Aunt Alicia and the Asteroid
A/N
Motivation for this one-shot: I wanted to explore the POV of someone not in Antarctica or Amity Park during the disasteroid. In terms of canon characters, Aunt Alicia is really the only option (besides perhaps 'Harry' Chen from Bitter Reunions. Writing in Alicia's voice is far more fun (and I can get away with terrible grammar and spelling). You'll see that while she shares Vlad's opinion of Jack, she also shares Danny's opinion of Vlad.
Disclaimers - Aunt Alicia is a caricature and not an accurate portrayal of Arkansas residents. Spitton and Spittan, AK don't exist. I don't own Danny Phantom or any of the show's characters.
It was only a few days 'fore the big space rock was gonna hit that me and the fellas figur'd out it weren't just a hoax. Out in our lil' slice of Arkansas heaven, there ain't much in the way of television, and the radio is more often static than music. Heck, the paper man don't even deliver way out here. Ain't got a gas station or a post office or nuthin'. Just the general store, a few houses, and a dentist. Don't ask me why Fred stays in Spitton, but I ain't complaining - we's all got's the shiniest teeth in the state. In fact, my neighbor Joe says that his teeth are shiny 'nuff to be in a Chip Skylark video, though I ain't got a clue what that means.
'Course, bein' on my own and livin' off the land is just the what I want. I rejected the family inheritance (gave that to my crazy sister to build her ghost lab), rejected the dumb, demanding man I stupidly married (divorced the asshat twelve years ago -best decision of my life), and rejected all sorts of ridiculous modern gizmos and gadgets (like cell phones and indoor plumbin').
But I digress. Though we don't get much news in Spitton, Arkansas, we get plenty of passin' preachin'. 'Bout once a month some crazy kook comes into town claimin' the world's gonna end and then tryin' to sell us life insurance or sum'tin like that. We may be out in the backwoods, but we ain't stupid and we ain't that gullible. So when word of that damn space rock reached our lil' ol' town, we dismissed it as a load of BS, just like the rest of them 'world-endin' tales.
Most of the townsfolk scoffed even more when the rumor of a crazy ghost takin' over the world was added on to the space-rock fiasco. I didn' believe it either 'til the brief mention of Amity Park caused me to pause and reconsider. See, my sister and the oaf she married live in that city. While most folks around here are normal and hunt deer or ducks, my crazy sister and her dolt of a husband hunt ghosts. In fact, when we was growin up, ghosts was all she'd blabber on about. Then she'd gone off to college and our folks figured she'd get a proper education. I thought that's what she was doin' when she'd come back on break usin' words like "ectoplasmic entity" and "spectral specimens". Turns out them's just fancy ways of talkin' 'bout ghosts. Mads was the smart one of the family, but our folks figured I'd be the one married with kids and she'd end up a crazy cat lady. Or crazy ghost-cat lady. I s'pose that's why they gave me their inheritance 'stead of her. Jokes on them I suppose (may they rest in peace), seein' as I'm enjoying the simple (and cheap) freedom of singleness and the only thing Maddie loves more than (expensive) ghost research is her two kids and fool of a husband.
Whoops, I'm gettin' off topic again. I'd heard enough ramblin' from my sister over the years to s'pect that if ghosts were part of this thing, she'd be front and center, meanin' Amity Park would be too. So I made a bet with a couple of the fellas that the rumors were true. Twenty bucks and four tins of tobacco. I hopped in my pick-up and drove the hour to the nearest big town, Spittan, where they got a gas station and post-office. I figured the gas station would got a newspaper and I weren't disappointed. Yep, there it was. A ghost on page one. The fella had slick black hair and a cape. He looked like the craziest fruitloop I ever did see. Eh, but I didn't care so much 'bout that. The fellas back at the general store were losin' that bet!
The next day, I drove back to Spittan for another paper. The fellas weren't gonna pony up their cash and chew 'til I proved it weren't a fake paper. Men. This time, there was a different ghost on page one. A white-haired kid in a jumpsuit like Maddie's only black instead of blue. Speakin' of my sister, she was there on page two, givin' her support to the crazy plan of this kid for savin the world. Ha! The fellas were definitely gonna have 'ta pay up now!
I Guess my crazy sister and the dunderhead weren't so crazy after all.
