(Author's note: Please read the description)

It took awhile for anyone to answer after I knocked. I was just about to turn around when the door cracked open and a girl’s face appeared.

“Hello?” she said. She was pale, unhealthily pale. It seemed as if she was in some kind of shock too. Her eyes appeared dull, as if she wasn’t quite looking at me but rather past me. I had no idea what happened to her in the past two days, especially with that scream I heard yesterday, but one thing I knew for sure was that she was scared.

“Hi, my name is Roxanne and I live down the street, do you mind if I come in?” She didn’t react at first, just like with answering the door she paused as if she was waiting for something or my question taking her some time to process. “I heard a scream from here yesterday, I just wanted to check in and see if you were alright.”

That seemed to make something click for her. “Oh, yeah sure. Of course. Uh, yeah you can come in. Sorry for the mess though, we’re not quite unpacked yet.” She was stumbling through her words but that was better than at least.

She was lying about the mess though. When I walked in the door the living room was pristine except for a pile of flattened boxes. I couldn’t see how they would need to un-pack anything in here, and I definitely didn’t want to ask to see the rest of the house.

“So, are you Chloe?” I asked. I was pretty sure she looked about my age and from what my dad had told me that was her name.

“Y-yes. How did you know?” She looked surprised and more than a little worried. At that moment I realized that I probably should have clarified more when asking my question.

“Oh! Right, sorry. The guy that you were talking to the day you and your mom moved in? That was my dad. I asked if he knew your guys’ names and he told me.” I rushed to explain so it didn’t seem like I was a stalker.

“Oh. Ok. Well, would you like to sit?” She asked, seemingly accepting my answer and questioning it no further. I got the sense that she wasn’t usually so spaced out and accepting. Even more cause for concern considering what I saw the other day.

I nodded and as Chloe sat down on her couch I sat on a chair opposite her. We were silent for a few moments as if neither of us knew what to say. She didn’t seem like she was going to start a conversation. In fact, I’m pretty sure if I stayed still long enough she would have forgotten I was in the house at all.

“So about the Ice Cream Van the other day…” I said, wanting to get the ball rolling.

“Oh, yeah. That guy was weird,” Chloe said. She continued to ramble without any prompting, as if not quite aware she was speaking aloud. “Yeah, he, he said you all were lactose intolerant? A-and I think he said something about not wanting to do this route anymore? Then he gave me some ice cream, it-it was my favorite but he didn’t ask? He just kinda, he just kinda gave it to me. And I ate, I donnu why.”

Well that was certainly a lot of information, and a lot of stammering, slurring words and confusion. Did he drug her? What kind of drugs could you sneak into ice cream that would last two full days later? But at least now I knew the guy was willing to lie to avoid suspicion, not that I didn’t already.

“Funny thing actually,” I started. “I actually am lactose intolerant, but I don’t know anyone else on the street who is. Even then I actually still eat ice cream and disregard the consequences.”

“What?” Chloe frowned. “But then why did nobody want ice cream?” She said this as if having lactose intolerance was a good excuse to run away en masse from an ice cream truck.

“Well see that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” the time had finally come to tell this girl what my dad should’ve told her two days ago. “That truck has been coming down this street for decades. Every time the driver is the same guy and he never seems to age. That alone freaks us out a little. But that isn’t all either. Whenever he gives a kid ice cream, he never charges. And then their parents go missing for days, and then the kid goes missing, and when the parent shows up again they have no memory of the guy, the van, nothing. Sometimes they even forget they had a kid.”

She didn’t seem to know how to take that. She looked scared and shocked, but her eyes were starting to clear up and she was thinking clearer.

“H-hang on. I haven’t seen my mom in the past two days. Are you saying that disappearing act is going to happen to both of us?” She was definitely more lucid now. As she spoke her words were becoming more fluid and natural.

“I don’t know. But what I do know is that you are in danger and we need to do something. Was it you who screamed yesterday? Do you know why?” I wish I could’ve said something to console her, but it seemed as if the panic was dragging her consciousness out of . . . somewhere. And if I was going to get her out of this I needed her awake.

“Yeah. Yeah, that was me yesterday. I’m pretty sure I was hallucinating. I thought that everything had just been flying around unpacking itself. But that’s ridiculous, we haven’t even started to unpack yet. How did you hear me so far down the street?” Chloe seemed to be back to her normal self now. Well, I assume normal since this was my first time really talking to her.

“You were really loud. Also what do you mean ‘haven’t even started’ ? This room seems pretty unpacked to me.” Chloe whipped her head around as if just realizing that the room she thought had been a mess was actually an near immaculate living room.

“What is going on?” She half whispered to herself.

“I don’t know,” I answered anyway “But I want to help.”

Chloe looked up at me, scared but there.

“Ok.”