Caveat Ghost Hunter Part One

A Hybrid Ghost Tale/Travel Memoir. (What's The Point Of A Ghost Tour? To See A Ghost?

“Caveat Ghost Hunter”

A caveat to the ghost hunter:

You can go looking for ghosts all you want.

But most of the time, it happens when you are least expecting it.

I’ve seen a ghost.

Seeing a ghost is like catching lightning in a bottle.

And seeing a ghost again and again is like lightning striking over and over inside that same bottle.

Still, people will drive for miles. For hours. To disturb a final resting place. To touch things that belonged to someone else a long time ago. To feel even a shudder.

Hoping to see a true to life, genuine, real authentic ghost.

In the flesh. Up close and personal. To prove to themselves that there is life after death. And that there is some kind of meaning to their own existence.

I’ve seen a ghost twice.

Actually, it was the same ghost.

I saw the same ghost twice.

I am not much of a ghost hunter. Ghost hunting might be big business. Clubs. Conventions. Virtual reality shows. Books. Movies. Games. Colletible dolls. But it demands hours of time for preparation and investigation and analysis.

Ghost hunting requires the combination of three things. An open mind and working equipment to record evidence. The right personnel, because it is often a team effort. And the right place with the right conditions.

I have always been interested in the phenomena of ghosts. But I do not have the time necessary to put into ghost hunting. I’d rather spend my free time doing things that give me more enjoyment than staying up all night in a creepy place.

Many people are like that. They feign a causal interest and want a quick walk through rather than an all night hunt.

Hence, the ghost tour.

Ghost hunting is one thing.

But the ghost tour is quite another.

And may even be bigger business.

I always wanted to go on a ghost tour.

In fact, it was on my bucket list.

Going on a ghost tour. Not actually seeing a ghost, mind you.

But I didn’t want to go alone.

***

In all the Ozarks, the most famous place for ghosts is Basin Springs. A Victorian spa village nestled in the karsts and grottos between Beaver and Table Rock Lakes.

The Ozarks are full of knobs and hollers formed by wind and water. Water runs in just two directions. Both are downhill.

There are tons of quartz and granite and limestone. Ledges and karsts. Bluffs and cliffs. Thousands of square miles of conifer woods. Thousands of springs and aquifers. Feeding into dozens of clear running rivers and cool lakes.

Most of the Ozarks is rural. And most of it is below the national poverty level. Lots of fishing and hunting and lots of meth.

Which makes Basin Springs even more unique and exotic. Most of the city grid was laid out according to the natural lay of the land. Buildings built of local stone. Sleepy cottages. Wooden sidewalks. Storefronts with filligree windows and Victorian brass and wooden signage.

Streets rose and fell along the curves of the descending basins and ridges. Buildings butt up against the cliffsides. The more than one hundred and forty springs marked with fountains and backsplashes.

The old commercial downtown is a five mile loop of walkways and winding stairs. There are no traffic lights and there is not one 90 degree street intersection.

And the heart of the town is Basin Springs Park where one can stand on the moutainous cliffs that look straight into Missouri, and walkways that lead down two more streets to the lowest part of the basin.

The shopping district consists of either botiques or restaurants or art galleries. There are cottages and bed and breakfasts. Plus a few hotels.

And the queen jewel of them all is the Crimson Moon Hotel.

It is a huge monstrosity, brooding atop the highest point overlooking the basin. Built on limestone blocks with seamless interlocking joints. A thing of mournful balconies and silent gabled roofs and stagnant chimneys. A thing of stately beauty and Victorian modesty with an unspoken code of silence.

It has become a place for wedding receptions and debuante balls.

But once it was a place for the dying. And a place of deceit.

The place met all the requirements. History. Exotic location.

Also steeped in legend. The Hotel had experienced accidental deaths during construction. Suicides during its tenure as a girls’ college. And years of misery as a cancer hospital.

Picture perfect to be one of the top five most haunted hotels in America.

I had all the necessary ingredients covered. I would go with an open mind. I wouldn’t need any equipment. It was just a tour, after all.

I had the right place.

Now all I needed was the right partner.

***

Ghost tours in Basin Springs are most popular in October.

In the Ozarks, sunset comes quick. The hills and woods pull their hoodies over the top of the sun and push the disc down under the tree line behind the hills and piles of rocks. And most of the animals come out to play by the lesser light of the moon while the burning lamp of midnight makes double shadows of trunks and branches.

Things become restive. Nothing is at peace.

Everyone is jumpy. Things bump into each other.

Once upon a time, hotel managers kept mum about any strange goings on. Now, they crossed their finger when paranormal investigators from top rated reality shows came to investigate.

There was no such thing as bad publicity.

And there were no such things as ghosts.

Regardless, it was fashionable to declare a place to be haunted.

Basin Springs raked it in on ghost tours. October was their busiest month. The Crimson Moon Hotel ghost tour expanded to three tours day and/or night. Two at night, plus an afternoon matinee.

