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I turned toward Victor and gave him a smile, urging him without words to say hello. He gave an awkward wave and grinned at the camera.
He was an adorable older man, between his silver hair and crinkly eyes, he looked downright approachable. They were going to love him.
I had a feeling that he was going to be just as passionate about this tour as Ben is with his history, too, so the viewers would eat it up.
He turned to the crowd which was us and a few other older couples. They had graciously agreed to be on the stream as well.
“Alright, a big welcome to everyone joining us tonight. Thank you for agreeing to be on camera for the Spirit Vlog. I hope that we can get some more people out for this tour in the future. We always love tourists here in Bellmore. But, as you can see, this town is far more than pretty lights and vendor fairs on weekends. It has a pretty spooky past.”
I swear this man could narrate a TV show. His voice was smooth and captivating. The moment he started to talk, I was absolutely hooked.
We walked down the street, starting at the coffee shop then toward the old library. It was an old, stone building, not as big as most libraries, but it still had character. There was a stone statue outside of children reading books.
“This is Bellmore’s library and one of the oldest buildings in town. When they took this small, little ghost town and turned it into a thriving, little community, this was one of the first things that the Bellmores insisted on building.”
“Do the Bellmores own everything in this town?” a lady in the crowd asked. From the sound of her voice, she wasn’t very impressed by that.
“No, but they do have several businesses. With the revenue that they brought in and put into this town, it’s really given jobs and built this community into what it is now. Twenty years ago, it was one of those towns that you wouldn’t have looked twice at—no gas station, no grocery store, just a few homes and a town hall.”
It was nice to see that Victor had respect for the Bellmore family, and it wasn’t just them lording over the town. They helped build it from the ground up and didn’t take away from the town’s character.
“Now, this particular haunt is pretty interesting,” Victor continued, ignoring any further questions the lady was about to shout. “There are rumors that Lydia Simms, the librarian who first worked here, loved this library so much that when she died, she came back. It started with small things like books moving over the years, lights flickering, the sound of a woman humming to herself as she worked. But it wasn’t until they installed security cameras that they started to catch something pretty significant.”
“Yeah, right,” someone scoffed before his wife shushed him.
Victor let out a low chuckle and shook his head. He didn’t let the skepticism get to him.
“Don’t worry. I know that we have plenty of skeptics that come along. But if you check our website where you booked the tour, there are photos included for each location. Make sure you leave a comment and tell me what you think about them.
“Is it just Lydia, here?” I asked, curious now.
“Funny you should ask,” he said excitedly. “There have been several reports of children laughing when the library is empty. This is also not the only building that it’s heard in.”
“Is there a story behind it?” Ethan asked.
“There is,” Victor said. “As you know the snow out here can get pretty bad. It goes south fast. There was a school bus heading from some homes on the outskirts into town when a snowstorm hit. The driver was taking it as slow as possible but black ice can be deadly. In this case it took ten lives.”
“Oh how sad,”I breathed out, my chest tightening at the thought of losing so many small lives. They were probably so scared.
“The rescue crew was quick and did what they could,” Victor said in a somber tone. “There’s a memorial about a mile outside of town for those who didn’t make it.”
The group was quiet and he took the opportunity to move us along. We continued down the road until we reached the local elementary school.
“In the history of this school, there have never been any reported deaths of children. But the night crew and janitors who work to keep the school clean and running have reported the sound of children running up and down the halls. The gym has had balls bouncing and rolling around. The police have had to come out to answer a few calls of breaking and entering but only ever found things out of place, no forced entry.”
“Is it only at night?” someone asked.
“No,” Victor admitted. “The teachers themselves report school supplies moving places. Another came in one morning to find every chair in her classroom upside down even though she had left them under the desks the night before. It’s all harmless pranks, but in my opinion, children are probably the creepiest type of haunting there can be.”
“Amen to that,” Ben said. We shared a small smile. We dealt with child ghosts in an amusement park we investigated a few years ago. It was one of those things that stuck with you.
“Are we actually going to get to go into any of these buildings or do we just get to talk about them on the outside?” It was the same lady from before, and I had to bite back an eye roll. I just knew my Darklings were tearing this woman apart for being so rude.
“As I outlined in the tour itinerary, when you buy tickets, we will be doing a walking tour of the town, and then we will be ending in our most haunted location yet. There you’ll get to explore if you dare.”
The lady let out a huff but didn’t complain any further. I was going to count that as a win.
“A little bit further down this road and we’ll find the train station. Now, this particular location is what we call a transient haunting, which is quite fitting for the location itself. There’s not one particular haunt here. No one stands out above the rest, even with all the stories it’s accumulated over the years.No two reports have been the same. We can only conclude that these ghosts aren’t here to stay. It’s simply a waypoint in their travels.”
