Jinxed
Jinxed TrilogyBook One
Thommy Hutson
Genre: YA Horror/Thriller
Publisher: Vesuvian Books
Date of Publication: 3.13.2018
ISBN: 978-1944109127
ASIN: B076ZJX9G1
Number of pages: 243
Word Count: 66k
Cover Artist: Sam Shearon
Tagline: High school can be a real killer
Book Description:
Break a mirror
Walk under a ladder
Step on a crack
Innocent childhood superstitions…
But someone at the Trask Academy of Performing Arts is taking things one deadly step further when the campus is rocked with the deaths of some of its star students.
Layna Curtis, a talented, popular senior, soon realizes that the seemingly random, accidental deaths of her friends aren't random—or accidents—at all. Someone has taken the childhood games too far, using the idea of superstitions to dispose of their classmates. As Layna tries to convince people of her theory, she uncovers the terrifying notion that each escalating, gruesome murder leads closer to its final victim: her.
Will Layna's opening night also be her final bow?
Excerpt 5
“Stop turning
off the lights!” Alice yelled to the doors, to the person she didn’t see but
knew must be there. She hoped it was Daniel, or someone she knew.
The lights
continued to go out. Alice felt a physical weight press upon her at the thought
that her keys were so far from her, now in a sea of darkness.
They were also
near the exit. She felt like a child again, when she was afraid to stay at her
grandparents’ house. It was there her grandfather, the father of her mother,
had threatened to put her in the basement if she was a bad girl. It only took
one time for him to show her how the darkness crept up the stairs from the
damp, dirt floor for her to be silent, and good, each time. It seemed even now
that she could smell the musty air of Pawpaw’s basement.
The light above
her went off. Everything was cloaked in darkness, save for the pale shafts of
moonlight that fell in from the skylights above.
“Damn,” Alice
mumbled. She grabbed her bag, opened it, and shoved her hand around the
contents. She pulled out a mini flashlight and turned it on. Its small halo of
light was barely enough to illuminate more than a few feet in front of her, but
it was all she had. She took her first hesitant step forward, only to be
stopped by a sudden flash of lightning. It was followed by a crackle of thunder
that simmered before exploding into a boom that she felt.
Alice looked up.
She couldn’t see the first drops of rain, but she could hear the noise they
made when they hit the glass high above her.
The darkness and
the coming storm coalesced into something which found its way under Alice’s
skin. She was upset, she was scared. But she needed to get her keys and get out
of there.
Through the
intermittent thunder and lightning, Alice stepped forward, guided by the glow
of her flashlight. She focused on the bright red letters of the exit sign ahead
of her. She looked to her left. The darkness overcame even the bookcases that
were only a few feet away. It made her wonder what might be hiding. What waited
to get her.
Alice shook her
head. “Get a grip.” But she hated having to do this. Of course, there was
nothing behind her, nothing around her. But at the same time, she could be
wrong.
A burst of air
hit her from behind. Something rushed past her.
“Who’s there?
Who is that?” She scanned the area with her flashlight.
There was no
reply but thunder. Alice turned back, accelerated her pace, and ran to her
goal, the keys ahead. Finally, she made it. She bent down to pick them up and
saw the cat was no longer on them. She manipulated the keychain and keys around
in her hand as if she could somehow find the white fluff of the cat. It was
futile. The cat was gone. It had been torn off.
Alice had had
enough. She ran to the exit and yanked on the doors. But they were locked. She
pulled on them, harder. They would not give.
“No!” she yelled
as panic rose within her. She stepped to the thin window next to the door and
pressed her face against it. She could barely see anything through the antique,
bubbled glass and the streaks of rain that came down harder and harder.
“Damn.” She
looked at the keys in her hand, then back to the hallways she had traversed in
the dark. She turned toward the door again and tried to see out the window. A
flash of lightning illuminated the outside, but there was no one to be seen.
When the
lightning faded, and the thunder stopped its song, she backed an inch away from
the glass and stared at her own reflection.
And that was
when she saw the distorted, twisted mask of the killer pop up behind her.
About the Author:
Thommy Hutson is an award-winning screenwriter, producer, and author who is considered the foremost authority on A Nightmare on Elm Street. A graduate of UCLA, Thommy also wrote and produced critically acclaimed genre projects such as Scream: The Inside Story, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, More Brains! A Return of the Living Dead, His Name was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th, and Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th.
Thommy was born and raised in New York but now resides in Southern California with his husband and their cat.
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