Dead Air #1 (The Kat Sinclair Files, Band 1) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michelle Schusterman is a former expat and travel writer who has blogged her way through ancient graveyards in Scotland, fortresses in Korea, and desertedbeaches in Brazil. Michelle is the author of the I Heart Band series and currently lives in New York City.


From the Hardcover edition.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER ONE

From: trishhhhbequiet@mymail.net

To: acciopancakes@mymail.net

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...