top of page
  • Kris Ashton

Nearly time to hit the highway


Several years ago I went on a road trip and began to reflect on the crosses that dotted the highway, marking the precise spot where someone died behind the wheel. Later that week, back in the office, I mentioned these memorials to my boss. Why would a parent want to commemorate the site of their child’s fatal idiocy, I wondered with contempt. What rational reason could they have for advertising it to the world?

“It’s not rational,” said my boss.

A while later, I decided there was probably a good horror story in all those crosses and wreaths on the highway, perhaps a ghost tale in the vein of ‘Blue Diamond Pool’, but I could not come up with a worthwhile plot.

Then, in late 2017, I was driving along a busy road when I saw a man who was muscular, had no shirt, and was waiting to cross the road with a bunch of flowers in hand. It was such a bizarre image that my gaze lingered longer than it should have and my car’s forward-collision alert began to shriek. The braking technology hit the anchors half a second faster than I could have and probably saved me from ploughing into the back of a truck that had stopped unexpectedly.

I consider myself a safe and competent driver for the most part, but that day I was chastened to the point of mortification. The conversation with my boss echoed back down to me, and I realised a person did not necessarily have to be a fool to lose his or her life in a motor vehicle accident. When I viewed those crosses from a humbler perspective, the story began to materialise in my mind.

‘Highway Memorials’ is an unusually literary story for me*. That, and its implied supernatural element, made it a perfect candidate for The Fiction Desk’s 2018 Ghost Story Competition. It duly won third prize and eligibility to appear in the anthology And Nothing Remains, on sale August 24.

* Even if it is my second story featuring urinary distress – the other being the much pulpier ‘The Midway Hotel’. When you go on as many road trips as I do, I guess such concerns worm their way into your subconscious.

27 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
  • Facebook Classic
  • Twitter Classic

This site has moved. CLICK HERE

bottom of page