‘Killer On The Road’ // ‘The Babysitter Lives’ – Stephen Graham Jones (2025 – Review)

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Stephen Graham Jones is a writer who is having one hell of a prolific 2025. First of all he released the magnificant – The Buffalo Hunter Hunter – his unique, epic, and horrific take on vampire mythology:

‘The Buffalo Hunter Hunter’ – Stephen Graham Jones (2025 – Review)

And then, this summer he’s released two further novellas – Killer On The Road and The Babysitter Lives – which have been made available as standalone books, or together in one cool duel edition.

Killer On The Road is a neat supernatural-slasher style tale about a highway haunted by the urban legend of Bucketmouth, a sadistic killer who stalks travellers on the road. Jones sets the scene with a nice suspenseful opening as a hitchhiker and a truck driver size each other up and trade stories as they travel together. The legend of Bucketmouth is told, and the reader is left to wonder which, if either of the two parties, is not to be trusted.

The story then introduces Harper, a sixteen-year-old girl who is hitchhiking on the highway after a blazing row with her single mother – her truck-driving father having never returned home from work one night some years prior. From here, Killer On The Road tells a high octane tale as she travels the seemingly never ending road with her younger sister, ex-boyfriend and a couple of friends who have all come looking for her. Whilst we learn a great deal more about Buckethead in the process … as he makes his presence known.

The story is gruesome, bloody, and once again the originality from the imagination of Stephen Graham Jones shines through, even when writing a comfort-blanket kind of tale based on a familiar trope. In Bucketmouth, Jones creates a boogeyman for the highway quite like no other we have seen or read about before. A truly horrific psychopath, but one written with a good dollop of humour as well.

Jones weaves an intriguing mystery as we strive to solve the puzzle of who, or what Bucketmouth is, and the part he may or may not play in the past of Harper and her missing father. Jones also conveys feelings of dread and paranoia as the story turns into an intriguing game of cat and mouse. Killer On The Road is paced excellently and flows perfectly from start to finish, full of action and intrigue which will keep you guessing how things are going to turn out, right until the very last page.

The Babysitter Lives moves the horror from the highway to a more traditional haunted house setting. An eerie opening paragraph is written like the intro to a movie, and Jones beautifully bleeds the past into the present as he recounts the tale of a mother drowning her daughter in the bath. The present, is babysitter Charlotte being shown around the house of what we assume was the setting for the initial tragedy we have just been given a small taste of.

Charlotte – a high-school senior – is there to look after the twin children of the Wilbanks, as the couple head out for a rare night on the town. But from the get go Jones makes the reader untrusting of everyone that Charlotte comes into contact with. Both parents, as well as the children all seem to harbouring secrets. As does the house itself. We learn that Charlotte has had a previous recent disaster in her babysitting career, and she is desperate for this job to run smoothly … but of course, it doesn’t!

In fact the evening turns into an absolute nightmare for Charlotte, who descends into a surreal fever dream reminiscent of Stephen King’s Room 1408 at times. She comes face to face with the horrors of the past that the house holds within its walls, A house which holds a power over the young twins she is in care of, and a house that ultimately wants to keep Charlotte for itself. The question being can she navigate and escape the horror before the parents come home?

In typical Jones fashion, this is a standout piece of work. He creates a twisted narrative which just keeps on pulling Charlotte deeper into a thoroughly surreal situation. Whilst he also writes a number of genuinely creepy chills. At times it reads like an episode of The Twilight Zone, a nightmarish parallel-dimensional yarn, which really grabs hold of the reader and doesn’t let go … but does it end well for Charlotte? You’ll just have to check it out to find out! KZ

Words by Mark T. Bates

Check out our series of short Horror stories:

‘The Curious Dark (Vol.1)’

‘The Curious Dark (Vol.1)’ – by Mark T. Bates