Road Games: Bizarre Stories, Curious Tales

By Scott Spaxckey

A collection of six short stories with a travel theme; a perfect companion for the train, the plane or road trip. Road Games happen on the road, in the air, the open sea and in the uncharted territory where the twilight meets the horizon.
Odd & sensual occurrences,
Sociopaths & surreal happenings.


1. Vanishing Point: leads the way as an old and eccentric couple drive to the end of the road.
2. Instruments of Torture: takes us to the Caribbean where two mobsters thrill in creative ways of torturing captors that include garage tools, cooking condiments and deep sea predators. Will Brad give in to the torture and tell them where the sexy Kate is with the stolen money? Does he even know where she is?
3. The Back in the Back: Nine year old Brian teases and torments other travelers of the road, until one day he is tormented to trauma as the sole witness to a psychopath's rampage of murder with a carpooling fetish.
4. Skyline: Dynamic, in love and enveloped in their own secret world we walk the canals of Naples but in Long Beach CA! This ethereal duo talk about life and mystery; an entertaining and well crafted anecdote not really about anything at all. A bit of long form poetry with an enigma: are these two immortal beings? Extraterrestrials? Phantoms from another dimension? Readers enjoy the dimensional feeling of this pleasant, romantic episode.
5. Over Your Shoulder: reminds us to never look back as a man escapes harrowing disaster at 35,000 feet on his flight home, only to have the terror truly begin upon landing.
6. Luzia Blanco: A Sensual adventure of vacation in Mexico. Mishaps on a cruise ship, high speed driving, exotic dancers and a shoot out at the tavern.
7. Country Killer: Ben and Melanie are sweet newlyweds with an adorable young son, Benny Jr. and a baby on the way. Ben takes a cross-country trucker job to provide for his new family, bonding with a fellow trucker as they try to stay one mile ahead of the Country Killer.
8. Another Perspective: The old and peculiar couple from Vanishing Point close the collection with another surreal experience in Another Perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Primordial Productions
• Release date: Jul 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781912643813

Book preview

ROAD GAMES

Bizarre Stories—Curious Tales

By

Scott A Spackey

Copyright © 2018 Scott Spackey &

Primordial Publishing

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 13: 978-0692435496

Road Games happen on the road, in the air, the open sea and in the uncharted territory where the twilight meets the horizon.

Sociopaths, odd occurrences,.

Psychopaths, surreal happenings.

Forward by the editor:

Road Games stories were inspired by real life experiences.

Scott spent time in his 20s as a cross country truck driver with long hours of solitude in the cab of a truck, sleep deprived and hypnotized by the road. He has also travelled the world having been to 13 countries and rarely visiting the tourist sites, preferring the roads less travelled. Long hours on planes, in cars and in airports allowed him to concoct bizarre scenarios in his head to pass the time which became irresistible stories he had to tell. Scott has included an afterward at the end to share with you the actual inceptions of these tales and how much of each one is actually true. Very little of Scott’s fiction is purely fiction as it is all layered with events from his personal experiences and none of Scott’s nonfiction work is even exaggerated, as outrageous and supernatural as some of it may seem. 

Scott was reading novels by five years old and was always looking to be shocked, scared and moved. He wanted his reading to be more than mere entertainment but to be an actual experience. He was often disappointed in stories that had no pay-off or twist at the end. He said in an interview, "I write what I like to read. I have been inspired by such great writers who delivered great stories with impactful conclusions that I have nearly impossible standards to live up to making me unwilling to settle for less from myself. "

Trying to be even worthy of writing his author heroes names has motivated him to carefully craft his writing to come within the circumference of the genius’ that inspire him.

A few of Scott’s fiction inspirations are Ray Bradbury, The Twilight Zone, Stephen King, Anne Rice and Charles Beaumont for his sci-fi, horror work and Steinbeck, Hunter Thompson, Kerouac and Woolf broke down barriers for him to find his voice as an author. His poetry idols are Tennyson, Blake and Neruda, an eclectic blend of influence, making his poetry pure, no-rules, raw expression of his spirit. Stephen King once said that you should write as if you’re writing to a particular someone you admire and that this will motivate you to be your best to impress them; a muse. Scott writes to a muse who holds him to very high expectations. He has never disclosed who exactly that muse is and there is a betting pool as to who it might be!

