My Fucking Nightmare

My day started late in the afternoon, as I slept ‘til just after one. Brian still snored beside me, his eyes clenched tightly together as though he were suffering some kind of headache while unconscious. As sick as he was last night I’d be surprised if he didn’t wake up with at least some kind of repercussive impairment.
I showered, got dressed, dried my hair, added a touch of makeup, and bolted out the door, hoping not to wake him in the process. Once again I met the crew in the lobby, everyone ready to start day two at the Riviera. When we got there the Chairman was waiting for us at the door, but Vince wasn’t there. Good enough for my nerves, anyways. We walked up to the Sinatra suite as Zak took to calling it, where they set up their equipment last night as I was at the blackjack table. Shit was everywhere. Looked like a tornado came through, with cables every which way, cameras and recording devices lying about. Some stuff which I’d never seen before too, some kind of radio-looking thing. I noted to ask about it later on.
Lockdown would officially start at six, meaning we had a couple hours to kill setting everything up officially. I was supposed to just get a feel for everything, since I wouldn’t be given a camera, and my main job was to just follow everyone around and log what they were experiencing. Tedious, yes, but if it would mean my article selling, I didn’t care.
Pretty soon it started looking a little better in the suite. Much more organized, to say the least. No huge risk of tripping over cables and equipment. No sense in risking that anyway, since it would render all the footage unusable. Plus I embellished a little about how clumsy I was. Didn’t see well in the dark, that kind of thing. So when the lockdown actually came around and got closer, Aaron and Nick brandished me with an epic, high-tech pair of night-vision goggles. I squealed in excitement and anticipation to be able to use them. Thankfully, the sun set early in Vegas so by half past five we were ready to rock and roll.
Vince had invited more people to the lockdown. Groupies, I guessed, as they were mostly girls who clung to him like fucking cat hair. What can I say? He was an incredibly famous guy. The idea of all the extra people, was that in Zak’s mind, would recreate a sort of party scene to “trick” Sinatra’s ghost or whatever into coming out and interacting with the party. That’s why we had motion sensors and all those other funky things set up in every room and every doorway. So if there was a change in electromagnetic fields, they’d go off and we’d be seeing a “ghost”. Yes, I was still very sceptical. Thankfully so was Vince.
The first hour into the lockdown I spent feeling around the area to sort of get my bearings. It was awkward, and I’ll admit to grabbing more butts than I maybe should have. I wasn’t sure how the Ghost Adventures crew did it, seeing in the dark with their crappy cameras and whatever, because it was ridiculously difficult. There was music playing, not loudly, but enough to throw me off a little bit. I needed to concentrate as much as I could to everything that was going on so I’d be able to properly log all the details when I got the chance.
Eventually the music stopped and all our chatter picked up. Apparently someone thought they heard footsteps on the floor above us, only I was sure I was probably one of the few people aware that we were on the top floor and that the roof was above us, and it was very certain that since the roof was a triangle pointing upwards at the sky so steeply, no one could possibly be walking around up there. So I rolled my eyes waiting for the situation to be assessed, and the noise was soon debunked by wind or whatever else could have been out there.
These groupies weren’t so smart.
The second and third hours progressed, and man was I ever getting bored. We were sitting around, listening to Vince talk about Frank as though they were friends their whole lives. He told stories of Sinatra’s infamous parties that he held here in this very room and too many details I wouldn’t dare repeat, so as not to obscure the late Mr. Sinatra’s profile. Needless to say, lots of profanities and inappropriate remarks were made, and Vince made a point to bring his groupie wife—yes, wife—into Sinatra’s old bedroom and see if they could summon old Sinatra themselves.
If ghosts could be pissed, I wasn’t sure how they’d present themselves, although I was certain something was happening when Vince came back out only a few minutes later, then projectile vomiting on the floor and complaining of chest pain. We were certain he was having a heart attack until the medics on-site took him away and assessed him, only for Vince to immediately start feeling better once he left the set. Kinda weird, but probably a coincidence.
