Final Girl #3

Chapter 1: The Haunted House

Fright TV: Your Home for Horror
Press Release: January 9
 
SCREAM QUEEN EDIE MILLS’S DOCUMENTARY SERIES COMING THIS SUMMER
 
Former teenage Scream Queen Edie Mills will be producing and narrating MAGIC HOUR, a 13-episode documentary series that details her rise to horror movie stardom from 1972 to 1985.
 
The series will include exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from Mills’s most popular films, including VAMPIRES OF NEW JERSEY and INVASION OF THE FLESH-EATING RODENTS, as well as RETURN TO THE ASYLUM and its controversial prequel. Fans will enjoy never-before-seen interviews with cast and crew, as well as stories from Mills herself about her infamous disagreements with studio heads and her experience with a stalker, the details of which she kept out of the press at the time.
 
M y reflection glared at me, fists clenched as if she wanted to punch through the mirror and wrap her hands around my neck. I exhaled slowly, forcing myself to relax, letting my fingers uncurl one by one. Brush your teeth, I told myself. Fix your hair. Then get out.
 
I grabbed the tube of toothpaste next to the sink and rolled it up to squeeze the last bit onto my toothbrush. A lot of girls probably looked at themselves critically in the mirror, especially before a date. But I’d bet none of them had a ritual like I had. Every morning for the last three weeks I’d had to force myself to face off with my reflection. Because I hated her. Because I was afraid of her. Because honestly, I’d be happy if I never had to look at her again . . . but obviously that wasn’t an option.
 
After tying back my hair and sliding in a few bobby pins, I switched off the bathroom light and headed over to the giant, open box near the front closet. The sticker with our hotel’s address in New York was peeling off in places, but I could still read the return address:
 
Edie Mills
3852 Sparrow Street
Chelsea, OH 43209
 
My chest tightened a bit as I knelt next to the box. The smell of my house, the one I’d grown up in, filled my head as I inhaled deeply. It smelled like Grandma’s perfume and apple spice air freshener and Pledge furniture cleaner.
 
I missed that house. Kind of.
 
Grandma had packed the box neatly and carefully, but after a few weeks of Dad and me rummaging around inside without ever actually unpacking, it was kind of a mess. Winter clothes and boots were jumbled up with folders from Dad’s home office and boring-looking mail about tax returns. There’d been a package of snickerdoodle cookies from Cinnabeth, my favorite bakery in Chelsea, but those were long gone.
 
There had also been a formal invitation to my mother’s wedding in May. I’d mailed the RSVP back to her that day without giving myself time to think too hard about checking Yes. Then I’d taken a short, frigid walk to Central Park and thrown the invitation into a frost-covered trash can.
 
Now, I unearthed my favorite hoodie—black with dark red claw marks across the chest—and slipped it over my head. “How’s the research coming?” I asked, looking around for my snow boots. Oscar was sitting at the desk in front of my dad’s laptop, head in his hands like he was reading intently. His aunt Lidia, Passport to Paranormal’s producer, was working in their room, and Oscar had been desperate for some Internet time. When he didn’t answer, I grabbed my boots and sat on the edge of my bed directly behind him.
 
“Hello?” I nudged his back with my toe. He jumped out of his chair and spun around, eyes wild and unfocused. I tried not to laugh. “Did you actually fall asleep in the three minutes I was in the bathroom?”
 
Oscar blinked, and his gaze sharpened. “No. Well . . . just for a few seconds.”
 
I double-wrapped the laces around my boot before knotting them. “Still not sleeping well?”
 
He mumbled something incoherent under his breath as he sat down and pulled the laptop closer. I eyed the back of his head, wondering if I should press further. The whole P2P crew had spent the last few weeks together in New York after shooting an episode in Buenos Aires. My dad and Oscar’s aunt Lidia, as host and producer of the show, had been busy meeting with Fright TV executives about our next few episodes, which would be the last of the second season. So I wasn’t sure if they’d noticed the change in Oscar: constant yawning, dark circles under his eyes, easily distracted. When I finally asked him about it on New Year’s Eve, he told me he’d been having weird dreams and waking up a lot. He didn’t offer any more details, and I didn’t ask. I knew Oscar pretty well by now. It always took him a while to open up about stuff.
 