Scott wants to share stories that entertain but also take you somewhere and fill you with a need for adventure and the extraordinary. His favorite compliments as an author are when a reader tells him his work has invoked such longing in them it is difficult to bear. Road Games will entertain you and also invoke a longing in your spirit for adventures.

Road Games is an unconventional collection: stories of murder and dark phenomena fused with passion and sensual romance and adventure. Scott refuses to remain within the confines of one genre so these bizarre stories and curious tales are a blend of odd occurrences with sensual and surreal happenings.

Buckle up.

CCB—Media Manager, Editor,  Primordial Productions

Table of Contents

Title Page

Road Games happen on the road, in the air, the open sea and in the uncharted territory where the twlight meets the horizon.

1. Vanishing Point

2. Instruments Of Torture

3. The Back In The Back

4. Skyline

5. Over Your Shoulder

6. Luzia Blanco

7. Country Killer

8. Another Perspective

Afterward by the Author

1. Vanishing Point

VANISHING POINT

Miller and Jean were in their seventh hour of traveling, far beyond city limits, on a road seemingly disconnected from modern America, a souvenir from another decade—possibly the same decade as these pilgrims. Miller’s leathery face bore the creases of seventy-eight years working a farm in Oklahoma. He and Jean had been married so long that audible speech was rarely required; either each knew what the other was thinking, or they had stopped caring long ago. Miller liked the world better with his hearing aid turned way down low. If he hadn’t heard something by now, he probably didn’t need to. Jean hadn’t said a word in over three hours.

The old couple stared through the windshield of their ’62 Buick at the long, straight road before them. The map told them that the road would take them to Albuquerque, where their little angels—their grandchildren—were. Miller and Jean didn’t get around much anymore. They mostly spent their days in the TV room of their comfortable house, leaving its sanctuary only occasionally for visits to doctors and the local pharmacy. This was the first time the couple had been more than fifty miles from the farm in nine years.

I-40 ran through their home state of Oklahoma, across the Panhandle of Texas, and on through New Mexico, where Albuquerque hung like a frozen pendulum from the state’s capital of Santa Fe. The map showed a nearly straightedge-perfect route for the highway, a one-dimensional blue line that implied hundreds of miles of road that terminated in a place called San Bernardino in the cow country of Southern California. Though it was only 360 miles from their farm in Custer County to Albuquerque, it was a two-day trip for these old-timers. Their arthritic tendons restricted their fifty-miles-per-hour driving to a cumulative four hours a day, and even those four hours of driving had to be broken up with stops at roadside eateries like Stuckey’s for sodas and sandwiches, a Kachina doll for Anne, a cowboy six-shooter for Andy, and pecan logs for anyone brave enough. By the time evening was upon them—to them, evening meant 4:00 p.m.—their arthritis and the possibility of irregularity and other senior ailments and aches wreaked havoc on their old bodies.

They hadn’t had a rest stop for some time now, and they were about due. Jean had begun shifting in her seat about twenty minutes earlier, although Miller did everything he could to pretend not to notice. Old Miller just sat up taller in his seat and moved his head closer to the windshield, his nose almost touching the fraying vinyl wrap on the Buick’s steering wheel.

Well, said Jean. It was several moments before she uttered another word, but it was impossible to tell whether she had nothing more to say, had forgotten what she’d intended to say, or had just forgotten that she’d started speaking in the first place. There’s somethin’ you don’t see every day, Miller. When her husband didn’t respond, she stared at him, waiting.

Miller kept his gaze fixed on the highway ahead.

Jean continued to stare at him with a growing intensity as a full minute went by. Still Miller said nothing. Miller! she shouted in her weak voice.

Even with his hearing prosthesis turned almost off, Miller heard Jean’s wail, like a dog whistle that only he could hear. Miller had dedicated his senior years trying to tune into another frequency where Jean could not broadcast. Huh? He jerked at the sound. Finally, he grumbled, Whaddya say?

Jean shouted, I said, ‘Now, there’s somethin’ you don’t see every day!’

Okay, okay. Don’t yell. I can hear you, old woman.

Jean still stared at Miller, but he inquired no further. She waited, growing more agitated. I said, ‘Now there’s somethin’ you don’t see every day,’ Miller.

