“Kat,” Grandma whispered. “Sweetheart. There’s no ghost in this video.”
I blinked. “What? Of course there is.”
Pursing her lips, Grandma reached out and touched the trackpad, moving the arrow over to the play button. She hesitated for just a moment before clicking.
On the screen, I saw the Korean horror movie playing on the TV. I saw the desk, the laptop, the dashboard for my blog. I saw the mirror, and I saw my reflection, holding the camera, staring at an empty chair.
Numbness spread through my limbs. “No, that’s not . . .” I squeezed my eyes closed briefly, then stared hard at the screen, willing the Thing to appear. “It was there. I watched this video last night; it was there. You could see it in the mirror.”
Before Grandma could respond, I quickly scrambled off the bed and paused the video. Then I scrolled up to the top of the post. It was all there, all the Save yourselves, and my message underneath it. My message that made me sound like a complete, certifiable nutjob. Because now it looked like I had typed up this whole nonsensical post, then added a video of my own reflection watching an empty chair through my camera.
There were 168 comments so far. I couldn’t even bring myself to read them.
“Everyone thinks I’m crazy,” I said dully. “Don’t they.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Grandma placed a finger under my chin, tilting my head back and looking me in the eyes. “No one thinks you’re crazy. But I won’t pretend we aren’t . . . confused. Your father says he’s tried to talk to you about your actions lately. Ripping up his contract, leaving those comments on your mother’s Facebook—”
“I didn’t do any of that!” I cried. “It was the Thing. Wait—I can prove it.”
Grandma’s brows furrowed as I flew off the bed and across the room, grabbing my backpack off the couch. After dumping the contents on the floor, I frantically dug through the mess until I found it: the flash drive.
“Ha,” I said triumphantly, marching back over to the laptop. “Remember when I e-mailed you about being camera shy? You told me to practice getting comfortable on camera by myself. So I did.” I inserted the flash drive as I spoke, then opened the video. “Watch the mirror.”
“No one’s going to see this. Ever.”
I crossed my arms, staring at myself standing in the hotel room back in Salvador. Grandma sat perfectly still next to me. My heart pounded faster and my palms started to sweat as the clip got closer to the part where the Thing first appeared. I hadn’t known that’s what it was at first, but it was there. A blurry shape in the mirror. I leaned forward in anticipation.
“Just. Freaking. Relax.”
The video ended, frozen on a frame of my hand grabbing the camera. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Nothing.
No.
Thing.
“No, it was there,” I hissed, clicking back to play the final few seconds again. I glared at the mirror, willing the blur to happen, praying I’d missed it somehow the first time. But there was absolutely no movement behind video-me.
I’d never shown anyone this video because I was too embarrassed. But now I wish I’d just gotten over it. Because the Thing had been there. And now it wasn’t.
“Kat, honey,” Grandma was saying, but I ignored her. This was like . . . like the opposite of thoughtography. Instead of projecting a ghost onto a video, I’d removed one. Two, actually. But I sure as hell hadn’t done it on purpose. The world’s first accidental reverse psychic photographer, I thought, and almost laughed out loud.
Only I didn’t really believe that. No, this was the Thing’s doing. It must have been. It was trying to make me look crazy so that Dad would leave the show and we’d go back to Chelsea. And every time I asked for help or tried to tell someone the truth—Grandma, Dad, the entire Passport to Paranormal fandom—I just looked crazier.
Enough of that. If I was going to beat the Thing, I had to do it on my own.
“Never mind,” I told Grandma, getting to my feet abruptly and pocketing the flash drive. “Wrong video. And the blog post . . . it was supposed to be a joke. I was tired, seemed like a good idea. I’ll apologize to the crew.” Grandma opened her mouth, but I continued. “Meet you downstairs for breakfast, okay? I’m gonna go back to my room and take a shower.”
And I grabbed my bag and left the room without looking back at her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE TRUTH ISN’T OUT THERE
Post: Ryang Jeongsin Byeong-won (Ryang Psychiatric Hospital)
Comments (231)
Hi, everyone! This is Oscar, temporarily taking over Kat’s blog. She’s fine, she’s just taking a break from the Internet for a while.
For the season finale of P2P, we’re in Seoul investigating the Ryang Psychiatric Hospital. It’s been abandoned, but very recently, so it probably won’t look quite as creepy as Daems Prison or the catacombs in Buenos Aires. The patients and staff were all moved to a new, better facility in another neighborhood, and this hospital was purchased by a production company based here in Seoul. They want to use the building as a setting for a movie about a haunted asylum, and since this place is rumored to be haunted, they thought it would make the film more authentic if they filmed here.
Supposedly, the hospital has its very own poltergeist. A really angry, really noisy one. There’s a rumor that back when the hospital opened decades ago, some nurse accidentally opened a portal and let in the poltergeist . . . which means it was never human.
So what IS it? Stay tuned to watch us try to find out!
OSCAR might have had potential as an actor, but I was giving him a run for his money. The second I joined the rest of the crew in the hotel lobby, I started putting on the performance of a lifetime.
