Our Ghost Adventures

“Ariel…I know it’s been a while…But we’re going to be there very soon…” It had been a few months since Ireland. Carlin had come home and made a full recovery. She had been so happy about the engagement and she loved Zak. But now it was May, three months later, and we were headed to Ohio from our previous lockdown in Mississippi.

We were actually pulling into my driveway as I spoke to her. In three days time we’d have our lockdown at King’s Island. I needed to call in reinforcements, which included my friends. That place was too damn big for just the five of us (counting Billy) to investigate. So, we would need eight, at least.

“Adrina, I’m so sorry,” she replied. “I was jealous. But now you’re getting married and you’re pregnant…and I’m just so happy for you.”

When Zak and I had gone and gotten the most recent ultrasound done he had posted the picture on twitter.

Zak Bagans @Zak_Bagans
My baby, I can’t wait to meet you on October 27.

He had been great these last few months. He was getting more and more excited by the day and he had even been trying to settle my odd cravings as easily as possible. Hell, his mother had even warmed up to me, HIS MOTHER! I thought that Elise had hated me, but as it turns out, she just wanted to be sure that I was going to be good for her son and she was so excited to be a grandmother yet again.

“It’s good to hear that you’re happy for me. Zak thinks it’s a girl, but we won’t know for a few more months…”

“Here’s your mashed potatoes, honey,” Zak said walking into the bedroom with a bowl.

“Aw, thanks,” I said taking a big spoonful and eating eat. “They’re good too!”

“I put cheese in them, just like you like.” I’d said I wanted mashed potatoes like fifteen minutes ago and then he’d disappeared. Gracie and Muffin walked in behind him and hopped up on the bed, each of them after my mashed potatoes.

“Nope,” I told the dogs, holding up the bowl. “Ariel, just come meet us at King’s Island tomorrow at noon, I’ve got some mashed potatoes to eat-oh and tell the girls.”

“Okay, bye girl.” I hung the phone off and ate a big spoonful of the delicious mashed potatoes.

“Y’know I never thought that seeing anybody stuff their face with a bunch of food would be so hot,” Zak laughed, lying down next to me.

“Oh yeah?” I giggled, eating more of the mashed potatoes. They were so good!

“Mm,” he grinned. “I love you so much, baby, and you,” he touched my stomach gently. “Sweetheart this is your daddy,” he murmured against my tummy. “I just want you to hurry up and get here so that I can love you and hug you and kiss your little head…and…”

“If I were you, I’d never come out,” I told the baby in my stomach with a giggle. “He’s just going to smother you with love and affection.”

“No, maybe not smother,” Zak said with the most dreamy look on his face.

“We should get in the house, so that I can show everybody around,” I told him before things could get serious. Now we were on my turf, my how town, my house. I could be the one to show all of them around and teach them the ways of my culture. Okay, now I was making bad jokes; too long around the guys, far too long. When we walked out into the main part of the RV, Aaron already had his phone up.

“Aaron’s Vlog!” he exclaimed. “Here comes a pregnant Adrina and a Zak that looks to be getting pregnant himself,” Aaron joked. Zak hadn’t been working out as much as he had before, but he wasn’t even chubby by any means. Although I was kind of liking his facial hair thing he had going on.

“Oh shut it, Aaron,” I said. “He made me mashed potatoes, leave him alone.”

“Oo, mashed potatoes, does that make up for him making you fat?” he was just joking, but I gasped anyway.

“She’s not fat!” Zak exclaimed pulling me to his side.

“Yeah, I’m pregnant, what’s your excuse?”

“Oh, that one hurt,” he grabbed his chest and looked actually wounded.

“Besides, the mashed potatoes have cheese in them,” I stuck my tongue out at him and led the way into my one-story ranch style house.

***

I walked in the living room because I could hear speaking. It was late-or early, 4am, as I made my way in there from my own bedroom. The room was completely dark, only to be illuminated by the flickering screen of the television. To find my way over there, I turned on my lamp at the end of the hall where it branched off into the living room. I could see Zak, passed out in the recliner chair, leaned all the way back. He didn’t look comfortable. His face was contorted to a frown and his brow was knitted tightly to the point where his faced was scrunched up. Tiny whimpers were coming from his throat and I felt the urge to wake him up. I knew that he’d been having a terrible time sleeping lately, every since Ireland. Aaron was in one of the guest rooms and Billy was in the other while Nick was asleep on the couch.