What’s that, Jean?

We haven’t seen another car on this road since we stopped at that Stuckey’s, two hundred miles ago.

Hmm.

Well, that was over three hours ago. Don’t you think that’s strange? she asked.

Miller said nothing. He didn’t know if hers was a rhetorical question. It wasn’t.

I said, ‘Don’t you think that’s strange?’

Well, what the hell’s so strange about it? asked Miller. All that means is that no one’s seen us, neither.

What? What the hell does that mean? Jean thought that all that standing in a cornfield had really rusted the old man’s mind.

But it was strange. They were on an interstate highway that went through four states and met up with the always-busy I-10, yet they hadn’t seen even one other traveler for over three hours. They had spent the day traveling through the Texan deserts, and they should now have been just about fifty miles from the Land of Enchantment border. Surely there should be someone else traveling to or from New Mexico?

The highway ahead and behind was so straight and so flat that the old couple could see it stretching out before them as far as their eyes would permit, which was admittedly not very far, but still…they could view the open road all the way to the horizon, where it appeared to come to a very small point in the distance. That point seemed to move farther and farther out as the miles slipped beneath their wheels. The desert was changeless and dry, with the occasional mountain off to the north, a pile of rocks a couple of stories tall to the south, and a variety of desert flowers and bushes and cactus dotting the landscape in all directions.

There had been no crossroads for some time, either, as Jean was now trying to point out to her husband. There’s somethin’ you don’t see every day.

Hmm, Miller said, grunting. What’s that now, Jean?

There hasn’t been a crossroads for as long as there hasn’t been a car, she said. Don’t you think that’s strange, Pa?

No, Ma. I think that’s why there ain’t been no other cars.

Jean mumbled that the old man was about as smart as a three-week-old orange—and just as fresh.

He heard that, all right, and responded. I’m not tryin’ to be fresh, just drivin’ the car.

The old couple motored on in silence, once again abandoning conversation. At just after four o’clock on a November afternoon, when the sky was beginning to take on a sleepy look that suggested the sun would soon be lying down in its celestial bed and would eventually wink out, asleep, Jean shifted in her seat. That made the vinyl interior squeak, creak, and crackle under her, and Miller looked sideways, and then back to the road. She caught his quick glance and gave him a pitiful look that softened his rough exterior.

We’ll stop at the next town to stretch and find some bathrooms, the old man said, as though he had just invented the idea, and he was presenting her with a gift. Jean bristled, but her little smile crinkled her eyes as she relaxed in her seat and patted the old man’s knee.

Fifteen more minutes of driving offered still no sign of any gas stations, roadside fruit stands, or even mile markers. The couple scanned the countryside for any signs of civilization, all four eyes peering intently through the windshield and side windows, but they saw no such thing.

Well, well, Jean said. There’s somethin’ you don’t see every day, Miller.

What’s that, Jean?

Well, we just passed that highway sign that said ‘Road Narrows,’ and darned if the road didn’t get smaller.

Well, whaddya expect? Another sign that says ‘No Kidding’? Sign says the road’s gonna narrow, and then it does—that there’s what you call ‘truth in advertising.’ He chuckled, teasing her.

Jean made a face. "Yes, but it don’t usually mean that the lane for the other direction’s going to go away, she said. What if you was headed east? Where’d you drive?"

Maybe there was another sign a ways back that said ‘One Lane Highway Ahead,’ and you didn’t see that one. It probably wasn’t kidding either.

The road did get narrower. In a few moments, the road seemed no wider than the Buick. Miller said nothing. Neither did Jean. Nevertheless, they were in silent agreement that there was something odd about the highway. The silent agreement grew into a quiet but anxious concern as the road continued to diminish in size. Soon they could hear loose gravel from the sides of the road being kicked up under the car as the wheels straddled the narrowing paving.

Miller slowed to twenty miles per hour. The couple gazed into the distance, looking toward the point where the road seemed to meet the horizon, but the point no longer was moving away in tandem with their travels; it was drawing closer. The vanishing point was no longer an illusion, but an end to the road.

