opening.

For the team, well, some did better than others. Danny and Sarah got married, had kids, and continued with paranormal investigations. When the kids were old enough, they went along too. After many successful events and books, they became quite a hit in the paranormal community.

Max McDermott stayed on as their camera operator. In his spare time, he went to school to get a degree in psychology. He said he had a need to help people get through traumatic events.

Matt, the tech guy, also stayed on. It had always been a side gig for him, so it worked well. Of course, he was always safely locked in his van. The van did get a few more good luck charms and protective talismans over the years.

Fleet had a more tragic tale. He dropped the nickname and stuck with “Tyler”. He devoted himself to helping at-risk youths with afterschool programs. To do even more good, he moved to a large city to combat gang violence. At the age of thirty-three, gang members came to his youth center to kill him. Reports said that his last words were, “If you kill me, my soul will fight you until the end of time.” They shot him fourteen times.

A short time later, the murderers turned themselves in, claiming that, since they confessed they should be left alone. The youth center developed a history of strange things going on.

Then, there was my poor sister and her boyfriend. They stopped doing anything even remotely related to the paranormal. Each threw themselves into their work and other aspects of mundane life. In the end, that wasn’t enough.

Emily sought therapy and was diagnosed with PTSD, but never told the docs what really happened. She worked on her issues and devoted herself to being the most professional accountant she could be.

She broke up with Mike.

Mike also showed signs of PTSD. He didn’t try to get psychiatric help. Despite their pledge to each other not to do anything supernatural or similar, he joined the Catholic Church. This was the official argument between Mike and Emily, but it was enough. Last I heard, he was trying to become a monk or something.

That just left me: little brother and camera jockey.

I chose not to show any footage of the Rumpe Farm Investigation. The decision was about not embarrassing Emily and Mike. They had been through enough and didn’t need the world bothering them.

It didn’t keep me from making any money on the deal. I wrote the whole thing, with suitable changes of names and locations, into a screenplay and sold it. Some movie industry big-wigs are still passing it around to see who wants to do what with it. As long as the check clears, I don’t care; I got student loans to pay.

What Next: Rumpe Farm Investigation Part 6

Pain pulsed through Fleet’s head as he woke up. He wasn’t sure how awake he was because of the dark. As he laid there, the memory of his problems came back. Old straw and wood splinters jabbed into the skin of his backside. Waking up came faster.

He listened for any signs of his attacker. All he heard was the soft sound of the wind through the cracks in the barn walls. That reminded him that he was frozen to the bone.

Rolling over, he saw his flashlight on the floor on the other side of the wall of the animal pen. He needed to get the light and then get back to help.

Trying to stand, he realized two things. First, his wrists were still tied. The second: his pants were still down.

He reached down to grab his pants and pull them back on. He could only get them a little way over his knees before the angle of his bonds kept his hands from moving further. Nevermind, good enough, time to get out.

Standing didn’t work yet, and he wasn’t sure how to get out of the pen. Without a light, he couldn’t check for a latch of anything else helpful.

He stared at his light just out of reach. The space between the bottom slat of the pen and the next was wide enough, he could probably roll or crawl through. A minute later and he was dirty, splinter-filled, and out.

He grabbed the flashlight and a sense of hope flushed through his being. He showed it around the barn as best he could, looking for any threats. He couldn’t see all the places, but the ones he could see were enemy free.

Good, good, time to stand up. He rolled closer to the pen. Trying to maintain his grip on the light, he used the slats to gradually pull himself into a standing position. Hurray, progress!

Another quick look around showed him the path to the door. He headed to it.

As soon as he took a few steps, his pants fell to his ankles again. He stopped abruptly, almost falling over. This was going to be an issue.

He reached down to adjust his pants. Last time, the rope on his wrists kept him from pulling his pants all the way up just because he couldn’t hold them and twist his arms enough. This time, he had the added challenge of holding the flashlight.

Still, he got them just over the knees and decided it would be good enough. He needed to get out of the barn.

Holding the waistband of his sweatpants and the flashlight, he waddled as fast as he could to the door. He found that placing his feet as wide apart as possible added extra friction to prevent his pants from sliding. It slowed his progress but not as much as having his feet tangled in sweatpants.

Through the door, the sight of the van renewed his run. Waddling as fast as he could, he made it across the hard ground. The autumn wind wrapped itself around every uncovered part, stealing the heat from his body, what was left of it.

Nearing the van, his right foot caught on a weed, sending him down on the remains of the gravel. With his hands holding his pants, he couldn’t break his fall. He closed his eyes tightly, anticipating the collision with the ground.

