Shards of Black Glass (A Ghost Adventures Story)

Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words

Zak POV

I knock on Saira's door. I hear shuffled footsteps on the other side of the wood, and hear the lock disengage as she opens the door.

She cocks a hip, and stares at me. "What?" she says, never breaking eye contact with me. "Can I come in?" I ask with a small smile. Her eyes roll but she opens the door wider and steps back.

I walk into her room, noticing the steam on the wall mirror. A towel lays on the floor next to her bed, which she picks up with her foot and flips upward into her hand. She catches me watching her, and smirks. "I'm a country girl. Get used to it." She sits on her bed and crosses her long legs, watching me as I lean against her dresser for the third time in three days.

"What is it this time, Zak? Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" she asks, cocking her head like my dog, Gracie. I smile and ask back,"Aren't you as well?" She sniffs, and gestures towards the mirror and towel next to her. "Couldn't sleep. Decided to take a shower to wash those disgusting stares off my back." She shudders, and flips her long hair over her shoulder. Running her fingers through the wet brown-black locks, she gazes at me with eyes the color of spring grass.

"Why are you out of bed? Couldn't sleep either?" I smile, and move to sit on the edge of her bed. She moves back a little, though she's in the center of the bed, well away from the edge. I take out my phone from my pocket, click it on, and show her the picture I had pulled up.

She looks at the photo, then goes white. Her eyes flick up to mine, and anger flashes across her face. "You downloaded the pictures off my phone," she says calmly, stating a fact rather than asking a question. I nod, taking the phone back to my lap, where I know she'll never go for it. Her eyes are locked on mine, and my pride doesn't allow me to look away.

"Do you want to know what happened that night, or are you just going to torture me with the memory of my parents perishing in the flames?" she asks, her voice surprisingly level and calm. I stare back, challenging her to look away, and say,"No. I was just curious of why you took the photo. Why have a reminder of the night you lost everything? It must be a downer." "On the contrary," she says, raising her head proudly,"It's a pick-up. I will live every day like it's my last, because it might be. That photo reminds me of what can happen in the blink of an eye. It reminds me that life is short and unfair. It reminds me to live, since God gave me a second chance to redeem myself."

I finally blink out of surprise, and a smirk flashes across her lips. I glare at her, which just makes her smile wider. "Sneaky cheat," I say, and she laughs. The sound tickles my ears, making me smile as well. She smiles at me, and I feel a thrill roll through my chest, something I hadn't felt in a long time.

"What about the girls? Friends of yours?" I ask, and Saira rolls her eyes. "Myra and Chenelle. Two goofballs I met in college. They thought that I was a quiet girl that hadn't experienced life, and they made it their goal to get me involved. That's how I met my first boyfriend, Luke. Not very surprisingly, he dumped me for a cheerleader. I didn't really care; I knew they were seeing each other even before we started going out." Saira shrugs, and says,"He died in a car crash five years ago. Drunk driving, actually. Serves him right." I blink, thinking she doesn't mean it, but the glint in her eyes tells me otherwise.

"That's what the spirit meant, isn't it? The scars on your back: they're from the people that you let die, aren't they?" I say quietly. Saira's eyes finally leave mine, and I see anger and pain flash across her features before a strange calmness overlaps her face like a mask.

"My scars are from the Devil. I am his weapon." I keep my mouth shut, waiting for Saira to continue. She looks out the window, where I can hear people and cars bustling around on the street below. "Each scar upon my back represents a life I let slip through my fingers. Some others, I didn't even try to prevent from dying." I blink, and am about to say something when Saira looks back around at me. "Yes, Zak, some people I let die. Others, I was too frightened to help. And still others, I caused the light to leave their eyes."

Horror grips me, and I feel my body freeze. No wonder the spirit that had possessed her last night had said that she would be the cause of our deaths. She was a killer, and I had hired her.

Saira watches me with keen eyes, but doesn't move an inch. "I know what you're thinking, Zak. You hired a murderess. That I may one day kill one of you. But listen to me when I say that that's impossible. I won't kill any of you; you mean too much to me to kill." The off-hand way she says the last sentence has my heart racing faster.

I stand, ready to bolt, as Saira watches me. She doesn't move, just stares at me. I look at her with horror, my mind filled with horrifying images of mangled corpses. Then, a book flies through the air, and I instinctively catch it. The cover is worn, and Saira says,"Give it a read. Then you may understand." I turn tail, and run from the room.

The book whispers in my mind, laughing.