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Ghoul Car: The Road Never Ends
Ghoul Car – The Road Never Ends
by Jack D. Ace
A cursed car that refuses to die. A hunger that passes from owner to owner.
Ed Gein’s infamous black 1949 Ford—the “Ghoul Car”—vanished after his arrest. Decades later, it resurfaces, pristine and waiting.
Funfair owner Bob Jenkins turns it into a macabre attraction. Young women begin to disappear.
Ordinary family man Tom Carver buys it cheap at auction. At first, the car only ignites passion. Then a voice whispers from the seats, feeding him visions of skin, tattoos, and preserved trophies—echoes of Ilse Koch’s wartime atrocities.
Tom becomes the perfect methodical, ruthless, unstoppable.
When the police finally close in, the Ford disappears from custody without a trace.
The road is endless. And the Ghoul Car is already looking for its next driver.
Extreme horror for fans of Stephen King’s Christine and the real-life nightmare of Ed Gein. Not for the faint of heart.
Content Graphic violence, sexual violence, and dismemberment.
by Jack D. Ace
A cursed car that refuses to die. A hunger that passes from owner to owner.
Ed Gein’s infamous black 1949 Ford—the “Ghoul Car”—vanished after his arrest. Decades later, it resurfaces, pristine and waiting.
Funfair owner Bob Jenkins turns it into a macabre attraction. Young women begin to disappear.
Ordinary family man Tom Carver buys it cheap at auction. At first, the car only ignites passion. Then a voice whispers from the seats, feeding him visions of skin, tattoos, and preserved trophies—echoes of Ilse Koch’s wartime atrocities.
Tom becomes the perfect methodical, ruthless, unstoppable.
When the police finally close in, the Ford disappears from custody without a trace.
The road is endless. And the Ghoul Car is already looking for its next driver.
Extreme horror for fans of Stephen King’s Christine and the real-life nightmare of Ed Gein. Not for the faint of heart.
Content Graphic violence, sexual violence, and dismemberment.
- GenresHorror
65 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 23, 2025
204 people want to read
About the author
Jack D. Ace
6 books28 followersHey there, fellow travelers of the dark… I’m Jack. Jack D. Ace.
Welcome to the stretch of road I’ve been driving down for years — the one that never quite ends, even when the headlights flicker and the radio goes static.I live in New York, the kind of city that never sleeps and sometimes never lets you forget the things that hide in plain sight. By day I’m elbow-deep in code and servers in a glass tower in Manhattan, fixing what’s broken and writing lines that keep everything running. By night… well, that’s when the real work begins.I’ve spent decades chasing the kind of stories that make your skin crawl because they feel possible. Real terrors — Ed Gein’s quiet house, objects that carry bad luck like a stain you can’t scrub off, the kind of true-crime details that stick in your head at 3 a.m. — those are the things that fuel my fiction. My debut novel Ghoul Car: The Road Never Ends came out of all those late-night talks with my friend Peter Stadlera (yeah, that Peter Stadlera — the Goodreads horror legend who’s probably influenced me more than I’ll ever admit out loud), endless research, and the stubborn belief that some curses don’t fade… they just wait.I write the stuff that’s unflinching, visceral, the kind you feel in your gut long after you close the book. And I do it because I know there are readers out there who crave exactly that — who want to stare into the shadows and not look away.So if you’re here, if you’ve picked up Ghoul Car or you’re just curious about the guy behind the wheel… thank you. Seriously. Thank you for stepping into this ride with me.I hope we’ve got a long, twisted road ahead together. Plenty of dark turns, dead ends that aren’t really dead ends, and stories that’ll keep you up wondering what’s waiting just past the next mile marker.Buckle up. The engine’s already running.— Jack D. Ace
New York, somewhere between the skyscrapers and the nightmares
