Road Games and Other Weird Tales

This short story collection is a cocktail of one part Twilight Zone, one part Tales from the Crypt, one part Outer Limits with a splash of just plain weird then blended together smoothly to satisfy the eclectic reader's perusal palate.
Lickety Split: Murder and mayhem kicks off this collection when desperate Coaly Banks strikes an outrageous deal to shed some unwanted pounds.
Life Form: Brenda Vascar and Daniel Bankum make a terrifying discovery in deep space while on the run.
Them: A group of restaurant patrons take matters into their own hands when they discover that space aliens may be right here in their little town.
The Killing Kind: Don't take rides with strangers. Ever.
The Same Old Nightmare: Wake. Work. Sleep. Repeat.
Boucherie: The LAPD takes on some of the most iconic monsters of Hollyweird.
The Agency: Give that guy an Oscar! This is an old, washed—up Hollywood star's last shot.
Lint: Who, or what, is lurking in the shadows of the basement of the Glendale Hotel?
Cracked: Coaly Banks faces her demons once again.
Road Games: With no job, a bleak future, Nathan Wilder is on a path that quickly turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Road Games and Other Weird Tales (Horror & Imaginative Tales)

By Marlin Williams

Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN # 978-1977513854

Price $8.47 (Paperback)

Price $2.99 (Kindle)

314 Pages

Rating 5-Stars

This short story collection contains ten stories of road adventures through The Twilight Zone. The first, Lickety Split features a fat woman whishing to instantly dissolve all that fat and become a skinny chick again. When she signs a contract with Lickety Split, she does just that, but she should have read the contract first!

         Life Form is our second short story, and this time we visit the spaceways. When an asteroid slams into their space ship Daniel doesn’t have time to alert the crew and passengers, he awakens Brenda Vascar and they escape in a pod, but they don’t have enough life support to last for long. Sighting a blip on their screen they wait for it to arrive, hoping it might be their salvation.

         Them is our next entry, and it’s all about old men sitting in a diner talking about flying saucers and little gray men, and what they want here. Suspicion is within each as to just who might be an alien.

         Next up is The Killing Kind.. Gracie meets a handsome young man in the Twilight Lounge. He tells her he writes thrillers, but was out for a walk ad twisted his foot and needed a ride home. During the ride he describes his next thriller, about a young handsome man picking up an older woman for romance, but he kills her instead. Now, she wonders if he isn’t writing her epitaph. 

         The Same Old Nightmare was an odd entry that made little sense, except how we are slaves to things in our life.

         Boucherie is set in Hollywood where weird things happen. A patrol unit dispatched to a district to write tickets actually discover a body and chase the killer. They find two puncture marks on the neck, plus a stake driver into the man’s chest. Odd. They report the murder to their boss and are ordered to their original assignment again, but follow a lead to a nightclub and what appears to be a den of vampires. Following more leads they search an old abandoned house that may be haunted and are attacked by vampires. Then their boss shows up again and they discover there are werewolves in the police department.

         The Agency is ready to collect on an actor’s contract. But the actor isn’t ready to die. There’s still a chance for an Oscar, if all goes right.

         Lint can be a problem, it seems. In an old tenement basement where the laundry room is located, tenants come to do their laundry. Sharon is aware that many apartment dwellers have disappeared, but she figures they left for better places. But could there me another reason for their disappearance – like the lint?

         Cracked. Everyone has a phobia, Coaly Banks is afraid of sidewalk cracks.

         Road Games, the final story in this collection is probably the best of the stories. It’s all about a game of death on the highway conducted by the devil using humans as pawns.

In truth, I love short stories, and prefer them to long novels. This collection was fun to read, and gives us a look at things that go bump in the night – or in this case the bumps are on the roads. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of THE COBRA