Chapter 76: Hunedoara Castle

Before our lockdown was to begin, we also met up with a tour guide, Anca Szalaky, who gave us a brief tour of the hot spots of the castle.

She was a wonderful tour guide, and had plenty of history about the castle, but it didn't take long for her to get on my nerves.

I knew it was probably because of my foul mood, combined with not feeling well, but she seemed to be flirting with Zak, and it was pissing me off.

"Was there a lot of torture here?" Zak had asked, as Aaron and I stood nearby, filming them with our cameras.

"A lot," Anca replied. "We are in Transylvania. You don't know that?" She teased, smiling at Zak.

"Un…I don't," Zak replied, causing the two of them to chuckle.

"You will find out," she said, smiling.

Yeah…I'll show you torture, you bit- I thought.

I shook my head slightly to myself.

Get over yourself Ali…jeez, you don't exactly have any claim on him…especially not after what happened in the Hoia-Baicu Forest...I thought.

This was going to be a long night.

Around midnight…

After we had finished the tour with Anca, we spilt up to set up static-x cameras in four different locations throughout the castle: the Knight's Hall, the chapel, an underground chamber where artifacts are kept, and a torture chamber.

Billy and Jay would be sitting at nerve centre in a room near the entrance to the castle, monitoring the four static-x cameras, and available to communicate with us via walkie talkies.

After we had setup all our cameras and gear, and we double checked everything was running smoothly with Billy and Jay, the three of us grouped up to start our investigation.

Aaron and I stood near the entrance with Zak, and we filmed him as he did a brief message for the fans, since this was to be a special Halloween episode.

"We wanna tell you all, Happy Halloween. The lights are going out, and we're ready to investigate," Zak said, looking directly into my camera.

I tried not to let his intensity get to me.

"You're coming with us," Zak said, pointing at the camera. "Let's do this," he added, before walking out of frame.

Damn you Bagans…stop being so hot even while I'm mad at you…

Roughly ten minutes later…

Zak, Aaron and I made our way to the first spot of our investigation, the bear pit.

Yep, you read right, a bear pit.

It was an open pit in one part of the castle, where they had kept bears, and used to force prisoners into it and Royalty would watch them get mauled to death.

All for entertainment.

Zak was leading the way, carrying a thermal camera we were going to setup and leave in the bear pit.

We'd come back and get it when the investigation was over.

Aaron and I followed Zak, filming him with our cameras.

"Where we're going right now, this bear pit, is where they would kill people," Zak started, looking into my camera, as I was the closest to him, as we started down the stairs leading into the bear pit. "They would have the prisoners, or whoever, walk down these same exact steps into a pit full of bears. Where they would maul 'em, chew 'em, eat 'em," Zak continued.

I cringed, but laughed internally.

Nice Zak…

"And this would be entertainment for royalty, and we are going to put this camera – thermal – down in the pit," Zak finished, turning and starting to walk down the stairs again.

As I filmed him, I could see the tips of the wings of his tattoo on his back peeking out from the top of his t-shirt via the night vision mode on my camera.

I didn't know why, but I found it attractive.

You need help girl…I thought, as I followed Zak down the stairs, Aaron following close behind me.

We had reached the bottom of the stairs and we were making our way through a narrow tunnel that lead to the main area of the pit.

"Holy shit...you can imagine, all the fear that was felt, in this little tunnel right here," Zak started, pausing near an archway that was at the end of the tunnel. "To my left here, is a pile of bones that are coming up out of the ground, and the construction crews just put 'em in a pile right over here," Zak added.

I glanced down to the left of him with my camera, and sure enough, there was a small pile of bones.

My god…

"This is where all these people were killed," Zak started, sidestepping the bones and moving toward the archway, but stopped briefly to look into the camera again. "Just like you would see in the – in 'Gladiator'," Zak added.

I tried not to cringe as I followed him through the archway.

"Crazy…knowing this is where people went to their death," Aaron commented, as he followed behind us.

We walked around briefly inside the pit, before we found another tunnel, opposite the one we had just came from, but it was a lot smaller.

"This is where the bears came through," Zak said, but partly in a questioning tone.

"Yeah, but you can tell over time, they've blocked it off. See how tiny it got?" Aaron replied.

"Alright, I'll put the thermal cam in here," Zak said, kneeling down at the tunnel's entrance and started setting up the camera.

While Zak was setting up the camera, I walked back near the pile of bones just outside the original tunnel and filmed them with my camera.

I also knew I'd be at a good range for Zak to test to make sure the thermal camera was working properly.

"Are these animal bones, or human bones? I can't tell…" I said softly, as I zoomed in on the pile of bones.

Just as I was about to turn to start filming some more of the pit, I suddenly heard a deep, growling sound behind me.

It sounded like a bear.

"Holy sh- Jesus! Aaron!" I snapped, having spun around to look for the source of the noise.

Aaron was almost directly behind me, and had been making a face that resembled a snarl.

He had been the source of the growling.

Aaron started laughing.

"Sorry Shorty, I just had to," Aaron said, still laughing, as he filmed me.

I smacked him on the arm, then used my hand to cover the lens of his camera so he couldn't film me.

"Idiot," I jokingly grumbled, unable to help laughing a bit now.

But then I noticed Zak laughing, and found that turned my mood back to grumpy and upset again.

Aaron must of seen my expression change, because he stopped laughing and looked somewhat worried.

"Sorry Ali," he said, softly.

I heard Zak let out a few short coughs, most likely a combination of laughing, breathing in dust, and his cold.

I sighed inwardly, both worried and frustrated.

"It's okay Aaron," I replied softly, reassuringly.

Man…I just want to go home…

Roughly fifteen minutes later…

Zak, Aaron and I had left the bear pit and were on our way to our next spot, when Billy had radioed Zak on the walkie talkie to tell him that one of the large, wooden doors to the chapel had creaked open, loudly, followed by footsteps.

We were debating on going to the chapel to investigate, but while Zak was talking to Billy, we suddenly heard a woman's voice from inside the castle, at a distance.

Zak and Aaron then had noticed a flashing light in the doorway to the Knight's Hall, so Zak told Billy to keep an eye on the chapel, and the three of us made our way to the Knight's Hall.

Aaron and I filmed Zak doing an EVP session, occasionally speaking in Romanian, but we didn't get much activity, so we decided to head deeper into the castle.