Dead Girls Walking: A Novel

by Sami Ellis

Genres: YA Horror

Synopsis

Sami Ellis’s Dead Girls Walking is a shocking, spine-chilling YA horror slasher about a girl searching for her dead mother’s body at the summer camp that was once her serial killer father’s home—perfect for fans of Friday the 13th and White Smoke.

Temple Baker knows that evil runs in her blood. Her father is the North Point Killer, an infamous serial killer known for how he marked each of his victims with a brand. He was convicted for murdering 20 people and was the talk of countless true crime blogs for years. Some say he was possessed by a demon. Some say that they never found all his victims. Some say that even though he’s now behind bars, people are still dying in the woods. Despite everything though, Temple never believed that her dad killed her mom. But when he confesses to that crime while on death row, she has no choice but to return to his old hunting grounds to try see if she can find a body and prove it.

Turns out, the farm that was once her father’s hunting grounds and her home has been turned into an overnight camp for queer, horror-obsessed girls. So Temple poses as a camp counselor to go digging in the woods. While she’s not used to hanging out with girls her own age and feels ambivalent at best about these true crime enthusiasts, she tries her best to fit in and keep her true identity hidden.

But when a girl turns up dead in the woods, she fears that one of her father’s “fans” might be mimicking his crimes. As Temple tries to uncover the truth and keep the campers safe, she comes to realize that there may be something stranger and more sinister at work—and that her father may not have been the only monster in these woods.

 

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Release date: March 26, 2024

Publisher: Amulet Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

CONTENT WARNING: As a horror novel, there will be things in this book that not all audiences are comfortable reading. Below, I have listed content warnings for anyone who needs them.

STRONG PRESENCE OF: body fluids like blood and vomit, bones, branding, emotional and physical child abuse, death, fire, gore, hallucinations, murder, profanity, PTSD flashbacks of abuse and horrific situations, skeletons, violence, abuse in the name of religion

BRIEF MENTIONS OF: ableist language, bullying, cannibalism, recreational marijuana usage, gun violence, the occult, police brutality, suicidal ideation, supernatural interpretation of terminal illness, transphobia

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

Temple comes to camp alone because a crowd makes it difficult to go corpse hunting.

Her fingers ache around the wooden shovel, and pattering droplets hit her ears as light rain slicks over her back. She’s losing steam. Her feet trip over themselves as she weaves through the pines.

Her dad’s confession echoes in her mind over and over:

“You asked.”

“Of course I did it.”

“Why don’t you dig up her body and find out for yourself?”

Damn. She can’t have nothin’ good.

She recalls staring back at her dad blankly. Hoping he’d crack a smile. His chapped lips splitting and bleeding before he guffawed like You should have seen your face!

Her dad didn’t used to be like that, but he’s changed since prison. Maybe he developed a sense of humor. The serial killer thing hadn’t worked out for him; no harm in switching things up.

But apparently asking her dad to develop a personality over-night is asking for too much.

Temple slows her steps on the path as she finally reaches the Midpoint Tree. The branches twist and curl all the way up, reaching the canopy of the woods coated in thick, dark leaves. The rough leaves of the kudzu ruffle against her ankles as she hoists the shovel over her head once again.

A chickadee chirps overhead, waiting for her to get on with it. It clearly doesn’t understand inner turmoil.

And honestly, she shouldn’t be wasting so much time on it. She needs to hurry up—before she gets caught. She didn’t want to believe her dad when he confessed, but she’s here now. In the thick of the woods, ankles out. Sap-sticky and ready to bury a shovel deep into the soil.

This camp is private property. No one can see her here.

Temple puts her whole back into the first swing down. Her gloves grate against her palms as her hands tremble, even with her windbreaker beneath her raincoat.

You know the drill, she tells herself. Ain’t nothin’ to do but wait for the chime of the “coins.” That’s not what they are, but she’s called them so since childhood.

She dug around the woods as a kid, too. Whenever she found a coin, she knew she was close to something. Something ivory, curving deep among the roots of the Midpoint Tree. She could climb to the highest branch that would hold her, yank the thinnest branch like a sword.

