Richard Laymon

Lacey is a reporter for the local paper in her small home town of Oasis, Arizona. A series of events sees her sexually assaulted and held hostage by an invisible assailant who seems to be someone from her past. Lacey makes an ingenious escape and skips town to hide out in a resort hotel.

Richard Laymon’s debut novel. Single-mom Donna flees town with her daughter Sandy after her ex-husband Roy makes parole. A car accident strands Donna and Sandy in Malcasa Point, a small northern California town whose claim to fame is an aging mansion known as Beast House.

Richard Laymon’s commercial debut. Published in the November 1970 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, this flash-fiction style story concerns an unnamed young man hitchhiking along a desert road. An unnamed young woman picks him up. To discuss more, I must spoil the story.

The sound of breaking glass wakes Goldie. It’s dark. She hears footsteps in the hall. Heavy breathing. Someone’s in the house.

Brad Conroy is a secret agent coming off a botched assignment in New York City. His mission now is to deliver a black case in San Francisco. It’s his second chance. He knows there won’t be a third. But en route to meeting his contact, Brad spies a woman in trouble on the side of the road.

At the Santa Monica pier, Doreen rides alone on the merry-go-round until a handsome young man named Ron takes an interest. Despite her warnings that anyone who gets close to her ends up dead, Ron persists, convincing her to let him win her a stuffed animal at the carnival games. As he tries, she flees and hides beneath the pier. There, a vagrant assaults her. Ron comes to her rescue—only to reveal that the attacker is the least of his problems.

In a small California town, the Haunted Palace cinema specializes in horror films. Between showings of The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they play exclusive shorts featuring madman Otto Schreck. But unbeknownst to the audience, the horrific murders in these grainy films are real.

Early morning darkness. Colleen sits stranded in her car. Three hours have produced three cars. None have stopped. But the fourth does. A young man with fashionable clothes and booze on his breath. Won’t she let him give her a ride?

Two families go camping in the California mountains. They cross paths with a backwoods witch and her murderous son. They kill the son and escape but not before the old woman puts a curse on them. The families return home, eager to put the horrific trip behind them, but strange things start happening. Small things at first. One slips in the shower. Another gets cramps in both legs while swimming in the pool. But soon, the coincidences begin to pile up. People end up in the hospital. Or worse. Soon, the remaining unharmed members travel back to the mountains to deal with the witch and remove the curse.

Two collegiate girls stop at a roadside diner in a small town in the California wilderness. Across the street at the town’s lone motel, Lander Dills pulls in with his wife, their collegiate daughter and her boyfriend. All six soon discover the town’s dark secret when they’re abducted and ferried out to the wilderness as tribute to the Krulls, a clan of cannibalistic forest denizens.