The sky over Castle Brook wept like a grief-stricken widow, its tears lashing against weathered clapboard houses with the fury of divine judgment. Thunder rolled across the heavens like bowling balls in God's alley, each crash sending vibrations through the rotting foundations of the town's collective guilt. Lightning split the clouds, briefly illuminating a lone figure trudging down Main Street, his silhouette stark and wrong against the tempestuous backdrop, like a cardboard cutout pasted onto reality by trembling hands.


Silas Simpson's boots squelched through puddles black as oil slicks, each step deliberate as a hangman's walk to the gallows. Rain cascaded off the brim of his wide-brimmed hat – the kind undertakers favor – creating a curtain of water that traced the sharp angles of his gaunt face like tears on a skull. His eyes, two burning coals set deep in their sockets, surveyed the town with the ancient, terrible knowledge of a creature that had watched mankind's first sin and had been taking notes ever since.


The sodium lights along Main Street buzzed and flickered, their sickly orange glow creating halos in the rain that reminded those watching of the ones they'd never wear. From behind drawn curtains (all drawn tonight, yes sir, drawn tight as a dead man's lips), the good folk of Castle Brook watched his approach with the growing unease of sinners in church. There was something in his gait, in the set of those broad shoulders, that spoke of judgment. Of reckoning. Of debts coming due with interest calculated in screams.


In her kitchen on Maple Drive, Marge Holloway's hand trembled as she poured her nightly bourbon, spilling amber drops that looked like dried blood on her pristine countertop. The bottle clinked against the glass like funeral bells. How could this stranger know about the pills she'd been slipping into Harold's coffee? Those little blue ones that made his heart give out last spring, leaving her with the insurance money and the freedom to finally breathe? The bourbon didn't taste right tonight – it had a metallic tang, like copper pennies left too long in the sun.


Across town, in the rectory of St. Michael's, Pastor Edwards knelt by his bed, fervent prayers spilling from quivering lips like maggots from a wound. The rosary beads clicked through his fingers – click, click, click, like Sarah Jenkins' heels had clicked on the confessional floor that day. But no amount of Hail Marys could wash away the memory of her tearful confession – or the way he'd used that information to his advantage. The way he'd twisted her guilt into compliance, into silent visits to his office after Wednesday night service. The crucifix on his wall had turned its face to the corner, unable to bear witness any longer.


Silas paused before the town hall, its white paint peeling like dead skin, revealing the rot beneath Castle Brook's respectability. His lips curled into a smile that had never known joy, only the satisfaction of pain properly applied. Lightning strobed again, and in that electric instant, his shadow stretched impossibly long across the wet pavement, horns sprouting from his head like deadly thoughts from a murderer's mind, cloven hooves replacing his mud-caked boots. In the town square, the bronze statue of Ezekiel Brook, town founder and first sinner in a long line, began to weep tears of rust-colored water that looked uncommonly like blood.


The Rusty Nail tavern squatted at the end of Main Street like a toad waiting for flies, its neon sign buzzing and spitting in the rain. Inside, old Tom Grady's gnarled hands shook as he poured another shot, splashing cheap whiskey across the scarred bar top. He'd been the one to find those bodies, hadn't he? Twisted up like broken dolls in that ditch off Route 9, their faces frozen in expressions that haunted his dreams. He'd made the call – for the good of the town, they'd all agreed. Now, as Silas's footsteps echoed on the wooden porch outside like hammers on coffin nails, Tom knew the bill had finally come due.


Silas pushed open the tavern door, and the wind followed him in like a faithful dog, bringing with it the stench of brimstone and old graves. Conversation died faster than hope in a cancer ward, replaced by the oppressive weight of guilty consciences and the soft whimper of sins trying to stay buried.


"Evening, folks," Silas drawled, his voice like gravel over broken glass. "Thought I'd seek shelter from this... cleansing rain." His eyes swept the room like searchlights in a prison yard, lingering on each patron just long enough for their personal demons to wake up and stretch.


Mayor Richard Blackwood, huddled in his usual corner booth like a rat in its hole, felt his bowels turn to water. He'd been the maestro of that cover-up, hadn't he? Conducting the orchestra of lies, convincing the grieving families that silence was golden – or at least worth the price he'd paid them. For the good of Castle Brook, he'd said, the words tasting like ashes even then. Now, as Silas's burning eyes met his, the mayor knew there would be a reckoning. The kind that left marks on souls rather than bodies.


Outside, the storm reached a fever pitch that matched the rising panic in every guilty heart. Tree branches lashed against windows like the fingers of the dead, scratching to get in. The wind carried whispers of long-buried secrets, of lies told and lives destroyed, of sins that had festered beneath Castle Brook's pleasant surface like cancer beneath healthy skin.


Silas Simpson settled onto a barstool that creaked beneath him like a victim's final breath, his crooked smile promising retribution with interest compounded hourly. Castle Brook had thought its sins washed away by time and willful ignorance, covered up like those bodies in the ditch. But Silas – no, something wearing Silas like a cheap suit – had come to collect. And as the night wore on toward judgment, the good people of Castle Brook would learn that some debts can only be paid in blood and damned souls.


In the distance, thunder rolled one final time, like God himself turning his back on Castle Brook and whatever was about to happen there.


The night had only just begun.