The Emerald Rubicon

I've lived in this town my whole life.

You wouldn't believe it now but this was once a really nice place to live.

It started a few months ago when my neighbours, the Harris family, found out that their five-year old daughter Emerald had contracted brain cancer.

The news came as a shock to the entire community; especially when we all found out that it was terminal and that the doctors predicted that she only had about a year left to live.

Like in any small town, one by one the townsfolk came to pay the Harris family a visit.

Most of them came bearing baked goods or casseroles, paying lip service and spouting false prayers as they collected juicy gossip to spread as soon as they had left.

A few weeks after the horrible diagnosis, the unthinkable happened.

The stress of his daughter's cancer led twenty-eight year old Jett Harris to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger, right outside of his daughter's bedroom door.

I remember hearing the shot that night and not thinking much of it as so many people in this area have old cars that backfire loudly at all hours of the day and night.

The night was strangely quiet.

Supposedly his daughter was so poorly afflicted by her cancer that she slept right through that night although with the amount of stories that went around at that time, I wouldn't be so sure.

I'm really not quite sure what was real and what was simple gossip; all that I can say for sure is what I had seen with my own two eyes.

The police came early the next morning, by lunchtime he had been loaded into a hearse and taken away.

The whole town was shocked to see little Emerald looking as healthy as she'd ever been as they turned up to pay their respects at her father's funeral.

She was even seen running through the pews, playing with her best friend Ruby Cooper.

This was not the same deathly ill little girl; she was about as far from death's door as we were from Mumbai.

My good friend Doc Collins, the only doctor in town, told me at the funeral that he had never seen anything like it.

Scarlett was oddly calm at the funeral which seemed very off-putting, to me at least; after the funeral Scarlett became somewhat of a recluse, only speaking to Daniel Youngberry, the eighteen year old who delivered her groceries.

For weeks Emerald would lackadaisically traipse around town without a care in the world, everyone was happy that she was healthy again, all thinking of her fast recovery as some kind of divine intervention.

The papers started calling her the Angel-child of Leiphton.

Concerned about Scarlett's well-being, I called the grocer, got Daniel to deliver me a crate of produce and questioned him the moment that he got here; he told me that everyone in town had done the same, making him feel overwhelmed.

The poor lad.

After a gentle reminder that I had loaned his father some money a while back, he agreed to join me for a quick cup of coffee that morning and we ended up chatting like old ladies at a bridge game for a little over an hour.

The more he told me about our friends and neighbours, the more tight-lipped he was about Scarlett.

He told me that she was still mourning for her husband and that she seemed fairly normal, all things considered.

I don't know why he was lying to me but I did notice that he began to sweat whenever the Harris' were brought up.

The next morning they found poor Daniel dangling by his neck from a rafter in his garage.

That was when I started noticing the pattern.

Next there was my old friend from high school, Luke Barnes; his girlfriend Phoebe had made a pumpkin pie for the Harris' and had sent him over there.

The next morning he was found with his wrists slashed open in the bathtub full of blood.

After that there was the priest's daughter Ivy Walker who threw herself out of a fifth storey window; George Lewis the milkman who drove his truck into the river; Harper Bailey the high school prom queen who swallowed a live wire and burnt herself alive from the inside out, and on and on it went.

All of them entering that house exactly one day before doing themselves in.

I had to know why.

For the next week or so, I kept a tight watch on that house; barely eating, sleeping and even foregoing bathing until I found some sort of answer.

Scarlett boarded up all of her windows meaning that I could only see her front door; I first noticed that she actively turned away any guest that came near.

Her daughter on the other hand would let in anyone and everyone whilst grinning so wide that it looked almost painful.

Looking through my binoculars, I could see that the poor woman was petrified of anyone other than her daughter coming into her home.

My nightmare started when I saw old Arthur Sanderson hobble into that house; staring through the lenses of my binoculars I saw Emerald start to help him inside then when he was out of sight, she stopped, turned and gazed directly at me.

Instantly I dropped my binoculars and back-pedaled away from the window in absolute terror.

My skin mottled with goose-pimples, my hair stood up on end and I thought that my heart was about to burst from my chest.

That was not a little girl, not anymore.

I can't explain it but for a moment she turned into something else, something inhuman.

A few moments later I collected myself, figuring that I must have had a momentary lapse of insanity.

One day later, I was startled by a loud knocking at my door.

I answered it to find the elderly Arthur who asked to come inside for a chat.

The second that he came in I nervously peered out my window and saw that Emerald was sitting cross-legged on her porch, intensely staring at my house.

Her eyes were so wide; her hellish gaze burrowing deep within my soul and paralyzing me with fear.

When I could finally tear my gaze away from her eyes, I saw that Arthur had unscrewed the tip of his cane, revealing a hidden eight inch blade.

Before I could react, Arthur swiftly impaled himself through his own skull; the blade went all the way up through his chin, the tip exiting through the back of his head.

Shocked I rushed to the window and glared at a demon staring back at me where Emerald stood not one minute earlier.

This fearsome monster still sported the little girl's dress but in place of her head and limbs were constantly flowing geysers spewing forth torrents of foaming muddy water.

I don't know what drove me to do it but I firmly gripped the bladed cane, ripped it out of his skull, tearing large chunks of his face off with it, ran out of my house and sprinted over to the Harris' house where the water fiend had just skipped inside.

With a fiery rage brewing deep from within me I kicked in the Harris' front door and saw a glassy-eyed Scarlett sitting shocked in the corner pointing silently towards the kitchen as tears flowed down from her eyes.

Overtaken by a bestial force that I can not explain, I charged into the kitchen and ran that demon-child through her stomach before lifting her high into the air and letting gravity do the work to disembowel her.

This filthy hell-spawn roared in agonising pain as it clawed at the cane; gallons of brown water gushed from its lacerated abdomen.

I wiggled the cane a bit more, causing it to thrash around wildly.

Scarlett appeared behind me and told me to hold her daughter to the ground; her sudden confidence coming at just the right time.

I flipped the small demon-thing over my head, slammed it to the ground, pinned this beast to the linoleum as Scarlett ran over and emptied an entire two-pound bag of salt into her empty stomach cavity, leading the creature to freeze instantly and stop its terrible howl.

A frightened Scarlett grasped me tightly, pulling me to the opposite side of the room as smoke started to billow from the pores of this now inhuman looking monster that was lying in that same frozen pose, still impaled to the floor.

The terrified woman whispered to me that we need to get out of here quickly; I took her by the hand and ran from that house just as I saw this ghoulish being's body ignite.

Scarlett embraced me fully as soon as we got to my porch.

We were safe for a moment.

Both of us sat and watched the fire in relieved silence; completely uncaring of what future tomorrow may bring.