The Devil’s Road Chapter 2: Unmasking the Shadows on Oklahoma’s Deadly Highways
As the body count rises, each new clue inches us closer to the truth behind a highway serial killer. Join the ride—new chapters released daily leading up to Halloween’s dark revelation.
The road winds deeper, Faithful Rambler. Today we press on with Chapter 2 of The Devil’s Road, where blood still stains the asphalt and our elusive Driver remains a shadow in the distance. For those just joining, there’s a trail of death stretching behind us, and with each chapter, we draw closer to uncovering the truth buried in the dust.
With each passing day, you’ll receive the next installment, unraveling the mystery piece by piece. So buckle up, stay wary of desolate truck stops, and remember to share this gothic tale of highways haunted by both the living and the dead.
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.
Chapter 2: An Oklahoma Triptych
issue one — ghosts on the phone
When she was little, Samantha Hart’s grandmother would have told her that the uneasy feeling in her gut was due to someone walking over her grave. If that’s so, they’ve been tap dancing there for some time now. Sam, her preferred name, leans against the trunk of her cruiser, looking out over the tall grass of the Oklahoma prairie as it dances in the early morning sun. Her cellphone rings.
She pulls a bulky Nokia brick from her pocket and glances down at the green screen. If it were official, it would have come to her pager first. The screen shows the caller as “Sequoyah County Morgue.” She thumbs the answer button and hears a male voice on the other side immediately begin, “Samantha, please—” She hangs up. Not an official call.
She clicks through a couple of screens and finds her recorded voicemail. Imagine that, carrying around an answering machine in your pocket. She scrolls to the bottom to find the oldest recording from a few months prior: “Mary Hart 12/28/98.”
“Sammie, Sammie, double whammy! Was hoping you might watch the girls.” There’s shuffling in the background. “Aaaand, I’m emptying the diaper genie you got me for Christmas before you come. I know you’ll be super disappointed to miss out on the diaper rope. ‘Your request is not unlike your lower intestine: stinky and loaded with danger!’” Sam lets a smile break the hard mold of her face. She’s always had a soft spot for Ace Ventura.
“Jesus, these two can fill this thing up fast,” Mary’s sister continues. There’s a long silence on the recording, then: “I know you’re going to give me a lecture when I get home tonight. Maybe this time you can—”
The recording cuts short as the phone rings again, same number as before. She denies the call and slides the phone back into the pocket of her khakis. The pressure is building in the back of her throat. She can feel it creep forward and rest behind her eyes, no matter how hard she tries to suppress it. She swallows a couple of large gulps of air, trying to hold her composure, but one tear sneaks through.
The phone rings again.
Sam tosses the phone into the front seat of her Sequoyah County Sheriff’s cruiser. She takes a pair of binoculars and a notepad off the dash. It’s time to get to work.
The cruiser sits off the road a piece, looking down on Highway 64, which runs east and west from the Four Corners to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It also runs the full length of Oklahoma and is a prime shipping lane for long-haul truckers and those looking for a reprise from Interstate 40.
Across the highway from Sam’s vantage point sits the Old 64 Truck Stop. It’s an ancient building that’s been expanded upon so many times it’s hard to tell where the old ends and the new begins. It’s not the kind of place you pull over for a cold drink or to use the bathroom. No, this is a trucker’s lot with sleeping bays, showers, diesel fuel, and a fair share of prostitutes, even this early in the morning.
Sam has her glass trained on the trailer park in the field behind the station. A dozen units in various states of decay sit in the overgrown prairie grass. Ruts in the tall grass lead from each door to a central gathering spot—a rusted-out grill and a couple of K-rails serve as a “picnic” area.
She hones in on one trailer as the front screen door swings open. Heather Jean gently steps out of the trailer, down the cement staircase, and onto the gravel in her bare feet. She’s wearing a pair of cut-off blue jeans and a baggy Green Day t-shirt. She rummages through her pockets, tossing a wrapper and lint into the wind until she finds what she’s looking for.
