Graveyard Slot - Michelle Schusterman (best ebook reader for laptop .txt) 📗

I yanked my hands away from the planchette and crawled backward away from the board in a panic. There was a shout and a cry, and then I bumped into something. I looked up, and for a single, heart-stopping second, I expected to be staring right into the face of some sort of demon.

But it was just my camera.

It fell off the tripod and landed in my lap, the lens retracting as it shut off. I could see my reflection in the black viewfinder: disheveled, sweaty, panicked.

What was wrong with me?

Suddenly, I felt ridiculous. The last few minutes replayed in my mind, and I couldn’t understand why I’d been so scared. No, more than scared—petrified. I’d seen ghosts before. I saw Sonja Hillebrandt and the prisoners at Daems. I saw Lidia possessed by Red Leer. Emily Rosinski held a knife to my throat, for crying out loud, and that had been scarier than any paranormal activity I’d ever experienced. So why had I been so terrified sitting under a tree in the middle of the afternoon with my friends? It wasn’t like me.

Maybe it wasn’t me.

I finally looked up at the others, expecting to find them staring at me like I belonged in a straitjacket. But only Oscar and Jamie were watching me. Hailey was hugging her knees and gazing at the planchette, her expression troubled. At some point, Thiago must have gotten frightened, because he now stood several feet away from the board, arms crossed. Abril got to her feet and went over to talk to him, and he started shaking his head.

“Sorry,” I finally managed to say, scooting back toward Jamie. “I don’t know why I freaked out like that.”

He shook his head. “I know. I’ve never had that happen during Ouija before.”

For a second, I thought he meant my panic attack, and I wanted to sink into the ground in humiliation. Then I realized Jamie looked shaken, too. In fact, everyone did.

“I actually got cold,” Hailey said, brow furrowed. “I was so scared, and now I don’t know why. I felt . . . lost.”

Jamie nodded in agreement, and a wave of relief washed over me. They’d felt it, too. Maybe I wasn’t losing my mind after all.

“Kat,” Oscar said quietly, and I looked up at him. “It spelled I want.”

The relief vanished as quickly as it had come, and my stomach sank. “Yeah . . .”

“That message we got from Ana . . .”

“Yeah.”

He pushed the bangs out of his eyes, frowning. “Why, though? Why would Brunilda say the same thing?”

I didn’t respond. I was afraid that if I started talking about it, the whole story would spill out: seeing Ana at the waterfall, seeing the message in the cave. But how much longer could I keep this to myself?

“Well,” said Jamie at last. “I’m sure when you post this video, the fans will come up with tons of theories.”

“They’re going to think it’s just a stunt,” Oscar said immediately. “Getting the same message twice like that.”

“We don’t know for sure this message would have been the same.” I shoved the Elapse in my pocket. “She didn’t get to finish it this time. Anyway, I’m getting pretty tired of worrying about what people think. Let’s post it.”

After dinner, Jess offered to help Oscar and me edit our video. I promised to meet them, along with Jamie and Hailey, in fifteen minutes. Then I returned to my room and sprawled out on my bed.

Exhaustion weighted my bones in a way that made me wonder, vaguely, if I was coming down with something. My last thought before I drifted off was that Lidia took a lot of naps when she was possessed. But I was currently too tired to feel frightened.

When I opened my eyes again, my room was pitch black. Stifling a groan, I rolled over and squinted at the alarm clock: 3:36 a.m. I could barely make out the lump that was Dad in the other bed, snoring deeply.

My limbs felt stiff and sore as I pushed the blankets off. I was still wearing my shorts and Gremlins shirt; Dad must have found me napping and tucked me in. So I’d gone to bed at 8:30 p.m. That was kind of embarrassing. But my throat was dry and aching. Maybe I really was getting sick.

I shuffled to the bathroom and groped around the counter until I found a glass. I filled it with water from the sink, blinking and gazing at the faucet. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like the silver was scratched. So was the mirror, actually.

Suddenly, I was wide-awake. Clutching my glass in one hand, I fumbled for the light switch. The fluorescent glare momentarily blinded me. When my eyes started to adjust, I wished I’d left the lights off.

The faucet, the marble counter, the mirror, the tile floor, and walls . . . everything was covered in scratches, deep gouges like from the claws of a wild animal. But no animal could have done this. Because the scratches spelled three words, over and over again.

I

WANT

OUT

CHAPTER ELEVEN EXORCISE YOUR WAY TO BETTER HEALTH

P2P WIKI

Entry: “Exorcism”

[Last edited by AntiSimon]

The process of driving out a spirit, ghost, demon, or other being possessing a person, place, or thing. Though typically a religious ritual, exorcisms are occasionally secular. The ritual is conducted by an exorcist, who may use a variety of methods and objects to banish the spirit, most of which involve calling on some higher power. To date, Passport to Paranormal has never filmed an exorcism.

UPDATE: Many fans believe P2P participated in its first exorcism during the Daems Penitentiary episode (EP #30). Although not captured on camera, one popular theory states that Kat Sinclair played the role of the exorcist by using her camera to drive Red Leer’s ghost from Lidia’s body.

THE GLASS slipped from my hand, shattering on the floor. Someone screamed. No, not someone. Me.

Shards of glass crunched beneath my feet as I fled the bathroom. A pair of strong hands gripped