Castoff

Acknowledgement

This was a process and I feel like I should show some appreciation to those who help along the way. Thank you to my girlfriend Courtenay, who has been supportive of me since the beginning. She was also the first one to read the story and help me with the edits. Thank you to my sisters and to my mom, who has been there since day one. Thank you to my dad and I know this has a lot of thank you but I wanted to share my gratitude to everyone. This short story took a lot longer than I had plan, but I am happy with the end results. Big thank you to Clara for editing the story, she was simply amazing with everything. You can check out Clara on Fiver claraabigail | Profile | Fiverr Also Tatsuhiko Takimoto and Osamu Dazai works both inspired me to write this story.

Prologue

Reports spiraled, and the entire town of Anthros, Texas heard about the gruesome Holmes murder.

The year was 2007, and it was a sweltering summer—typical Texas weather. Mrs. Holmes had bruises all over her face and strangulation marks around her neck, and she was also stabbed five times in the torso. Mrs. Holmes was found by her nine-year-old daughter, who had returned home from summer school. Mr. Holmes was the prime suspect but was missing from the scene.

The police searched for three days and eventually found Mr. Holmes at a bar drinking alone. He felt terrible and was apparently going to turn himself in. Mr. Holmes confessed to the murder and was sent to prison. His wife’s family took Mr. Holmes’ daughter in, and the daughter’s identity remained hidden from the public, as requested by a family member.

The locals knew who the daughter was, though. All the locals knew the secret that the town wanted to bury, and some of them wanted to put that in the past as well. Anthros was a small town that didn’t have any crimes. This murder was big, and it had rattled the community.

Some of them believed that the town would be cursed, and that the daughter was going to become the second coming of her father. A murderer, but this time it wouldn’t just stop at one victim.

There could come a time when the community of Anthros has a serial killer in their midst.

2017

It was Monday July 18. Birds chirp, and it’s like they’re fucking mocking me. Today is one of the saddest