Hell's Highway: Hell's Vengeance Series, #1

By Ian Fortey, Ron Ripley and Scare Street

Murder is on the rise along hell's highway…

When Detective Jacinta Perez calls on retired Marine, Shane Ryan, to look into a bizarre series of deaths, the ghost hunter quickly confirms a supernatural connection to the crimes. Lost souls call out to him, all clamoring for justice to be served.

But when Shane's investigation leads him to a body hidden in the woods, he suddenly finds himself a suspect in the crimes. Framed for murder and with Jacinta getting kidnapped, Shane must use all the help he could get to destroy supernatural evil, once and for all.

Will he succeed in stopping the murders?

Or is it only the beginning of his terrifying journey to hell?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scare Street
• Release date: Apr 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798224038275

Book preview

Prologue

Shhhhhhh, the man whispered. Levi wanted to say he hadn’t even made a sound yet. But it didn’t matter. Time had run out.

He didn’t see the blade, but he did feel it. For a moment, he wondered if it was frozen. It felt so cold that it burned. But then he realized it was just the feeling of his own flesh giving way. Not a burn—just the blade chewing through his guts, piercing his insides and splitting them apart.

He had stopped at the OnRoute rest stop just a few miles from Windsor, Ontario because he’d already been on the road for four hours. His work sent him all across America and, on this trip, into Canada as well. He liked the personal touch, and seeing a client face-to-face helped ensure he got sales when many of his coworkers and competitors failed. His father had always told him that looking a man in the eyes was the right way to do business, and he stuck by that. He would go the extra mile. Sometimes literally, in the case of driving from Detroit to Toronto.

Levi Ellis was not changing the world. He supplied specialty auto parts to retailers so people with a lot of money could ensure their overpriced European cars had the best spark plugs and catalytic converters on the market.

Other salespeople tried to secure clients on the phone, and in a pinch, Levi would do that, too. But he had never lost a contract after an in-person meeting. Not once. So if it meant driving four hours to Toronto first thing in the morning, and then four hours home in the evening, he’d do it. He did it all the time, in fact.

The rest stop was a sanitized, forgettable pit stop on the road to and from the job. The 401 Highway was full of them. His favorite—if that was the right word—had become OnRoute Stop 66. It had a Burger King, a Tim Hortons coffee shop, a gas station, and enough space to get out and walk around without running into a lot of people. Best of all, it was close enough to home that he could finish his coffee just before getting to his door, and he liked that.

He was not sure what time it was when he got to the rest stop. He took his watch off somewhere around London, Ontario because the band was making his wrist sweaty and uncomfortable after such a long day. It was well past sundown, however. Not that anyone on the 401 seemed to care. The highway didn’t sleep, ever. It was constantly full of cars.

A highway is like a machine, Levi had mused more than once on his long trips. Little moving parts kept on going, no matter what.

Levi did not like being part of the machine. He hated long drives, truth be told. He hated the thousands of cars that flowed like a river and the nameless faces he saw at the rest stop. It was always the same, always cold and impersonal. It was like closing deals via phone calls—just noise with no personality and no passion.

Another reason he liked the OnRoute stop was its size and openness. The parking lot was vast, too vast for how many cars ever seemed to use it. The place was also cut out of the forest on the side of the highway. It was easy enough to just stroll from that concrete slab of a parking lot to the trees and suddenly be alone in the wilderness. It was a respite from the noise and fumes and endless motion.

Every time Levi stopped, he’d buy a cup of coffee, walk to the back of the building, pass the little picnic area with its handful of scattered tables on a patch of grass, and walk into the woods. He’d do this for maybe ten minutes, just enough time to inhale the smells of nature and hear the crunch of leaves underfoot.

Tonight, however, his legs were tired. It’s weird how tired driving can make you, he thought, when you’re just sitting there all day. The thrum of the engine and the vibrations through the seat took their toll. Muscles grew weary just from being shaken all day long. It made him long for his own bed. But he still had an hour just to get back to the United States.

Levi walked through the picnic area, its dozen or so tables spaced unevenly through the grass. No one was there at this time of night. The blazing overhead lights of the rest stop didn’t extend this far back. Of course, it wasn’t totally dark, but it was not meant for anyone to be picnicking. It was just Levi alone in the grass, walking along the border of the forest land beyond.

He headed beyond the tree line and smiled at that crunching sound of dead leaves and dry twigs. The sounds of dead things made him feel alive. Usually.

Then he heard it before he saw anything. A shuffling, and a wet sort of thumping sound. Sawing. Levi moved deeper into the trees, the forest area black and foreboding at this hour. He could see, just barely, the light of a partial moon cutting through the trees where it could. Another twig snapped underfoot, and the sound stopped.

Levi maneuvered around a large maple tree and paused. A woman was lying on the ground. Lots of flesh visible. In that brief moment, he thought to quip out loud about catching some couple in the midst of an illicit act. But the thought faded quickly as his eyes adjusted, and he understood what he was seeing.