“Zak,” I touched his thigh lightly, hoping he would wake up easily. “Zak, wake up,” I said a little louder. He still didn’t budge. I leaned closer to him and gave his thigh a gentle squeeze, hoping to wake him from his restless slumber.

He gasped loudly and I felt a quick pain to my shoulder and collar bone. I gasped and cursed under my breath. His hand dropped before his eyes opened and he looked up at me with his dark blue eyes. “Adrina? What time is it?” he asked.

“Nearly four. C’mon, why don’t you come to bed? It’s late.” He’d sat out here because I had been going to bed earlier, and earlier thanks to the pregnancy.

“I can stay out here. Go back to bed…” he said. I could tell by the tone of his voice that that wasn’t what he wanted to do. He didn’t like leaving me alone at any given time…I didn’t understand why now, he did.

“Nope, c’mon,” I tugged at his hand and pulled him to his feet (as best I could) and we both went back to my room.

***Zak’s POV***

I loved waking up with Adrina curled up against me. She was so warm and she always slept peacefully. I looked down at her sleeping form, and wanted to kiss her. I ran her my hand up her arm and noticed something that hadn’t been there before. A hand print; the palm and the top of the fingers were on her shoulder and there was the clear imprint of a thumb on her collar bone. I flinched when I noticed the fact that it was the exact size of my own hand.

Right away, I had to get up. I couldn’t stand to be lying there with her there and me being the one that put my hand on her…I had hurt her...I had physically abused her. I felt like I was going to be sick…I couldn’t believe that I hurt her.

“Zak, honey, where are you going?” Adrina asked in a soft mumble. I didn’t have the courage to look back at her I fled from the room and walked down the hall and out the front door. I walked out into the RV and sat on the couch. “Honey,” I hadn’t heard her walk in, but I did flinch away when her fingers touched my scalp. “What’s the matter? Why are you being so jumpy today?”

Deciding to just tell her, I sighed. “I hurt you, Adrina.” I reached up and gently touched her shoulder where the hand print was. She took my hand in hers when my finger tips brushed her skin. She gave me a smile.

“Zak, you didn’t hurt me. It doesn’t even hurt,” she looked at me with nothing but trust in her eyes. It only made things worse.

“You have a huge fucking bruise on your shoulder! I did that! Me! I’m the only that caused it…”

“Not on purpose. You were asleep and I woke you from a nightmare. It’s nothing that won’t heal.”

“How can you even forgive me for this?”

“Because you’re freaking out about it and if I’m mad at you for it, you’ll only beat yourself up even more. I care about you too much to let you hurt yourself like that, so just forget it and I’ll make some breakfast. My friends should be here around noonish.”

I couldn’t draw my eyes away from her shoulder even after I nodded and followed her into the house. She was my pregnant fiancée and I’d actually bruised her. One thing that I had promised myself that I would never do was to lay my hand on any woman or child. And now I’d broken that promise.

“Zak, stop,” she said, her voice a warning tone. “I’m really fine, just come help me.”

***Adrina’s POV***

We served the boys breakfast and then went to do our walkthrough at King’s Island. For Zak’s sake, I wore his GAC jacket to cover up my shoulder. He didn’t need to be staring at the ugly bruise there anymore than the viewers needed to see it. One of the workers was walking around, telling us about Tower Johnny and the little girl in the blue dress. I knew all of these stories. I was just marveling at seeing everything so…empty. My favorite rides weren’t running, there wasn’t a sea of people roaming throughout the park…It was so strange. We walked through the area for kids and I noticed the strange and eerie feeling I got when I walked past the area that would lead us to their water park. My head snapped to the right when I heard giggling.

“Shh, sh, did you hear that?” Zak asked the rest of the group, looking around. “I swear to you I just heard giggling…Is there anybody else in the park?”

“I heard the giggling too,” I spoke up.

“I believe you just met the little girl in the blue dress,” Tim, the guide told us.

***

As planned, Ariel and the other girls met us at the front gates around noon. Today was strictly planning. We needed time to set up the cameras in a location this large. They were absolutely giddy with excitement. The first thing they did when they saw me was pull me into a large group hug.

“Oh my God, you’re glowing!” Ellie exclaimed, referring to my pregnancy. “You look so beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I laughed.

“Let me see the ring!” Molly said, taking my left hand in hers and examining the ring.

