Roadside Attractions

By Eric Lahti

A piece of hell is hiding in a tiny Arizona town...

During a not-so-routine investigation into a haunting, a pair of ghost hunters receive a strange text message beckoning them to Dragoon, Arizona. The message promises them a ghost unlike any they've ever met and riches galore for investigating the entity. They find the ghost, but more sinister forces are lurking in the town and soon the ghost-hunters - and the ghost they were sent to hunt - find themselves caught between a renegade devil and the hitwoman sent from hell to stop him.

With time running out and no one to turn to, they'll have to dig deep into science, magic, and themselves to stop a great evil from awakening or the world will suffer an eternity of darkness.

A tale of good, evil, and everything in between is about to unfold at one of the country's most mysterious ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eric Lahti
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201767723

Eric Lahti

Eric Lahti grew up looking for UFOs and buried treasure in northwest New Mexico. Unfortunately, he never found either of them. Or maybe he did and he's just not telling. He did find some good stories to tell at parties about lights in the skies and gold in the ground, though. When he's not writing, he's programming and practicing his Kenpo. He's also an active blogger, waxing philosophical about a range of topics from writing, to martial arts, to politics and religion. Frankly, he fancies himself something of a Renaissance geek about a wide variety of things.

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Roadside Attractions

by Eric Lahti

Roadside Attractions

© 2018 Eric Lahti

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission from the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.  I love reviewers.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names of some historical figures have been used, but their characters and personalities in the book are not intended to resemble their real historical selves.

Cover Art Elements: © Daniel Nagy, paseven, and MicroOne

Cover Design & Layout: © 2018 Eric Lahti

Also by Eric Lahti

The Henchmen Series:

Henchmen

Arise

Transmute

The Dragonstrike Series:

Greetings From Sunny Aluna

Collections:

The Complete Saxton

The Clock Man and Other Stories

Dedicated to anyone who’s ever found true love only to have her start a revolution and be imprisoned forever.

Also, to my wife and son for their inputs and just generally being awesome.

And also 80s metal.

Contents

Fresh Corpse, Fresh Start

Spiritual Colonic

Cuckoo’s Egg

Because Of Course She Would

Meet …The Terror!

Statuesque

Dragoon Style

Naked Came I

Jennine and the Jackalope

Sympathy

Nectar Of The Gods

Stuff Starts To Go Really Wrong

Playtime

Spellcaster

An Odd Place For A Statue

Yes, My Master

Witchy Ways

Something In The Air

Jordan Gets His Ass Kicked Twice

Thank You, Mrs. Owens

Waste Management Artisan

Undo

Rageaholic

The Bigger They Come

Grrl Power

Heart Of The Matter

Baby Daddy

1 | Fresh Corpse, Fresh Start

The man’s eyes were bloodshot and manic, struck through with hints of bad humor and more than a touch of desperation. They were crazy, sweaty eyeballs that promised a sharp pain, inches of cold steel in her chest, and a slow descent to the nothingness of death. Jennine yearned for it, panged for the final solution to all of life’s problems and the jittering agony of her body’s desperate plea for just one more hit. Perhaps the stories were wrong and there would be no judgement in the final analysis of life. Perhaps it would be like someone threw a switch and one moment there was life in all its tattered fineries and the next – poof – there would be sweet nothingness.

Presto change-o, Alakazam, life begone.

Please. Open sesame?

There was one problem and it wasn’t her bound limbs, gagged mouth, whatever drug they’d shot her up with that was making her far calmer than she should have been, or the stylized dagger pointed at her heart. The man behind the cowl might have been all he claimed to be – powerful magics dotted the air, after all – but he was such a fuck-up that Jennine O’Brien was having trouble coming to grips with the fact that she was about to be killed by a complete choad.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to end, but she supposed there was a poetic symmetry to it. Life had knocked her around for slightly over two decades, so why should it stop now? To have a clean, easy death would be too much to ask for.

We commend her soul to the Dark Lord, the man said in a voice that was supposed to sound deadly serious but came across as a nerd reading comics out loud.

His followers, a rag-tag group of like-minded losers, picked up the chant and continued. We live to serve Him.

They had the droning, mindless chanting down pat. Like sheep in a pen, the head dork said something and the others picked it up and regurgitated it. It reminded her of her youth in that horrible, unairconditioned church her mother loved so much. Endless hours of chanting and droning on and on about some arcane aspect of church doctrine. When she was old enough, she swore she’d rather die than sit through another service.

