The Story of Her Holding an Orange by Milos Bogetic

suppose you could say that my grandpa and grandma were lucky on more than one occasion.
    Anyway, when they heard the knock again, my grandparents just assumed that the soldiers had come back. Two years of being in the heart of a war used up all of their fear, so they calmly walked over to the door and opened it. It wasn’t the Muslim military. It was the man. Only this time, a woman was next to him.
    My grandma wasn’t able to state with certainty if the man actually didn’t age the last time she saw him. However, when he stood in front of her that night in ’93, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind - the man looked exactly the same as the first time she encountered him, more than fifty years ago. He wore the same damn suit paired with a top hat and a wooden cane. Next to him was an unusually pale woman with cherry-red lips and eyes that would pierce through your soul.
    “Hello, Dana,” said the woman, smiling, paying no attention to my grandfather standing next to her.
    “What the fuck is this?” demanded my grandfather.
    Immediately, both the man and woman’s smiles faded away, and their heads turned towards my grandpa. 
    “You may want to remain silent for this,” the man said, his voice cold and threatening.
    My grandfather has been tortured, starved, and shot at, but he claims that he never felt such fear as when the man addressed him. The man and the woman turned their heads back to my grandmother, the woman tilting her head slightly and smiling again.
    “Where is he?” she asked in a childish voice that didn’t belong to a woman of her age. 
    “Who? What do you want? Can’t you see we have nothing?” responded my grandma in desperation. She was so drained of emotion from the years of shit she’d been through that the man and woman, at least for the moment, didn’t scare her like they should have.
    “Don’t argue, tell us where he is,” said Rose. She sounded like a child being denied a toy at the store.
    “Where who is?” jumped in my grandpa, genuinely puzzled by the strange situation.
    “Your grandson,” answered the man. His voice was boyish but cold; my grandfather could feel the blood freeze in his veins. 
    “He’s in Montenegro,” Grandpa answered, too confused to think of lying. “Why?” 
    The strangers’ grins widened to inhuman proportions. They looked at each other, then turned around, almost mechanically, and walked down the stairs in perfect synchronization. 
    “And don’t ever come back!” screamed my grandma after them.
    My grandparents quickly went to the balcony and watched the strange couple leave. The man and the woman walked down the street with bullets flying everywhere, appearing not to give a damn about the danger surrounding them. My grandma couldn’t see that well, but she swears their heads were still tilted to the side, and they both still wore Cheshire Cat grins.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    EIGHT
     
    The Bike Trail
    After this story, seemingly worthy of a low-budget Hollywood horror movie, I was even more lost. My grandmother didn’t help much; all her memories did was increase the mystery and multiply the questions. I assumed that the woman who visited my grandmother was Rose. In a strange way, I was relieved that Trish and I weren’t the only ones harassed, as crazy as it sounds. Being emotionally exhausted from overanalyzing the situation, I reached the point of not giving a fuck anymore. I could feel the stress build up in my body. How could I not? What human can go through something like this and stay perfectly sane? 
    With Trish out of town, I took a day off work to get myself together the best way I knew how. I got my bike and decided to go on a long trip that would hopefully clear my mind and sweat out some stress. I decided to do a long 50-mile route from Provincetown to a city called Hyannis. The weather forecast announced possible showers, so I left all of my electronics at home and took only my helmet and some money. Ten miles into cycling, I