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

She swung her legs off the table, combat boots clunking on the floor. “Good? They’re classic. They—”

“Hang on, Mi Jin,” Jess interrupted. “Meeting, remember? We need to get started.”

“Sorry,” Mi Jin said cheerfully. “We’ll talk Crypt later, Kat.”

“Okay!”

I closed the door quietly. Everyone seemed nice enough, and not nearly as weird as I’d worried they might be. Well, Roland was kind of annoying. Hormone central. Right. Now, if Grandma had been there in the same room as Sam Sumners, that would’ve been hormone central.

All the same, I couldn’t deny that I was curious about Oscar.

When I got to the top of the stairs and saw the laptop Lidia mentioned, my thoughts turned to something far more important than Oscar—the Internet. I sat down eagerly, but paused with my hand over the mouse.

The PRINT window was open, and the arrow hovered over “Yes,” as if someone had left in the middle of a printing job. I stared at the screen, thinking. The crew probably used this laptop for work, and I didn’t want to accidentally mess something up.

Still . . . I hadn’t been online in, like, twelve hours.

I grabbed the mouse. Whoever had left this open clearly wanted to print it. I’d just do it for them.

A green light flashed on the little portable printer next to the laptop, and the first sheet began sliding through. On the screen, the print window vanished. The word processor was still open, but to a blank page.

“Weird.” Shrugging, I closed it, then opened a browser and logged into my e-mail account.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: COME BAAAAAACK!!!!

seriously, it’s only been a day, and life is intolerable without you. what’s rotterdam like? is the cast nice? is sam really ditzy? mark wants to know if they’ll let you be on the show. (would they?? it’d be so crazy to see you on TV!) your blog looks awesome—can’t wait for the first ghost story!

can we video chat soon? it’s weird not having you here. :(

<3 trish

Reading Trish’s e-mail was strange—it made me smile, but my throat got kind of tight. I pulled up my blog and scrolled down to find three comments on my first post. But before I could read the first one, a muffled click made me jump.

I looked around. The door to the projection room was closed, and I was fairly sure it had been open when I got upstairs. I’d almost forgotten about Oscar. Standing, I’d taken only a step when the paper sticking out of the printer caught my eye.

It wasn’t blank.

Glancing at the door to the projection room again, I grabbed the page.

KEEP HER AWAY FROM THE MEDIUM

“Oookay.” I glanced around but didn’t see a trash can. Folding the page a few times, I stuck it in my jeans pocket and opened the door to the projection room.

Boxes and old pieces of equipment cluttered the floor. Straight ahead, I saw the small window overlooking the auditorium, and in front of it, the projector. And next to the projector . . . a boy.

His back was to me, head bowed, shoulders hunched.

“Oscar?”

He didn’t move. Slowly, I took a step forward, then another. Was he crying?

“Hello?” I tried again, louder this time. Nothing. When I was within arm’s reach, I touched his shoulder lightly. “Are you okay?”

At last, he turned around. And I found myself staring into black, empty sockets.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT CAME FROM THE LASER PRINTER

Post: Travel Is a Beating

Comments: (3)

trishhhh: miss u! seen anything spooky yet?

MARK: ghost pics?

EdieM: Sam pics?

He had massive yellow fangs, too. And blood smeared around his mouth.

“You’ve got something on your chin,” I informed him, keeping my voice as flat as possible. Reaching up, he pulled the mask off—brown eyes, black hair, normal teeth, blood-free mouth—and glared at me.

“Geez, you didn’t even scream.”

I shrugged. “Why would I scream at something so obviously fake?”

“It worked on Mi Jin,” he said defensively. “She screamed so loud, Jess said you could hear her out on the street.”

“Well, either she was faking it or she scares insanely easy,” I retorted. “I’m Kat, by the way.”

“I figured. Nice to meet you.” His voice indicated it wasn’t nice at all. “I’m Oscar.”

“I figured.”

We didn’t shake hands.

“Okay, then,” I said after a few seconds. “I’m going to use the laptop for a while. Unless you need it?”

“Nope.”

“Okay.” I left the projection room without another word.

Sitting back down behind the laptop, I pulled up the comments on my blog post, smiling as I read. If Grandma thought I’d be taking stealth photos of Sam’s butt, she was dead wrong. Just before I clicked REPLY to tell her so, Oscar appeared at my side. He leaned against the table, setting the gruesome mask next to the mouse.

“So how long do you think your dad’ll last?”

I stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“You know, hosting,” Oscar said. “He’s the fourth host. The job’s cursed.”

I snorted. “Right, I forgot about that.”

The most haunted show on television was, of course, “cursed.” The curse was that they couldn’t keep a host. Because it couldn’t just be that the low budget and lower ratings drove people to quit. Nope, must be evil spirits.

“You should check out the P2P forums,” Oscar told me. “They’re all taking bets. Most of them think he’ll be gone after two episodes.”

“Whatever.” I turned back to the screen, taking care to sound as indifferent as possible. But his words nagged at me. It was weird to think that a bunch of fans online were gossiping about my dad.

Oscar leaned forward, squinting. “The Kat Sinclair Files?”

“My blog,” I said, resisting the urge to close the laptop so he couldn’t see. “Mostly just to keep in touch with my grandma and my friends Trish and Mark.” Oscar’s hand twitched, and his expression went from surprised to oddly closed in a heartbeat. I stared at him curiously. “Something wrong?”

“No,” he said flatly. “I had a friend named Mark, too, that’s all.”

“Oh.” I clicked REPLY, wishing he’d go away. “Had? What, is he dead or something?” After a few seconds of typing, I