I am Haunted: Living Life Through the Dead (30 page)

That night at Hill View Manor, I was on the same emotional wavelength as Alicia. I could feel her sadness and was nearly in tears when we connected. That’s how I helped her move on. She didn’t move on because I said, “Hey, Alicia, go to the light.” If it was that easy, we’d all walk around all day saying it. We’d all be healers, and the spirits would be like, “Cool…did it. Later.” Then everyone could do this job, and trust me…

IT’S JUST NOT THAT EASY.

People love to win, but hate a winner.

We’ve all seen them: people who just can’t stand to see other people succeed. It doesn’t matter if you’re a great actor accepting an Oscar or a great janitor accepting a Mopster, if you’re good at what you do and get recognized for it, someone will hate you. After years of dealing with that kind of contempt, all I can say is, don’t feed the trolls.

I’ve worked very hard to get where I am. I struggled for many years and had to keep my chin up when so many people told me that I had no future. I went through a lot of bad stuff before I finally found what I was passionate about and built a brand around it.
Ghost Adventures
connected me to a lot of people who are like me—obsessed with knowing more about the paranormal and helping those who have had unexplainable experiences cope with them. I’m not about to step aside from all that just because someone hates me. If you think I’m that weak, then you’ve seriously misjudged me.

When
Ghost Adventures
became a success, a lot of bad people tried to take my achievements away from me. They took notice of me and the size of my fan base and tried to bring me down. They were haters, bullies, and trolls with black hearts and no ethics. And a lot of people tried to get at the things I worked hard to earn while doing something I am passionate about. It really made jaded about people, I admit it.

Old acquaintances (notice I didn’t say
friends
) tried to get things like money or fame, or wanted to use my fan base to promote every single thing they did, and got mad when I didn’t provide them. I’ve worked hard for my success. Why do I owe them anything? Why do they try to take the things I’ve earned? I love my job for many reasons, but one big reason is that when I’m filming on location, I am free from society and the distasteful things that come with it. I get to get away and block out everything. I go to my island.

When I’m not filming
GA,
I’m at home living in the here and now, but it seems that the more successful my shows, albums, movies, and books are, the more people try to get at me and use me for my money. And they don’t just try to steal what I have, but also what I’ve made. Copycat shows and books have popped up everywhere. I learned very quickly that the more creative you are, the more protective you have to be of your work.

Even within the paranormal community, there are haters who attack us. Their TV show failed after one season because they weren’t passionate or knowledgeable enough to carry it, so they start shit with me, my crew, and our fans in order to feel important again. It’s pathetic. They spread hate toward us when in reality they’re unhappy with their own lives. We don’t usually return the bashing, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I say enough is enough (especially when the haters attack the fans) and return the barb. But in the end, all the squabbling really does is give the field a bad name. Paranormal investigation will never be taken seriously as a science if we play reindeer games. We’re professionals, not actors hired to play them. We leave that to the other paranormal shows.

Everyone has a different reason for hating. Maybe someone got beaten to the punch by someone else in the same field. Maybe someone else was being considered for a role on a paranormal show when I came along and took it. Maybe they don’t like my hair or the way I speak. Maybe they don’t believe in ghosts and want to tear me down because I do. Maybe they are just plain jealous. You may not like what I do. You may not like me personally. You may not like the color black, and that’s fine. I don’t like clowns and avoid them at all costs, but I don’t ridicule people who dress up as clowns and try to make kids smile at birthday parties and circuses. Everyone has their own reason for doing what they do; it’s a personal thing that is part of them.

Haters actually help us in a way because they create buzz and get people talking about the show. The funny thing is, they stop chirping once you confront them. It’s amazing how quickly people will back down when they come face-to-face with the person they hate. I used to get angry about haters, but that’s what they want. They want to see you blow your top and go off on a photographer or autograph seeker while their buddies film it and then put it on Vine, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and every other media outlet they can in hopes that TMZ will pick it up and they will get famous themselves. How ironic is that?

To be honest, I don’t understand why some people get so obsessed with hurting me that they spend their energy trying to tear me down. Am I that irritating, or do they just have nothing else whatsoever to do? I wish they’d take all that dedication and focus it into something positive, like cleaning up a beach or saving an abandoned animal.

The big drawback of being well known is that I can’t give everyone my personal attention. I used to respond to everyone who wrote me, tweeted me, or whatever. But then my life turned into a
Cable Guy
movie. Once I gave the obsessive types some attention, they wouldn’t leave me alone and ruined it for everyone else. People think I should be held to a different standard because I’m a TV show host, but I just can’t do it. I can’t come home from filming for three to five days and spend ten more hours a day on the computer answering messages from fans. I try to tweet out short responses to good questions, but I can’t respond to everyone, especially when I’m asked the same questions over and over again. “Zak, what’s your favorite investigation?” I get that one twenty times a day. Am I a typical entertainment guy who ignores his fans? No, but there simply aren’t enough hours in the day for me to respond to every request. I’m sorry for that, but it’s the unfortunate truth, and it breeds haters.

I love my fans to death, as long as they’re not totally creepy like the ones I described in chapter 32, “Crazy Fans.” My fans are the best people in the world, and I truly enjoy interacting with the ones who understand boundaries. But when they don’t, it just makes me want to stay indoors, sharpen sticks, and wait for the end of the world. A fan once got too obsessed, and things went south very quickly to the point where I had to get a restraining order.

