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

my walkie-talkie. Dad glanced at me over his shoulder. “Something wrong?”

“Didn’t you hear . . .” I paused, looking from Oscar to Jamie. They both stared at me blankly. “Um . . . never mind.”

We continued down the tunnel. Had I imagined the voice? Probably, I told myself. Crimptown was creepy, it was the middle of the night, we’d been playing Ouija . . .

There had to be a logical explanation. Just like there had to be an explanation for the sack of flour that had knocked Jess over, and Mi Jin’s strange, breathy voice. An explanation that did not involve the show’s so-called ghost.

I frowned as another thought occurred to me. Jess was pretty irritated that we’d messed up her footage of the flour sack. And Roland had been quick to accuse Oscar of setting it up. But maybe that was just a cover. Maybe this was all just part of them “making things entertaining.”

Or maybe I was trying too hard to pretend something genuinely supernatural wasn’t happening here.

“Jack?”

The four of us spun around. Mi Jin peered out from behind the bars of one of the cells, her eyes glassy. And behind her . . .

“Hailey!” Jamie hurried forward and pulled on the bars, then the latch. “It’s locked,” he said in disbelief, standing back to let Dad try. “Why is it locked?”

Dad frowned, squinting at the latch. “It’s not locked, just stuck,” he said, tugging on it. “Mi Jin, what’s going on? Why aren’t you with Lidia and Sam?”

Hailey stepped up to the bars, too, rubbing her eyes. “What happened?” Jamie said urgently, grabbing her hand through the bars. “How’d you end up in here?”

Mi Jin tilted her head, watching as Dad continued yanking at the rusty latch. “I’m not sure. Sam was trying to contact Sonja, I had the camera, Lidia went to get . . . something . . .” She blinked, shaking her head. “It’s weird, I can’t remember anything after Lidia left.”

Dad asked question after question, the screechy sounds from his war with the latch drowning out every other word. Jamie stood pressed up against the bars, still gripping Hailey’s hand. It was eerie how dazed both girls were. Neither could remember how they’d ended up in the cell. I still wasn’t sure what to think about the voice on the walkie-talkie or the flour sack, but Mi Jin definitely wasn’t faking this. Her handheld camera hung forgotten at her side.

Quietly, I pulled the paper from my pocket and unfolded it. The bright red letters in Hailey’s increasingly messy print stood out beneath my handwriting.

KEEP HER AWAY FROM THE MEDIUM

13 Xs

H E L L O

Is this Sonja?—YES

How many spirits?—3

G A T H E R T H E W O M E N

F R E E T H E M—NO

Is Sonja here?—NO

Who is this?—L E E R

Third ghost here?—YES/NO

F R E E T H—(Leer & ghost #3 fighting?)

K E E P H E R A W A Y F R O M T H E M E D I U M

I frowned. Gather the women. Jess had been knocked over by a sack of flour. Mi Jin and Hailey were locked in a cell. And Lidia had apparently disappeared. So far, Crimptown didn’t seem to like us girls very much.

My neck tingled, and I spun around, staring down the tunnel. No one was there. Except . . .

Wiping my palms on my jeans, I took a step down the path, then another. Dad didn’t notice—he was too busy trying to get the latch to open. But Oscar grabbed my arm.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, and I pointed.

“Do you see that?”

Oscar glanced down the tunnel. “See what?”

“A light,” I said. “Well, not a light . . . it’s kind of a glow.” Ignoring the weird look he gave me, I took a few more steps. I opened my mouth to call out for Lidia, then closed it. Because this light wasn’t from a flashlight. It was soft blue, and it rippled like water.

“Kat,” Dad said, and the light vanished. I whirled around. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“No, I—I thought I saw a light down there,” I replied, feeling foolish. “It could be Lidia or Sam.”

“We’ll find them as soon as I get this latch open.” Dad turned back to the cell door. “Stay here.” The screeching resumed, and I waited a few seconds before I took a tentative step forward. Oscar shot me a questioning look, but I just shook my head. And when I took off, he didn’t say a word.

Well, score one for Oscar. At least he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

I crept down the path as fast as I could, hardly daring to breathe. Dad would kill me for sneaking off—if I was sneaking off. But I was just going to the end of this tunnel. I’d seen some sort of light, I was sure of it. Keeping my hand on the wall, I peered around the corner. The breath flew from my lungs.

A woman stood several yards down the path, surrounded by that bluish light—definitely not the same light coming from the dingy yellow bulbs that hung from the ceiling. Her hair floated in wisps around her head, and she was smiling a tiny smile. I recognized her from the portrait in my blog post.

Sonja Hillebrandt.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FAKE KIND

Post: The Pirate Ghost of Crimptown

Comments: (6)

Anonymous: You poor, stupid girl. You have no idea what you’re getting into.

Proof. I’d said I needed proof to make me believe in ghosts, and here she was. But I still couldn’t believe my eyes.

I stood, paralyzed, as Sonja drew closer. Weren’t ghosts supposed to be transparent? Because she wasn’t—she looked as solid as me. And her clothes were . . . wrong. No old-fashioned dress like in the photo. She wore a sweater, and . . . were those jeans?

Sonja stopped a few feet from me and held out her hand.

It was like being enveloped in a cloud of static electricity. All the hairs on my arms and neck stood straight up, and my skin tingled. I blinked furiously, my vision suddenly blurry. When something moved in