Road Games and Other Weird Tales

By Marlin Williams

One part Twilight Zone mixed with one part Tales From the Crypt 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.

Excerpt :
Nathan rode the top of the eighteen-wheeler like a surfer rides a wave. It was going at least eighty and the wind threatened to rip him off the cab. He aimed the shotgun. He knew he had one armor piercing shell in the chamber, but he didn't know if there were any in the magazine. So, if he wanted to get out of this alive, he'd better make the shot count.
The moment he pulled the trigger, the truck encountered a bump; for a brief moment, he suffered the pain of disappointment of a spoiled shot. But in the darkness, Nathan saw sparks and heard the clink of metal impacting metal. Fire spread rapidly across the hood of the pursuing car and it became a rolling ball of fire. It suddenly veered off the road and came to a halt. The glow of the flames highlighted the Wilkerson brothers as they bailed out and high tailed it away from the inferno. A second later, BOOM!
Goddamn! It was just like in one of those high budget Hollywood movies! A big ball of orange fire rose up as pieces of shattered metal scattered through the air. A small shard whizzed by and nicked the lobe of his ear in its passing. He felt the sting. Warm blood trickled down his neck. He was about to jump through the roof hatch to the safely of the inside of the cab until he saw the obstacle in the middle of the road. He braced himself for the impact.
This day had been a living nightmare right from the start.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marlin Williams
• Release date: Oct 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370838929

Marlin Williams

I grew up in a small town in Texas where the prairies were big, the grass grew tall, and the imagination ran wild.

Book preview

Road Games and Other Weird Tales

Published by Marlin Williams

Copyright 2017 Marlin Williams

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by electronic or mechancal means, inclding phtocopying, recording, or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, business establishments, event, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

1. Lickety Split

2. Life Form

3. Them

4. The Killing Kind

5. The Same Old Nightmare

6. Boucherie

7. The Agency

8. Lint

9. Cracked

10. Road Games

To my wife

Thank you, Sheila, my love, for all your hard work and the sacrifices you made to help me. There's no way I could have done this without you. You have always been that little shove that got me over the next hill. I love you.

Acknowledgments

I've been a long time fan of Hitchcock films and just about any thriller suspense novel I can get my hands on. I like the feel of a book in my hand and the smell of the pages. Not to mention black and white sci-fi films from the 50s. Yep, I'm old school. As a matter of fact, the stories you are about to read were written entirely in black and white.

To my wife. Thank you, Sheila, for all your hard work. I couldn't have done this without you.

Lickety Split

Oh my God, what have I done? Coaly Banks berated herself. Just a few sweet days ago she had been a sane woman, well, at least as sane as you could get nowadays, but now, here she was today, speeding along Highway Seventy-Three with a dead body in the trunk of her car and the inside of her head a big ball of confusion. And she blamed it all on that late-night infomercial.

Lickety Split was the name of the product and it guaranteed instant weight loss. You'll actually lose an entire person, the spokesman claimed. She ignored the fanatical glint in the speaker's eyes as they urged the viewer to Order Now! and she did. Then she soon fell into a contented slumber feeling hopeful for the first time in years.

The chime of her doorbell woke her bright and early the next morning. When she answered the door, there stood a salesman carrying a briefcase. He was short and he was thin, wispy really, and wore a blue, polyester suit and a starched, white shirt with a polka dot bow tie—not one of the horrid clip-on things, this one was hand tied. The breast pocket of his jacket bulged with pens and a Lickety Split button was pinned to the lapel. He wore black frame glasses over a pair of sparkling, blue eyes, and a white Boater Hat, made of straw with a red ribbon circling the crown, topped his dark hair.

He set the briefcase down, cleared his throat, and broke out into his own rendition of the Lickety Split jingle. It was the same words they sang on television, but that is where the resemblance ended, because his version wasn't nearly as good. His ditty ended with the line, it'll put some pep, pep, pep in your step, step, step. He capped his performance with a big, cheesy grin and removed his hat. Mister Simon at your service. He took a quick bow. May I come in, Miss Banks?