Miller stopped the car. The Buick’s doors creaked simultaneously as Miller and Jean exited the car, their jaws slack with disbelief. They stood in front of the ticking hood, feeling the heat from the engine mixing with the cool November wind that swept and whistled the desert around them. The old couple looked down together. Just a yard in front of them, the road came to a gravelly point…and stopped. Nothing but open desert in front of them now, the black asphalt road disappearing under the loose dirt and gravel, into a pie-shaped point.

It was gone.

They stood and stared down. The point in the road seemed to stare back at them.

Miller pushed his John Deere farm cap back on his head and scratched at his forehead, still staring. Without taking his eyes off the point, he said, Now there’s somethin’ you don’t see every day, Jean.

2. Instruments Of Torture

INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE

Brad wakes to the soothing sounds of water lapping against the shipboards. A boat’s clangs and creaks only heard at sea echo softly; his consciousness returns slowly, drifting in, the sounds and the salt in the air around him pleasant and peaceful. Then a zing of pain above his left eye causes him to reach toward his aching forehead. His right hand rises to within an inch of the wound, and then jerks to a halt, restrained by the rope around his wrist. Brad winces, squints to see, examining the rope as another thunder of pain rolls through his head. It’s the mother of all headaches, making his whole body throb like he’s has been up all night digging ditches through granite. The hard boat planks under his back compound his discomfort. When he tries to use his other hand to massage his head wound, he discovers that his left hand is wrapped in duct tape. It’s not tethered, like the right, but just as worthless. Psychologically, it’s worse—having the left hand mobile, but useless—and it frustrates him to know that freedom is so close, yet so far away.

Voices from the galley don’t quite spell out what kind of situation he might really be in.

Do you think it’s enough?

I got two buckets of squid here. Yeah, it’s enough.

"No. I mean, do you think the punishment is enough? Do you think he’ll learn his lesson? Do you think he’ll tell?" The worried man speaks in a tinny voice with a Brooklyn accent.

The second voice is low and gravelly, so calm and controlled that it makes Brad shiver. "Well, learning his lesson implies that we’re trying to correct his behavior. We’re not. What he fucking did can’t be done again. And yeah…I think he’ll tell. I never had one yet that didn’t tell."

That ain’t true, Vincent! What about the guy in Tampa who—

That fucking guy don’t count!

Yeah, but—

I told ya, that fucking guy don’t count!

Brad does not know a Vincent. Who the hell are these guys? Hit men? One of them sure hit him hard in the head back at the hotel, that’s for sure. What’s with the squid? The odor is strong, and on the air more than in it. Brad’s clothes are damp, and the inside of his mouth tastes like stale Cheerios in souring milk. He squints again at what he can make out of his surroundings, although the pain in his head is easier to bear with his eyes shut tight. The world blurs and gently rocks up and down with the boat.

When he twists his neck around, he can see that he has been stuffed under a bench, with his right hand tied to one of its legs. The boat is a diving boat, not unlike the one Brad had been diving from earlier that day, but this one looks like a thirty footer, with a captain’s console on one end and a row of scuba tanks flanking one side. Brad looks up, the waning daylight still too bright for his pain-wracked head. Another of Grand Cayman’s long and spectacular sunsets has begun, though from his vantage point Brad sees only the evening glare washing over the boat, causing the start of long shadows.

He looks down at his feet and wiggles them. They are not tied. He studies his taped hand, looking for an edge to chew loose, but it’s impossible; the tape is at least two inches thick, and seams crisscross everywhere. He doesn’t have the leverage he would need to even make a small tear. Maybe I can crawl out from under this bench a little…but no, better not attract attention. Maybe they’ll let a sleeping dog lay.

Brad wants to sleep. He wants to pass out from the pain in his head. He wants to scratch the itch on his left butt cheek. He looks out from his makeshift cell and sees the feet of his captors scuttling back and forth in the galley, twenty feet away. He sees the cuffs of their pressed trousers and the lush finish on their Bruno Magli shoes. These are no fishermen.

"Just keep choppin’ ’em. And put the heads and the tails in the bucket." That’s the second guy talking again, Vincent—the two voices as distinct as a quiet afternoon and a car wreck—his voice still, low, and smooth, while the other guy makes noises only porpoises make.

"I don’t think these are tails, Vince. This part here? It’s a whole body. I don’t think they have tails." Brad hears the tap, tap, tap of a knife on a chopping block.

Just put ’em in the bucket, smart guy.

