The Mailman

Tritia nodded politely. "Hello."

"Hi." Giselle beamed. "You know, your husband's a really good teacher. I

bet you're really proud of him. I never liked English much -- I was always more of a math person -- but I sure enjoyed his class."

"But did you learn anything?" Doug joked.

"I did. I really did. I learned the difference between 'that' and 'who.' "

Doug chuckled.

"Don't laugh. I'm serious. That's something that always stuck with me.

Before I had your class, I used to say, 'The person that went to the store,' or 'The guy that sold me the car.' But ever since you gave us that lecture, I say 'The person _who_ went to the store,' "The guy _who_ sold me the car.' "

"I'm glad I got through to somebody."

"You did. And it's helped me a lot. Now I'm a real snob about it, in fact.

Once I went to this party and there was a guy in really trendy clothes playing the serious intellectual. Only he kept saying 'that' when he should have said 'who.' , It made me feel so superior! Here was this man who should have intimidated the hell out of me, and I wasn't intimated by him at all. I felt sort of embarrassed for him, if you want to know the truth. It was great!"

Doug wasn't sure what to say. "Thank you, I guess."

"You're welcome."

"You're giving him a swelled head," Tritia said. "Now it's going to be even more impossible to live with him."

Giselle didn't pick up on the humor. "He's the best teacher I ever had,"

she said seriously. "Even though he gave me a C." She looked toward her shopping cart at the end of the aisle. "Well, I've got to get going. I'll be around for a while, though. Maybe we'll run into each other in town somewhere." She looked shyly away. "Maybe we can meet for lunch or something."

Doug nodded. "Maybe. Nice seeing you again."

The girl returned to her cart, retreating down the aisle, and Tritia raised her eyebrows. "Ha," she said.

"What does that mean, ha?"

"You know exactly what it means."

"The poor girl obviously came to the store to get herself a quarter-pound Hoffy, and you're picking on her."

"You're nasty!" Tritia laughed and hit his shoulder, and he felt a little better. He put an arm around her waist. They continued down the aisle and up the next one to the produce department and didn't hear a single word about The Suicides. When they reached the checkout stand, however, he heard snatches of words from various conversations, and the words "killed himself and "death" seemed to pop up an awful lot. His eyes rested on the _Willis Weekly_, displayed on its stand next to the counter, and he thought of BenStockley , the editor of the paper. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of the editor before. If anyone in town would listen to him, hear him out, perhaps even believe him, it would be Stockley. He said nothing to Tritia , but he decided then and there that he was going to pay the editor a visit later in the day.

They moved forward in line.

The Bronco seemed to hit every bump and chuckhole on the road home. There were eggs and other fragile food items in the back of the vehicle, and Doug tried to drive slowly and carefully down the dirt road. They drove over the creek and around the turn, and were heading along the straight stretch toward home when they saw, in the distance, what appeared to be two figures kneeling in the middle of the road. As they drew closer, they saw that the figures were Ron and Hannah Nelson and that they were crouched on the dirt before the unmoving form of a German shepherd.

"Oh, my God," Tritia said. "It's Scooby. Stop."

Doug pulled the car over to the side of the ditch just in front of the couple. They could see, this close, that Hannah Nelson's face was streaked with tears. Both of them hopped out of the car, hurrying forward. Ron stood up as they approached.

"What happened?" Doug asked.

"Scooby's dead." Ron's voice was choked and halting, and it seemed as though he too was about to cry. "I think he was poisoned. There's not a mark on him, but there's, like, saliva still dripping from his mouth. The saliva's kind of red."

"Do you need some help? Do you want me to take him to the vet?" '

"No. We'll take him. There's nothing that can be done now."

Doug looked down at the dog. There were, indeed, no marks on him, but the animal's eyes were open wide in an expression of terror and agony. The drool that hung in threads from his open mouth had pooled on the dirt in a muddy, bloody mixture. He met Tritia 's glance and saw in her eyes disgust and pity and anger. "WhocouJd've poisoned him?" she asked. "Do you have any idea?"

Ron swallowed hard. "No. But theWilkersons ' dog was poisoned yesterday, and someone told me that two or three dogs in town have been poisoned the last couple days."

"But how could they have gotten Scooby? I mean, you always have him tied up."

"Actually, he broke his chain yesterday and ran off," Hannah said. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, obviously willing herself not to cry. "It took us a few hours to find him."

"He was up past your place," Ron added.

Hannah began sobbing again, turning away from them.

Doug put a comforting arm around Tritia . "You sure there's nothing we can do?"

Ron shook his head. "Thanks, though."

"Let us know what you find out." Tritia moved forward and put a hand on Hannah's shoulder. "Call me."

The other woman nodded silently, and Doug and Tritia made their way back to the Bronco. Doug put his key in the ignition, started the engine, put the car into gear, and they pulled away from the ditch, moving slowly around the Nelsons and heading toward home. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Doug saw Ron pick up the dog and carry him toward the driveway.

Neither of them said a word as they pulled into their own drive. Doug parked next to the house and got two sacks of groceries from the back of the vehicle. Tritia carried the other sack. They walked into the living room. As usual, Billy was sprawled on the couch, watching TV. _The Brady Bunch_. Doug put his sacks down on the kitchen counter. Next to the sacks was this morning's mail. It had been delivered before breakfast, before they had even awakened, but neither of them had been brave enough to open the envelopes.

Now Doug shuffled through the mail and set aside the three envelopes addressed to himself. As Tritia put down her sack, he tore open the first one and unfolded the enclosed letter: "Dear Tim . . ."

His name wasn't Tim. He frowned, reading on:

You missed the meeting, so I'll fill you in on the details. We passed resolutions five through nine unanimously and hired the new custodian. That assholeAlbin gave us a sob story about books and we told him we'd find the funds just to shut him up, but to be honest, there are several more important items we could be spending the money on. I'd like you to write him a letter explaining that our budget for this fiscal year does not allow for new curriculum expenditures other than those already approved, etc. etc. . . .

His eyes jumped to the bottom of the letter. It was signed by Willard Young, the president of the school board. "Tim" had to be Tim Washburn, the only board member who hadn't attended the meeting.

"Those sons of bitches," he swore softly.

"What?" Tritia asked.

"They're not going to give me my books."

"But I thought you said --"

"They lied to me." He handed over the letter. "I can't believe it."

"I can." She read the letter, then threw it down on the counter. "What else is new? They've been screwing the teachers every year since we've been here. What made you think they were going to change?"

