Jonathan Maberry
Ghost Road Blues
High Praise for Jonathan Maberry and
“A chilling tale about the staying power of evil. As lyrical, melodic, and dark as the music that provides the imaginary soundtrack. Maberry breathes new life into modern horror fiction.”
— Scott Nicholson
Author of
“If I were asked to select only one new voice in horror fiction to read today, it would be Jonathan Maberry.
— Katherine Ramsland
Author of
“If you think that small town horror has nothing new to offer the reader, you have a surprise in store for you. Jonathan Maberry’s
— Don D’Ammassa
Author of
“A fun, fun read and creepy as hell. Jonathan Maberry serves up scares like pancakes at a church social.”
— Gregory Frost
Author of
As always…for Sara Jo!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Authors who write long books need lots of help (take that any way you care to), as well as technical advice. I want to thank the following folks for their generous assistance in writing
Chief Pat Priore of Tullytown, Pennsylvania, for technical info on police procedure. If any of the law enforcement information is incorrect, the error rests purely with the author.
Arthur Mensch and Randy Kirsch for reading the book and giving me their unreserved and unflinching opinions.
My web design team, David Kramer and Geoff Strauss of
John West for too many things to list.
The Bucks County Center for Writers in Doylestown, Pennsylvania (formerly the Writers Room of Bucks County) and my colleagues in the Philadelphia Writers Conference.
My agent Sara Crowe of the Harvey Klinger Agency.
My many friends and colleagues in Horror Writers Association, and the satellite chapters: the Garden State Horror Writers and the NJ-PA Horror Writers Association.
And as always, for my wife, Sara Jo and my son, Sam, for their constant support and enthusiasm during the process…and after.
To all: countless thanks!
Prologue
I have wrought great use out of evil tools.
Every evil in the bud is easily crushed; as it grows older, it becomes stronger.
I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail Mmm, blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail And the day keeps on remindin’ me, there’s a hellhound on my trail Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail.
The last thing Billy said was, “Oh, come on…there’s nothing out there.”
And then two sets of bone-white hands arched over the slat rails on the wagon and seized him by the shoulders and the collar and dragged him screaming into the darkness. He tried to fight them, but they had him and as he rasped along the rail, feet flailing and hands scrabbling for some desperate purchase, other white figures closed in and he was dragged away.
Claire screamed at the top of her lungs. Everyone else screamed too. Even the guy driving the tractor screamed.
Billy screamed louder than all of them.
Claire launched herself forward from the hay bale on which she’d been sitting just a moment ago holding Billy’s hand; she leaned out into the darkness beyond the rails, her fingers clawing the air as if that could somehow bring him back. Thirty feet away six figures had forced Billy down to the ground and were hunched over him, their white hands reaching down to tear at him with hooked fingers, their black mouths wide with slack-jawed hunger, their bottomless dead eyes as vacant as the eyes of dolls.
“Billy!” she screamed, and then grabbed at the others around her, pulling at their sleeves, slapping at the
