Fire trucks, ambulances, and police. She could hear the differences in the patterns and sounds of the sirens. For the first ten minutes, she was able to hear things and head toward the endpoint. Here and there, an emergency vehicle would go down her street or a nearby street.

After that, there was nothing. Whatever the emergency, there were no more sirens or easy indicators.

She wondered how the heroes did it, to get to scenes on time.

She explored, trying to find it, looking for any clues, and found nothing. Her legs were tired, lacking stamina after her long period of illness, and she’d already gone for a walk earlier in the evening. She took her time going back.

The headlights of a passing van illuminated her, and unlike the others, they didn’t stop illuminating her. She stared through the light, shielding her eyes with her hand, and felt the pang and the click where that hand hadn’t healed right.

When it didn’t let up, she picked up her pace.

The van pulled into reverse, then drove away.

She made her way back, and by the last block, her weariness had been driven home. Her calves were like stones, and every step was an effort.

Maybe a bath, to relax her legs. It was important to find ways to treat herself. It was a good day, to have a treat to go back to. A bad day, to know that the stoners were leaving and the replacements would be so young and untouchable. A good day, to be healthier again. A bad day, to have this interruption to her homework advice show.

She reached her street, and she saw a van that might have been the same one she’d seen earlier. Adrenaline helped her to push through the pain in her legs.

Nobody inside, with a lot of general garbage on the seats and floor.

If she had been able to drive, she told herself, her car would be immaculate. Cars were expensive, and to have something nice and not take care of it?

She was tempted to destroy the thing.

She reached the side of the building and let herself inside.

There was the partially eaten eclair. She could have that before starting dinner.

The radio, still faint in the other room, went quiet.

She grabbed the twist of condensed metal with the hook-shaped bend at the end.

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”

A man’s voice.

Ashley walked around to see who was standing in her bedroom.

She recognized the man. The beard, the hair that was greasy and pulled back away from his face. The collared shirt that was only tucked in on the one side, the tuck apparently intended to hide the bloodstain on the corner of the shirt, failing because it had come partially untucked.

He had a tool belt on, but the belt only had knives in it.

Jack Slash.