Sometimes, though, he needed a little push.
 
“Nightmares?” I asked lightly, pulling on my other boot.
 
Oscar shrugged without looking at me. “They’re not nightmares.”
 
“You said weird dreams,” I said. “I assumed you meant bad weird. So . . . nightmares.”
 
“No, I meant they’re . . .” Oscar broke off, yawning widely. He turned around when I stood up, and stared at my boots in surprise. “Where are you going?”
 
I wrinkled my nose. “To that paranormal museum? To check out the thoughtography exhibit? Remember, we talked about it last night . . .”
 
His expression cleared. “Oh, right.”
 
“Seriously, what’s going on with you?” I asked. “Did you get some bad news or something?”
 
“No, it’s . . .” Oscar stopped and shook his head. “It’s hard to explain. Later, okay? You’re gonna be late.”
 
I glanced at the time on the laptop screen. “Yeah, all right.”
 
My gaze fell on a stack of papers between the laptop and the mirror. Fright TV had renewed Passport to Paranormal for a third season after our Buenos Aires episode’s great ratings. The contract they’d given my dad had been sitting on our desk for almost two weeks now. Oscar and I shared a glance before I slid it toward me and flipped to the last page. At the sight of the still-blank line, I sighed.
 
“He still hasn’t signed?” Oscar said, brow furrowed. “Why?”
 
“Eh, he’s probably just waiting for his agent to approve it.” I ignored the twinge in my stomach and pushed the contract back to where Dad had left it. “Maybe they have to negotiate some stuff.”
 
“Maybe,” Oscar replied. “But I’m pretty sure Roland and Sam turned theirs in a week ago.”
 
“Huh.” I grabbed my puffy gray winter coat off the armchair. “I’m sure Dad’ll turn it in soon.”
 
“Hope so.”
 
I swallowed hard as I zipped up my coat. I’d been trying not to stress about that unsigned contract, but every morning that I woke up to find it still on our desk made it more difficult. And it bothered me that Roland Yeske and Sam Sumners, P2P’s parapsychologist and medium, had already turned in their contracts. Dad loved hosting P2P. He loved his job. So why hadn’t he committed to another season yet? He couldn’t possibly want to move back to Ohio . . . could he?
 
I could just ask him. I should. But I was too afraid of what his answer might be.
 
“Did he decide what to do about your house yet?” Oscar asked suddenly. I cringed, glancing over at the box from Grandma. The day it arrived Dad and I called to thank her, and it turned out she had some news. Good news. A documentary series about her horror movie star days. Moving to L.A. to “get back into the business.” Great news.
 
Selling the house we rented from her. Not-so-great news.
 
She wanted to give Dad a chance to buy it before putting it on the market. I could tell Dad had been just as floored as I was. He asked if he could have time to think about it, and she said there was no rush. Afterward, Dad and I just stared at each other.
 
“Well,” I’d said. “It’s not like we really live there anymore.”
 
“But we still need a home,” Dad had responded. “A home base. Between seasons.”
 
Between seasons. He’d said that, but he still hadn’t actually agreed to host season three. On the other hand, he hadn’t given Grandma an answer about the house yet, either.
 
“No,” I told Oscar. “But I mean, even if he buys it, that doesn’t mean he’s not coming back to the show. We need a place to live when we’re not traveling, obviously.”
 
“Yeah.” Oscar looked like he wanted to say more, but just turned back to the laptop. “Anyway. Have fun at the museum.”
 
“Thanks.”
 
His voice turned a little sly. “Tell Jamie I said hi.”
 
I shot him a look, willing myself not to blush. “I will. Hey, where’s my camera? It was right here by the TV.”
 
Oscar frowned. “I didn’t touch it.”
 