His face skidded across the dirt and rocks, shredding skin. As he laid there, the pain in his shoulders flared, letting him know that they hit hard too. He let out a moan and rolled over.

The pain temporarily muted his terror. Still, he was almost to the van.

From the barn, he heard a sound. It was a grunt, the grunt of a huge animal.

The terror flooded back.

Rolling back over, tried to stand. He couldn’t hold his pants and use his hands to push up at the same time, so pushing himself up won. In a moment, he stood again and started toward the vehicle.

With one step, his trousers dropped again.

As close as he was, he decided to leave it. With all his concentration, he hopped the rest of the way to the van and around to the back.

With his hands tied together, he pounded on the door of the van. “Matt, let me in. It’s Fleet. Let me in. I’ve been attacked.”

He heard the shuffling as Matt moved from his monitoring station and toward the door. The van opened up and Matt’s very concerned face appeared. “What happened?”

“I got attacked. Some old guy. He tied me up and hit me. He pulled my pants down and said he was gonna do butt stuff.” The story rushed out of him.

“He tied you up?”

Fleet held up his hands. “Yeah, see?”

Matt looked at Fleet’s hands. They showed no signs of being tied.

Fleet saw it too. No ropes. No scarring from the rough fibers. No bruises.

Shock and confusion filled his face. “No really. There were ropes around my wrists. I couldn’t move. I don’t know.”

Matt started back to his station. “Ok, we’ll document it. Just pull your pants back on and get in.”

Beta Team

We sat at the bottom of the stairs trying to get ourselves straightened out. Being knocked down by the slamming trapdoor was bad enough. The memory of the piggy picnic was going to take some time.

The lights came on in the basement. They were just a couple of kerosene lamps, but it was a shock. We could see the whole place.

The farmer from the pig feast stood by a shelf near the stairs. He did something with one of the small boxes. At the far end, by the crates with the rifles, another man sat on the ground.

It took a moment, but I thought I recognized the second man as the one who shushed Danny before the, well, the incident. He seemed unconscious. His clothes looked like they were from the thirties just like the others.

As we watched, the young guy seemed to wake up. He slowly looked around, first just with his eyes and then by moving his whole head. When he got to the farmer, his face decided anger was the way to go.

He reached slowly toward his foot. I wondered why. Pistol in an ankle holster explained it.

The guy stood up, pointing his pistol at the farmer. He yelled, “Get your hands up where I can see them.”

The farmer raised his hands part way up, maybe shoulder height and a little to the side. As he did, he turned to look at the man. “Well, look who’s up. Now that you’re up, what do you plan to do about it?”

“I’m going out those stairs,” he said, pointing the gun our way. Motioning away from that line, he said to the farmer, “Get over there. I’m leaving and you aren’t going to stop me.”

The farmer started walking in the ordered direction. “You think you’re leaving? I don’t think you’ll get very far.”

“I’ll get far enough if I shoot you.”

The farmer chuckled. “If you shoot me, boy, you better hit me square. If you don’t, I’m gonna mess you up.”

The sound of the pistol shot blasted through my ears, deafening me as it rang through the whole basement. At the same time, I watched the pistol eject its shell casing. The shiny brass casing tumbled through the air, hit the floor, bounced a few times, and rolled to a stop where it sat until it was kicked a little while ago.

The farmer spun with a bit of blood flying out of a chest wound. As he crumpled, his body fell onto the blood stain we found earlier. I watched as he collapsed, and all rigidness left his frame.

The young guy ran past us, starting up the stairs, then he stopped. He looked back at the body, up the stairs, and then back at the body. He furrowed his brow and pursed his lips, deep in thought. Then he made up his mind and went back to the body.

Grabbing the farmer’s shoulders, the guy flipped the farmer over and out of the pool of blood. Bracing himself, he pulled the body over to the stairs and then underneath.

The spectacle drew us in and all three of us moved around to see better.

The man settled the corpse under the stairs and reached past it to grab a tarp from the top of a box.

In a flash, the farmer opened his folding knife and ran it into the young guy, just under the ribs and upward.

The young guy made a gulping sound and collapsed on top of the farmer.

The farmer whispered, “Mess you up.” A smile took his lips. Then the farmer went limp again.

The lantern lights faded to dark.

From the top of the stairs, we heard a clicking sound. Danny and Sarah turned to look, shining their lights in that direction at the same time.

The trapdoor opened.

Alpha Team

I started by jumping out of my skin, figuratively anyway. Whatever slammed the door sounded solid enough, and somehow not. I turned and pointed my camera rig toward the second floor balcony.