Still stunned, she nodded. Trance-like, she stepped out of the way and motioned him inside. He picked up the briefcase and waltzed through the door like a child brimming with energy. Energy was something she lacked these days, and despite his off-key performance, she hoped his peppy step was a harbinger of good things to come for her future. She motioned to the large, overstuffed recliner. Please, sit down. The small table next to the chair held a lamp that emitted a dim glow that, besides the TV, was the only source of unnatural light in the room. She always kept the curtains on the large window drawn, and her shrink had once declared that Coaly was trying to shut out the outside world and should keep them open. That was a year ago, and the curtains were still closed, and that little bimbo psychiatrist with the pouty lips was outta sight and outta mind. Right now, she was thankful for the darkness that hid the empty snack bags and drained soft drink cans that littered the room.

The man folded his thin frame into the hollow where she'd spent countless hours watching old, romantic movies while many women her age were out partying and having fun, or on dates with handsome men like the ones in the movies. She sat on the couch across from him and settled back. It groaned in protest under her weight and she shot forward and covered her face with her hands in shame.

No need to be embarrassed, said Mr. Simon. Come on, now; let me see your face. She parted her fingers and peeked out. His gaze roamed over her body. She'd always wanted men to look at her, but now that one was, she felt uncomfortable. Maybe it was because he was looking at her in a way an entomologist would look at an insect beneath the lens of a microscope. Coaly knew what a bug scientist was called because she'd seen documentaries on the subject and read nature magazines that were among the heaping mass of overflow from the bookcase in her bedroom. She finally lowered her hands and his wandering eyes settled on her face. Such beautiful features, he said. And those eyes.

She wondered why he was using such a hokey sales pitch when she had already called the 1-800 number and gave them her credit card information. And, he certainly wasn't flirting with her; she knew what she looked like. When Coaly last weighed, the scale was tipping at the 280 mark. That was months back. She was sure that she had surpassed that milestone. She'd tried every fad diet ever invented and once even joined an exercise class full of skinny girls dressed in skimpy workout attire. She'd felt like Hyacinth the dancing hippo in the Walt Disney movie, Fantasia. While the slim chicks glided through the moves, Coaly was a sweaty, jiggling mass stuffed into gray, baggy sweats boogieing to the high-energy music with ungraceful moves. The demons inside her head eventually won out and she dropped the class, returned to her old routine of late-night TV and junk food, and left the aerobic classes to the slim chicks that didn't need them.

Mister Simon opened his briefcase. I want to show you something. He reached in and grabbed what looked like a small stack of cards. Okay, she figured, here it comes, the catch. It was probably meal plans; a list of food she could have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, like celery sticks and cottage cheese, or some other impossible condition she would have to do in tandem with the herbal pills to achieve weight loss success. He splayed them out on the coffee table. They were pictures. Mr. Simon pointed to one of them and exclaimed, That was me a few weeks ago.

Coaly leaned down for a closer look at the face. Sure enough, the rotund man in the picture, taken seaside, bore a striking resemblance to the man sitting across from her. To be sure, she checked his face one more time, and it was then she noticed the thin, pink line running down the center. More than likely, he'd been involved in an accident.

It's not polite to stare, an old childhood commandment entered her head. It was in her mother's rigid tone of voice. Only it wasn't just her voice, it was a scene from the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy, the tin man, scarecrow, and cowardly lion stood quaking before the floating head of the great and powerful Oz. But it wasn't the wizard's head she saw, it was her mother's, and Coaly herself was Dorothy. Coaly quickly withdrew from the vision and averted her gaze back to the pictures before he could catch her looking at his unusual marking.