I turned slowly, my eyes darting from the TV to the desk to the little table by the window. Then I spotted a flash of silver on the armchair, just behind the cushion. “Aha.” I tucked the Elapse into my pocket, ignoring a familiar sense of unease. This had been happening a lot over the last few weeks—my camera, my homework, all kinds of items turning up in the wrong place. I kept trying to convince myself I was just being forgetful, but it was getting to the point where that was almost as unsettling as the other option: Someone, or something, was moving them.
 
After double-checking my coat pockets for my gloves, I headed down the hall to the elevator. I could worry about Dad and the house and why he hadn’t signed that contract later.
 
But right now, it was time for my second date with Jamie Cooper.
 
Chapter 2: We're All Madder Here

P2P FAN FORUMS
Season 3 Finale Gossip!
 
Maytrix [admin]
Word on the street is Fright TV’s booked a guest star for the finale of P2P next month. Anyone have any thoughts on who it might be?

AntiSimon [member]
Bernice!! I hope, anyway. Jack’s a great host but I really miss her. And the crew’s in NYC right now—she works at the natural history museum there.

spicychai [member]
if it’s a former host, my bet’s on emily

AntiSimon [member]
Uh, pretty sure she’s locked up. Also pretty sure you’re joking, because why would they bring back someone who LITERALLY ATTACKED THEM.

YourCohortInCrime [member]
Ratings.

presidentskroob [member]
sorry Simon, I know for a fact it’s not Bernice. (and YCIC, there is no way they’d bring that loony bird back, give me a break)
 
AntiSimon [member]
How do you know it’s not Bernice? And hey, where’s beautifulgollum? Her predictions are usually right on track. Haven’t seen her post in a while.
 
skEllen [member]
OMG THEY WOULD NEVER LET EMILY NEAR MY PRECIOUS SAM AGAIN!!!1!!!
 
When it snowed a few days after we got to New York, it was kind of magical. Like being in one of those miniature Christmas villages set up in the department store windows, surrounded by cotton ball fluff. But a few weeks later . . . well, it was kind of gross. Along the curbs and sidewalks, the shoveled snow had hardened into dirty gray slush. It was frozen solid, and I could see piles of trash bags trapped inside like flies in amber.
 
Not so magical.
 
I pulled my hood over my head and quickened my pace as I turned onto West 96th Street. The bitter wind cut right through my gloves, and shoving my hands in my coat pockets only helped a little. Not for the first time, I wished the crew had just decided to stay in Argentina over the holidays.
 
Except not really, because Jamie wasn’t in Argentina.
 
I was walking so fast, I almost missed the sign for Madder’s Museum of the Paranormal. It was hanging over an otherwise nondescript glass door sandwiched between a gelato shop and a really expensive-looking boutique that apparently sold only the kinds of caps worn by old men and newspaper boys in movies set in the 1930s. Slipping a little on the icy sidewalk, I pulled open the door and hurried inside.
 
For a second, I thought I’d accidentally walked into someone’s home. All the museums I’d ever been to were spacious, usually with a giant foyer that split off into several halls. This looked more like an apartment—and a pretty small one, too. Except instead of sofas and chairs, it was filled with shelves and glass cabinets holding all sorts of creepy stuff: old dolls with cracked porcelain faces; jars filled with murky liquid; skulls and bones that might’ve been fake, but it was hard to tell. I spotted a stained wooden Ouija board and made a mental note to tell Mi Jin to check out this place before we left New York.
 
“Kat!” Jamie waved from the back of the room. Next to him, a petite middle-aged woman with bright blue hair and a Ghostbusters T-shirt beamed at me.
 
“Kat Sinclair!” she called, skirting around a cabinet and hurrying toward me. “Oh wow, it’s so cool to meet you!”
 
I blinked in surprise as she grabbed my gloved hand and shook. “Um, hi!”
 
“Carrie Madder. My mom owns this place, but she’s retiring next month so I’m basically running it now. I’ve been reading your blog since the beginning,” she rambled, helping me out of my coat and hanging it on a rack by the door. “I’m on the P2P forums all the time, too. We miss having you on there, by the way!”
 
