With over sixty books to his credit, including the trucking horror classic Lot Lizards, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Live Girls, and The Loveliest Dead,Ray Garton is indeed a Grand Master of Horror, the award given to him at the 2006 World Horror Convention.He has also written thrillers such as Sex and Violence in Hollywoodand Murder Was My Alibi,movie and TV novelizations for shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayerand A Nightmare on Elm Street, several short story collections, and a series of young adult novels under the pseudonym Joseph Locke. He and his wife live in Northern California.

Ray Garton

SPENCE HAD ALWAYS FOUND that passing through the long stretches of nothingness in Nevada was much easier to handle at night. His schedules did not always permit him that luxury, of course, but that, whenever possible, was his preference. During the day, the desert was nothing but empty space stretching in every direction, interrupted only by some hills and the occasional rocky butte, all beneath a sky that went on forever. He’d never liked driving his rig through Nevada during the day for that reason. The night concealed all that emptiness under a blanket of darkness. Now, it hardly seemed to matter because his whole life had become one long drive through an empty desert.

He saw no other lights on the road ahead or behind him and hadn’t passed another vehicle in at least twenty minutes, maybe longer. He turned on the radio and made his way up and down the AM dial twice. On such a clear night in the desert, he picked up radio stations from all over the country, but there was nothing to choose fro