Alan wondered. The town of Ashland Creek wasn’t heavily populated but it did encompass quite a bit of space, which was something most people from up in the suburbs didn’t realize. They thought ‘small town’ meant ‘small area’ but when compared with the suburbs Ashland Creek actually had more landmass. Most of it was farmland, though, like the suburbs, they also had neighborhoods and a downtown area, both of which were pretty close. Unlike the suburbs one couldn’t simply hop a fence and be in another town. Instead one would have to hop a fence, cut through some woods, and then cut through a farm field or two, then cut through more woods. Once in those woods they would hit a town line of some sorts, but one which they wouldn’t know for sure they had crossed until they entered the scrubland beyond the woods, scrubland that butted up against more farm fields. A walk like that would take hours, and could be pretty dangerous. Alan had done it once with friends one summer day many years earlier, all of whom had started vomiting that night thanks to insecticide poisoning from the fields which had just been sprayed. Ever since then Alan had stuck to the roads when near a farm field and even then he didn’t like to be exposed to the fields for a long time, and always urged whoever was driving to keep the windows closed. Was Jimmy riding that far?
