Small-Town Secrets Ignite Deadly Revenge

Every morning before the northern hills of Darrin County sent up a first light, Delma Hargrove found her traditional position over at Mae’s Café, set her purse to one side, and sipped the house coffee in reverent quiet. Her entry had the same effect and resounding echo as the bell of a church. Soon enough, anther patron would join her at 7:15 & by 8:00 she will have shared big chunks of e town gossip over their morning brew.

Delma stirred her finger vaguely towards the window, “Watch her.” “Mara Langston. Such as it hadn’t been revealed now. That girl—taking a step to woman-hood—ran away with most of her mother’s savings, disappearing without a word.

Directly beside her, Luanne Crane concurred, hardly moving her lips. She stirred the tea, perhaps the movement would calm the tingles searing in her stomach. She whispered and Delma repeated, “I heard she was pregnant”. “She ran to Illinois to terminate the pregnancy,” Delma said. Didn’t even tell nobody. Her struggling mama was about to disintegrate over it.

Delma was well into her sixties, not shy about her fame, had lived her days in Darrin. Dressed in suits that complimented her brooches, which looked like flowers and birds. Smudges of eye shadow, sharp lines of foundation, outlined her face, which was fleshed-out in her self-appointed role as Darrin’s standard-bearer for right conduct. Her well-furnished a ranch with four white columns stood tall on Windell Hill, overlooking the entire town. She observed the town’s people from her post on highest looking hill of Windell Hill and as her role, she would be Darrin’s moral custodian.

The chrome-trimmed diner was their territory at Mae’s Café, where residents ate biscuits, drank coffee, and traded tales of whatever they’d heard camouflaged in gospel song. The bell that suspended from the house door rang and Delma, with a familiar feeling of distaste, did a brief glance. Tall, shoulders slumped by a history, Callum Price came in with his late father’s work jacket over shoulders.

“Here he comes,” Delma growled, ominously. “He dares show his face.”

Callum nodded politely to the waitress and found a stool at the counter.

“You remember what his daddy did?” Delma said. “Summer of ’86. Real dry that year. Arlo Price burned down Wilton’s Feed Store. Woman and child died inside. Some say the woman was his mistress. The kid—” she leaned in closer to Luanne, “—might’ve been his. The fire took ‘em both.”

Luanne stirred again. “I heard he confessed,” she offered cautiously.

“Confessed?” Delma scoffed. “What man confesses to something like that if it wasn’t cooked up in his own drunken guilt? I saw him there, Luanne. I saw Arlo with a red gas can behind the building an hour before the fire. Told the sheriff myself.”

Callum shifted on his stool, as if he’d heard something. Delma turned her face, feigning innocence.

“They should’ve thrown away the key,” she muttered. “But prison handled it for them, didn’t it? Some inmate beat him half to death, finished the job. And good riddance, I say.”

Callum stood, placed a few bills on the counter, and walked out without a word.

“He's Arlo’s oldest,” Delma said. “Of the five kids Missy had with that man. All scattered now but him. Don’t know why he stayed.”

Outside, Callum walked slowly past the diner window. For a second, Delma swore he looked right at her, and something inside her chilled.

⸻

1986

The heat that August felt like a punishment. Crops wilted, dogs panted on porches, and the air was thick with dust and tension. Wilton’s Feed Store was one of the oldest buildings in town—wooden, creaky, and dry as kindling. It had survived three generations, but not the fourth.

Inside, Evelyn Bower, six months out of an unhappy marriage, browsed the downstairs bins for fencing staples. Her four-year-old daughter, Tessa, trailed behind, carrying a toy rabbit with a matted ear.

“Morning, Evie,” said Tom Wilton, polishing the register. “Hot one today.”

“Sure is. Think my bones are sweating,” she replied, gripping Tessa’s hand.

She moved down to the basement where spare parts and old hardware were shelved in long, narrow aisles. The overhead lights buzzed, one flickering slightly. Evelyn noticed the flicker and made a mental note to tell Tom.

Then came the pop. Sharp, metallic. Then another.

She froze. The air shifted. A burnt, acrid smell curled down the stairs. Smoke.

“Tessa?” Evelyn’s voice cracked. Her daughter had been behind her seconds ago. “Tessa, sweetheart?”

A cough answered from the far aisle. Evelyn rushed toward the sound just as the first flames dropped through the floorboards above, their greedy fingers licking the old walls. She tried to shout but choked. The smoke thickened. Her eyes streamed. Her body screamed for air.

Outside, neighbors gathered to watch the roof cave in, helpless.

Someone cried out, “Evie and her little girl—weren’t they inside?”