Welcome to the stretch of road I’ve been driving down for years — the one that never quite ends, even when the headlights flicker and the radio goes static.I live in New York, the kind of city that never sleeps and sometimes never lets you forget the things that hide in plain sight. By day I’m elbow-deep in code and servers in a glass tower in Manhattan, fixing what’s broken and writing lines that keep everything running. By night… well, that’s when the real work begins.I’ve spent decades chasing the kind of stories that make your skin crawl because they feel possible. Real terrors — Ed Gein’s quiet house, objects that carry bad luck like a stain you can’t scrub off, the kind of true-crime details that stick in your head at 3 a.m. — those are the things that fuel my fiction. My debut novel Ghoul Car: The Road Never Ends came out of all those late-night talks with my friend Peter Stadlera (yeah, that Peter Stadlera — the Goodreads horror legend who’s probably influenced me more than I’ll ever admit out loud), endless research, and the stubborn belief that some curses don’t fade… they just wait.I write the stuff that’s unflinching, visceral, the kind you feel in your gut long after you close the book. And I do it because I know there are readers out there who crave exactly that — who want to stare into the shadows and not look away.So if you’re here, if you’ve picked up Ghoul Car or you’re just curious about the guy behind the wheel… thank you. Seriously. Thank you for stepping into this ride with me.I hope we’ve got a long, twisted road ahead together. Plenty of dark turns, dead ends that aren’t really dead ends, and stories that’ll keep you up wondering what’s waiting just past the next mile marker.Buckle up. The engine’s already running.— Jack D. Ace
New York, somewhere between the skyscrapers and the nightmares
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 28, 2025
I'm a fan of possessed cars and this story hit bullseye. Imagine an IT-professional seduced by a mysterious voice in his old 49 Ford seducing him to commit serial killings on beautiful women. The author has it all you'd love in Stephen King and Richard Laymon. Eerie atmosphere, creepy details and the perfect Peeping Tom moments created so masterly by Laymon. Don't get me wrong. This is extreme horror at its very best. The details are very detailed and disturbing. Had to read this in one session. Of course I like the Netflix show "The Monster", Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill (the Thomas Harris character) but this novella is focused on Ed Gein's car and its evil aura. I'm blown away - you want to read horror like that all the time. Of course it's fiction but the author let his imagination run really wild. Highly recommended!
January 26, 2026
More Midnight Runs Please...
GHOUL CAR: The Road Never Ends
by Jack D. Ace
4 stars. On a dark and moonless night in Plainfield, Wisconsin, Ed Gein drove his 1949 Ford sedan down a rutted road from the cemetery. He called it his Ghoul Car...
In his trunk...
He had a dead woman wrapped in a sheet. Her face reminded him of his mother...
God rest her soul...
He took the woman's body to his old Victorian farmhouse across the dirt road from the cemetery and parked the Ford next to his shed...
Inside the shed...
He laid the body on his workbench. She smelled of earth, formaldehyde, and something sweeter. He stripped and admired her reverently...
Ed looked at newspaper articles he'd clipped and tacked to the walls. The Nuremberg trials. Lampshades made from human skin...
He began stripping her skin, saving her private parts for later...
For himself...
While Ed was doing all this work, his Ford waited patiently outside in the moonlight. Alive, and hungry for more midnight runs...
The car remembered every load it had carried from the graveyard to the workbench...
After Gein was arrested and imprisoned...
The Ford became adept at finding new owners who would follow its directions, finding new victims for its infernal desires and appetites...
It's too bad this novella wasn't expanded to make a full novel, but even as is, it was a compelling and interesting take on Ed Gein, his demonic Ghoul Car being the vehicle for his infamous crimes. It was definitely worth the read.
GHOUL CAR: The Road Never Ends
by Jack D. Ace
4 stars. On a dark and moonless night in Plainfield, Wisconsin, Ed Gein drove his 1949 Ford sedan down a rutted road from the cemetery. He called it his Ghoul Car...
In his trunk...