Jennine rolled her eyes. People had so little to do in this strip of Arizona between nowhere interesting and nothing useful that they latched onto any little person who seemed like he knew what was what. If only they knew their leader spanked the monkey to big butts porn, his followers might have found something better to do with their lives rather than follow the biggest loser in town. On the other hand, considering the losers dancing naked around a bonfire and chanting, they might have asked to borrow some of his sticky magazines and join him in a circle-jerk.

Losers.

She wanted to tell him to get on with it, to just end it all so she could go back to not caring about anything, but he’d stuffed her panties in her mouth and sealed her lips with a roll of duct tape from the back of his aged Jeep. At first, Jennine thought it was going to be a run-of-the-mill rape and dump, but things went sideways when he strapped her to a rock in a ravine and put on the monk’s robes.

A person would have to be seriously kinky to be into both bondage and monk cosplay, and that was beyond her limits. One or the other, please.

The evening took a turn for the bizarre when his friends showed up, stripped off their robes, and the ceremonial dagger came out. Then the chanting kicked in. Sweat was already beading on her impossibly sensitive skin. The nausea would be close behind it. Finding a decent supply of H on the road had been impossible, no matter how many favors she offered to trade. It wasn’t her first time going through withdrawal, but there was no such thing as getting used to it. Each time was worse because she knew exactly what was coming.

Dark Lord, the bearded idiot said, Grant me her soul that I might use it forever.

That caught Jennine’s addled brain. It was one thing to think she was going to die; frankly she’d rather die than go through withdrawal again. That last time, squirming in agony in an L.A. alley while hobos used her as a receptacle was a living hell that she’d do almost anything to never go through again. It was quite another to think there was the ghost of a chance she’d wind up stuck with this loser forever.

Or however long souls lasted.

Jennine struggled against the ropes that bound her body tight. She enjoyed a bit of bondage every now and then – who didn’t? – but this was well beyond her limits. Rape her and dump her by the side of the road? Sure, shit happens. Kill her and let her shuffle off the mortal coil? Better. But the idea that this lunatic with the scruffy beard and bad cosplay robe was trying to keep her forever was more than she bargained for.

Grant us all your dark mercy, the losers intoned. We are your humble servants.

As I dedicate her death – the death of a miserable whore – to you, the guy with the knife pressed to her chest said. I ask for one small favor.

The tip of the knife pushed into Jennine’s chest. She focused on the pain. The whole evening was so surreal that the banal reality of a knife point in her chest made more sense than anything else. The sharp pain of the knife took her mind off the dull, throbbing headache and the incessant need curdling her blood. He kept pressing it slowly into her flesh until the tip snagged on her rib cage.

Jennine screamed around the underwear in her mouth, not just out of pain, but out of rage that he couldn’t even kill her correctly.

She fears death, Dark Lord, the idiot said, turning his face to the sky. A large drop of rain splashed on his forehead.

Fear is for others! the followers chanted. Fear is for the weak!

Take her fear and let me have her soul as I will have her body before it cools, Dark Lord!

He tried to push the dagger into her heart, but it was stuck on the bone. Jennine tensed and whimpered as the blade scraped across her rib cage. This was it. If this fool could get his shit together, she could finally get a reset on life. Maybe the next one would be better.

Lightning flashed across the sky, far too close for comfort. The way Jennine’s day had gone, she wouldn’t have been surprised if a bolt of electricity from the sky wiped out the D-list cultists and left her alive, tied to a rock and gagged with her own underwear to wither away in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a friendly coyote would tear her throat out before the sun cooked her brain.

For once though the fates decided to be kind to Jennine McMasters. The bearded man-child managed to slide the dagger between her ribs and deep into her chest. As the blade penetrated her body she gasped in agony and relaxed in relief. Death was a brutal kick in the teeth, but a welcome one. The dagger plunged into her heart, dividing flesh from soul and freeing her from what was, at best, a troublesome life.

A few hours ago, she’d never met the man who killed her, but she knew his type. Bound and gagged in the back of his Jeep, rolling around a on pile of weathered porn mags, she’d seen his true soul and that was enough. He was just another jackass who got high on kicking her around.

As her heart died, Jennine listened to the ecstatic groans and grunts of the cultists. They were celebrating their triumph. After all, it took great prowess to snatch a lonely, drug-addled woman from a rest area and kill her in a valley. They should all get medals for their badassery.

Jennine’s body died from the outside in. She lost track of her extremities. The rope burns on her wrists and ankles faded first to a dull throb and then the hollow numbness of dying nerves. Thighs and arms were the next to go, aching muscles replaced with nothingness. Darkness crept in around the edges of her vision and the world got colder.

