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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

Sparrow Hill Road 2010
By
Seanan McGuire

Let me tell you about Rose Marshall...

Where do urban legends really come from?  Everyone knows the one about the girl who asks for a ride home; the one who turns out to have been dead all along.  But where did she come from?  Who was she?  And how did she die?

Meet Rose, the girl who crashed and burned on Sparrow Hill Road in 1945.  She was sixteen years old, pretty as a picture, and in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A midnight drive turned into a fight for her life?a fight that she lost.  Her story could have ended that night, but a well-timed ride set her on another path.She's been running down the ghostroads ever since.  A lot of people have said a lot of things about her; she's been called everything from angel to devil, from ghost story to myth to something more.  They whisper her name everywhere from Michigan to Maine, from Wyoming to Washington...but no one knows what really happened that long-ago night at the top of Sparrow Hill.

Not until now.

Welcome to the midnight America, the one that exists parallel to the "real" world.  It's a dark country, one where men with hooks haunt Lover's Lane and scarecrows walk on moonlit nights.  It's the place where people go when they slip into the cracks between light and darkness, a world of routewitches and oracles, demons and ambulomancers.  It's the place where a man named Bobby Cross sold his soul to live forever...and where one pretty little dead girl is racing to save her soul and stop the killings that began on Sparrow Hill Road.  The rules are different here, and everyone's playing for keeps.  Be careful.  Be cautious.  And listen to the urban legends, because they may be the only things that can save you from the man who waits at the crossroads, hunting souls to keep himself alive.

Welcome to the ghostside.

01 - Good Girls Go to Heaven - Everyone on the road knows the story of the Girl in the Diner, but how many know the truth behind it?  One man, Larry Vibber, is about to learn exactly how the story goes as he rides with Rose Marshall down the midnight road that runs between the layers of America.

02 - Dead Man's Party - When a dead man takes a diner full of living people hostage, it's going to take a miracle to get any of them out alive...a miracle, or someone who doesn't need to be afraid of dying.  Enter Rose Marshall, who was looking for a cup of coffee, and found herself a heap of trouble.

03 - Tell Laura I Love Her - When Rose helped a racer named Tommy find his way to the ghostroads, she never expected to have his girlfriend come seeking vengeance.  Caught in a trap she can't break out of and accused of a crime she didn't commit, is there a way for Rose to escape the punishment ahead of her?

04 - Building a Mystery - Still reeling from her brush with an amateur exorcist, Rose Marshall has finally admitted that it's time to stop messing around and get back on the trail of the most dangerous foe she's ever faced: the man who put her in the grave in the first place.  Can the routewitches steer her right, or will the Atlantic Highway claim her as its own?

05 - El Viento del Diablo - An accident pulls Rose into the path of Bobby Cross, the man who killed her.  She's not ready to face him...but with the soul of an innocent man at stake, she may not have a choice.

06 - Last Dance with Mary Jane - It's a rainy night at the Last Dance Diner, and Rose Marshall has no choice but to tell a ghost story--the only ghost story that she knows.  The story that begins in the summer of 1945, in Buckley Township, Michigan, and ends on Sparrow Hill Road...

07 - Do You Want to Dance - For Rose Marshall, prom nights are holy nights, and observing them takes precedence over everything...even her own existence.  Back in Buckley Township and confronted by strangers who could be either friend or foe, will she make it to the night's last dance?

08 - Dead Man's Curve - What started as an amusing evening has the potential to turn deadly for everyone involved as Rose Marshall finds herself caught up with a group of ghost-hunters stalking a very familiar urban legend...her own.

09 - Last Train - On the ghostroads your word is sometimes the only currency you have. A promise comes due for Rose Marshall and it is a promise that she must keep even though it brings her face to face with the niece who once tried to sacrifice her to Bobby Cross.

10 - Bad Moon Rising - It's Halloween night, and the dead are walking the earth.  Walking...and running for their lives.  Halloween brings with it a deadly game, one that Rose must survive.  Because if she doesn't, it could end her afterlife forever...

11 - Faithfully - True love never really dies.  As a man she once new lies dying, Rose Marshall must ask herself how much love really endures...and is there really such a thing as "forever" on the ghostroads?

12 - Thunder Road - When her oldest friend in the twilight is taken hostage by Bobby Cross, Rose Marshall must bet everything she has.  It's a race across the midnight side of America, winner takes all.  Has Rose learned enough to face him?  And will it matter if she hasn't?

Image by Rory Clark, Stopped Motion Photography, Copyright 2010