There was a peculiar shopkeeper on Hampton and Westwood by the name of James Prior. Everyone in town knew him to be rather odd, but blamed his antics on his large and decaying estate. The house on Hampton was coming on its 150th year of being built and had become quite run down over the many years. There were large holes in the roofing and the paint had faded into a sickly shade of greyish yellow and chipped away in large pieces. The windows had been broken and repaired many times, eventually being fitted with large iron bars, the holes remained. It was known to be an eyesore and received many unpleasant glares, as well as rumors of the home being haunted or even holding a gate into the palace of the devil himself. James Prior paid no mind to the townspeople and continued running his shop. He never attended church or town hall meetings, which alienated himself entirely. James Prior was never known to have a friend, but his business continued on. The townspeople may have disliked James, but they still purchased from his hodge-podge shop. If one needed a saw, a bucket goats milk, or even a knit sweater, James would come upon it for a reasonable cost.

In the town there was a rather peculiar problem with their money. Nobody in town had noticed that most their bills were fake until a wealthy man from out of town named Rob came. He came in pursuit of a woman named Bellie who was his object of many a man’s adorations. The townspeople (specifically the working men) had treated him to drinks when Rob pointed out that their bills were phony and of course nobody could know better than a man with more money than could be dreamed of. The men were quite confused, and as they spread these words, the whole town fell into a fit. Who could be giving out such a cold scam? As the people traced back the money and checked every dollar they received, a common name arise. James Prior. His store was the place that everyone used, that everyone had given or received money from at some point or another, so his store would be searched overnight. Rob accompanied the men who searched, and when they checked the stacks of cash under the register, all were brand new and all were fake.

“This James Prior fella cheated the whole town out of their cash” Rob said to the men crowded inside of the storeroom “If there’s one thing that boils my blood, it’s scammers.”

The men’s words arose in a loud jumble of agreement and anger. James Prior had been disliked, sometimes almost hated, but now he was despised.

“What do we make of this?” Rob hollered angrily so all could hear “Do we teach him a lesson?”

The anger of Rob was unusual; he had not been cheated or scammed. He only seemed to feed the men more anger and more seething words of revenge. As they gathered in that storehouse, they made plans, each twice as evil as the next. It was decided by Rob that they would burn the home of James Prior and loot his store as payback for the money they were cheated out of. Many people of the town were already barely afloat with bills, how would they survive if their bills were revealed to be forged? Their only option as dictated by Rob was to burn the home and continue on with the fake money until it ran out of the town and new cash emerged.

Rob and the men gathered their spare gasoline tanks as the night continued on, wives accompanied their husbands with matchbooks and the town was filled with a red hot hatred. They would rid the town of the eyesore home and the scammer James once and for all.

The townspeople tried to remain deathly silent as gasoline was poured over the garden and onto the porch. They all hoped that James was a heavy sleeper and the flames would consume the old wood of the house quickly. As the last tank was emptied, everyone was eager to take a match and strike it, some across the book, and some across the very wood of the home. They all watched as the matches were dropped onto that gasoline and it all came into a joyous burst of screaming reds and oranges. How lovely they found the burning home to look, as the flames lapped up the rotten wood and chipped paint, higher and higher it climbed as the top windows billowed smoke. As it grew, they couldn’t distinguish the smoke in the air from the dark of the night even when they felt the ash settling in their lungs. The home burned for the entire night, some stayed to watch it collapse into the ground, and some left to loot the store and take what they could. To the town, there was no greater joy than the feeling of that ash in their lungs and the smell of smoke from the burning home. They had gotten rid of James and his awful home.

When the home was no longer there and all that remained was the ash covered ground and bare bones of the frame, a few of the townspeople looked closely at the home, and when they got closer and closer, they saw the great hole in the belly of the home. There was a chasm sinking hundreds of feet into what looked like the pit of the earth, as molten lava pooled and fire burned on the surface of the orange liquid. The hole was pondered for most of the night as they crowded around and came up with ideas of what it was, but they settled on the idea that a sinkhole had opened and went back to their homes.

 As night continued on, the townspeople all drifted off in their homes, sleeping rather well with the burden of a dead man and a home on fire. A peculiar rumbling was heard starting at the homes closest to James. Perhaps an earthquake, or aftershock from the town a few miles away. Whatever it was, it startled the townspeople as it continued to grow in strength. Over 3 hours into the early morning, the hole had grown past James property and the 4 homes in each direction were missing, sunken into that hole. Nobody was out in the streets yet for the fear that the earthquake would hit at any moment. Hours continued on as the hole doubled and tripled in size, swallowing more homes and more families as it went. Nobody was aware of the hole, and those who saw it were too late.

One day passed after the burning of James family home on Hampton, and nothing of the city remained. There were no townspeople, no shop, no homes to even prove this had once been a city. For almost 2 miles the only thing that remained was a great hole into the earth that was filled with red hot liquid and fire.