It’s the middle of fall semester at Commonwealth University, and Cara Oliver is the resident assistant on the ninth floor of the Hynes Hall dormitory. Being an RA means she’s exempt from paying for her private room. Better yet, she earns a stipend in exchange for keeping the hallway clean, mediating roommate disputes, and suffering the advances of her boss, creepy middle-aged Mr. Flynn. It’s much better than having to find a part-time job on campus. And best of all, her boyfriend, is the RA for the tenth floor. But something strange is going on in 9C, the single room that’s occupied by deaf freshman Hailey Warwick. Cara learns that there are frequent odd noises in the room, and Hailey’s oblivious because she can’t hear them. Cara’s best friend, Leigh Anne, tells Cara that the rumor is that a kid died in Room 9C one year, and it’s haunted. She jokes that it’s either great planning on the part of the dorm’s general manager, Mr. Flynn, that there’s a deaf kid living in 9C that year. Something about Leigh Anne’s joke rings eerily true to Cara. Cara feels awful it’s taken her until October to realize Hailey might be in some kind of danger. Cara discovers one of the students who previously lived in 9C was committed to a psychiatric hospital the following year. Other years, students placed in room 9C dropped out of school mid-semester. She confronts Mr. Flynn about the room’s history, and he uncomfortably admits that back in the Eighties, a student committed suicide in the room, but assures her it was completely renovated. Now Leigh Anne is intrigued and suggests that they use her Ouija board to contact the dead kid. Cara is opposed to the idea, since she doesn’t want to freak her resident out. But Mason insists maybe they can communicate with the spirit and ask him to stop scaring nice girls. When he puts it that way, Cara agrees. But the spirit of the dead kid from Room 9C isn’t so easily convinced...
