Cruncher and the Ghost

By Robert Bruce O'Connor

What do you get when you combine an overactive imagination with a desire to be a tough-guy private eye? Normally youd just get a typical teenage boy. Now, what do you get when you throw in the ability to see ghosts? Thats correctyou get a scared teenage boy.

Thus you have Joe Cruncher, and hes extremely serious about becoming a private investigator. Hes even managed to convince himself that his ability to get into ridiculous situations shows hes cut out for this line of work. All Cruncher needs is a good caper, and he can prove hes a great detective.

Fortunately, a ghost recently brought a job his way. From this point on, Joe Cruncher, Private Eye, is on the loose. Can Cruncher solve this case? Its entirely possible. The real question is, can Cruncher solve this case without destroying the world around him?

Silly question! Of course not!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514474228

Robert Bruce O'Connor

Robert Bruce O’Connor is a retired master sergeant from the US Air Force. His career was spent primarily in the rotorhead world of Jolly Green Rescue and Special Operations. He entered service as a mechanic on Sikorsky helicopters but was also a flying crew chief on the MH-53 Pave Low–type choppers. Although he survived a few crash incidents, he was, for the most part, merely an observer as the folks inside the helicopters with him did the really interesting stuff. He has traveled a good many places, but nowadays prefers to spend time at home, pursuing the hobbies he had to put aside while in the military. He enjoys building model kits and collecting Lionel Trains. He also enjoys writing, so expect to see further adventures showing up periodically.

Book preview

1

My First Ghost

BOO!

I jumped. I couldn’t help myself. The mysterious voice bellowing from behind me just wasn’t possible. I mean, I’d only just barely gotten back from a visit to FOB Field, and all I was doing at this moment was looking out the window in my new bedroom. Nobody had been in the room at all ten seconds ago when I’d walked over to the window, so there was absolutely no reason to expect anybody to talk to me, let alone holler at me. I instantly froze in place.

Son of a gun! the voice continued, You can actually hear me. Nobody has ever jumped before, not in a hundred years.

I didn’t like the way that sounded. A hundred years was a mighty long time, and this guy didn’t sound that old. I was starting to get a suspicion what was happening here, and it wasn’t making me happy. I decided to remain frozen to see if the voice would go away. No such luck. The unknown person was in the mood to keep talking.

Son, I am sorry to have scared you. That was not my intent, but after all these years I gave up all hope of anybody ever hearing me. I quit being polite a long time ago. I must say I am awfully glad to meet you. Gol-dern it, I’m almighty glad to meet anybody from the world of the living who has your power.

Uh-oh! Those words confirmed my worst fears. I was dealing with a spirit, a ghost, a non-living creature, and it caused goose pimples to spread all over my body (Even the bottoms of my feet. How weird is that?)

Oh sure, this spirit sounded friendly enough, but that was of no real comfort. I’ve seen a few ghost movies in my time, and the one thing I’ve learned is the friendly specter usually only remains nice while it is amusing itself. Once it gets tired of playing games it suddenly rips you to shreds, and the mess it makes is just horrible.

That thought brought an unhappy vision to my mind. Mom is something of a neat freak, and I knew she’d have a fit as soon as she came home and saw the shambles the ghost had made of my room. I could just see her going around the house yelling for me to, Clean up your room this instant, young man! and I wondered how long it would take her to realize I hadn’t made the mess in my room, I was the mess in my room.

Naturally, being splattered all over the room by an evil ghoul was not on my list of things to do today, so I tried to think of ways to avoid that dreadful possibility. As I was thinking, I kept telling myself not to turn around. I knew it wasn’t logical, but I hoped the phantom couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t look at it. Nevertheless, I’d never seen a ghost before, so curiosity eventually got the better of me. I turned my head a bit and took a peek.

Oh, mama, I shouldn’t have done that! If I had hoped to see a harmless, non-threatening spirit I was severely disappointed. This guy was huge and creepy. Truth is, he was pretty much everything I expected a horrifying ghost to be. He was mostly visible, but there were a few places where he seemed to shimmer spookily. At this point the only thing left for me to figure out was if he really was friendly.

My first impression was no. He had a hard face, and he seemed to be more tough-guy than nice-guy. Now, to be fair, if I had seen him in a Western movie he might have merely been described as rugged, but this wasn’t a Western. The word I came up with to describe him was fearsome.

I don’t know why, but then he smiled. I-EEEEEE! That only made him more fearsome. I immediately decided to work harder at coming up with an idea for handling this situation. All I’d managed to think of so far was yelling for mommy, or asking the ghost if he’d like a doughnut.

