Our Ghost Adventures

“Are you feeling okay, baby?” Zak asked me in a whispered tone as we stood, waiting to be let into Kings Island so we could begin our lockdown.

“I’m fine,” I assured him, looking up and meeting his eyes. I noticed his eyes move to where my shirt failed to cover my shoulder. I pulled at my shirt nervously and pulled his jacket (still the GAC one) closer around me.

“I really didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered. “I wish I could take it back and…”

“Shh,” I told him, taking his face in my hands. “I’m not mad at you and I don’t blame you for something you did in your sleep,” I pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. “I’ve handled a lot worse bumps and bruises.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea to send Ariel with Aaron?” I got the sense that he noticed that she was more jumpy than everyone else. I was glad for the subject change though. I knew it wasn’t his fault. Nightmares did things to people…I was sure I’d probably hit a few people that had woke me up.

“I think they’ll be okay. I’m more worried about Molly and Nick...She’s more susceptible to stuff than me at times. I’m just thankful that this isn’t Bobby Mackey’s.”

“Nothing demonic is known to be here, is it?” he asked me. I shook my head.
“No. I haven’t heard any of that. Tower Johnny and the girl in the blue dress are the most heard of ones. There’s a cemetery that I want you to come with me to later.”

“Cemetery? Why didn’t they show us that yesterday?” Tim was supposed to give us a full tour, but apparently he had other plans, I was kind of shocked that he’d left that out, but maybe he was supposed to show it to us.

“Maybe the owners of the park told him not to…Luckily I’ve been there a few times. We should all go back there.”

“Aaron’s Vlog!” Aaron exclaimed from the far side away from us. He was running towards us with Ariel in tow. “I am here with Zak, Adri, Billy, Nick, and some of Adri’s best friends; Ariel, Molly, and Ellie. They have done ghost hunts with Adri before and are going to be helping us while we investigate Kings Island! We did our walk through yesterday and we’re now prepared to finally begin! Are you ready?”

“As soon as Tim gets here,” I added.

“Yeah, as soon as the Kings Island worker gets here,” Zak agreed.

“Lemme tell you, for being May, Ohio is fucking cold,” I shivered, pulling Zak’s jacket closer to me.

“Ohio is always cold,” Molly said. “Thanks, Adri, now I have to be outside all night in it!”

“It’s not my fault,” I told her. We had a childish argument until Tim finally arrived. We were let into the park and stood right beyond the gates before the grand fountains. The Eiffel Tower was beyond the fountains and there were tons of different places to go. “So who’s going where?” Everybody pointed their cameras at me. “Am I leading again?” I asked with a sigh. I received a chorus of yeses in response. I sighed.

“Alright, Molly why don’t you and Nick try to talk to Tower Johnny, Ariel and Aaron you two can go like where The Beast is-people have claimed to see stuff back in the wooded area, and Ellie and Billy you two should go over by the Viking Ship is because there’s said to be evidence there. Zak, you and me should go look for the little girl in the blue dress.”

“What time should we meet back here, boss woman?” Nick asked.

“Threeish. I think we need to go back and investigate the cemetery back there, you guys know the one-where we went in High School a couple of times?” I directed that question at my friends. They all nodded in response.

“Okay guys, you heard Adri, meet back here at 3,” Zak said. “Don’t get lost…This place can’t be that big. If you see an X cam that needs turned on, go a head and do it.”

“I can’t promise we’re going to catch anything here,” I told Zak as we made our way through all of the kiddy rides. “But thank you for this…”

“Anything for your birthday,” he said kissing my head. “Here, by the way.”

“You remembered?” I asked in shock, taking the box from his hand.

“Of course I remembered my own fiancée’s birthday. What kind of future husband do you think I am?” We hadn’t done much for Zak’s birthday, I made him dinner at his house, I bought him a new hat-a custom made one that had the GAC symbol on it, and we watched Dracula. I hadn’t seen it before, but I fell in love with the movie. “Open your present,” he instructed.
I opened the little box, inside was a bracelet, one of those Pandora bracelets with all of the charms and beads that you were supposed to add later, but mine was full.

“This charm I had custom made,” he said picking up one that looked just like the tattoo on his arm. It was the one with the Celtic cross in a coffin, his own GAC symbol. There were so many charms and so many different beads and oh my God, I wished that I didn’t have to do a lockdown right now! I wanted to be like a child and examine my new toy!

“This is awesome, I love it so much! I just want to stare it and see all of the amazing charms you put on here, but we have to get moving. I love you, so, so much, you’re the best fiancé ever.” I jumped up and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Okay, lockdown time. You’re my co-worker, not my fiancé. Let’s move on,” I took a deep breath and had to be professional now.

***

After spending about an hour and not getting anything, Zak and I continued to walk around a little while more. He was about to say something, but I reached out and grabbed his arm, shushing him. “Did you see that?” I asked.

“See what?”

“There was a light over that way,” I said pointing over to the area where I knew Diamondback to be. There was a light at the top of the 230 foot hill.

“I didn’t see anything,” he replied.

“I think I got it on film, hold on-keep filming up there though, it could happen again and we could debunk it…” I rewound the film on my camera and pulled up the last few seconds of film. “Right there!” I exclaimed.

