Double Down Demons (A Ghost Adventures/Zak Bagans Story)

Chapter 8: Only choking

We start the filmed walk through with Mark and it is interesting but uneventful, at least to begin with. We move up to the second floor to the gallows area, Zak is talking to an eye witness when I feel a tickle at the back of my throat. I don't think much of it but strain to stop myself from coughing in the middle of the interview, I didn't want to wreck the take for them. As it continues my throat begins to tighten and become sore and my neck muscles ache. Damn! I hope I'm not coming down with a cold, I think. Just as the interview ends I can't hold it any more and cough violently.

"Oh! Hey! Tracy are you ok?" Zak asks as Billy swings his camera to point in my direction. It takes me a moment to be able to catch my breath and answer.

"Yeah,I think I'm ok," I croak. "I just got a sore throat and aching neck all of a sudden. I hope I'm not coming down with something, sorry if I spoiled the take." I apologised. Zak steps towards me, lays his fingers gently along my jawline and gazes at me intently.

"Hey Aaron do you see this? Get it on camera!" he orders.

"Woah I see it! That's crazy man!" Aaron exclaims. I start to panic.

"What?! What is it? Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?" I pull away.

"Sorry sweetie, try and stay calm but you have a dark red mark under your jaw that looks suspiciously like a rope burn." Zak explains as my eyes widen, I'm speechless with shock. "How do you feel now?" He asks with genuine concern written on his face.

"Scared!"I reply immediately and Zak reaches out and rubs my shoulder. "But my throat feels better, it just feels a bit strange and warm where you touched my jaw." I described.

"Are you ok to carry on?" He checks with me.

"Yeah, yeah sure, its getting better and I don't feel anything else, maybe it was just something residual." I assure him.

"Ok well let us know straight away if you feel anything more, and I mean absolutely anything." He admonishes. I just nod as I rub the last feeling of tightness out of my muscles. I feel Zak's eyes on me but I refuse to look at him in case he sees any doubt on my face and stops me from carrying on.

We continue with the walk through and interviews. Other than a distant door slamming and the strange static feeling I get as we enter Ned's cell the rest of the afternoon was uneventful and we wrap it up. The guys spend half an hour checking the locations they had identified and pack up their equipment. All the prep was complete and we weren't due to return until tomorrow evening.

"That went well don't you think?" Billy asks.

"Yeah,seems like we'll have an interesting night tomorrow night. Are you sure you're ok Tracy?" Zak turns to me.

"Yeah I'm good, the feeling wore off really quickly though I've never felt anything like that before! It didn't even occur to me that it was something paranormal I just thought I was coming down with a cold." I explain sheepishly.

"You were stood right next to the gallows trap door when it happened, that's pretty compelling evidence." Zak points out.

"Yeah well I know that now!" I respond defensively, "Remember I'm new to this shit, not like you weirdos." I try to make light of it but Zak wasn't laughing.
"I know Tracy but you have to be careful and learn this stuff quickly to keep yourself safe. Lucky it was just a residual this time." he looks at me intently his grey blue eyes dark with concern.

"I'm ok really." I reassure him placing my hand on his arm, touched that he cares so much. "I won't be so complacent or oblivious in future,I promise." I give Zak a weak smile. He suddenly pulls me into a hug and as usual I stumble from the surprise.

"That's what I wanted to hear." He says but follows quietly with, "I can't let them hurt you."

I'm not sure that I was supposed to hear that last part but tears prick the back of my eyes as he sounds so sad and scared for that brief moment. I squeeze him a little tighter, trying to convey to him that am and will be ok, that I'm not easily broken. He breaks away from me quickly as if snapping out of a daze.

"Ok so what shall we do now? We have a whole lot of time to kill between now and tomorrow evening." He says quickly shutting off and regaining his composure.

"We probably don't want to do anything too raucous considering we'll be awake all night tomorrow so how about dinner and a movie?" Suggests the usually quiet Jay. We all agree that this sounds like a great idea.

As china town was not far we strolled down the street and grabbed some yummy authentic Chinese food. As was too be expected a consensus couldn't be reached as to which movie we should watch and a long debate ensues.

Two instalments in one day! Woo! These are short chapters as i had to split up one huge long chapter, hopefully it will build the suspense a little bit or something. lol. Well thanks for reading, i hope you're enjoying it and will stick with me for the ride! Cheers *GM*