Our Ghost Adventures

We had two episodes to film and then we’d go home for Thanksgiving and then we’d be on the road again from December 1st to the 21st we would do three more lockdowns. Ariel had quickly agreed to coming with us. She quit her job a few weeks back anyway. Things with her and Aaron were moving quickly, she had planned on moving to Vegas to live with him. As we had months before, we were loading up the RV and getting ready to leave once again. Gracie and Muffin would be with us as well-we couldn’t leave out dogs at home! They’d miss us! Both dogs loved Lorelei; they had licked her face and hands since day one-two weeks ago.

“Hey Adri, look,” Zak said. I turned around and saw Zak holding Lorelei, she was wearing a tiny jacket that looked just like the one that Zak had that said GAC on it and had a little Bagans name tag on the front.

“Aww,” I said. He was wearing his jacket-that I had formerly stolen and this was the first time he’d worn it since we’d been together. I didn’t mention that she would grow out of the jacket in no time because it was too cute right now to even worry about that. “I want a picture of this,” I grinned, pulling out my phone. Zak had a hat on and his black framed glasses. After I took the picture I put the phone back in my pocket.

“I got you a present too,” he said with a smile.

“Is it a sexy ghost hunter?” I asked with a smirk, taking a step closer to him.

“Mm, if you play your cards right,” he said. “But other than that, I got you something else. Take Lorelei.” I took the baby from his arms and he jogged back into house. I walked up into the RV with a sleeping Lorelei and took her to the back bedroom where we’d put the carrier part of her car seat. “Babe?” Zak called. I turned around quickly and saw him holding a box with a big bow on top of it. He handed it to me and I pulled the bow off before opening the large box. I grinned hugely upon seeing my surprise.

“I love you,” was all I could manage before I pressed a big kiss on Zak’s lips.

“Now you won’t have to steal mine,” he laughed. I pulled the plastic off and opened my brand new jacket that matched Zak’s. “See, it even has ‘Bagans’ on it already. So you won’t have to change it when we do get married.”

“Smart thinkin’,” I laughed. “We’ve still got to discuss when we’re going to do that…”

“And where.”

“Where? As in like venue or…”

“State, beachfront, in a church, outside…Whatever you want,” he replied.

“What if I said I wanted to get married in France?”

“Then I’d say let’s go. But, you don’t. You think that Paris is over rated as being the city of love, don’t you.” I eyed him carefully. He knew me too well.

“How the hell did you know that?”

“You seem like the type. I knew the Valentine’s Day proposal was too cliché, but I couldn’t think of anything else…”

“Zak, that was the sweetest and most amazing proposal I’ve ever heard anywhere. Even the most romantic romance movie couldn’t have done it better. Nicholas Sparks couldn’t have written it better himself!”

“You didn’t think it was cliché?”

“No! It was perfect.” I said, kissing him again.

“Oh God, this is what I was dreading,” Aaron said in a joking tone walking onto the RV.

“Shut up Aaron,” I said, pushing his shoulder. “I feel bad for Nick, between Zak and I and you and Ariel, he’s going to want to kill us all.”

“We’re not that bad,” Zak said. “It’s those two that I’m worried about.”

“Who two? What?” Ariel asked, getting in the RV.

***

We were on the road a short while later. Zak was driving with me in the passenger seat. “So where are we going? Somewhere…fun?”

“We are going to Albuquerque, New Mexico for an old abandoned hospital.”

“Oh, I haven’t been in one of those with y’all yet …” I tailed off.

“I love it when you say y’all. It’s so cute,” Zak cooed with his smile that I loved.

“I don’t say it that much, do I?” I asked. It was kind of a dialect thing.

“No but when you do, I think it’s adorable.”

“I feel like I sound like such a hillbilly around y’all…I say things weird…” I consciously added the “y’all” part just for him.

“No you don’t,” he assured me. “You’re perfect.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“Then you’re pretty damn close,” he reached over and took my hand in his, kissing it. Behind me, I heard the small cry of a baby. I pulled my hand from his and undid my seatbelt before getting up to get Lorelei. She was in her car seat buckled into one of the stationary chairs. “And babe,” Zak said from the driver seat still. As I picked up Lorelei, I looked over at him.

“What?”

“Things are gonna be different this season, we've got a new visual tech to help Billy, his name is Jay.”

“When's he gonna be here?”

“He's meeting us there.”

“Oh.”

