Seeing Is Believing

“Hey Macy,” Nick said to me as everyone was setting up the cameras. I was kind of just hanging back because I didn’t know anything about this stuff.

“Hey Nick, what’s up?” I asked, pushing myself up from where I was leaning on the van.

“I wanted to ask you something…”

“Okay…” I didn’t know if I liked where this was going.

“Has Zak been acting strange around you?”

“Define strange?” Wouldn’t Aaron be a better judge of this? Why was he asking me? I’ve only known Zak for like two days…

“Has he been angry at all when he’s just around you?” I knitted my brow in confusion.

“Um no. He’s been happy…I guess,” I looked over at Zak who was talking to Mason about something, but they were both smiling, so I figured he must be something good…

“Okay,” Nick started to walk away but I stopped him.

“Nick, can ya explain what your talkin’ ‘bout?”

“Earlier, while Zak was on the phone with you, he gave Aaron this look and he wasn’t himself. He was angry out of nowhere and if you know Aaron, he makes jokes about everything. We’ll he was just doing that and Zak looked like wanted to kill him or something…I just don’t know…”

“That doesn’t sound like what I know of Zak at all…”

“Yeah it doesn’t,” he agreed. He went back to setting cameras up and I just went back to standing as I was. I looked over at Zak and Mason again, watching them carefully. Zak seemed playful enough…He didn’t seem angry…This was all really, really strange. Maybe Zak was just mad at Aaron for something that Nick didn’t know about…All of this was giving me a headache. I sighed and walked over to Zak and Mason.

“Is there anythin’ I can help with?” I asked.

“No, I think we’ve got it, we’re about done anyway,” Zak replied. His dark blue eyes looked the same. His facial expression was relaxed. “What’s on your mind?” he asked looking at me once again. I shook my head. “You wouldn’t have walked over here just to offer help when we already said that you wouldn’t be of any help given your technophobe-ness.”

“I was just checking on you two,” I said. “Are you excited, Mason?”

“Eh,” he shrugged.

“Oh you’re goin’ to be nonchalant now?” I said playfully. “You wouldn’t shut up before we left.”

“I would so,” Mason said, he gave me the angry teenager look and I just grinned, but I wasn’t going to embarrass him any more because I wasn’t like that.

“It’s not everyday that you get to be on TV or hang out with Hollywood folks,” I sent a grin over to Zak.

“We’re from Vegas, technically.”

“Close enough!” I said.

“Well it’s not everyday that you get to—” he looked over at Mason and stopped talking.

“I’m going to go see if Aaron needs help…” Mason said awkwardly.

“No, I’ll go, you two were fine on your own an’ I interrupted it,” I said being the first to walk away.

***Zak’s POV***

“I’m telling you now, if you hurt my aunt in any way, I will have to kick your ass,” Mason said. I was slightly taken aback. He seemed like the quiet kid that didn’t want to get into fights. “She’s all I got and I don’t want some Vegas guy to come in and ruin it. I don’t have a problem with you as long as you do right by her.”

“We’ve got an understanding, Mason,” I held out my hand for us to shake on it and he shook my hand. “I like your aunt a lot. She’s really, really great and the only problem is this distance issue,” I said honestly. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to solve that problem, but I’ve got nothing.”

“That’s all on you, but I’m just saying that you better not be playing her.

“I’m not,” I said. I had to respect him, even if he was just a kid still. I looked up at the sky and noticed the sun was rapidly setting. We needed to get locked in. I called Macy and the guys up towards the main house—the big gate outside had already been locked; we would be doing an investigation all over the grounds. “Okay cameras on,” each of us had a camera with night vision on it and we were ready to roll. “This episode is specifically for all of the skeptics out there. I have two skeptics with me right now that I met in this lovely small town. This is Macy Holland and her nephew, Mason Holland. They agreed to come with us because they don’t think we’ll find anything. Are you nervous at all?”

“No,” they both said at once.

“Ah, that’s what I love to hear. You all are about to see two people witness the paranormal for the first time.” I wrapped up my little spiel and got the lockdown started. “We’re going to be splitting up because five people are a lot for an investigation. Nick, Aaron, and Mason, I want you to stay on the first floor and check look into the different noises that have been heard down there. If you remember, that’s where they had the stove turn on. Macy, you are going to be coming with me to the upstairs area and we’re going to investigate the balcony where they always see Anna Saunders, Timothy Saunders’s wife who built this house and owned the plantation,” I directed.