But Temple had perfect sight. She could make out the ivory, no matter how far she was.

The white smoothness was something dirty, something smelly. Something bloody that she was never supposed to find.

“But it doesn’t matter.” This time Temple speaks aloud, shaking off those rancid feelings that remembering always gave her. “Because you’re supposed to find it this time.”

What else would her dad expect after telling her “I chopped her head off.”

Temple puts everything in it as she swings the shovel down. Closes her eyes.

Opens them again when she sees her dad’s face.

Clink!

The sound of metal on metal makes Temple pause, her muscles going rigid. The finches beatbox over her head, finding no reason to hold their breath like Temple does. She leans down to the ground, pressing her hands into the damp soil. It squishes at her fingertips and lodges underneath her nails in thick globs. She presses through.

A second later, her fingers wrap around something cool—actually, quite freezing—and she pulls the iron charm out of the soil and thick, entwined roots. A solid disk, about the size of a medallion. A coin.

Branded iron.

That’s what the coins are really called. The only time she’s ever heard them referred to like that was in the courtroom. It’s heavy. The design on the metal is intricately curling, with woven diamonds that twist around the edge of the coin.

It makes a weird symbol in the center—almost like a crudely drawn tree—overrun with snakes and leaves that Temple thinks is way overkill. Her dad didn’t have style, but he killed with the Versace of brands.

Temple pockets the little disk, heart pounding in her chest.

“You asked.”

She was onto something

now.

“Of course I did it.”

So the confession wasn’t bullshit.

“Why don’t you dig up her body and find out for yourself?”

Temple slams the shovel into the ground with a metallic thud, her fingers clenching around the bar as she groans. Rain drips into her eyes, filtering through her eyelashes. The October air is crisp. Chilly.

Another slam into the soil.

“You asked.” She never fucking asked. She never wanted to know.

Her windbreaker flutters in the breeze. She dumps another pile of dirt to the side. The coin weighs heavily in her pocket.

Thunk!

Her mind goes blank.

There’s the sound of the light rain. The thuds of her shovel. The hiss of squirrels dashing through the bushes. The swish of synthetic material as her jacket sleeves rub against her stomach.

Temple digs until her arms hurt.

Crunch.

She freezes.

The heavy metal of the shovel head stops on something—not hard or solid, just … different. It’s been hours of searching like this. Temple’s big enough to admit to herself that desperation’s only fifteen minutes away.

She looks at the walls of the hole she’s dug so far—the top just above her waist. Then she looks downward to the base of the hole, where her feet are crooked over the uneven dirt. Her eyes run over the varied browns in the soil that has and hasn’t soaked up rain to a patch of black. Her heart skips a beat.

Burlap—just what gets any teenage girl going.

With renewed strength, Temple clears what she can from around the bag. Her jacket’s drenched with the light rain and her sweat.

The blackened bag is buried deep, but Temple knows it well. Burlap’s somewhat of a staple for her dad. Temple crouches down, running her hands over the fabric and enjoying the rough feel on her palm.

“He wasn’t lying,” she says aloud. Anticipation hums through her veins, along with a thicker, tougher feeling. A feeling like flesh, like mush rushing in and out of her throat. She’s not afraid of crying; she’s afraid of screaming. It rocks through her so fast, she sways and drops her shovel.

The metal hits the bag, and it huffs. Rustles. Splat.

Temple takes a step back, her brow furrowing. That sound isn’t right.

It’s not like Temple would brag about it, but she knows the sound a corpse makes when something heavy falls into its slop. When the bones of the skeleton crack. She doesn’t have any choice but to know … so

what the fuck?

With no longer hesitant fingers, Temple grips onto the sides of the bag and braces herself. The body might just be bones at this point. The vinyl lining could hide the reality of the inside. It could be half-molten, decomposing and filled with writhing maggots by now. The smell alone could take her out.

