Morning After [6]

When I awoke, the sun was streaming in and I knew I’d slept later than usual. Jumped into the shower, went into the kitchen, and got the coffee started. I was almost out, but had enough for a couple more days.
I noticed the clock on the stove- 9:33. Wow! I hadn’t slept this late in ages.
Opened the fridge to get the milk out, and there was that damned stone, winking at me. I huffed my exasperation and put it into the pocket of my robe, determinedly ignoring the surge of electric juice and going about the very serious business of coffeeing up.
I started reading the news on my computer, sipping my blessed java, and making up my mind about what I was going to accomplish today. Everything [other than the tingles coming from my pocket] felt solidly, comfortingly, boringly normal.
There was a knock on the front door. Twice in a week was unheard of around here. I tiptoed to look out the peephole, sure it was the guys in white shirts again.
Yep.
Only…
Well.
In addition to the white shirts, black ties, black slacks, and terrifying too-white toothy grins, they also were each wearing a smoky gray headless pigeon on one shoulder. The pigeons were sort of snuggled up against their necks, and there were thin wire-like appendages extending from the pigeons’ bodies to wrap spiralling around the necks of their… hosts?
The pigeons had a smoky shadowy kind of haze to them. That haze kind of clung to the guys’ heads and faces, and filled in the hollows of their eyes, under their noses, etc, making them look darker. It was the same thing I’d seen on the face of Sauce Guy the day before. But I hadn’t seen a headless flying rat on his shoulder, from down the aisle.
I didn’t know what to do. I did know one thing though.
There was no way in hell I was opening that door.
I tiptoed away and sat back down at my computer, determined to ignore them until they went away.
They knocked again.
“GO AWAY!” I yelled. There was a shuffling sound beyond the door as they left the front step. I exhaled my relief, shaking my head.
Then a shadow moved past the window on the eastern side of the house.
I ran to close all of the curtains and check the locks on all of the doors, and then ran into the bedroom and got dressed.
Where I live is so far out in the boonies that it takes the sheriffs more than 30 minutes to get there. Calling them would do me no good if these… people? broke in. And I didn’t know if the cops had been pigeon’d as well.
Therefore I had to get out.
When I took off my robe, I grabbed the stone and shoved it into my jeans pocket.
I pulled on my socks and hiking boots, grabbed a jacket, got the car keys out of my purse and put them into my jacket pocket, slung my purse crosswise on my body so that it was secure, and then skulked around peeping out from behind the window curtains to see where they were.
Back yard. Good.
I ran out the front door, locking it behind me, and jumped into the car, autolocking it as I did so. They rounded the corner of the house as I was pulling out into the street.
Their expressions hadn’t changed. They were still grinning those fatuous white toothed grins. From this far away, I couldn’t see their shoulder riders. Maybe it was a form of camouflage?
But I didn’t sit there thinking about it. I punched the gas and headed for the interstate.