I smiled, trying not to cringe. I’d stopped hanging out on the fan forums last month when this troll kept posting horrible things about me. Horrible things that I knew weren’t true, but that I still thought about every day.
 
“That’s so cool!” I said, hoping my face wasn’t red. “I’ve never met someone from the forums in real life before. What’s your username?”
 
“Presidentskroob,” Carrie replied. “Man, you and Oscar are so great. I’ve always loved this show, but it’s even better with you guys on it.”
 
Now I was definitely blushing. “Thanks!”
 
Jamie joined us. “Carrie was just telling me there’s supposedly going to be a guest star for the finale,” he told me eagerly. As usual, his smile set off a ridiculous amount of fluttering in my stomach. “Have you heard anything?”
 
“No, nothing.” I smiled back at him, resisting the urge to press my frozen hands to my flaming-hot cheeks. We’d spent a lot of time together the last few weeks, but always with his sister, Hailey, and Oscar. This was the first time it was just the two of us since our first date to a graveyard in Buenos Aires. Well, just the two of us and a really chatty museum curator. Part of me wished Carrie wasn’t around, but another part of me was relieved. I loved hanging out with Jamie, but calling this a date made it different. Exciting and a little bit nerve-racking.
 
“Well, if the host’s daughter and the network VP’s son don’t know anything, maybe it’s really just a rumor,” Carrie was saying. “That’s a bummer.”
 
“Not necessarily,” Jamie said. “My dad pretty much never tells us anything about the show.”
 
“But Kat’s a cast member,” Carrie said, grinning at me. “They wouldn’t keep her in the dark, right?”
 
I pictured my dad’s unsigned contract and shrugged. “I don’t know. They might, to be honest.”
 
“Well, if there is a guest, I know for sure it’s not Bernice Boyd.” Carrie lowered her voice, despite the fact that we were the only ones in the museum. “I saw her last time I went to the natural history museum and asked.” She snorted. “A few fans think it’s Emily Rosinski. As if they’d ever do that, no matter how wild the ratings would be.”
 
At the mention of Emily’s name, goose bumps broke out on my arms. “She’s in a psychiatric hospital,” I said, keeping my voice even. “There’s no way.”
 
“Oh, I know,” Carrie said hastily. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought her up.”
 
A slightly awkward silence fell, quickly broken by Jamie. “So, where’s all the thoughtography stuff?”
 
Carrie’s face lit up. “In the back room! Follow me.”
 
She led the way around the shelves to a corridor. Jamie took my hand and squeezed, and we smiled at each other. My frozen fingers finally started to thaw. But I couldn’t help getting chills as I pictured Emily the last time I’d seen her. Knocking Oscar unconscious, pulling out her knife, forcing me up the twisting staircase to the prison guard tower, and—
 
“Ta-da!” Carrie exclaimed, and I jumped, jerking my hand out of Jamie’s grip. He gave me a concerned look, which I pretended not to see. “Our psychic photography exhibit. I helped curate all of this—thoughtography’s kind of an obsession of mine.”
 
I gazed around the room, which was much smaller than the other one. The walls were covered in framed photos: some yellowed newspaper clippings, some black-and-white, and even a few color Polaroids and prints. In the corner, a small TV sat on a card table, topped with a VCR. Static played silently on the screen.
 
“So Jamie told me you guys did a little research on thoughtography already,” Carrie said, gesturing for us to check out the pictures hanging near the door. “I’ve tried to curate only pictures that haven’t been debunked . . . which is pretty hard to do, because most of the ones out there are fake.” She tilted back her head, glancing at the ceiling. “You should see the number of boxes I’ve got upstairs, all filled with what I was told were psychic photographs that turned out to be bogus. It’s really easy to do.” Carrie grinned at me. “Well, you probably know that already.”
 
“What?” I asked, startled. “Why?”
 
“Because you’re a photographer,” she said. “You know, you can mess with the exposure, the printing . . . although, I guess it’s a little different with digital cameras. Have you ever played around with analog cameras?”
 
“A little,” I said. “A really long time ago, though. My, um . . . my mom’s a photographer. She brought me to a darkroom a few times in elementary school.”
 