She rips the bag open, nails easily snapping the threads before the cloth pulls back completely. It’s no longer in good condition after years of wear.

The scent is faded, delicate. It’s much like old meat, like rotten, spoiled flesh—but it’s subtle.

Still thick, though.

She gags, but only once as she stands to full height and glares down inside the bag.

The low light of the woods hits the inside, and she finds piles of white paper flutter in the gentle wind, fragile and covered with smudged ink scrawls. The rain lets up a little, sending Temple shivering.

Nothing.

She grabs one of the sheets, and it crumbles in her hand. The writing is illegible, chicken scratch even more shameful than her dad’s. But there’s nothing there. No body.

No skeleton. No flesh.

Not even parts of it.

“Fuck!” Temple swears aloud. The echo bounces back to her, along with the obnoxious chirp of robins.

The body bag is empty.

And her mother’s corpse is nowhere to be seen.

 

CHAPTER 2

 

Temple sinks to the ground, ache rolling through her spine. She looks around the hole, filled with paper she can’t read, and hisses through her teeth.

“Fuuuuck!” she screams again.

She let her dad launch her on another wild-goose chase.

One of her twists falls into her eyes as she tries to get control of her breath. The clouds have moved out of the way, and the sun is beaming down now. She remembers the weather being temperamental here—sitting in front of her window, looking into the shadows of the trees. Wondering when the sun would return so she could climb up on the roof and jump into the hay.

Shit, she’s remembering a whole bunch of things now.

This can’t be why he made her come all the way back out to the old farm.

“Hide in the bathroom and count to twenty, sweetie.” She hears her dad’s voice flit through her mind, and she pictures his grin as he’d said it. How his lopsided shadow would crawl over her when she sat in the corner of the living room.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” her dad would say. His eyes would gleam, and she knew it was joy. With other people, it was hard to tell, but Temple could tell when her dad was happy … and when he was deadly. “But you’ve got to find it first.”

Temple shakes the memory away, but there’s no doubt he played her like a fiddle again.

“Why don’t you dig up her body and find out for yourself?”

After refusing to return to the farm for three years, he got her there with the promise of learning what happened to her missing mother. But he never knew where she was in the first place. He just wanted her to do his bidding.

Whatever that is.

She huffs out a breath.

Just what she needed. A macabre scavenger hunt.

Temple digs her claws into the walls of the shallow grave, the damp soil coating her skin. Her shoulders burn as she hauls herself out, grinding her teeth from effort—or anger. It’s a toss-up which, and she’s not a gambler.

When her back finally hits the grass, she’s a huffing, puffing, drenched mess. She keeps the shovel tight in her hand as she looks down into what should have been an easy mission before she heaves up the shovel again. The thick mud slaps over the bag.

She knows this pointless shit is going to take forever. The rain has stopped, the clouds parting slowly. The sun is already starting to come back out when she gets through about a half-hour of refilling the hole with dirt.

Before she hears a noise.

Another snap sounds from the path, and Temple freezes. For a breath, there’s nothing but the sound of squirrels dashing in and out of interwoven leaves. Her shovel is half raised over the hole, her hand clenched on the wooden handle.

Then, a giggle.

Temple clenches tighter, her grip matching her jaw.

“You’re lying—really?!” A voice says. “I can’t believe you caught her in the act.”

That’s an omen if Temple’s ever heard one.

Because that means the girls are coming.

Oh god, the girls are coming.

“Yeah, Cali tried to spray paint trans rights bitch on the principal’s door, but I caught her on camera so she didn’t finish.”

Temple looks down into her half-filled hole, her heart pounding in her chest as she runs a hand over her face. Apparently, time flies even when you’re not having fun.

It’s time for camp to start.

With a flurry of her shovel, Temple begins hauling slop over her feet as fast as she can, and her gray boots turn brown in her haste. The sound of the girls’ chattering gets closer, making everything more difficult.

Her palms are sweating.

Her heart is pounding.

Best-case scenario would’ve been she found her mom’s body and got to ditch the rest of camp. It’s only right—she signed up for one reason, and that’s to get access to the premises.

