Robot Love

Chapter 5

Dedicated to xLightWeightx for being the first person to ever comment on my story!

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Chapter Five

I led Radish past the path that I usually take to get to the farm house, and instead I let him trot through the town. We passed Mr. Poke's house but what shocked me was that his lights were on. Usually at this time of night, all of the houses in town are dark or they're in Replica. The Streetlights are just outside of town, near Old Man Gringer's place. It took us maybe twenty minutes to reach the spot. I slowed down and eventually stopped to get off Radish.

"What are you doing?" Damien whispered in my ear.

"Getting off Radish so Crazy Tom doesn't hear us coming and run off. We'll go by foot from here."

Once we got off the horse the wind started to howl, causing Radish to stomp his hooves nervously. I patted his neck and shushed him until he calmed down enough that I knew he wouldn't run off. I jerked my head as a signal for Damien to follow me and we headed off towards the dark blur of the streetlights in the distance.

"I don't like this." Damien whispered.

I put my finger to my lips and scowled at him until he scowled right back. There was no way that we could have a chit chat with Crazy Tom if he ran for the hills before we even saw him. And I felt as if he was the key to all the answers...or most of them at least. But as I was discovering lately, the answers to certain questions leads to even more questions.

The dirt under my feet suddenly changed to crumbled pavement and I started at the unfamiliar feeling. I'd been to the streetlights a couple of times but I never quite got used to the strange texture of the pavement. The place used to be a parking lot but it deteriorated and crumbled until weeds poked up through the cracks and the pavement lifted up sharply, evidence of a previous earthquake. There were remaining metal posts that used to produce light but they had long stopped working and now some of them laid haphazardly across the broken pavement while some still stood up, tall and proud though slightly bent.

As we walked across the pavement, trying not to trip on any of the uplifted pieces, I started to hear singing. It was low and baritone, but I couldn't make out the words until we got closer, and by then I could see Crazy Tom sitting on a fallen streetlight, partially obscured by the shadows.

"They took my children, they took my wife. But they're not really dead, they just went under the knife!"

I exchanged a glance with Damien who shrugged his shoulders at the creepy song. We stopped a couple of feet back from Crazy Tom, and when he looked up and saw us his singing stopped altogether.

There was a chilling silence as he just stared at us, with eyes as blue as ice. His brown hair hung past his shoulders but it was unkempt and wild looking. His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion and he tilted his head at me. He must have been a very handsome man before he went crazy. I shook my head, sickened that I even thought that.

"Hello, Tom." I greeted. "We just came to talk to you for a couple of minutes."

He pulled up the hood of his gray sweater so his face was hidden in shadows even more but I saw his eyes dart around the pavement parking lot, then to the forest behind him, his eyes wide with fear.

"Talk about what?" he whispered.

"The North." I replied.

He cupped his hands over his ears and began to shake his head furiously, rocking back and forth until I was sure he would fall off the streetlight.