Welcome to the cover reveal for YA horror novel Skateboard Xombies: Search for the Crystal Coffin. This is the first book in
a five-part series of Kindle singles.
Skateboard Xombies:
Search for the Crystal Coffin
Ace
Antonio Hall
YA Horror
On a normal school day in Lunyon Canyon, California, teenage
necromancer, Sylva Fleischer, bickers with her teacher in class over an
unfairly graded paper. But when the principal announces that all teachers
should lock their door and not let any students leave class, the entire school
is trapped in a world of terrifying zombies that not only bite with their
teeth, they bite with their minds.
Since all life on Earth faces extinction at the hands of the
perilous undead, a guardian of a secret society of vampire monks saves Sylva,
her friend, Half-Pipe and her family, and lead them to an alternate world. And
that's when the real terror begins ... on a planet full of every imaginable
type of undead creature that ever lived ... Including those telekinetic
zombies!
Praise for Ace
Antonio Hall and Confessions of Sylva Slasher:
"As I say on the front cover … A treat for Buffy
fans–but 100% Ace Antonio Hall's own twisted vision.
Breathes new life into the living dead; run, don't shamble to get a copy."
–Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author, Robert J. Sawyer
“In a vast sea of zombie tales, Hall's tale is more than a cut
above. He brings the entire genre to heel and treats us to one Hell of a ride.”
—Art Holcomb, Editor-in-Chief, Andromeda Entertainment
Excerpt
ONE
WAY OR ANOTHER (teenage kicks)
HoloBleet -
@sylvaslasher. Entry 526: I still dream about
my sorta-kinda ex, Brandon. Even though he's dead, his words live on in my
heart. This is what he said to me: “You see, it was
like my soul was suddenly driven with the sole purpose to branch out of my body
and touch yours. I don’t know, it probably sounds stupid to you, but I swear it
was like our spirits were made in heaven. Yeah, as one entity and somehow when
they came down to Earth, were separated until that first moment our eyes
met—mine and those precious silver eyes. That day my whole life made sense.”
I woke up wishing dreams never ended. #RIPBrandon
601 ReBleets, 11,493 Followers
Monday
Morning, 7:52
“IT'S KIND OF LIKE THE
HUNGER GAMES,” I said, as the morning sun slept lazily behind the dark storm
clouds, “except instead of the survivor winning a chance to live, they earn a
chance to die.”
“Sylva, whoever invented
those bloodthirsty games are crazy,” Half-Pipe said, looking back at me with a
dubious smirk, “I don't care how you twist it, the Blood Bowl sounds
major morbid.”
Katja Andersdotter, known to everyone as Half-Pipe, was the most opinionated
person I knew. She got her name because one day her father beat her with a broken sink pipe
after his routine field trip to the all-night bar. He started calling her that
ever since just to see her cringe. She was out of school for two whole weeks
that day he put her in the hospital and the next time I saw her, she was a
vampire, or so
I thought. I'll explain what I mean by that later.
Half-Pipe zipped backwards
toward the high school steps on her kickglider and spun the hovering skateboard
into a killer switch front blunt trick. Her kickglider did an air-grind
down the rail to the bottom of steps and she abruptly stopped throwing one foot
down, the other foot hovering four inches above the ground on her board.
Most people think her name's
Half-Pipe because she's so good doing skateboard tricks on the half-pipe ramps.
I know better. She likes the name, now; says it gives her strength.
“You finally nailed
the landing,” I said, smiling.
“What are you
talking about, Sylva?” Half-Pipe said. “I nailed it just last week.”
“When? I don't
remember.”
“You weren't
there—you kept blowing me off, working on that cosmology paper for our
necromancy class. I nailed it right outside Ohana Gardens all by my
lonesome with no one to distract me.”
“Then that doesn't
count if no one saw it.”
“Does, too.”
“Whatever.”
Wanting to outdo Half-Pipe, I pushed my kickglider out in front of me,
flipping the board three-hundred and sixty degrees to do a heel flip and ollied
(jumped hands-free) over the fourteen steps. While in the air, I decided to
grab the tail of the board with both hands, blindly reaching behind my back
with my front hand. Upon landing, I swooshed to a ninety-degree stop beneath
our holographic school sign, which hovered ten feet above my head, reminding parents
about a Tuesday P.T.A. Meeting, red neon lights flashing against the gray
skies.
“That's was pretty
gnarly,” Half-Pipe said. “No one does a Bloody Dracula better than the one and
only Sylva Fleischer!”
I pulled my shades out of the side of my backpack and slipped them on. “You
weren't too shabby, yourself,” I said, and skated off alongside our football
stadium toward the main building. I loved seing the blue turf on our football
field. Grass looks so better blue, than green, I thought.
Half-Pipe caught up with me. “Did you tell your mom yet that you're
quitting raising the dead?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I'm glad
Emily taught me everything she knows about preparing the grave and stuff. I'll
be able to help out when you're gone. But ... who would do the raising? No one
else in the Ohana is a necromancer.”
I didn't say anything—didn't care as long as it wasn't me.
“Then,” Half-Pipe
began, “you didn't tell her you were moving out and getting your own place,
either, huh?”
I shook my head. “Can't ever find the right time to do it.”
“Why move out when
you have everything you want at home with your family? They love you, and never
treat you mean. I wish I had it that good.”
“They don't pay
attention to me when I'm home. Trust me, they're not going to miss me. Besides,
I know that once I'm on my own, this void inside of me will be filled.
Something's missing, and I think I need to be more independent to find out what
it is.”
“Why quit raising
the dead? You're so good at it. Is it because of what happened to you at the
D.T.'s?”
“I don't want to
talk about it,” I said, and sped up.
About the Author
Ace Antonio Hall is an actor, former
music producer, and ‘retired’ educator with accolades as a Director of
Education for the Sylvan Learning Center and nearly fifteen years experience as
an award-winning NYC English teacher. He has a BFA degree with a concentration
in screenwriting and has published poetry, short stories and fiction in
magazines, anthologies, newspapers and novels.
Inspired by his father, Chris
Acemandese Hall, who penned the lyrics to the Miles Davis jazz classic, “So
What”, sung by Eddie Jefferson, and his sister, Carol Lynn Brown, who guest
starred in the 1970’s film, “Velvet Smooth”, Ace spawned
his creativity into developing the beloved but flawed teen character, Sylva
Slasher.
Ace was the Vice President of the Greater
Los Angeles Writers Society (2009-2011), and continues to head the Science
Fiction, Fantasy & Horror (ScHoFan) Critique Group as Co-Director of
critique groups within the society. He is also a member of LASFS and the
International Thriller Writers.
On April 14, 2013, Montag Press
published his YA zombie novel Confessions of Sylva Slasher. His next release,
Skateboard Xombies, is coming out later this year, and he has already begun
working on Skateboard Xamurai for the third installment in his Sylva Slasher
series.
Giveaway
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