Fifteen years ago, the paper mill in Hollow Creek shut down. The closure left half the town without work, and opioids quickly filled the gap. Since then, the town has slowly fallen apart.For the past eleven years, a resident has vanished without a trace on the exact same night each year. Locals call these the "Ash Night" disappearances. The county sheriff's department gave up investigating after the third year, writing the victims off as runaways or unrecorded overdoses.The pattern breaks on the twelfth anniversary when the new sheriff’s daughter goes missing. The sheriff had just moved her family from a dangerous city precinct, looking for a quiet place to raise her kids. To find her daughter, she has to reopen the eleven cold cases the town ignored. Her investigation reveals that the victims were not chosen at random. Instead, someone is systematically executing a revenge plot, forcing the town to pay for a crime the community committed and covered up fifteen years ago.
NovelToon got authorization from Arnab Parida to publish this work, the content is the author's own point of view, and does not represent the stand of NovelToon.
The Weight of Ash Comments