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

I exhaled slowly. “Oh. Okay. That’s . . . that’s pretty cool.”

“Really cool,” Jamie added, his eyes sparkling. I couldn’t help but grin at how into this he was. I believed in ghosts, but I still tried to stay skeptical until I saw proof. Jamie was always ready to believe.

Carrie led us through the rest of the small exhibit, giving us the story behind each photo and why she believed it was real. She showed us the footage of a séance captured on VHS; it was only fifteen seconds, so we watched it probably a dozen times. A dark figure appeared in the shadows right at the twelve-second mark, then vanished. No one at the table seemed to notice it, and as Carrie explained, the woman behind the video camera had claimed to have projected the image from her mind.

It was outlandish and ridiculous and to be honest, a few months ago I never would’ve believed any of it for a second.

But now? Maybe I did. Because I’d done it myself.

I’d never shown anyone the flash drive currently tucked safely in my backpack back at the hotel. The footage it contained of a figure moving behind me in the mirror as I practiced being on camera seemed just as outlandish and ridiculous as anything in this exhibit. But I’d been there. I’d been thinking about this, the other version of me. The Thing. And it had appeared.

I couldn’t prove it any more than the woman who’d taken this séance video, or the man who’d captured a photo of his great-grandmother in the mansion. So who’s to say they weren’t telling the truth, too? Maybe they were. Or maybe they were crazy.

Maybe I was crazy.

Psychic photography was an explanation for that footage, and that was a relief. But I hadn’t been trying to do it . . . so why had it happened? The idea that I might have projected the Thing there without meaning to kind of freaked me out.

The distant sound of bells jangling pulled me from my thoughts. “Be right back!” Carrie said, hurrying out of the room. Once she was gone, Jamie turned to me.

“So, do you think this one’s—”

“I think I created a ghost,” I blurted out, surprising both of us.

Jamie’s eyes widened. “You . . . what?”

I’d told Oscar about the Thing back in Brussels. And when we got to New York, I’d told him about what really happened in Buenos Aires—that somehow, I’d created an artificial ghost based on this other version of me. The version my mother had always wanted: a pretty little princess kind of daughter. I hadn’t seen the Thing since that last night in Argentina, but I felt it around me constantly. Hovering just outside of my peripheral vision. Lurking in the corners of every mirror. Breathing down my neck, as it had most of my life. When Dad first got this job with Passport to Paranormal, I’d thought traveling around the world was my chance to get the Thing out of my head.

I’d never meant to do that literally. Now it was with me in a very real way.

Oscar had believed me. But that didn’t mean he believed in the Thing. I mean, part of me even wondered if I was hallucinating—a thought just about as terrifying as the Thing actually being real. I knew Oscar had to be thinking the same thing. We were both skeptics, after all.

But Jamie was a believer. And right now, I needed someone to believe me. Even if I didn’t quite believe myself.

So I took a deep breath. Then I gave him the short version, glossing over all my embarrassing issues with my mother and focusing on the fact that I’d created a ghost version of myself that was now haunting me. Jamie’s expression remained serious the entire time, not a trace of worry or skepticism.

“And I don’t know how to get rid of it,” I finished. “It’s not . . . you know, possessing me. Nothing like that. It’s just . . . with me. All the time.”

“You have video of it,” Jamie said slowly. “You projected it onto a video, just like this?” He gestured to the séance playing on a loop behind us, and I nodded.

“Yeah.” I winced, sure he was about to ask if he could see the video. I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the thought of him watching me stammering and rambling anxiously on camera, trying to get rid of my stage fright. But instead, he said:

“If you can project it, maybe you can control it.”

“What?”

The bells jangled again, and I heard footsteps as Carrie headed back to the exhibit. Jamie stepped back—somehow we’d ended up standing really close—and grinned at me.

“I have an idea.”

CHAPTER THREE THE HORRORWOOD REPORTER

Rumorz

All the celebrity gossip you need (and then some)!

POLL: Which former host would YOU most like to see guest star on Passport to Paranormal? by Shelly Mathers

Carlos Ortiz. Miss those dimples!

Bernice Boyd. Her historical insight actually made the show educational!

Emily Rosinski. Give me the drama!

Other: __________

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[The Real Kat Sinclair]

You won’t care about any of these idiots once you meet me.

“I’M sorry!”

I gasped, sitting upright in bed. Blood rushed in my ears as I gripped the sheets, my palms sweaty. The clock read 8:28—two minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I had a vague memory of Dad’s alarm going off a few hours earlier.

Throwing the comforter aside, I hurried over to the desk and stared at the laptop, my dad’s notes, his calendar, my camera. What was I even looking for? I pressed my fingers to my eyes, trying to think. I’d had a dream that I’d done something to make Dad upset. I’d woken myself up apologizing to him. But for what?

Exhaling slowly, I gazed around the room. Nothing out of the ordinary. It had just been a dream. A nightmare.

I showered and dressed quickly, pulling my hair back and brushing my teeth without looking in the mirror. It wasn’t until I grabbed my camera that I realized what was missing from the