There are still plenty of places in Ohio where you can get off the interstate and, within twenty minutes, find yourself on a narrow country road surrounded by woods, fields, old houses, and small towns.
Those are the places I often have in mind when I write horror.
I’ve always thought that familiar, ordinary settings make some of the best settings for supernatural fiction. An abandoned castle is already creepy. So is a ruined monastery at midnight. The writer doesn’t have to do much work to convince you that something frightening might happen there.
But what about the gas station you’ve passed dozens of times? Or an old country graveyard beside a two-lane road? What about a patch of woods that looks perfectly harmless at four o’clock in the afternoon—but considerably less inviting as the sun begins to go down?
That’s the territory of “Don’t Stop for Gas in Zombie Country,” the short horror story in the video above.
The setup is deliberately simple: an ordinary trip through the Ohio countryside, an inconvenient need for gasoline, and a small rural gas station.
Then things begin to go wrong.
This is also the kind of story I’ve been exploring in my Uncanny Ohio series: macabre tales built around Ohio places, local history, forgotten corners, and the unsettling possibility that the ordinary landscape around us may contain things we don’t quite understand.
The current stories in the series include Involuntary Deeds, Family Secrets, and The Woman in Crosley Tower, and Eleven Miles of Night.
All three are available at Amazon and can also be read through Kindle Unlimited.
But for now, you don’t need a Kindle. Just watch the video above.
And the next time you’re driving through the Ohio countryside late in the day, you might want to keep an eye on the gas gauge.
-ET