Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew (24 page)

One of the hardest things to do as a paranormal investigator is keep your fear in check. It’s always there. If it’s not, then you’re a nonbeliever because only those who believe in the paranormal and know the harm that it can cause are scared. Skeptics aren’t scared because they don’t believe there’s anything out there that can harm them.

There has to be order and discipline during an investigation. I’ve been criticized in the past for being bossy with Aaron and Nick, but the truth is, I run a tight ship and feel that one person has to be the clear leader in these dark, eerie places or things go awry quickly. If that happens, then we don’t accomplish all of our objectives and the investigation is a waste of time. I believe in efficiency and a clear chain of command . . . with me at the top of course.

At the same time that the thud hit the wall, we also heard something very eerie. A song very similar to “Three Blind Mice” was being hummed by an unseen voice. We were so preoccupied with the thud and trying to control ourselves that we didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but later we all recalled it and heard it when we played back our recorders. “Three Blind Mice.” How weird is that? Who or what would find it entertaining to hum “Three Blind Mice” when we were in a state of mild panic? Could it be that demons have a sense of humor?

But the evil in Mackey’s wasn’t done with us yet. It’s somewhat ironic that the worst physical attack by a spirit I’ve ever encountered was during one of my first investigations, but looking back on it now, it may also be the cause of some of the strange things that happen to me now. I was by the well in the basement doing my thing—pissing off evil ghosts (or so I thought)—when I felt a burning sensation on my back. This was no sunburn or mere poke, it was a stinging pain that ran from my neck to the small of my back. At first I didn’t say anything, but moment by moment it got worse and eventually became very painful. Finally I asked the guys to look at it. I turned and Aaron lifted my shirt. When I heard him gasp, I knew something was wrong.

Three scratches, each one about ten to twelve inches long, streaked down my back. At one point they were deep enough to draw blood. We were still fairly new at PI, so I wasn’t sure how to deal with this. All I knew is that it hurt and I was pissed, so I lashed out at the spirits, first with anger and then with taunting. Call me crazy, but I wanted more. I was already injured, so what more could they do? That’s just me. When pushed, I push back.

Instead of leaving the building or retreating to a safe area, I took the fight to them and challenged them, though to be honest, I really didn’t care to be scratched again. I was more interested in capturing something on tape or film, and the thought of engaging in some sort of blood exchange with a demon wasn’t thrilling. Unfortunately, that was the culmination of paranormal activity in Bobby Mackey’s that night. Everything went quiet, as if the demons there were satisfied with marking me and decided it was time to take a nap.

They may have been done for the night, but for me things were just starting. The mysterious marking I got that fateful evening was the moment everything changed, including me.

I returned to Bobby Mackey’s with a group of friends in 2010 to conduct another investigation on our own without the support of the Travel Channel. For some reason I considered myself experienced enough that I believed nothing was going to happen to me. Turns out I was fooling myself because in the middle of the night, they found me again.

By this point I’d been on a lot of investigations where I’d been pushed and prodded by angry spirits, heard voices of disembodied souls, seen shadow apparitions, witnessed a full possession, and been attacked in some of the darkest places on Earth. Just like the first time I went to Mackey’s, something happened the second time that I still can’t explain.

The lower level of Mackey’s is a catacomb for the decaying detritus of the former roadhouse/nightclub. It’s lined with broken refrigerators, guitar cases, mattresses, discarded wood, and even an old weathervane. I was leading a small group of people through this downstairs area when Nick Groff interrupted us.

“Dude. You have to hear this,” he said with an urgency in his voice as he held up his digital recorder. I’ve known Nick a long time and have been in many strange situations with him, so the raised eyebrows and perplexed look on his face told me he had something solid.

He played what he’d captured on his digital recorder, sending shivers down my spine. “Play that again,” I said. When he did, we all distinctly heard “Hey guys. Be careful!” plain as any disembodied voice I’d ever captured—only this one was mine! It was my voice coming through the speaker. There was no doubting it.

