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“Big Eddie,” the older one says, and I squeeze my hand into a fist. “That’s the name out there on the sign. Big Eddie.”
“Sorry, gentlemen. If you want to speak to my father, you’ll have to communicate with the dead. He’s bones in the ground.”
They glance at each other, and for a moment, I swear I see their eyes twitch back and forth rapidly. I blink, but it’s over and I can’t be positive it happened. They both turn back to me.
“You’re Benjamin Green,” the older man says. “Benji.”
I raise my hands. “You got me there. How’d you know that?” Sweat trickles down the back of my neck into my shirt.
“We’re looking for a… man,” he says, ignoring my question. I hear the hesitation on the last word and know they’re flat-out lying. They know what he is. They know who he is. “Goes by the name Calliel. Big. Red hair. Beard is red. Like fire. Like so much fire. Has he been here?”
I shake my head. “Guy like that’d stick out around here. Can’t say I’ve seen him. And a name like Calliel? Sounds Hispanic… or Greek.”
“It’s not Hispanic,” the dark man says.
“It’s not Greek,” the light man says.
I cock my head. “Could have fooled me.”
The dark man jerks his head again, and it almost looks like he’s seizing, the cords in his neck tightening. “Feathers,” he says as his head stops moving. “Have you seen any… feathers?”
Carefully, I push my backpack farther under the counter with my foot. “Like bird feathers?”
“There’s all kinds of feathers around here,” Rosie snaps, though even she sounds somewhat confused. “We live in a forest. Birds live in trees. There’s bound to be feathers all over the ground.”
The light man shakes his head once, from side to side. It’s not fluid, but staccato, as if the joints in his neck are partially frozen. “This is not… a bird feather. It’s big. It’s bigger. It’s—”
“Blue,” his counterpart finishes. “Everything about it is blue.”
“No blue feathers, no green feathers, no feathers the size of a house,” I say. “Fellas, I haven’t seen your man, and if you aren’t going to tell me your names and if you aren’t going to buy something, I suggest you say sayonara and walk through the door.”
They narrow
their black eyes at the same time. I meet their gazes coolly, even though I’ve curled my hands into fists behind the counter and I’m digging my nails into my palms hard enough to draw blood. They glance at each other again, and this time I’m sure I see the strange eye twitch, and I wonder if they’re communicating. I wonder if they’re from On High. I wonder if they’re angels.
But they’re making my skin crawl, and all I want is for them to leave. I clear my throat and their eyes stop twitching. They look at me again. “I hope,” the dark man says, “that you are telling us the truth, Benjamin Green. About Calliel. About feathers.” He curls his lip, the closest thing to a human expression I’d seen since they’d walked in. It’s a monstrous thing. “And scratches.”
They turn as one and walk out of the station and continue out of sight down Poplar Street.
Rosie lets out a breath she’s been holding. She turns to look at me. “Benji, what the hell is going on?”
“These are some strange days,” I mutter, unsure of what else to say.
The Strange Men (which is how they were referred to throughout the town, like
you could hear the capitalization of each word) apparently stopped intruding on people after leaving the store. The doc and Worley were able to contact enough people to spread the word to others, and nobody answered any questions from the Strange Men. I consider the people they would have spoken to, knowing some are less skilled as actors than others. I worry that the Strange Men will run into Griggs or any of his deputies, but by the grace of God (a phrase that I can’t use anymore without basking in irony) they never come into contact. Griggs and the Strange Men are people I do not want meeting.
So members of the town rally behind us, and I wait for a snake in the grass to show his face and hiss little secrets, but it doesn’t happen. After leaving the station, the Strange Men disappear.
By five that afternoon, the phone lines began to buzz with more whispers that fan the gossip wildfire. Most are rational, or so I’m told. Most just wonder what Cal has done to attract the attention of the Strange Men. Most believe Cal to be some dashing bank robber, or an international jewel thief. Okay, most don’t actually believe that; that theory comes directly to me from one Matilda Bajko, a kooky old bat who sighs when she says Cal’s name as she explains breathlessly in my ear over the phone about how she believes he’s on the run from Interpol. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t think Cal even knows what Interpol is. Let alone how to steal anything.
But there are those who whisper different things. A strange light in the sky? they say. A meteor no one had seen? they conspire. Men in black suits coming out of nowhere and leaving just as mysteriously? Why, it’s obvious! How could they have not seen it before! Aliens have landed in Roseland! But why are they asking about Cal? This stumped the conspirators until Gerald Roche, a retired banker and admitted sci-fi enthusiast, decided Cal had seen something he wasn’t supposed to see and was on the run and the government was trying to hunt him down.
Regardless, everyone agrees, it’s exciting. It’s mysterious. It feels like secrets and if there is one thing a small town always has, it’s secrets.
Strange days, indeed.
I resist the urge to drive straight home after I close the shop to see if Cal is there
