If I had a dollar for every time I died...
Well, I'd have exactly one.
But once is enough.
Hey there. Welcome.
Name's Mclainvic Roberts—and in case you're wondering, yeah. I'm dead.
No, not the "I faked my death and ran away" kind of dead. The cold, stiff, toes-tagged-in-a-morgue kind.
Am I thrilled about it? Not particularly.
But if being six feet under means I don't have to see that godforsaken neighborhood again, I'll take the dirt nap with a smile.
Before we dive into how I ended up dead (and trust me, it's a hell of a story), let me take you back. To a place called Whitehorse, My hometown.
Born there, I lived there till I was ten, then the foster system took me for a ride. Twice.
We'll get into those details later.
Whitehorse... That's where it all began.
Whitehorse used to be peaceful, A sleepy speck on the map. Back in the '90s, you'd be lucky to hear a dog bark past 9 p.m. Crime? Unheard of Death? Maybe a couple a year—old age mostly. Heart attacks, the occasional tractor accident.
Then came the early 2000s, ten dead, Two Weeks, Let that sink in!
How does a town that buries maybe three people a year suddenly lose fifteen in a weekend?
Serial killer? A curse? Or maybe... death just tends to follow me around.
According to research, killing more than three people gets you the "serial killer" badge. Well, someone in WhiteHorse decided to earn their stripes in a single night. A whole family wiped out. No survivors.
WhiteHorse wasn't big—population 300 on a good day. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone else's business and then some. There were three main families running things:
The Whitehouse – the namesake clan. Seven of them. William and Vivian, plus their five kids: Wayne, Thomas, Kingsley, Ruth, and Johnson.
The Greens – Reen, his wife Monalisa, and their son Brian.
The Roberts – My family. Dad (Robert Sr.), Mom (Kenny), and yours truly.
These families weren't just neighbors—they were the town. Every major decision passed through their dinner tables before it ever reached the sheriff's office. And speaking of sheriffs? They were handpicked from within. Democracy didn't live in WhiteHorse.
Now here's where things get... complicated.
Vivian Whitehouse wasn't just the local beauty queen turned aging model. She was a problem.
A woman with a reputation—and not the good kind.
She had lovers. Lots of them. But they had a habit of disappearing. Quietly. Permanently.
After three of them vanished without a trace, she clung to William and settled down. Or so everyone thought.
Until the early 2010s, when she got bored.
And set her sights on my father.
My dad—Robert Sr.—was a mountain of a man. Six feet of silence and scars.
Vivian? Even at 40, she could turn heads. Slim, elegant, and with eyes that looked like they could see through your soul... and dig your grave right after.
When she offered herself, my father didn't say no, he should have.
Their affair was the first domino, and when it toppled, so did lives. One by one.
WhiteHorse was no longer a town. It was a crime scene.
And I, Mclainvic Roberts, was stuck in the middle of it—before I could escape the past that haunted I... and the people who were killed to keep their secrets buried.
Now, I know what you're thinking—How does an affair lead to a murder spree? Trust me, I've asked myself that question a thousand times. But in WhiteHorse, nothing is ever what it seems.
The first body that dropped was Mr. Green.
Yeah, that Green—Reen Green. He was found face-down in the river with his throat slit so clean; you'd think it was a surgical demonstration. The official report said suicide, but everyone knew Reen wouldn't even use a butter knife on himself, let alone a razor-sharp hunting blade.
Two days later, Monalisa Green went missing. Just vanished. No note, no struggle, nothing but her favorite necklace left in the Roberts' backyard. The same necklace my mom swore she borrowed weeks earlier.
Coincidence? Maybe. But in WhiteHorse, coincidences were just lazy lies.
At this point, the town was on edge. You know the kind of tension that hangs in the air like heavy fog? You can't see it, but you feel it choking you slowly. That's what it was like walking down Main Street. Everyone locked their doors, whispering behind curtains, the Sheriff drinking more than usual—which, by the way, was saying something.
And then… the worst happened.
My father.
Robert Snr. The man who could lift a haystack like it was a broom. He didn't show up for work one morning. Mom said he'd gone out early to meet someone. Guess who? Vivian.
They found him near the edge of the woods. Gunshot wound to the head. Execution style. No sign of struggle. No fingerprints. No weapon. Just one thing left behind.
A red ribbon.
Vivian's red ribbon.
There's something about ribbons, isn't there? You can tie them around a gift. A wrist. A secret. But if you don't cut them off in time, they become nooses.
After my father's death, the town called it grief. The way Mom stopped speaking. The way she stared at the trees like they were whispering things only she could hear.
But it wasn't grief, not the way people meant it, it was something… heavier. Hungrier.
She didn't cry. She didn't scream, she just asked for a shovel, and then, two days later, she was gone.
No note. No signs of struggle. No blood. Not even her toothbrush was missing. It was like she'd stepped into the woods and dissolved.
They held a funeral anyway, my Aunt moved in to watch over me, Closed casket. Vivian gave a eulogy that used the word "tragic" four times but never once said my mother's name.
A few weeks later, the ribbon reappeared. Not Vivian's this time.
It was tied to the gate behind the Roberts's house, same bow, and same color.
But I knew the difference, because this one smelled like her.
Lavender. And copper.
I didn't tell anyone about the second ribbon, not the Sheriff. Not Vivian. Not even myself, really.
I just untied it, folded it twice, and stuffed it into the back of my sock drawer. Left it there like a buried thought. But it never stopped bleeding red through the rest of my childhood.
That week, people stopped making eye contact.