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Rot. What a screwed-up name for a dog. But that’s what the locals in the bike shop had called him.

Don’t go west of the split, one of the young cyclists had said. Two miles that way and you’re gonna ride right into Rot.

Evan had not been back to West Virginia in almost twenty years which, he’d guessed, was longer than either of the cyclists had been alive.

That beast’ll eat your heels before you can climb the hill past his house.

Rot is a canine embodiment of fear, guilt, and spiritual resistance. The dog is not just a monster—it is an avatar of judgment, blocking passage until Evan confronts his buried past.

  • Post-Covid Psychological Trauma

A Coupla' Cool Cars

A Coupla’ Cool Cars is a ghost story set during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s more than just a spooky tale. It follows Evan, a middle-aged man recovering from the virus, who travels back to rural West Virginia after inheriting his grandmother’s estate. While out biking, he experiences strange events—ghostly sightings, mysterious cars, and a creepy house with a vicious dog—and begins to wonder whether what he’s seeing is real or just in his head.

The novella uses a haunting, almost dreamlike approach to tell a very human story. Beneath the ghosts and mysterious cars lies something deeply familiar: the fear of being too late to make things right, and the hope that it’s not.

A Coupla' Cool Cars

Listen to the Beginning

Peter Galarneau Jr.’s A Coupla’ Cool Cars is a surreal novella that merges ghost story conventions with post-pandemic psychological trauma to explore themes of memory, identity, and intergenerational reckoning.

Set in the Appalachian hills during the time of Covid-19, the story follows a cyclist’s liminal journey through both landscape and consciousness, ultimately delivering a haunting meditation on grief, guilt, and the blurred thresholds between life and death.

At its heart, this story is about memory, guilt, and the need for answers. Evan is trying to come to terms with how he left his family behind, especially his grandmother. The phrase “to know” comes up over and over, because he’s desperate to understand what’s happening and what’s real.

The story also taps into the isolation and confusion people felt during COVID, especially when they were sick or separated from loved ones. Evan’s illness is a big part of the story—it warps time, blurs dreams with reality, and turns a simple bike ride into a spiritual journey.

There are a lot of weird moments—like two women in flashy sports cars named Laces and Chains, who seem to know Evan’s past. They’re like spirit guides, nudging him toward the truth. There’s also a creepy dog named Rot, and a haunted-looking place called Comfort House, where everything comes to a head.

None of this is random. The characters, cars, even the dog are full of symbols. The dog, Rot, could represent death or fear. The two women? They might be guardian angels or messengers from the afterlife. Even their air fresheners have deep meanings, decorated with symbols about healing and death. The story uses all these odd details to explore the idea of what it means to face your past—and your future.

The story doesn’t follow a straight line. It jumps between Evan’s thoughts, memories, and visions. That makes it a bit trippy—but it also puts you inside his head. You feel his confusion, fear, and hope. This structure matches what it feels like to be sick, especially with a virus that messes with your body and mind.

Evan isn’t your typical hero. He’s unsure of himself, weighed down by regret, and struggling to make sense of his life. But that makes him feel human. He’s flawed but relatable. The story is really about his emotional journey, not just the ghostly thrills.

This story isn’t just one thing. It’s part ghost story, part spiritual quest, and part psychological drama. It even has touches of Southern Gothic and dream-like surrealism. The writing is full of description—you can smell the mountain air and feel the road under Evan’s tires. And while the story gets weird, it’s always grounded in emotion.

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