She doesn’t want to be here all weekend.

Her dad isn’t even here, but still, he’s ordering her around, pulling her strings like a puppet.

The sound of footsteps

 is now audible. The girls’ voices are so close, Temple can feel the vibrations of their timbre through her back.

Shit, that’s on her—she spent too much time on indignation.

“We got off fucking lucky, ’Nae. Imagine if the Virgin Mary didn’t switch cabins with you.”

“If I was in Cabin Bey, I honestly would have stuck my hand in the garbage disposal.”

Temple curls low to the ground slowly, silently. She had thrown her backpack against a tree early in the morning before she started digging, and she grabs it now, clutching tight on its straps. Her shovel drags against the soil, only shushing along the paste of the dirt. She can feel her heartbeat in her ears.

“The ‘B’ absolutely stands for bitch—all those girls and the new girl?”

“Temple as a camp counselor is a WWE ring and circle of hell all at once.”

Before she can even think, Temple drops her shovel. It makes a loud pop, and the girls shriek as it echoes through the trees. She’s hidden behind a curtain of branches.

If Temple just stays quiet, she can get away with this. Sure, it’s the punk bitch way of doing things—but Temple never cared to be brave. She’s not above running away, not even in her good boots.

But then her feet are already heading toward the open path. She pops out of the trees. Leaves and brush hiss around her, raining debris like confetti as the two girls scream their heads off.

Their shadows trail toward her, and she watches them clutch each other in terror.

It would’ve been bad if they’d gone to investigate and found her with a shovel. In the silence of them gathering their wits, Temple sizes them up. They have brown skin and dark-colored braids—fraternal twins to Temple’s twists. Aside from the fact that one wears glasses and one doesn’t, they look the same.

They look like half the girls she’s seen her last eight months at North Prep … and she hates that she immediately knows exactly who they are. She hates it so much she can’t even form words. Her mouth pops open and shuts closed again.

The girls take a moment to realize she’s not moving. Then they realize they’re not moving either and go on the offensive.

“What the fuck?” Glasses One snaps at her.

That gets Temple back to earth. She stares them down, towering over them by a couple of inches and a few pounds of muscle, though she hasn’t quite perfected the right glare.

“Looks like you’re missing the head Barbie,” she says with a sneer. “Don’t you horses turn back to mice without her?”

Janae and Wynter gawk back, and they’re angry even though Temple’s practically being nice. Well, maybe not nice—but just the right amount of mean.

At least there wasn’t any violence this time. It wasn’t as disastrous as their last meeting.

But no, the Wonder Twins don’t know how to be thankful.

“Why are you even

here?” Janae snaps. She’s a mini-me with a neck problem—she can’t stop rolling it. “Shouldn’t you be in, like, juvie? Or maybe a mental institution?”

Temple turns away without answering. It makes them as mad as she wanted it to, but she’d also rather focus on why she came here. She begins down the path, her heavy book bag weighing down her shoulder.

This place will be crawling with girls soon. She’s blown her chance to be covert, but she’s still got a mystery on her hands.

What does her dad want from her? Why did he send her here?

And where the hell is her mother’s body?

A hand grabs Temple’s elbow. She’s yanked back and whisked around to meet Janae’s scowling glare. “You can’t just ignore us,” she hisses. Behind her, Wynter says nothing. She was always the quietest.

Made it easier for Temple to pick at her.

She peels Janae’s fingers off her jacket, raising an eyebrow. “I can’t?” she asks Wynter.

The girl pushes her glasses higher up her nose. “You’re an employee,” she says matter-of-factly, as if Temple forgot.

Which Temple kind of did forget.

Shit.

“And camp counselors were supposed to arrive at Jigsaw Grounds an hour ago. If you’re still all the way out here, you’re running very, very late.”

Double shit. Temple tenses but tries to keep her shoulders relaxed. Her alarm didn’t ring, even though she knows she made her aunt set it. This is why cell phones are the devil—fucking unreliable.