She sits down on the steps and opens up a pack of Marlboro Reds with a look of pure joy on her face. It quickly sours when she realizes the pack is empty. She crumples and tosses it into the wind. Sam’s not certain, but she’s pretty sure a couple of m’fers flew from Heather’s mouth as she tossed the empty pack into the trash-filled tall grass.
Sam looks at the watch on her wrist and notes the time on her pad. The time log is long; she’s been at this awhile.
When she picks the binoculars back up to her face, Heather is halfway to the truck stop. She turns the glass back to the trailer, where the screen door swings open in the breeze. A blue two-door coupe sits in the drive, but Sam can’t make out the plates from here. That’s new. She makes a note.
Static erupts on the radio hanging from the dash of her cruiser. Through the static, one of Sam’s fellow officers’ shaky voices breaks through, “Uh … got a ten fifty-four out here on Okie sixty-four, over.” Samantha opens the door and climbs into her office. She rolls the dial between her fingers, turning up the volume.
“Anybody got that? That’s a possible dead body on Okie sixty-four near the forty-four ninety.” Samantha picks up the handset. “Bandy? Lieutenant Hart here. Can you confirm your location, over?”
Bandy’s voice deepens a bit. “Is this Officer Hart, over?”
Sam rolls her eyes at the attempt. “Yes, Bandy. Location, over?”
“Okie six-four near four-four-nine-oh, over.”
“Copy, Bandy. On my way, out.” She quickly hangs the handset back in the cradle and grabs her binoculars and pad from the hood. She steals one last look through the glass back toward the truck stop. Heather’s disappeared behind a host of parked semi-trucks. She looks back to the trailer and the screen door is closed. She missed whoever was spending the night.
Sam tosses the binoculars and pad into the passenger seat, slams the door, and turns the key in the ignition. She’s just about to drop the transmission into drive when she feels something hard under her butt. She leans back and fishes out her cell phone from underneath. She butt-dialed the number that was calling earlier and they answered.
The voice on the other end is sobbing. She lifts the phone to listen. “Please, Samantha. Please, you mustn’t tell a soul. It will end me.” The sobbing continues. Her finger hovers over the red button to end the call, but she changes her mind.
Sam speaks into the receiver, “Bite me, you insufferable prick,” and hangs up the phone.
issue two — breakfast of champions
You never want to see them. They're meant as a warning, a harbinger—not of things to come, but of things that have already been. Red and blue police lights pulse across the face of Samantha Hart, who sits in her sheriff’s cruiser. But those lights aren’t hers. Reflected from the rearview mirror, they flash across her face. A moment ago, she was alone on this ridgeline overlooking the Old 64 Truck Stop. But now?
She hears the sound of water dripping. The shocks on the driver’s side release a light squeal as something in the backseat increases in mass. Samantha stiffens. The something slides from one side of the car to the other. A shadow forms in her peripheral vision, reflected in the rearview mirror. She’s not alone, at least not for the moment. She doesn’t want to, but she looks up into that mirror and sees her.
Sitting in the backseat is Mary Hart, Sam’s little sister. Her wet hair hangs in front of her face, water dripping from the ends, running down her bruised, pale skin to the leather of the backseat. Mary’s body is bathed in the flashing police lights, turning red to blue, blue to red. People always said she had such beautiful hair. She was always brushing it away and tucking it behind her ears. It was easier to see her pretty face that way.
Sam pulls the seatbelt across her lap and buckles it, trying to ignore the visitor in her car. She puts her hand on the shifter. She was going somewhere important, but it seems to have slipped away. She watches Heather run down the hill towards the Old 64 Truck Stop through the windshield. That wasn’t it.
She looks back at her sister in the rearview. Turning around would be a mistake—one she’s made before and won’t repeat. Mary’s still there, her skin glistening, a needle protruding from the crook of her arm.
