Horror
Date Published: 4/26/23
Publisher: Deadbolt Books
Welcome to Slashtag, the most immersive horror reality competition series in history! Tag along as seven of America's favorite celebrities step into the infamous Propitius Hotel, home to one of the most prolific serial killers in history - Arthur Wilson.
Arthur built and operated the Propitius Hotel from 1905 until 1928 when
dozens of bodies were found in his hotel, along with countless hidden
torture rooms throughout the hotel. Arthur disappeared, seemingly never to
be caught. He then returned - nearly 40 years later - under the guise of a
priest leading a congregation of 100 people back to his hotel, where he once
again committed mass murder.
Enter Tawny Howlett - a top-tier lifestyle influencer who is in the midst of the crappiest week of her life. Her brand new health drink turned out to be tainted, and now thousands of her followers want nothing more than to see her social media empire crumble. In order to rehabilitate her image, she's agreed to take part in "Slashtag: The Ultimate Horror Experience".
At first it's all fun and games, until the team of seven celebs discover that the ghost is very real, and out for blood. In order to survive the three-day live-streamed event, Tawny and her fellow contestants must band together to try and send the spirit of Arthur Wilson straight to hell.
"I suddenly wish that I were just crazy. A hallucination would mean my brain is broken, which is something I’ve spent my entire adult life attempting to accept. If we’re both seeing this, it means the world is broken in a way my brain is not prepared to confront."
While Tawny has her hands full trying to survive a weekend at the Propitius Hotel, it's up to her younger sister April to work from the outside to try and find a way to save her sister, and uncover the dark truth behind the TV network that continues to air the deaths of some of America's top talent.
Together these seven doomed souls must solve the puzzles hidden within the hotel in order to vanquish the spirit of Arthur Wilson.
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About the Author
JON COHN IS A WRITER and professional board game designer based out of San Diego, California. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @joncohnauthor.
He would also love to give you free stuff like stories, audiobooks, and games by signing up for his mailing list at www.joncohnauthor.com.
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1. It’s been so long since I’ve had to actually make a difficult decision for myself, I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of bad options. D-wreck makes a comeback sound so simple. For him, I’m sure it is. He gets to float through life, stumbling from one idiotic scheme to the next, failing ever upward. In my experience, catastrophe tends to be the tip of the iceberg.
2. “They can poke and prod us all they want, sure, but it’s up to us to decide how we react. If they get a rise out of us, it only amps them up even more. Shows them that they’re onto something. As far as they’re concerned, it doesn’t matter who makes it to the end. They still win, no matter what. The only thing we can do is try and add a little bitter to their victory. For me, that means playing the well-meaning, slightly dumb, headstrong girl I’m expected to be. If I’m anything but that, my career could be over in a second. Whatever they do to try and make me break character, it’s not going to work because I’m not going to let it.”
3. The light flickers overhead, and then suddenly, a man is standing in the far corner of the room. There’s a hacksaw in his hand. He’s wearing a surgical apron, with a medical mask over his mouth and nose. Even behind the face coverings, it’s clear that it’s Arthur Wilson, given away by his thick, bottle cap glasses and brown suit underneath the apron.This has to be some sort of trick, a bit of Hollywood magic, but I can’t figure out how he just materialized like that. My heart surges in my chest, and I try to rationalize the man who just appeared before me. What’s most impressive, and also terrifying, are his eyes. They have a shining, mirror-like reflectiveness to them, something I’ve never seen in a specialty contact lens before. This just went from “fun scary” to “actually scary” in the span of about two seconds.
4. “There’s a reason Krentler Media went through the trouble to bring celebrities on this show, and not just regular people. This story’s about us humiliating and ultimately destroying ourselves.”
“Or each other,” Kiki adds.
“But why would
anyone want to watch that?” Britt asks.
“Because as much as they like to watch us win, they love it when
we fail,” Shawn says.
5. Wilson regards him for a moment, sizing my companion up, before pulling his lips into a mocking grin. The lights shudder. In the moment between darkness and light, Wilson blinks out of existence, only to reappear moments later standing directly behind D. Before I have a chance to warn him, Wilson brings his blade to the side of D-wreck’s mouth, carving a curling line up his cheek like an overextended grin. D-wreck screams and spins around with the saw, then leaps away from his attacker. The blade goes through Arthur’s midsection as if there was nothing there at all. There’s no tricks of the light, no special effects that could allow a person to both hold a knife and be a projection. There’s no mental gymnastics I can perform to convince myself this is just a group of actors making an edgy TV show. I’m standing in a room with the actual ghost of Arthur Wilson, and before this weekend is through, he’s going to kill us all.
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