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It was an unusually hot day, at least in terms of Elk Grove summers. The sun dried up the more sensitive plants, heated up the asphalt to the point where it hurt to walk barefoot on, and sent most people either cowering inside or driving to the nearest swimming spot. It left the streets empty and quiet, at least more quiet than they usually were.
Ashley pictured it as a ghost town, where she sat perched on a boulder a few paces away from the road out of town that Mom and Cheryl had taken an hour ago. She imagined the townspeople having gotten abducted by extraterrestrials, like she’d seen on TV once, leaving the town to just her. And Cheryl, she supposed, once she got back. But mostly to Ashley. She’d be sort of like the mayor and the sheriff at the same time, and she could set up shop somewhere cool, like that treehouse the boys wouldn’t let her play in, or the crematorium. Cheryl could have her room, then, since she always wanted to hang out there.
A noise from behind caught her attention in the middle of her musings, and she quickly turned. She’d hoped it might be something interesting, like an animal, or someone to play with, but to her disappointment it was just some old guy. He stumbled out of the woods, looking confused, so maybe he was drunk or something. Ashley didn’t care very much - old men were rarely any fun, they just talked about stuff like the war and the economy, and didn’t like getting input.
She watched with mild curiosity as the man got closer. He kept looking around himself, but it still took him a moment to spot Ashley, and when he did he got a weird look on his face. Ashley thought that was rude, so she returned the look with a glare and turned back to the road. There was a trail of ants approaching it, and she was excited to see if they would be able to walk on it or if they’d get burnt. Thomas from school had burned ants with a magnifying glass, once, and hadn’t let Ashley try, so she supposed this was the next best thing.
“Hey, kid.”
Ashley’s brows furrowed with irritation as she turned to the old guy. He was standing right next to her boulder now, and upon closer inspection he didn’t look that drunk. Sure, he still looked confused, but he didn’t sway like drunk people usually did and his eyes were clear.
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she warned him, crossing her arms.
“Yeah, I know.” The old guy nodded. “But I really need to ask you a question.”
That was interesting. Old people didn’t usually ask Ashley questions. Or rather, they didn’t usually have questions they needed to ask her, just boring stuff like how old she was now and if there were any boys at school she liked.
“Sure,” she said, a bit tentatively.
“What year is it?”
Now that was really interesting. Ashley sat up a bit straighter.
“It’s 1967,” she responded. “Why?”
“Nothing. It’s not important.” The man didn’t sound like it wasn’t important, and he looked around himself again, his eyes seemingly catching on the sign a few paces away, welcoming any hypothetical visitors to Elk Grove. Ashley took that opportunity to look the man over again. He was dressed pretty regularly, but it looked like his right hand was weird, though that was kind of hard to see from where Ashley was sitting.
“What happened to your hand?” she asked, and the man turned back to her.
“It’s a prosthetic,” he said. “My real one got cut off.”
“How?”
“Hey, that’s pretty rude to just ask someone,” he said and Ashley huffed.
“You got to ask me a question,” she reminded him. Granted, it was a pretty different kind of question, but she had broken the promise she made Mom not to talk to strangers, so she thought it evened out in the end.
“Okay, fair,” the man agreed, then paused for a moment before continuing. “It was a chainsaw.”
“Oh, cool!” Ashley leaned forward, trying to get a better glimpse of the hand, but to her disappointment found that no scars were visible.
“No, not cool,” the man said. “How would you like to have your hand cut off?”
“Well, I wouldn’t like that. Obviously,” Ashley muttered, after some consideration. “But it’s still cool.”
Neither of them said anything for a while after that, and Ashley got back to watching those ants from before. She’d sadly missed them trying to get on the road, but it seemed like the operation had failed because now they were walking along it instead. Ashley briefly considered picking one of them up and putting it on the road to see what would happen, but figured it would be a hassle so just stayed where she was.
“What are you doing out here anyway, kid?” the man asked and Ashley took a moment to consider if she should keep talking to him. Eventually, she decided that if he were a kidnapper he would have just grabbed her already, so it was probably safe.
“Got nothing better to do.” She shrugged. “Mom grounded me and took Cheryl down to the lake. But then Pop said I was being too loud and told me to go play outside, so I’m waiting for Mom to come back and tell him to let me in again.”
The man snorted and Ashley shot him a glare.
“It’s not funny,” she said, her tone accusatory, and the man nodded.
“It’s not,” he agreed. “I just remembered I had something like that happen to me, too. When I was your age.”
“Oh.” That was kind of nice to know, actually, that Ashley’s parents weren’t the only ones who were weird like that. “What did you do?”
“Just waited,” the man said. “Turned into a hell of a fight, though. Once my mom got back.”
“Ugh.” Ashley rolled her eyes. Today hadn’t really been that bad, so far, but a fight between her parents would definitely be enough to ruin it. Not that that was out of the ordinary, exactly. They were fighting a lot more, recently, over weirder and weirder stuff. The first fight Ashley could ever remember them having had been about something she didn’t understand, she remembered, so she had assumed it had to be important. But now even the smallest thing was enough to set them off.
“Your parents fight a lot?” the man asked, like he knew what Ashley was thinking. It was a bit weird, to be honest.