Yeah, I know. Neither choice made much sense. Mom wasn’t here, and ghosts probably can’t eat doughnuts. Still, it was amazing I’d managed to think of anything at all.

I averted my face and looked back out the window. That was when a third idea came to mind. Jumping to a screaming death two stories below suddenly seemed a real good choice. In fact, it was such a good choice I immediately decided to do it. I closed my eyes and said good-bye to the world.

Nothing happened.

Well, almost nothing. I think I got the screaming part completed all right, but the jumping to my death part failed to go as planned. My stupid feet were mysteriously paralyzed.

Ah, this guy said, I kin tell by that ghastly shrieking you can see me, too. You’ve got the sight, sure enough, and so few do.

Being a stupid kid, I turned back around to look at him. I didn’t really want to, but I thought it was my only chance. The way I figured it, if I couldn’t get my feet to do the decent thing and throw me out the window then I might as well pretend I actually cared what some rude, old spirit had to say. Maybe, if I faked my sympathy well enough, he might decide not to torture me too much before killing me.

I kin also see you aren’t breathing too well, The ghost continued, "so I’ll make this quick. My name is Robert MacGregor, and I’ve waited a long time to meet someone such as you. Sad to say ye are a bit young, but I kin wait for you to get older. What are a few more years when I have all eternity? I’ll come back from time to time to let ye get used to me a bit, and someday we’ll have a talk."

The emphasis he used with those last words sounded as if he was making a horrible threat, and that terrified me so badly I was on the verge of passing out. However, in this instance I had enough of a grip to avoid doing something that disgraceful. I opted for a more rational reaction instead.

Robert, the fearsome ghost-guy looked down at the floor around my feet and said, I bid you farewell, and please try to get over doing that. With that he disappeared.

Now I realize your average eight-year-old would have been pretty upset after that, but not me. Even then, I had that quality all men of my caliber possess: nerves of steel.

I changed my pants and calmly carried on as if nothing had happened.

2

What The Heck Is A Cruncher?

Well, that was how I met Robert the Ghost, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t an evil spirit after all. I say that simply because it happened four years ago, and I haven’t been smeared all over my room yet. Surprisingly enough, I’ve managed to reach the age of twelve, even though that wasn’t the last time I ever saw Robert.

It’s also surprising I managed to reach the age of twelve for a completely different reason. I honestly expected something else to kill me long before any ghost could get around to it. You see, when Robert and I first met, I was a newcomer to Woodchuck Springs, and after having only been there two weeks I was already certain I wouldn’t even survive the remaining school year. The other kids were out to get me.

I suppose I should explain why. My last name is Uncer, which by itself isn’t too bad, but, regrettably, it isn’t my only name. For some stupid reason my parents decided to also name me Clarence Roscoe. Let’s face it, a name like that will leave scars on you for life, and believe me it has. I’ve got several to prove it, and, for your information, I got them all in an empty field behind the school - FOB Field, to be exact. (You may remember I mentioned returning from there at the start of this story).

FOB stands for Fists of Blood, and it’s where you are taken when you have committed unforgivable sins. You know, such things as sneezing in Mongo McGurk’s milk, laughing at Lenny DaSyco when he stutters, telling Olga Stoutbunns girls are weak, or, worst sin of all, daring to go around with a geeky name. For Pete’s sake, no normal school kid is gonna let you go around with a name like Clarence Roscoe without trying to knock the crud out you, and, boy, did they try - knocked a lotta crud out, too.

That isn’t to say I always lost. I didn’t, but, being the fair guy I am, I always let them have their shot, and simple mathematics alone dictated eventual failure. They, after all, had the luxury of taking me on one at a time. This meant they got to rest between fights. I, of course, was never allowed to rest. So, even if I was successful in wearing out the first one or two, or an occasional third, eventually I would break down, and my crud would be knocked far and wide.

True, I may have had a decent win rate now and again, but I wasn’t exactly happy about it. Same as any other sane person, I had a strong urge to keep some of my precious crud still inside me. Yet, at the rate things were going, I knew every bit of it was gonna end up spattered across that lousy field.

I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it, but I decided I had to fix my name.

First, I stopped calling myself Clarence Roscoe and just started going by the initials C.R, instead. I even got my parents to change my name to plain old C.R. Uncer in the school register. This was more acceptable, and I ended up doing a lot less fighting. Well, I didn’t have to fight the girls anymore.

Naturally, that really wasn’t enough. With the exception of Olga Stoutbunns, the girls rarely put much effort into knocking the crud out anyway. Having them stop was nice, and less embarrassing, but the sad truth is the boys were just as eager to liquefy my brains over the name Cee Ar as they were over Clarence Roscoe. At this point I realized nothing short of a miracle was going to remove this curse.