Doug picked up the second envelope. As he'd suspected, it was an official letter from the board, apologizing for not having enough money in the budget to buy his requested copies of _Huckleberry Finn_.

He tore the letter up and opened the cupboard under the sink, throwing the pieces into the garbage sack.

Tritia was starting to unload the grocery sacks, but Doug handed her the single envelope addressed to her. "Open it," he said.

"Now?"

"I have a theory."

Tritia took,theenvelope from him and carefully opened it, reading the short enclosed note. No, she thought, this can't be real. She read over the letter once more:

What makes you think I would want to meet with you? You were always a smug self-satisfied bitch, and I have no reason to believe that you have changed . . .

Smug self-satisfied bitch.

It was a phrase Paula had often used to describe women she did not like, and it lent the message an authenticity not found in the stilted phrasing of the rest of the letter. Tritia 's lips suddenly felt dry. Of course, she had never told Doug of her last meeting with Paula, of what had been said on both sides.

She had let him believe that they had simply drifted apart after the move and she had kept up the pretense of a friendship long after contact had been cut off. But after all these years, and after reading that letter, she had honestly thought that Paula might want to get together again. Lord knows, she had often thought of Paula in the intervening years, had often regretted the things she'd said. The two of them had been such good friends and their falling out over such a relatively minor item that she'd had no trouble believing that Paula wanted to meet.

_Smug self-satisfied bitch._

"What is it?" Doug asked.

She quickly folded the letter, not wanting him to see. "Paula's not going to be able to come," she said. "She changed her mind."

"Apparently so did Don," Doug said dryly. He handed her a letter from Don Jennings. There were only two words between the salutation and the signature:

"Fuck you."

Tritia blinked, not believing her eyes. She could not recall hearing Don ever use profanity. Not even "shit" or "hell" or "damn." She glanced up at Doug.

"That's not like him," she said. "Not unless he's changed an awful lot since we knew him."

"I don't think it's from Don."

"Do you --"

"I don't think the first one was either," he said, anticipating her question. "I don't think Don got a job in Phoenix, I don't think the Jennings are moving to Arizona, I don't think he wrote to me at all."

Tritia felt a tremor of fear pass through her. "That's an awful lot of trouble for someone to go through just to play a practical joke," she said.

"That first letter was so detailed. Whoever wrote it either knew Don or knew you, because there were things in there that a stranger couldn'tpossibly've known."

"It wasn't a joke," Doug said. "I don't know what it was, but it wasn't a joke." He held out his hand. "Let me see your letter."

She didn't really want him to read the letter, but she handed it to him anyway. She watched his eyes dart quickly from left to right as he scanned the words.

"That's what I thought."

They were silent for a moment. Tritia looked over at Billy, who was watching TV, pretending he hadn't heard what they were talking about. He'd heard, she knew. But she was glad he was pretending he hadn't. She didn't want to talk to him about this, didn't want to explain what she couldn't explain.

She turned away from Doug. She didn't want to talk about it to him either.

She didn't want to talk about it at all. She began unpacking groceries.

16

"That's a very interesting theory,"Stockley said. "Very interesting." He broke open a fortune cookie, reading his fortune, throwing the slip of paper away and slowly chewing the cookie as he mulled over what Doug had just told him.

A slovenly paunchy man in his mid-fifties, BenStockley looked like a stereotypical reporter. His pants were always black, his shirt always white, and both were always wrinkled. His hair was gray and thin, combed back over his scalp, and was slightly too long for both his age and contemporary fashion.

Stockley'sface was rough and leathery, with blunt Broderick Crawford features, and he always seemed to be sweating, no matter what the temperature. In his lower right desk drawer, the editor kept a box ofrisque fortune cookies he ordered directly from some company in New York. He bought the fortune cookies because he loved them and said he didn't want to have to pay for a whole meal just to get one, but he also enjoyed giving the cookies to unsuspecting visitors and watching the reactions on their faces as they read their usually obscene fortunes. He particularly liked giving the cookies to bashful young women and prim old ladies.

"Well, what do you think?" Doug asked.

"You going to blame the mailman for poisoning dogs, too?"

Doug slumped in his seat. "You don't believe me."

"I didn't say that."

Doug looked up at him hopefully.

The editor broke open another fortune cookie. "Have you gone to the police with any of this?"

"Well, I told them about the letters to shut off my phone, water, and electricity. I even gave them copies. But I haven't told them anything else."

"Maybe you should go to them."Stockley raised his hand. "I'm not saying I

believe you, but if you're right, this is definitely a matter for the police."

"I don't know if I'm right either. That's why I came to you. If I walk into the police station and tell them what I just told you, they'll probably think I'm crazy."

The editor chuckled. "You didn't want publicity, so you came to a newspaper. That's a good one." Doug started to protest, butStockley cut him off. "I understand. I know what you're trying to do, but the problem is that a newspaper deals with facts. If a story doesn't have the five Ws, I don't print it. I could do a feature on you, let you put forth your ideas, but everything would be attributed to you, and I don't think that's what you want."

"Actually, I'm not really looking for an article, although I think people probably do need to be warned. What I really came in for was confirmation. I mean, you know what goes on in this town. If someone stubs his toe or catches a cold, you're aware of it. I just thought that if anyone had noticed something unusual lately, it would be you. Am I right?"

Stockleywas silent, chewing.

"Just tell me what, if anything, is going on. What have you heard?"

The editor's gaze was troubled. "The relationship between a journalist and his source is very sacred," he said finally. "It's analogous to a lawyer/client relationship, a doctor/patient relationship, a priest/confessor relationship. I could pussyfoot around this, but I'll be honest. Yes, I have heard some talk.

Nothing specific, nothing like what you've told me, and nothing that anyone would admit to if questioned, but other people have noticed odd things occurring lately. And I think they'll notice even more after Bernie Roger's suicide. I should remain neutral, objective, and impartial, but I'll tell you the truth.

Yes, I think something strange is going on around here. And I think it's centered around the mailman."

Doug felt relief flood through him. He hadn't realized how good it would feel to have an ally, to hear someone, a third party, say that he was not crazy, that he was actually on to something. At the same time, it made everything that much more frightening. If all of this was true, the mailman was at the very least dangerously unbalanced and deranged.

Stockleywas right. He should go to the police and tell them everything.

The editor opened a drawer, drawing out a stack of mail. "Newspapers always get a lot of mail. A lot of weird mail. We get put on every crackpot mailing list imaginable. Nazis want us to give them free publicity, communists want us to cover their causes, religious fanatics want us to explain to people how the anti-Christ has infiltrated the government. For two weeks -- the two weeks after Ronda died -- we got nothing but good mail, like you said.