Static erupts on the radio, making Sam jump. She flips off the speaker. The shocks groan again as the something in the backseat leaves. She doesn’t have to look up; she knows Mary is gone.
Now, what was she about to… “Bandy,” she whispers to no one. She jams the gas. The cruiser’s back wheels spin in the loose gravel on the side of the road, and she pulls out onto Highway 64, heading towards 4490. Sam glances in the side mirror to see Heather walking through the truck stop’s parking lot. Likely a missed opportunity. She flips on her police lights and siren to warn those ahead of her that she’s on her way.
Heather is walking past a line of 18-wheelers when Sam’s siren starts to wail. She spins in the direction of the sound with a quickness known only to those used to running from the law. Not for her.
“Ready to clock in, little darlin’?” A wire-thin trucker leans out of his window from above, eyeing Heather with ill intentions. She tosses him a false smile. “Not before breakfast, big fella.” He lets out a mucus-laden laugh as he pulls a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. There’s never a shortage of customers.
Inside the truck stop, Darlene stands behind the counter. A Virginia Slim rests between her tar-stained teeth. She takes a sip from a can of warm Diet Dr. Pepper as Heather comes through the front door with a ding from an unseen sensor. Heather slides up to the counter and leans over to try to see the monitor hidden below.
“Mind if I get a shower?” Heather asks.
Darlene squats below the counter to take a look. The monitor shows security camera footage from inside the shower room. The flabby wet body of a man slams against the backside of an equally large woman, and a small red “REC” flashes in the corner of the black-and-white image.
“Might be another minute or two,” Darlene says.
Heather walks down the candy aisle, grabs the last pack of Little Debbie cupcakes, and slides them under her shirt. Darlene pretends not to notice.
Next, she hits the coffee station, where ancient spills have forever stained the linoleum countertop a color that could just as easily be confused for blood as for coffee. She starts with the cardboard tube of sugar, upending it into a Styrofoam cup. It’s an excessive amount of sugar. She pours the coffee and stirs it with her finger, takes a sip, and pours a little more sugar in before she’s satisfied with the taste.
Three crumpled singles come out of her cutoff shorts, and she puts them on the counter in front of Darlene, looking up at the cigarette rack overhead. “Pack of Reds, too.”
Darlene grabs the smokes and the cash. “You keep stealing those cupcakes, Big Jim’s gonna notice,” she says.
“Yeah? How you figure?” Heather asks.
“Nobody eats that shit except you, and you never pay for ’em.” The VCR recorder under the counter clicks as it finds the end of the tape.
“Shit,” Darlene swears as she leans over and quickly hits the eject button. She pulls open a drawer full of blanks, shoves a new one into the machine, hits record, and checks the monitor. “Missed a bit, but I’ll still catch the good part,” she says with a crooked smile.
Heather tosses another fifty cents on the counter. “That’s for the shower, not the snacks,” and walks back outside.
Moses Blackrock holds a steady fifty-five miles per hour in his government-issued, beaten-up black sedan. He kneads the steering wheel with his large, worn hands, occasionally sparing a glance at the blue duffel bag that sits in the passenger seat. His low and tight flat top, white button-up, and black tie are a dead giveaway, but for the uninitiated, he’s an F.B.I. agent.
He turns the dial on the air conditioner, but it’s already maxed. He adjusts the vents, but sweat is already forming under his arms. He’ll need a new shirt before noon.
You wouldn’t think it could induce fear in a fellow law enforcement officer, but when you’re also a drug mule, red and blue lights activate that almond-shaped bundle of nerves in the brain, sending fear signals to all the hairs on the body—but most unfortunately to the sweat glands under the arms. Sam’s cruiser approaches in the distance.
Moses eases his foot off the accelerator and coasts to a stop on the shoulder of the road. He kills the engine, leans his seat back far enough to make the car look abandoned, and grabs the duffel bag, holding it against his chest. He can hear the sirens now. Time to wait.
