What if the past refuses to stay buried?

Gloam Village was supposed to be a haven—a quiet refuge for city-dwellers seeking escape and privacy. But when a shadowy figure begins tormenting several residents, paranoia spreads through the village like fog.

The faceless stranger appears in backyards, inside homes, and even on the wrong side of locked doors, always bringing a piercing ringing in the ears and an unbearable pressure in the eardrums for those he visits. Most unsettling of all, he seems to know things no stranger should. He whispers about secrets the residents of Gloam thought were safely hidden.

Afghanistan veteran Thomas Alcott is tormented by questions about the men who died under his command, while bank manager Jules Monroe is confronted about the large sum of “blood money” she embezzled and its connection to her brother’s fatal overdose. As more villagers experience sightings of the stranger, they become less certain of what is real, and of how safe Gloam truly is. What police first dismiss as mass hysteria soon escalates to a chilling investigation when human remains are discovered, only it isn’t the stranger they’re investigating—it’s the villagers themselves.

Richard Carr’s writing is magnetic, pulling readers into a claustrophobic world where the line between guilt and haunting blurs. Can a community built on privacy defend itself if survival means exposing its darkest secrets?