“I’ve known you a long time, dude,” Nick said, “and that is
your
voice.”

He was right. It was my voice and I couldn’t explain where it came from. I was saying words that I had not uttered that day, nor could I remember saying during the previous investigations of that building in the past. On top of that, we captured something else just as shocking.

One of our longtime fellow paranormal friends, Tara Bohren, was with us that evening. Just after my voice came through, her daughter’s voice also crackled through the digital recorder, saying, “Mommy. Help.” Understandably, Tara was upset and immediately moved away from the group to call home to ensure that her daughter was at home and in bed in Oregon. Another message that came through the shack hack that evening told Mark and Debby Constantino that their children were in a fire. They too immediately called home to make sure everyone was safe. I was befuddled, and as with any piece of evidence we capture, I was looking for an answer.

My initial attempt to explain this is to go to the source. I’m convinced demonic forces live in Bobby Mackey’s Music Hall, and being evil, they enjoy toying with your emotions and causing you pain or confusion. I believe they achieve this by mimicking your voice, like they did with me. That definitely made me angry. And manipulating Tara by mimicking her daughter caused her emotional stress and set all of us off a little.

The taunting didn’t stop there. Later that night we captured an eerie EVP that referred to me as “Z Man.” That’s what my father used to call me when I was a kid, and I hadn’t heard it for many years. We heard it a few times on the ghost box and it certainly got my attention.

After that, the demons there shifted their focus and targeted Aaron. Disembodied voices picked at his failed marriage, and he changed in front of us. The always happy-go-lucky Aaron looked more like he was witnessing a family member being beaten. Something was wrong. He started to weep and then ran out of the room. I kept him separated from the group and together with a special guest we had with us, consoled him.

Bishop James Long is the Archbishop of the U.S. Old Catholic Church and is an expert in the field of demonology and exorcism. With all the crap that happened to us the first time around, I figured we could use an ace in the hole, especially since we were taking a large number of civilians into a profoundly evil place with us.

The bishop and I tried very hard to get Aaron under control and told him not to show fear. “Don’t show weakness,” we said repeatedly. “This is what they want. Stop crying.” Things had, well, gone to hell—so fast that this was no longer a paranormal event. It was far more serious. It was a party with the devil. Aaron regained his senses, but after that one of my best friends started slipping away and changed dramatically. I think the evil there still has some strange control over him.

One more thing happened that night that was very profound and worth mentioning. In the basement we were doing an EVP when Bishop Long’s recorder flew across the room and smashed. At the same time he felt a sharp fiery pain on his hand and when we looked at it, he was scratched across the back of his palm by three clear marks that were bleeding—just like the marks that were on my back a year before.

This is something that fascinates (and horrifies) me. Nearly every case of a physical demonic attack leaves the victim with three marks, as if the demon has a three-toed claw. Theologians believe this is the marking of the trinity—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think it’s a sign that we’re dealing with nonhuman forms. The three-toed mark also makes it easy to differentiate between a demonic attack and a self-inflicted wound. During our first investigation of Bobby Mackey’s, I was attacked in the basement and had three long, painful scratches down my back
.

This is how demons hurt us. They manipulate our skin and muscle to cause pain. Women feel penetration when an incubus enters the body. Men feel burning and usually end up with three scratch marks like I did the first time I was in Bobby Mackey’s. The attack on the bishop was the same. It was the demon’s attempt to hurt him by manipulation of his body. This attack confirmed that there was a demonic entity with us that evening, and whatever attacked the bishop was the same thing that had attacked me a year before.

All these incidents seemed to me like an attempt by the demons there to make us angry and cause us emotional pain. They enjoy watching us panic at the thought that our loved ones are being harmed. They’re like bullies who get off on other people’s misery and love to mimic your voice and mess with your mind. That’s what makes a demon a demon instead of just a nasty or mean spirit and it’s one of the reasons Bobby Mackey’s is one of the darkest places on Earth.

