Hello @rayt2,
I read this story the other day and liked it a lot. At the time I didn't pay particular attention to the 'hook', but you have a great one there.
On that fateful night, something happened in Aroma that caused the whole city to panic.
Tell me more!!That's what readers will be thinking. That line does pull us in. You do this seamlessly. The line blends with the rest of the story, which is driven along by the narrator's insistence, "Tell me more, Grandma".
The whole thing is perfectly creepy, even down to the hunt for old newspapers, and the unevenly decomposing bodies.
Great ghost story!