Phantom reveals ghastly, ghostly mission
By LOREN BENOIT
Staff Photographer
I’m writing this story because our new reporter, Autumn Fahl, quit.
Last I saw her running toward her car, pen and notebook flung into the clutches of the night, poor Autumn looked like she’d seen a ghost.
Maybe because she had.
Let me back up a minute.
After spending four witching hours chasing the specter that kept the Coeur d’Alene Police on high alert (and me with an extra pair of underwear in my car, just in case), I finally went to Chief Lee White yesterday for some help. See, that first night, after hearing the bizarre scanner chatter from the female dispatcher, I saw nothing. The next three nights I went where the dispatcher reported a ghost had been sighted and got exactly one picture of the apparition each night, which we faithfully printed in this highly respected rag. Yet it dawned on me: Why did I never see a cop when I thought I needed one? When the female dispatcher kept alerting downtown units to respond speedily but cautiously?
Chief White tried to make me feel better, I think, but in fact only increased my terror. He told me the department doesn’t have a night female dispatcher. When I looked puzzled, he asked to see my portable scanner, which I removed from my jacket pocket. Chief White inspected it and, after asking me which frequency was broadcasting the alerts, I tried to show him. But for some reason, I could no longer find that frequency on my unit. It just wasn’t there.
Still, it being Halloween Eve last night, I bravely ventured downtown and, at the stroke of midnight plus a minute, I saw my specter at 215 N. Second St. — otherwise known as the home of the Coeur d’Alene Press.
I carefully approached the ghost (seeing clearly that it was a she) and told her I meant no harm; only that I was hoping to find out who she was and what she was wandering all over town looking for.
And finally, she responded.
“My name in life was Holly Paszczynska,” she whispered eerily. “I was once a young journalist here at The Press but I met an untimely demise before I really got started.”
I looked questioningly at the ebbing and flowing apparition.
“Digital poisoning,” she gasped, and I understood. She’d succumbed to the internet’s assault on the newspaper industry.
When I asked what she was looking for, I think she smiled. She pointed at the newspaper rack in the front of the building and, passing her ghostly hand over the mechanism, the machine opened and today’s edition floated right to her.
“I just can’t live without my hometown newspaper,” she said with a lifeless laugh.
After perusing a few pages, she waved goodbye and dissolved into the midnight air.
As frightening as the whole five-night adventure had been, I felt fortunate for the experience. And it was easy to imagine a far greater terror.
Try spelling Holly’s last name on deadline!
THE END