But she doesn’t let the terrible two see her sweat.

Without even an exhale, Temple hikes her book bag up higher over her shoulder. “Ooh, this is gonna be fun,” she says sarcastically. “If you two know my schedule, that can only mean one thing—the head Barbie’s a camp counselor, too.” The smile that stretches across Temple’s lips is insincere. Another goddamned thing to worry about. “I haven’t seen that bitch since she got me suspended.”

North Point Farms Scholarship Weekend of Horrors!

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NORTHERN GIRLS’ PREPARATORY SCHOOL AND THE PRIDE ROCKS FOUNDATION

The Pride Rocks Foundation supports five schools in the greater Fairfax area by awarding LGBTQ+ students a sponsored trip to a seasonal location. This year, we have rented North Point Farms for your Weekend of Horrors on October 16–18! Thanks to generous donations from North Prep alumni, the students below have been selected as this year’s scholarship winners! If you have questions before the festivities begin, contact a camp staff rep: Brenda Thomas (director), Vivian Lam (assistant director), or Dawntae Brown (coordinator).

STUDENT ASSISTANTS

Anysaa Washington, Camp Counselor A

Temple Baker, Camp Counselor B

CAMPERS

Natalie Brennan, Cabin B

Sierra Morris, Cabin B

Janae Richards, Cabin A

Mickaeyla Rodriguez, Cabin B

Wynter Santos, Cabin A

Yaya Sidibe, Cabin B

Cali Wilson, Cabin A

K’ran York, Cabin A

 

CHAPTER 3

As the campgrounds fill the horizon, Temple steels herself. Jigsaw Grounds—or JG, as the camp website called the main cabin—is an old school building that stretches from one end of the trees to the other. The path cuts through the rounded bundle of forest, a straight line all the way to the main building. There, the crops were plowed over back in the seventies for Cary Lauren’s school—a writer’s guild for queer Black writers coming up from the South.

As far as Temple’s concerned, that was a way better use of the fields.

Temple had never been allowed this deep into the woods growing up, but she knew about the school building and what happened there. After the school closed down in the eighties, the farm was cut in half, and then into quarters. By the time Temple was born, North Point Farms was a shadow of its former self. Now, even though the land is mostly dense forest, there’s still enough for the camp’s layout: the school and the two cabins at the school’s feet—Bey and Aye from closest to farthest.

The camp’s land is about the size of half a football field and just as flat, with the new cabin additions on the left side. Cabin Aye is only a few yards from the pathway, looking too modern against the rugged brown woods.

The pines that surround the clearing are thick with leaves, the curved trees leaning over the roof and brushing against the back bricks. The shadows twist in odd shapes that reach all the way to Temple’s feet.

Because it doesn’t want her going any farther.

I’m not glad to be back, either, Temple tells the trees. Only in her mind, though. She’s always been worried they listen.

Temple looks at Cabin Aye’s wooden planks for walls as if it’s the girl of the hour. Camp Counselor A. But of course, the building didn’t do anything.

She turns back to Jigsaw Grounds.

Janae and Wynter haven’t popped back on the path yet. Temple’s at least made it there before them.

With a deep breath, she walks up the steps to the main door and pushes it open before she can talk herself out of it.

The interior of the cabin is like another world—one made of all wood and fluorescent light. Tables, chairs, floors, walls—all harsh, finished wood that reflects the overhead lighting right into Temple’s face.

The kitchenette is filled with old appliances—white ones with a yellow tint. Even the lone sofa, the only fabric present, is a dingy color. It sits in front of the fireplace, which is—of course—wooden.

Damn.

City folk hear the word “cabin” and don’t know how to act.

Temple has to actively hold her hands at her sides so she doesn’t slap them over her eyes as she closes the door behind her.

She doesn’t make it one step.

“That you?”

The deep, smooth voice comes from the left of the door, and Temple turns to see one of the adults. Lithe and relaxed, the woman’s perched up on the windowsill. She glares down at a walkie-talkie clutched in one hand, the other holding a cigarette out the window. When she sees Temple, she puts it out on the sill and tosses it into the dirt outside. Her rod-straight posture deflates a little when she makes out it’s Temple.

