Dead Air Read online

  This one’s for the Skeleton in your closet—MS

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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  Text copyright © 2015 by Michelle Schusterman. Cover illustration copyright © 2015 by Stephanie Olesh. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-399-54001-1

  Version_1

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  COPYRIGHT

  THE THING

  THE CURSE OF THE STALE MUFFINS

  THE BOY WITH NO EYES

  IT CAME FROM THE LASER PRINTER

  INVASION OF THE NUTJOBS FROM PLANET FANDOM

  WHAT LURKS IN THE CYBERSHADOWS

  IF LOOKS COULD KILL

  TEA PARTY OF THE DAMNED

  ATTACK OF THE KILLER RATINGS

  FROM BEYOND THE OUIJA BOARD

  DEAD WOMAN WALKING

  CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FAKE KIND

  THE THING 2: BACK FOR BLOOD

  THE DAWN OF DOCTOR PAIN

  RETURN OF THE JERK

  THE SECRET OF THE DEAD AIR

  TALK IT TO DEATH

  STALKER IN THE CITY

  THE ROAD TO THIRTEEN KISSES

  THE THING 3: ESCAPE INTO THE ABYSS

  THE RETURN OF RED LEER

  FLIGHT OF THE INVISIBLE PRISONERS

  HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DEMONS

  EPISODE GUIDE

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE THING

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: DON’T LEAVE ME!!!

  kat,

  are you packed yet? fyi, i’m working on a plan to keep you in Chelsea. so far, it involves setting a box of frogs loose in the airport to create a diversion while i steal your luggage. mark says my plan lacks finesse. it’s a work in progress.

  <3 trish

  My first real memory was hearing my grandma scream bloody murder while being attacked by zombie hamsters. That scream won her Best Actress at the Dark Cheese B-Movie Awards in 1979. It was also her standard reaction for birthday presents, hide-and-seek, touchdowns, and any other scream-worthy occasion.

  So when I heard her award-winning shriek come from downstairs while I was duct-taping a box of books, I didn’t even flinch. Picking up a Sharpie, I scrawled Mysteries & Harry Potter on the side, then tossed the marker down and left my room.

  “Was it that diaper commercial again?” I asked when I entered the living room. “With the creepy dancing babies?”

  “Hang on, KitKat.” Grandma’s eyes were glued to the television. “This is the Glasgow episode, that old inn with the haunted garden. The grate scene is coming up.”

  I glanced at the screen and rolled my eyes. “Again? You’ve probably seen this a—”

  But Grandma flapped a perfectly manicured hand at me, so I zipped it and sat on the armrest of her chair.

  Passport to Paranormal claimed to be “the most haunted show on television.” Translation: “The most low-budget ghost-hunting show ever, which blames equipment malfunctions on paranormal activity.” During the pilot episode last year, the show had blacked out for almost two minutes near the end. The network, Fright TV, couldn’t explain the dead air. So naturally, the crew claimed ghosts were responsible.

  Ratings weren’t off the charts, but Passport to Paranormal’s small group of fans were pretty intense. They had a website and forums with heated debates over each episode, plus lots of gossip about the cast of P2P. They sold merchandise, too. Grandma was currently wearing a P2P baseball cap that said I BELIEVE.

  You never saw anything legitimately supernatural, but the show was still pretty entertaining. Besides, ghosts had nothing to do with why most fans—like Grandma— were so obsessed.

  On the screen, a guy with a flashlight edged around a stone wall. He was pretty good-looking, I had to admit . . . I mean, if too-long-to-be-real eyelashes and cheekbones sharper than a knife are your idea of good-looking.

  “I heard something,” a female voice behind the camera whispered—Jess Capote, I knew right away. I’d never met her in person, but she and my dad went to college together. They’d both worked on the university’s morning news show. “Right down there. Sam?”

  Sam Sumners closed his eyes. “I feel his presence.”

  I snorted. Grandma swatted my arm.

  “I think it’s coming from the grate,” whispered Jess, and Sam bent over to examine it. The camera zoomed in on the grate—and paused, just for a second, on Sam’s butt.

  Grandma sighed happily. “There it is.”

  “Grandma!”

  “What?” She finally tore her eyes off the screen to hit pause on the remote. “That’s some serious eye candy.”

  I groaned. “Oh my God.”

  “Oh my God is right,” Grandma agreed, her gaze straying back to the screen.

  “I don’t get why everyone freaks out over him,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “He looks like a Ken doll. Plastic.”

  Grandma pressed her hand to her heart. “You will not speak ill of Sam Sumners in my presence. And twenty bucks says you change your mind when you meet him in person.”

  “Doubt it.” But a flash of nerves hit me anyway. Not about meeting Sam, the show’s psychic medium and resident pretty boy. About being a part of Passport to Paranormal in general. After losing their third and most recent host, they would resume filming the second season at the end of this week with the newest host: Jack Sinclair, former anchor for Rise and Shine, Ohio! He was also my dad.