Sam’s cruiser flies past Moses’s black sedan without so much as a brake pump. Once they’re clear, he raises his seat, turns the car back on, and restarts the air conditioning.
A small notebook in his breast pocket comes out. The pen hovers over the notebook as Moses considers the depth of his message. Once he’s satisfied, he touches the tip to the paper and writes, “LAST ONE. FUCK YOU!” and drops the note in the bag. Inside is a pile of clear ziplock bags filled with blue-ish white crystals.
He zips the duffel and tosses it in the backseat. Through the rear glass, he watches as Samantha’s cruiser disappears along the horizon, its siren fading much faster than it arrived. Thankfully, that one wasn’t for him, but he knows eventually there’s going to be one coming his direction. Everybody gets caught.
issue three — the drop
A soft surface and a cool breeze are necessities on a hot day driving through the plains of Oklahoma. If you’re lucky, these are provided by the plush fabric seat of your car and an air conditioner blowing a cool breeze over your skin. Heather, unfortunately, has to settle for a small patch of grass that’s pushed through the asphalt next to a dinged-up parking bollard for a backrest, and a muggy warm breeze coming from the west that’s destined to turn into a supercell nightmare. But that’s a story for another time.
The plastic wrap on her Little Debbie cupcakes crackles as she delicately pulls her breakfast from its cradle. They don’t taste as good when the frosting’s messed up. Her eyes close as she takes her first bite and chews. Chocolate in the morning is good. Chocolate surrounding that creamy center? That’s heaven.
A black sedan pulls into the lot. Moses sits behind the wheel, the duffel bag still in his lap. He turns off the car and scans the parking lot. It’s empty, except for Heather sitting on the ground, licking cream filling off her fingers. He feels an itch he’d like to scratch, but that would be breaking one of his rules. Number four: never socialize on a drop. Get the job done and leave. Of all the processes required to get the drugs into the hands of the addicts, the exchange is the most likely spot to catch a bullet. He reaches under the steering column and pulls out a snub-nose .38 Special. He doesn’t check the cylinder. He knows it’s loaded.
Heather tosses the cupcake wrapper in the direction of a trash bin, but the wind picks it up and carries it away. She does the same with the cellophane from the pack of Reds. Her hands pat and dig through her pockets for a lighter. She looks up when she hears Moses’s car door slam shut.
“Hey, handsome. Got a light?” Heather adds a coy smile, an unbreakable habit. Moses walks right past without acknowledging her. Rules are rules.
He walks around the side of the building. There are two metal doors in the cinderblock wall—men’s and women’s restrooms, though you’d only know that if you squint at the faded letters “M” and “W” that fell off long ago. Moses slides a key into the door marked with the faded “M.” He’s what you might call a regular.
Inside the men’s room, Moses flips on the overhead fluorescents. As far as roadside bathrooms go, this one is actually scrubbed clean. Darlene’s name is scratched across the service log hanging on the back of the door, and she’s already been in for the day.
He lifts the top off the toilet tank and places it over the lid. Then he squats down, turns off the water, and flushes the toilet. Once the water has completely drained, he pulls out a screwdriver and removes the nut from the valve that controls the water. Finally, he drops the duffel bag into the moist toilet tank and replaces the lid.
Halfway done. He slides the screw and lever onto the small metal ledge of the sconce over the bathroom mirror. He flips off the light and grabs the handle to leave, but just stands there for a moment in the darkness, contemplating. His hand’s still squeezing the doorknob. It creaks as his grip hardens.
The light comes back on, the lid comes off the toilet, and he pulls the bag back out. It drips on his clothes, further soiling his shirt. He muffles a “Goddammit” for no one in particular.
Moses sits on the toilet’s closed lid and opens the duffel, hunting around for the note he dropped in it. He fishes it out and stares at it, trying to make a decision. His face turns square as the muscles tighten in his jaw. He crumples the note and tosses it on the floor. The duffel goes back into the toilet.