Subscriptions were up, letters of praise rolled in, even the chronic cranks stopped harassing us. That was weird enough in itself. Then, a few days ago, we began to get these." He picked up the top letter from his pile. "Here, read this."

Doug took the letter and quickly read it over. It described in detail the sexual torture and mutilation of someone named Cindy Howell. He grimaced. The description was so grisly and so disgusting that he could not finish reading it.

"Who is Cindy Howell?" he asked.

"My daughter,"Stockley replied.

Doug looked immediately up.

"She's fine. Nothing's happened to her. She lives in Chicago, and I called her right away. I called the Chicago police and told them, sent a photocopy of the letter to them, in fact. They're keeping a surveillance on her house as a favor."

"I didn't know you had a daughter."

"That's because I never told anyone in town. She was from my first marriage, and I never told anyone about that, either."

"How do you think the mailman found out?"

"I'm not sure it is the mailman. Read the postmark. It's from Chicago. It could be from enemies I made there or from some crazy who's after my daughter.

Or it could just be a harmless threat from some crank. Notice that it's written in the past tense. These are all thingsthat're supposed to have happened already."

"But you said you thought the mailman was --"

"I don't know. I'm not sure of anything." He hefted the pile of letters.

"These are all similar. They're postmarked from cities all over the country and involve people I've known throughout my life. They're not all sexually explicit like that one, but they're all equally sick. They could all be part of some organized effort to harass me, although I can't see a reason why; or they could all be part of some outrageously unlikely coincidence. I'm inclined to believe you about the mailman because I've noticed the same pattern in my mail as you have. And because other people have hinted about it to me as well. I don't know exactly what's going on here, but it does seem to be centered around the mail and it does seem to have started after this John Smith took over."

"Will you come with me to the police, then? They'll believe both of us."

"Believe us? Believe that one man sorts through and readdresses mail, writes forged letters to people all over town, well-researched letters at that, is responsible for two suicides as well as God knows what else? I'm not sure I believe it. I think that the mailman is somehow involved in this, but I don't know what the connection is. We're edging into _Twilight Zone_ territory here."

"You think I should tell the police what I know?"

"What you know?"

"What I think, then."

"I don't know how much good it will do at this point, without any proof "

"I have the letters from the creek."

"That's true." The editor leaned back in his chair. "Yes," he said. "I think you should talk to the police. I won't go with you, because my credibility's not my own, it's tied to the paper's as well, and that is something I will not jeopardize. You know Mike Trenton?"

"He was in my class several years ago."

"He's a good kid, and a good cop. Talk to him. He has an open mind. He might listen. Stay away fromCatfield ."

"Mike Trenton. Can I tell him about your letters?"

Stockleynodded. "Tell him." He sighed and leaned forward, withdrawing another fortune cookie from his desk. "I shouldn't be getting involved in this.

I'm supposed to report stories, not be part of them, but to be honest you've scared the hell out of me."

Doug smiled wanly. "I've been scaring the hell out of myself for a week."

"It's time to do something about it," the editor said. He bit into his fortune cookie.

Doug sat on the lowNaugahyde couch in the waiting room of the police station. Behind the counter, uniformed clerks and officers answered phones and completed paperwork. He felt old. Three of the five employees in the office had been his students at one time or another. That wasn't unusual. In a town as small as Willis, he was always running into ex-students. But seeing ex-students in positions of authority, their young faces hardened into adulthood, made him feel hopelessly old.

Mike Trenton emerged from one of the back rooms, smiling broadly. His hair was shorter than it had been in high school, but aside from that, he had hardly changed at all. His face was still openly honest, naive, and even in his dark blue uniform, he seemed young. "Long time no see, Mr.Albin ."

"Call me Doug."

"Doug." He shook his head. "It feels weird calling a teacher by his first name." He chuckled. "Anyway, what can I do for you?"

Doug glanced around the crowded office. "It's kind of busy in here. Is there someplace we can talk that's more private?"

"If this is about your case, you'd have to talk to Lt. Shipley. He's trying to track down those letters --"

"Well, it's related to that, but not exactly." He motioned with his head toward the hall. "Can we talk in your office or something?"

"I don't have an office, but I suppose we can use the interrogation room."

He waved to one of the clerks. "I'll be in the exam room," he announced.

The clerk nodded, and the two of them passed through a small security gate and into the hall. Doug followed Mike into the interrogation room, a small cubicle with barely enough room for two chairs and a table.

Now that he was here, Doug did not know where to begin. The chronology he had developed, the arguments he had worked out in his mind, withered in the just-the-facts environment of the police station. He had no proof, not really, only some strange occurrences and tentative connections. Connections that, it was obvious now, required great leaps of faith. The confidence he had felt while talking toStockley in the newspaper office had vanished entirely. He had not been expecting to get from the police the type of reception the editor had given his ideas, but he still had not been prepared for the lack of belief he now knew would greet his story. He had been stupid to come here at all.

Still, as he looked across the bare table at Mike Trenton, be saw not cynicism and disinterest in the young officer's eyes but an open willingness to hear him out.

This had better be good.

He started at the beginning, with Ronda's unlikely suicide and his initial impression of the new mailman at the funeral. He had an impulse to speed his story up, to relate it in the shorthand manner in which he'd seen witnesses talk on television, but he forced himself to take his time, to carefully go over every small detail, every emotional impression, believing that it would lend verisimilitude to his theory.

Mike stopped him before he was halfway through. "I'm sorry, Mr.Albin . No offense, but this has been a pretty hectic week around here. This isn't a big city police department. We have twelve cops working in two shifts. There's been a series of dog poisonings, a suicide we're still investigating, and the usual fights in the cowboy bars. We're seriously undermanned at the moment. I know we've been having a lot of trouble with the mail, but to be honest, you should be talking to Howard Crowell --"

"Look, you may think I'm crazy --"

"I don't think you're crazy, Mr.Albin ."

"Doug."

"Doug."

"I don't know exactly what's going on around here, but it seems to me that John Smith, if that is his real name, has the ability to . . . to somehow channel the mail in the way he wants it to go. He can separate letters from bills, good letters from bad. He can redirect a letter from its intended recipient to the person the letter is about. We got a note from Howard the other day that was supposed to be for Ellen Ronda. But the envelope was addressed to us. And this has happened to other people."

