Final Girl by Michelle Schusterman (beach books .TXT) 📕

shelf—the other shelf, in the other room 313. It was trying to come back here, to replace me.”

My breaths were coming quick and short now. I chanced a peek at Dad’s face, then Grandma’s. Dad’s brow was furrowed, but Grandma looked perfectly serene. Neither looked ready to lock me up, so that was something.

“The reason I didn’t tell you any of this before is that I figured you’d think I was crazy,” I finished. “But it’s the truth.”

“Kat, honey . . .” Dad sat down on my other side, the bed creaking beneath the weight of all three of us. “I would never think that. I’m glad you’re finally being honest with me.”

I looked up at him in surprise. “You believe me?”

He started to respond, then pressed his lips together thoughtfully. “I can tell when you’re lying,” he said finally. “And you’re not. But I’ll admit, everything you just said is kind of . . .”

“True,” Grandma finished. Dad and I both looked at her in surprise. “Well, Jack, look at these cuts on her hands. Do you see any glass, anything in this room that could’ve done this to her? And, KitKat, you said you were taking photos, but I can’t help noticing you don’t seem to have your camera.”

My heart twisted as the image of the broken Elapse lying on the black tiled floor surfaced in my mind. “I lost it,” I whispered. “It’s in the other room 313.”

Dad stood and walked slowly around the room, peering under the bed and around the sides of the shelf. Then he sat next to me again, his face a bit pale.

Grandma chuckled. “Well, I’m sorry,” she said when Dad gave her a funny look. “But you are the host of a ghost-hunters show whose motto is Believe. So . . . can’t you?”

“I . . . well . . . yes, of course I can,” Dad said, shaking his head. “But I’m just trying to . . .” He turned to me. “Kat, I thought I didn’t understand what was going on with you over the last few weeks. But it seems like maybe I haven’t understood what you’ve been going through over the last few years. And that’s what really scares me.”

“I’m sorry.” Tears welled up in my eyes, and I brushed them away. “I thought I could fix this by myself. I thought if I told you what was going on, you’d think you were right about putting me in danger.”

Dad opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “And yeah, okay, so I did get hurt tonight. But the Thing has been real to me since I was like eight. It’s always haunted me, even back in Chelsea. What happened just now has nothing to do with the show, I swear. It . . . it was going to happen no matter what. I had to face it.”

I was breathing heavily by now, and Grandma put a supportive hand on my back. Dad rubbed his forehead wearily, looking from me to the corner.

“So this . . . thing,” he said finally. “You said it’s a different version of yourself that your . . . your mother would prefer over you?” His voice broke a little.

“Yeah.” I smiled tightly. “It’s hard to explain.”

“I’m listening.”

“But Jess is probably waiting for you,” I said. “They’re filming, you should—”

“Kat,” Dad interrupted gently. “They can film without me for a few minutes. Tell me everything.”

So I took a deep, shaky breath.

And I started from the beginning.

CHAPTER TWENTY MOVING ON

Post: So Here’s the Thing [Vlog]

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[Transcript]

Hi, everyone! Kat Sinclair here. I started typing out a long post about the whole doppelganger thing, but then Oscar suggested I do a vlog instead. Which I . . . well, I really didn’t want to do, because in case it isn’t obvious, I hate being on camera. But sometimes facing your fears is a good thing, so . . . here goes.

On my first day with Passport to Paranormal, Roland told me making the show was a no-win situation. If they found proof of paranormal activity, people would say they faked it. If they did fake something, people would get mad—like the exploding lightbulb in the first episode. And if they did nothing, well, you guys might think the show was boring.

Turns out running this blog is kind of the same. I’ve posted photos and videos on here of what I believed was evidence of paranormal activity. Some were real. Some turned out to be different from what I thought they were. But I didn’t fake any of them. I know some of you will never believe me, and that’s okay. But I promise I’ve never lied on my blog.

And I’m still a skeptic. Most of the time, when something that might seem paranormal happens, there’s a logical reason for it. But not always.

This should be the part where I explain exactly what’s been going on the last few weeks. I know my behavior has seemed a little weird . . . and that’s a nicer way of putting it than a lot of you guys in the comments. There’s a reason for it. And yeah, it’s a paranormal one.

But I’m not going to talk about it.

Because it’s personal. And because I know not everyone will believe it. And others will say I’m just doing it for attention, or it’s publicity for the show. It’s hard, because I want to defend my dad from fans, and supposedly “professional” reporters, who claim he’s a bad father.

Here’s what I will say about the last few weeks: The doppelganger you saw in the Yongheng Bridge episode was real. It left comments on the P2P forums and other places online pretending to be me. It did show up in the Ryang Psychiatric Hospital when we were filming the finale, and it did try to hurt me, but I’m fine. And it’s . . . well, I’m not sure where it is now. But I haven’t seen it since.

But you won’t see any of that. In fact, you won’t see my dad or me much at all in the second half of the episode, because he was busy taking care of me. He’s a