Thunder rolled down the ravine, shaking the rocks and promising one final cleansing. Jennine sat up and looked around. The cultists were prostrate on the ground or kneeling in supplication and holding their hands to the exploding sky. She shook her head sadly. The losers thought they’d won, but all they did was free her soul.

Death was nothing like she imagined. She could still see and hear, but she couldn’t feel a thing. Jennine tentatively put her feet on the ground and stood up. The rocky sand should have cut her feet like walking through a pile of Legos, but she couldn’t feel anything. It was like being detached from reality. All the pains and hungers and desperate needs for still more heroin belonged to her dead physical body. There wouldn’t be any more bills or creditors or people expecting a roll in the hay or a blowjob for every little favor.

In death, Jennine was finally free.

But what next? Hang out in the ravine forever? There was supposed to be a portal or a door or something to walk though. That’s what her psychic in L.A. used to say. Where was the portal?

She scanned the world around her and found nothing but sacks of flesh chanting to a deaf god. She was about to wander off into the desert and see what was out there when she spied something out of the ordinary. Off in the distance, a man in a suit watched the proceedings with a detached air.

The sky exploded. Thunderstorms in the Southwest were a force to be reckoned with. They could spring up out of nowhere, drop enough rain and hail to keep Flint, Michigan in clean water for years, and disappear before anyone knew what happened.

Jennine instinctively covered her head with her arms when the first massive dollops of rain left little crowns in the dirt, but the water passed right through her like she wasn't even there.

My dear, the man in the suit said, you don’t need to worry about things like that anymore.

The thundering downpour was deafening, yet she could hear him clearly. His voice reverberated in her mind. Jennine knew she should have been terrified, but she was deeply chilled. It was almost like shooting up for the very first time and she didn’t even have track marks on her ghostly arms. Something about being dead made her brave.

Who are you? she called out.

A traveler like you. I came a long way to see you, Jennine.

She should have tripped over the rocks or become mired in deepening mud, but Jennine walked toward him with a surety she never had in life. Why me? she asked. I thought you came because those dipshits called you. Aren’t you the Devil?

Them? he asked, pointing at the naked rabble. No, they didn’t call me. They think they have all the power in the world, but they’re lucky if they can dress themselves in the morning.

She looked back to see the head dipshit humping her dead body while the rest touched themselves and looked on in orgasmic delight. A deep sense of disgust welled up inside of her. Ugh, Jennine said. Who waits until the girl is dead to rape her?

The man’s hand ran down her back, sending chills up and down whatever passed for her spine. Don’t worry about them, he said. They are nothing but an entertaining diversion. Think of them as the clown car of religious gatherings.

His voice wrapped around her body like a warm blanket. Old habits took over and she leaned into him until her glowing body was pressed up to his. Arms wrapped around her and held her tightly. Whatever he was doing, she could feel him pressing into her. Whispers in her ear, barely heard and only understood at a subconscious level, told her tales of downfalls and betrayal. He was just like her. They both wanted more, but life had kicked them around and punished them for the sin of trying to be better. They were kindred spirits and together they could make things right.

Do you want to change things? he whispered.

Jennine watched the needle-dick loser thrusting his hips between her dead thighs and nodded. Yes, she said. Yes, I do.

His hands caressed her, pushing through her glowing flesh and stroking her very soul. She sighed contentedly and pressed herself into his arms. His voice was the sweetest hit she’d ever had. They are going to try a spell to trap your soul in a jar. It’s more phony hokum dreamed up by the loser screwing your corpse, but it’s important that you play along. At least for the time being, we need them to think they’ve succeeded. Can you do that for me, Jennine?

He touched her in ways she’d never been touched before. All the heroin in the world couldn’t compete with his hands on her soul, his breath on her neck, and his voice in her mind.

When I’m done with them, he can be your plaything. Would you like that Jennine? Would you like to own him and control him? Make him beg and whimper like a pet?

Yes, she purred.

Down in the ravine, the loser was holding his hands to the sky victoriously. Jennine made a mental calculation and guessed he lasted about a minute and half, two minutes tops. She shook her head and sighed.

What is it, my dear? the stranger in the suit asked her.

She purred at the way he called her his dear. It seemed so elegant and loving. Her head leaned against his shoulder and she watched the lightning dancing across the sky. It would just be my luck that not only was I dead the last time I got laid, but the loser couldn’t even last more than a couple minutes.

The stranger laughed and held her tightly to him. That was the least of his sins, I assure you, but it doesn’t have to be the last time.

