The tension in the cafe air was thick enough to run a knife through it, and it did a wonderful job of choking him.

The first sight that greeted Neil on entering was Mr. Benetto, with his hand resting on his sullen forehead. A scarecrow-like man sat before him with his arms crossed and face even crosser. Something told him that the man wasn't Mr. Gregor, the owner and former general manager of the factory.

Neil quietly snuck to the nearest table, presently occupied by their driver and sat down, sincerely hoping that Helga had ordered the latte. The driver's eyes were restless, checking his watch every minute or two.

He asked him, "Are you all right there?"

The driver spared him a glance, before looking at his phone again."Today is my son's college interview, and I'm supposed to go with him and be there, you know. He said that he'd call me at eight."

Neil raised a hand to get the waiter's attention. "Why don't you drink something," He said. "It was a pretty long journey."

The driver looked at him, and said, "No, but thanks a bunch, man. I'm allergic to coffee."

"You are allergic to coffee?" Neil repeated, his eyebrows elevating themselves. His cheeks restrained the tiniest of smiles to avoid being deserted in a village miles away from home.

"Yes Mr. Haufer, I am allergic to coffee. Is there a problem?"

"No, nope. Not at all."

The driver shook it off with a laugh, and asked the waiter for some tea instead. Neil saw Helga calling him to come get his latte. Helga had long red hair that reached to her hips, and stunning green eyes. Unfortunately for her would-be suitors, she was roughly as sociable as a mountain lion. Even when in college, she used to avoid parties like the plague and had spent the nights alone, bashing rock monsters with her game console. She silently passed him the cup of latté. He followed her accusing glare to the tanned, chubby, brown haired Italian sitting before them with his eyes glued to his cup. Neil ignored the silence that followed and drank his latté, eavesdropping on Mr. Benneto.

The conundrum his boss was caught in with the scarecrow-man was being resolved in dismally low tones. Mr. Benetto's poker face thwarted Neil's attempts at reading his thoughts, projecting a lone sign of displeasure. The scarecrow-man, likewise, had adopted an earthen face, with two dull eyes and a horizontal line for his lips. For quite sometime, neither of them exchanged verbal blows regarding the denial of important information. The moment he heard the words, "Let's go see the land," his heart skipped a beat.

It wasn't even two minutes before the director had stormed out the door, with the scarecrow-man at his heels. The scrawny teenage barista summoned the manager, who followed the two of them outside.

Neil jumped up, pushed open the glass door and walked out, disregarding the manager peering at them through steam fogged spectacles. Behind him, he could hear the tip-tap of shoes and heels against the pavement. The boss' bald head wove in and out of the crowd, pushing past shoulders and turning annoyed heads. Neil was cussing under his breath and wondering why he had to be a fast walker, when he felt a hand on his shoulder, gently tugging it.

It was Firenze, with his hair ruffling wildly in the wind, and bright black eyes wide as the headlights of cars. He kept pace with him, trying his best to subdue his flapping tie.

"Is he angry again?"

Neil looked at him for a brief second, and tried to track down the missing bald beacon."Who, the boss? Yep."

The young man hissed in frustration as the bald head bobbed further and further away from them."That guy seriously needs to amp up his high blood pressure medication."

Neil chuckled and patted his back, saying, "Aah, you'll get used to it."

The crowd grew thinner as they neared the war-bombed, abandoned residential areas. The pavements grew narrow, with the cars parked on one side encroaching into them. The street they were treading on opened into a huge barren field, which looked so dry and dusty that it would have shamed the Sahara. The children playing hopscotch on its fringes stopped to looked at the strangers.

There were two structures on the said field. One was a farmhouse and the other was a factory. The factory was far off; the size of a matchbox as compared to the viridian-smothered ranges behind it. Neil was astonished by the sheer vastness of the fields, as they walked to the weathered and beaten looking farmhouse.

