Dead Air by Michelle Schusterman (best books under 200 pages txt) 📕

secretly armed themselves with all kinds of weapons, and visited all the bars connected to the tunnels. They ordered drinks but didn’t actually drink them, and pretended to pass out like they’d been drugged. Once they got thrown down the trapdoors into the cellars, they attacked Red Leer’s men and freed all the prisoners who hadn’t been sold to ships yet. Sonja came face-to-face with Red Leer and demanded he return her brother. Red Leer refused and then he killed her. But the freed prisoners and all the women who had joined Sonja attacked and killed Red Leer. Eventually, all the men Red Leer had kidnapped and sold were found and set free.

But both Red Leer’s and Sonja’s ghosts are said to haunt Crimptown, forever at war with each other.

The guy Dad interviewed said people who tour Crimptown report all sorts of strange stuff, like flickering lights or chilly breezes. Sam says he can “feel the tension between Sonja and Red Leer in my gut.” Roland says Sam just ate some bad oysters. (Honestly, I can’t even tell if Roland believes in any of this stuff. He’s weird like that.)

As for me, I’m still feeling pretty skeptical. Wouldn’t ALL old tunnel systems have bad lighting and chilly breezes? I mean, it would take a lot more than that for me to consider a place haunted. But I guess I’ll find out tonight, since we’ll be camping out down there. Either way, it’s a really cool story. And I found these portraits of Sonja and Red Leer online. Isn’t Red Leer creepy-looking?

When Grandma had first suggested the blog, I’d thought it sounded like too much work. But it turns out when you don’t have to worry about outlines and a thesis statement and grades and all that stuff, writing is pretty fun. After watching Dad’s interview, I’d wandered along the waterfront until I found an Internet café where I could write up Sonja and Red Leer’s story and add their portraits. Red Leer had a thick, curled mustache and a ghoulish grin. Sonja looked so . . . innocent. And normal. Just a kind-faced woman with dark hair wearing a simple dress and a delicate smile. It was hard to imagine her leading an attack on a band of pirates.

Once I published my post, I found the Passport to Paranormal forums. I couldn’t help it—I had to see what people were saying about my dad. The top thread had his name in the title. I scanned the first page quickly.

P2P FAN FORUMS

Meet Jack Sinclair, Victim #4

Maytrix [admin]

Okay, guys, we’ve got ourselves another host! But for how long? *evil laugh*

So, Jack Sinclair hosted a morning show in Chelsea, Ohio, for several years. You can watch clips of him here . . . seems like a fun guy. Let’s recap our former P2P hosts:

Victim #1: Emily Rosinski, sixteen episodes

Victim #2: Carlos Ortiz, eight episodes

Victim #3: Bernice Boyd, four episodes

On to Victim #4! Thoughts?

spicychai [member]

two episodes. do the math.

YourCohortInCrime [member]

IDK, this “host curse” thing they’re doing can’t really last, right? It’s obviously just for publicity—the ratings shoot up for a few episodes every time. Remember when Carlos published that exposé? He said they fake all kinds of stuff on the show. That’s why he got fired. And the first episode with Bernice as host after Carlos left had the highest ratings they’d ever seen.

beautifulgollum [moderator]

Firing hosts isn’t good publicity, YCIC. And Carlos denied writing that exposé—he said he was set up. The curse is because the show is haunted—some restless spirit has been with them since the first episode in the lighthouse. I think that spirit is responsible for getting rid of the other hosts. Hopefully it will approve of Jack.

AntiSimon [member]

I miss Bernice. (Anyone’s better than Emily, though.) Anyway, I think spicychai’s right—the length of time is cut in half from one host to the next, so Jack’s got two episodes. My prediction: Jack does a couple of episodes and then they go hostless. Let Samland take over the whole thing. (Or the show gets canceled . . . and let’s face it, that’s a pretty big possibility.)

BTW, the fact that the timing works like that PROVES the curse is real. It can’t be a coincidence.

YourCohortInCrime [member]

Uh, wrong. It proves the producer firing the hosts for publicity can do basic math like the rest of us.

beautifulgollum [moderator]

Come on, YCIC—the point of the show is to find ghosts. They don’t WANT to lose hosts.

YourCohortInCrime [member]

Funny, I could’ve sworn the point of the show was ratings. Thomas Cooper’s gonna can it if it doesn’t do better this season.

skEllen [member]

#TEAMSAMLAND

I got to the bottom of the page and clicked over to the next . . . and then the next. It was kind of unnerving, watching all these fans make bets on my dad and bicker about whether his job was cursed.

Did they really believe a ghost was getting rid of the hosts? I mean, weren’t these people supposed to be adults? Even more interesting was that some of them seemed to think Lidia was actually firing hosts just to make viewers think there was a curse, like a publicity stunt.

The weirdest thing was that no one knew where the old hosts all went. Not like any of them were all that famous, but Emily Rosinski and Carlos Ortiz were reporters before joining the show, and Bernice Boyd had worked for the History channel. And apparently they were all way low-profile now, refusing to give interviews or talk to anyone about why they left. That was a big part of why the ratings always went up—all the mystery and drama surrounding their sudden departures.

Fans loved gossiping about Emily, in particular—and they didn’t say very nice things. I remembered the face Roland made when he called her a “Sumner Stalker.” A lot of fans thought she’d quit because Sam didn’t return her feelings, but some speculated they secretly dated and had a huge breakup. Personally, I couldn’t imagine Sam dating anyone. (Well, anyone living. He’d probably date a ghost if he could.)

There were