please help me identify this scifi short story...

September 20, 2009 2:49 PM

please help identify this short story...I believe I would have read this in the 80's. There was a team of psychic investigators, and they are called to look into strange events (unexplained accidents?) on a section of highway. In the end it turns out that cumulative spiritual energy of roadkill animals is somehow striking back/rising up, and there is an exorcism of some sort. Then they hear about the bus full of dangerous inmates which has crashed...(implying that the aftereffects will be horrific)

I believe I read this in an anthology. The characters seemed well developed, and it had the feel of one of a series of stories. I seem to remember some backstory on how each member joined the team. I might be conflating that last part with the novels about psychic spies by Herbert Burkholz (which were very good, but no supernatural elements outside of the mind-reading). Help?

posted by maryrussell to writing & language (3 comments total)

I've read this story too. I'm pretty sure I read it in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which I subscribed to in the early-mid 1970's. You might check your library for EQMM anthologies (there are lots of them) which cover that era.
posted by barjo at 7:47 AM on September 21

Shortly after posting the above, it occurred to me that the author in question was science fiction writer Reginald Bretnor. A little searching led me to a story called, in its first publication, The Accident Epidemic, and which was later reprinted as The Beasts That Perish. You can find it in here.
posted by barjo at 8:03 AM on September 21

That is definately the story. Now that I can google the author/title, I'm pretty sure I read this in a Charles Grant anthology called "Fears". Thank you barjo!
posted by maryrussell at 10:57 AM on September 21