Alright! Here it is! fasten your seat belts on and put on your helmets cause this is one long and wild chapter!
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When I opened my eyes, all I could see was black.
I was laying down completely straight, as if I were laying down in a casket. I could feel my arms down by my sides, but whatever I was in wouldn't allow me to pull them any further past my waist. From what I could feel, I was surrounded by wood. The ground I was laying on was wood, the sides were wood, and the roof was wood. It was so tight I could barely breathe.
I let out a loud sigh. I was so tired of waking up in dark places, being in scary situations. Yet, part of me loved it. I loved knowing my day wouldn't be as boring as someone else my age, that when I wake up in the mornings, I know something special and supernatural would happen to me.
I lifted my head and released it, letting it fall into the ground and create a thud-like sound. Right away a pain from the base of my skull rippled its way through my body. I forgot that was where I was hit in the head.
Far away footsteps made themselves closer and closer toward me, just until they were almost above me. The sound of two men's voices came after. Without another thought I began yelling for help, slamming my hands into the sides of the walls and kicking my feet; anything to make them realize I was under them.
"Charlie? Is that you?" A voice came from above.
"Yes! Please! Get me out!"
Movement was easily heard above me as Aaron and Zak tried to uncover where I was. A few seconds later, a plank of wood was removed from directly above my head, and a bright flashlight was shone into my eyes making me squint. Within a few minutes, I was completely removed from the floor.
After removing any dirt that had collected on my clothes I looked up at my saviours, only to realize they weren't Aaron and Zak.
"Billy? Jay? What the hell are you two doing here?"
Jay scoffed, "You're welcome Charlie."
I sighed, "Thank you. Now why are you here?"
Billy and Jay exchanged glances before looking at me at the same time.
"Well, a couple hours ago we got a call from your dad asking if you'd stopped by at either of our places, but you obviously hadn't so we said no. He was super worried about you and said that you were supposed to be home around midnight, but you never showed. He said he even asked Aaron, but he hadn't seen you either. Zak said the last person to see you was the receptionist, Diana?"
Billy looked at Jay for the approval of the receptionist's name, and when Jay nodded, Billy continued.
"—anyway Zak told us that he was going to the museum to see if you were still there, and that if everything was fine, he would give both of us a call."
"But he never called." I added.
Billy shook his head. "No he did not. And I'm assuming since you thought we were both your dad and Aaron, Aaron is already here."
I nodded.
"So can you tell us what's going on? Why are you under the floor? Why does it look like a literal tornado flew through the Museum, and where are Aaron and Zak?
Throughout Jay's list of questions, my eyes found their way toward the giant space under the floor where I was buried not more than ten minutes ago. But once Jay mentioned they hadn't seen either Zak or Aaron, my eyes met his immediately.
"You haven't seen either my dad or Aaron?"
"Nope. We checked every single room in this place, they aren't here."
I ran my hand through my hair, "They have to be here, she needs them." I mumbled.
Once again Billy and Jay looked at each other. "Who's she?"
I looked up at them both. "Okay, this is going to sound nuts but you have to listen to me."
They both nodded their heads.
"I'm sure you've both seen the gramophone my dad brought in a couple days ago?"
Once again their heads nodded.
"Well, a few days ago I was close enough to it that I felt its energy radiating off of it, but dad pulled me away before anything else happened. Then, tonight when I was supposed to be closing the museum, I went near it again. Ever since then it's been mayhem in the museum. Not too long ago my dad was in the walls and Aaron showed up out of the blue and you just pulled me from under the floor and they're both MIA."
It took a few seconds before Billy responded.
"What kind of spirit is this?"
Before I could open my mouth to answer, Jay interrupted.
"A horrifying one."
Both Billy and I matched his sight and looked to see a figure standing at the end of one of the hallways. The white dress and black hair flowing in the air was unmistakable; she was even grinning from ear to ear.
"What the fuck is that?" I looked over to Billy to see his eyes as wide as golf balls.
"That is our terrifying ghost."
"Holy shit."
I hummed in agreeance. For what felt like minutes we stood and started at each other from across the long hallway, but after one quick blink she was gone.
"Where'd she go?" Jay asked.
"She'll come back, she always comes back." I turned my back to Billy and Jay.
