Killing it on Campus
Ebook editions (PDF, EPUB, and AZW3) of Hulderotica #12: Killing it on Campus, by Kaya Skovdatter.
Carfax College has always had a reputation for students who endanger others disappearing off campus. But when missing students start turning up dead, it puts a decided crimp in Emily, Mireille, Himari, Tapati, and Isabella’s plans to finish their final year of undergrad with good grades, a fantastic shared on-campus apartment, and the whole not getting murdered thing. And when no one seems interested in doing anything about a killer stalking Carfax’s ivied halls, it falls to them to take matters into their own hands.
14,200 words. Standalone.
Ebook editions (PDF, EPUB, and AZW3) of Hulderotica #12: Killing it on Campus, by Kaya Skovdatter.
Carfax College has always had a reputation for students who endanger others disappearing off campus. But when missing students start turning up dead, it puts a decided crimp in Emily, Mireille, Himari, Tapati, and Isabella’s plans to finish their final year of undergrad with good grades, a fantastic shared on-campus apartment, and the whole not getting murdered thing. And when no one seems interested in doing anything about a killer stalking Carfax’s ivied halls, it falls to them to take matters into their own hands.
14,200 words. Standalone.
Ebook editions (PDF, EPUB, and AZW3) of Hulderotica #12: Killing it on Campus, by Kaya Skovdatter.
Carfax College has always had a reputation for students who endanger others disappearing off campus. But when missing students start turning up dead, it puts a decided crimp in Emily, Mireille, Himari, Tapati, and Isabella’s plans to finish their final year of undergrad with good grades, a fantastic shared on-campus apartment, and the whole not getting murdered thing. And when no one seems interested in doing anything about a killer stalking Carfax’s ivied halls, it falls to them to take matters into their own hands.
14,200 words. Standalone.
Want to sample before you buy? Read on:
0 EXT. LATE FALL. CARFAX COLLEGE, MORAJO CAMPUS. NIGHT – THE WITCH’S HOUR (SOMEWHERE AFTER MIDNIGHT).
THE CAMERA TRACKS ACROSS A PAVED, CANOPIED PATH, AS:
The BOY stalks quickly across the moonlit campus on his way back to the dorms at Talbot after his tryst, the girl’s jasmine and bergamot perfume lingering on his skin as leaves swirl around his feet in the cold autumn wind. He has made lingering, kiss-laden promises to call her. The same promise he’s made to dozens of girls at Carfax. He never keeps it.
He lifts the collar of his jacket higher and huddles against the night air, whistling out of tune to keep his lips warm. Until the snap of a twig sounds loud behind him and he wheels, not daring to breathe. Then relaxes as he sees there’s nothing there. He sighs heavily and ruffles the shaggy hair at the back of his head.
A VERY UNFAITHFUL BOY…
Gonna give myself a heart attack.
He laughs at his nervousness and turns. Only to go deer-in-headlights as he almost bumps into:
A TOWERING FIGURE. The well-built stranger stands a head over the boy, wearing a knee-length red raincoat, the hood pulled up to hide their face. [Oh I look good here. Maybe this should be a closer shot. But can’t give things away too early, can we?] They tilt their head slightly, angled like a bird as they look down at the boy. The wind billows their raincoat aside, the boy’s attention drawn to the light glinting off the long-handled axe in the towering figure’s left hand.
The boy doesn’t have time to scream as the killer slashes the axe two-handed across their face.
#
1 INT. CARFAX COLLEGE, MORAJO CAMPUS STUDENT APARTMENTS (THE POLYCULE’S). NIGHT – ABOUT 2 AM.
[Ugh. This POV. But don’t worry, we’ll get back to me soon enough. It’s my handiwork we’re all here to see, after all…]
Even only a couple weeks in, EMILY wasn’t exactly sorry that she was, at last, in the final year of her econ degree. She’d loved her time at Carfax College. But the local students had an easier time living and studying just outside Marrowmont, able to visit friends and family. Emily was an out-of-towner. And a small-town girl at that. Marrowmont was … not that.
Even Salem, barely half as big as Marrowmont, had felt overwhelming the one time she’d gone for a tour of where the Witch Trials had taken place before starting undergrad – a chance to get a feel for some of the more famous local color in the state that would be home for the next few years. Her parents happy to pay for her to stay the summer months in short-term rented apartments as long as it meant she didn’t visit and cause them more trouble, and not terribly upset they didn’t have to see their embarrassment of a daughter anymore. Fully expecting she’d get her degree, find work, and live elsewhere. Preferably far elsewhere.
Which, for Emily, was a chance to start over. Certainly a hell of a lot easier to be herself here than in Wyoming. At least in Massachusetts she could legally use the right bathroom.
