Our Ghost Adventures

“Miss McMurphy,” one of the head people from the Travel Channel said. I looked up from where I was staring at the table. Zak was doing most of the talking, even though all the while we were sitting close and his hand was on my thigh, distracting me of course. Nick and Aaron were on the other side of the table, being quiet like I was.

Rather than meeting in some restaurant, we were in a big building on the 30th floor. There was a large window from floor to ceiling to my right and the table in front of me was black marble with glass over top of it.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Sign in all of the necessary places, please,” he said, handing me paper and a pen. I took it from him and quickly skimmed over the text before me. I didn’t want to sign anything that I didn’t know what it was. “I have to say, you’re already getting your own little fan base,” the man with blonde hair said.

“I am?” my eyebrow rose in confusion.

“Yeah, they’ve created you a fan page…And our male viewers 16-45 doubled, I think it’s thanks to you.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that,” Zak murmured close to me, so only my ears caught it. I swatted his arm that was one my leg under the table.

I didn’t know how I felt about that either. Zak was one of those guys that girls swooned over and I knew that. I could accept Zak being the only that people freaked out over…I didn’t want to have a fan base…let alone kids and old men.

“Good,” I said nonchalantly to the blonde. He passed out the other three contracts and I noticed that mine was for the next five years and I was even getting a pay raise, not that I had even spent mine from before. All I did was pay my mortgage and for Muffin’s dog food. Zak wouldn’t let me pay for anything while we were out on the road.
“Is yours for five years too?” I whispered to Zak. He nodded. “Hmm…” Well I’ve got a guaranteed job…

“And, I don’t know if they told you before, Miss McMurphy, but you are covered under our insurance, and if anything were to happen on the job, we cover any and all medical expenses,” I nodded numbly. It had been years since I stepped into a hospital and I didn’t plan on doing again any time soon.

***

It was January 6th, and we were about to leave in the RV for the first time. Nick had flown back to Vegas with us and I was going to pick up my stuff when we drove through Ohio in the RV. The big black vehicle sat in Zak’s driveway as we finished loading everything into it-food, movies, and our bags. Zak and I were going to share one of the back bedrooms, while Nick and Aaron would have to flip a coin on who got the other room, and who got the pull out couch. We’d already argued about why Zak and I got the room, my defense was that we were sharing one room and there were two of us. Zak’s argument was that they didn’t want to see what we did in our spare time. And by now, Nick knew about Zak and me. He figured it out in New York just by the way we were talking to each other-or so he said. Personally, I think that Aaron tipped him off.

“Got everything?” I asked Zak as he walked out with a brown cardboard box in his arms.

“I think so.”

At that exact moment I noticed Gracie sitting pitifully in front of the glass down, simply pouting. She looked so sad, sure she knew when Zak was leaving by now, and she knew that he’d be back, but I’m sure that didn’t do anything to help the poor dog. I just wanted to take her with us. Hey! That gives me an idea!

“Zak…Can’t we take her with us?” I asked, looking to the dog. As if she’d heard what I said, her ears perked up and she stood, tail wagging.

“What’s she gonna do when we’re on lockdowns?” he countered. I could tell that he wanted her to go to…So I doubted that I’d have to do much convincing.

“Stay in the RV? And don’t even pull that whole ‘We’ll be in the care all day’ Aaron makes us stop roughly every two hours to stretch his legs anyway. She’ll be able to do her business then.”

“Alright, go get her, I’ll grab her stuff,” he gave in. I knew he wanted her to go too.

“Yay!” I ran to the door and opened it. Gracie stood there looking at me with her brown eyes; as if she was making sure it was okay. “C’mon Grace, you’re comin’ with us!” I said.

She darted out the door and ran in a big circle around the yard before zooming into the RV.

“Hey Zak, Gracie got out!” Aaron called from within the RV. I decided to go tell him that she was coming with us. So, I walked across the yard and stepped inside.

“She’s comin’ with us,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. I plopped down on the couch and stretched a bit, I’d been packing and loading for the past few hours now and I was kind of tired. “So, are you happy?”

“That we’re goin’ back out there? To hunt some more ghosts? Or something else?”

“With Zak I mean. You seem happy.”

“Of course I am. Does he seem happy?” I asked, feeling a little nervous… Nick and Aaron probably knew him better than anybody else in the world, so if he didn’t seem happy with me…I needed to know about it!

He turned and looked at me. The nerves in my stomach tightened, preparing for the worst. “Happier than he’s been in a long time.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, there’s not a doubt in my mind that he loves you. Adri, right after we met you, there was something that changed about him that made him the way you see him.”

“Is that-”

“Hey people, ready got get a move on?” Zak asked, walking into the house with his arms full of Gracie’s stuff.

“We’re just waiting on Nick,” I announced. Nick had ran back to Aaron’s house because he managed to somehow forget his cell phone.

“Okay, who’s driving first?” Zak asked, setting Gracie’s stuff down.

“Not you,” I said. “You’ve been up since 4:30 and you’re about to crash.” I could see that he was tired. He hadn’t bothered to do his hair or put his contacts in. But I didn’t mind seeing him with his glasses and flat hair, as I said before it made him look boyish, and I thought that he was cute. Although, now he was wearing a hat over his flat hair.