***

“Bagans!” I called, we were in a store and I could hear Nick and Aaron giggling behind me. I shushed them as Zak peaked his head around the corner. He was looking at something while Nick, Aaron, and I were in the toy section, shopping for trigger objects for tonight. He walked around the shelf and started to come towards me. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

“Yeah?” he asked, a puzzled look on his face. It was only when Nick and Aaron jumped out at him from their hiding places with their clown masks on did his face change to fear as he screamed. Big, tough, muscle-y, Zak Bagans actually screamed over freaking clown masks! “Adrina McMurphy I'm going to get you for that one!” he exclaimed.

“I didn't do it, it was them!” I said. We then began acting like little kids as he chased me around the store. I was laughing the whole time, as was he, but our fun ended abruptly. A store manager walked up and stopped us.

“Either walk like normal people or you two are going to banned for life!” the annoyed man with graying brown hair exclaimed. I took a step back, closer to Zak.

“Maybe you should watch your tone a little bit, man,” he said, jumping on the defensive.

“I don't have time for you and your whatever the hell she is! I've got a job to do and you're disturbing our customers!”

“Hey Zak!” Aaron exclaimed, throwing a rubber snake at the other man's head. Nick and Aaron died laughing as Zak just turned and glared. I made a motion for them to stop as used my eyes to point out the manager, who was now fuming.

“Okay, the four of you! Get our of my store, now!”

“Can we just buy our stuff first?” Zak said.

Before I could protest about not wanting to give our business to this place, the manager had to open his big mouth again. “No! Get out!”

“Fine,” Zak dropped the few items he had and everyone else followed suit. I didn't have anything, so I just followed them back outside.

“You okay?” I asked him, resting my hand on his shoulder. He seemed to not hear me, but after a moment he nodded and let out a breath.

“Yeah, we'll just go to another store,” he gave me a half smile, I could tell something was wrong, but I let it slide. If I needed to know, he'd tell me.

“Okay, that's fine with me.” We all got into the van—Billy, Jay, Ariel, and Lorelei were with the RV back at the campsite that we'd gotten.

Zak drove, I got in the passenger seat, while Nick and Aaron sat in the seats behind us. “Aaron's Vlog,” Aaron said holding up his phone. “We're in New Mexico for a lockdown and we just got banned from walmart!” he laughed. “It was their fault,” though I couldn't see him, I knew that he was pointing the phone at Zak and me.

“Only because that manager was an asshole,” I said. “We were just messing around, like always.”

“Yeah, that guy was an ass, so now we have to go pick up trigger objects somewhere else,” Zak added.

***

We arrived at the old hospital a short while later—after picking up trigger objects that was. We would do our walkthrough today and do the lockdown tomorrow. I was excited to be back, that was for sure. I had been away from all of this for far too long.

Upon looking at the vast brick building with a large, heavy looking door, boarded up windows, and different vines/ivy growing up its sides, I felt a little uneasy. It was as if I could already feel the energy from this place. I hadn’t even stepped out of the car and I could feel my stomach churning unpleasantly, there was something dark here. I hadn’t read up on it and I hadn’t asked Zak about the place yet, and now I wished that I had. Something unfortunate and unforgettable had happened here, I knew it.

“Our first interview is with one of the previous workers—Lucile. She worked here for all twenty years this place was in operation. She was even here on the day of the mass murder,” Zak told the three of us while we awaited Lucile’s arrival.

“Wait, what mass murder?” I asked.

“In ’75 the doors opened here for the last time because some guy by the name of Oliver Whitmore came in and decided to get rid of all of the patents here. He wasn’t alone, there were a few other people with him, but he ended up shooting them too...”

“What!? Why on earth would somebody do such a thing?” I asked, stunned. Zak just shrugged with a grim face. I could tell that he didn’t like this either.

“Nobody really knows. He got his hands on a gun and just decided that the hospital was the best place to practice his shooting…It is believed that he planned this with the others involved weeks in advance.””

“That just doesn’t make any sense…”

A little blue car pulled up and we got out, assuming it was Lucile. As soon as my feet touched the ground, my heart hurt. It got worse once we followed the short woman in her 70’s with gray hair. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. It was like I could hear the screams of pain and horror from those patents here. I could hear Zak speaking to the woman but it was like I was underwater, I was some place else right now. I wasn’t in the hospital in 2013 but it was 1975 again.

“Hold up a sec, guys,” Zak said. “Adri, are you okay?” I felt his hand on my shoulder but I couldn’t speak. There was so much going on around me. “Adrina, what’s wrong?” His thumbs wiped the tears from my cheeks and I finally came back to being myself. I shook it off and nodded to him.

“Yeah…This place just has a lot of energy. I can almost feel them…still here. Living, breathing, screaming for there lives Zak…I don’t know what’s going on. I just know that we’re in for one hell of a lockdown.”