The New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller about a group of college students encountering supernatural terror while on a road trip through Appalachia-an unforgettable, chilling novel that is "scary and hard to put down. You might be advised not to read it at night" (Stephen King).
1983: Three students from a small college embark on a weeklong road trip to film a documentary on roadside memorials for their American Studies class. The project starts out as a fun adventure, with long stretches of empty road and nightly campfires where they begin to open up with one another.
But as they venture deeper into the Appalachian backwoods, the atmosphere begins to darken. They notice more and more of the memorials feature a strange, unsettling symbol hinting at a sinister secret. Paranoia sets in when it appears they are being followed. Their vehicle is tampered with overnight, and some of the locals appear to be anything but welcoming. Before long, the students can't help but wonder if these roadside deaths were really random accidents…or is something terrifying at work here? Richard Chizmar is the author of New York Times bestselling novels Chasing the Boogeyman, Becoming the Boogeyman, Memorials, and Widow's Point: The Complete Haunting (cowritten with son, W.H. Chizmar), and coauthor (with Stephen King) of the New York Times bestselling novella Gwendy's Button Box, the novel Gwendy's Final Task, and the solo novella Gwendy's Magic Feather. His short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, most recently, the bestselling anthology, The End of The World as We Know It: New Stories of Stephen King's The Stand. He is the founder and publisher of the specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense, Cemetery Dance. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA's Board of Trustees award. Chizmar's work has been translated into more than fifteen languages throughout the world, and he has appeared at numerous conferences as a writing instructor, speaker, panelist, and guest of honor. Follow him on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky: @RichardChizmar, or visit his website at RichardChizmar.com. "Michael Crouch and Jonathan Todd Ross narrate an atmospheric horror story that draws upon the power of grief. In 1983, three college students set out on a road trip to film a documentary on the varied roadside memorials dotting America's roadsides. What starts out as an adventure morphs slowly and painfully into terror. Crouch and Ross alternate narrating, and both maintain an ear-catching level of suspense. As the students notice a recurring mysterious symbol, Crouch and Ross inject the narration with a balance of gravitas and earnestness. While the three characters are likable, they have challenging moments, and Crouch and Ross imbue them with appropriate drama. Their narration complements the characters' terror as they encounter a supernatural force in the Appalachian wilderness."