“I’m fine, I’ve had three cups of coffee,” he said, halfheartedly.

“Nope. C’mon,” I said, grabbing his hand and taking him to what would be our room. He stepped over the threshold of the small doorway and paused for a second.

“You need sleep too; you’ve been up since five helping me. Nick and Aaron didn’t even get here ‘til ten so I know that they go up a lot later.”

“No I-”

“C’mon, don’t be a hypocrite,” he said.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to go make sure that the house is all locked up, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed. “I love you,” he pressed a gentle and chaste kiss to my lips.

“Love you too.”

I exited the RV and went towards the house. I went inside and decided to in the hallway behind the stairs where there was Zak’s office and a bathroom. I walked into Zak’s office first, checked to make sure that he grabbed his phone charger and his computer charger, and made sure all the lighters were off. I walked into the bathroom yet, and all of the lights were off anyway. I closed the door and proceeded up the steps. I started at the end of the hall in Zak’s room. His bed was perfectly made from where we’d slept in it the night before, but the bathroom door was ajar and the light illuminated part of the bedroom. Walked across the room and into the bathroom, I nearly jumped out of my skin at what I saw…Whatever it was…it was dark, it looked like a shadow, but it was so tall too, it probably cleared seven foot. Instead of being brave or asking it a question, I ran. I ran out of the bathroom, leaving the light on, and ran out the front door. I arrived to the RV, panting.

“Adri, are you okay?” Aaron asked. I shook my head, holding back tears. “Should I get Zak?” I shook my head again, I didn’t want to make him angry at the entity and go try to provoke it…Whatever it was it was full of darkness and evil.

“What happened?” Nick asked.

“I was in the bathroom in Zak’s room because I saw that the light was on-I know that he turned it off-but I went to turn it off and there was this…this thing standing there...It was around seven foot, absolutely black and nothing but evil…I could feel it radiating throughout the room.” I noticed the two share a look. I grabbed Nick’s shoulder, because he was closest to me. “What are you not telling me?”

He took a deep breath and looked at me for a long moment. “I’m going to go shut off the lights,” Aaron said bravely. I think he just wanted out of this conversation though.

“Zak used to tell us about how he’d always see things in his house…He’d gotten it blessed countless times but he’d always seen the same things…Dark figures and different entities. But we thought that it stopped once you started staying with him. He hadn’t complained about it in weeks. But after you guys went to Bobby Mackey’s he started staying at Aaron’s while you were at your place. But when you came back…it was gone again…” Nick said.

“Then why would I see it?” I asked.

“That’s what makes no sense…”

“Guys, we should go,” Aaron said. “We’re losing daylight.”

When we did start to leave, I walked to the bedroom where Zak was sleeping. Instead of crawling in bed with him, where he was lying face down and fast asleep. I picked up both of our suit cases, and began unpacking both of them and fitting them into our dressers. I set Zak’s shaving/hair product case atop his dresser and put his empty suitcase under the bed.

I was feeling kind of tired now…and I couldn’t go to sleep in my jeans so I pulled a shirt from his drawer and striped my own off. It wasn’t like I had done this many times before, but this time it was different. When I went to unbutton the jeans I noticed him sitting upright in the bed.

“Zak?” I asked, turning around. “Honey, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. I knew that something else was up at the moment, but I’d let it go. I shimmied out of my jeans and crawled into the bed. “That’s always nice to wake up to,” he grinned.

“Oh is it?” I asked, pressing a kiss to his lips.

“Mm…” He murmured.

***Zak’s POV***

We arrived at Adrina’s house the next day and Nick and Aaron were asleep, we were in her house. While Adrina went to her room and gathered some more of her things, I walked around her house and kind of looked around. I noticed on a table in the hall-which I didn’t know how I’d missed, there were photographs face down. I picked one up in a metal frame. I saw two people-one was a blonde woman. She was in a white dress next to a dark haired man in a tuxedo. I guessed that was her husband. I picked up another with a glass frame. There Adrina-who had blonde hair at the time, and there was with a small curly haired girl with blonde hair. I assumed that was Adrina’s daughter because they looked just alike. I just found it odd to see Adrina with blonde hair…That was who was in the first one! She was…blonde?

“Hey…What are you doing?” I jumped and placed the frame back down.

“Nothing!” I put my hands in the air and took a step back.

“Were you looking at those pictures?” Her dark hair was wet and she was wearing a white button down shirt with a pair of jeans, she had no makeup on-as per usual and she was wearing a pair of flip flops…in October.

“I’m sorry, Adri, I was just-”

“Don’t worry about it, Zak. You were curious,” I could tell that she was concealing a little bit of sadness. “Which ones did you see?” She asked.

“These two,” I touched the back of the two of the two frames. She picked up each of them. “So…Your hair was blonde?”

“Naturally, it is,” she said softly.

“You’re a natural blonde?” I asked, shocked.

“Yeah…I hate it though, I only kept it that way for Aidan. He loved it, but that was one of the first things I did once things happened…”

“Well, you look gorgeous either way,” I said.

“You’re such a cheeseball, c’mon.” Muffin came trailing behind us as we headed towards the door. “Um…Since Gracie is with us…”

“Yes, Muffin can come with us,” I said.

“I love you,” she got up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. I couldn’t help but to smile.

“I love you.”