Spread on the ground, the girl’s thin, blonde hair was messy with twigs and leaves. Her open eyes looked in Levi’s direction, but he had no doubt they saw nothing. Not anymore. Her hands were missing. Her arms were outstretched as though awaiting a hug from someone, but they ended in cleanly-cut stumps. Blood still glistened on the wounds, and there seemed to be a slow, thick trickle running from a severed artery.

The shock held Levi in place. The voice in his head told him to turn around, to run back to the rest stop and call for help. But he just stayed there and stared. It was like his brain and body couldn’t get on the same page on how to respond.

A breeze rustled the trees, and the sound shocked him so much that he jumped. He turned, energized by the sudden blast of fear. A figure blocked the way he had come.

It was hard to make out the man in the shadows of the woods. He was lean and dressed all in black. A mask covered the lower half of his face, a bandana emblazoned with the image of half a skull, giving the look of only half a true face and a grinning skeleton’s mouth.

The man raised a gloved finger to his skeletal mouth.

Shhh, he whispered.

Levi didn’t make a sound, even after the blade pulled out of his belly. He collapsed onto the ground, and his eyes fixed on the knife in the man’s hand. The moonlight hit the very edge of the blade and made it shimmer.

The skull-faced man watched for just a moment, then knelt down. His hand moved with furious speed and force. Again and again and again, pounding the knife down.

Levi only felt the first few.

Chapter 1: A Chill in the Bones

There was a chill in the air that didn’t feel natural. Shane Ryan’s eyes narrowed as he looked through the trees. Too many places to hide in the woods, especially at night. He didn’t like that. But there was no sign of anyone living or dead lurking around. He wondered if he was just being paranoid. It might have been just a cool breeze. He was in Canada, after all. But he couldn’t make himself believe it.

There was blood sprayed across the trees. The trunks of four or five looked nearly painted in it. The forest floor had been picked over and trampled on by police and crime scene investigators. But there were still plenty of leaves, pine needles, and other bits of forest refuse stained red.

He hadn’t been able to look at the body yet, and probably wouldn’t, either. Cops were cops anywhere in the world. Canadian cops were just as unlikely to let a civilian look at a corpse, even if they had a detective vouching for him. Jacinta could only do so much. She was out of her jurisdiction, after all.

The scene was brutal, even for a ghost. He’d met his fair share of deranged spirits, those that liked to hurt others. But this one was practicing a particularly sadistic brand of violence.

The corpse had been taken apart. But not cleanly, or with precision and patience. That made a difference. Some spirits practiced sadism as an art form. They might hurt a person for the thrill of it. From what Jacinta had told Shane, this poor sucker from Detroit had been ripped up angrily. Hands, feet, arms, legs, and head all torn off. The wounds were marred by cold damage. Frostbite, right in the middle of summer.

Someone’s quick stop on the road home ended up being their final stop.

When ghosts chose to kill, they couldn’t help but suck the warmth out of the room. Some kind of endothermic thing. The science didn’t matter, really. All that mattered was that more powerful ghosts could freeze a person. Angry ghosts could freeze, then dismember a person. It wasn’t a good scene.

To the local cops and the coroner, that spoke of a mystery. But it meant something more to Detective Jacinta Perez of Detroit’s Homicide division. A ghost had killed the man, and none of the cops on the case would likely be equipped to deal with it. So she’d called Shane.

When he’d gotten the call, he had been staring out the window, looking at the still, calm waters of the pond behind the house on Berkley Street. It had been a long time since he dealt with the ghost back there, Vivienne. The girl in the pond. Despite that, Shane had never really felt the need to go out there much. He assumed that was what most people with ponds did. Sat by them. Fed ducks. Read books. But it all seemed a little bit quaint to him. Plus, he had no ducks. Nothing lived back there.

He'd had this instinct, what people called a feeling in their bones, a sense of anxiousness rather than anxiety. He needed to do something. Sometimes life seemed to catch up with his thoughts, and he realized he wasn’t doing what he wanted to be doing. Maybe because he wasn’t always sure what he wanted to do. But it had to be more than staring out the window.

You seem restless, my young friend, Carl had said, speaking German.

Shane shrugged, lifting a cigarette to his lips. What else is new?

Oh, I don’t know. The sun is shining, it seems like a fine day, the ghost had replied. Carl had bouts of positivity that Shane assumed were meant to be encouraging.

Gonna tell me to go for a walk and enjoy the fresh air?

Carl had chuckled at that.

No, I know you abhor fresh air.

That was pretty funny, he had thought, taking a drag. Carl is getting good at observational comedy.

He’d considered getting in touch with Tom and Victor. Maybe Frank. Just to touch base, see if anything was going on in their lives he’d missed. Sometimes real life got away from him. It’d be good to catch up, outside of fighting vengeful spirits and nearly dying for a change of pace.

