Road Rage

by Todd Condit

This vehicular slasher tale is a mix between The Hitcher (1986) and Dexter (2006).

We've all been there. Running errands around town in stop-and-go traffic. Going to and from work on the highways. The constant in all of this seemingly mundane travel? Road rage. Sure we've all had that sudden urge to roll down the window and start yelling a curse at another driver who is tailgating us. Most of you have even stuck your middle finger up at someone. But there's always a risk to acting like this because the problem with road rage is, well, you never know who is fucking crazy.

Anthony isn't your normal everyday commuter, he's a serial killer. But with his inflated ego he believes that he is special and goes after that special person that we all despise. The one that makes our heartbeat thump when they tailgate you on the freeway, or cut you off and brake check you in a school zone. That person that thinks they're the main character and we're all just a background extra's in their movie. So Anthony looks for the worst offenders and takes serial killing to a whole different level.

But he's not going unnoticed. His calling card of a missing person and a burned out vehicle quickly garnered the attention of the police, and Anthony may find out that he's not so special after all.

Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2023

About the author

You can find me on instagram at Toddallthingshorror
Letterboxd at toddhorrorsquad

And if you like horror podcasts, check out my show The Horror Squad podcast on any podcast platform.

Reviews

[Bopeep · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love indie writers. They just feel better to me. Sure, big time stories are great as well but you also know that there are a group of people polishing those stories, making edits, correcting discrepancies, you name it. Indie stuff doesn't have that. It's 1 person just making art. So I forgive all indie writers for little mistakes. Cause really. Who gives a shit? These are usually like a dollar anyway.

I really enjoyed this story and hated the main character and rooted for him to get violently murdered. You aren't supposed to like him. So that was really well written. I really enjoyed the detectives too. The killing was very bloody and I liked the homages to other horror films.

[Bandit · Rating 1 out of 5]

With the goal of checking out some self-published genre offerings out there, I found this novella on Amazon best-selling freebies list and grabbed it mostly by cover appeal.
The cover is objectively decent. The innards, though…
Yes, the author boldly went there using iconic references to describe his work. And yes, he can write…technically, as is possesses the working understanding of storytelling basics, comprehension of pacing, etc. But the rest…what a doodoo show.
The concept here is to tell a story about a serial killer who specializes in knocking off crappy drivers. You know, road rage taken to the extreme.
The thing is, though, while the protagonist doesn’t always have to be good or moral, he always has to be interesting and compelling. This guy is just an ass. A nasty one, at that. And you spend most of the story with him, since he narrates it, pretty much stream of consciousness style.
And that might have still been okay, had the author took the time to do something as essential as basic editing here. Nothing fancy, just the basics. At least, put it through Grammarly, for crying out loud.
Yes, editing’s tough, and typos slip through, and some amount is forgivable. but this novella is an egregious offender. It uses wrong words, it can’t maintain a tense, it does horrendous things with punctuation. I don’t know how anyone can think it’s okay to put out a book in this condition. And this is exactly the sort of thing that gives self-publishing a less-then-good name. Rage, rage against this sort of thing dear reader for you deserve more.