Click on image to enlarge.

Category: Horror
Description: Dark Roads The passengers of a broken down bus in the lonely Highlands of Scotland are about to face the darkness... Why is there a deserted village that looks for all the world like it was made of and moulded from plastic? Why do the passengers start to disappear one by one? And what are the strange manifestations that baffle the confused, remaining passengers? Lost in an unearthly fog that never dissipates, fate will eventually find these people and take them to new lives or to the other side of death. But for some, fate also holds a cruel and unexpected hand. Dark Roads. What road are you on? The Boy in the Grey Tracksuit Frank has a difficult life. High on meds most of the time, he goes through his day like a zombie, eating very little, smoking too much and bitching online to anyone who'll listen. Then something triggers a memory in Frank, a news report about a young local boy who's gone missing. As he staggers blindly along, trying to piece the mystery together, he is forced to confront a truth so soul destroying that it will take all of his mettle to accept it.
eBook Publisher: Wild Child Publishing/Wild Child Publishing, 2007 2007
eBookwise Release Date: June 2009

1 Reader Ratings:

Great	Good	OK	Poor

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [149 KB]
Words: 32840
Reading time: 93-131 min.

"What was that flash, Mummy?" Jordan asked, trying to crawl over his mother's knees to cup his hands at the window, eager to see out into the empty night beyond.

Brenda stared through the windows of the coach as it shuddered to a halt in the middle of nowhere, or somewhere; they could be anywhere as far as she knew. The fog outside obscured all views that were further than three or four feet away, and the lights from inside the coach reflected the interior from the window back to her in a twisted form of reality. Pallid faces of other passengers seemed to leer at her from the glass.

"Back in your seat, Jordan," Brenda demanded and grabbed him around his small waist, planting him firmly back in his place. He wriggled and writhed, but she held firm and shot him a warning glance. She was in no mood to fight tonight. And it was a feeble struggle; they were both tired.

It had been a long journey, and exhaustion finally claimed her in its jaded grip; three hours without a cigarette didn't help either. She shot the same warning glance at the No Smoking sign on the back of the chair in front of her, and when that didn't satisfy her darkening mood, she smacked it with the heel of her hand. The man who had been dozing in that seat peered over the headrest and threw her a similar look.

"Sorry," she blushed and returned her gaze to the window.

She heard rustling all over the coach as passengers, few in number, stirred from sleep or from books and newspapers and peeked over the seats in front. The coach came to a complete halt and the engine, once noisy in the quiet, still night of the surrounding mountains, was now silent and dead.

"What's going on?" someone eventually cried from the rear of the coach, voice quickly followed by a murmur of questions and queries from the other passengers. The driver stood, holding his hands up to appease the people he had driven the last two hundred miles, and called for calm. His round belly hung over his uniform trousers like a secreted Siamese twin.

"It's okay. We seem to have a small problem with the engine. I know what it is, so I'm just going to check the back and then we'll be on our way."

A blonde woman, all big hair and puffball black jacket who sat alone two seats from the driver, stood up and surveyed the coach.

"What was that flash?" she asked, and Brenda turned and stared at Jordan.

She hadn't seen any flash, and she'd assumed it had been in her son's mind, a figment of his young and fertile imagination. Now she wondered if she had, in fact, dozed off and not known it. She cupped her hands and squinted into the murky grey soup of the fog but it was useless; she could see nothing. Jordan sat on his hands and stretched his four-year-old body as high as he could, occasionally leaning over the side of the armrest and looking up and down the aisle. He jiggled in his seat, boredom highly apparent; a long coach trip with only a colouring book for entertainment took its toll on a child with such a short attention span. The colouring book had been thrown on the floor only an hour into the trip.

"Sit still, Jordan," Brenda snapped and returned her gaze to the window.