You see, said Mr. Simon. I'm not just a representative for Lickety Split, I'm a client. He collected the pictures from the table and stuffed them back into the briefcase. He spent a few extra seconds foraging in the contents and produced a small bottle. It was tinted green with a yellow label on it. He held it up and shook the bottle. It clattered like an infant's rattle. And here are the babies that will bring out the skinny girl in you. He set them on the tabletop. The best part is, you can eat whatever you want and not gain a pound. Just imagine, a few days from now, you'll be turning some heads.

A few days?

He grinned widely, picked up the bottle, and pointed to the label. Yep, it says right here, fast acting. Then he points to himself. Just look at me.

Her head was swimming. Isn't that dangerous? She doubted losing a substantial amount of weight in two days could be safe.

Well, if you don't want them— With his smile gone by the wayside, Mr. Simon placed the pills back in his briefcase. Of course, you're under no obligation and your money will be refunded on your card in full. He closed the lid.

Her one and only chance of ever being slim was disappearing with the snap of the clasp. Panic swelled inside her. Wait! He looked at her. There was expectancy in his eyes like he had played this scenario out many times over. I didn't say that I didn't want them. She crinkled her brow. Say, what kind of herbs are in those pills?

The healthy kind, he replied. He reopened the case, retrieved the bottle, and held them under the lamp so he could see the label. After he named off the list of ingredients, Mr. Simon said, Herbs are herbs, until their properties are managed by the way they're blended proportionately. That's what gives these pills their synergistic value. He paused for a moment, and then said, I can see by the look on your face that I've confused you. He paused again. Look, I'll simplify it. You can go out and buy these exact ingredients and take them, but it won't do anything, because it has to be the right amount of each herb to get the desired effect.

She got the gist of the explanation, enough to know that she could spend a lifetime taking shots in the dark to stumble upon the correct blend. She nodded. Okay, I'll take them.

His smile came back. He handed them over. I understand this must be frightening for you, but I can assure you, it's safe. But there are— he hesitated for a moment, side effects.

With the panic gone, she was now filled with apprehension. Side effects? What kind of side effects?

Oh, nothing serious, he replied.

She was almost afraid to ask. What are they?

Mr. Simon riffled through his briefcase and dug out a placard. He held it under the lamp and read it aloud. Nausea, vomiting, headache, dizziness, skin rash, he held up a finger and quickly spat out the words, but, they're only temporary.

She could put up with almost anything as long as it was temporary. Coaly looked at the bottle in her hand hoping that the product was worth the five-thousand dollars she'd siphoned off her credit card. It was going to take years to pay back that kind of money at twenty-one per cent interest. If it was a rip-off, hiring a lawyer was out of the question. That would be a waste of time and even more money. Scam companies knew that and that's why they fearlessly touted worthless products. She had fallen for more than her share of scams over the years. She uncapped the bottle and stuck it up to her nose. It smelled similar to cooking spices. She then looked inside the bottle. There were only four pills. That was one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars a pill. She looked up. Are you sure that four pills are enough?

He grinned. Positive. Take one tablet twice daily for two days, and before you know it you've shed all that deadweight and you're going to be a whole new person.

She quickly lost all the apprehension inside her and she smiled. This time it's going to be different; she was sure of it. If not, as her mother always said: You'll just have to suck it up, Buttercup.

But, he said.

Her heart sank and the short-lived smile disintegrated. She hated the word but. But this or but that was always usurping her happy high. She braced her herself for the bad news that was going to follow this but.

You should allot at least a week to give yourself plenty of time to handle the process. Some individuals require more time than others. But the recommended time frame is a week.

Her smile came back. The company that she worked for allowed her to bank sick leave. Since she'd never used any in the five years she'd worked for Sunny Co., she had more than enough to cover the time she would have to miss. Who knows, maybe she wouldn't have any side effects at all. But, why not just go ahead and take the time off and return to work after a week, and if the pills worked and she was thinner, she could blame it on illness. She felt eager for Mr. Simon to be on his way so she could get on the phone and call in sick, then she could get started. She envisioned herself at the mall browsing through the trendy and sexy attire instead of the tents she'd worn all her life. She would no longer look like the circus had come to town. She stood up and extended her hand. Thank you, Mister Simon, for everything. She beamed a big smile at him.