“Yeah,” Ashley sighed. “I don’t mind so much, but Cheryl gets really sad.”
Ashley thought maybe her room was better soundproofed than Cheryl’s, because whenever their parents fought she’d come running and insist on sitting the fight out with Ashley. It hadn’t been that much of a bother when the fights were less frequent, but now she’d ask to come in almost every day, and wouldn’t listen when Ashley tried to explain that she was nearly grown up now and needed her own space. She’d tried to just not open the door one time, but that had ended with Cheryl standing outside her room and crying so loud she managed to drown out Mom and Pop until Ashley finally gave up and let her in.
The old guy had gotten quiet again, and when he finally spoke he sounded a lot more careful than he had before.
“Are you sure it doesn’t bother you?” he asked, and Ashley huffed.
“Of course it doesn’t,” she said. “I’m not a baby.”
“Alright then, tough guy.”
Ashley thought about correcting him, but she found she actually kind of liked the sound of that. She was tough, that was why Cheryl needed her to look after her, obviously. Almost without thinking, she sat up straighter, crossed her arms again and puffed her chest out slightly. That made the old guy laugh - not a lot, and not that mockingly but still a quick snort - and Ashley huffed again, glaring at him through the corner of her eyes.
“I am tough,” she insisted.
“Sure you are.” The old guy had turned to look down the road, and Ashley leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse of what he was looking at. Just Mom’s car, it turned out, but she supposed that if he was some kind of creep that was probably cause for concern for him.
“Listen, kid-” he turned back to Ashley “- I’m gonna need to split. But you take care of your sister, okay?”
He had a weird expression on his face, not what Ashley imagined creeps to look like at all. It was serious, almost sad, and she didn’t know what to make of it so she just nodded.
“I mean it. Look after her.”
“I will.” Ashley almost wanted to add that the old guy was an idiot for thinking she wouldn’t - Ashley was a great older sister, thank you very much - but something about that look he was giving her made her keep that to herself.
“Good boy.” He reached out and gave her a quick pat on the cheek with his weird hand then quickly walked back the same way he’d come, disappearing behind the trees just as Ashley heard the car stop behind her. She turned back to the road, watching as Mom rolled the window down.
“Ashley!” she yelled. “I told you to stay inside!”
“Pop kicked me out!” Ashley yelled right back, and watched Mom’s face fall.
“He- Oh, Jesus .” She sighed that special sigh that had a sort of tremble to it ( vibrato , Ashley knew it was called), like she always did when Pop did something she didn’t like. They were definitely going to fight later.
“Get in the car,” Mom snapped, and Ashley did as told, jumping off the boulder and slowly making her way over to the backseat, hissing to herself when the road burned her feet. The moment she shut the door behind her, Mom started the car back up, driving back towards town a bit faster than she usually did. Maybe she was excited about the fight, or she just wanted to get it over with.
Ashley stared at the passing trees, but couldn’t catch a glimpse of the old guy. Maybe he had places to be, or he really was just a creep and needed to hide himself well.
“I met this old guy, today,” Ashley said, still keeping her eyes on the woods.
“Put your seatbelt on,” Mom said, so Ashley had to assume she hadn’t heard about the old guy.
“I don’t think he was a creep, though,” she continued, despite the less than captive audience. “He had a robot hand.”
“No he didn’t,” Cheryl piped in and Ashley turned to glare at her.
“He did,” she insisted, giving Cheryl a light shove to emphasise her point. “You didn’t see him, idiot.”
“Don’t call your sister that!” Mom angled the rearview mirror to shoot Ashley a stern look. “And put your seatbelt on!”
“We’re almost-”
“ Now. ”
Ashley scrunched her face up in a frown, but did fasten her seatbelt, then got back to staring out the window. They had reached town, now, and it was still as empty as when Ashley had left. Even the bar wasn’t as crowded as it usually was.
“Can I cut my hair?” she asked.
“It’s way too short already,” Mom replied. She sounded tired. “You’ll look like a boy.”
A few minutes later, Mom pulled into the driveway, got out of the car and made for the house with long, quick steps. She threw the door open and went inside without bothering to close it, and soon Ashley could hear her yelling. Not any of what she was saying, but the general tone and volume, soon matched by Pop.
She sat the way she had while they were moving for a while, just staring at the neighbour’s house. It didn’t look any different than it usually did, and the blinds were down so she couldn’t see any of what was going on inside. Almost like looking at a picture.
There came a light sniffle from her left, and Ashley turned to look at Cheryl. She was staring intently at the back of the driver’s seat, her mouth set in a tight line, like she was trying to keep all the noise inside, and there was a string of snot rolling down her chin, which was kind of disgusting. Ashley sighed, then reached out to pat Cheryl’s damp cheek.
“You can hang out in my room if you like,” she said. “Just make sure not to mess with any of my stuff. Okay?”
Cheryl nodded, sniffling again, and the snot finally fell from her face and landed on her shirt, which was even more disgusting. Ashley opened her door to get out and, rather than do the same on her own side, Cheryl opted to crawl across the backseat and follow Ashley, clinging onto the back of her dress as they walked back to the house.