But it was too late. The store collapsed, a hiss of timbers and lives.

Delma & Arlo

Delma had been near the scene, tending her window boxes two doors down. When she saw the smoke, she ran. But as the flames rose, so did the stories.

“Josie,” Delma whispered to her neighbor, “I saw Arlo Price behind the feed store just before it lit up. Had a gas can with him. Walked off like nothing happened. Lord help me, I think he started it.”

“Why would he do that?” Josie asked, eyes wide.

Delma leaned in. “That child wasn’t Evelyn’s ex-husband’s. It was Arlo’s. I seen ‘em talking too close too many times. Fire was his way of burying shame.”

By nightfall, the rumor was gospel.

The sheriff knocked on Arlo’s door at sundown. He was in the yard, spraying water over his sons with a garden hose, their laughter echoing down the block.

“Hands where I can see ‘em,” the deputy shouted.

“What’s going on?” Arlo asked, stunned.

“You’re under arrest for the arson of Wilton’s Feed Store and the deaths of Evelyn and Tessa Bower.”

He was handcuffed in front of his family.

Arlo Price never made it to the end of his ten-year sentence. Another inmate—later identified as Evelyn’s cousin—cornered him during laundry duty. Arlo didn’t fight back. He just said, “Tell them I didn’t do it,” before collapsing. He bled out in the corridor.

Missy Price packed up the house and left with her younger children. Only Callum stayed behind.

The Present

The day after Callum walked into Mae’s, Delma returned home just after ten. Her front door was ajar. That was her first warning.

She called the sheriff’s office. They sent someone out, but nothing appeared stolen. No signs of forced entry. Just a broken photograph on her mantle—her portrait from the church fundraiser, shattered but standing upright.

Later that day, she called a locksmith.

“You sure you didn’t leave the door open?” the young man asked, screwing in the new deadbolt.

“I never leave anything open,” Delma said. “And someone’s been in my house.”

She glanced up the staircase. A dull thud echoed from the wall above. She jolted. “Did you hear that?”

The locksmith paused. “Probably squirrels in the attic. This time of year—”

“Squirrels don’t whistle,” she said, suddenly pale. “And they don’t knock twice.”

That night, after triple-checking every lock, Delma brewed chamomile tea. As she stirred the honey, the kitchen lights flickered. Then, a faint sound—whistling. A child’s tune. Slow. Familiar.

She turned off the burner. Listened.

Then: thump. Thump. From the kitchen wall.

She backed away, heart pounding. The room dimmed. Smoke began to curl from the electrical outlet near the phone. The scent of gasoline invaded the room.

She reached for the landline. Dead.

The whistling grew louder, then stopped.

In the silence that followed, she heard humming.

The lights blew out one by one.

Delma fell to her knees, coughing. The smoke was dense, oily. She tried crawling toward the front door but her limbs gave out. From the shadows, the drywall split open.

A boot appeared. Then another.

He stepped out of the wall like a spirit born from flame. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Gas mask on. Green work shirt. Callused hands. Beard. And eyes—eyes she recognized. His name stitched into the shirt: Callum.

He knelt beside her.

“My daddy says hi, Ms. Delma,” he said, voice muffled. “Course, he ain’t around to say it himself. Guess that’s your doing.”

Delma wheezed, tried to speak, but only coughed.

“You told a lie,” Callum whispered. “And everyone believed you. Because you always made sure they did.”

He leaned closer.

“I used to think if I stayed here, I could prove something. Clear his name. But folks don’t change their minds. So I stopped trying.”

Delma’s breath rattled in her chest. Her eyes fluttered.

“I ain’t a cruel man,” Callum said. “But I think the past has a right to be heard.”

He stood. The wall behind him ignited.

As he walked away, two small explosions shook the house. One in the basement, one upstairs. Within minutes, the whole place was ablaze.

From their porches, townsfolk watched the smoke spiral into the sky.

The Morning After

Mae’s Café buzzed with whispers before sunrise. Gracie Niles sat alone at the usual booth.

A woman from across the counter leaned over. “You hear about Delma’s place?”

Gracie nodded slowly. “I heard she thought someone was after her. Maybe she was right.”

The woman frowned. “Awful. Who’d want to hurt her?”

Gracie took a long sip of her coffee.

“Well,” she said softly, “she liked to talk. About other people. About things she didn’t fully understand.”

She set her cup down, looking out the window toward Windell Hill, where only smoke remained.

“Sometimes,” she murmured, “the past don’t stay buried. Especially when you’re the one who lit the match.”

Callum Price was never seen in Darrin again.