Ya know what? This shit stinks—that’s what. This is some smelly fucking fish. I can’t believe people eat these goddamn things. And you know what else? Huh, Vince, you know what else?

No. But I’m a quivering mass of anticipation. Please, tell me, Charlie…what?

I heard some of those goddamn slopeheads eat these fucking things raw! They eat ’em just like this, Vincent—like we’re cuttin’ ’em up right now. Just cut ’em up and pop ’em in their mouths like popcorn. That’s what I heard!

It’s called sushi, you ignorant wop. And it’s a Japanese delicacy. They’re not ‘slopeheads’!

Brad starts to fade out again, but when he hears Vincent tell Charlie to check on the prisoner, he thinks of the old TV show with Patrick McGoohan. We want…information. Information! Information… He dizzily thinks of the dialogue that took place each week on the show. There was always a new number two; McGoohan’s character tried to escape in each episode, and that was enough to have the previous number two replaced. His musings are interrupted by a tasseled loafer nudging his ribs.

Brad looks up and mumbles, Who is number one?

Yeah, he’s comin’ around, Vince. Brad looks up at Charlie’s old, scrunchy face. Charlie’s voice fits him; he’s squat and tough, with an unknowing gaze in his small but clear eyes. Charlie kneels down near Brad, and it’s like watching everything through a camera lens.

You ’wake there, Gilligan? We got some questions fer ya. You be a smart fella and tell Vince what he wants to know, and we’ll just skip this whole fishin’ trip. Charlie reaches out a hand, softly slaps Brad’s cheek, and then stands up. Brad watches the first captor’s shoes, the body now towering above somewhere, obscured by the bench overhanging Brad’s head. A second pair of shoes comes alongside the first. These are a soft brown that matched the dark chocolate tones of the tailored slacks that rise above them, the trousers neatly cuffed, professionally tailored to land at just the right distance from the floor. The cuffs rise to reveal light brown socks as the second man leans down until his face is just inches from Brad’s.

Vincent smiles—slightly. He has a broad and kind-looking face that betrays itself with the deep frown lines of frequent scowls, telltale furrows that confess to his bad temper. You ’wake there, Gilligan? Vincent says.

Your buddy already asked me that, Vince.

Vincent cocks his head to one side, then the other, entertained by Brad’s insolence. Zat right? Vincent stands, disappearing like Gulliver into the clouds, becoming only a large pair of shoes again. Get ’im outta there.

Brad begins regretting his sarcasm. He knows he is in a lot of trouble, although the reason eludes him. Charlie reaches down, unties Brad’s right hand, and manhandles him out of the hole under the bench, then pushes him onto the seat, retying his tether to a nearby rail. Brad’s body feels broken as he is jostled. He looks around, trying to learn as much as he can about what is or is not within reach: two oars under the bench on the opposite side, some life preservers stuffed alongside them, a length of hose for washing the deck. No clubs or chains or cavalry to save him. His mind races and his eyes become furtive. Brad swoons, trying to appear even groggier than he is to gain time. He tried to fake passing out, hoping to be left alone for a while longer, but Charlie has other ideas.

Charlie reaches out and pushes his thumb into the large purple bruise on Brad’s forehead. The wound is soft and mushes under the pressing thumb like a decayed peach, sending a zag of pain through Brad that is more effective than any smelling salts. He jerks back and away from the thumb, the pain so intense he almost passes out for real. He heaves, almost puking, from the nausea the pain produces in his gut, and then collapses on his side on the bench.

Charlie laughs. He’s awake now!

Vincent chuckles with him. Look, says Vincent. We all wanna get home and have a drink, so let’s get down to it. You tell us where it is and what happened, and we’ll let you go.

Brad moans. Can I please…please have some…some water?

Vincent gives Charlie an approving nudge, so Charlie walks toward the galley. Brad, with no plan beyond exaggerating his condition in an attempt to stall, waits for the water. Charlie places a plastic cup in Brad’s right hand. He drinks deeply and starts coughing, and then wipes his lips with his taped hand. As Brad begins composing himself, Vincent leans in, intent on asking questions, but Brad lifts the cup to his mouth again.

Vincent retreats impatiently. When the cup comes away from Brad’s mouth the third time, Vincent grabs it. "Okay. You done there, Goldilocks? Can we get on with the business of