This story can also be found here.

Michelle Williams grinned as she took the cup of coffee from the young barister’s hands. “How is it that you always know when I’m going to come in here?”

Sunlight glinted through the wide coffee-shop windows as another customer entered. Joey, the barister, shrugged. “Truth is, I don’t. I make your coffee a couple of times a day hopin’ you’ll be comin’ through that door.”

Michelle shook her head, then moved out of the way as another patron began their order. “You’re too much, Joey. I got to get going. You going to be here this afternoon?”

“Got nowhere else to be,” he replied, giving her a broad smile.

She settled into her patrol car, set the coffee down and let out a long, slow breath.  She watched Joey puttering around the small coffee shop — the only one in town if no one counted the diner. Joey was a young man, apparently inheireted some money and decided to open up a coffee place in the middle of nowhere. Claimed there would be no competition. Honestly, there was, from the diner, but the young man was gorgeous.

She wondered how long it would take for that novelty to wear off.

“Michelle I swear if you’re at that damned coffee place chatting up that boy –” Michelle snatched up the radio.

“What do you want, Darlene?” Michelle snapped.

“So you were–”

“Darlene.”

“Couple people called in this mornin’. Want you to go out to check on Miss Sheldon. There was a dinner party yesterday and she didn’t show up.”

Michelle frowned as she sipped at her coffee. Sheldon never missed an opportunity to party. Despite her very very old age, she could drink most of the town under the table, and then call for another round just out of spite. “Alright, I’ll go check it out.”

“So how is the hot coffee this morning?”

“I’ll radio back when I get there, Darlene.”

“Oh come on, darlin’. I’m stuck here in this office. The least you can do is tell me about that wide world out there.”

“I’ll tell you when I get back, Darlene.”

The road along the Mainstreet of Crowton was paved and only displayed a few of the cracks and potholes cause by the winter, road issues that would come to a vote in town council. Soon after passing the last structure of the town proper, one of two gas stations that capped both ends of the town, the road turned to gravel. A few miles later, it became dirt.

Michelle was still getting acclimated to the strange sensibilities of Crowton. It seems at once quiet and tame but even so, she was busy every day with nearly as many calls as in New York when she left. Domestic disputes, calls about break-ins.

Or perhaps it only seemed as if there were the same amount of calls. She had to drive about with only miles of tree line to keep her company. And the radio — which would have been fine if she’d been able to get anything other than old school Appalachian bluegrass and manic talk radio on the dial. There wasn’t even a soft rock or top twenty countdown to be hear for nearly one hundred fifty miles.

She did, however, have the Internet and all the benefits that that supplied her at home. Despite how slow the damned thing was. Michelle had no idea that America online was still in business and that it still provided 56k service, but half of the homes in Crowton had it. The other half unwilling to brew pots of coffee between webpages, herself included, sprung for satellite uplink. But that was as fun as a 56k connection for how reliable it was.

She reached over and pushed the cassette adapter into the dashboard. With one hand she pulled her mp3 player from her bag on the passenger seat and plugged the trailing end of the adapter into it.

Reggae swung from the old speakers with as much carefree, general love as Bob Marley could muster. she’d originally started listening to it to piss off her parents, but then it sort of grew on her. She let out a long breath and sighed as she sped down the golden-brown dirt road, the patrol car, kicking up dust behind.

The winding road leading up to the Sheldon house slowly revealed an ever widening swath of broad old green forest. The type of dusty green only capable from older, ancient forest. The enormity of it, of the amount of life, living in the forest always surprised her. Often, New York had been called a concrete jungle, implying that the tall skyscrapers were like trees and their inhabitants like animals.

No, she’d decided in her first few weeks out on patrol, there was only a cursory correlation between a forest and the city. The city walls were built, were crafted by human hands and intellect. The forest was created and crafted by the natural influence of nature. Sure, skyscrapers were impressive, immense, but when she lie on the ground and stared up at the sky from a bed of needles and soft earth, the trunks of the old trees seemed like pillars holding up the sky.

She pulled into the small drive off of Sheldon road — the Sheldons had lived in that house for over one-hundred fifty years and had apparently earned the right to name their own road. That was another thing to get used to. In the city, only streets that were odd or ran off at odd angles got names. And even then, the names were of famous historical figures. Or those that academics deemed famous enough, but the general public could give a rats ass about.

“Alright,” Michelle called into the radio. “Darlene, I’m here.”

“Okay. Give me a call back when you’re done. Oh and let me know if she’s got any of those oatmeal cookies-”

“Joey has oatmeal cookies,” Michelle interjected.

“Of course he does.” Darlene replied. “but he wouldn’t look at an old bat like me twice. Now you…” Darlene continued going on. Michelle had stopped paying attention.

The old house was, well, old. Badly in need of painting. Porch rotting in places, but it still looked solid. Fortunately the place was clear enough from cobwebs. But it wasn’t the house that caught her attention. It was the trees behind it that attracted her eye. It seemed a trick of the light, but the trunks looked as if they were quivering. After a moment, it passed.

“…need to take that boy over my knee and-”

“Darlene, I’ll call you back.” Michelle sat the radio down and stared into the tree line, opening her eyes wide to try to see if that would help bring the aberration back. But no. The strangeness did not return but after a moment an eyelash caught in her eye and she swore silently.

Then there was a man. In the half-minute it took for her to clear her eyes, a man appeared in the floundering yards of grass between her patrol car and the old Sheldon house. He was somewhat tall, of apparent average guild with dark, olive skin and pale brown hair.

He turned towards her as she opened the door to step out, seeming surprised, as if he hadn’t seen her when he walked up. “Hello,” he offered with a bright, warm smile.

Michelle gave the man a quick looking over and frowned to discover that other than his clothing, he was carrying nothing else. “Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

“Oh, ah, no. I am just visiting my…” the man glanced back at the old house. “Dear… Old… Relative.”

“You staying a while?” Michelle asked, making a show of checking her gear. Instead of intimidating the man, he seemed to find the action amusing.

“Not long, no. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.”

“What shouldn’t take more than an hour?” the man was strange. And where the hell was his car?

“My… Relative has a pest problem. Something that I can handle no problem.”

“Why not call an exterminator. You don’t look like the sort to get his hands dirty.” Michelle watched the man warily. No one had spoken the Miss Sheldon in the past 24 hours and there was a possibility that this man was somehow involved.

“Too right, but oftentimes it simply cannot be helped.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ah… It is Johnny Devon.”

“Well, Mr. Devon, I was sent to check up on your… Relative. Though his name escapes me…”

“Oh, you mean good ole pa?” the man asked, smiling. If she hadn’t known he was lying through his teeth, she could have easily believed him. When he saw her expression, however, the smile faded. “Pa doesn’t live here, does he?”

“Sir, I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I was serious about the pest problem, officer…”

“Williams. If I find that there is a problem, I’ll call in the appropriate, licensed persons to do the job. In the meantime you need to leave or I can escort you out in the back of my car with a complimentary pair of silver bracelets.”

The man sighed and held up his hands, defeated. “Very well. Just be careful in there.” He walked past Michelle in the car and onto the dirt road.

Michelle watched the man for several moments until he disappeared around a bend of the road. She sighed softly, then turned back to the house. This wasn’t the first strange thing she’d encountered in Crowton, but it was probably the strangest so far. She shut the patrol-car door and headed towards the old house.