Finding Home (Zak Bagans Daughter)

Chapter Twenty-Six

I froze in my place. For a few seconds she just stared at me, and I stared at her. Then, I blinked, and she was gone.

She definitely wasn't from our modern day. Her clothes were at least from the seventies, or earlier. She wore her short silver hair down in curls, which looked like they had been hair sprayed way too much. She wore a below the knee plaid skirt and a blouse and a pearl necklace. I could remember how she looked as clear as day.

I kept standing in the same spot, wondering if I blinked again she would return, but she never did. After fully composing myself. I muttered my thoughts aloud.

"This place is literally no joke"

A few seconds later Zak walked around the corner where I saw the woman.

He looked much better from when I last saw him. He was no longer sweating and he seemed much more chipper and at full strength.

"Did you see her?" I asked

His only answer to my question was a confused face.

"The woman? With silver hair? Pearl necklace?" He confusingly shook his head.

"Who are you talking about? It's just you and me in the building right now"

I just stared at him with a disappointed expression. "You must've seen her! She was here and then she was gone! Then a few seconds later you come around the corner. There's no way you didn't see her"

Zak thought about the woman I was describing for a second. Then his eyes lit up and his mouth went into the shape of an O, but no sound came out.

"You know who I'm talking about, don't you?"

He nodded and then signaled his hands to follow him. He had still not spoken a word.

I silently followed him down yet another hallway of the Haunted Museum. Then he stopped in front of one of the doorways to one of the rooms he hadn't shown me yet. He then walked into the room and toward a massive portrait which hung on the wall. Now is finally when he decided to speak.

"Is this who you saw?"

I analyzed the painting closely. She was definitely a couple years younger in this, but it was definitely her. She was even wearing the pearl necklace.

I took a step back in shock. "Yes it is her. Who is she?"

Zak sighed. "Lady Verge. She was a very rich woman in New York during the seventies

I guess I got the time period right

"But In 1978 she went nuts and killed the majority of her family with a kitchen knife" he pointed to the glass case across the room with an old kitchen knife with a card in front of it indicating what is was. Among it were family photographs of her and her family, and a few black and white pictures of the murder scene.

"When the police arrived they found her sitting in her family's blood, singing a lullaby. She claimed demons told her to do it and she could only spare one child, so she spared her youngest. A six year old little girl, who had hidden under her bed while her family screamed and begged for their lives, the mother, killed herself in her jail cell only a few weeks later"

"Oh my God" I muttered. I was horrified by the gruesome story Zak just told me, but I was also fascinated and wanted to know more.

"How did you get all this then?" I asked. "Why is it in the Haunted Museum?"

That's when Zak smiled a little. Obviously something about this fascinated him enough to buy it and put it in his museum.

"Well, after the murders; someone bought the painting. They were found dead the very next day; with their neck slit, just like how the Verge family was killed. Then a couple years later another person bought the painting. They claimed to have horrific nightmares every single night since buying the painting. And every single one of them included their own neck being slit"

As bad and awful the murders were, I was drawn to know more about this painting.

"Did you buy the painting from them, then?" he shook his head.

"No, you know who I got it from? I got this portrait and everything else in this room from the daughter; the sole survivor from the murders"

"Wait, how did she get the portrait, and the knife and the murder scene photos?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I only know why she bought the portrait. She wanted to know what her mother looked like. She had never seen a photo of her because the family who took her in after the murders refused to show her anything related to her mother or any family members that were killed. She told me after she got the painting, she kept having dreams of her family coming to her and telling her to kill herself and join them, that's why she gave the painting to us"

"Well that's definitely creepy" I scanned the room again. There were a lot of cases and shelves filled with items that were related to the murder. One shelf consisted of all the clothes of the family members when they were killed. They even had the pearl necklace. Other shelves had photos of the crime scene, and of the previous owners of the portrait of Lady Verge.

One of the photos in the cases was a family photo of the slain family. There were five children and two parents, one of them, Lady Verge.

"This is them?" I asked.

Zak quickly glanced and nodded at the photo, but then quickly shot his head to re-examine it.

Without saying anything, he went into one of the drawers in the room and pulled out a book. Which I later learned was an inventory book that listed and explained every item in the room. He quickly scanned the book and came across the family photo we were looking at.

"Charlie look" he said as pointed at the description of the photo. It read...

Last family portrait before massacre, listed from top left to bottom right.

Jeremy Verge (15), Edmund Verge (19), Margaret Verge (16), Jennifer Verge (9), Sir Michael Verge (51), Lady Michelle Verge (39), Rebecca Verge (6). (Reference to photo shown above)

After reading all the names, the realization of the first name caused us to simultaneously read it aloud at the same time.

"Jeremy!" we both yelled.

"That's the name I heard being called when you were outside!" I was getting a little too excited about all this adding up. "And right before I saw her at the end of the hallway! That cannot be a coincidence!"

We both just silently stood there and looked at the photo for a few minutes.

"I haven't heard of anyone hearing the name Jeremy yet, and Lady Verge has only been seen a handful of times while only being in the museum for a year"

"You haven't had any dreams since you've gotten the portrait? Like its previous owners did?"

He shook his head again. "No, not this portrait. I've got a lot other more powerful artifacts that plague my dreams at night" he put the book away and began to leave the room.

"Why did I see her?" I followed him out of the room and joined him in the hallway.

"I don't know. She's been seen here more than a couple times, but I have no idea why she shows herself to certain people and not others. I do know that only women have seen her in person, not one man has seen her unless it's in their dreams. Did she say anything to you?"

It was my turn to shake my head at one of his questions. "No, she just stared at me and smiled, like, really creepily smiled"

He laughed at my worry. "Don't worry Charlie, this place is filled with spirits and creepy things, you're just going to get used to it now"

I smiled. He was right, this is my life now. Not in a million years would I have thought that my dad would be a spiritual investigator and that I would have to sleep in a museum full of cursed and haunted artifacts.

I laughed. "I never thought my life would be like this. Never"

He chuckled. "Trust me Charlie, neither did I" 

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I just wrote four chapters in one shot... so proud of myself!

So... because of this I'm going to post two chapters in a row! (You're welcome)