Heather is leaning against the black sedan when Moses comes back outside. “That was pretty damn rude, mister,” she says.
“Don’t lean on that,” he tells her.
Heather stays put.
“I said, don’t lean on my car, lady,” Moses repeats, reaching inside his jacket pocket, fully aware that this will flash the gun he has holstered underneath. When she sees the gun, Heather quickly regains her feet and steps away from the vehicle.
Moses tosses a pack of matches at Heather, who snatches them out of the air. She reads the label out loud: “Lone Wolf Casino & Hotel. You don’t look like the playing type.”
Darlene bangs on the window from inside the truck stop. She cups her hands around her mouth and leans against the glass to make sure Heather hears, “They’re done fuckin’ if you wanna get clean.”
Heather backs towards the truck stop, keeping an eye on Moses. “Looks like you could use a bath more than me,” she says, pointing to the wet stains under his arms and in his lap from the toilet.
“Yeah, had an issue with the water in there. It’s outta commission till they get it fixed. If you wanna tell her,” he says.
He watches as Heather goes inside. It was her turn to ignore him, I guess. Moses gets back in his sedan and starts the car. He fiddles with the knob on the air conditioning again, but it’s already maxed out, blowing with everything a government-issued black POS can offer. He loosens his tie and unbuttons his top button, looking for a little more relief, but the sweat continues to bead on his forehead. Sometimes it’s not the heat that makes you sweat, but something deep inside that’s trying to seep out into the light.
Whatever it is, Moses is not much of an introspective man. He wipes his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He puts the car in reverse and pulls back out onto the highway, heading back in the direction he came.
issue four — blowin’ in the wind
Wind whipping across an open plain can gain a ferocity only rivaled by the rage found under the roaring storm clouds of a hurricane at sea. It can also whip the hair of a Sequoyah County sheriff into a hell of a knot. Now, admittedly, Bandy Williamson’s locks were a little over regulation length, and his Chief reminded him of that fact about three months ago. He still hasn’t gotten a haircut. Mrs. Williamson says it’s just a phase, but Bandy likes the way it feels.
Sitting atop a slight hill on a rusty metal chair with torn vinyl cushions is the body of a woman. She has long red hair that whips in the wind as ferociously as Bandy’s own. Her pale skin glows white against the dead, yellow grass, and her vibrant red hair makes her look more doll-like than human.
Bandy’s long, thin fingers run through his straw-colored hair. He checks his watch, paces along his beaten path beside the road, and generally kicks sand—doing everything he can to avoid turning around and looking at the dead body. He’s seen about all he can stand today.
Bandy relaxes a bit as he hears a siren in the distance. Samantha Hart’s cruiser wavers in the humidity, growing sharper as it comes into focus. Bandy checks his belt and hat to make sure everything’s in place.
Sam’s car pulls in next to Bandy’s, and she cuts the siren. She knows the scene the moment she arrives. It’s become familiar—a word no one wants to utter… murder. She sees the patterns. Sam steps out, surveying the terrain. The tall prairie grass has been tamped down into two paths: one light, the walk to the body, and one dark, the walk back to the road. The body is female, the hair red. It’s him again, she’s certain.
“Hey there, Lieutenant,” Bandy blurts out with a little wave.
“Bandy.” She nods in his direction.
“I gotta tell ya. I ain’t been up there yet,” he admits.
Sam is startled. “You mean to tell me you haven’t confirmed that it’s a—”
He cuts her off, “Now Sam, ain’t no way I’m going up there alone. You kiddin’ me? I mean, you ever even seen a dead body before? They’re hard and stiff, and if she’s in any condition like she looks from here… and she’s real? No sir-ee. That ain’t for me.”
Sam tosses her keys at Bandy’s chest, hard. “Bandy, shut up and get the camera and evidence bag outta my trunk, would ya?”
Bandy takes the keys and walks dutifully to the trunk as Sam refocuses on the task at hand. Something catches her eye in the grass between the body at the top of the hill and where she stands. It’s rustling in the wind, but it’s not grass. It sounds silkier. She walks wide of the path to her left, the one out.