I apologized to Dad and everyone for the Save Yourself post. Yes, I knew I was supposed to get all posts approved. No, of course I didn’t actually think my doppelganger had written it. Yes, I knew the video didn’t show anything remotely paranormal—it was supposed to be a joke! Just trying to lighten things up after my whole “will I die in the season finale” mistake, bad judgment on my part, ha-ha, won’t happen again.
No one bought the act at first, especially not Dad or Grandma. But I stuck to it, smiling and calmly eating my pastry, until finally Lidia changed the subject and started talking about our itinerary for the day. We were going to spend the morning filming in the neighborhood where the psychiatric hospital was located. The people from the production company who had bought the facility were going to meet us, and Grandma would be conducting most of the interviews. Then we’d return to the hotel for dinner, pack up, and head back out to spend the night in the hospital.
Oscar caught on to what I was doing right away. The trip across town took about half an hour, and we spent the whole time joking around in the back of the van, ignoring the occasional concerned glances from the adults.
When we pulled up to Ryang Psychiatric Hospital, a group of people was standing outside of the entrance, all smiling eagerly. I felt a brief wave of déjà vu, remembering the fans who had found us at the Montgomery. Lidia was the first out of the van, and a guy with longish graying hair pulled into a ponytail stepped forward.
“Ms. Bettencourt!” he exclaimed, his words carrying the slightest hint of an accent. “We spoke on the phone earlier. I’m Jae-Hwa.”
“So nice to finally meet you in person!” Lidia shook his hand, then turned to Dad and Jess, who were right behind her. “Park Jae-Hwa. He’s the founder of Talchul Films.”
A blur of introductions followed, during which Oscar and I hung back. Jae-Hwa’s whole staff—five people, including him—all seemed excited to meet the crew, and really excited to meet Grandma. They weren’t so interested in Oscar and me, which was a relief—and, well, maybe a little bit of a surprise, too. After my unfortunate blog post, P2P fans had been arguing nonstop in the forums about whether or not we wer
e just faking the whole doppelganger thing. But maybe in real life, no one cared whether my double would try to attack me during the finale. Not even the people who owned the place we’d be investigating.
After several minutes of chatting, we all trooped inside the hospital. I blinked in surprise, nudging Oscar.
“You weren’t kidding about this place,” I told him. “It’s not creepy at all.”
The lobby was still furnished with a few sofas and chairs. A flat-screen TV hung on the wall, although I could see the cables dangling from the back. A few filing cabinets sat against the wall behind the receptionist’s desk, and there were even a few magazines still stacked neatly on a little table in the corner.
“Did they leave all the furniture?” Roland asked, glancing down the hall to the left. “Beds, all that stuff in the rooms?”
Jae-Hwa nodded. “The hospital’s new facility included an upgrade in equipment. When we bought this building, we asked that the owners include all of the furnishings they no longer needed in the price. For us, it was a ready-made set for our first film.”
“Nice,” Grandma murmured thoughtfully as she gazed around. I could practically see the wheels turning in her head, probably thinking about her own production company and whatever its first movie would be. I breathed a small sigh of relief; for a few hours, at least, she and Dad would be focused on something aside from their concern that I was losing my mind.
“Kat, check this out.” Oscar waved me over to the hallway, where he stood by the first door. “Looks like a nurses’ lounge or something.” We both glanced at the adults, who were all getting settled on the sofas and chairs in the lobby. Jess and Mi Jin were setting up their cameras, while Dad pinned microphones on Jae-Hwa and Grandma. I caught Dad’s eye and pointed to the lounge. After a second’s hesitation, he nodded, and Oscar and I hurried inside and closed the door.
“Finally,” Oscar said, turning to me expectantly. “Jamie already told me everything, but I want to hear it from you. What happened, exactly?”
So I told him about the soft clicking on the laptop, watching the same two words appear over and over again on the screen, seeing the Thing in the mirror, long braid hanging over its shoulder. I told him how it had stood and walked out of sight, and how I’d sat down to video chat with Jamie and ended up dozing off.
“It’s too bad you didn’t show Jamie the video,” Oscar mused.
I glanced up. “Why?”
“Just, you know . . .” he shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “So another person would’ve seen it.”
“So you’d know whether or not I’m going crazy,” I said flatly.
Oscar sighed. “That’s not what I said.”
I squeezed my hands into fists so hard my knuckles turned white. “So you believe me? You believe it was on my camera?”
Oscar shifted in his chair, opened his mouth, then closed it again. I raised my eyebrows expectantly, and he sighed.
“Okay. Look, Kat, I do believe you. But—”
I groaned, closing my eyes. This was it. The last straw. Even Oscar thought I was losing it.
“No, listen,” he said, leaning forward. “The Thing is real. We all saw it on the bridge, and on video. I don’t know what happened to the video you got last night, but that doesn’t change the fact that literally everyone has seen a ghost that looks exactly like you. That one’s still on video, the one Jess got.”
“But?”