I stood over the space in the floor once again. Why had I never heard of this thing before?
"Has my dad ever told you guys about this thing before? He's never mentioned it to me."
"I don't remember him saying anything about it." Jay answered.
I looked at Billy, who was deep in thought. "You know, I think he did mention finding it. Way back before he found you. I think it was when he first bought this place, he was moving some stuff around when he found it. It was full of old things, probably from its past owners. Remember?" He looked to Jay, who just shrugged.
Billy looked down at the space again. "I swear—I swear he told me he bolted this thing shut after he found it. He didn't want to disturb anything."
"So why is it open? And empty?" I asked.
They both shrugged their shoulders.
"I think those are questions for another time Charlie, don't you think? We still need to find Zak and Aaron. We still have no idea where they are."
I pursed my lips. As much as I wanted to know more about this mysterious space, Jay was right. We needed to find my dad and Aaron. Then we get the fuck out of dodge.
"I say we go in the direction of where we last saw this spirit. I'm sure wherever she is, they are." Billy suggested.
At the same time, all three of us looked down the long and dark hallway—the last place where we saw the woman in white. A few seconds later, as if on cue, loud jazz music bounced down the same hallway towards us.
"I think it's safe to say she agrees with our decision." One of them said, I couldn't tell, I was too focused into the music.
I was the first to take a step toward the music, but Billy grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
"Are you sure you want to do this? If Zak were here right now, he'd make you stay behind."
I shrugged Billy's arm off me and stepped closer to the hallway. "You're acting like he's dead, and in order to prevent that from happening I need to go find him."
Billy reached for me once more, but I made sure he wasn't able to grab me.
"Charlie, let me and Jay go first, if something happens you're free to come in after us; fair enough?"
I pursed my lips and nodded. "Scream if something happens."
He looked me deeply in the eyes and nodded, then he tapped Jay's shoulder and gestured forward into the hallway.
I watched them fade into the darkness of the hallway. As the flashlight of their phone became enveloped by shadows I finally realized where they were headed. I looked around the room I was standing in and looked at the broken furniture and wall décor that had been smashed onto the floors. I realized Billy and Jay were headed straight toward the gramophone. Seconds before I went into the hallway to warn them, the sound of Billy screaming my name made its way toward me, welcoming me into the hallway.
I immediately bolted into the dark. Within seconds I came across either Billy or Jay's phone; the flashlight was still on.
"Guys?!" I called out, but neither one of them answered me.
"Anyone?!"
Silence.
I held the phone in front of me and let it guide me further into the hallway. With every step, the music became louder and louder, as if it were a warning for me to stay away. As I entered the last part of the hallway, five doors filled my vision. Two on each side, and one at the very end, the one with the gramophone. While I passed each door, I jiggled the doorknobs, but each time I found the rooms were locked.
Weird.
As I stepped closer to the last door, the phone in my hand began to shake. My mind may have felt fearless, but my body was betraying me. I stood directly outside the door and took a deep breath. I slowly lifted my hand and gently turned the knob and opened the door. As soon as I opened it, the music shut off and a deathly silence rang my ears.
I completely opened the door, allowing the entire room to fill my vision. After taking a mere second to scope the room out, my gaze fell upon the woman in white. She was hovering in the farthest corner away from me. Her back was pushed up against both the wall and ceiling as she looked down on my with the most wicked smile. As soon as I took one step further into the room, she slid down the wall and onto the floor. The second her feet touched the ground, the door slammed behind me. The sound of the lock clicking instantly let me know there was no way of getting out.
"What do you want me from me?" I asked sternly. Although part of me was terrified, I knew I couldn't show her any weakness; I had to be strong.
She said nothing. Her wicked grin spoke for her as she stared right through my soul.
As the fear ran faster through my veins, I held my stance. I refused to show her that she held any ounce of power over me.
For a few seconds we stared at each other. She held the same position, staring at me with a wicked grin, and I held mine—arms by my side and a narrowed glare.
"Where's my family?"
With that question she finally moved. She held her head up straight, and within the span of a blink, she was standing a breaths length away from me. I tried to take a step backward, but she put both of her cold hands on each shoulder and focused on my eyes.
