Eighteen-year-old California is living a life most people would kill for—rich, popular, and gorgeous by all standards. Yet she’d trade it all to be free from her ass-hole parents whose only concern is the family’s social standing. So Cali is thrilled to pack her bags for the undergraduate genetics program at her dream college. But when she sneaks home from a wild night to find her house surrounded by cops and her parents dead at her father’s hands, Cali only feels (a somewhat concerning) indifference.
At least until she discovers that her dad gambled everything away, including her college tuition, leaving her just one salable asset—the historic Colony Hotel that is the scene of a 100-year-old, unsolved axe massacre. When Cali tours the small-town hotel with a potential buyer, she makes a fatal mistake—she signs her name in a ratty old guest book which an unnervingly attractive hotel guest explains is cursed. Each person who pens their name becomes possessed by an ancient demon, but there’s a way out—Cali has 24-hours to kill the person ahead of her on the list with a sacred axe. Only then will her soul be spared.
Despite the fact that the mean-girl who is ahead of Cali on the list is visibly possessed, pummeling her isn’t as easy as Cali had hoped. The brutal act horrifies her, plus that girl is surprisingly quick in those heels! As Cali stalks her victim, her all-grown-up childhood friend helps her uncover the cultish origins of The Colony, and they expose inconsistencies in the fantastical scenario she’s been fed. To survive the night, and clear her father’s name Cali must take down an evil far more sinister than the demons she’s been chasing.
BODY SPRAY, my current work-in-progess, is a YA axe-murder horror comedy in the spirit of FREAKY and HAPPY DEATH DAY.