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

Roland shrugged. “True, but he’s also haunted. You don’t make a career out of contacting the dead without a reason. And people are drawn to that.”

I frowned. He had a point. I knew Sam’s story from all the interviews Grandma showed me—how he’d fallen into the deep end of a pool when he was little and it was a few minutes before someone found him and gave him CPR. He’d nearly drowned, and ever since then, he claimed to have a connection with the spirit world.

But Sam wasn’t the only one who was haunted by something. Everyone on Passport to Paranormal had, for one reason or another, decided to chase ghosts for a living. Maybe everyone had a Thing that haunted them, that they wanted to escape.

“Our first host was a Sumner Stalker,” Roland was saying, his expression sour. “Emily Rosinski. Total nutjob. Wasn’t sorry to see her go.”

“What about the other two?” I asked, thinking of the so-called curse. “The hosts?”

“Carlos was fired. Bernice just got freaked out and quit.”

“So you don’t believe in the host curse, then?” I asked. “Or any of this ‘most haunted show’ stuff?”

Roland shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. That’s not what the show is about.”

“Really? I kind of thought that was the whole point of your job,” I said. “Finding proof of paranormal activity.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Proof? Like what—video of a ghost? A photo? You seem like a smart kid. What do you think would happen if we put that on the air?”

I thought about it. “I guess people would say you faked it.”

“Exactly.” Roland tossed the sucker stick into a trash can. “It’s a no-win situation.” He pulled another sucker out of his pocket.

“What’s with all the suckers?” I asked, watching as he ripped off the wrapper. This one was red.

“We just had lunch,” Roland said matter-of-factly. “Normally I’d be having a cigarette right now, but I quit. Therefore . . .” He waved the sucker at me before sticking it in his mouth. “I’ve got more. Want one?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “So what did you mean, it’s a no-win situation?”

Roland leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. “If we prove ghosts exist—people think it’s fake. If we find nothing—people think it’s boring.”

“Well, you find some creepy stuff sometimes,” I said thoughtfully. “I mean, I don’t think everyone who watches the show believes in ghosts, or wants proof or whatever. I think most of them just like being scared. They want something to talk about.”

“Dead on,” Roland agreed. “That’s why we do our best to make things . . . entertaining.”

“What do you mean?”

The door opened again, and Lidia stuck her head out. “We need you guys in about five minutes,” she said, then looked around. “Isn’t Sam out here?”

“Wandered off,” Roland said. “I’ll find him.” Once Lidia was gone, he stood up, shouldering his backpack. “So what about you?”

“Huh?”

Roland looked at me expectantly. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Nope,” I replied firmly.

The corners of his mouth twitched up a little. “Good. You’ll have more fun that way.”

I stared after him as he sauntered around the corner where Sam had vanished. Slipping my fingers in my pocket, I pulled out the piece of paper again. KEEP HER AWAY FROM THE MEDIUM. I frowned. I’d clicked print, but the document had been blank on the screen. Even if this was just another one of Oscar’s pranks, how could he have managed that? It was more like a computer glitch . . . but then again, someone had typed this message. This warning about a medium.

Was it about Sam? And who was supposed to stay away from him?

After a second, I rolled my eyes. It hadn’t even been a day and I was already getting creeped out over nothing.

Shoving the paper in my pocket, I headed back into the theater.

CHAPTER FIVE

INVASION OF THE NUTJOBS FROM PLANET FANDOM

Post: The Pirate Ghost of Crimptown

I don’t believe in ghosts. (Sorry, Grandma.)

I just figured that since this is my first real, not-jet-lagged blog post, I should make that clear before I say anything else about P2P. I don’t believe in ghosts—but I do love scary stories.

For the first episode, we’re spending the night in Crimptown, which is this supposedly haunted system of tunnels under Rotterdam. This morning, I watched Dad interview a guy who owns a restaurant on the waterfront that’s been around since the 1800s. He told Dad all about the legend of Crimptown and why people think it’s haunted.

A bunch of the bars and hotels and restaurants in downtown Rotterdam have cellars connected by the tunnels. The tunnels all lead to the waterfront, because the point was to easily get food and supplies from the boats to the businesses. There were pulley systems to get the supplies up to street level, and chutes to drop stuff down into the cellars for storage.

Sometime in the mid-1800s, a bunch of men in Rotterdam started going missing. And they were always last seen at a bar. After a while, people noticed another connection—all the bars they disappeared from were connected to the Crimptown tunnel system.

It turned out a pirate named Falk Von Leer had this horrible scheme going on. He’d get someone at the bar to drug the guy’s drink. After the guy passed out, they’d throw him down one of the chutes into the cellar. From there, Red Leer would have his crew members drag the guy through the tunnels to the waterfront, and then he would sell his prisioner into slavery on cargo ships. (His nickname in Dutch is Rood Leer—rood means red in English. The restaurant owner said they called him that because of all the blood he spilled.)

Everyone knew what Red Leer was doing, but they were all too afraid to do something about it. But when a teenage boy named Bastian Hillebrandt went missing, his older sister Sonja decided to organize a rescue. She gathered a group of women whose husbands or sons or brothers had all been kidnapped by Red Leer. One night, the women disguised themselves as men,