Chapter One
I stepped slowly out of my car, taking a deep breath. The warm summer breeze brushed lazily across my cheeks, gently tugging on loose tendrils of my hair. I adjusted my baseball cap on my head as I nervously surveyed my surroundings. I was standing outside of Bobby Mackey's Music World in Wilder, Kentucky, an infamous night club that's rumored to be a portal to Hell… The place seemed so quiet, almost like it was deserted. I checked my watch and saw that it was 10:40. I was twenty minutes early. I had recently won a contest that had been sponsored by the Travel Channel, and now I was getting to meet the five guys that hosted my favorite TV show, "Ghost Adventures": Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, Jay Wasley, and… ZAK BAGANS! I had won the contest almost a month ago by answering a simple question that had been that had been asked over the radio: "Which lockdown inspired Zak to get the huge tattoo that he has on his back?" I had been the fifth person to call in, and I'd had the right answer. Zak had gotten that huge, Demon-looking tattoo after being possessed by a Demon on Poveglia Island in Italy. And because I knew that, I was now going to meet the five guys that I had seen on television two nights a week for over a year, and I was going to participate in their third or fourth investigation of Bobby Mackey's. I was supposed to be meeting the guys at eleven, so I could have a look around the place before we investigated the next night, but I had left my hotel thirty minutes early. I had never been here before, even though I had a friend who lived in Wilder, and I was afraid I'd have trouble finding the club. So I had left thirty minutes early to allow myself plenty of time to get to the club on time. It had turned out, though, that the club was only about ten minutes away from my hotel, and I'd had no trouble finding it. So I was twenty minutes early. I had been very selective that morning when I'd chosen what I was going to wear today. I wanted to impress the guys – especially Zak (alright, mostly Zak) – but I didn't want to come off as crazy because of how obsessed I was. So I had worn a pair of simple, black sneakers and a pair of blue jeans. And then I had also worn a black baseball cap that had "Ghost Adventures" written across the front in white letters, plus a black t-shirt that was identical to the ones that my friends and I had made back home. On the front of the shirt was the "Ghost Adventures" emblem, and then on the back, in big, white letters, the shirt said, "Can you handle the lockdown?" It was a really cool t-shirt, and my friends and I loved them. I had thirteen friends back home in Kansas that loved "Ghost Adventures", and then there was my friend, Meghan, who lived here in Wilder. Five of us – including Meghan and I – loved Zak, six of them loved Nick, and four of them who loved Aaron. And so we would have playful fights about who was hotter: Zak, Nick, or Aaron. It was a lot of fun! I looked around me again, and I finally saw a white van parked next to what had once been the slaughterhouse, when this property had been a slaughterhouse. And leaning against the van were four men… My heart started pounding in my chest as I realized who the guys were. It was Nick, Aaron, Billy, and Jay. Zak, to my slight disappointment, was nowhere to be seen. The guys were leaning casually against the van, talking to each other. I swallowed and, mustering up all of my courage, walked across the parking lot to them. They looked up and saw me coming, and eventually they came to meet me. "Hey." Nick said, smiling gently at me. "Are you Andrea Gunderson?" I nodded and smiled back at him. "Yeah, I'm Andrea. It's nice to meet you." Nick extended his left hand and I shook hands with him as he said, "I'm Nick. It's nice to meet you too!" I looked at Nick's face as he shook my hand, and the warm, gentle look in his brown eyes put me at ease. I had always thought he was kind of cute – not hot like Zak, of course, but still cute. "It's kind of a shame he's married." I thought as I studied his face. I knew that Stacey, Lisa, Jamie, Hannah, Lucinda, and Irene (my friends) would have killed to be in my shoes in that moment, and I felt very grateful that I had gotten this opportunity to meet the guys and spend time with them. When Nick released my hand, I felt someone put their arm around my shoulders. I turned slightly and came face-to-face with Aaron. He had a huge grin on his face, and I couldn't help but chuckle slightly and grin back at him. "Hi Aaron." I said, still laughing. "It's nice to meet you too!" Aaron gave me a bear hug and said, "It's nice to meet you too Andrea! I like your shirt!" I grinned and said, "Thanks Aaron." "What's on the back of it?" Nick asked. I turned around and let him read the back of my shirt. "'Can you handle the lockdown?'" he read out. "Very nice." When I turned around