"So you're saying that Mr. Smith somehow opens all these envelopes, reads all these letters, and redirects them as some sort of perverse practical joke?"

"I don't know what I'm saying."

"Assuming that he would want to, do you know how long it would take for one man to do such a thing, even in a town this small?"

"I'm not sure he sleeps. Hell, I'm not sure he's even human."

"You lost me, Mr.Albin . I respect you and all, and I admit that strange things have been happening to the mail lately, but this sounds a little off the deep end."

Doug smiled wryly. "You haven't heard it all. I also think he's connected with Bernie Rogers' death and Bob Ronda's."

"This is a joke, right?"

"No joke. Just hear me out." He went on to explain his discovery at the creek and the increasingly bizarre nature of the mail both he and the newspaper had been receiving.

Mike frowned. "How come Ben didn't tell me this himself?"

"He didn't even want me to tell you."

"So what about Ronda and Rogers?"

Doug explained their connections to the post office and the unlikely nature of their suicides.

"We have been wondering how Rogers tied that rope," Mike admitted.

"So, what was written on the note pinned to Bernie's chest?"

The policeman shook his head. "Sorry. Confidential."

"But you don't think I'm totally crazy?"

Mike looked at him silently for a moment. "No, I don't," he said finally.

"God knows why, but I don't. I don't entirely believe you, but I don't disbelieve you either."

"Good enough for now. I know there's no proof against the mailman. There's no way you can haul him in. Yet. But I just want you to keep your eyes and ears open. Be on the lookout. Just be prepared."

The young officer shook his head, grinning ruefully. "If anyone else finds out about this, I'm dead meat. But okay."

Doug stood up, pushing his chair back. He looked at the policeman curiously. "You got something, didn't you?" he asked. "In the mail?"

Mike stared up at him, then nodded slowly.

"I could tell. You dropped that cop routine pretty fast and hopped aboard the bandwagon, no questions asked."

"I got a letter from my fiancй in Phoenix, telling me she wanted to break up. I called her, but her phone was out of service. So I took a sick day and drove down to ASU. She'd never sent me the letter. Her phone had been left off the hook accidentally on the day I tried to call." He scratched his nose. "Maybe I'm just looking for an easy excuse, but I think there might be something to what you say. I think there's something going on with the mailman. I still don't entirely believe you, and I hope we're not turning Mr. Smith into a scapegoat for our problems, but I'll keep a watch out."

"That's all I ask. I'll let you know if anything comes up."

"And we'll let you know if anything happens with your water and power and phone letters."

Doug thanked Mike and returned down the hall. The young policeman let him through the security gate into the lobby, and walking out to the car, Doug felt better than he had in quite a while. It was nice to be able to share some of the burden.

He got in the Bronco and took off.

On the way home, he passed the mailman, unloading mail from the box in front of Circle K, sorting the envelopes, carefully putting some into his plastic tray, shoving the others into a brown paper sack.

He waved as Doug drove by.

17

The next day the mail was normal. It had still been delivered at some odd hour before they woke up, but the mail itself was neither unnaturally good nor unnaturally bad. There was a subscription notice from _Newsweek_, a Visa bill, some junk mail. Nothing out of the ordinary, though that itself was out of the ordinary.

Doug tried to callStockley at the paper, but the secretary said he was not taking any calls. He told her to give the editor his name, and after a great deal of convincing she agreed to do so, but when she came back on the line, she informed him that it was paste-up day and that the editor refused to be interrupted by anyone. She said he'd call Doug back when he got the opportunity.

The mail was normal the next day as well, and Doug began to think that maybe he had jumped to conclusions, that he had overreacted, that he had been wrong. Tritia said nothing, but he could tell that she was thinking the same thing, and he could tell that she was relieved.

The next morning the mailbox was filled with letters. Doug went out to the mailbox before breakfast, while Billy was still asleep and Trish was watering her garden. There were ten envelopes all together, and the sheer bulk of them in the mailbox was somehow ominously threatening. Glancing quickly at their faces, he saw that few of the envelopes bore familiar addresses, and he stuffed them down the back of his pants, letting his shirt hang over the top half of the stack. Inside the house, he tore up the envelopes one by one, without looking at their contents, shoving the pieces in an empty milk carton in the garbage.

Trish walked in just as he closed the top of the carton. "Any mail?" she asked, wiping her wet hands on her jeans.

"None," he lied.

The next day there were no letters at all, nor any the day after that. It was almost as if he was being punished for tearing up the mail when it had arrived, as if he had rejected an offering and was to receive no more as punishment.

But that was crazy thinking.

Still, the absence of mail was somehow just as perturbing as its presence, and it made him feel strangely on edge. He had probably seen too many movies and read too many books, but he could not help ascribing a malevolent intent to this temporary respite. It felt to him like the calm before the storm, and he kept waiting for the storm to hit. He tried to finish the first wall of the storage shed, but he could not seem to concentrate and he gave it up after only an hour's work.

At the store that afternoon, he noticed that many of the people with whom he came in contact seemed tense and testy. Todd Gold, owner of the deli next door toBayless , did not even acknowledge his greeting. When Doug waved and called out "Hi," Gold turned curtly away and retreated into his store.

But he told Trish none of this. She seemed to be much happier since the mail had stopped coming, and though this out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality was not typical for her, was indeed entirely out of character, he did not want to drag her into what might simply be his own delusion. After all, perhaps there had been nothing strange going on, nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps his imagination had overreacted to a bizarre series of seemingly interconnected occurrences that had really had nothing to do with one another.

Perhaps.

But he didn't think so.

18

Tritia felt a little better today. For the third day in a row they had received no mail, and for some reason that cheered her up. The old no-news-is good-news theory. Besides, she was going to see Irene Hill, and a visit with the old woman never failed to lift her spirits.

She turned off the highway and drove down Pine Street. She passed the Willis Women's Club and sped by the brick building guiltily. She had made a commitment to attend Weight Watchers meetings there every afternoon for six months but had not shown up since the third meeting. She had adhered to the strict diet for the first two weeks and had lost five pounds, half of her goal, but the pressure had been too much. The weigh-ins, the pep talks, the lectures, the journals, the propaganda, had all made her feel too constrained. Besides, although she could afford to lose a little on the thighs, she still had a shapely figure and she knew she looked a hell of a lot better than some of the women in town who had not signed up for Weight Watchers at all.

She saw one of those women now, Beth Johnson, pulling out of the post office parking lot. Beth waved at her, a false plastic smile on her face, and Tritia waved back.

