#is this story meaningfully distinct enough from My Heart Is A Chainsaw to stand on its own in the world? i do not know yet

[marypsue]

meta slasher story you say 👀

[from this meme]

I do say!

This one was what I was calling Girls, Ghosts, and Meathooks before I settled on a title for it. The seed of an idea for this one was 'I really want Jade Daniels (from Stephen Graham Jones' Indian Lake Trilogy) and Eddie Munson to be best friends, I don't care that there's thirty years between them and one of them is dead', and then it spiralled out of all control when I tried to give it a plot, and I had to file the serial numbers off to give it a chance to breathe on its own in the world.

The premise: Riley Loomis (she changed it from Jones because Riley Jones is wanted in connection with twenty-eight murders, and also missing, presumed dead, and also she's always had a soft spot for both Halloween and Scream) and her best friend, Ben Adams, who happens to be dead, hunt slashers. It's personal: Riley and Ben both witnessed the events of a slasher movie start playing out in their hometowns, both tried to stop it, and both ended up only taking the blame (although Riley was the only one who walked away alive). When Ben rose as a ghost, thirty years from the date of his death, Riley was the first person who found him, and may have stopped him from turning slasher himself. Now, they travel around, living on the margins, following urban legends, weird news stories, and unusual murders, trying to help save other people from their fates. Or...just save people from getting splattered into bloody chunks. Either or.

They've got a system, they've got it down to a science...but their most recent case is throwing a wrench in the works. Nothing's going the way they expect, from a slasher who won't stay dead, to a final girl who seems a little too invested in the 'rules' of slasher horror, to deaths that call into question whether the tragic massacre that destroyed Riley's life and the series of murders that ended up claiming Ben's, even thirty years apart, were really as unconnected as they seem. And whether Riley really managed to save him from turning slasher, after all.

The tropes are alive, and they are hungry...