Ahead, she sees a white plastic bag. It could have been tossed from the path. It could also be trash from the road. She’s careful as she approaches, looking for depressions in the terrain. She crouches, pulling a pen from her breast pocket. The sack isn’t touching the ground but rests like a hammock among the prairie grass.
Sam sticks the pen into the opening and pulls back the plastic to see what’s inside. Blue rags with spotty dark stains. It could be blood. It could also be a lot of other things.
Bandy talks to himself as he unlocks the trunk of Sam’s cruiser. “Why the hell did you have to tell her you ain’t been up there yet, you doofus?”
When the trunk springs open, Bandy sees a small camera case next to a cardboard box. He slings the camera bag over his shoulder and glances up the hill to see Samantha poking around through a plastic bag in the grass. He lifts the lid of the box labeled “Lot Lizards” in black ink. Inside is a stack of manila folders. He picks up the first one.
Inside the folder, on the inside cover, is a picture of a little girl. She’s maybe sixteen. Her eyes are taped shut. Bandy flips through the file, mainly to cover the photo. It’s not something he ever wants to see again. He finds a handwritten report from the officer who found her. The summary sentence gives him chills: “It is visibly apparent that the victim, a minor, was raped and tortured, possibly post-mortem, and likely died of blunt force trauma to the head.”
He closes the file and gently puts it back in the box, replacing the lid. His hand hovers on top of the box for a moment. Sometimes it’s better to never have looked.
Samantha sees Bandy standing at her trunk with the camera slung over his shoulder. “Hey, what the hell?” she yells back at him.
Bandy slams the trunk shut and trots towards Sam, bringing her the camera.
“Stop!” She hollers at him. “Don’t you see the tracks?” She waves him off to the side, to follow in her path.
Bandy hands over the camera bag. “Sorry, I’ve never actually had to work a scene before.”
Samantha doesn’t have time for pity. “Yeah, well, fuckin’ man up, Bandy. This is the job, and if you stick around long enough, you’ll get used to it.” She pulls out the camera and hands the case back to Bandy. He takes it with a shaky hand. Sam snaps several photos of the bag in the grass.
“Gimme a card?” Sam says.
“Huh?” Bandy’s confused.
“Did you bring the evidence bag?” she asks.
Bandy turns and runs back to Sam’s cruiser. Samantha knows what she’s about to encounter will be difficult, and his not being around might be a better plan anyway. She continues to blaze a path up the hill and wide of the body, snapping photos as she approaches. The wind has picked up, really started to blow. This would be a godsend on most days in the heat, but at a crime scene, it’s causing issues.
The plastic bag launches into the air and flies away into the forever. Sam watches it go, cursing Bandy under her breath for not being there to support her. She also notices that the hair on the body is coming loose. It’s a wig. She quickly moves up the hill, seeing the wig come loose in the whipping wind.
Sam reaches out and snatches the wig from the air as it sweeps loose from the scalp of the body. The hair from the wig flutters on her face, leaving red streaks of blood on one cheek. She continues up the hill, wide around the body, snapping photos as she moves.
When she sees it, she knows it’s him. Whoever he is. This is new, but it’s an iteration, not a new creation. The face on Sandy’s body has been removed and sewn back on to resemble a mask.
Sam focuses the camera on the detail of the sewing work and takes a picture.
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REFER 10 FRIENDS: Score 6 months free, along with a signed, mailed copy of The Devil’s Road pilot screenplay—your own piece of the story, right in your hands.With Halloween just around the corner, I couldn’t think of a better time to bring you, my Faithful Rambler, to the end of Part 1 of The Devil’s Road. Now six chapters in, I want to offer a refresher for any New Witnesses to the trail of bloodshed left behind by our enigmatic Driver. His identity remains a mystery—for now—but Part 2 may finally bring the truth to light.