“That’s gorgeous!” Ariel said.

After that, we piled into the GAC van and drive to the Mexican restaurant down the street. Once we were seated and inside, we all sat around a table and discussed our plans for the lockdown, scheduled for tomorrow night.

“Personally, I think we should split off into pairs of two,” I said. “My group with yours,” I was meaning myself, Molly, Ellie, and Ariel each be paired with one of the guys. “We all know this place very well and it’ll prevent any of us from getting lost.”

“That’s not a bad idea, ‘cause that place was huge,” Aaron said. “I don’t think we’ve ever investigated a place so big before…”

“We haven’t,” Nick agreed. “And you know Aaron, always getting lost.”

“Sadly, he’s right,” Aaron said, hanging his head in mock shame.

“So who do you suggest for pair, Adri?” Zak asked. “Since you’re probably the only one that knows all of us well enough to determine that.”

“Well…” I didn’t really know. “Ariel and Aaron, for sure,” strategically, that wasn’t the best move. They both scared easily, but I figured that the viewers may enjoy seeing the closest thing to a female Aaron we could get. “Molly and Nick,” Molly, like me had always had more extreme connections to the afterlife. We’d both had experiences even as children. “So that leaves Ellie with Billy and me with Zak.” Sure, I did want to spend my night with Zak. He was my fiancé and we worked well together.

“See I knew where this was going,” Ariel said with a wily look on her face. “You just want to be alone in the dark with Zak.”

“No, the last time I picked who went where, I went solo, put Zak with Nick, and Aaron by himself. This is more strategic,” I told her, partially sticking my tongue out.

“Yeah, she and Zak have plenty of alone time,” Nick said, sending Zak and me a look. I was kind of surprised he was siding with me. He usually didn’t.

***

We all ended up going back to my house to hang out. I made dinner and we all sat in the living room watching TV. Ariel was controlling the remote, and I guessed out of habit she turned on Ghost Adventures.

“I haven’t seen this one yet!” She exclaimed after hitting info. The one that we’d filmed in Ireland was just now airing.

“Oh my God,” I hated watching myself on camera now. I didn’t watch the show anymore because I’d seen or experienced every episode.

“We don’t need to watch it,” Ellie said. “They’re all right here in our living room!”

“Yeah but I haven’t actually watched it yet! And, this is the one that Adri actually leads.”

“You don’t see much of me in this episode,” I said. I remembered having them cut everything with Aidan in his bedroom. It was kind of selfish, when I thought about it. But what was I supposed to do? I didn’t want the whole world seeing me like that. Everything that Aidan said was caught on the digital recorder.”

“Yeah, this place didn’t have too much evidence,” Zak said. “There were footsteps and all that noise, but nothing really remarkable.”

“Fine,” Ariel relinquished the remote back to me. I was sitting on the couch next to Zak, with his arm around me, Molly was to my left, Nick to her left and Ellie after her. Billy sat in the recliner that Zak had fallen asleep in the night before, and Ariel and Aaron sat on the floor, to further prove the point that they were the most childish of the group.

“Thanks,” I said, channel flipping. “How about something scary?” I suggested.

“No!” Ellie protested right away. She had a severe hatred for scary movies.

“Don’t be such a wimp,” I told her. “Tomorrow we’re going to be locked inside of King’s Island; I think that’ll be like living in a scary movie! You’ll have to get over it sometime,” I meant that with love, I really did. It just didn’t sound like I did, but I loved all of my friends, and once you’d known a person for so long, you could say anything and they would understand.

“Well, that some time is not now!” she replied. “Something funny,” she begged.

“Like what?” I asked. “Actually, I’m going to go make popcorn, y’all can pick something.”

“I’ll help you with the popcorn,” Zak said following me to the kitchen. I went to open the cabinet where I kept the popcorn, but it was above my head and Zak did it for me. “You need to avoid that, remember?” Of course I did. He had been to every doctor’s appointment and check up with me. He was always looking into this stuff and being incredibly cautious.

“Yeah,” I sighed. It was nice to have the super tall fiancé though. He could do all of this stuff, and he was willing to do so too. “So after this episode, where are we going?”

“Well, Travel wants us to film a promo in New York, but…After I don’t know. We can go back to Vegas, or we could hang around here for a while. We don’t have any more lockdowns until August…And I still need to schedule those.”

“We can cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess,” I replied.