Chapter 1: The Beads in the Well

I read somewhere online—can’t remember where, probably a late-night rabbit hole—that if a body sinks to the bottom of a 300-foot well and stays intact, there’s a tiny chance—like one in a thousand—it turns into something called corpse wax, a waxy fat that preserves it. But if there’s even a small cut, after five years it rots away, leaving just bones. And to haul those bones up, you’d need a remote-controlled robot. Wild, right? I remember pausing, thinking, Who even comes up with this stuff?

I remember reading that article late one night, hunched over my laptop at the kitchen table. The screen’s glow made the shadows in the kitchen seem even creepier. I shivered, even though I knew it was just a dumb article. Still, it was the kind of useless, morbid trivia that gets stuck in your brain—something you’d blurt out at a party and get side-eyed for. I couldn’t help picturing it, though: peering down into a well, cold stone walls slick with condensation, wondering what secrets might be waiting at the bottom. My skin prickled at the thought.

In the end, there wasn’t another option. We had to use the robot.

There was something almost surreal about it—a bunch of adults standing around a hole in the ground, eyes glued to a monitor while a machine with pincers and floodlights disappeared into the darkness. Sure, it was high-tech, but honestly, it felt like we were pretending to be explorers in some Indiana Jones movie. Only with more paperwork and a knot of dread twisting in my stomach. The sheriff kept glancing at his watch, probably wishing he was anywhere else.

But the first thing the robot brought up wasn’t bones. It was a battered old water dipper, with a string of wooden beads inside.

The dipper clattered against the lip of the well, splashing mud on my shoes. I leaned in closer, heart pounding. No way. Those couldn’t be… The beads looked dull and worn, but I recognized them instantly. The memory hit so hard my hands started to shake.

That string of beads was mine.

I could still remember threading them together, one by one, at my grandma’s house. I’d thought I’d lost them years ago. Never imagined they’d turn up here—tangled up in something so much bigger and darker than I’d ever understood as a kid. My mouth went dry. I wanted to grab them, but my feet wouldn’t move.

But now, those beads belonged to a body in the well.

That realization felt like a punch to the gut. Something that had been mine, a piece of my childhood, was now tied to someone else’s tragedy. I stared at the beads, trying to remember the last time I’d seen them, and wondered how they’d ended up here. It was twisted. Like a thread from my own life had been knotted into someone else’s nightmare.

Gary “One-Leg” Quinn was finally executed years later, but that fall was the year they caught him.

I remember the headlines in the local paper: "Small-Town Trafficker Faces Justice." Folks in town barely talked about it, but you could feel the tension at the diner—the way conversations stopped whenever his name came up. The leaves were turning, the air sharp with the smell of burning wood, and for a while, it felt like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for something to change.

When the police asked him one last time if he had anything to say to his family or if there was anyone he wanted to see, Gary just stared at the wall, like nothing mattered. He stayed silent for a long while before finally saying, “Nothing. I don’t want to see anyone.”

The officers shifted in their chairs. Nobody knew whether to push him or just let the silence stretch. Gary just stared at the floor, jaw clenched. The room felt heavy, like the air itself was bracing for what was coming next.

“Not even your mother?”

“No.”

His voice was flat, final. The kind of answer that doesn’t leave room for questions. You could tell he was done. No more words, not for anyone.

In my head, the shots rang out—a nightmare coiling around me, tight and poisonous.

I jolted awake in my bed that night. Sweat-soaked. Shaking. The echo of those shots still ringing in my ears. I’d never actually heard those shots, but my mind filled in the blanks. It painted the moment in vivid, awful detail. I lay there, heart pounding, trying to convince myself it was over. But the fear clung to me, cold and tight, refusing to let go.