Mary Christmas

Snow fell thick and quiet, the kind that makes a town believe it has been spared. Deacon Falls wrapped itself in lights and carols and small lies, pretending Christmas was a shield. Then the bodies started turning up. One by one. Familiar faces. Old smiles. People who had all graduated together and never really left high school behind.

The police saw a pattern before they saw a motive. What they missed was a name. Mary Christmas. The girl they laughed at. The girl they broke. The girl who learned that silence keeps receipts.

As the murders grow more brutal and the past starts bleeding into the present, Deacon Falls is forced to confront what it buried decades ago. This is not a story about a monster born evil. It is a story about one that was made, patiently, year by year, until all that was left was the knife and the memory of laughter.

Some towns decorate for Christmas. Others survive it.