Chapter 116: Saloon Girl

Shortly after Patricia and I had met back up and she started showing me dresses she thought would fit me, I heard Zak's voice over my walkie talkie.

"Ali, you there?" Zak asked.

I unhooked my walkie talkie from my belt and held it up near my mouth.

"I'm here, go ahead," I replied.

"Just a heads up, a Karaoke bar up the street is pretty loud, so we have to put the investigation on hold for two hours - their closing time," Zak said, sounding mildly annoyed at the situation.

I couldn't blame him, TWO hours? What were we supposed to do to kill time?

"Aww, that sucks. Thanks for the heads up, I won't rush here then?" I asked, wanting to make sure he didn't have any other plans in mind.

"Yeah, awful karaoke too. And yeah, take your time, we're probably just gonna hang out," Zak replied.

Patricia and I both laughed at Zak's comment about the karaoke, and then I responded.

"Alright, I'll probably still head over once I'm done here," I replied.

"Sure thing, see ya later," Zak responded.

"Later," I replied, and then set the walkie talkie aside, since I would be trying on dresses anyway.

"He's quite a character isn't he?" Patricia asked.

I couldn't help but laugh.

"That's a bit of an understatement, but yes," I replied, taking off my hat, necklace, and boots and setting them aside, and then took one of the dresses that would hopefully fit, and stepped behind a change screen to try it on.

Roughly twenty minutes later…

After trying on a couple of dresses, I finally found one that fit me perfectly. Of course, it was a traditional Saloon Girl style dress. The top part of the dress consisted of black material with off the shoulder, short sleeves. Just under the bust, there was a red and black striped, faux, waist corset with lace up front. Then there was a red satin skirt, with front cinching, and black lace trim. Because the skirt originally was cinched up to be very short, I adjusted it a bit so it was just a bit longer, but still above knee length. Patricia also helped me adjust the black bra I was wearing so that the straps would be hidden, but I'd still have the support, and without fear of it coming off.

(Link on my profile for Twitter and Instagram picture)

To accessorize the outfit, I put on a black choker with one, single red rose, and I also put on a pair of black, knee high stockings. For one last touch, since braided pigtails didn't exactly work for a Saloon Girl look, I undid the braids and brushed out my hair to let it hang down normally. Patricia then offered me a red bow hair clip, which I accepted, to pin some of my hair back on one side of my head.

"There you go sweetheart," Patricia said. "You're all set to work at a brothel," she teased.

I had to laugh as I looked at my reflection in the mirror – if only she knew how unexperienced I actually was. When I looked in the mirror, I immediately reacted with shyness and wanted to grab a robe or a blanket to hide in. This dress definitely accentuated my breasts, and with the stockings and my cowboy boots…oh boy.

After putting on my cowboy boots, and just as Patricia and I were about to leave, I saw a small figure out of the corner of my eye.

Emily!

It had felt like ages since I had last seen her.

When I looked at her full on, she was watching me intently, and then suddenly pointed toward the chair which had my clothes and my cowboy hat.

I felt confused, was she trying to suggest I shouldn't go through with this outfit change? But then, why hadn't she appeared to me earlier?

"Alicia? Are you okay?" Patricia asked.

"Oh, yes. Just making sure I have everything," I said.

"Alright," Patricia said, seemingly buying my excuse.

I smiled at her as we walked to the door, and she walked outside

I took one last look behind me, to see Emily was still there, and she pointed at the chair more insistently, but wouldn't speak.

Knowing Patricia would get suspicious, I waited a few more seconds before I turned and followed Patricia outside.

I'm sorry Emily…I can't always avoid uncomfortable things, I thought, figuring she wasn't happy with my wardrobe change.

It wouldn't be until later in the lockdown when I would realize my mistake.

Once we were ready, Patrica and I made our way over to the "The Birdcage Theatre" to meet up with the guys. When we arrived, we went to the ballroom - where the stage was - and found the guys setting up cameras and other equipment. Aaron, being Aaron, had let out a catcall whistle when he saw us, and then the other guys took notice. Zak had looked like he had to stop his jaw from dropping, and I could just see on his face that he was more than pleased to see me, but he didn't comment, and I knew that was most likely due to Patricia standing beside me. He didn't need to say anything anyway, his expression had been enough to make me feel flush.

Without the lockdown to keep us occupied, this was going to be the longest two hours of our lives.

Two hours later…

After what felt like forever, the bar down the street finally closed its doors for the night, and therefore we could begin the lockdown without fear of awful karaoke singing ruining any evidence we captured.

"Alright ladies and germs, let the lockdown begin!" Aaron proclaimed, as he took position a few feet in front of Zak, with his camera ready.

Patricia and I couldn't help but laugh as we took up spots standing a couple of steps behind Zak, so we'd be in the background of the shot.

"Funny Aaron, let's roll," Zak remarked, more than likely annoyed by what already felt like a long night.

Aaron counted down from five, silently counting down with his fingers from "two" to "go" and Zak began with an introduction.

"Okay, right now we're getting ready to start our investigation officially – our second investigation, five years later, at "The Birdcage Theatre" – and with this investigation we brought with us some un…some experiments. This first experiment we have two ladies who are going to be our trigger objects," Zak started, then turned slightly to look back at Patricia and I. "One is Patricia, who works here, who gets touched here, and last night got groped," Zak continued.