Sometimes it felt like the house itself was growing oppressive. Not that the house was without a myriad of dangers, just because of who and what was inside of it. There were mysteries that Shane would probably never solve in the place, and that was just as well. He didn’t need to know all of its secrets, and likely didn’t want to, either. But sometimes, it was more than the ghosts within. The house itself had a presence, baked into the wood and nails. It was as alive as anything else, or as aware. Sometimes that awareness seemed greater. More ominous. Shane didn’t much care for it.

The sound of his phone’s ringtone had pulled him from his thoughts. The world kept spinning, of course. Even when he was just staring out the window, wondering how so many people slogged through it with no idea what was lurking in each and every shadow.

He had looked at the screen and seen Jacinta’s number before lifting the phone to his ear.

Hello, he’d said around the cigarette.

Shane. Hey, how are you?

Oh, you know me. Living life to the fullest over here. You?

I’m good… maybe. I got a case this morning, and everything’s coming together in a bad way, you know?

Not exactly, he’d replied.

Got a dismembered corpse here. Victim’s name is Hasselbeck. Thirty-three, married, no prior arrests, not even a traffic ticket on his record. Guy was a model citizen. Coroner says no bladed weapon; looks like he was pulled apart, maybe. Wounds are all frostbitten along the edges. I’ve seen rage kills before, but this is next level.

Hmm, Shane had grunted. Anyone see anything?

Not a lot of details. It’s a highway rest stop across the Canadian border. Looks random right now, but we’re still looking into the victim. Local PD here tells me this stretch of road isn’t exactly new to dismemberments, and this isn’t the first murder in recent years.

Shane had taken the cigarette from between his lips, turned away from the window, and glanced at Carl, who was being less than subtle about trying to listen in.

How many?

He tells me six, at least. And the cops aren’t really doing any digging as far as connection goes. Like, a string of unrelated deaths is better than having a serial killer crossing multiple jurisdictions. Also said there were at least three serial killers along the way here in the last fifty years or so. No word about frostbite on the other victims, but I don’t have the case files on hand, either.

Shane had nodded his head and grunted into the phone. Serial killers were fertile breeding ground for ghosts. A serial killer highway ghost was something new to him, though. Tearing apart victims at rest stops. Points for creativity, he supposed.

Send me the details. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

You sure it’s okay?

He’d chuckled, struck by the question.

In what way?

I just don’t want you thinking I need you to come running every time something weird goes on.

You mean like how I need you to come running every time I need the inside track on something cop-related? You always come through. Least I can do is return the favor, he’d told her.

You’re a charmer, Ryan. He had caught the smile in her voice as he made his way through the house to grab a few things for the trip.

Good looking, too. You got the whole package here.

I know it. I’ll text you what I have, all right? Let me know when you’re across the border. I’m working the case with Denise and this OPP constable, Hawthorn. Probably going to grab a motel nearby just to save time.

Got it. If I head through Niagara Falls, I should be there in… ten hours? he’d estimated, looking at his watch. It’d be late, but not too bad. Cops would likely be out of my way by then, so it’d be easier to poke around.

Sounds like a plan. I gotta run but I’ll see you when you get here.

They had said their goodbyes and hung up as Shane filled a bag with some clothes.

Shane didn’t travel to Canada all that often, but he wasn’t one to complain about a destination. The trip from Nashua to the highway rest stop Jacinta had texted him was just over 600 miles.

Jacinta had mentioned she was working with her partner, Detective Denise Sandoval, which would make things slightly awkward but not impossible. Sandoval was a decent enough detective, but she and Shane had had their differences in the past. And the fact she was out of the loop on ghosts made working around her more challenging. He’d have to give them some distance to avoid drawing more attention to himself than necessary.

When he arrived, the scene had been cleared out, the body removed, and nothing but police tape was left behind to indicate anything at all had happened there. He had always wondered how the police expected a yellow plastic streamer to secure a crime scene. But he supposed it was just a psychological barrier for the kind of people who would never trespass on a crime scene in the first place.

He hadn’t had time to check in with Jacinta to get the full scoop on what she’d seen. She had given him some details by text, but he would need more. He wished he had been there when Jacinta arrived, and been able to see what she’d seen. Not that he didn’t trust her instincts, but she was there as a cop. She was investigating a crime committed by a living person, as were the rest of them. Maybe there were details they’d missed.

There was nothing more for him to discover just by looking at the blood on trees. He turned away from the forest but stopped short of leaving when he came face-to-face with a young woman. She was just standing in the trees, watching him with an almost disinterested look on her face.

She was dead.

Chapter 2: What Happened Before

You ever go to these places?

Detective Denise Sandoval stood with her hands on her hips, dark hair pulled back, and sunglasses covering her eyes. The sun was bright and hot, and the air had grown humid and cloying.

Rest stops? I mean, yeah. For gas or coffee or whatever, Jacinta answered. She had been partnered with Sandoval as part of Detroit Metro’s Homicide Squad for some years now. They got along well, and Jacinta appreciated that Sandoval was as smart and capable as she was. They’d butted heads now and then, but Jacinta didn’t think a good partnership could work without differences of opinions. Two people who saw everything the same way were