Ghosts of Lake 33
A Weldon Spring Story
Chapter One

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Welcome!

A new Book in first stages of writing.

The following pages and chapters are first drafts, including typos, grammar and tense problems.

Take it for what it is, A WORK IN PROGRESS. 

.....And....Since I am by nature, a discovery writer, the story could change 100% (Have to get the ideas it out of your head and onto the monitor before it can be improved, fixed or corrected. Or thrown in the trash can via the delete button.

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Test cover of the book, but only a test

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(Warning, First draft, expect errors!)

Chapter One: 

The Bunker Experiment

“Reeb, are we going to do this or what?” asked Natasha.

I looked up from my phone. “Oh yeah, yeah, sorry. They’re rioting again in St. Louis.”

“Now what?”

“Looks like rioting over the RECA money not coming fast enough from Uncle Sam. Last week it was the iodine pills handed out to all kids for the smoke coming from the Westlake landfill. Of course as usual, a few are demanding that the government and the EPA put the fire out.”

“Well, maybe they can get some NASA mad scientist or something to come up with a method to put out a fire two hundred feet underground while wearing radiation suits.”

Natasha stood in the doorway of the old TNT bunker like some astronaut or spelunker ready for the next adventure. The shadows seemed to gather around her, lending her an otherworldly silhouette against the Missouri afternoon.

“Have you ever thought about doing this experiment inside one of the pyramids in Egypt or a cemetery?” I asked.

“No, that’s kind of creepy.”

“Is it not kind of creepy, you attempting to speak with dead people?”

“Not the same thing,” said Natasha. “Don’t you ever get creeped out whenever you drive by a cemetery? Don’t you feel them watching you?”

I thought about that for a moment. “No, never.”

Natasha didn’t reply.

“What about doing it at Cahokia Mounds?” I asked.

Natasha didn’t reply at first and finally said, “Cahokia Mounds? Well, I’m not really into Indians. I don’t really have much interest in Native Americans or that big hill in Illinois.”

“Hey, you can have your trip in the bathroom at Monks Mound. I’ll guard you.” I laughed at my own joke, however Natasha seemed not to be in a joking mood right before her trip. I guessed it was scary in that bunker sometimes.

“No, this is perfect. It’s not a tomb. It’s not a burial. It’s just a perfect place to do sensory deprivation and hopefully an out-of-body experience.”

“Okay, I’m ready to lock you in.”

Natasha nodded, placed the tab of LSD on her lips, and lay down on the air mattress in the center of the Busch Wildlife TNT bunker. At her side was a flashlight and cell phone.

I wasn’t claustaphobic, but the stale air that reeked of dust and mold had to worse than being closed in a stygian tomb under the pyramids.

“Call me if you need out early. I’ll be waiting outside.”

~

I shut the door and dropped the World War Two era latch, sealing her in total silence and blackness.

“What are you going to do if you really can speak to dead people?” I said only after the door was sealed.

I looked at my watch—two hours. Let her out in two hours. Easiest hundred dollars I could make, guarding her door while she experiments with sensory deprivation and acid. And ghosts? This was the fith time of her experiment but she rarely talked about her experiences.

I shook my head, sat on the tailgate of my truck, and scrolled through news of the riots on my phone. The city issuing iodine pills as a preventive measure did not have the calming effects they had hoped for and govenment promsing the Radiation compensation money for St. Louis and St. Charles, but not a penny had been handed out yet. Other riots at the Coldwater Creek cleanup, protesting the slow speed. Another politician explained how to fill out the forms for the RECA money for cancer patients or surviving family members. 

My phone buzzed. Natasha already? 

I saw it was my mother’s number.

“Can you help?” asked Kim. “That damn dog Rocky and the red dog ran into the Busch Wildlife Area again.”

I cursed.

“At least the red dog is wearing a radio tracking collar this time, and we hope Rocky is keeping up. He is too old to be running deer in the wildlife area. We’re tracking them on the phone app heading towards Lake 33.”

I shook my head and looked out upon the forest of oak and hickory, their branches reaching up like ancient fingers against the daylight. I thought about red squirrel hunting these very woods as a kid. Illegal as hell on the wildlife area.

“I’ll drive up to the levee. Keep me updated about where he goes-if he stays down on Dardenne Creek or up around Lake 33.”

It was a risk leaving Natasha. I was there in case she had a bad trip or found whatever she was searching for.

“I’ll be back, Natasha,” I said and clicked the phone off, spinning up gravel in my truck towards the lake.

“Not going near the cave,” I muttered, hoping the dogs didn’t stop or fall over with exhaustion near the old cave, the former illegal storage site now walled off after the DOE had removed the Manhattan Project drums.

Near the spillway, I drove across the levee, scanning the fields and forest for a red dog followed by an old black and white dog.

There-a flash of red. No, not the dogs.

My binoculars settled on a splash of red: a family of pileated woodpeckers, the mother woodpecker feeding grubs to her babies.

A mother and her babies. Kim was masking how upset she was about the lost dogs, and returned to scanning for Rocky. His black and white pattern should stick out for three hundred yards. Nothing in the forest would have his Holstein dariry cow coloring.

The dogs.

I smiled, thinking about that old story, the really old story, recalling the best part of the ancient Greek epic, the Odyssey. When Ulysses arrived home after years away and his old dog recognized him. Damn, my eyes watered reading that part of the story. It was too close to the old pain.

I joined the Air Force right out of high school and returned home to Missouri a couple of years later, and our white German Shepherd recognized me with insane affection. It hurt. The shepherd and I had been best friends, inseparable companions until I joined the service. The boy and his dog? It hurt again when I came back two years later, and he was an old man who could barely walk.

