The Legend of Stovepipe

The highway has teeth. And it knows your name.Deputy Sue McKenzie has patrolled Highway 9 through the Mojave Desert for seven years without incident. But on a cold November night, everything changes. A massive digital billboard appears where none existed before—and it’s showing her personalized advertisements. Ads about her ex-husband’s missing dog. Her rejected job applications. Her deepest, most private secrets.When a trucker vanishes near the mysterious structure, Sue investigates and discovers something impossible: the billboard is alive. Behind its glowing display lurks the Stovepipe Man, a skeletal predator that’s been hunting the lonely highways for centuries, evolving with each generation of technology. What began as a roadside scarecrow has become a sophisticated apex predator that uses electromagnetic signals to manipulate minds and lure victims to their doom.But the creature makes a fatal mistake—it infects Sue to study her, implanting organic circuitry throughout her brain. The infection should kill her in days. Instead, Sue becomes something unprecedented: a human-Stovepipe hybrid who can sense the creatures’ network, track their locations, and potentially destroy them all.As Sue races against her own transformation, she uncovers a horrifying truth: the Stovepipe Man isn’t alone. Seventeen nests span the American Southwest, all connected through an electromagnetic network. They’re breeding. Evolving. Preparing for a harvest that could consume millions.With a team of scientists, soldiers, and survivors, Sue wages a desperate war against an enemy that can read thoughts, project illusions, and never truly dies. But victory requires the ultimate sacrifice—and Sue must decide whether saving humanity is worth losing her own.Part creature-feature horror, part techno-thriller, part heartbreaking character study, “The Legend of Stovepipe” asks: What would you sacrifice to protect strangers you’ll never meet?Your next road trip will never feel the same.