He matched her smile, leaned forward, and placed a hand on hers. My pleasure, he replied and let his hand slip off hers. He leaned back, perused the contents of his briefcase, and produced a stapled document.

What's that? she asked.

The contract, he replied as he removed one of the pens from his breast pocket. He clicked the top button and the writing tip popped out. He extended it to her.

Coaly shrank back. I don't understand. Why do I need to sign a contract?

It's standard procedure. I'm afraid you'll find it full of legal jargon. You know, a bunch of corporate lawyers justifying their jobs and overpaid salaries with big words and redundancies. But you should read it carefully before you sign it since it is legally binding.

She took the document and plopped back down on the couch. She didn't bother to read the thing; hell, she couldn't read it in the dim lighting even if she wanted to, so she pretended to do so, while flipping through the few pages. She never read agreements anyway; it was her standard practice to trust the legalities to the people that wrote them in good faith. She scribbled her name on the bottom line.

Mr. Simon scooped up the papers and placed them neatly back into his briefcase. He retrieved another set from inside the black, leather case. This is a dummy contract for your records. He handed them to her. I should be off; I have other clients today. He stood.

Coaly hefted her weight out of the cushions with the aid of a groan and crackling knees and tossed the contract on the lamp stand. She walked him to the door, wanted to hug him, but refrained. It might be misunderstood. Instead, she offered him her hand, which he took.

Releasing her hand, he tipped his hat, and walked out of the gloomy living room and into the bright sun. Oh, he said. I almost forgot. He reached around to his back pocket and removed his wallet. He took out a card. My number, just in case. With briefcase in hand and whistling a tune, Mr. Simon walked along the sidewalk and disappeared around the corner.

After he was gone, Coaly rushed back inside, grabbed her phone, and dialed work. She feigned a hoarse throat and threw in a few sniffles while she explained to the boss's secretary that she had the flu and wouldn't be in for a week. After she hung up, she congratulated herself for an outstanding Oscar worthy performance. She then took the bottle to the kitchen, fumbled the cap off, and dumped one of the pills into her sweating palm. She stared at it. What if she swallowed it and got bad side effects? What if it was just a placebo and nothing happened? What if it didn't work? Yeah, but what if it did? She quickly ran a glass of water and downed the pill before her doubts could reassert themselves. She returned to the living room and sat in the recliner to wait. Minutes into Gone With the Wind, she jumped up out of the chair and rushed to the bathroom.

By her calculations, she should have already lost weight. Coaly used a foot to slip the dust-covered scale out from beneath the pedestal sink and stood on it. The digital readout went from zero to three-sixty-two in one point two seconds and fluctuated back and forth a few pounds. When it settled, she gazed into the mirror hanging above the sink with a disappointed look on her face. Damn it! Damn it all to hell! It was even worse than she'd thought. Now she felt even more desperate than before. If Lickety Split couldn't help her, she was doomed.

Coaly returned to the recliner and tried to block the cravings for a snack, or a snacky wacky, as she liked to call them, by concentrating on Rhett's and Scarlett's love/hate relationship. By the time the movie ended, Coaly was asleep in the chair, snoring and engaged in a dream where a village of little people, wearing bibs and armed with knives and forks, where chasing her. She wore a sweatshirt that had the words Big Ham emblazoned on it. She eventually made it to a mansion in the center of a huge plantation. She ran inside and placed one foot on the lowest rung of a sweeping staircase when one of the little people caught up to her and jabbed the tines of a fork into her leg. She snorted and woke up. She shook her head at her subconscious's ability to twist her battle with weight loss and a classic movie into a nightmare.