"You're so... intriguing." She hummed. Her eyes trailed down from my eyes and toward the healed scar of my chest. "You're like a wounded animal—" Her right hand traced the sides of my shoulder, then toward my collarbone until she reached the scar over my heart. "—you're just waiting for someone to put you out of your misery."
With those words she jabbed her long fingernails into my skin, just above my heart.
I immediately screeched in pain. I attempted to grab her wrist and pull her nails out of my skin, but she only dug them deeper. I stared into her crazed eyes, I saw no hopes, desires, or happiness; only hatred and pain. I saw no turning back for her.
"I can feel your heart, I can sense your fear. I could kill you so easily right now."
At that point in time, all I wanted was death. From our very close contact, I was practically feeding off her. I could feel everything she wanted me to feel.
I felt my eyes roll to the back of my head, the pain was excruciating.
I pulled my head up and looked her right in her icy eyes. "So kill me then."
I can only assume she did not expect that answer, because after I sad those four words her nails slid out from my chest and she turned her back to me. Once her hands left my body I collapsed onto the floor below.
As she stood only a few steps away from me, I pushed my body up against the door behind me. Without it, I could barely sit up straight. I looked down at my fresh wound, blood was running from five deep nail marks above my heart. I covered it with the palm of my hand instantly, but it was no permanent solution.
"I'll be quite honest, I thought you'd give a little more of a fight than give up so fast." She turned around to face me.
By now, I had pushed my back into the wall in order to help me stand up straight. When she turned around to see me standing up, her eyes widened with delight.
"Where's my family?" I demanded.
She opened her mouth to speak, but a slam from the room next to us caused both our heads to turn.
"Charlie! Charlie where are you? Charlie?!" It was Zak.
She huffed in annoyance. "Someone's awake."
I looked at her with rage-filled eyes. "What have you done to him?"
"Nothing...yet." She grinned.
"Charlie? Is that you?" Zak asked.
"Dad, I'm right here, I'm okay. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine Charlie, I feel a little groggy, but don't worry about me. You need to get out of here."
Just as I was about to answer him, the woman in white flew over to me and gently put her disgusting finger over my lips.
"Shhh. If you tell him anything, he will be dead faster than you can blink."
"Don't you dare hurt him. I swear to God I will—"
"You'll what? Send me to hell? Banish me for all eternity? You're nothing but weak to me."
"Then why do you want me so bad?"
She pursed her lips.
"Because, weak or not you still have something I want. I'm tired of sucking the energy off of whatever I can use. That is why I need you." She took one step away from me.
"Charlie, who are you talking to?"
I looked up at the woman in white, who put her finger on her own lips.
"Don't worry about it. It's all going to be fine."
"What's going to be fine? Charlie? What's happening?"
While listening to Zak yell for me on the other side of the wall. I decided my fate. I looked up to the woman in white, and took a step closer to her.
"If I agree to let you take me, and use me for whatever you want, can you promise to not hurt my family? Can you leave them alone? Because if you will, then I'm yours."
She seemed shocked.
"Can you promise?" I asked.
Once again she rolled her eyes. "Fine."
I took another step closer to her. I started to raise my hands and place them in hers, but the sounds of Zak's desperate yells interrupted my last thoughts. Without another thought I dropped my hands.
"I need to say goodbye." She begrudgingly nodded.
I walked up to the wall and put my hand on it. "Dad?"
His yells for my attention came to a halt once he heard my voice. "Charlie what's happening? What aren't you telling me?"
I ignored his questions. "Put your hand on the wall for me."
"Why?"
"Just do if for fucks sake."
A second later, and I felt him put his hand on the wall. I could feel his energy all the way from the other side. I made sure to move my hand to where it was exactly opposite of his.
"Dad, I need you to know how much I love you—"
"Why are you saying this?"
"Just let me speak dammit!" He silenced.
"I need you to know how much I love you. You have saved my life more times than I can count and you have been the best dad a girl could ask for. This last year has been the best year of my entire life, and I cannot thank you enough. If you hadn't read that letter or come to Phoenix to find me I can guarantee that my life would have met a much darker fate. You have made me so happy that I almost forgot what pain was, and for that I am forever grateful. I love you so much dad."
When I took my hand off the wall, I wiped multiple tears that were now running down my face. Almost immediately, Zak knew whatever was happening involved me not coming out of this museum alive. The museum shook as he threw his body into the wall in attempts to break the barrier between us.