The next time I returned to Missouri, there was a friendly Great Dane in his place.

That hurt also.

That’s life, but it’s so weird that after war, prison, life experiences, and dancing with death by taking needless chances and thrills, that one pain stayed with me, that one pain buried deep in my heart for a dog named Shep.

My secret. Not even Amber or Crystal, or my military friends, had such a powerful emotional hold on me.

I dropped the binoculars and looked across the old lake. It’s like I’m a hand grenade and that pin, the pin is the dog.

Stupid analogy, but crazy how Shep’s memory could dredge up old emotions.

Damn dogs.

I stepped out of the truck and called, “Rocky!”

Why didn’t my mom give that red dog a name other than Red Dog?

The wind hit me, a chill spring breeze.

Rocky shouldn’t be out. He’s too old. What if it drops below freezing tonight? Rocky was vibrant and all mucle before I went to prison.

Suddenly I was pissed off. Pissed off at Rocky, pissed off at the military. Wasn’t really pissed off at myself because after high school I needed to get off the farm, get away from the fights with my father, but mostly because I saw no future in Missouri. What was I gonna do? Fast food? Big box store?

The Military had college benefits, and an archaeology degree was my goal until I learned the salary of an archaeologist; my job as a janitor at Weldon Spring made more money. Archaeologist status was just to be able to brag that you’re an archaeologist, but it didn’t pay the bills.

Archaeology was poverty with a pretty impressive title.

“Rocky, where are you?”

Wow, a dog running away has me thinking about a lot of stupid stuff. My high school dog. Two tours in the service, getting paid to blow stuff up, until my head injury and discharge from the service. My ex-girlfriend Amber. What the heck, Amber, what the fuck?

Because your mom was in town, we had to hide any connection, and then she moved into your apartment, and I was permanently booted because your mother would never approve of me. What the hell, Amber? Am I on semi-permanent standby status or are we done?

“Rocky! Red Dog!” I yelled.

Amber would not come out of her office when I was working, putting in a few hours a week for Butch as a janitor at the Weldon Spring nuke museum.

The museum job was required so I could tell my probation officer that I had a real job. Somehow “Tour guide for ghost towns” did not meet the state’s criteria for employment. Plus, the museum job allowed me to spread my business cards for the ghost town tours to the museum visitors.

Things were crazy.

And the ghost hunter? What the fuck, Natasha? What are you thinking, dropping acid in the bunkers while sealed inside? What the hell, Natasha?

My phone buzzed again; it was my brother Rob. “Kim just called. They caught Rocky, but the app shows the red dog just passed Lake 33, heading up Dardenne Creek. I’m on the other side of the lake and will try to cut the dog off by crossing Kraut Run Creek and then Dardenne.” Rob was breathing heavily. “The storm last night blew the fence down, and Kim didn’t know it. It’s not Kim’s fault the dogs are running Busch again.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

Rob did not reply, and Kim’s phone gave me a busy signal.

A few minutes later, my phone buzzed with a text from Rob: “I’m crossing Dardenne Creek. Hopefully I can cut the dog off and bring him back.”

The phone lit up with Kim’s name: “We have both dogs. I just caught the red dog leaving Busch, following the creek at Dwyer Hill.”

Rob called, “Kim has the dog. I’m whipped and covered in early season ticks.”

“I’ll meet you at your truck.”

Just a little longer Natasha.

Rob’s truck had to be near the boat ramp somewhere.

Another text from Rob: “You know how many ticks there are this time of year? I’ll be picking ticks off the dogs for two days.”

The next text from Rob: “I’m looking for a place to wade Dardenne Creek.”

A few minutes later, my phone buzzed with a phone call. The words said Rob.

“You stuck or something,” I said, recalling the quicksand under the Schotte Creek bridge.

“You won’t believe what I just found at the turn where the creek bends at the elbow below the old log cabin chimney. You remember the old chimney? There’s a deer crossing and washout near one of the old springs, and there are bones—a lot of bones. There’s even Mississippian bird points.”

Rob texted me a photo of a Cahokia arrowhead and then a photo of jumbled bones in the clay washout. Old bones.

“Oh shit,” I said. “Bones? Anything worth salvaging?”

“No, just two small arrowheads. Let’s get your old archaeologist girlfriend out here first. Let her get credit for the discovery.”

“Yeah, copy that. Are they human bones? Or maybe a buffalo jump? Could be a lot of bones if they used it for bison every season.”

Becca will like that, I thought. And a two-night stand did not make her my girlfriend.

“Set up an appointment to bring her out here. Maybe bring rain gear and bug repellent. Oh, and don’t tell her about the arrowheads.” Rob laughed.

“Copy that. I’ll be waiting for you at your truck.”

The possibility of a bison jump was exciting; there were only about sixteen recorded in Missouri, most were out west.

I wondered whether these were forest or prairie bison. This part of Missouri had bred forest buffalo, but the tall grass of Dardenne and Howell Prairie could have supported prairie bison also.

Most likely these were eastern forest bison, being so close to the Ozarks. Unless they were extinct Ice Age bison from when glaciers covered half the state.

No, Rob had found an arrowhead, so the site could not be older than two thousand years, not Paleo, but at this point, who knew?

I looked at my phone. I was late to get Natasha out of her tomb.

Next Chapter #2

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Map I used for the first book "Lake 33 Killing Relic"

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Above is taken from Moms of St. Louis, to include the Zip codes and types of radiation to get compensated from the new July 2025 RECA

I pray you never need to use the money.

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Return HOME from Ghosts of Lake 33

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