She glanced at the clock and realized hours had passed. She rose out of the chair and trundled back to the bathroom in anticipation. When she got there and turned on the light, Coaly noticed a change without setting foot on the scale. She stared at her reflection in the mirror at the thin pink line in the middle of her forehead that crept from her hairline down to her eyebrows. One of the side effect symptoms was a rash. Nothing to worry about. It wasn't too noticeable. And, didn't Mister Simon say the side effects were temporary? She stepped on the scale. What the hell? She'd gained a pound. She stepped off the scale and kicked it back beneath the sink.

She stomped back to the living room with the intention of calling Lickety Split to return her recent purchase and get a refund, but decided to wait. Give it a chance, she thought. Her stomp faded into a march that took her through the living room and into the kitchen where she foraged for a meal. For some reason her appetite had grown. Her stomach growled. Eat all you want and still lose weight, they'd said. She hummed the tune of the Lickety Split jingle.

With a plate of cold cuts piled high, she returned to the living room and sat in the recliner. She flipped through the channels and paused when she came across another Lickety Split infomercial. She dropped the remote and got caught up in the same uplifting hopeful message she had felt the first time when she'd placed her order while she absent-mindedly polished off the entire plate of meat and started on the bag of chocolate, she had stashed in the side pocket of the recliner. She might not have lost any weight yet, but she was certainly feeling lighter. The program ended with her feeling comfortable with her purchase. She noticed it was nearing ten-thirty, so she'd take another pill, hop in bed, and snuggle with a hot romance novel. She liked the character, Jake Evens, in the Harlequin she was reading now. She'd read it before, but reading it again was like rekindling a romance with a long-lost love. She picked up the herbal medicine, popped one in her mouth, and chased it down with a mouthful of water from a glass that had been sitting there a few days. She hated the taste of stale water even though it didn't make any sense that water could get stale.

Coaly hopped up out of the chair, raced to the bathroom, and climbed on the scale. The digital readout soared to her now established weight. She hadn't lost a pound. Furious, she looked at her reflection and gasped. The line in the middle of her forehead was still there, only it was a little wider and had spread like a creeping vine down to her chin. It began to itch. She scratched it with the tip of a nail, but that only made it burn. If she ever saw Mr. Simon again, she'd wring his skinny neck like a chicken. It was bad enough that she was fat, but now she had this thick, pink line down the middle of her face. She looked like one of those funky alien types on an episode of Star Trek. Not the original, but Voyager. She would for sure be turning heads now.

She thought about driving herself to the emergency room. But she couldn't do that. She'd have to explain the diet pills and a lot of other things that she didn't want other people to know. She heard her mother's voice: They're all going to laugh at you! along with lines from the infomercial, you’ve got nothing to lose but unwanted fat, Lickety Split, order yours today! Put some pep, pep, pep in your step, step, step, as a convoluted chorus in her head.

Shut up. Coaly clamped her hands over her ears, Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! She straightened up and said to her reflection, You're just going to have to suck it up, Buttercup.

She climbed into bed, bypassed her nightly adventures with Jake, and closed her eyes. Visions played through her mind like a slideshow. Images of her trying to pass off the pink line down her face as an injury from an accident kept coming up. That could work. After all, hadn't she thought that about the line down Mister Simon's face? But her mind wasn't content with just dwelling on that topic. It was ruthless in throwing everything from current events at her to dredging up ancient history until she could not stand it another minute. She got up and took a double dose of sleeping pills. The night eventually became a dark pit of dreamless sleep and it only seemed like moments passed before she opened her eyes and gazed at the sun coming through the partially opened blinds like glowing slices of lemon. Coaly shook off of what remained of the night's slumber and sat up. She stretched and let out a yawn. She felt better, better than she had in a long time. It might be nothing more than optimism that would be short lived, but still, she hoped and climbed out of bed.

She made a beeline to the bathroom, left the light off, ignored the scale and mirror, did her business, and