He had a dead woman wrapped in a sheet. Her face reminded him of his mother...
God rest her soul...
He took the woman's body to his old Victorian farmhouse across the dirt road from the cemetery and parked the Ford next to his shed...
Inside the shed...
He laid the body on his workbench. She smelled of earth, formaldehyde, and something sweeter. He stripped and admired her reverently...
Ed looked at newspaper articles he'd clipped and tacked to the walls. The Nuremberg trials. Lampshades made from human skin...
He began stripping her skin, saving her private parts for later...
For himself...
While Ed was doing all this work, his Ford waited patiently outside in the moonlight. Alive, and hungry for more midnight runs...
The car remembered every load it had carried from the graveyard to the workbench...
After Gein was arrested and imprisoned...
The Ford became adept at finding new owners who would follow its directions, finding new victims for its infernal desires and appetites...
It's too bad this novella wasn't expanded to make a full novel, but even as is, it was a compelling and interesting take on Ed Gein, his demonic Ghoul Car being the vehicle for his infamous crimes. It was definitely worth the read.
January 31, 2026
Recommended to anyone who loves extreme horror. The writing is sharp and concise,
just like the tools that are vividly described in the "undressings." More by this author for me
Many thanks for the heads up, Peter!
just like the tools that are vividly described in the "undressings." More by this author for me
Many thanks for the heads up, Peter!
February 20, 2026
Congratulations to Jack D. Ace on his debut book! Welcome to the horror community! I liked the premise and it brought me back to Stephen King's Christine. Ace displayed some solid writing quality, however the content was a bit hard to follow. First off, there were a lot of formatting issues on the Kindle version, ie no separation between any paragraphs or breaks, different fonts, varied line spacing, etc. That, alone, made it very difficult to focus for me. The story was also a bit unclear. I couldn't understand how the car was influencing Tom as much as it was. There was mention of a witch early on, but this needed a lot more context. And the beginning jumped lead to lead, but then solely focused on Tom, which was also hard to follow. There was also a great dependence on sex and body horror, which became very repetitive in verbiage and actions. Now, the one other thing I'll mention is how often the author used the words nipple and breasts. It was quite a bit. Like way too much. I'm not a prude, by any means, and read all variants of horror, almost exclusively, which consist of a lot of extreme horror and splatterpunk. And I'm a huge fan of breasts. But, for me, it just felt like every single time a female character was written, the immediate focus was on that area which was overdetailed and, again, became tiresome and felt like the creativity lacked. I know that this sounded very critical, but, again, the writing skills are there. Jack D. Ace really needs to focus his approach and fine-tune the stories, keeping the flow consistent, the pertinent characters developed, and providing adequate clarity to the plot points. I look forward to seeing what else he comes up with.
January 23, 2026
DNF. I love horror.books but this one was too gory.
January 12, 2026
The Ghoul: The Road Never Ends by Ace is a fast, gripping read that nails spooky road-trip vibes from start to finish. Creepy, atmospheric, and hard to put down, it’s perfect if you want a quick scare with a lingering sense of unease.
January 2, 2026
In this short story of 65 pages that revolves around the infamous 49 ford of Ed Gein's. turning up at a auction and finding a new owner to continue its rain of horror. filled with many trigger warnings for some murder/gore/rape. [slight resemblance to something like Christine ] A fast and good read 4 star's
February 4, 2026
My actual star score is 4.5.
For a fast read, less than 100 page novella, horror story, it's pretty good.
Some of the story is based on true accounts. The lust, though reversed, is based on Ilse Koch, the sadistic wife of a concentration camp boss. Ad the other true accounts are based on Ed Gein and his 1949 black Ford car.
The new owner of a pristine 1949 Ford and his wife are off for a weekend getaway. Though Christine doesn't like the car, her husband is infatuated with it, almost as much as he is with her.