She continued down Pine, then turned off on the dirt road just before the golf course. She continued around the small hill until she came to the small .cluster of homes adjacent to the old ranger station.

She pulled into Irene's driveway. She had first met Irene Hill when they had both worked as volunteers for the annual library book sale a few years back.

Irene had been one of the original founders of the library, back in the days when few people in the town read or wanted to read, and she had, by all accounts, been one of the major civilizing forces in the community. Even after retiring, Irene had continued her association with the library, spearheading fund-raising efforts and volunteering for book drives, patron-membership drives, and book and magazine sales. It was Irene herself, in fact, who* initially called Tritia , soliciting her help.

The two of them had hit it off instantly. They were of different generations, of course, but Irene was up on current politics and cultural events, and with her outgoing personality and boundless enthusiasm for everything, she seemed to have more in common with Tritia than with the fossilized volunteers her own age.

Tritia got out of the car and walked up the faded wood steps to the screened porch. She knocked on the door and Irene's voice sounded from the kitchen, "Come on in. Door's unlocked."

Tritia pushed open the door and walked inside. Irene's house was decorated with antiques, though they had not been antiques when originally purchased. The foyer was dominated by a large hall tree, and the living room contained not only antique bookcases and china cabinets but a pristineVictrola and a beautiful baby-grand piano. Tiny porcelain figures, collected for the past half-century, lined shelves on the wall. The house was warm and comfortable, filled with healthy plants, and Tritia always felt good here, happy, as though she were in some sort of sanctuary protected from the outside world.

Irene was in the kitchen, plucking leaves from a tied bunch of dried plants. She often made her own tea from a mixture of mints and flowers she grew in her garden, a wonderful brew that Doug and Billy both said tasted, like dirt.

The old woman turned around as Tritia entered the room, her fingers continuing to skillfully defoliate the dried herbs as if they worked on their own, disassociated from the rest of her body. "How've you been, sweetie?" she asked.

"Haven't seen you in, what, two or three weeks?"

Tritia smiled. Irene was the only person she'd ever met, young or old, who could say words like "sweetie" or "honey" without making them sound either cloying or condescending. "I'm okay," she said.

"You don't sound okay. You sound kind of tired. In fact, you look a little peaked as well."

"Stress," Tritia said.

The old woman stopped tearing leaves and used a corner of the apron she was wearing to wipe sweat off her forehead. "Doug?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just . . ." Her voice trailed off. "I don't know what it is."

"I got your card this morning."

"Card?" Tritia felt a warning light go off in her brain. She had sent Irene no card.

"Yes. It made me laugh, but I don't know why you sent it. I'm not sick."

Tritia felt the stability she'd begun to recapture the last few days recede, a familiar fear welling within her. She looked around the kitchen and suddenly the room itself seemed strange, the light coming in through the window not quite right. "I didn't send it," she said.

The old woman's face clouded over. She was silent for a moment, though her fingers continued to work. "I was afraidofVthat ." There was no surprise in her voice, no emotion at all. It was a statement of fact, delivered straight.

Tritia moved over to the breakfast nook and sat down. "You know, too."

"Know what?"

"About the mailman."

Irene stopped working and sat down across the table from Tritia . "I

haven't seen him. But how could I not know what's been happening to the mail?

I've been getting letters from people I haven't seen for years. Decades, even.

People I thought were dead. I got a letter from Sue at the library that Sue never sent."

Tritia nodded. "It's been happening to everyone."

"Well, no one's talked to me about it. I called Howard up the other day to complain, but he seemed real distracted and didn't seem to pay much attention to me. I went over to the post office that afternoon, but that new man was there, and he told me that Howard had gone home sick." She shook her head. "I've never known Howard Crowell to be sick."

"Neither have I," Tritia said.

"The past few days, I've been getting get-well cards from people." Irene smiled. "At first I thought the doctor was telling everyone else something he wasn't telling me. But then I thought that this wasn't a joke. Friends sent me cards as though they thought I'd suffered a heart attack. I called to let them know I was all right, and they said they hadn't sent me anything."

"I didn't either."

"I know." Irene looked out the window. A hummingbird alighted for a moment on a honeysuckle branch next to the window, then zoomed off above the trees.

"I've decided to just ignore it. Hopefully it will all go away."

Tritia frowned. It wasn't like Irene to simply "hope" that something would go away. She had never been the passive type. "Have you talked to Howard since then?"

Irene shook her head. "Have you?"

She hadn't, but she was not sure why. It was obvious to her now that Howard had not sent that letter to her, but she had still been harboring some residual anger and had not been able to quite shake her duplicitous image of the postmaster. She would force herself to see Howard today, on the way home.

"Let's talk about something else," Irene said, standing up. "We have quite a bit to catch up on."

This wasn't like Irene either. Tritia looked into her friend's face and saw in her expression a woman she didn't know. A frightened woman. The warning light was now flashing, accompanied by a buzzer. "Have you told anyone?"

"Let's talk about something else," Irene said firmly.

Tritia drove around the block once, twice, then finally gathered up enough courage to pull into the post-office parking lot. She sat for a few moments in the car, then forced herself to get out and walk inside.

The parking lot was virtually deserted, only one car and one pickup in the spaces next to her. That was unusual but not completely unheard of for this time of day, but what was weird was the fact that no one was sitting on the benches outside the building. The old men who usually wiled away their days in front of the post office were nowhere to be seen.

She stepped inside. The mailman was alone behind the counter, helping an elderly man with a white mustache. This close, his sharp red hair seemed somehow threatening, particularly when paired with the blandness of his pale features.

Howard was nowhere to be seen. She tried to catch a glimpse of the room behind the partition in back of the counter, to see if the postmaster was working in the back, but she could see nothing from this angle.

She looked around the lobby. She had not been here in several weeks, and the room had changed. In place of the Selective Service poster that had been prominently displayed on one wall -- a poster featuring a benign young man seated on a stool next to his pretty girlfriend -- was a poster filled with the grimacing sweaty head of an ugly marine, flecks of blood on the collar of his uniform, aggressive words printed over his photo, demanding, ordering that all eighteen-year-old males register upon reaching their birthdays. The entire character of the post office seemed different. Even the stamp posters on the walls had changed. Where once had hung beautiful posters for the most recent nature stamps and wildlifephilatelies were now three identical signs for a new stamp celebrating the anniversary of the invention of the hydrogen bomb.

The room seemed very hot, almost oppressively so. The day was not particularly warm or humid, was in fact uncharacteristically cool for this time of year, but the inside of the post office was roasting.

