Title: The Confessions of Sylva Slasher
Author: Ace Antonio
Hall
Published: April
14th, 2013 by Montag Press
Word Count: 84,000
Genre: YA Horror
Recommended Age: 12+
Synopsis:
SPRING BREAK GETS WILD ON THE LIVELIEST CRUISE IN THE
PACIFIC UNTIL THE UNDEAD CRASH THE PARTY.
Eighteen-year-old Sylva Fleischer and her friends raise the dead for a living
for police investigations and mourning families. Two years after her high
school crush, a hot guy named Brandon, is assumed dead, Sylva’s friends convince
her to go on a spring break cruise in an effort to suppress her depression over
him. But when passengers mysteriously die and reanimate into flesheating
zombies like she’s never seen before, Sylva plunges into a horrifying struggle
between a ship infested with the undead and the scariest thing of all: a second
chance with Brandon after she discovers he’s still alive. This is a zombie
story that eats right to the core and leaves you licking your chops for more.
About the Author:
Ace
Antonio Hall graduated from Long Island University with a BFA. He is a former
NYC middle school English teacher who can't get enough of zombies and
Spider-Man comic books. When he's not in the gym working off the extra calories
from eating way too many donuts, Ace writes young adult horror fiction.
His novel The Confessions of Sylva Slasher was released April 14, 2013 by
Montag Press. The second book in his series, Crystal Coffin, will be available
next year.
Ace's short story Dead Chick Walking made the Fall 2013 edition of the
best-selling Calliope Magazine and his science fiction story, They, won the
Honorable Mention distinction for the
2013 Writers of the Future Award.
For updates and news, follow him on Twitter @aceantoniohall, like his facebook
author fan page or visit www.aceantoniohall.com where you can read his blog,
updated regularly.
THE EXCERPT:
I took a step forward.
“Whoa!” One more step and I would’ve slipped off the mountain.
The
mountain?
All of a sudden, I found
myself standing on Theodore Roosevelt’s head at Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.
“Gammy? People just don’t
transport to different places. I mean, unless you have access to the Starship
Enterprise and didn’t tell me.”
“Isn’t the sun shining
bright?” Gammy asked. “And the sky … It’s a flawless, beautiful blue.”
Hundreds of colorful
butterflies came toward me then, flying around my head. “Shoo,” I said, waving
for them to go away.”
“Aren’t they pretty,”
Gammy said. She stood over on Abraham Lincoln’s head, pitching rocks at the
trees below.
“I guess. How—how did I get
here?”
She didn’t answer.
I glanced around,
feeling her awkward silence. “Why are there so many butterflies?”
“Butterflies,” she said.
“Funny how butterflies come out of old, ugly cocoons, huh?”
I gave her a strange
look, trying to absorb everything around me. “Uh, yeah, um … cocoons sometimes
remind me of coffins—’cause I used to think the caterpillars were dead inside
of them when I was little.”
Gammy chuckled. “And
then they emerge into something more beautiful, more powerful than they were
before. Like how you let them boys dare you into raising that dead soldier.”
“That didn’t make me more
beautiful. It scarred me for life.”
“Did it?”
“Yeah, I raised some
lunatic jarhead that went on a rampage and killed the cadets with me. I’d be in
jail right now if Reaper hadn’t made the case disappear, somehow. Trust me, I
was scarred for life, Gammy.”
“On the contrary, dear.
The moment you beheaded that deadhead, as you call him, you grew.”
“Grew?”
“Yes, child. You came
into who you were supposed to be. That deadhead saved your life, your death,
and your rebirth. You are just like these butterflies, shedding one life for
another.”
I watched the colorful
butterflies float around us and said nothing.
She picked up a rock and
threw it at a tree. “Like I always say, sweetie, everything ain’t always what
it seems, you know. Woot-hoo, did you see that? I hit that tree dead on.”
I looked down at my
hands and my feet, seeing pink converses, blue jeans, my lean waist, and a
long-sleeved, midriff black tee that read GOT ZOMBIES? in lower-cased
white letters. Yay.
“I’m back,” I said.
“Okay, I’m game. What gives?”
I glanced at my chipped,
blue fingernails and bit off an irritating hanging piece. I lifted my head back
up, and Gammy stood next to me.
“We’re at Mt Rushmore,”
she said. “This is the life after life. Come and give me a hug girl, before my
arms fall off from poor circulation.”
“Oh, uh,” I said, picking myself up with a grunt from the hard,
rocky surface. “We’re … dead?”
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