Townies

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.


The prompts: This story must contain the words: cotton, freckles, necktie


Townies

“We don’t cotton to your type round here.”

Bob looked down at the voice. It turned out to belong to a pie shaped batch of freckles mounted atop the body of an eight-year-old boy.

Kneeling down so he could talk eye to eye with the young boy, Bob said, “What do you mean by that? Is it that you don’t like strangers?”

The boy sneered with a maliciousness that caught Bob off guard.

“Elder folk like you don’t belong. Gang ain’t gonna like this when they hear.”

With that, the child ran off down the empty street. Bob watched until the boy rounded the corner about a block down.

Weird kid,

He looked back at his Porsche parked over alongside the road just at the edge of town. It would be safe there while he looked for a mechanic. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long. He needed to be in Los Angeles in four hours.

Twenty minutes later, he sat on a curb, his necktie loosened in response to the midday sun which beat down on the empty streets. It was unbelievable - an entire town with no one in it. Stores were left open and unattended. The few houses he bothered to approach were unlocked and empty. Even freckle-boy was gone.

He looked up at the unmistakable sound. His Porsche was slowly cruising down the street towards him. Behind the wheel sat a boy that couldn’t have been more than fifteen. The car stopped right in front of Bob.

Bob strode out to the car.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? What’s going on here?”

“Mister, we don’t cotton to your type around here.”

Bob spun at the sound of a slamming door. Emerging from every corner, they soon filled the streets. They were coming for him.