Now for my .5 star cut. The book needs alert warnings. The 1st, for the graphic sex and the 2nd, basically for the same thing except that some females might interpret 1 or 2 of the scenes as getting close to rape. Doesn't bother me, it's fiction, but some people will be offended by it.
For a fast read, less than 100 page novella, horror story, it's pretty good.
Some of the story is based on true accounts. The lust, though reversed, is based on Ilse Koch, the sadistic wife of a concentration camp boss. Ad the other true accounts are based on Ed Gein and his 1949 black Ford car.
The new owner of a pristine 1949 Ford and his wife are off for a weekend getaway. Though Christine doesn't like the car, her husband is infatuated with it, almost as much as he is with her.
Now for my .5 star cut. The book needs alert warnings. The 1st, for the graphic sex and the 2nd, basically for the same thing except that some females might interpret 1 or 2 of the scenes as getting close to rape. Doesn't bother me, it's fiction, but some people will be offended by it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 16, 2026
Thank you, Peter, for the recommendation. This was fantastic!
March 8, 2026
This was a very interesting premise and a great debut! I liked how the 1949 Ford changed hands and was patient. Just thinking about the car finding a place, settling down to wait without a single care except when the next driver is ready... Yikes. It was a great addition to have the car speak to Tom, liked the way the voice was described and how it was persuasive.
That being said, I would have liked more background about the curse and how exactly the car was able to sway Tom so heavily and quickly. We see some resistance, and that was great, but felt like there should have been a bit more.
Personal preference (and I'm not sure if this was intended) but I like it when there are either line spaces between paragraphs or at least indentations. Minor niggle that I didn't take into account for the rating especially since that isn't always up to the author.
But there were quite a few inconsistencies and repetitions throughout. For example, Tom stated and observed Catherine sleeping when he quietly dressed but then she was downstairs in the kitchen the next paragraph. Later Tom was pulling into the garage "just after three a.m." but Catherine was "still out on evening showings"...?
Sex and everything sexual was the answer to everything (even when Tom wasn't feeling well). Which, given this book's context, fair enough. However, it did get old when anytime a female entered the scene it was always about her large, bouncy breasts (etc.) and the repetition made the victims less... Real? And adding that they all have piercings. To be fair, nipple piercings? Pretty easily seen through the shirt (especially the ones that are described here!) and pretty common but also labia piercings? On all of them? Not buying it.
She moved with an unselfconscious sway that drew every male gaze in the open-plan office, though she seemed oblivious to it.
And she probably was! Not the person's fault for how others react when they're just going about their day, wearing things that they like cuz they like it! ...Also, again, this makes sense with Tom, the narrator, but always gets a rise out of me whenever I see/hear things along this line so ignore me.
The ending was great and I actually thought it made a fantastic open ending to stay as is but I'm also the type that doesn't necessarily want everything all wrapped up.
Overall, I really enjoyed this and liked the writing style. I will definitely be checking out more by this author especially since so much was packed into such a short story! Looking forward to more!
That being said, I would have liked more background about the curse and how exactly the car was able to sway Tom so heavily and quickly. We see some resistance, and that was great, but felt like there should have been a bit more.
Personal preference (and I'm not sure if this was intended) but I like it when there are either line spaces between paragraphs or at least indentations. Minor niggle that I didn't take into account for the rating especially since that isn't always up to the author.
But there were quite a few inconsistencies and repetitions throughout. For example, Tom stated and observed Catherine sleeping when he quietly dressed but then she was downstairs in the kitchen the next paragraph. Later Tom was pulling into the garage "just after three a.m." but Catherine was "still out on evening showings"...?
Sex and everything sexual was the answer to everything (even when Tom wasn't feeling well). Which, given this book's context, fair enough. However, it did get old when anytime a female entered the scene it was always about her large, bouncy breasts (etc.) and the repetition made the victims less... Real? And adding that they all have piercings. To be fair, nipple piercings? Pretty easily seen through the shirt (especially the ones that are described here!) and pretty common but also labia piercings? On all of them? Not buying it.
