Country Roads E-Book

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

• Herausgeber: Wayne Kyle Spitzer
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

When a comedian from New York offends an audience in rural Kentucky, he quickly finds himself on a highway to Hell ... I let off the gas immediately and slowed down before veering into the lane behind them, even as the operator asked calmly, “Are you able to see the license number? If so, read it to me—as carefully as you can. Are they Kentucky plates?” I was distracted by the men in the payload, who appeared to be lifting something heavy, but quickly focused on the plate. “Yes. Kentucky 527 CXS, Franklin County.” I squinted in the fog. The lettering didn’t look right. “I—I think it’s been altered. I’m following as close as I dare, and it looks like—” “You are behind them?” “Yes. One of them was—” “Sir, be advised that units are on the way and that you are not to pursue. Repeat, do not pursue. Pull over immediately and wait for officers to arrive. What is the make and model of your vehicle?” “I—it’s a blue Toyota—a Camry. 2004, I think. I’m—I’m slowing down. But so are they. There’s men in the payload. It, it almost …”  I was about to say that it looked like they were lifting, well, a trough, to be frank, one of those big aluminum vats used to water horses, when the men heave-hoed the thing twice … and sent its contents hurling toward my windshield. At which point the thick, viscous stuff hit the glass like a hammer—exploding everywhere—and turned the world black. Black and blood red.

Leseprobe

COUNTRY ROADS

by

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Table of Contents

Title Page

Country Roads: A Tale of Rural Terror

Copyright © 2019 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. All Rights Reserved. Published by Hobb’s End Books, a division of ACME Sprockets & Visions. Cover design Copyright © 2019 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. Please direct all inquiries to: [email protected]

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this book is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

“What’d you think?” I asked the bouncer—a gargantuan brother named Pinky; I didn’t ask—on the way out, even as the jukebox began to play and the room began to return to normal, meaning loud.

“Hmph,” he hmphed, staring straight ahead, keeping an eye on the boys in the MAGA hats. “I think you’re lucky to be getting out of here alive.”

“That’s live comedy,” I said—a little dickishly, now that I remember it. “It’s no country for snowflakes. This brother brings it.”

Call it a manic response to the thrill of the kill—because that’s precisely what I’d done, killed it—though not so manic that I didn’t ask him for an escort to my car.

He lingered, seeming pensive, as I got in and started the engine—enough so that I rolled down my window and asked him, “You really didn’t like it, did you?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “My job is to spot trouble and eliminate it. Not to stir it up. But I do think ... you said you were from New York?”

“I live there, that’s right. Going home to visit family. Thought I’d line up some gigs along the way.”

The man laughed a little. “That’s right. You mentioned that in your routine. ‘Haven’t left my borough since those Mexicans flew them planes into the towers’—that was good.”

I looked at him expectantly, wanting to know what it was he thought.

“Oh. It’s just that ... Well, you should get out of New York more. See the country. Be good for your comedy.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. “Yeah. Well. Keep an eye on those rednecks. At least until I’m down the road?”

He nodded as I put the car in gear. “There won’t be any more trouble. That I can guarantee.”

I gave him the Peace sign.

And then I was off—into the Kentucky night which sweated and lay silent across the fields. Into a damp fog which reminded me of New York—and was at the same time completely foreign.

––––––––

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG to start comparing the bucolic beauty of the state by day, with its rolling horse farms and verdant, bluegrass pastures, with its indistinctiveness at night. It was like driving anywhere, even upstate New York (except for the complete lack of other vehicles and the plethora of Donald Trump campaign signs, which seemed to stand sentinel in every other field). To tell the truth, I was beginning to nod off when a headlight appeared in my rear-view mirror—just one, a motorcycle, maybe, or a car with a burned-out lamp—and began closing the distance between us. It’s funny because I remember thinking distinctly that it was moving too fast—a cop, maybe—which bore out quickly as the little sun grew—resolving itself, at length, into the working headlamp of a dirty 4x4 pickup. A pickup now tailgating me at sixty-five miles-per-hour.

You got anything else to say, Lib-tard? Maybe you’ve got something to say about my girlfriend. Don’t be shy. I’m sure we all want to hear it.

I thought that was your wingman.

Keep talking ...