DEAD INDEED, MG horror comedy

Query

Tiffany Hart expected seventh grade to be the year she became popular, not a ghost-seer.

She’s determined to be class president at any cost until a near death experience bestows Tiffany with an unwanted gift. Now three small spirit children cling to her, disrupting everything she holds sacred like sleeping and her Michael Jackson mugs. Even worse, trying to pretend they don’t exist is making Tiffany act like a freakshow in front of her classmates. The only person who can help is her neighbor and the weirdest boy at school, Justin Henderson, a.k.a. The Casper Kid.

Justin has seen ghosts since he was nine, a creepy claim that has earned him the privilege of eating lunch by himself for years. When his long-time crush, Tiffany, begs his help with her ghoulish problem, he’s there in the click of an electromagnetic field detector.

Tiffany and Justin begin to unravel a mystery filled with murder, orphans, plagues, and skeletons that leads them to a backyard burial ground. The only thing standing between Tiffany and normalcy is the dark-hearted apparition who guards the graves and isn’t afraid of hurting children, dead or alive. In order to survive, they must face their own demons first. For Tiffany, it’s her pride. For Justin, it’s far more literal.

DEAD INDEED is a middle grade stand-alone horror with series potential. The horror and heart of Black's DOLL BONES and the humor of Savage's CASE FILES, complete at 53,000 words. 

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To the Slaughter House

We were so far away from civilization that howling banshees with machine guns could’ve murdered us and nobody would’ve heard a thing.

Letting Kori Henderson, the girl with the million braids done so tight I was sure it messed with her brain, drive me anywhere was mistake enough. Letting her drive me to a spot of serious paranormal activity was pure stupidity.

I blame Justin.

Grrr.

That nutcase was the reason I was in that junky minivan, bouncing down a country road in the middle of the night. Sure it was his sister, Kori, who invited all of us twelve-year-olds to join her friends on that spook hunt, and, yes, it was my best friend, Jessica, who actually convinced me to get in the van, but Justin Henderson was always behind all supernatural weirdness. He couldn’t help it.

Resting my forehead on the cool window I searched the moonlit hill for shadows behind the scrub trees. The hair on my arms stood on end just thinking about some old man with a bucket and a gun that Justin described as a local ghost legend.

How did I let Jessica bribe me with a slurpee? No amount of sugar could compensate for the way that fear was digging tiny holes in my stomach.

I couldn’t even watch Scooby Doo all by myself.

Outside air whooshed in the windows. Scents like dirt and pine, that were lovely during the day, smelled like a horror film at night.