Bring them back

Chapter 6

But what if she was not crazy and neither were they?
Jenkins allowed herself to be shocked for exactly three seconds, then she found her composure again.

"In case you're not pullin' a prank on me-"

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know, for sports?"

"Please, rest assured I would never hoax a friendly person like you."

"Well... in that case..." Still she somehow felt hesitant about telling him. Why did none of his sons by choice know the year? But if she asked why that was, she would only get an evasive answer.

Sighing, Jenkins let her gaze glide over the group of men again.

"It's 2019."

The men just stared at her, some rather disbelieving, others shocked. Hosea seemed oddly calm, though his hand covering his mouth kind of gave him away.

"E-excuse me, what?"

"Did I... did ya jus' say 2019??"

"Eso es imposible. Realmente no fuimos al futuro. "

"I can't believe-"

"Gentlemen, please calm down." Hosea got up from the arm chair, his voice stern but reassuring.

"I'll leave you to it", Jenkins decided and left the living room, almost fleeing into the kitchen. There she removed the tea strainer and put the ladle into the pot.

She carried the pot into the dining room. Though, it was barely used as such. Bills, letters, her laptop and notes littered all over the wooden table, the chairs served as additional storage room for books or folders.
The little space on the table that wasn't occupied was now the spot on which she put the pot.

Silently cursing herself for being such a messy person, she just gathered all the paper stuff and crammed it into the almost overfilled box, which stood abandoned in the far off corner of the room.
Nothing better than a clean and tidy surrounding.
Jenkins sighed.

Nothing in this house was ever clean and tidy.
At least not overly tidy.
Well, other homes were not cluttered, her's had great air due to the many plants everywhere.

Gathering some cups in the kitchen, Jenkins could hear the men argue about something, probably still about being in 2019.
While her mind was occupied with the fact that they were armed.
And clearly not right in their heads.

"Miss Jenkins!"

Taking in a deep breath, she put the cups onto the table and went through the hallway into the living room.

"Is there a problem?", she asked, standing in the door.

"Plenty." Hosea turned to face her. "But it first things first."

"Okay."

"We search for a clay figure, it's circa 10 inches small. It has some sort of human form and holds a scythe." Hosea cleared his throat. "It may be a relic."

A relic? They are searching for a relic? Do I look like Lara Croft?, Jenkins thought, crossing her arms, eyeing the older man in front of her. "A relic?"

"Well, it's hard to explain..."

But before the man could go on, Jenkins waved him off.

"The tea's ready. Come. You need to get yourselfes warm while we discuss your hard to explain experience."

To be honest she had no intention to hear bewildering stories while standing. She wanted to sit, able to look each and everyone of them into the face to judge their expressions.

Not that she was blessed with being an expert in knowing people, but she could tell the basic feelings apart.

So she led the herd of men into her – now a bit tidier – dining room. They followed, gawking at the healthy vanilla plant, the white pot-rose and the other, bigger plants – mostly rubber plants and different sorts of dracenas.

"Please, sit."

Luckily her uncle had had many friends whom he used to invite – there was no shortage of chairs in this house.
Because Jenkins had never thrown them out.

Slowly they sat down and now, in the warm light of her rustic style rope ceiling lamp she could finally check out their faces.

All of them seemed rather exhausted and tired, dark circles under their eyes. Though big and strong and armed – in the light they did not seem to be able to cause too much trouble now.
Their minds were occupied with something else than robbery or murder.
All of them sat slouched, except Hosea.

Filling up the cups with tea, Jenkins wondered what they were going to tell her.
She hoped it would be something like We managed to escape from a mental institution and are now on the loose. But we learned that there is no free food out here, so we wanna go back.

But Jenkins was quite sure it wouldn't be something like that.

Not at all.