Jennine turned in his arms and stared into his eyes. They were black as the night and filled with glorious dancing stars. He was beautiful, the most amazing man to ever walk the planet. She stroked his cheek and smiled. For the first time in years, she felt the smile deep in her heart.

Who are you? she asked again.

His smile lit up the ravine and pushed the cold rain away. I go by many names. We’ll talk more soon, I think it’s time for my lovely leading lady to perform her best role.

She followed his pointing finger with her eyes and found the choad squad placing a jar with a candle in it on her dead chest. What do I need to do? Jennine asked.

Just climb into the jar and be patient. You have the whole of eternity ahead of you, my beauty. Just play the role like the amazing actress I know you are and I’ll never be far from you, even if you don’t recognize me. Make sure you’re in the jar when he takes you inside and I’ll help you take care of everything from there.

Jennine nodded and took one last look into his eyes before planting a kiss on his cheek. Thank you, she said. Again, for the first time in a very long time, she meant it.

On the walk back to her dead body, she watched the cultists writhe and supplicate themselves. They were chanting something, but she no longer cared, so she no longer heard them. Her body still looked alive, albeit bloodier than the last time she looked at herself in the mirror. The rain had washed away her makeup, revealing the scars of a hard life. Track marks covered her arms, far more visible than she ever thought possible. There were bags around her sunken eyes. Whether that was because she was dead or because the heroin had been slowly poisoning her Jennine couldn’t say, but she realized at that moment that she had spent her life lying to herself about who she was.

The body tied to the rock was no longer the pretty young thing that had dreamed of becoming an actress and doing whatever it took to get there; it was the end result of blindly following a dream of stardom and not knowing when to call it quits.

Maybe the stranger was fucking with her. It wouldn’t be the first time a man had whispered sweet nothings in her ear as he pushed her closer and closer to the edge of hating herself for their pleasure. But life and death had taught Jennine to be crafty. Maybe he was the greatest liar on the planet, but she felt safe in his arms and that was something she could build on.

She stared at the glass jar with the flickering candle perched on her corpse’s chest. The duct tape was still around her head and her dress was pulled up over her hips. It was a sad way to go. Jennine wished they had at least pulled her dress back down.

Getting into the jar wasn’t something she had thought about on the walk over. He said get into the jar, so she assumed there was a way in. Rather than dwell on the problem, Jennine put her hand inside the jar and willed the rest of her ethereal body to follow. To her shocked surprise, the jar felt cavernous once she was in it.

When she was fully inside, the candle went out. The idiots outside cheered and slapped each other on the back as someone screwed a top on the glass jar. The sick loser with the bushy beard held the jar aloft and peered into it. From inside the jar, his face was huge, hairy, and disgusting. Beards could be hot, but his was just a hot mess of unkempt, black hair. It looked like he’d gotten grooming tips from an old Dungeons And Dragons book or the original Joy Of Sex with the hairy hippies.

Jennine flipped him off and slumped on the floor of the jar.

He held the jar aloft and spoke something she couldn’t make out. Something about selling her soul and knowing the buyer. In the distance, she could barely make out the figure of the well-dressed man. He blew her a kiss and disappeared.

Maybe now that she was dead, Jennine thought, she could get on with the business of living right. At the very least, she was going to find a way to get back at the bastard that killed her.

2 | Spiritual Colonic

In better times, long ago, the van was a piece of luxurious art. When the old Dodge B-Series van was born in 1978, it was state-of-the-art awesomeness with wall-to-wall shag carpet, a four-speaker hi-fi system complete with FM stereo and an 8-track cassette player. Modifications in 1979 added swivel captain’s chairs and enough crushed velvet to outfit an army of Elvis impersonators.

Over the years, the custom airbrushed scene of a UFO abducting a naked woman had faded and the sparkly words Out of this world lover were cracked and flaking. Rust dotted the exterior and both oval windows in the back were broken and replaced with poorly fitting plexiglass. The stereo system, however, worked just like it did when the masters of Detroit installed it.

The sweet sound of Cheap Trick, just barely audible over the rumbling V-8, leaked from the van as it idled in the dark heart of suburbia. A woman in glasses that were fashionable in the 50s and had since come back around, peeked out her lace curtains at the intruders in her normally quiet neighborhood.

Camelback Estates was known in Scottsdale, Arizona as the premier location to lock oneself away from the outside world and die a peaceful death in a non-threatening environment. It was row after row of nearly identical pocket houses, all tastefully decorated in creams, blues, and greens. It was clean. It was quiet. And it was not a place for out of this world lovers. Or lovers of any kind.