“Do you remember much about developing?”
 
I frowned. “A little bit . . . you put the negative in the enlarger and set a timer for how long you want it exposed to light, then put the print in the developer, then a . . . um, a stop bath? I think that’s what it’s called. And then a water bath—no, the fixer, then the water bath—and then you hang it up to dry.”
 
“Exactly.” Carrie pointed to a small framed black-and-white photo behind me, and I turned to look. “So what do you think went wrong there?”
 
Jamie leaned closer, too. The slightly blurred picture featured an older man in a suit sitting in a chair in what looked like a study or office. He had no beard, but thick, dark hair covered the sides of his face and extended down to his chin. His expression was stern yet exasperated, as if posing for this photo was a massive waste of his time. Behind him, a bookshelf was just visible next to an open door. Beyond that, the corridor was dark, save for a blur of white.
 
“A ghost?” Jamie asked immediately.
 
I shook my head. “Nope. Whoever printed the photo just underexposed that part, that’s all.”
 
“Exactly!” Carrie said. “But in 1896, this guy published a whole paper about what he called evidence of psychic photography. You’d be amazed at how many people tried stunts like this back then. Even though they were almost all proven to be frauds, a lot of people still totally bought it.”
 
Jamie looked half-amused, half-embarrassed. “I probably would’ve,” he admitted.
 
“Because you want to believe,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
 
He smiled at me in a way that made my heart thump a bit faster, and I hoped Carrie didn’t notice the blush creeping up my neck. “So why’d you include this one if you know it’s fake?” I asked her.
 
“As an example,” she replied, leading us over to the next photo. “So that people will understand the real thing when they see it.”
 
“Whoa,” I whispered, stepping closer to study the picture. It was taken at the foot of a grand wooden staircase, at the top of which stood a woman in a silk gown with a high waist and lace sleeves. She was smiling in a posed sort of way, seemingly unaware of the other, transparent woman huddled at the bottom of the stairs, this one in a dark, long-sleeved dress with full skirts. Her features were blurred, so all I could make out were two dark spots for eyes and a thin line for a mouth.
 
“So, Kat,” Carrie said. “Any idea how you could fake that?”
 
“Photoshop?” Jamie joked, and she laughed.
 
“Not really a thing a hundred years ago.”
 
“Long exposure?” I suggested, pointing to the woman in the silk gown. “With a slow shutter speed, she would have to hold her pose for several seconds while the photographer took the picture.” I pointed to the other woman. “If she was walking down the stairs at the same time, she’d appear all blurry and transparent in the photo.”
 
Carrie raised her eyebrows. “Wow. I think you remember more from your mom than you give yourself credit for.”
 
I tried to smile, even though my skin prickled uncomfortably at the mention of my mom. “Thanks.”
 
“But,” Carrie went on, “how do you explain this?”
 
She tapped the photograph hanging next to it. The two were almost identical, but taken from slightly different angles, as if the photographers were standing a few feet apart at the base of the stairs. The woman in the silk gown stood in the same pose, the same small smile curving her lips. But the other woman wasn’t there at all.
 
“These were taken at a mansion up in Harlem in 1912,” Carrie said. “Two photographers. The one who captured the image with the ghost, his family owned the place. He’d grown up believing it was haunted by his great-grandmother, and as he was taking this picture of his niece, he was thinking about her. Really focused. That’s why she appeared in his photo, but not the other. At least, that’s the story his son gave me when he donated this to the exhibit.”
 
“Awesome,” Jamie said fervently.
 
“I know there’s no way to prove this is a real psychic photograph,” Carrie said. “But there’s one other detail that pretty much convinced me. Any guesses?”
 
Jamie and I studied the picture again. “Oh!” Jamie exclaimed. “Her dress—the great-grandmother’s dress.”
 
Carrie beamed. “Exactly!”
 
I must have still looked confused, because Jamie continued. “This was taken in 1912, but her dress has petticoats, a high collar, long sleeves. Totally different than what the niece is wearing.”
 
