Winner of the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Fiction CollectionA collection of original dark fiction concerning itself with people, cars, and the open road.In the novella "The Ballad of Road Mama and Daddy Bliss," a man assigned community service duty with the city morgue after a DUI arrest is offered a simple deal: transport an old woman's body back to her hometown, and his record will be wiped clean. But this is no typical old woman, and -- as he soon discovers -- he is taking her to a town that is on no map. The old woman's identity, as well as the reasons behind the town's secret existence, will be revealed to him over the course of a few nightmarish hours between midnight and dawn -- the time when The Road demands its sacrifices.In "Congestion," a man who has hated cars all his life finds himself stuck in a traffic jam on a sweltering hot day...a very different type of traffic jam.In "Merge Right," a businessman on a long road trip comes to a long and lonely stretch of highway where every sign he passes orders him to MERGE RIGHT. There are no exits in sight, no other cars, no sign of civilization...and there is something very strange about the scenes appearing in his rearview mirror.Also included are "The Box Man" and a preview of Prodigal Blues.
