“The Fallen God of Opal Bay” is a 2025 novel about a young outcast desperate to be invisible in a place that is unseen by most. It started with the two dead girls lying at the bottom of an abandoned construction project, but they weren’t the last bodies she would find. And soon, even Death itself would find her, but death is far from the most dangerous thing in Opal Bay, as she is about to find out.
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Mrs. Patel was sitting at the small pink table in the kitchen. The place was immaculate without even a dirty dish in the sink. I hadn’t seen her kitchen before, but there was a picture of dad and me on Mrs. Patel’s refrigerator – a snapshot from when I was still a kid.
Something dad must have given her.
My heart shattered as I looked from that to the scene at the table.
Mrs. Patel was sitting in one of the pink chairs her face taught, her eyes sunken, her teeth protruding. She was weeping but no tears came. Around her mouth red was smeared like sloppy lipstick. Her hair, once long, and black long after it should have grayed, had fallen out and was in clumps around her bare feet. She was wearing a slip that was covered in the same red as her mouth, but was also yellow from vomit. She was staring at the table and what lay on it. In front of her were the pulled-apart remains of Randy, or at least everything but its head, though there was something covered with a towel that sat opposite her, at the other place setting. She turned her gaze to us and began screaming. She raised her hands to her face and started clawing at herself, digging trenches in her cheeks and forehead, and bringing red streams in their wake. She stopped suddenly and started to breathe harder and harder and harder. She put a bloody hand on the table and never broke eye contact with us.
She suddenly stopped breathing altogether and sat there, wide-eyed and still.
We stood and watched her a moment before Chuck stepped around me and pulled the gun out. I put a hand on his wrist.
He shook his head.
“Let me do what needs to be done.” He said, and stepped forward, he moved so he was in front of her and looked at her, and then reached out and touched her throat with his hand.
He looked at me and shook his head.
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