A year later we returned to Bobby Mackey’s for a third investigation (that’s right—a third trip) and got even more than we bargained for. Bishop Long was with us again and almost immediately after entering the building he froze in his tracks. “An exorcism was performed here,” he said to me near the kitchen. I stopped, unsure of what to say and looked at him. Just like my body tells me when ghosts are present, he could tell where an exorcism had taken place—and he was right. He did not catch it during the second investigation, but this time it was a powerful feeling that he couldn’t miss.

A solemn rite of exorcism had been performed in that very spot years before. The solemn rite is serious business, and like ghosts, it leaves behind some sort of energy signature for guys like Bishop Long to pick up on.

He stood there for a long, awkward moment feeling the air and getting a sense of what he was up against. As he did so, I saw myself in him. I got a glimpse of what I must look like when I can feel a presence and I freeze to try to dial it in. His arms were outstretched and his senses were all on overdrive. Finally he moved away, but not before making a mental note of the location.

The solemn rite of exorcism that he sensed is no joke. It’s the highest level of antidemonic incantation in the Catholic Church and is reserved for only the worst of the worst demonic entities. It’s used only when a full possession has occurred and a place needs to be completely cleansed. What most people don’t realize is that there are three levels of possession, all of which have their own “cures.”

• The first level is an infestation. It’s the lowest level and occurs when a demonic entity has made a nest in a building, but has not yet chosen a human body to reside in. Sometimes the demon intends to reside there without disturbing the humans it comes across and sometimes its intent is much more dastardly.
  
• The middle level is oppression. This is when a demon has chosen a human host and is trying to destroy its intellect and will. This is sometimes referred to as a transient stage when the demon is not fully in control of the human, but is trying to achieve it. To banish this level of demon, a priest like Bishop Long can perform a minor rite of exorcism.
  
• The highest level is full possession. At this point the demonic entity has full control of the human host and requires a solemn rite of exorcism to banish it. A demon can and will bring about death to its human host if it is not banished.
  

Knowing these levels of possession, I should have seen the signs of what was coming, but that’s the difficulty of dealing with these beings—they can blind you and make it impossible to see what’s happening around you.

More strange things happened during the night, so Bishop Long decided the basement, where all the evil is centered, needed a full cleansing. The standard procedure in this situation is to go room to room and cleanse them (similar to what our military does when they clear a building). This corners the entity in the last room you go into and forces him to manifest. Once he exposes himself, the Bishop can banish him back to wherever he came from.

Suddenly we heard a loud and definite growl and knew that a clash was coming. It wasn’t necessarily an animal, but an evil. It’s important to note here that demons are not human sprits with bad intentions. According to the Catholic Church, an entity is either a demon
or
a human spirit, but not both. A human spirit cannot possess a living human. Demons are actually fallen angels with intelligence. At one time they were good, but for some reason they were sent back to Earth and turned dark. Demonic entities are not limited in their intensity, either. They don’t have special powers, but do not have to rest like we do either.

Getting back to the exorcism, we were making progress through the basement when the demon tried to split the group up. We were clearing the rooms when I went into another room by myself and something happened that I still cannot explain. At this point I have to let Bishop Long tell the story since a lot of the details are still foggy to me (you’ll hear why in a minute). All I really remember is that I was not myself. I remember someone took me by the hand and led me out to the well (I still don’t recall who it was). They tell me I was talking in gibberish the whole way, but I don’t remember it.

Bishop Long:
“Zak’s demeanor changed completely and I knew what was happening. I did some things to him to see if he was possessed or oppressed and determined he was not in a state of full possession. He was in a state of oppression, but I had to act fast. The concern was no longer clearing the basement, but the health and welfare of Zak. It was time to leave the building, because remaining would have meant possession. The solemn rite is necessary for full possession, but this demon was still transient. He was still trying to gain control of Zak and use him as a human host. I performed an immediate blessing on Zak and a minor rite of exorcism to rid him of the evil. At this point the evening was no longer a paranormal investigation. I was worried about the people present. Any of them could go into a state of possession like what was happening to Zak, so we got everyone moved out of there.”