The man at the counter finished his business, turning to go, and Tritia realized with something like panic that she was the only other patron in the post office. She, too, turned quickly to leave, but the mailman's smooth professional voice held her. "Mrs.Albin ?"

Tritia turned around. The mailman was smiling kindly at her, and she thought for a second that she and Doug were wrong, they'd both been paranoid, there was nothing wrong with the mailman, nothing unusual. Then she moved forward and saw the hardness of his mouth, the coldness of his eyes, remembered the creek, the letters.

And the night-time delivery.

The mailman continued to smile at her, although it was really more of a smirk than a smile. "May I help you?"

She was determined to remain strong and confident, to not show her fear.

"I'd like to speak with Howard."

"I'm sorry," the mailman said. "Howard went home sick this morning. Is there something I can help you with?"

The words he spoke were innocent enough, straightforward enough, but there was something about the way he said them that made her flesh creep. She shook her head, beginning to back slowly out of the office. "No, that's okay. I'll come back later when he's in."

"He may not be in for a while," the mailman said.

Now both his words and his manner had taken on a distinctly threatening edge, though he continued to hold his plastic smile in place.

She turned to go, her skin prickling with cold despite the oppressively warm air.

"You're nice," the mailman said, and his voice took on a sly suggestive quality.

She whirled around, feeling both the anger and the fear coursing through her veins. "You stay away from me, you slimy son of a bitch, or I'll have you in jail so fast your head will spin."

The mailman's smile grew wider. "Billy's nice too."

She stared at him, unable to think of a retort, the words reverberating in her head to the rhythm of her furiously pounding heart, _Billy's nice too Billy's nice too Billy's nice too_, the fear, now on the surface, taking control, no longer something she could contain. She wanted to run from the building, hop in the car, and take off, but some inner reserve 6f strength came to her rescue and she said coldly, "Fuck you, I'm going to the police." Walking slowly, assuredly, confidently, she left the building and got into the Bronco.

But she did not go to the police. And it was not until she was well off the highway and almost to the first crossing that she had to pull over and park the car until she had stopped shaking enough to continue driving.

19

Billy was watching TV when Lane came over. Well, not really watching. The television was on and he was looking at it, but it was merely background to him, white noise and white light. He was thinking about Lane. Ever since the other day at The Fort, his friend had seemed altered, different. It was nothing he could put his finger on, no change in outward action or appearance, but the difference was more profound and more disturbing than the schism he had sensed when he and Lane had argued over the letter, much more than the seeds of a gradual drifting apart. No, this was something else. He and Lane had gone down to the dig yesterday, had helped unearth an extremely well-preserved group of primitive cooking utensils, and Lane had acted, for all intents and purposes, the same way he always had. But there was a new secretiveness to his manner, a not-quite-definable quality that made Billy extremely nervous. Lane reminded him of a man he had seen in a movie, a man who had for years been killing young children and burying their bodies in his basement, waiting patiently for the right time to spring his secret on the world, to proudly announce his deeds to everyone.

But that was stupid. There was no way Lane could be harboring such a horrible secret. Still, his friend seemed changed in a way he found impossible to understand.

He reminded Billy of the mailman.

That was what it came down to, really. There was no resemblance at all, not in actions or attitude, but on some gut level, he had made the connection and it stuck. He was not simply worried about his friend, he was afraid of him.

Lane's familiar shave-and-a-haircut knock rattled the screen, and Billy called for him to come on in. Lane was dressed in old jeans and a black rock T shirt. He had combed his hair differently than usual, parting it in the middle, and it made him seem older, harder.

"Hey," Billy said in greeting, nodding at his friend.

Lane sat down on the couch. He was grinning hugely, a sincere grin of happiness that for some reason struck Billy as wrong and unnatural, and he looked toward the back of the house. "Your mom here?"

Billy shook his head.

"Too bad."

Billy tried not to let his puzzlement show. When had Lane ever expressed disappointment that a parent was absent from either of their houses? On the verge of adolescence, eager to prove their adulthood, both of them ordinarily tried to avoid parents as much as possible.

The two of them stared silently at the TV for a few minutes. Finally, Billy swung his feet off the coffee table and stood up. "So what do you want to do?" Lane shrugged noncommittally, a gesture that somehow rang false.

"Want to go down to the dig,aee what's happening?"

"Why don't we check out The Fort?" Lane said. "There's something I want to show you."

Billy agreed, though he was not at all sure that he was ready to see what his friend wanted to share with him. He walked outside and around the side of the house, where his dad was sitting on the porch, reading. "We're going," he announced.

His father looked up from his book. "Who's 'we?' And where are you going?"

Billy reddened a little, embarrassed by this verbal recognition of his not-yet independent status. "Me and Lane," he said. "We're going out to The Fort."

"Okay."

"See you later, Mr.Albin ," Lane said.

The two boys walked across the slatted and recently stained two-by-fours to the front of the house, stepping off the porch and moving past the garden.

They followed the path through the green belt, into the trees, and the house was lost from sight. Small branches and dried pine needles crackled beneath their feet. "So what is it?" Billy asked. "What do you want to show me?"

Lane smiled enigmatically. "You'll see."

They reached The Fort, hopping easily up on the roof and shimmying down through the trapdoor into the Big Room. Lane strolled casually into the HQ, sat down, picked up a _Playboy_, and began thumbing through it. Billy grew angry. He knew that his friend was drawing out the tension, making him wait, wanting him to beg to see whatever it was he wanted to show him, but he refused to give Lane the satisfaction. He remained in the Big Room, pretending to straighten one of the posters on the wall.

Lane tired of the charade first, and he put down the magazine, standing up. "I got a letter back," he said simply.

"From that woman?" Billy was surprised.

Lane smiled, a cunning, knowing smile that should have been conspiratorial but was not. "Want to see it?"

Billy knew he should say no. The smug self-satisfied expression on his friend's face was so unlike Lane that it seemed almost frightening, particularly in the dim half-light of the clubhouse. That smile had awakened within him a growing feeling of dread, but he found himself nodding assent.

Grinning, Lane handed over the envelope.

Billy took out the letter, unfolding it slowly. Lane's eyes were on him, hungrily taking in every move, studying his face as if waiting for a reaction.

He pulled open the final fold and felt his stomach contract as if it had been hit with a softball.