It would be a return pilgrimage for me.

It would be the same tour. Different partner.

“Don’t think I don’t know this a test,” Louise said when she opened the door.

“What do you mean?” I asked. Our tour wasn’t until eight in the evening. And it was only nine in the morning now. I was looking at a very long day ahead of me.

“This trip.” She came out of her rental, clad in a winter vest and courdory boots on her feet and holding her purse.

“You let me plan it,” I said. “I even sent you menu links for the hotel’s restaurants."

She walked past me towards her white Chevy Transverse. She pushed the fob. The headlights blinked. The ignition turned over.

“Is this something you do with all your girlfriends? You take them up to the Crimson Moon Hotel and see how they’ll react?”

My partner on my first trip, Genafer, hadn’t been much for shopping. Or learning the local history. Her idea of a Saturday morning well spent was watching basketball.

“This is only my second time there. It’s more like a history tour than chasing ghosts.”

“Well, I’m not a fan of haunted houses.”

Turns out Genafer hadn’t been much on ghosts either.

“Then why didn’t you just say ‘no.’ We can go somewhere else. Do something else.”

“‘Cuz. You wanna do it. And I don’t want to disappoint you. And not let you get to do it.”

“But I don’t want to go if you’re not going to enjoy it.”

“Oh, I’m not going to enjoy it. But I’m going anyway.” Louise pulled the driver door open and handed me the key fob.

“You want me to drive?”

She nodded. “You’ve been there before. I don’t like driving for long distances. And we’ll be coming back in the dark. You know I hate driving in the dark.”

Louise was scared to death of hitting a deer. Again. They slept on the side of the road. Were woken by the engines and the lights. And jumped out in front of cars.

Louise had totalled a car and had lost some front teeth on impact. Or she had caught an elbow from a boyfriend in the mouth. It all depended on which story she was telling that day.

Either way, it had left Louise with a fear of making lefts against oncoming traffic.

Made her fidget and fiddle.

Quick to kiss and touch me.

Quick to text me a dozen times an hour.

This would be the longest time we had ever spent together. Any other time more than a few hours around her always gave me a massive headache.

Louise turned and looked me full in the face. “Do you still wanna go?”

She was looking for any sign of doubt. Or rejection. So she could become angry.

I shuddered.

Something told me it wasn’t worth it. Something told me to abort mission. Find something—anything—else to do.

“Full speed ahead and damn the ghosts,” I said and took the fob out of her hand.

***

Two years ago I’d booked the last ghost tour on a Saturday evening before Halloween. My partner at that time, Genafer, said little about it. She seemed content with most things. Or at least criticism and opinions were two things she didn’t offer. They were forms of sharing that made her uncomfortable.

She thought I had an opinion on everything. Either I loved a thing or I hated a thing. There was no middle ground for me.

Genafer and I had arrived in Basin Springs in the early afternoon. It was warm for autumn. And we strolled the wooden sidewalks. Followed the run of the streets down into the bottom of the basin. Then climbed the stairs back up to the bluffs above the park. All without jackets.

We did not link arms. We did not hold hands. We shared a quiet lunch on a tiny street café then drove up to the Crimson Moon Hotel at dusk.

A fountain capped with a silver crescent moon greeted visitors at the entrance to the hotel. Horse carriages waited just beyond the valet desk for a romantic turnaround of bed and breakfasts, jammed onto cobblestone streets.

The tour started in the old faculty lounge on the fourth floor. The room was filling up but we found two chairs by a window looking out on the balcony that faced the front of the hotel.

When the host started his spiel, someone walked by the window. I turned to grab a look. It was a man with dark clothes and black hair. Maybe it was one of the staff from the nearby lounge timing his break with the beginning of the ghost tour. Except that the lounge was on the otherside of the hotel with its own balcony full of tables.

A few minutes later, I turned to look again and that same someone was sitting up against the window. With his back to me. Sitting down to look out over the balcony onto the parking lot. I could see the back of his head. His hair was black. It was short and slicked down.

It gave me a shudder. I thought someone was playing a lame joke. Giving a cheap scare.

After the introduction the audience lined up in the hall to begin the tour. I approached the host and asked if someone had been outside on the balcony. He opened the door and let me have a look for myself.

No one was there.

Then he asked if I had seen something.

I asked if anyone had ever seen ghosts here in the faculty lounge.

He only said that “activity” had been reported. Then he asked me what I had seen.

I wasn’t sure anymore.

We finished the tour and drove back home. Genafer broke her usual custom of not offering an opinion and proclaimed the ghost tour, a fake, a put on a show and almost a waste of an evening. Then she asked me what I had seen. So I told her.

She became quiet again.

Uncomfortable.

Three days later she broke off our relationship.

Now I was in another relationship. And on my way back to the same place.

To take the same tour.

To see the same ghost.