  In less than two days, Dad and I would be somewhere in the Netherlands. Instead of sleeping in my horror movie–postered bedroom, I’d be living in hotel rooms and buses. Instead of coasting through eighth grade on a steady stream of Bs at Riverview Middle School, I’d be homeschooled (or, I guess, roadschooled). Instead of hanging out with my best friends, Trish and Mark, I’d be spending most of the next year with a bunch of people who chased ghosts for a living.

  Dad had given me the option to stay in Ohio with Mom. Which, to be honest, wasn’t an option at all. Because of the Thing.

  “How’s the packing coming?” asked Grandma. I realized too late that she’d been squinting at me from under her baseball cap with her I-can-read-your-mind expression.

  “I’m pretty much done,” I replied. “Dad’s got to weigh the bags, though—they can’t be over fifty pounds.”

  Grandma leaned over and pulled something out from behind her armchair. “Well, I hope you have room for a little going-away present.”

  She held out a stuffed, wrinkled gift bag with snowmen all over it, and I laughed. We’d been recycling that bag for all gift-giving occasions since the Christmas when I was nine. It looked really festive until you realized the snowmen were zombies and the snow was spattered with blood.

  My smile faded when I peered inside and spotted the DVD. “Invasion of the Flesh-Eating Rodents? You know I’ve got this already!”

>   “It’s the latest special edition!” Grandma said defensively. “Not officially released yet. And there’s three minutes of never-before-seen footage. A guinea pig attacks me in the shower.”

  Flesh-Eating Rodents was “Scream Queen” Edie Mills’s (aka: Grandma’s) seventeenth and final movie. At age six, I watched her play a butt-kicking veterinarian who saved the day when a rabies vaccine went horrifically wrong. I kept examining her fingers while the credits rolled, marveling that I couldn’t see all the chunks the hamsters had gnawed off.

  She’d shown me her movies in reverse order over the next few years—as I got older, film-star Grandma got younger. My least favorite was Vampires of New Jersey (her hair looked freaking ridiculous). The best one was Cannibal Clown Circus (she played a trapeze artist whose safety net was gnawed to pieces by zombies halfway through her act). I saw her first movie, Mutant Cheerleaders Attack, on Thanksgiving when I was eight. Watching your teenage grandmother in a cheerleading uniform with oozing scabs all over her legs is best done after eating your cranberry-sauced turkey, not before.

  “Anyway, that’s not so much a gift for you,” Grandma admitted, tapping the DVD. “I thought you might want to show it to Sam.”

  I tried to glare at her and failed. “Grandma. No.”

  “You never know, he might like what he sees.” She winked coyly, smoothing back her silver-streaked hair, and I laughed. “Now look back in that bag. I think you missed something.”

  Eagerly, I reached in the bag again and pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. I tore it off, and the smile froze on my face.

  It was a camera. Specifically, it was the Elapse E-250 with a pancake lens, silver with a cool purple strap, the smallest and most compact digital SLR camera ever—and the exact one I’d spent most of seventh grade begging for. But that was last year, when I was still tagging along with Mom to every wedding or party she shot, drooling over all her cool professional camera equipment.

  Then she moved to Cincinnati, and I stopped caring about photography.

  Still . . . My hands gripped the Elapse, finger tapping the shutter button. Without really meaning to, I flipped it on and held it up to my eye. Grandma’s beaming face filled the viewfinder, and I lowered the camera hastily.

  “This is way too expensive,” I blurted out. “I mean, thank you, but I know it’s—I mean, I don’t . . .”

  Grandma waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t start with all that. Consider this a going-away-birthday-Christmas present, all right?”

  I swallowed hard. “Yes, but . . .”

  But I’m not into this anymore. I don’t want to be a photographer. That’s what I kept trying to say, but I couldn’t.

  “Listen to me,” Grandma said, and once again, I was pretty sure she’d read my thoughts. “You’re about to go traveling the world. Not only that, you’re going to hunt ghosts. You and your father keep calling this your big adventure, and I demand pictures.”

  “I could send you postcards,” I said, flipping the mode dial with my thumb.

  Grandma rolled her eyes. “What is this, the fifties? I’m not waiting by the mailbox. E-mail me. Hit me up with a text.” “Grandma,” I groaned. “Stop talking like that.”

  “Of course, you won’t be able to text from out of the country,” she went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Still, you can put them on Facebook. Or . . .” Grandma’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hands. “I’ve got it.”

  I held the camera up again, touching my finger lightly to the shutter button. “What?”

  “You should start a blog!”

  Click!

  Lowering the camera, I made a face. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” Grandma demanded.

  I shrugged, examining the Elapse more closely. “I don’t like writing. And a blog sounds like too much work.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going to be too much work,” she said. “Repeating the same stories over and over again when you talk to me and your friends and your mother and everyone else who’ll want to know what the glamorous ghost-hunting life is like. This way you can just tell us all at once.”

  “Eh, I’ll think about it.” I chewed my lip, flipping the mode dial back and forth again. “Hey, Grandma?”