again, Billy looked at me and said, "I guess that's the big question for tomorrow night, isn't it? Can you handle the lockdown?" He smiled at me and I knew he was half-teasing me. "I think I can." I replied. "We'll find out tomorrow night, though." Aaron chuckled. "She looks tough to me Billy." he said. "I wouldn't mess with her if I were you!" We all started laughing then, and I said, "It's okay Billy. I won't hurt you!" Billy let out a mock sigh of relief, and I just shook my head, trying hard not to start laughing again. It almost pained me to look at Billy. He looked so much like my best friend's dad, and my best friend had died last April… "You know Billy," I said softly. "you look almost exactly like my best friend's dad. It's kind of cool." Billy grinned and high-fived me, and I grinned back at him. Jay extended his hand towards me and said, "Before these monkeys get carried away, I'm Jay. It's nice to meet you Andrea." I laughed softly, shook his hand, and said, "Hi Jay. It's nice to meet you too." When Jay and I pulled our hands back, Nick looked at me and said, "I bet you're wondering where Zak is?" I blushed deeply and nodded, making the guys all chuckle. Nick grinned at me and said, "He'll be out in a minute. He went in to get Bobby and Karl." I nodded, knowing he meant Bobby Mackey himself, as well as Karl Lawason, the retired caretaker of the club who had been possessed by a Demon in his apartment above the club. "So are you nervous at all for tomorrow night?" Aaron asked, as we all leaned back against the cool metal side of the van. I just shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I know what's here and I know what it's capable of, but fearing it really isn't going to help me face it." Nick and Aaron both nodded at me. "That's a good attitude to have." Nick said quietly. "If you're too afraid this crap can get to you and mess with you, but if you're merely cautious, it has a somewhat harder time of getting to you." I nodded. "I know." The truth of the matter was that I wasn't scared, but I was pretty nervous. I knew there were Demons here. I knew what they had done to Zak, Nick, and Aaron during their previous investigations. I had seen both of the episodes that they had filmed here. I'd heard horror stories from my friend, Meghan, who lived in Wilder and who had been possessed at Bobby Mackey's. I knew the dark history of the club. And yet I wasn't afraid. I was pretty apprehensive about what was going to happen, but, more than anything, I was nervous about meeting Zak. I'd had a crush on him for several months now – my friends teased me mercilessly about it – and I wanted to make a good impression on him. So I had decided that I was going to worry about meeting Zak first, and then start worrying about surviving tomorrow night. "So have you seen both of the episodes we've filmed here?" Aaron asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. I nodded. "Yeah I have." "What did you think of them?" Nick asked. "You three are either really brave or really stupid!" All four of the guys burst out laughing. "You're probably right about that Andrea!" Nick said, while Aaron, Billy, and Jay all nodded. "Do you remember any of the history of this place?" Billy asked. I nodded again. "This place started out as a slaughterhouse before it became a bar, and then Bobby Mackey's nightclub. There was a young woman named Pearl Bryan who was murdered here by her boyfriend, Scott Jackson, and his friend, Alonzo Walling, in 1896. Jackson and Walling decapitated Pearl and then, according to legend, they threw her head down the well in the slaughterhouse as a blood sacrifice to the Devil. Pearl's body was found out here by the railroad tracks, but her head was never found. Jackson, Walling, and Pearl are said to still haunt here, and that sacrifice is supposedly the source of all of the Demonic activity here. Pearl was five months pregnant when she died. And then there's Johanna. Her father owned a bar here back in the 1930s, and there was a man named Robert Randall who became a regular at the bar, and who Johanna fell in love with. Randall fell in love with Johanna too, but Johanna's father was jealous and didn't want them to be together, so he had Randall killed in the middle of the night. When Johanna found out that Randall was dead, and that her father had had him killed, she took her own life. And now she's supposedly still haunting here, looking for Randall and looking for justice." Nick, Aaron, Billy, and Jay all looked impressed by how much I knew. I grinned at them and was going to continue on with what I remembered of their lockdowns here, but I was stopped before the words had even formed in my mouth. I heard footsteps behind me, and then an all-too familiar voice say, "Wow! I'm impressed! I know Bobby Mackey's is one of our more well-known locations, but I wasn't expecting you to know that much about the place!"