On the ride in from coastal route 1 the other night little snow and clear a pleasant surprise in late December it wasn't that late in the evening only about 8 or so there were no people to be seen thus the title of this short story There Are No People but there were cars and lights in houses and Christmas lights on trees and bushes and lighted trees in front of room windows two cars were on-coming and there were three behind and at Rebecca Road there was a pick-up truck waiting at a stop sign "gee" we thought light and activity lighted windows a store lit and "no people" I mentioned to her she smiled about it because the same mystery had occurred one time before crossing the county line but nothing ever came of that this one was a little different well I should say a lot different we survived this and lived to tell about it back to that in a moment we decided to take the loop through town up to our house we had not been "home" in 5 weeks so we were looking to see if things hadn't changed well the mail truck was parked in its usual place the bridge lighted we made the turn down the desolate main street lighted street lamps wrapped with garland and tiny colored lights a few cars parked on the street a pub open the door closed windows covered and music coming into the street and the sounds of pool balls clicking "do you see anyone" I asked "no" was the answer I drove by the harbor up the hill some houses were lighted a few not I stopped at the stop sign and she looked back at a white house overlooking the bay not quite sure in the dark whose white house it was but she thought she saw a figure in a darken window a person maybe a woman working at some sort of dashboard or computer or control panel working quite feverishly to make a long story short we were met by two wooly beasts in our driveway and it was say 8:30 well the second my headlights hit their eyes I knew they wanted to wrap us up in their arms and she knew this was trouble and we best skedaddle which we sure as hell did and high-tailed it out of town on down to Millbridge on through Steuben we did notice though and it was 10 o' clock then a lanky kind of good looking man leaning against the county sign smoking a cigarette gotta love this place I thought oops we kept going at a good clip not worrying about the sheriffs or anything else just those wooly beasts bada bing.
Written in 2006.