Page 11 of Phoenix Chosen 2

“Not another word,” Kalistratos clucks.

We’re a few blocks away from the station now. The bearded man pulls off his shirt and tosses it into the back seat.

“Hide that for me, would you?” he says. “Wouldn’t be good if someone spots a guy in orange driving a stolen car.”

“Jesus,” I mutter. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Name’s Nelly. You?”

“Tyler,” I say. “Thanks for getting Kalistratos out of there.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Just a moment!” says Kalistratos, puffing out his feathers. “It was I who gotyouout.”

“This is true,” Nelly replies. “But I was instructed to be there. I saw it in my dreams.”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” I say. “Kalistratos. Why are you a chicken?”

He looks at me, then in a flash shifts back to his human form. Tufts of red feathers drift around the cabin.

“I don’t know,” he says with an exhausted grunt. “Something about your world has hampered my powers.”

“So… are you some kind of chicken alien?” Nelly asks. “The Bird Man has been beaming messages into my brain for weeks. Iknewit was all real.”

“I’m Phoenikos,” Kalistratos says. “Not a damn chicken.” Copying Nelly, he pulls off his jail uniform top and throws it into the backseat.

“Damn, fella!” Nelly says. “I knew you had to be ripped, but… They have gyms up in space, or what?”

“Did you say Bird Man?” I ask. “What Bird Man?”

“Yeah, the Bird Man! Showed up in my dreams and wouldn’t leave me alone. He said, get yourself to jail, Nelly. There’s a fella I need you to help. So, that’s what I did. I went and robbed that gas station, and sure enough, just like he said, you were in there waiting for me. Maybe now I can finally have some peace and quiet.”

Kalistratos glances back at me from the front seat. I raise my eyebrow. I know what he’s thinking.

The Great Phoenix.

“I’ve always known aliens are real,” Nelly goes on. “Jesus was an alien, too. So, if an alien needs my help, you goddamn better believe I’m gonna do it. So, where do you need me to take you? If we need to drive out to Roswell, all you need to do is ask. We’ll just need to ditch this car.”

“No, no,” I say. “I think you’ve put yourself at enough risk. If you can take us across town to Shoreport, we’ll be fine.”

“This Bird Man,” Kalistratos says. “Did he not tell you anything further?”

“There was one thing… A symbol.”

“What symbol?” asks Kalistratos.

“Let’s see… Maybe they’ve got a…” Nelly reaches over and digs through the glove compartment, swerving the wheel back and forth as he yanks stuff out. Finally, he finds a pen. “Your hand, please?”

“Just watch the road!” I exclaim as I lean between the seats and jab my finger at the cars slowing down.

Nelly slams on the brakes and we come to a stop at the light just short of rear-ending the car in front of us. Kalistratos has his hands pressed up against the ceiling.

“Thank you,” Nelly says, and he takes my arm and draws something on my wrist. “There. Something like this.”

I squint at the smudged doodle. It looks like he’d just taken the pen and swirled it around to draw a really crudely formed spiral. It might as well be a random scribble.

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