Note One
The first warning - calm, deliberate, and easy to dismiss as part of a game. It tells anyone who finds it to turn back while they still can.
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A novel by James E. Hamelton Jr.
A quiet Midwestern backroad. A forgotten line of old wetlands. Six friends searching for a simple geocache - and a warning someone left behind that was never meant to be ignored.
In the woods beyond a fading stretch of Connable Road, the land holds on to what people try to forget. When a group of friends follows a trail of coordinates deeper than the map intends, they uncover a series of notes that suggest someone else came here before them - and never made it out.
What begins as a late afternoon search for a geocache becomes a slow slide into a place where technology fails, the air turns still, and a presence tied to the old wetlands watches from just beyond the tree line.
A warning tucked into a geocache. A second message left deeper in the woods. A final plea written by someone who never made it back to the road.
The first warning - calm, deliberate, and easy to dismiss as part of a game. It tells anyone who finds it to turn back while they still can.
A second message written by the same hand. The voice is more frantic now, hinting that something out here does not follow footprints. It follows fear.
The final note, stained and shaking on the page. It belongs to someone who went missing only days before the story begins - and whose path crosses the group in the worst possible way.
Each character brings their own history to Connable Road - old guilt, quiet grief, private anxieties.
Some voices sound too familiar to ignore.
Steady and protective, Haley is the one who tries to keep everyone grounded. Her greatest fear is losing the people she loves - and the place beyond Connable Road knows exactly how to press on that fear.
Not everything that calls for help wants to be saved.
Loud, charming, and determined to prove himself, Tyler is quick to lead the group deeper. What he does not talk about is the accident that left him carrying a weight he can not set down.
When the GPS fails, trust your instincts - not the voices.
Micah believes in logic and signal strength. As their devices start to fail and reality bends around the edges, he is forced to question his own perception.
The forest cries louder for those who listen.
Sensitive and observant, Jess notices changes before anyone else does. The woods feel wrong to her from the beginning, but she struggles to make the others listen until it is too late.
Some laughter was never meant to be heard again.
Ryan is the one who cracks jokes when things turn tense, trying to keep everyone steady. Underneath the humor is grief he has never really faced.
It watches the ones who feel alone.
Newer to the group and not entirely sure she belongs, Bri sees patterns and details the others miss.
What Lurks on Connable Road is a supernatural psychological horror novel set in rural Illinois. It follows six friends whose search for a geocache leads them beyond an old fence line and into the last remnant of a forgotten wetland - a place where something ancient has been waiting in the dark.
The book blends character-driven storytelling with atmospheric dread. Technology falters. Distances warp. Familiar voices call out from the treeline, sounding just a little too far away and just a little too wrong. The horror rises from the ways trauma and guilt linger, and from the idea that the land itself might remember more than the people who walk on it.
The story is anchored to a specific place - the bend in Connable Road where pavement brushes against old farmland and the low ground that never quite dries out. Everything that happens is shaped by this patch of land and what has been lingering there since long before anyone named it.
Key locations that shape the novel:
James E. Hamelton Jr. writes character-focused horror and speculative fiction that leans into atmosphere, emotion, and the uncanny edges of everyday life. He has a particular love for small town settings, backroads, and the tension between familiar places and the strange stories that grow out of them.
What Lurks on Connable Road continues that focus, drawing on the quiet unease of the rural Midwest and the sense that some places were never meant to be explored after dark. When he is not writing, he is usually working on new creative projects, taking photos, or gathering details that will eventually find their way onto the page.
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