He looked at the camera and watched as there was a quick flash of light. “Did you hear that whisper?” he asked. “Back it up again.”

I did and we listened carefully to the audio. “Play…”

“It just said play!” he exclaimed.

“Whoa!” I said happily. “Start an EVP session.”

He pulled out his digital recorder and we began pacing a little bit. I kept my camera pointed at him. “Did somebody want us to play?” he asked, pausing a few seconds. “What is your name? Are you the little girl in the blue dress?” Pause. “What happened to you? Did you die here?”

I wasn’t feeling like there was anything around here, so I was looking around a little bit and I was trying to see something…anything.

“I don’t think I got anything, but let’s play it back,” Zak said. He turned the recorder back on and pressed play. “Did somebody want us to play?” his voice asked.
“Games…” a response came.

“What is your name?”

“Louisa…”

“Are you the little girl in the blue dress?”

Nothing.

“What happened to you? Did you die here?”

I guessed that was it.

“Well, at least now we can put a name to the face,” I said happily. “People have seen her and now we know that her name is Louisa.”

***

As planned, we went back to the cemetery at nearly three. I turned to Nick and Molly as we were walking.

“Y’all were up in the Eiffel Tower the whole time, weren’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” they both said.

“Well…Did you see lights at all? Like out in the darkness? Or use lights maybe?”

“I didn’t turn any lights on,” Molly said. “I didn’t see anything either…”

“That’s really weird,” Zak said. “We were trying to communicate with the little girl in the blue dress and there were these lights and it was only after that that we started getting EVPs.”

“Hm…”

“We got some creepy knocking over by The Beast,” Ariel said. “And there were sticks breaking in the woods.”

“Are you sure that it wasn’t an animal?” I asked.

“We looked all around and didn’t see one…But we can’t be sure,” Aaron said. “It sounded too big though.”

“You’d be surprised. We have some big ass deer around here,” I said.

“I don’t think it was a deer, Adri,” Ariel said. “I heard talking but we didn’t catch it on film…”

“Okay, well we can look at it all later,” I said. Maybe they did find something. But the guys always tried to debunk things on the spot and that’s what I wanted to do.

We arrived at the cemetery a short while later and right away, Zak pulled me off in a search to find Louisa’s grave. Maybe she had one out here, since she didn’t die in the park.

“If she is out here, what are you going to do?” I asked.

“Pay my respects. No child should be left to haunt this world. If the most innocent of us all cannot get to move on to the afterlife, what hope is there for the rest of us?” It was so beautifully put; it almost brought tears to my eyes. Zak was so poetic and well versed, I loved it. It made him that much more of a romantic.

“That’s a good idea; she deserves that at the very least…” Sadly, we didn’t find a single headstone that said Louisa on it. I frowned and I could tell that Zak was kind of bummed out about it too. “C’mere,” I said. I used my LCD screen to find my way over to some wild growing flowers. I used the hair tie that was on my wrist to tie a bouquet together. “Louisa, sweetheart,” I called out. I couldn’t very well leave the flowers where we saw her, since there would be staff in here in the morning. I handed the bouquet off the Zak and he smiled at me.

“We’re leaving these just for you, honey,” he said gently. Maybe it was the fact that we were going to have a child of our own very soon or maybe it was just in his nature, but I found it so heartwarming that he wanted to pay his respects to a ghost that had spoke to us for just a moment. “I hope that you’re able to move on to the afterlife and that you don’t stay stuck here…” We walked over to a small tree and he set the flowers down. We both stood for a minute, letting the cameras film the place we had left for Louisa alone. I leaned my head on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around my middle. “C’mon, let’s get back to them.”

“Alright,” I agreed. I could tell that he was feeling it too; we both had this overwhelming feeling of sadness washing over us. I wasn’t sure why now…But I felt so sad…I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t…I just couldn’t break down now.

“Maybe we should try taking some pictures,” Ellie suggested. Now I felt like we were that group of teenagers again, out here to just goof around. “It worked last time…”

“I forgot all about that,” I said. I wasn’t myself still. I could practically hear Zak doing his voice over now, ‘though we tried to go back to our investigation, our thoughts still lingered with the little girl we’d heard from’. Except when he said it for real, it would come out much better. “Did you happen to bring those photos?”

“Yeah, right here,” she pulled the stack out of her coat pocket and handed them to me. Zak examined them along with me, using flashlights.

“That was you?” he asked.

“Half my life ago now…” I said. I was sixteen in the picture that he was looking at. My blonde hair was shoulder length and I still had my bangs. I was wearing a pair of shorts and a white tank top as I stood in front of a headstone.

“Wow, look at that!” he pointed out the fuzzy figure behind me with flowing light colored hair.

“There’s a different one in each of my photos…” I said. Slowly, he sifted through the photos and I looked at his face in awe.

“You really are the ghost magnet, aren’t you?” he laughed. But his laughter ceased when he got to one in particular. It made both of our hearts drop.

There was a shadow man standing in the place of the fuzzy loo woman. He was just watching me with his eyeless face. Unlike the rest of the photos, I wasn’t smiling. I had a look of discomfort as I looked over my opposite shoulder.