Shards of Red Glass (A Ghost Adventures Story)

Midnight Crash

Kire Mansion is small compared to some others I've seen. And I lived in the middle of nowhere.

It was a grand place, though. White-gray walls made of stone. Beautiful tapestries and oriental rugs. Artful furniture. I see Aaron's eyes go wide as he looks around him, a smile on his face.

"Hello there. We're with Ghost Adventures. We're investigating here. What's your name?" I hear Zak say. I turn, and find him talking to a maid. Her brown face scrunches up in confusion, her brown eyes turning darker.

"No hablo inglés. ¿Quién eres tú?" she says. Zak looks confused. He turns to look back at Aaron, who shrugs. I roll my eyes, and walk forward, elbowing Aaron out of the way.

"Mi nombre es Saira Collings. Este es Zak Bagans. Estamos con Ghost Adventures. ¿Cuál es tu nombre?" I say to her. She looks pleased, then says,"Mi nombre es Jessica Sirez. Sígueme, te mostraré dónde acecha el Diablo."

Jessica turns and starts walking across the living room. Zak and Aaron give me confused looks. "What?" I ask, following the woman. "You speak Spanish," Aaron states dumbly. "Yeah. Also Greek, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Romanian, Irish, and Russian. I got bored in middle school. Don't judge."

Zak and Aaron blink at each other, then at me. "You're bilingual," Zak says. I roll my eyes and say,"No. I'm a linguist. I know several languages. Right now I'm working on Dutch, Latin, and Arabic. Now, come on. Before she disappears."

I walk towards the other end of the room, where I saw Jessica disappear. For an old woman, she sure moves fast. When we finally catch up to her, she's outside a closed door, waiting for us.

" ¿Es aquí donde tuviste tu experiencia?" I ask her. She nods. I turn to Zak, and say,"I asked her if this was where she had her experience." Zak nods, and takes my camera from me. How kind.

"Vi la sombra en la habitación de Milly. Era enorme y oscuro. Los ojos del Diablo miraron hacia afuera," she says. "You saw a huge, dark shadow in Milly's room. It had eyes like the Devil," I say, and she nods, knowing that I'm translating for my non-Spanish-speaking friends.

"Ask her if she saw any defined features on this shadow," Zak says. I turn to Jessica, and ask,"¿Viste alguna característica definitoria en esta sombra? ¿Cabello? ¿Piel?" Jessica shakes her head and says,"Demasiado sólido. Demasiado oscuro."

"No. It was too solid and too dark for her to see anything," I translate. Zak asks,"What kind of stuff happened here that would cause a demon?" I translate for Jessica, and she looks mystified. She says that she has no clue, though there were only a few deaths on the property that she could remember.

"¿Te pasó algo más que crees que fue causado por este demonio?" I ask her, which translates to: did anything else happen to you that you think this demon caused. "Sí. Él me siguió a casa. Soñé con sangre y horror. Me desperté en medio de la noche, gritando, y él se rió de mí."

I take a deep breath, and say,"The demon followed you home. You had horrible dreams. You awoke, screaming, and it laughed at you." She nods, and Zak asks,"Have you had any attachments since then. Like urges to harm someone, or to cause destruction?"

Translating is really annoying me now. I translate back and forth, some of the questions being Zak's, some being mine. After the unintended-interview is done, I thank the woman and we all walk back to the living room, where our next interviewee waits.

I stay silent for the rest of the day, filming and following Zak. Then, the last interviewee, a guy named Jim, says something that perks my ears.

"Yeah. Right here, we caught an EVP. It said 'Died. Midnight crash. Tell Saira'. We have no clue who Saira is. I have the EVP on my phone, actually. Hold on a sec." Jim fishes for his phone in his pocket. Zak looks around and gestures to me. Horror fills me as Jim glances at me.

Jim plays the EVP. Without even leaning in, I hear the voice as clear as day. Tears prick my eyes, and grief and anger fill me. Zak looks over at me, and I shake my head, putting my hand over my eyes.

I hear his voice in my ear now. "You'll never get away, Saira. I will haunt you forever. The one death you didn't see, but the one you can never forget." I look up towards the window at the far end of the hallway, where a window always seems to be conviently placed. I see him, the cocky, arrogant, selfish bastard, with a blue-white glow around him. He smiles, waves, then disappears.

Jay speaks up from behind Aaron. "Hey, Zak. I just caught an anomaly over by the window. It just hovered there for a second, then shot towards Saira and disappeared into her chest," Jay says. Zak turns towards me, and sees me staring at the window.

"What'd you see, Saira?" Zak asks me softly. I shake my head, tears spilling down my cheeks. "A bastard who should stay dead and leave me alone," I mutter, though I know Zak and the cameras heard me.

Zak wraps an arm around my shoulders, but I don't lean into him. Memories, images, are flashing before my eyes. A cocky smile. A focused eye. A horrible snarl. The feeling of his hand gripping my wrists, his other over my mouth, flashes across my skin. I shudder, and pull away from Zak.

Without a word, I turn around and edge around the people standing outside the room where the interview was taking place. I feel like my lungs are squeezing together, my throat is being scratched, my stomach is being torn to bits. Black flashes across my eyes as I stumble down the hallway towards the stairs and door.

"Follow her," I hear Zak order. I sense Billy follow me outside, but don't turn towards him as I exit the house. Instead, I run to the nearest tree and throw up my insides.

I try to steady myself against the trunk, but that doesn't work. I feel myself slide, and more black flashes across my eyes, stealing my vision and disorientating me. More vomit, more headache. I sense Billy behind me, filming.

I spit into the long grass, my saliva the color of blood. I look down, and see red mixed into the rest of the liquid throw-up. I touch my mouth, and my hand comes away bloody.

Memory takes hold, and I feel myself collapse to the grass. Thankfully, I fall sideways, so I don't fall into the puke. I see flashes of red on my hands, on my face in the mirror, on my clothes, on a tissue as I try to stop a bloody nose. Blood runs through my life as much as it does through my very veins. My life is made of blood.

I come back to myself when I feel Billy shaking my shoulder. I dimly hear him shout for Zak, for Aaron, for a medic. I sit up, and look around at Billy. His camera sits on the grass beside him, and his brown eyes hold worry and fear.

"Here. For the blood," he says as he hands me a piece of Kleenex. I nod to show my thanks, and wipe away my spit and blood as Zak and Aaron come running from the house.

"I'm fine guys. It was just a memory. I'm good," I say as they run up to us. Worry etches both of their faces, and Zak kneels next to me. "That wasn't just a memory, Saira. That was something else. What happened up there? Who'd you see?" Zak asks, staring into my eyes so I couldn't lie.

"Luke." The name slips out of my mouth, filled with enough venom to kill several hundred men. "That's the first time he's ever showed himself to me. He died in a car crash back in college. He was my boyfriend before, we, ah, had a disagreement," I say, rubbing my wrists together at the memory of him holding me down.

Zak's eyes soften, and Aaron looks slightly relieved. Billy sighs, and then Zak says,"Alright. But normal experiences don't leave you puking on someone's front lawn." Zak holds me in his hazel gaze; I'm trapped, and he knows it.

I shrug, and say,"I have no clue, Zak. Luke wasn't exactly normal when he was alive, either. Why would he be when he's dead?" Zak stares at me a few heartbeats longer, then releases me from his mesmerizing gaze.

"If you say so, Saira. But, the moment you feel unwell tomorrow, you're coming out here. Got it?" Zak says as he helps me to stand. I smile wryly at him, wishing I could kiss him for being so kindhearted and understanding of my stubbornness.

Heaven knows that I'll need it as the investigation draws closer.