Yeah, right until the fucking motion sensors went off in the bedroom. I gotta say I was pretty freaked out at that point and hoped that we really hadn’t pissed off whatever kind of energy was in here. Aaron and Zak started speaking somewhat incoherently since they were on the other side of the suite. I approached them and heard Aaron apologizing profoundly to what seemed like nothing. Albeit, the hairs on my arms and neck pricked up. Something brushed up against my arm and I shrieked only loud enough for those two to hear me and come rushing over. “Tell me that was one of you,” I growled. “Please tell me that I just felt one of you brush against my arm.”
“Uh, nope.” Aaron whispered, grabbing his camera and pointing it all around me. “Whoa, Zak, you gotta take a look at this.”
I saw Zak’s face next to Aaron’s become illuminated by the small light coming from the camera’s screen. His jaw slacked and I saw his face go whiter than it was before. “That’s incredible. I’ve never seen that happen before. Let’s get some EVP and spirit box going.” Oh, I forgot to mention the spirit box. Essentially it was this high-tech radio thing that scanned through thousands and thousands of channels and frequencies simultaneously both forwards and backwards. According to the crew, ghosts and whatever could speak through these channels and we’d hear them. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to try either of those things.
And more importantly I’d love to have seen what those two were talking about.
While we tried EVP and the spirit box, nothing really happened, but Zak said he captured something that would have to be re-analyzed by his tech friends outside of the Ghost Adventures crew. He said he heard singing or something, and I didn’t want to believe it, but I did hear singing too. Holy fuck was it ever creepy.
Vince showed up again to take his wife with him, as she was way more resigned from this than I was. After seeing her husband go through what we all assumed was a heart attack, I was sure she was scared shitless. I didn’t blame her, of course. It was pretty jarring. I didn’t believe Zak when he said it was a very emotional job. I was terrified, enthralled, and ecstatic all at the same time. There are no words to truly explain the experience on that kind of emotional level. Just, wow.
So near the end of the lockdown, with all the groupies and Vince gone, the four of us minus the two guys in the nerve centre, all sat together in the room where Vince had his chest pain. We didn’t feel anything at first but gradually the air grew very, very still. No one moved. We hardly even breathed. And it got cool, cold even. Zak and Nick left their digital recorders on, picking up any possible sound from within the room. Still, nothing came through but distant humming and singing. Oh, so eerie.
And I still never found out what they were freaking out about when they were pointing the camera at me. When I looked at the footage all I saw was little particles floating all around me. Nothing special, it looked like dust. I mean the Riviera sat unused for years, so there had to have been some dust collecting.
At the end of the night I knew I had everything I needed to make one hell of an article. I might not have believed that it was Sinatra that was with us, but I do know that something spiritual was peering over us and really didn’t like us disturbing its slumber. I guess those guys just have that effect, turning sceptics into believers.
When I got back to the hotel, Brian was resting on the bed, half asleep. The television was fixed on the weather channel for back in Los Angeles. It was calling for rain, so I was certain Brian was pleased about bringing his bike along. We had no way of getting it back without getting it towed or shipped, so my assumption was that he wanted to spend a couple more days to wait out the heavy rain.
I didn’t bother asking him, but sat down at the desk in the comfortable chair the hotel provided, and went over my notes I briefly jotted down. Nick even gave me some footage to watch if I brought my laptop, which I didn’t. I’d have to wait ‘til we got back home to look over any of it. Unfortunate, since I wanted to show Brian what that shit was about.
For the time being I just worked on the introduction of the production crew. The fearless leader Zak, and his two partners in crime, Nick and Aaron. Diligently accompanied by their techies, Billy and Jay. A few others who I can’t really remember right now, but the footage would help with that. The groupies, the wicked Vince Neil. And the feasible apparition of Frank Sinatra. How could I make it believable? How could I make it sound like it wasn’t the coolest thing I’d probably ever done in my life so far?
Well, the fans would just have to settle for some unbiased mystery as the show promised them. Whatever got my name out there, right?

Notes

Okay, next chapter I'm switching up the point of view again. Stay tuned.