The cops had arrived and got out of their car, coming over to Uncle Matt. “What is going on here?” demanded cop 1. “What does it look like?” asked Uncle Matt, “We are doing your job, these Creeps should be in jail and you know it, but because you work for them that is not going to happen.” “I think we should run you in!” said cop 2.

“Try it man,” said Mac, “please try.” Miles and John, who had walked in behind the two cops, then relieved them of their guns. “Now, listen closely,” said Uncle Matt, “get in my way and I will run you down. You are not cops. I have had enough dealings with real police to know you are fake, so killing you would not bother me.

If you try to stop me from finding Patty’s killer, I will bring in more muscle, which are not far away, and we will tear this town apart along with those Creepers. You tell Bear that for me. Yeah, I know about him, it is my business to know the competition. But now the Black Knights are here and you made a grave error killing Patty. Now, move your car, or we will.”

The two cops drove away quite quickly and headed back to their office to check on Uncle Matt and the Black Knights. Annelie had made it look very good for anyone who wanted to check. Later that evening they called Bear to let him know what they had found. “This Uncle Matt has been in prison the last 5 years,” said cop 1, “which is why he has not been around.”

“And likely why Flo and Patty did not want to talk about him,” said Bear. “Yeah, and he has a gang called the Black Knights, a bunch of guys from Canada, the US and different European countries,” said cop 1, “they kind of travel around a lot, but mostly in the US. He also said he could bring in more muscle quickly if he needed to, and I don’t like that part.”

“Neither do I,” said Bear, “things were going so good too, now everything is falling apart. I need to think about this, but in the morning put some pressure on Flo and Alice, tell them to remember they have kids to think of.” “Right, we will do that,” replied cop 1.

Meanwhile, back to us at the old house. Tracy and the others arrived acting thoroughly crazy, which was just perfect. Hope joined in and they had a great time. That night I told Kat to stay with Hope and Tracy, although she did not like the idea of leaving me. Sky wanted both Kat and Jennifer staying with me at night, along with Muffin, Rusty and Jewel.

But I said to send Dawn to take her place, she can take Rusty which is her cat anyway, and Dawn can bring Ginger, so we still have 3 cats. So that is what we did. In the morning we will check out that fake wall in the basement again, there must be a way to open it. We made sure to block the door into our bedroom so no one can come sneaking in on us during the night.

Right about midnight the action started with weird noises, voices, screaming and laughing. “Those ghosts can sure get noisy,” I said. “Yes, obviously not real ghosts,” said Jennifer, “we real ghosts are much more quiet.” Her and Dawn giggled, as did the cats. I had told everyone to stay in their rooms unless necessary to leave. Everything got nice and quiet again in about an hour.

“Well, that did not work very well,” said Buck. “Shut up!” said Bear, “We will try again in the morning.” Morning came very quickly and we were soon down in the large old kitchen enjoying eggs, bacon and toast. There was old wood shutters on the kitchen window, so I made sure they were closed, just in case our sniper friend decided to try again. At least this way he could not see anyone.

Then we went back to the basement. Jennifer remembered hearing a noise of some kind, like a grating sound, before we walked through the wall. “That means a door opened first,” said Aari, “and likely a camera showed the wall still in place, so you just walked through that.” “Hmm, I should have thought of that,” said Jennifer.

“Well, the Creepers are not using this entrance, or the one upstairs,” I said, “so they must have another entrance outside somewhere.” “Perhaps in an old mine,” said Kristina, looking over at the rocks. She had mentioned the possibility of a mine before, perhaps we should check around for that. However, that would mean a rather long tunnel since we cannot see any mine from the house.

Still, we should look around anyway. So, that is what we did all morning, spreading out in our search, but still staying close enough to each other to stay in sight. Unfortunately, we found nothing at all. Then we got an alarm from the house and we came running back. Muffin, Storm and Tiger had stayed behind to watch things for us…

To Be Continued.

©2024 Steve McLeod.