Then he turned a bit more to look at me, and I managed to keep my composure when he stumbled to speak at first.

"Un…Ali, as you all know, is a part of our crew as a paranormal investigator, and she volunteered to dress up for this part of the investigation," Zak said, then turned back to face Aaron. "We are going to use this old victrola, and we actually have the victrola set up to some old, 1800's style, un, Saloon music. So we're going to see if this can connect with the spirits in here," Zak explained, as he held the victrola, which was hooked up to his cell phone, in his hands.

"Whose ready to party down Saloon style?!" Aaron asked, having turned the camera on himself, and we all laughed.

After Zak set the victrola on a nearby table, we moved over near the stage where Patricia and I would do our bit for the investigation. As Zak, Billy, Patricia and I moved over, Aaron was still filming us.

"I have an idea to kind of help her…" Patricia said, as we walked to the stage. "I've done it a bunch of times on the tour and it usually works," Patricia explained, with a smile on her face.

Uh oh, I thought.

"Oh, yeah?" Zak asked.

"Yeah," Patricia replied enthusiastically.

"Well, please share," I replied, trying not to sound as nervous as I felt.

"I'm gonna offer you up to them," Patricia said, smiling still, while my jaw dropped.

"You're gonna what?!" I asked in shock, although part of me knew this was the idea with her and I being dressed up anyway.

"Yeah," Patricia said.

"I like where this is going," Zak said.

Oh, of course you do! I thought in amusement.

Patricia reached out with her hand and she and Zak gave each other a high-five, and then Aaron turned the camera on himself again.

"Here we go again!" He said and we all laughed.

After a few minutes of making sure we had everything ready, we began filming again.

Patricia and I were standing near the stage and bar area, and we were being filmed by Aaron, who had the standard camera in night vision, and a thermal camera on a tripod.

Zak was standing a few feet away near the table with the victrola on it.

"Okay everyone, I don't normally do this, but tonight is your night. You get to do whatever you want, and no one is going to yell at you," Patricia said, speaking to whatever spirits may be with us.

"Woo," Aaron said quietly, in a "oh my god" type way.

"Okay? There's no rules, absolutely nothing. I know I said I wasn't going to be here, but here I am, and you get to do whatever you want," Patricia spoke again. After a moment's pause, she continued. "I even brought you a gift," Patricia said, pointing directly at me. "New friend, she just got hired on, and…she's been paid for the night, so she's yours. Have fun," Patricia finished. "Sorry," she quickly added, looking at me.

I just nodded in response. I had to admit, I was feeling a little uncomfortable about what she had said, simply because with my virgin status, any talk like that made me uncomfortable. But Patricia obviously didn't know that, so I didn't fault her for it, and besides, I volunteered for this.

My thoughts were distracted when Zak spoke up, sounding a little off himself – almost as if he wasn't thrilled with the idea either

"Okay, we're going to play the music," Zak said, as he got to work getting the music ready to play through the victrola. "Ali, you let me know if you start getting uncomfortable," Zak added.

I was rather surprised he didn't mention both Patricia and I, but at the same time, I had a feeling he was thinking along the same way as I was about this whole thing. Regardless, I was grateful for his concern.

"Will do," I said simply.

"Here we go," Zak said, and then the cheery, 1800's style Saloon music began to play.

As Patricia and I were playing the parts of trigger objects, Zak was going to be walking around and taking still pictures with the Full Spectrum Camera – a Camera that captures images with the full range of the light spectrum, two of which cannot be seen by the naked eye. Some theories suggest paranormal entities can only show themselves within these two spectrums, and that's why we can't see them.

We would also have a Structured Light Camera – which maps in stick figures of the living or paranormal beings walking in front of it. We also had a thermal imaging camera, and the regular night vision cameras.

For the first while, Patricia and I stayed fairly close together, and just stood still, waiting to see if the music would kick up any activity, but as time passed nothing was happening.

"If you ladies want to move around, you can," Zak said, while he continued taking full spectrum pictures of Patricia and I.

Patricia and I both started to walk around a large table we were near, each of us going in opposite directions until we met on the other side. Just as Patricia was going to tell me more about her incidents with being touched, Zak spoke up.

"Woah, woah, woah, whoa!" Zak exclaimed.

"What do you see?" Billy asked.

"Holy fuck!" Zak exclaimed again, as he was looking at his camera and rapidly hitting buttons.

"What?" Aaron asked.

"Whoa, whoa whoa, did you guys not see that?" Zak asked.

"See what?" Billy asked.

"There was a ball of light- fuck! Damn it! I was on still," Zak said in anger.

"Where was it?" Patricia asked, looking at Zak from our spot across the room.

"It flew above you, started from Ali's side and then flew toward you. It ducked down toward you at one point," Zak replied.

"That's weird, I was just telling Alicia more about my experiences in here," Patricia said.

"Whoa!" Aaron exclaimed.

"Jay, did you see that?" Zak asked, speaking into his walkie talkie.

"No, not on what I was watching. Must have been the UV spectrum," Jay responded over the walkie talkie.

All I could think of during this exchange was that this must be what my second drawing had been forecasting: two women under a ball of light. Pretty clear cut. Every time one of my drawings ended up "coming to life" it awed me more and more.