If there was a place that was the physical embodiment of desperate mediocrity, Camelback Estates was it.

Inside the van, Jordan Jones hastily shrugged himself into a long-sleeved black shirt. The air conditioner was on full blast, but he was still sweating. I can’t believe you talked me into this Char. It is too goddamned hot to be wearing this shirt.

People want the show, Jordan, Char replied as she knelt on the tattered orange carpet of the van. Now zip me up.

Jordan stood up and tapped his noggin on the ceiling. He rubbed his head and leaned down. Practiced hands moved her black hair out of the way so he could zip up her dress. You need another dye job, he said distantly as he struggled with the tiny zipper.

She playfully slapped him and said, Next time I’m dying it pink.

Didn’t you just say people wanted the show? Jordan asked.

The zipper finally cooperated and he flopped back into the swiveled front seat to put on his shoes. Charlotte Rivera ran her fingers through her ebon hair and smiled at him. People want the show and they want you to give it to them. I’m just the witch; I don’t have to look professional. All I have to do is toss some magic around and people are wowed.

If we ever get paid again, I’ll buy you the whole witch outfit.

Char crawled onto one of the benches and pulled on a pair of shoes. Is it that one you found at the Halloween store?

Jordan nodded and grunted as he adjusted his tie.

The sexy one or the one with the warts? Char asked.

There’s a difference? Jordan asked.

Maybe not to you, Char said, But I much preferred the skirt on the sexy one. The hat on the one with the warts was cute, but I’m not into green makeup. Besides, real witches don’t have warts and we aren’t green. And we don’t usually wear hats.

You do look good in short skirts, though, Jordan replied. Is that a witch thing?

She smirked and blew him a kiss. It’s either good genetics or that spell I cast on you a while back.

Would that be the one that made me love you forever? Jordan asked as he pulled on his black jacket.

Char crawled over to him and stood on her knees in front of him as she adjusted his tie. I forgot about that one. I was referring to the one that made you think I looked beautiful in everything I wore.

You do look beautiful in everything you wear, Jordan said.

See, I’m a good witch, Char said as she brushed a stray bit of orange shag carpet out of his hair. Are you ready to get into character?

Jordan nodded and fingered his tie. It was already well over a hundred degrees outside and the suit and tie promised to make things even worse. Every time he put on a suit, it reminded him why corporate jobs were for suckers. Let’s do this thing, Mrs. Smith.

One haunted old folk’s house coming right up, Mr. Smith.

Char tugged the van’s side door open and immediately regretted it. The outside air hit her in the face with all the subtlety of a hair dryer. Tell me again why we park a block away from where we’re going, she asked as she stepped out of the van.

It’s for the mystery. We just walk up out of nowhere and it looks like we’re magical.

So, it has nothing to do with the fact that this van looks like it belongs in the junk-heap of history?

Jordan winced as he set foot out of the van. Dear God, that’s hot. And stop disrespecting the van. It’s your home, too.

Home is a bit strong of a word, Char said. Temporary shelter would be better.

His shoulders sagged. In addition to the insane heat, living in a van weighed heavily on Jordan’s mind. Of all the things he saw himself doing when he grew up, living in a van was not one of them. Fortunately, they at least had the van instead of a cardboard box or a pile of newspapers. He liked to imagine himself as a starship captain with a sexy second in command, living in a ship on the edges of the galaxy.

But it was really just him and Char in a busted-ass van he won in a poker game, parked wherever they could find a quiet place and hoping against hope that they could scrounge up enough money to get a new apartment.

I’m trying, Char. I really am.

She touched his shoulder. I know, babe. We both are. Somewhere out there is our ship and it’s full of riches and hot pool boys.

Jordan chuckled. Char always brought out the best in him. Are there sexy pool girls, too?

Hell, no. I’m the only sexy girl you get to look at, she said with a sly grin. Maybe today we’ll get enough for a hotel. Showers. A bed. You know.

Maybe this schtick will help us drum up more business, Jordan said. But as long as this old bat pays up, we should be on easy street for a month or so.

They walked hand in hand around the block, each desperately trying to ignore the fans that were blowing air straight out of Hell. In Jordan’s free hand, an apothecary case that he’d modified swung lazily. A few houses down from their destination, Jordan and Char stopped holding hands and put on their serious faces.

Paranormal cleansing involved a lot of acting. Clients expected a certain amount of professionalism mixed with just the right amount of eccentricity. After all, anyone who could dispel ghosts should look respectable, but