The Organization

The Devil’s Road — CHAPTER 03: AN ITCH TO BE SCRATCHED

Welcome to Issue #10 of The Devil’s Road, a serial novel following the exploits of Samantha Hart, a Sequoyah County Sheriff, full of vengeance and fury using her badge to hunt down her sister's killer as she uncovers a trail of bloodshed that coats the heartland. If you missed it, you can read last week’s Chapter 3/Issue 2: An Itch to be Scratched/Heather’s Temptation.

If you are new to the series, I recommend you check out Chapter 1 which you can read or listen to for free here:

The Devil's Road

If you are enjoying this series, please consider sharing it with others, and don’t hoard all the good tales for yourself.

And now, please enjoy Chapter 3 Issue 3 of … The Devil’s Road.

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In 2004 an Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations analyst discovered a crime pattern along the Interstate 40 corridor between Oklahoma and Mississippi. Subsequently, The Federal Bureau of Investigations (F.B.I.) started the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. They discovered over 500 bodies of women along the interstate highway system with more than 200 potential suspects, a trail of bloodshed that coats the heartland. The Devil’s Road is a serialized novel based on this horrific discovery.

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Putting your trust in the system is about as comfortable as putting your fingers in the garbage disposal without first turning off the power. The switch on the wall is in plain sight, but the fear that you will be forever maimed by this machine designed to pulverize is inescapable. Sheriff Samantha Hart can’t help but clench her jaw as she considers the fact that she must return the files of missing persons she’s kept in her trunk back over to that very same system. The one that has ignored the bodies that continue to pile up, bodies of women who have been forgotten due exclusively to the fact that they were sex workers, as if this decision (because it can rarely be deemed a choice) somehow makes them less important, less necessary, less human. Her sister wasn’t less human, and her death will not go unanswered.

Sam comes to a stop behind a couple of local black and white cruisers out of Gore, Oklahoma. Across the street from the cruisers is a brown Chevy Caprice overturned in the ditch in front of trailer that looks like it should be condemned. The officers are standing with their hands resting on their hips and revolvers looking down at a man, sitting on his butt in the grass. She kills the engine and steps out into the heat of the day.