“Let’s do this!” Macy exclaimed. I grinned and we all walked into the house. We walked upstairs and into the bedroom where Anna and Timothy slept. As soon as we opened the door there was a draft of cold air.

“Burr,” I said.

Macy didn’t say anything. She just walked across the room to the window. “The window’s cracked,” she said, closing it the rest of the way.

“Good find,” I said. I should’ve expected her to debunk a lot of things right away. Which, to me, was good. I wanted to capture real evidence. Not what I thought to be evidence. “I want to start out by doing an EVP session. EVPs are what we call ‘ghost voices’,” I said, more so explaining it to Macy than out viewers. “If you would just point the camera at me, I’ll get us started.” She did and I had my own camera pointed towards the double doors that led outside to the balcony. “Who lived up here?” I asked. “Is Anna Saunders up here with us right now?...How many slaves lived here at one time?” I pointed my camera towards Macy for a moment and she looked at me like a deer in headlights. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I uh…I just heard somebody talk—a man…and then I felt something brush the back of my hair. Oh my God, it’s freezing right here…” I pulled out my EMF detector and did a reading right around her. It was reaching a 7 and it was ten degrees cooler right in front of Macy.

“Take this and try to do an EVP,” I handed her the recorder.

“What do I ask?”

“Whatever you want to know.”

“What jus’ touched me?” she asked. Her voice picked up an octave as she jumped forward towards me. “What th’hell? My ass jus’ got smacked!”

“What? No way!”

“Yeah! I swear to God! I just felt it!”

“Stay here, let me listen to what we got on the recorder,” I feared that she would run because it was so shocking, I know if I was her, I probably would want to. I played the recorder back and I didn’t hear a single thing while I was talking. But, once Macy asked her one and only question, there was a response. “That was me, Macy,” the voice was clear as day, it was male, perhaps it was Timothy Saunders.

“What the fuck? How did ya put that on there?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“I didn’t do that, somebody here did.”

“Wait…What about the voice I heard while you were talking? It wasn’t on there…”

“Let me see your camera,” I said. I took her camera and rewound it before handing it back to her and filming it with mine.

“How many slaves lived here at one time?” I asked on camera.

“Pretty girl,” the male’s voice said.

“Shut the hell up, there’s no way! That did not just happen! You did something to this…It’s impossible!” Macy exclaimed.

“It’s real, I promise.”

***Macy’s POV***

Oh. My. God. All of this was just too much…This was impossible! Zak had to have done something to this…This was not natural! Zak decided that it was time for us to move on to the cabins after a little while longer. I checked my phone and it was 2 am. “You three should go check out the hospital while we go to cabin one…” Zak said when we met back up with Nick, Aaron, and Mason.

“So I’m stuck with ya ‘gain?” I asked Zak with a grin.

“Yes you are. Are you scared now?”

“Nope,” I said. I turned to Mason to check on him as we walked out of the house. “Are you okay with those two?” I asked him. He nodded.

“Did you find anything upstairs?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Yeah? Do you believe?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. We went our separate ways. Zak and I walked into the first cabin. He set up another camera and we each sat against opposite walls.

“This is the spirit box, it’s like a digital recorder in the sense that we can talk to spirits, but we’ll do this in real time instead,” Zak explained. I just nodded and kept my camera aimed on him. “I’m Zak and this is my friend, Macy. Can you tell us who used to live in this cabin?” No voice response. But, I did hear—three to be more exact. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah, it was a knocking sound; it sounded like it came from by you…”

“Who just knocked?”

“Sorry…” the spirit box said.

“What is your name?” Zak asked, but we got nothing. After about an hour with no voices, I was standing and stretching my legs when Zak had the idea for me to try and use the spirit box instead, since all of the EVPs we got upstairs were directed at me. I went to grab the spirit box when it got incredibly cold where I was standing, sure it was cold outside, but this was the kind of cold that went through every layer that you were wearing. All five of us had put on heavy clothes because it was cold outside and the cabins weren’t heated. So, the fact that I was able to shiver, when I had been fine for hours had to mean something, didn’t it?

“It just got really cold over here…” I said, taking the little box from his hand. “Is there something in here that made good people bad?” I asked, thinking back to the kids from my school.

That was it; there wasn’t another voice or bad feeling. I found it quite odd, actually. Pretty soon, the lockdown ended. We all met back up in front of their van to end the show, I guessed anyway. Nick and Aaron still had their cameras rolling, but Zak asked Mason and me to stand beside him.