Then one day the miracle happened. As hard as this may be to believe, it was a teacher who saved my rear end. Our normal teacher, Mrs. Irvin, had to leave to have a baby, and Mr. Banister took over her class. Mr. Banister simply misread the way I wrote my name on my papers, and he began calling me Cruncher. That was all it took. The name caught on like wildfire.

Yay, my crud and I were saved!

This was considered a downright honorable name, and, as the years went by, the reason behind it was forgotten. What everybody did remember, though, was how I had fought every kid in school for months on end, and somehow this became the reason for my nickname, which was great for me. The fights were over. Nobody wanted to take on a kid tough enough to be called Cruncher.

I hope this doesn’t sound too arrogant to you or anything, but I don’t even think of it as a name anymore. It’s something better than that. It’s my doggone title, and, boy, did I earn it.

After that, my life improved, and things got to be almost normal again. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Robert the ghost I would have been perfectly happy.

3

A Tale From Long Ago

Robert would pop in on me every couple months or so, just to make some weird remark about how much dryer my floor was these days, and then he’d disappear once more. Unfortunately, Robert had a nasty habit of catching me off guard with these sudden appearances, and the surprise of it all could still cause me to stop breathing in fear. This was especially bad if he showed up right after I’d seen a scary movie or something. On two occasions I held my breath so long I passed out. I was getting a little annoyed with this, so about a year and a half ago I finally said something myself.

He’d just finished making me jump out my skin, for the umpteenth time, and I bellowed, Would it be too much to ask you to at least knock or something before you come in to make your stupid wisecracks?

Praise the saints, he does talk! Robert exclaimed, Then perhaps the time may be right to tell you some things; although, I must say, Cruncher, ye are still too young to do me much good yet.

How do you know I’m called Cruncher?

And, why wouldn’t I? he responded with surprise, Don’t ye suppose I kin hear what the other urchins call you? As ye no doubt have figured out by now, I do mostly tend to hang around this house, but that does not mean I am confined here. No, I can travel anywhere I want, and I have been keeping an eye on you in order to judge the mettle of your character. I have a need to acknowledge the corn, and it’s important you measure up to the task I must request of you. The fact ye have the sight might not do me much good if you are a coward, or are otherwise a person of low morals.

Huh?

Sorry, Cruncher, Robert replied, "I guess I have to explain that, but first you need to understand something. I am not from your time. I tend to think and speak the way I did in life. My way of speaking then was a little different from yours today. For instance, you may have noticed I use both the word you and ye a lot. Well, back then many of us did that. It sort of livened the sound of our speech.

Sad to say, but you kids are no longer taught the same words, nor even the same values, we once were. A lot has been changed, and I can’t say it’s all been for the better. Robert mournfully shook his head for a couple seconds then he snapped out of it. "But, anyway, it’s not a problem; I’ll just make an extra effort from now on to talk to you in a way you will understand.

Basically, what I said a minute ago was I’ve been judging what type person you are. Acknowledging the corn" was a slang expression we had back then for confessing to a wrong, and before I could do any confessing to you I needed to be sure you could handle it. There are people out there who are unworthy of what I have to ask. Happily, I can now state you were not found to be unworthy. I must say you accounted well for yourself upon the field known as Fists of Blood.

Now, be that as it may, Cruncher, I have a tale to tell you, and you are free to relate it to anybody you wish, but, be warned, few if any will believe you. As long as you understand what that means I will continue.

I said I got the message and Robert started his story.

Cruncher, I was killed in this very room back in 1865. The irony is, I had just returned from having fought in the Civil War for over four long years. To survive all that, and then be killed here on the same day I returned safe from it all still upsets me.

Robert went on to explain this wasn’t his room but the room of a fair young maiden. He said her name was Mary. Her father caught him there that night and shot him dead. I asked why her father would do that, but Robert said it wasn’t important.

"What is important, Cruncher, is what was done before I went off to fight. I committed a terrible wrong, and I feel I must set it right. I cannot leave until it has been resolved, gol-dern it! Now, I’m sure you’ll want to know where I will go if this gets put to right, but I must tell you straight out that is knowledge neither you nor any other living person may have. It is enough for you to know I must fix my sin, and I will need your help."

I nodded to show I understood, and then I spun my finger in a circle to tell him to speed it up and get to the point.

"Okay, Cruncher, here’s the main story. I’d had a partner, since long before the war started, named Charlie Cooper, and one day Charlie and I decided it would