His mother, completely naked, sitting in a chair with her legs in the air and her pubic area thrust outward, was grinning up at him from the Polaroid photo attached to the letter. He could clearly see, even through the blurred focus, the glistening folds of her wet vagina, the tiny puckered hole of her anus. The handwriting on the letter was not that of his mother, but his eyes focused anyway on an underlined phrase in the middle of the page:

I love dick.

It was hard to breathe. His lungs did not seem to be working properly. He tried to suck in air, but his mouth was so dry that the inhalation tasted dusty and harsh and almost made him throw up. The paper was shaking noisily in his trembling hand and he let it fall to the dirt. He looked up at Lane. His friend was grinning hugely, his face filled with a sickening expression of smugness.

And lust.

Billy said nothing, but lashed out. His fist struck Lane full on the face, and unprepared, the other boy fell backward onto the ground. Billy kicked him in the side. His eyes were stinging and it was difficult to see, and it took him a second to realize that he was crying.

Lane scrambled to his feet. He was obviously in pain, his face red, nose bloody, eyes watering, but he was grinning crazily. "She said she wants it, and I wrote her back and said I'd give it to her. I'll fuck her all she wants."

Billy struck out again, but this time Lane was prepared. He punched Billy hard in the stomach, and Billy went down, doubling over, clutching his midsection.

Lane scrambled up the rope, through the trapdoor. "I'mgonna show this to everyone," he said. "Maybe otherpeople'll want to try your mom too."

And Billy lay crying on the ground as he heard his ex-friend's footsteps run over the twigs and leaves toward home.

20

Doug crouched on the porch, looking through the telescope at the trees on the ridge. Tonight would be a full moon, and he had brought the telescope outside so he could see the craters. They had gotten the telescope for Billy last Christmas, and the boy's interest in astronomy had waxed and waned since then in cycles roughly corresponding to those of the moon. The last time he'd used the telescope the high-powered setting had seemed somewhat blurry, and he'd asked his dad to check it out, but Doug had not had a chance to do so until now.

He focused the eyepiece until he could see the individual needles of a pine tree atop the ridge. Billy was right. The magnified view was a little blurry, but it probably wasn't enough to hamper anyone's enjoyment. They would still be able to see craters fairly clearly.

He swung the telescope over until he was looking at the Ridge Road. It was after seven and the sun was setting fairly fast. The dirt road winding up to the top of the cliff appeared orange in the fading light. He was about to use the telescope to look at something else when he saw movement at the bottom of his field of vision.

A red car moving slowly up the road.

Doug's heart skipped a beat.

The mailman was driving up to the top of the ridge.

A wave of cold passed over him. Ridge Road ran parallel to the highway through town before swerving up to the top of the cliff and unceremoniously dead-ending in an empty field strewn with boulders. The road intersected Oak right next to the school and was used as a lovers' lane by many of the high schoolers, but no one lived on top of the ridge.

There was no place on its summit to deliver mail.

The car passed over the top and Doug looked up from the telescope, standing. Even with his naked eye, he could clearly see the road from here, a light slice curving through the darkness of the ridge. He could not make out the detail he could through the telescope, but he would have no problem seeing a car go up or down the road.

He stared, waiting.

Waited, staring.

The sun sank lower in the west, throwing the face of the ridge into shadow until he could no longer differentiate between trees and cliff and road.

Although he would have no trouble seeing the mailman's car descend if its lights were on, there was no way he'd be able to spot the car with its headlights off.

He had a gut feeling, however, that the mailman was still up there on top of the ridge and would be for some time.

What could he be doing? Doug opened the screen door quickly and sneaked inside the house before the bugs hovering near the porch light could follow.

Tritia was putting away the last of the dinner dishes and Billy was already upstairs.

"I'm going to cruise down to Circle K," Doug announced.

Tritia closed the cupboard. "What for?"

He had no lie handy, but his voice didn't falter as he made up an excuse on the spur of the moment. "I just had a sudden urge for a candy bar. You want one?" She shook her head. There was a suspicious look on her face, but she said nothing.

"Big Hunk!" Billy called from upstairs.

"What if they don't have any?"

"Reese's!"

"Okay." He turned back toward Tritia . "Anything for you? Granola bar maybe?"

"No." She was quiet for a moment and looked as though she was about to say something, but she remained silent.

"I'll be back in fifteen minutes or so." Doug opened the screen door and stepped out, closing it behind him.

Tritia followed him onto the porch. "Be careful," she said quietly.

He turned to look at her. She knew something or sensed something. He could tell she was worried. He wanted to talk to her, to let her know what he was going to do, but somehow the words wouldn't come. He nodded, saying nothing, and walked down the steps to the Bronco.

He drove quickly, once he was out of eyesight and ear-shot of the house, eager to get over to the ridge, though he had the feeling the mailman wasn't going anywhere.

It was strange. The mailman had never, to Doug's knowledge, been seen shopping, buying gas, eating, or doing anything other than official postal work.

It was hard, in a town this small, to remain completely to oneself, to remain a mystery, and before this, he would have thought it impossible. Even if a person was pathologically antisocial, his neighbors would notice his comings and goings, his personal habits, and would report to their friends, who would report to their friends, and so on until the entire town was informed of his movements.

A small town was no place for an individual who craved anonymous privacy, no place for a recluse. But the mailman seemed to be pulling it off.

Now, however, he had the opportunity to see the mailman after hours.

And Doug had the feeling he was doing something other than postal work.

He swung onto the highway and sped through town, braking to thirty-five just before the speed trap next to the bank. He turned off on Oak and followed it to the Ridge Road, hands growing increasingly sweaty on the steering wheel.

There were no streetlights here and the road was dark. He slowed to a crawl as he reached the top of the ridge, not sure of what he would find, not wanting to give himself away.

The land at the top was fiat, tall grass and weeds punctuated by boulders of various sizes but without any significant foliage to hide behind. He cut the headlights and pulled to the side of the road, turning off the engine so as not to attract attention to himself. He was scared, but he had to go through with this. He rolled down the Bronco's window. The moon in the east was starting to rise, casting long shadows on theridgetop . The road, he knew, ended just a mile up ahead, and unless the mailman had left while Doug was driving over here, he was somewhere in between these two points.

Doug sat in the car for a few moments longer, gathering his courage, giving his eyes time to adjust to the gloom. There was a slight breeze blowing, a wispy, barely perceptible current of air that animated the blue-lit grass stalks and whispered sibilantly. Only . . . only there was another noise besides the wind whispers. A low faint murmur coming from somewhere up ahead, rising and falling with the tides of the breeze.

The mailman.