It’s the stern glare

that clues Temple right into exactly who she is. According to her bio on the camp’s website, it’s the former marine-turned-babysitter: Assistant Director Vivian Lam.

Temple smiles, because that’s her natural response to disappointment. “Director?” Temple pauses, unsure of where to stand. “Were you expecting someone else?”

Lam shakes her head, making no move toward Temple. “Intern’s still out—and no one calls me ‘Director.’ Everybody calls me Lam.” She turns back out the window without offering to help Temple with her massive book bag or even pointing out where she’s supposed to go.

At least Temple’s not the only one who’s late. She never met Dawntae, the chipper coordinator-slash-college-intern, but when Temple was selected as a camp counselor, her congratulations email had words of encouragement and an irresponsible amount of exclamation points. That was Temple’s only interaction with her, though.

“She’s not here?” Temple asks.

“No.”

And that’s it.

If Temple’s honest with herself, Lam is much better at this whole aloof thing than she is.

“Is it finally her?” Clomping footsteps follow the voice, and the other director makes her way into the main room, her arms filled with tattered books of various yellows and creams. The frayed paper covers entangle with a ratty, knit cardigan that looks like she found it on the sidewalk. When she sees Temple, her brilliant grin makes Temple uncomfortable.

Temple tries to smile back. “Director Thomas.”

“Temple!” she greets brightly. “You’re late. So glad to have you!” Nobody’s that “glad” to have Temple. “Are you ready for this weekend?”

No. “Sure.”

Brenda’s smile stretches tighter, showing all of her teeth. “And where are the spare keys? Where’s the fire safety supplies? The emergency food?”

“You’re panicking, babe,” Lam says.

It brings Brenda back to earth, and she blinks, snapping out of it. She turns to Lam, then to Temple. “Sorry,” she says sheepishly.

“Is everything OK?” Temple asks.

Slithering up beside Temple, Brenda shoves the mess of books into Temple’s arms. The flopping sound of pages hums around the room as Temple juggles to keep them off the floor. “Take care of this, will ya? Our intern is late, and she was supposed to organize these for the read-aloud—god, you girls are gonna gray my hair out.”

Brenda’s head is shaved completely bald.

Temple isn’t sure whether this is something she should comment on, but Brenda pauses as if waiting for her answer.

“The girls at school say they’re into that sometimes. It’s cool now.” She has no clue if that’s true, but she offers it up anyway.

There’s a moment of quiet between them. Temple panics, for a breath, that somehow out of all the things in the world to say, she said the wrong thing. But then Brenda starts to laugh, a grin breaking out as she raises her brows at Temple.

“I like you,” she says. “I’m not quite old enough to be a ‘classy gray,’ but I appreciate that you recognize I could pull it off.”

Temple almost smiles. No one’s said they liked her in a long time. Then the books in Temple’s hands demand her attention again, and she remembers she’s most liked when she’s not heard. She goes back to her production of struggling to carry the pile.

“Did you—” She stops herself. Words she doesn’t even recognize nearly fly out of her mouth. She almost offered to help contact the missing girl—wherever she is.

But she’s not here for these girls. She’s here because her dad sent her. It’s all a part of some plan that will lead to answers about her mom, if she can solve it.

And that takes

precedence.

Temple straightens her back, looking over at Brenda with the mission in mind. Brenda’s waiting for her to speak, watching her hold the wobbling books with a slight smile.

“Yes?”

“… Did you … did you …” Temple darts her eyes back down. The acceptance email is on her mind. All those damned “!!!!”s.

Temple looks back up. “Did you mean all those rules in the email?” They scroll over the back of her eyelids like movie credits. “The curfew and the buddy system for leaving the cabins?”

Unsurprisingly, Brenda laughs like Temple can’t be serious. “Of course I meant them, Temple. You think we’re letting a bunch of teen girls run around five miles of forest unsupervised? ...