“But . . .” Oscar paused. “When you told me what happened to your dad’s contract, you said you’d had a weird dream the night before about him getting mad at you. And yesterday, when I came up to the suite and woke you up—you don’t even remember that! And you said when you saw the Thing, you’d just woken up from a nap, and then you got really drowsy again. So maybe you’re, like . . . sleepwalking. Or something.”
“You mean sleep blog-posting,” I said dully. “Sleep ripping up contracts. Sleep writing rude comments all over Mi Jin’s script, too?”
Oscar sighed, clearly frustrated. “Look, don’t get all defensive. I already said I know the Thing is real—I don’t think you’re making this stuff up. But maybe some of the stuff that’s happened is . . .”
“Is me,” I finished. “And I only think it’s the Thing. You know, this is a lot like what you said to me about Sonja when we were in Rotterdam. You believed I thought I was telling the truth. But that’s not the same as actually believing me.” I knew I should stop talking, that Oscar was just trying to help. But I was frustrated, too. “And that was before we were even friends. I thought you trusted me, but I guess I was wrong.”
“We are friends,” Oscar snapped. “I’m being honest with you. That’s what actual friends do, not just agree with you even when you might be wrong.”
I crossed my arms and half-shrugged. He was right, which just irritated me even more.
“And besides, think about this,” Oscar went on, his tone slightly softer. “You made the Thing, right? It came from your head. Maybe it can . . . get back in there sometimes. Make you do stuff without you realizing it.”
I sat up straighter. “You mean possess me?”
“Maybe?” Oscar’s brow furrowed. “We thought you were possessed in Buenos Aires. You had all those weird symptoms. And then the Thing . . . came out. Came out of you. So it’s kind of like you were possessed. Maybe it still has a connection with you or something.”
“Huh.”
“And . . .” Oscar tilted his head. “And your camera.”
“My camera?”
“The Thing is still on Jess’s video,” he said. “Taken on Jess’s camera. It’s only your camera it keeps disappearing from.”
We fell silent, listening to the muffled sounds of voices in the lobby. The more I thought about what Oscar had said, the more it made sense. Especially about the Elapse. My love of photography was pretty much the only thing I’d ever had in common with my mom. The Thing was the version of me that had everything in common with my mom. In a twisted way, it made sense that it’d be able to worm its way in and out of my photography, but no one else’s.
For months, I’d been trying to find an explanation for the Thing. An artificial ghost, thoughtography . . . but if there was one thing I’d learned since joining P2P, it was that there was hardly ever a definitive explanation for paranormal activity. Just theories and ideas.
Maybe the Thing was something new entirely.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FOR THE LOVE OF BODY DOUBLES
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Hello
I know we talked about visiting each other over the summer. However, that will not be possible since I’m moving back to Chelsea to be with my mother and I don’t plan on leaving ever again. Also, graveyards and creepy museums are not ideal places to take girlfriends. I’m sorry for leading you on.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Hello
Jamie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t write that e-mail, I swear. I think maybe I figured out what’s going on. Can we video chat soon?
SORRY AGAIN!!!
Kat (the actual real one, not the fake one who says she’s the real one)
AFTER a long lunch with everyone from Talchul Films at a restaurant near the hospital, the P2P crew headed back to our hotel to get ready for tonight’s investigation. Oscar and I packed our backpacks quickly and went down to the lobby together.
“Don’t worry, Jamie’ll believe you,” Oscar said. “That e-mail didn’t sound like you at all.”
I made a face. “I hope so. If the Thing’s going to keep doing this, maybe I should just delete my e-mail account. And my blog. And just . . . not exist online, at all.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said.”
I let out a
little laugh as the elevator doors slid open. But honestly, the thought was tempting.
“KitKat, come over here!” Grandma called from the sofa, where she sat with Mi Jin. “You said you read Mi Jin’s screenplay, right?”
I winced, trying not to picture the horrible comments in my handwriting that covered the script. “Yeah, I did.”
“And I’d like to know what you really thought,” Mi Jin said, winking at me. “I know you said you liked it, but I get the sense that maybe you have some suggestions?”
Grandma patted the spot next to her on the sofa, and I sat down tentatively. Oscar flopped down in the armchair opposite Mi Jin and gave me a look that clearly said Don’t be a chicken.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, I guess it was the part where the main character—Lee, right?—when she actually sees her doppelganger face-to-face for the first time. She screams and runs, like she’s really shocked. But . . . but that doesn’t really make sense.”
Mi Jin nodded encouragingly. “How so?”
“Because there were all these signs before then that something weird was going on,” I replied. “Like finding that burned figurine, and when she felt like someone was watching her in the scene at her grandmother’s funeral. There were other clues, too . . . so by the time she sees her doppelganger, I get that it’s still scary. But not surprising. She knew something was up.”
“Huh.” Mi Jin nodded, a smile spreading slowly across her face. “That makes a lot of sense, actually.”
“Indeed it does,” Grandma agreed, and I noticed for the first time that she was holding a copy of the script. (Thankfully, it appeared to be a clean copy with no mean notes.) “The way you’ve described it, it sounds like her doppelganger has been lurking around for quite a while prior to the start of the story. It reminds me of the stalker I dealt with when I was a teenager.”
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