Ghosts and Spirits

Vanilla

One of my best friends decided that we had to take a last minute trip to Las Vegas.

Why?

Why not!

Lex was always the free spirit between the two of us, she always has been. Her long red hair free flowing in long, tight, messy curls and her style looking like something that stepped out of the 60s. I, on the other hand, have always been one to play it safe. Only recently dressing how I want to dress and being my true self.

Lex has been all a buzz about our first afternoon in Vegas, apparently she found a museum she thinks I will be particularly interested in. I don't know what she means by that but with the very few things that are open, being extremely limited in what they can do and how many they can see, I'm just happy she has able to find us something to do.

We take a taxi and arrive at The Haunted Museum. When we exit the taxi, I look up at the sign, "Zak Bagans? Like the Ghost Haunter?" I look over to Lex as she walks around the taxi.

"Paranormal Investigator and yes," she adjusts her bag on her shoulder as she turns toward the museum. "I thought you'd get a kick out of this. Being clairvoyant and all."

"So you brought me, someone who is already very drained from the increased amount of fear, spirits and anxiety over the pandemic to a museum full of things that are known to cause fear and or anxiety, and or harbor spirits?"

Lex shrugs, "he has serial killer stuff." I raise an eyebrow as she smiles over to me, "specifically Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez."

"Alright, fine, I'm sold."

"Yay!" Lex cheers as we head inside, linked arm in arm as we get up the walk way. I open the door and let Lex in first. A bell ringing as we open the door and walk in. There are three people at the desk already, laughing and talking. When the bell rings they all look over to us, two of them smiling and greeting us, but the third, a man dressed in black, with thick glasses and a flat bill ball cap looks over me as if there is something wrong. I look over myself quickly to make sure there isn't anything unseemly happening. I am in a long sleeve black, square neck top, black high waisted cargo pants, and black and white Nike's with my purse over my shoulder and my hair down. I don't notice that anything's off, I lift the back of my hand to my face, discreetly sniffing my sleeve, but only smell my perfume, vanilla bourbon. Once her eyes lay on the man Lex lights up, "oh, my God! You're Zak Bagans!" She squeals, "don't tell me we are lucky enough to have you as our tour guide. Is that what it means by 'Upgraded Experience'?"

"Uh... N... no..." the man stammers, "I leave that to the professionals, he gestures over to young man and woman with him. "This is Laura and Michael, they will be your guides today."

"Oh... Dang it," Lex rolls her eyes a bit disappointed. Zak's eyes follow Lex for a second as she walks away from him, before they move back to me.

I give him an odd look and adjust the gum in my mouth, "uh, hi?"

"Hi," Zak shakes his head, "I'm Zak Bagans, uh... owner and curator of The Haunted Museum," he smiles over to me, but I can tell he is a bit nervous.

"Hi," I chuckle a little bit, this guys is the guy Lex raves about when she watches her shows. The man who fearlessly leads Ghost Adventures. From the few episodes I've seen this is not what I expected.

"I'm Lex and this is Eleanor," Lex cheerfully introduces us.

"Eleanor..." Zak almost whispers to himself.

"Yeah," I nod, "but everyone calls me El."

"Well," Zak shakes his head and claps his hands together, "are you ladies ready for your tour?"

"Yes!" Lex slightly jumps up and down, clapping her hands.

I shrug a bit, "as ready as I'll ever be I guess."

"Awesome," the young man, Zak introduced as Michael smiles as we approaches us. "Now, you ladies know that this museum is very haunted and there is a very real possibly we will encounter spirits, both good or bad." Lex and I both nod, Lex getting a very serious look on her face, "let's go."

Michael leads us into the first room, as he does I notice Zak talking to the woman he introduced as Laura, but I don't pay enough attention to hear or listen to what they're talking about. I'm just ready to get this tour started to see if any of this stuff is actually haunted.