The Year That Never Came

A road appears on the map only after midnight, and only for those who know where to look. Rebecca Holloway isn't looking for anything unusual the night she sees it - a thin, pale line stretching past the edge of town, gone by sunrise, back again the following night, always a little longer than before. Curiosity turns to obsession, and obsession turns to a single decision: she follows it.
The road leads her to a town that shouldn't exist. The streets are familiar in a way that unsettles more than it comforts - storefronts with faded signs, houses with lit windows and no shadows moving behind the curtains, a town square with a clock that has no hands. The people there are kind, welcoming even, but something is wrong beneath the surface. No one can say what year it is. No one remembers arriving. No one seems to age, or leave.
Rebecca meets Cole Donovan, a man who claims to have found the road decades ago - or perhaps only days ago, he can no longer tell. And Nathan Graves, who warns her not to ask too many questions, because the town listens, and the town does not like being reminded that time has stopped.
As Rebecca searches for a way back, she begins to understand that the road did not lead her here by accident. Something in this town has been waiting for a new arrival, and every person who has ever walked its streets was once exactly where she is now: certain they could leave whenever they wanted.
The Year That Never Came is a slow-burn horror novel about memory, time, and the terrifying comfort of forgetting - where the real danger isn't getting lost, but no longer wanting to be found.

Connor Hayes CH is a horror and paranormal fiction author drawn to stories about the places between reality and nightmare - forgotten towns, impossible roads, and the quiet terror of losing track of time itself.