“So, after a night with us, do you believe in ghost, now?” he asked us. I looked at my nephew with a slight smile on my face as we both nodded.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this before; I just know that this is an even that has changed my view on the other world…Thank you guys. I didn’t ever think that I could believe in something like this. But I guess that seeing is really believing,” I said. “And I’ve seen so much stuff here in the last twelve hours…” I looked at Mason, expecting him to have something to add as well. But he didn’t.

“Well there you have it, so anybody out there that doesn’t believe, take it from two former skeptics,” Zak said, finishing out the show.

***

Nick, Aaron, and Zak had planned on leaving the next day, but nobody was flying from the airport in Nashville. They had gotten even more snow than us. So, they were stuck here for a few more days. I don’t think that they minded too much though. We all went back to my house because they said it was a lot homier. The hotel was just another foreign place. My living room had become their work station. Because they had wanted to go home to edit their film, they decided to work on it here. They already had their laptops and whatnot, so it wasn’t hard to just do it here. Plus, they had Mason and he loved helping them.

“Do y’all want some lunch?” I asked, walking into the living room.

“Can you make grilled cheese?” Mason asked with one earbud in his ear. “With tomato soup?”

“Sure, that what you boys want?” I asked the other three. They nodded.

“I can help you if you want,” Zak asked.

“You don’ have to. You’re workin’.”

“I insist. Besides, I bet I can make a better grilled cheese than you.”

“I doubt it,” I grinned. “Ask Mason, my grilled cheese is amazin’!”

“Mason?” Zak asked.

“Oh yeah, she makes the best grilled cheese ever.”

“Hmm, we will have to see about that.”

Zak and I both went into the kitchen and I got out all of the ingredients that I used: Velveeta cheese, white bread, and butter. Then I moved to get out the skillets and everything else that I would need. I noticed that Zak was looking in the fridge for something. “What’re ya lookin’ for?”

“Mayonnaise,” he said.

“Mayonnaise? Why do ya want that?”

“If you use that instead of butter, that makes it a lot better.” I must’ve been making a face because he grinning in response. “It’s good, trust me.”

We spent the next thirty minutes quietly cooking together—it was nice, really. I had never cooked with a guy before. He even tried to flip the grilled cheese in the air. “You’re a dork,” I laughed, mostly because it was sticking to the skillet. He laughed and continued on cooking. “Oh shoot, I’ve gotta let my dog in.” I walked to the back door and let Boots in. He barked and hopped up so that his paws were on my shoulders. “Boots,” I groaned, he soaked my shirt and my shoulders. He barked and licked my face. “Okay, down boy,” I said. He suddenly growled for no reason. When I looked over my shoulder, there was nobody there. I made Boots get off my shoulders and I walked back into the kitchen with him hot on my heels.

***

“So who’s do you like better?” I asked Mason, Nick, and Aaron as they had their grilled cheese in front of them. One plate had mine, the other had Zak’s.

“Aunt Macy, it’s really close. But I think I might like Zak’s better…”

“Ha!” Zak jumped up and down childishly. “Ha! I told you! I told you! Now you have to try it.”

“Fine ya big meanie,” I picked up one of his grilled cheese sandwiches and tried to make a disgusted face, but it was actually really good…It was so…good. “You suck,” was all I said. His smile grew larger.

***

The day went on with all of them in the living room, editing the film, and me kind of just doing whatever.

“That has to be a new record for editing an episode!” Zak exclaimed, standing from the couch. It was nearly 10 o’clock at night and I looked up at him strangely. “Mason, you are amazing. I don’t even know how you did all of that so quickly!”

“I’ve always been good at this stuff, I guess,” Mason shrugged. “And, no I know that you guys aren’t fakes.”

“No, we’re not,” Zak said. “Wow,” he walked over to where I was sitting at the kitchen counter and took a seat next to me. There was idle chatter between Mason, Nick, and Aaron. “Your nephew is great.”

“I know,” I replied. I stood up from my stool and stretched. “I think I’m going to head to bed…”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, knitting his eyebrows together.

“Nothing. I’m just tired. I have to work tomorrow and…” And I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen between Zak and I. He kissed me and I did like him—as much as I could for only knowing him for a few days, but he was leaving soon. He was going back to Vegas and if I distanced myself from him, it would likely be easier for me to handle.

“Macy,” he said.

“Zak, I’m fine.”