Turning to check, I say Emily and Mike sitting where they had been in their corner. Mike stared at the balcony, a lost and frightened expression filling his face. Emily seemed to have curled more tightly as though trying to disappear inside him.

A bright light pulled me back to the balcony. It was the light we had been getting all night, that damned combine out there somewhere. Now was not the time to be dealing with that, but a little light might show us what was going on. I’m not sure we really wanted to see that.

The light died to be replaced with the sounds of a scuffle. Shoes scraped across a floor. Muffled grunts and groans came from upstairs. Something large slammed against one of the wooden doors. A couple more grunts came, then another slam.

The door flew open.

“You should have drugged him more,” complained a voice. It wasn’t a voice I heard before and it seemed to come from some man struggling to do something.

“Nevermind that, just get him to the rail before he wakes up anymore.” It was a different voice, a different man working just as hard.

I looked back at my sister and her guy. Mike had dropped his face into her shoulder and neither of them was looking at the balcony. It was hard to tell in the dark, but I was sure they were shaking.

Looking at my hands where they held my camera rig, I saw that I was shaking too.

I squeezed my eyes shut and thought, “I really need to calm down. None of this can hurt me. Just stay focused and keep the camera pointed the right way. Focus on the camera.”

I don’t know how much that helped, but I gripped the camera rig more tightly. The solidness of the metal pipes fought against the unreal nature of what I heard.

The lights came back, but not just upstairs, they came through all the windows. Someone’s headlights flooded the house from the driveway. I turned to see who it was, looking out the window to do so.

Outside, all was dark. There were no headlights, no cars but ours, no magic combines that could explain everything away.

A deep, roaring voice bellowed, “Help!”

Spinning back to the balcony, I saw three men fighting. One wore old style striped pajamas and a rope around his neck. He was a large man, struggling against two others, one in overalls and another in a police uniform. The big guy was giving his all, but was out numbered and it looked like his hands were tied behind him.

To my left, the front door burst open. The front door with no actual door in the opening. Some people ran in. I couldn’t see anybody, but I just knew that some people came in. They were in a hurry and full of action. They just weren’t there.

The flashes and bangs of gunfire filled the room. The sound filled my ears and me, like it had something extra to it. Those bangs were something else. They were memories.

Looking at the balcony, I watched bullets rip through the bodies of the two men, the one in overalls and the cop. They fell backwards, bits of spray erupting from the holes in their bodies. Other bullets blasted holes in the wallpaper and the plaster behind, adding little clouds of powder to the scene.

Then everything slowed.

My cinema professors would have approved. The two gunshot victims continued falling, just more slowly. The blood spray and the plaster dust blossomed gently in their previous directions.

The large man, without the other two attached, lost balance. His eyes and mouth widened as he realized his situation. He struggled, trying to find any way to hold on with his hand still behind his back.

Gravity won and he fell off the balcony.

Only to stop a couple feet from the floor.

The rope pulled. A sickly noise, like a chicken being cut up for cooking, resonated through the room. The sudden tension on the rope caused the balcony to shudder.

The body swayed in the headlights that weren’t headlights, at least not anymore. As it spun around, I saw his face more clearly. With its eyes wide open, he looked at me with his last bit of life like he wanted me to remember something.

Then his eyes faded to blankness like they weren’t really eyes at all.

He disappeared. The rope disappeared. The two men on the balcony disappeared. The headlights, nope, they were gone too.

That’s when I recognized the face of the hanged man. It flashed back into my head as bright as a silver screen. The man was Bud, the old farmer who showed us around earlier.

Nope, couldn’t be it. Bud was probably the adult son of the hanged man, or some other relative.

Then everything stopped. The house calmed down and everything was done for the night. I felt like the house had told us everything it had to say.

I didn’t believe it for a minute. It was time to get my two stars and get out before the house or whoever was in it, changed its mind.

Going against training, I turned off my cameras. The next part didn’t need to be recorded.

“Emily? Mike? I think it’s over. We need to get back to the van. Are you ok to walk back to the van?”

I think the normality of my voice shook them out of their fear funk. I was going to have to remember “fear funk” for use in a script or something later. Whatever it was, it combined with a great desire to leave. They stood quickly and, as fast as they could while still holding each other, they got out the door and headed toward the van where Matt monitored everything and dispensed the coffee.

As I stepped off the porch, I turned for one more look. Yep, it was just a desolate old house, neglected until decay tore it down. Soon, it and its memories would be bulldozed away and there would be nothing left beyond a few legal deeds and some small articles at the local Historical Society. The way things had been going in the state, the Historical Society and its small town would probably follow in the next fifty years or so. Not super duper at all.