"You've made a good choice darling." She grinned.
She lifted her hand for mine to grab, but I had other plans in mind. Within seconds, I reached down and grabbed a broken leg from a wooden chair that had been broken earlier that night. With all my might I slammed the leg into the gramophone, breaking a large part of the horn off. The woman in white screeched as I kept beating the antique until it was nothing but broken pieces strewn around on the floor.
As much as I wanted to say the woman in white was immediately destroyed in a ball of fire, she wasn't. But because the gramophone was now destroyed, she could no longer syphon any energy from it.
"You bitch!" She screeched and flung her body at me. The force of her eradicating spirit blew my weakened frame backward and into the wall. I screamed as I felt one of my ribs crack.
I watched as the woman I white began to fade, but the rage in her eyes did not. She fell to the floor, but with all her remaining energy she began to crawl toward me. As she pulled her legs behind her and made her way closer and closer toward me, she dug her nails into the floorboards below making holes in the ground as she neared me.
Just before she grabbed my foot, she grabbed the very same chair leg I had used on the gramophone. Just before she turned into mist, she forced the chair leg into my thigh. The initial pain made me close my eyes and scream. By the time I opened my eyes I reached for the leg to pull it out, I noticed the woman in white was gone.
Before I did anything else, I pulled the chair leg from my thigh and covered the wound with my hand. Although the pain was unbearable, the wound wasn't half as bad.
Without another thought, I pushed myself off from the ground and unlocked the door into the hallway.
"Dad!?"
"Charlie?" Zak came rushing from the room next to me. The first thing he did was envelop me in the biggest hug. No matter how much pain I was in while he hugged me, I kept quiet. We both thought each other had died or was going to die. We needed this hug.
As we pulled away from the hug I notice dried tear marks on Zak's cheeks.
"Were you crying?"
"Of course I was crying! I thought you were going to die and I couldn't do anything about it. Holy shit Charlie you scared me so fucking much."
I smiled. "Sorry about that, I had to play a part, I needed her to believe me."
Zak looked at me questioningly. "What are you talking about?"
I sighed, "How about I tell you about it later? Maybe on the way to the hospital?"
Zak's eyes widened when he realized how hurt I really was.
"Oh my god, of course, we need to go now!"
"Wait, what about the guys?"
He smiled. "They're big boys, I'm sure they're fine, but right now you are my main focus."
With that, we scurried out of the museum and into the fresh world. By the time we finally left the museum, the sun had just begun to rise, and the early morning Vegas traffic was coming to life. During our drive to the hospital, I rolled the window down and let the morning air fill my lungs. The sun warmed my face as I smiled. I closed my eyes for a mere moment, and when I opened them I saw Danny and my mother. They stood on the corner of a street, both glowing like angels, smiles that could light up the world, hair blowing in the wind. I watched their shapes fade into nothing as the car kept driving. After no longer being able to see them, I turned around and faced straight ahead. I knew that they were at peace, because I was at peace, and although that would be the last time I would see them, it wouldn't be the last time I would feel them.
"You alright kiddo?" Zak looked over at me with a small glance of worry.
I smiled at him. "I couldn't be better."
He smiled and looked back at the road and I stared back out the window.
"We're gonna be okay now dad, I can feel it."
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Alright! I was so excited to finally post this chapter and now here it is. Thank you to everyone single one of my readers. I loved waking up in the morning to see so many notifications from people who were commenting or people who were doing voting sprees and reading this story in a whole day. Those are what made me so happy and what gave me inspiration to keep writing this story.
As much as I didn't want to end this, I had to. When I first started writing this story I was thinking 30 chapters max, but that obviously didn't happen hah. I did not plan with ending it this way either, but I like this ending so much better than my earlier plan. Who knows, if I miss writing this story so much maybe ill write a 30 years in the future or something.... but that's a massive MAYBE.
Unfortunately, this will be my one and only Ghost Adventures story :( I honestly only started writing this to see how people would react to my writing, and its only been good. I was checking the ratings on Finding Home and this story is ateast one of the top ten in almost every single one of its tags. So thank you sooo soooo much. I love you all and thank you for reading Finding Home.
Charlie and Zak, signing off.
For now....