Flash fiction contest, 100 words or less based on a photo.

Stay off the tracks.

Common sense, they said—and that was if they were being nice. The less nice ones told her she might be killed.

Some of them added details.

She called the old women cowards right to their faces, shimmied over the fence and was gone. The dog followed her as usual.

Near the trestle the thicket grew dense, she heard a rustle and the old man came out, pulled out his junk and set it on the cold iron rail.

She checked her watch. Three o’clock on the dot.

He might be nuts, but he was reliable.