She moved with an unselfconscious sway that drew every male gaze in the open-plan office, though she seemed oblivious to it.
And she probably was! Not the person's fault for how others react when they're just going about their day, wearing things that they like cuz they like it! ...Also, again, this makes sense with Tom, the narrator, but always gets a rise out of me whenever I see/hear things along this line so ignore me.
The ending was great and I actually thought it made a fantastic open ending to stay as is but I'm also the type that doesn't necessarily want everything all wrapped up.
Overall, I really enjoyed this and liked the writing style. I will definitely be checking out more by this author especially since so much was packed into such a short story! Looking forward to more!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2026
Ghoul Car: The Road Never Ends (2025) by Jack D. Ace proved to be an interesting read. The premise is both original and creative in my opinion. The original 1949 Ford Sedan owned by the notorious grave robber and necrophiliac Ed Gein periodically resurfaces during the time continuum to seduce a new sycophant to carry on his atrocities. The writing is good and the pacing between the stories of the men who were seduced by Gein's siren call and owned the cursed sedan was well delineated.
This is a very short work of horror and the author's brainstorm of an idea, approach, and execution were all good from this reader's perspective. Criticisms carry less weight with me overall but I do believe that the female victims felt to me like "rinse and repeat". " Big (large, heavy, full, etc.) breasts are sort of beat to death. Shaved and waxed pubic mounds abound as well. Then it was repetitive and (to me anyway) unrealistic that all victims were sporting body modifications. I hope that is technically correct. I am referring to metal rings and other metal jewelry in some very private and tender areas. This similarity rendered all the victims generic to me which led to the kills and mutilation being overall less gory and shocking to me.
The best complement I can muster is that if the author can do this well with a canvas the size of a postage stamp, I can't wait to see his future works when he has time to grow.
TALENTED NEW WRITER ON THE HORIZON WITH A "CARLOAD" OF CURSES AND CHILLS
This is a very short work of horror and the author's brainstorm of an idea, approach, and execution were all good from this reader's perspective. Criticisms carry less weight with me overall but I do believe that the female victims felt to me like "rinse and repeat". " Big (large, heavy, full, etc.) breasts are sort of beat to death. Shaved and waxed pubic mounds abound as well. Then it was repetitive and (to me anyway) unrealistic that all victims were sporting body modifications. I hope that is technically correct. I am referring to metal rings and other metal jewelry in some very private and tender areas. This similarity rendered all the victims generic to me which led to the kills and mutilation being overall less gory and shocking to me.
The best complement I can muster is that if the author can do this well with a canvas the size of a postage stamp, I can't wait to see his future works when he has time to grow.
TALENTED NEW WRITER ON THE HORIZON WITH A "CARLOAD" OF CURSES AND CHILLS
December 28, 2025
With Ghoul Car, I wanted to throw everything into the mix that fascinates me about horror: Ed Gein, necrophilia, serial killing, road trips, a creepy old car, a dash of Jeepers Creepers, a generous dose of Christine, and the lusty, no-holds-barred style of Richard Laymon — including explicit sex and gritty details. I truly hope I succeeded. I’d love for you to enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. This, to me, is what horror should be: no frills, pedal to the metal, and unapologetically horror-fueled.
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February 19, 2026Its smell of yr skin
its music of my mystry machin
its my fav mam sound
its beuty of night
come like sound of ingener
come as dead flower cold at my bakag car
come as road never end
come to keep more secret
silint pain
its dream ford car never be more dark than usual
never be end the music of death
behind heart of car road of skin flower
its music of my mystry machin
its my fav mam sound
its beuty of night
come like sound of ingener
come as dead flower cold at my bakag car
come as road never end
come to keep more secret
silint pain
its dream ford car never be more dark than usual
never be end the music of death
behind heart of car road of skin flower
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews