A group of students encounter a supernatural terror while on a road trip through Appalachia in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the “unforgettable and scary” (Harlan Coben) Chasing the Boogeyman.
1983: Three students from a small college embark on a week-long 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?
Don't just take our word for it...
“Scary and hard to put down. You might be advised not to read it at night.”
– Stephen King
“Chizmar wows in an immersive and über-creepy novel that pays subtle homage to horror classics ranging from the works of H.P. Lovecraft to The Blair Witch Project…gradually ratchets up a palpable feeling of unease through an accumulation of small unsettling moments…Chizmar pulls no punches on the way to a thoroughly satisfying finale…It’s a tour de force.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“You’ll never view a country roadside in the same way once you’ve finished Memorials. Chizmar knows where both stories of terror and stories of the heart lurk—and best of all, he understands that they’re found in the same places. Buckle up for a haunting ride.”
– Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of An Honest Man
Taste the very first page
Later, when the trip went bad, I would remember the bleeding man on the bicycle and wonder if he was a sign of things to come.
The van—a Volkswagen Westfalia pop-top camper that, from the moment I first laid eyes on it, reminded me of the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo—belonged to Melody’s sister.
Tamara Wise was six years older than Melody and more of a mother figure than a sibling. She’d bought the van used from an old stoner who manned the ticket booth at a drive-in movie theater in Richmond, Virginia, where Tamara worked as a secretary in a real estate office. It was the first vehicle she’d ever owned and she was very proud of it. Once she managed to accumulate enough vacation days, she and her boyfriend planned to hit the road and explore the coastline of New England, something she’d dreamed about doing ever since she was little.
After a lengthy and at times rocky negotiation, Tamara agreed to rent the van to us for the princely sum of $300. I’d bitched and moaned about unfair price gouging, but after Troy pointed out how much money we’d be saving by not having to pay for nightly hotel rooms, the numbers didn’t look so bad. In the end, we each agreed to chip in a hundred bucks and share the cost of gas.
To add insult to injury, Tamara’s rental agreement came with a hand- written list of rules and regulations:
No smoking cigarettes or weed inside the van (Tamara was, of course, allergic);
No eating food of any kind inside the van (can you see me rolling my eyes?);
The van must be returned within seven days with the exterior washed and the interior vacuumed (reasonable enough)…
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