Outside, was a man who resembled a garden gnome, down to his white triangular beard and his pudgy red nose. The scarecrow-man introduced him to Mr Benetto and the team as Mr. Leon Gregor, only to be cut mid-sentence by the boss. Mr. Gregor heard him out, shook his hand and showered him with his goodwill for their company. He heaped praise upon praise with all the amiability of Saint Nicholas on Christmas day. He invited them into the farmhouse and politely asked the scarecrow-man to fetch some snacks.

"Your factory caught fire. What happened to the installed fire safety equipment?" Asked Me Benetto once they were all settled in the living room of the farmhouse.

Mr. Gregor replied, "There wasn't enough time. The systems were disabled due to an impending category three hurricane. We couldn't risk damage to our equipment. By the time the systems came back online, the fire had burnt half the building down. We had repaired the facility, but it cost us way too much."

Neil was fascinated by the huge farmhouse. It was last occupied during the Second Great war by the scarecrow-man's father and his family.

The scarecrow-man's father was a distant relative of Mr Gregor's. The old man had fought in the war and had come home, raving mad and with one lesser limb. His son wanted to sell everything and move to the city, but the old man never wanted to and refused sharply. Now both of them seldom talked to each other and the son had sold the land to Mr. Gregor.

He saw the old man sitting outside the house on his wicker easy-chair, ruminating on his past and looking at the horizon. He sat near him, gently petting the old Saint Bernard that had eagerly come up to him, wagging its tail. The old man's glazed eyes seemed to be searching for something.

The elder asked, "Hm, so you're the one buyin' this land now, eh?"

Neil replied, "No, sir. That would be Mr. Benetto."

"Eh, all of you businessmen are foxes of the same coat. Silver-tongued land snatchers, you folks are."

"Well if our company were to buy the land and the factory, a lot of people here would get a job."

"A fat load of good that'd do! More people were employed when the fields were fertile."

Neil decided against arguing with the old man any further. He scratched the dog behind its ears and asked, "What happened?"

"Don't try an' act all 'nnocent sonny. Your little factory made our fields barren, with all of your oxides and nitrides."

The old man coughed briefly, sadness clouding his face, as old memories returned to his mind.

"Even the Tommies had treated it better during the war. As if that wasn't all, we have other problems. Do you know how many people left here for the city? Even the newcomers don't stay for long. Bad times these are, bad times indeed."

"Bad times?" Neil asked, trying to calm the dog, who was licking his face.

He got his reply from the son, who stood in the doorway with a cup of tea in his hand. Grizzly bear attacks apparently. The week before, four men were hauled off into the forest nearby. Police investigation was still going on for the missing workers, without yielding fruit.

"Stuff and nonsense," the old man grumbled, "It's the Garwalf."

The scarecrow-man huffed and went inside. Neil's bewildered look made the old man explain.

"The Garwalf is a cruel beast who reigns the dark forest. It has a taste for human flesh. We saw them during the wars, heck rumor has it that there was an entire squad of them used in the war. Those are just rumors; you can't catch a Garwalf, boy, those are killing machines. The Tommies knew them too. They're what you modern folks call werewolf."

Neil smiled and stated with an air of finality, "Werewolves don't exist, sir. You probably saw a wolf and was too tired to recognize it. It was good talking to you, I'm Neil Haufer."

He extended his hand, the old man shook it with a hearty grip.

"Gefreiter Caleb Kohler. And soldiers do not hallucinate son."

Neil was confused at this point, his brows furrowed as he absent- mindedly stroked the dog's fur, deep in thought.

The old man was nuts.

Yet those words weren't far from truth either; wisdom came with age and it would not be good to ignore his words completely. He must've seen a lot of things in his life and must've spoken from experience. But the werewolf idea. . . that was absurd, perhaps. He wasn't sure.

As he went back in, Caleb sat outside looking at the field. Tears welled up in his eyes. He wondered why he loved the field so much, even when it reminded him of all his broken dreams and memories that tore his heart.

"Barry. . ." he whispered, a pearly drop rolled down his wrinkled cheek.