Haunted Ruby
by Duke Dunn
The last sliver of daylight settled into the hillside, dusk
had finally arrived. Ruby would end this tonight. This was her home, after all,
and nobody could take that from her.
She paced the cold tile floor, around the room and back
again. It wasn’t nerves, she reassured herself, just head clearing. Focusing.
It would end tonight, alright, the screaming and crying out
in the middle of the night. She had heard enough and could no longer abide the
horrors keeping her up at night.
As she rounded the room for what seemed like the thousandth
time, the body appeared. As it always did this time of night. Like clockwork.
Tick
And then it started moaning. As she always did this time of
night.
Tock
Moans led to howls and howls led to shrieks which led to
banshee wails and
Tick
just when it felt like she couldn’t take it anymore, she
walked over to it
Tock
put her hands around its throat
Tick
and squeezed as hard as she could.
Tock
Like a vise-grip choking the life from a wet rat.
Just then, the noises stopped and the room fell silent. The body
was lying still, face frozen in place.
Ruby glanced over and almost died from fright. A man was
suddenly standing beside her. Where did he come from? she thought. And then she
noticed it. His face. It was the same as the face of the now-lifeless body. She
had never even noticed that the demon plaguing her had been male, had never
been able to get that close to his face. But now he stood beside her, quiet as
a dormouse and looking somehow more confused than even she was feeling.
And finally, a look of understanding and complacency spread
across the man’s face. A smile began to slowly appear. His body seemed to
somehow glow, as if lit from the inside with a lifetime’s supply of
candlelight.
“Thank you,” he told her, taking her hands in his, before
burning so bright Ruby had to close her eyes.
When she opened them again he was gone.
Like he had never even been there.
Like the room had never been occupied.
Two figures in matching whites entered the room and removed
something from the bed.
“Never thought old Gillis would go,” one said as they exited
the room, completely oblivious to Ruby or her plight.
Who or what it was they were discussing Ruby never knew.
It had already slipped her mind.
Shortly after, the noise began again. Ruby glanced back at
the bed to see a screaming body being held down by two figures in white.
“Now, now, rest easy Mrs. Dowd,” one of the figures was
telling the body. “This is the final stretch. You’ll be home soon.”
The other figure bent over the body and seemed to stick
something in its arm.
“You give her enough this time?” the first figure asked the
second. “You saw what happened when you shorted Mr. Gillis.”
“Last few I had to get the dose right,” the other figure replied.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Dowd won’t be waking up anytime soon. This’ll send her off
to the other side in peace.”
The two figures removed their tools and quietly left the
room, wheeling away the body.
Ruby looked over and a woman appeared suddenly beside her.
Mrs. Dowd, she assumed.
“How kind of you to watch over us,” Mrs. Dowd told her. “It
was a great comfort knowing you’d be here to see us through to the other side.
Our own guardian angel.”
The glow began in her eyes and quickly spread through her
entire body. And just like that Mrs. Dowd was gone.
Ruby was left all alone in the room again, with only the
words of Mrs. Dowd left dancing through her mind.
The words of…someone.
What were they again? Something about another side?
She knew they were important.
Oh well…another time, she supposed.
The screams, though. She could remember the screams. And she
knew they would be starting up again soon.
But it all ended tonight.
This was her house, for as long as she could remember, and tonight
she would end the screams.
