Published: May 30, 2011
Words: 14,941 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781452472867

Short description

The infamous Highway 74 in Southern California can be a death trap of a road. There’s even a store that sells a T-shirt with the logo: I SURVIVED THE ORTEGA HIGHWAY. Let me tell you about someone who never earned that shirt. I didn't murder him. But what happened haunts me to this day. And the kicker? This story's real.

Extended description

There’s a wooden shack of a store along California Highway 74 that sells a robin’s egg blue T-shirt with the logo: I SURVIVED THE ORTEGA HIGHWAY.

Let me tell you about someone who never earned that shirt.

I didn’t murder the person who never earned that T-shirt. It was an accident. A horrible accident. (Read more) There’s a wooden shack of a store along California Highway 74 that sells a robin’s egg blue T-shirt with the logo: I SURVIVED THE ORTEGA HIGHWAY.

Let me tell you about someone who never earned that shirt.

I didn’t murder the person who never earned that T-shirt. It was an accident. A horrible accident.

I never knew that man. I never saw his face.
I don’t know if he made his mark on the world as a serial killer or a saint. Maybe he scrounged for his meals in the dumpster behind the local Mickey D’s and sold hype on the side to junkies from Sonora to San Diego. Maybe he ran a family of four as a sitcom-worthy patriarch, a punctual, pleasant human being who’d become the head accountant at Dewey, Cheatem and Howe.

I’ll never know.

Let me tell you what I do know about him. What happened that horrible day.

***

‘A Road Painted in Scarlet’ includes preview chapters of the urban fantasy novel by Michael Angel, 'The Detective & The Unicorn', now available on Smashwords.
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Tags

short fiction, suspense, confessions, confession, short stories, short story, california, short, grief, los angeles, southern california, grief and loss, curse, car, accident, auto, confessional, car accident, accidental death, auto accident, short drama, manslaughter, accidents, suspense stories, reckless, suspense journey book, short ebook, short ebooks, car story, car short story

Available ebook reading formats

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Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page)	Buy	No sample available

Reviews

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Review by: White Sun Press on Nov. 23, 2011 :
Really great vignette about a real-life incident on the dangerous Ortega Highway in southern California. The outcome manages to shock even as the author conveys its near-inevitability...as well as its greater significance. To me, the story is more about the humanity of the narrator himself, and the combination of guilt and horror that accompanies those thoughts that arise in all of us from time to time, whether we admit it or not. The honesty of the writer and the dark humor mixed with real regret, really serves almost as a dual warning...about our mortality in those tin-can devices we tend to treat as indestructible, and how easy it is to wish ill on others we don't know, especially when they scare the pants off us. Highly recommend!
(reviewed the day of purchase)

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