The Glory Bus
Richard Laymon
Publisher: Headline
ISBN: 0747267332
Copyright © 2005 Richard Laymon
This book is the story of two people:
Pamela–a newlywed suddenly kidnapped by a murdering rapist who has lusted after her since high school. The book opens with Rodney, her kidnapped driving with her cuffed to the car. His intention is to take her to his secret hideout where he will perform heinous acts of sexual depravity. Surely someone will come looking for her, right? Wrong. Rodney is not an idiot. He brought another female corpse, planted it in the house and set it alight. Pamela’s husband is also in the house. No one is coming looking for her, as we learn later that her husband was already married.
She is own her own (though she doesn’t know it) and plans her escape from Rodney and his car, shooting though a seldom used (almost abandoned) desert road. Claiming she needs to pee, Rodney stops the car and lets her do her business, but she runs off, barefoot across the baking desert sand.
Rodney takes chase. They scuffle. Pamela rips his eye out. He drops to the ground. Pamela races up a group of boulders out of reach of him. After a long time, she realizes that he hasn’t moved in a helluva long time. He must be dead. She heads down. He’s not dead.
Ready to do her in, Rodney is suddenly shot in the head. Pamela looks to her saviour. A bus driver. He offers her a ride. In the bus are a bunch of mannequin store dummies, all are dressed.
She needs to get off the bus.
The driver stops, the door opens and she bolts out into the hot sun and sand. The bus driver, Sharpe, ignores her. He starts dragging the dead body of Rodney off the bus and up a dune.
Pamela looks up and sees Sharpe has no intentions of harming her. She helps him dispose of Rodney’s body. He then takes her to the town of Pits. A small town. A house, diner, several cars, bikes, trucks, and trailers. Population 6. Unfortunately it is a town of cannibals.
Then there’s Norman, a geek, a wuss, a wimp. One day when filling his tank with gas, he goes inside to pay and finds someone sitting in the passenger seat. The passenger has read the registration and threatens to kill his family if Norman fails to give him a ride.
Fearing not only for his life, he agrees. Along the way, Duke tries to be friendly and Norman fearing death plays along. They meet a hitchhiker calling herself Boots. To Norman, she looks like a pig but Duke calls her a lady.
They head off to a beach and Norman finds the perfect time to split from them. But he can’t do it. He’s in the car, the motor’s purring but he can’t leave them. He returns back to the beach and joins in their fun.
A decision that changed his life.
Together they embark on a road trip of death, guns and sex. Norman loses his virginity to Boots after she secures a room, somehow without money. He can go all night, his lust and need to screw cannot be sated. Doing it doggy style, he sees a man crawl out from under the bed. He is wearing Boots’s bathing suit.
Boots sees him, sails through the air and lands on the man’s back. She starts chocking him but it is Norman who kills him. And it’s not the first person Norman kills. There are several others. And each killing makes Boots wet. She needs Norman more and more and he can’t stop himself.
On a desert road, their stolen car breaks down and they are forced to walk. Until a bus comes along.
They are taken to Pits and welcomed. It doesn’t take Duke long to get the idea that he, Boots and Norman should run this town. Sharpe has gone on a trip to look for more people stranded on the road. Duke, Norman and Boots have guns. Shit this is going to be easy.
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For 442 pages this book keeps you reading, keeps you turning the pages and wondering what’s going to happen next. By page 260-something I was wondering who the hell was writing this book. It wasn’t the Laymon I knew from 34 books. It started off as Laymon and then changed halfway though. I wonder was this book almost completed and Headline got a ghost writer to finish it off, or am I witnessing a V.C. Andrews thing here?
(V. C. Andrews is still writing and publishing books, although she’s been dead more than 20 years. It is where the publisher has bought the right to use your name for whatever reason. Never sign a contract that has this clause.)
All in all though, this book is a ripper of a read. Sometimes the Pamela sections are long winded and strung out but then comes Norman’s turn and the pages are catching fire at the speed they are turning.
Duke reminds me of an evil Fonz. Boots reminds me of drunken parties where anything was fine for the night. And Norman reminds me of a high school nerd pushed past breaking point and finally getting what he truly wants (sex at first) will do anything to keep it, including running down two cops. At the end of the book we meet the REAL Norman breaking free, a Norman that snarls and acts the same as Duke. A suppressed personality finally free of all its clamps. Finally free to scream at the world and take what it wants.
The style of writing changes drastically from page 260-something but not so as to take away from the story. If it was touched up by a ghost writer then that person did a hell of a job. Not bad at all. A good writer in their own right.
If Laymon did write every word of this, then the editor put his style into play. It’s weird. Read the book. You’ll enjoy the story. The technique is different to build up tension.
I could be wrong, it has been more than 5 years since I last read a Laymon book. And it was good to read another. If you enjoy Laymon books, grab this and give it a go. You’ll notice the change in style.
That’s all I have to say about the book. And it’s not a bad point either. This book, like all of Laymon’s that I own is a keeper.
