Broken Down

Prologue

The highway is a throat, and something hungry lives in it. For years, a stretch of desolate rural road has swallowed travelers whole—their cars abandoned, their fates unknown to the world beyond. The nearest town is forty miles away. The forest presses close on both sides, a wall of impenetrable dark. And somewhere in that darkness, something moves with terrible purpose. Goulish is not a man, though it wears the shape of one twisted beyond recognition. Twelve feet of muscle and malformed flesh, it hunts with intelligence and patience, treating the highway as its domain and every lost soul as sustenance. For years it has fed on the occasional stranded driver, and it has learned well: it knows how to lure, how to trap, how to close off escape. The flickering neon sign of an abandoned diner two miles north is not a beacon of hope. It is bait. Tonight, another vehicle has failed. Another driver stands alone in the dark, phone dead, options narrowing by the minute. The thing in the forest has already noticed. It is moving closer. And as the hour grows late and midnight approaches, Goulish grows hungrier, more aggressive, more deliberate in its hunt. Escape is the only option. But escape requires a choice—and every path forward is lined with teeth.