She marked the list on her clipboard. “I’m Doreen. You’re alone, right?”

I felt it accutely. “Right.”

“Just go ahead and find a seat in the van out front.”

I walked back outside. The small group I’d passed on the way in was now seated inside the van. The van’s door was wide open.

There were five of us in the group: a young, fresh-faced couple who, from their glassy-eyed expressions, I guessed to be honeymooners, occupied half the front bench, and two women in their mid fifties sat in the middle row.

The driver was a thin, thirtyish man with a face shadowed with stubble. Even though it was already getting dark he wore Ray-Ban aviators, and he looked a little like Richard Petty, the former NASCAR champion. His head was bowed as he was evidently playing a game on his cell phone.

“Good evening,” I said as I climbed into the vehicle. Only the ladies greeted me back. The driver was fixated on his phone and the couple was still fixated on each other, oblivious to all other life on the planet. I squeezed through to the backseat of the van.

A few minutes later, Doreen poked her head in through the front passenger window. “We’re waiting for one more.”

The driver grunted and scratched his face, but still didn’t look up. About two minutes later Doreen returned. She was standing next to an elderly gentleman who wore a flat cap and gray sweater and carried a black, metal-tipped cane.

“There you are, Mr. Lewis,” Doreen said. “I’ll take your cane. Watch your step.”

Mr. Lewis was probably in his mid to late eighties, gray and bent with age. He struggled to climb up into the front row, sitting next to the honeymooners. Doreen helped him fasten his seat belt, then slid the side door shut and climbed into the front passenger seat. When she was settled, she turned around and smiled at us.

“Welcome, everyone, to haunted Hannibal. I have been guiding this tour for nearly twelve years now, and let me tell you, in those years I’ve seen some amazing things. Rest assured, your experiences on this tour are your own. We don’t judge the validity of your encounters, we just accept and let things happen. Most of all, you’re going to have a good time.

“Our first stop tonight is rife with paranormal activity: the Old Baptist Cemetery.” She turned to the driver. “Let’s go.”

The driver put down his phone, then looked over his shoulder and pulled out into the quiet, vacant street.

The cemetery was about five minutes from our pickup point and the last of the day’s light was gone when the van stopped. Doreen and the driver helped Mr. Lewis out of the van, then the rest of us followed.