  “Yes?” She was reaching for the remote when the question I’d been dying to ask for weeks now finally came tumbling out.

  “Is Mom back in Chelsea?”

  Grandma’s hand froze over the remote, and her mouth pursed slightly. “What makes you think that?”

  My stomach plummeted. I’d been hoping for No, of course not! “Trish,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Her brother said she was at the Starbucks by his school a few weeks ago. And she thought she saw her at the mall last weekend, too,” I added. Actually, Trish had been positive. “No one besides you and your mom has that crazy-long hair, Kat.”

  Grandma rewound the grate scene, chewing her lip a little. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something else. Or maybe she was just stalling, trying to think of a lie. Not that Grandma would ever lie to me. Neither would Dad. They both knew better.

  “Anyway, I thought maybe she came back to . . . say good-bye to us, or something,” I finished lamely. Sighing, Grandma settled back in her chair and looked at me.

  “If you want to know what your mother’s up to, maybe it’s time you start taking her calls.”

  She didn’t say it meanly, but I reeled a little bit. Grandma reached out to pat my hand, and I jerked it away.

  “Never mind,” I said shortly. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve got to finish packing.”

  Without looking at Grandma, I hurried back upstairs and closed my bedroom door. My oversize, must-weigh-less-than-fifty-pounds megabackpack was propped up against my wardrobe, stuffed with T-shirts, jeans, and hoodies. Most of my other stuff was in boxes for storage, although my furniture was staying put. That was the nice thing about having Grandma as a landlady—she would just rent this place to new tenants until Dad and I came home, so I didn’t have to say good-bye to the house I grew up in.

  Although to be honest, a small part of me didn’t care if I ever saw it again.

  I knelt down next to one of the storage boxes. This one was filled with sundresses I hated. The Thing crouched next to me, radiating disapproval as I taped the box closed. I ignored it.

  I’d almost told Grandma about the Thing probably a hundred times, but I knew she’d never believe it existed. In The Monster in Her Closet, Grandma played a girl whose childhood imaginary friend Edgar was terrorizing her neighborhood, and no one believed her.

  The Thing was kind of like Edgar. I couldn’t prove it existed. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

  For a few minutes, I tried to distract myself by taping and labeling boxes. It didn’t work, though. There was no way Trish had mistaken someone else for my mom—we’d grown up in each other’s houses; she knew what my mother looked like as well as I did. And her hair—our hair, I guess—was pretty hard to miss. The superlong thick braid suddenly felt heavy against my back.

  It was the only feature Mom and I shared. She was pale in winter and fake-tanned in summer, with Grandma’s dark blue eyes and tiny nose. My skin and eyes were the same shades of brown as Dad’s, and our noses were both a little on the longish side. But Mom and I had the same slightly coarse, brown-black hair that fell in waves down to our waists. Two summers ago at the beach, I’d begged her to let me chop it off, but she’d said I’d regret it. What I really regretted were the hours I spent trying to get out all the saltwater knots and tangles.

  Grabbing the scissors, I cut a strip of tape a little more viciously than necessary and slapped it on a box of dressy shoes. Then I marched over to my dresser and set the tape and scissors down next to the Elapse.

  It really was an awesome camera. But I didn’t want to be a photographer anymore.

  My f
ingers tightened around the scissors.

  Maybe I didn’t want long hair anymore, either.

  Suddenly, my heart was pounding loud and fast in my ears. With one hand, I pulled my braid over my shoulder. With the other, I held the scissors to it at about shoulder level. Then I slid them an inch higher. And then another . . . and another.

  Then I started cutting.

  It took longer than I expected, probably half a minute of hacking away. When I finished, I set my braid down on my dresser and stared at it. It was weird, kind of like looking at my own severed arm (but obviously not as gross). Then I looked in the mirror.

  My hair was short. And slanted, since I’d cut it over one shoulder. I used a comb to part it down the center. Then I trimmed the left side until it was as short as the right and examined my reflection.

  It was about chin-length, and really choppy. My head felt a lot lighter. I liked it.

  I went back to packing, whistling the Passport to Paranormal theme song as I worked.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE CURSE OF THE STALE MUFFINS

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: Re: DON’T LEAVE ME!!!

  Trish,

  Am at airport. Guessing Plan Frogpocalypse was a fail. Also a fail: waking up at 4 a.m. Our cab came at 4:30, and me and Dad were both still asleep. Oops.

  Kat

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sinclair. This is more than a pound over the limit.”

  “No problem.”

  Dad’s talk-show host smile was going strong this morning. The airport check-in lady smiled back and watched, along with me and the approximately four zillion people behind us in line, as he unzipped my bulging megabackpack and started rummaging inside.

  “Dad—”

  “I got it, Kat,” he said. “It’s all just a matter of weight distribution.”

  I glanced at the line. A couple of blond girls, both younger than me, clutched the handles of their bright pink suitcases. Their parents were right behind them, the mom balancing a little boy on her hip.