“But very much in fashion in the mid-eighteen hundreds,” Carrie finished. “When great-grandma here still lived in the mansion.”
 
I exhaled slowly. “Oh. Okay. That’s . . . that’s pretty cool.”
 
“Really cool,” Jamie added, his eyes sparkling. I couldn’t help but grin at how into this he was. I believed in ghosts, but I still tried to stay skeptical until I saw proof. Jamie was always ready to believe.
 
Carrie led us through the rest of the small exhibit, giving us the story behind each photo and why she believed it was real. She showed us the footage of a séance captured on VHS; it was only fifteen seconds, so we watched it probably a dozen times. A dark figure appeared in the shadows right at the twelve-second mark, then vanished. No one at the table seemed to notice it, and as Carrie explained, the woman behind the video camera had claimed to have projected the image from her mind.
 
It was outlandish and ridiculous and to be honest, a few months ago I never would’ve believed any of it for a second.
 
But now? Maybe I did. Because I’d done it myself.
 
I’d never shown anyone the flash drive currently tucked safely in my backpack back at the hotel. The footage it contained of a figure moving behind me in the mirror as I practiced being on camera seemed just as outlandish and ridiculous as anything in this exhibit. But I’d been there. I’d been thinking about this, the other version of me. The Thing. And it had appeared.
 
I couldn’t prove it any more than the woman who’d taken this séance video, or the man who’d captured a photo of his great-grandmother in the mansion. So who’s to say they weren’t telling the truth, too? Maybe they were. Or maybe they were crazy.
 
Maybe I was crazy.
 
Psychic photography was an explanation for that footage, and that was a relief. But I hadn’t been trying to do it . . . so why had it happened? The idea that I might have projected the Thing there without meaning to kind of freaked me out.
 
The distant sound of bells jangling pulled me from my thoughts. “Be right back!” Carrie said, hurrying out of the room. Once she was gone, Jamie turned to me.
 
“So, do you think this one’s—”
 
“I think I created a ghost,” I blurted out, surprising both of us.
 
Jamie’s eyes widened. “You . . . what?”
 
I’d told Oscar about the Thing back in Brussels. And when we got to New York, I’d told him about what really happened in Buenos Aires—that somehow, I’d created an artificial ghost based on this other version of me. The version my mother had always wanted: a pretty little princess kind of daughter. I hadn’t seen the Thing since that last night in Argentina, but I felt it around me constantly. Hovering just outside of my peripheral vision. Lurking in the corners of every mirror. Breathing down my neck, as it had most of my life. When Dad first got this job with Passport to Paranormal, I’d thought traveling around the world was my chance to get the Thing out of my head.
 
I’d never meant to do that literally. Now it was with me in a very real way.
 
Oscar had believed me. But that didn’t mean he believed in the Thing. I mean, part of me even wondered if I was hallucinating—a thought just about as terrifying as the Thing actually being real. I knew Oscar had to be thinking the same thing. We were both skeptics, after all.
 
But Jamie was a believer. And right now, I needed someone to believe me. Even if I didn’t quite believe myself.
 
So I took a deep breath. Then I gave him the short version, glossing over all my embarrassing issues with my mother and focusing on the fact that I’d created a ghost version of myself that was now haunting me. Jamie’s expression remained serious the entire time, not a trace of worry or skepticism.
 
“And I don’t know how to get rid of it,” I finished. “It’s not . . . you know, possessing me. Nothing like that. It’s just . . . with me. All the time.”
 
“You have video of it,” Jamie said slowly. “You projected it onto a video, just like this?” He gestured to the séance playing on a loop behind us, and I nodded.
 
“Yeah.” I winced, sure he was about to ask if he could see the video. I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the thought of him watching me stammering and rambling anxiously on camera, trying to get rid of my stage fright. But instead, he said:
 
“If you can project it, maybe you can control it.”
 
“What?”
 
The bells jangled again, and I heard footsteps as Carrie headed back to the exhibit. Jamie stepped back—somehow we’d ended up standing really close—and grinned at me.
 
“I have an idea.”