Norman heard the crinkle of butcher paper as Martin took the package from the refrigerator and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He pushed open the back door and stepped out of the kitchen into the backyard. Bill and Norman followed. Martin wore khaki pants, work boots, and had combed his blond hair slick against his scalp leading to a neat taper at the nape of his neck. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Karina and Marjorie are at her mother’s house today.”

“You’ve seen the critters back there, right?” said Bill. He needed a step and a half to match each of Martin’s strides and scampered to keep up.

“Mostly I just hear them. I sit out there sometimes. Marjorie doesn’t like me drinking in the house, so I do it out there.”

“I got one of those too,” said Bill, gesturing at Norman with his thumb.

Norman looked into Bill’s eyes, the way they darted from Martin to the treetops, and wondered if he’d gotten into something already that morning even if it wasn’t alcohol.

They walked across Martin’s manicured lawn and into the woods. The temperature dropped behind the tree line. Norman’s breath vapor spread into the air like dragon fire. Soon, they couldn’t see the neighborhood houses anymore. Norman tried to map the path in his head, to make sense of how the trail wound around behind the recently-built tract homes circumventing backyards and roadways. Bill’s labored weeze, the swishing of their winter jackets, and the rustling of brush in the wind filled the silence. The path led to a high spot overlooking a trickling stream. Beer bottles lay strewn about. Norman stepped on something hard, looked down and saw bullet casings littering the ground.

“This where you drink, Martin?” Norman asked.

“Sometimes.” He kept moving.

A speed limit sign pocked with bullet holes hung from a tree. They came to a clearing next to a wooden hunting blind. Norman heard a car in the distance and realized they’d come close to the highway.

“I set the egg back in there,” Martin said pointing at the hollow at the base of a tree. “Came back a few days later and found the shell broken.”

“Maybe a fox or a snake ate it,” Norman said.

Martin looked at him with a flat expression, then turned toward Bill. “If you sit a while, you can hear them.”

Bill sat on a downed tree, shoulders hunched, breathing hard. Norman sat next to him. Martin walked over to the tree hollow, knelt down, and unwrapped the butcher paper.

“What you got in there?” Bill asked.

“Butcher scraps. He gives them to me free.”

“What do you tell him?” asked Bill.

“That I need scraps.”

Martin stood up, walked over, and offered cigarettes. Bill took one. Norman hesitated, then took one as well. The warmth of the cigarette felt good on his fingers and in his throat, and the taste, along with being with Martin and Bill, reminded him of the good parts about the Army.

“I sit out here sometimes,” Martin said. “Just like this. You can hear ‘em.” Martin looked up at the trees. Norman followed his gaze. Bill inhaled with a grimace and inspected the end of his cigarette. Martin tilted his head and squinted at Norman. Then, he said, “You know, Bill isn’t crazy.”

“I know that,” said Norman.

“I might be still, but Bill ain’t.”

“I never said…”

“I thought he was when I met him, when he gave me that egg, but it’s real. Bill can talk plenty, and he drinks too much.” Martin took a drag on his cigarette and kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “Bill said you thought he was bullshitting.”

“Didn’t say that, exactly,” said Bill. He turned toward Norman. “I know it’s a hard story until you see for yourself,” said Bill.

Norman said, “Nah, I know you had a hard time, you and Martin, coming back from the war. And, you know, I thought gremlins were just some RAF story, something you hear about in bars. Those British pilots pop go pills like candy, and no wonder they see crazy shit.”

“Thoughtful guy. Practical guy,” Martin said to Norman. “You helped my wife out around the house when I was at the V.A. You want to get Bill straight, right?”

“Look, Martin, I’m not trying to start anything…”

He waved a hand at him and blew smoke out the side of his mouth. Strands of his carefully-combed hair came loose in the wind, and he pushed them back. “You’re busy is all I’m saying. Busy busy. Helpful guy.”

“I guess,” Norman said.

Something skittered in a tree branch overhead. They all looked up.

“You think that’s it?” asked Bill.

Martin put his finger to his lips. Another rustling noise came from behind them. Norman turned to see a shaking tree limb. Then, something fell from the air and hit the ground in front of them. A bloody scrap of meat lay on the forest floor. Norman looked at it, then looked over at the tree hollow where Martin had put his scraps. Empty.

“Told you they’re here,” Martin said.

“Could be anything,” Norman said. “Could be…”

A piercing shriek came from the treetops, from everywhere, maybe from a group of animals hidden out of sight and watching. Afterward, the echo of the shriek faded into the cold air. Martin turned to Bill. “They’re more and more of these little fuckers,” he said.

Norman tried in vain to imagine an animal that could have made the sound. He sat in the cold and waited for the screech again, but it didn’t come. He looked at Bill and then at Martin. He liked hearing Martin curse. He liked smoking with them out in the woods, and if he tried hard enough, he half-believed in Martin and in Bill. He wanted them to be okay, to be adjusting, coming back from the war just fine. He wanted to be scared of gremlins instead of everything else.