Haters also make it hard to determine whom to trust. When I meet someone for the first time, I can’t tell whether they’re genuinely interested in me and what I do or whether they just want something from me, like an invitation to be on the show or tickets to the next UFC fight (since I live in Vegas). I’m never sure who’s telling me the truth and who’s just telling me what they think I want to hear. Are people being fake so that they can be close to me, or are they being real? It’s hard to tell sometimes. There are definitely people who act differently around me. They’re usually more nervous than they should be, which is always a bad sign, and since I’m an empath I can feel it. Most people can’t hide who they are around me.

So are you guilty of this yourself? Be honest. It’s not an accusation, but a question. Have you gotten obsessed with a TV personality and wanted so badly to be around him or her that you sacrificed who you are? Or do you hate successful people and watch an unbeaten sports team just to see them lose? Do you watch Floyd Mayweather fight just so you can be there when someone finally dishes him a dose of failure and see the look on his face when he has to admit that he’s not perfect? It’s not weak to admit that you have these kinds of tendencies. In fact, if you do, then you’re one step closer to knowing yourself, and that’s much more important in life than you might think.

It’s only human to want to see successful people fail, but I honestly don’t. I’ve been there, and I know what it’s like on this side of the velvet ropes. I’ve swum that river and climbed out onto the far shore a different person. I don’t hate the successful people of the world; in fact, I want to see them succeed. If they’re talented and work hard, then why hate them for it? Isn’t that the piece of the American pie we all want so badly to eat?

All the haters out there need to know one great truth about me:

AS LONG AS THERE ARE ENOUGH PEOPLE
WHO LIKE WHAT I DO, I’LL CONTINUE
TO DEDICATE MYSELF TO THEM
AND LET THE REST STEW
IN THEIR OWN HATE.

What’s at the end of this train ride?

I’ve chosen a profession that forces me to have a close relationship with death and the afterlife, and I think about those things constantly. All the time. I never stop thinking, ever. And the deeper and deeper my journeys, experiences, and interactions with spirits get, the more I think about my own death. What will happen? I’m not in a rush to find out—I have a lot of living left to do—but still, it’s intriguing to think about.

First, a quick detour. On November 6, 2014, I was in a Cadillac Escalade traveling to Goldfield Ghost Town in Arizona. We were driving along the base of Superstition Mountain, which is said to be steeped in curses and Native American lore. That probably had nothing to do with what was about to happen, but it’s worth mentioning. Billy was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and Aaron and Jay were in the back. We came to a four-way intersection where we had a stop sign but the cross traffic did not. (This is important.) Billy stopped, but as he started through the intersection, I felt strangely compelled to lift my head from my phone and look to my right. What I saw scared the life out of me.

When Billy stopped at the stop sign, he did not look to his right to see a car barreling toward us at 55 mph, and proceeded to accelerate through the intersection like an idiot. When Billy is driving, Aaron’s, Jay’s, and my heads are usually bent down over our phones, but for some reason I lifted mine as I felt the car move from the stop sign, and that decision saved my life. I screamed at Billy to stop. The oncoming car, thinking we would stay stopped at the stop sign, saw us in the middle of the intersection, about to get T-boned. The car swerved around us, tires screeching and smoking on the asphalt, and nearly flipped. Then it crashed into the bushes and cactuses on the shoulder of our side of the road.

We sat there for a few seconds trying to absorb what the hell had just happened. I screamed at Billy. How could he not look to the right? If I hadn’t lifted my head, this car would have T-boned us, smashing directly into my door, and I know I would have been killed. I was pissed, and I let Billy know it.

We went to the other car to check on the driver, an elderly gentleman who had only one arm. I think he had a veteran’s hat on. He was in shock, just sitting there amid the smoke pouring from his car, speechless and unable to move. We all just stared at each other, knowing that Billy had nearly just caused some of us to be killed. We were literally within an inch of stepping through the door of the unknown while we were on our way to investigate the afterlife at the base of a cursed mountain. To make a long story short, I screamed at Billy hardcore, but an hour later we were already cracking jokes about it. Let’s just say that when Billy drives now, I never look down at my phone.

At moments like this, I honestly feel that my life was predestined. After my first real experience with a spirit, which occurred when I was just a kid, I was chosen by some greater forces to do what I’m doing now. It’s almost like I have spiritual strings attached to me, and at times those forces act as a puppeteer, leading me to have certain thoughts and go to certain places at certain times and reignite the energy there by bringing my own energy. I’m constantly being guided by spirits and other powerful forces in ways that defy rational explanation. They want me to reopen cold cases and stories that don’t have proper endings. I feel like a spiritual missionary doing not God’s work, but the work chosen by certain spirits.

At almost every location I investigate, I tend to have a deep experience that stays with me. I never have these experiences anywhere else, and they’re getting stronger. Each experience is so powerful and emotional and beyond this living life that I feel like I am supposed to be there to make this connection. I feel like my energy is doing something beyond myself in these locations. It’s fulfilling the needs of the spirits there, but sometimes the spirits are not all good, and I don’t realize it until it’s too late. I feel like I’m roaring down the tracks of a spiritual railway, and I can’t get off no matter what I do. It makes me think about what’s at the end of the line: my own death.

I believe that when my death comes, I will visit the locations I’ve investigated one more time. I believe that in the afterlife I’ll travel to all the places where I’ve left a residue of my own energy. It’s like having my own private doorway that I will walk through at each place. The journeys I’m taking now are training me for that time—for how I’m going to live my afterlife. It’s soul training.