Goose bumps rippled down Doug's arms. Slowly, carefully, quietly, he opened the car door and got out, closing it softly. He began walking forward, keeping to the side of the road, grateful he was wearing dark clothes that would allow him to blend in with the night.

The ridge was not entirely flat, he saw now. It appeared so from a car, but walking, he noticed that a slight rise continued imperceptibly forward, the grade just enough to shield the center of the ridge from view.

The murmuring grew slightly louder.

Doug continued walking. His keys and change were jingling in his pants and he put his hand in his pocket to muffle the noise. The road curved slightly, the land leveling off, and he came to an abrupt stop, his heart thumping loudly in his chest. The mailman was about half a mile directly ahead of him, off the road, in the middle of the field. Even from here, he could see the lithe thin figure dancing madly amid the rocks and boulders, arms flailing with wild abandonment. He knew who it was without moving closer, but he wanted to be near enough to see everything, and he left the road, ducking through the grass, creeping forward, the fear a palpable presence in his body. Behind him, the moon was rising, full and bright, throwing the top of the ridge into phosphorescent relief, casting a soft light on the entire scene.

He moved silently forward. The sounds grew louder. The mailman was chanting something. At first it sounded like a foreign language, so strange and alien were its rhythms and cadences. But, listening closer as he approached, Doug realized that the words of the chant were English.

"Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail. . . ."

He was chanting the motto of the Postal Service.

The skin on the back of Doug's neck prickled, peach fuzz standing on end.

He crept behind a large irregularly shaped boulder and peeked out from behind its bulk. The mailman was leaping in the air, twirling joyfully, not following any steps or preplanned moves, dancing wildly and impulsively. This close, Doug could see that the mailman was dressed in his full postal uniform: shoes and pants, shirt and cap. Brass buttons glinted in the moonlight. Blue-blackness was reflected off the spit-shined shoes.

Doug's mouth was dry and cottony, his heart pounding so loudly that he was sure the mailman would be able to hear it. He had known there was something odd, something strange, something evil about the mailman. But he realized now that he was in far over his head. The mailman's dance was spontaneous and celebratory and could very well have had something to do with witchcraft orsatanism , but he had an intuitive feeling that the dance was related to something much worse, something much more primal and unfathomable, something he did not and perhaps could not understand.

The mailman stopped chanting and grinned crazily, perfect teeth seeming, to glow in the moonlight, staring raptly up at the sky as his legs moved in impossible steps, his arms mirroring each foot movement. He began to chant again. The Postal Service motto.

The mailman had been dancing for at least the five minutes that Doug had been watching, dancing at full throttle, using all of his strength and all of the energy at his disposal, but he showed no signs of tiring. Indeed, he did not even appear to be sweating.

Doug had no doubt that the mailman could keep this up until dawn.

He began backing away the way he had come, retreating behind the boulder, into thegrassFor a second, he thought he saw the mailman look directly at him and laugh, but then he was running, hurrying through the grass and down the road to the Bronco.

He turned around without flipping on his headlights and sped down the Ridge Road toward home.

He had forgotten all about Billy's Big Hunk and his supposed trip to Circle K, but neither Tritia nor Billy said anything to him when he arrived back, and he knew that they knew he'd been lying.

In bed that night, he stared up into the darkness, listening to Tritia 's deep even breathing and to the sounds of nocturnal nature. Somewhere near the house a cricket chirped tirelessly, and from the trees in back came the intermittent hooting of an owl.

Usually, he had no trouble falling asleep. He had needed a lot of rest as a child, and even as an adult had always been able to dive into dreamland soon after hitting the sheets. But tonight he lay awake with his eyes closed through Carson, through Letterman, then got up to turn off the TV, thinking perhaps that the noise was keeping him awake, though it had never bothered him before. But the outside noises also seemed to shut off at the same time as the television, and as he lay there in bed, staring up into the darkness, he imagined he heard on the slight breeze the sound of distant chanting.

21

Hobiewas awakened by the noise of clanking metal, and it took his sleep numbed brain a moment to identify the sound. His mind was still half-trapped in hisdreamworld , a wonderful place where there was a gigantic swimming pool and he was lifeguard and all the women swam naked. He had taken off his trunks and was just about to join one blond lovely on a beach towel when the noise had intruded on his sleep and returned him to the real world.

The sound came again, a metal clanking, and this time he recognized it.

The lid of the mailbox. He frowned, glancing over at the alarm clock next to his bed. Jesus, it was three in the morning. Why the hell was his mail being delivered at three in the morning?

He pushed off the covers and started to get out of bed when he suddenly stopped himself. How had he been able to hear the opening and closing of the mailbox lid? The mailbox was at the far end of the trailer, and the sound it made could be heard only when standing right next to it. And how had the sound woken him up? He was a heavy sleeper and ordinarily he slept through the night without awakening. Even his alarm usually had a difficult time rousing him.

He felt a sudden chill, and he quickly stood up and put on his robe.

Something strange was going on here. If the mailman was still outside, he was going to ask that queer little son of a bitch . . .

How had he known it was the mailman?

The chill grew, coldness creeping up his spine. It was such a bizarre thought to begin with, why had he assumed -- no, _known_ -- that the mailman had just made a delivery in the middle of the night? Why hadn't he thought that vandals were tampering with his mailbox? That kids were dropping eggs in there?

Hobiewalked out to the living room in the front of the trailer. He was not a timid man, but he had to force himself to move forward across the carpet.

What he really wanted to do was return to bed and hide his head under the covers.

He opened the door. The street was empty. Moonlight shone on the hoods of his cars in the front yard. He put his hand in the mailbox and withdrew an envelope. It was thick, stuffed. He closed and locked the door behind him, turning on the lamp in the living room and looking at the envelope in the light.

There was no return address, but the postmark was Vietnam.

_Vietnam?_

He examined the postmark more carefully. It was dated June 4, 1968.

A cold sweat broke out on his body. The temperature in the trailer seemed at once too cold and too hot, and he sat down heavily on the couch, staring at the envelope in his hand, not having the nerve to open it.

Vietnam. 1968.

It wasn't possible. A letter could not have been lost for over twenty years and then found and delivered. Could it? He fingered the envelope nervously. Maybe Doug was right. Maybe it was the mailman himself doing this, sending these fake letters to people. Why else would he be delivering them in the middle of the night?

But why would he do such a thing? What could he possible hope to gain? It was a felony to tamper with the mails. If he got caught, he would go to prison.

Hobietore open the envelope.

Four photos fell out. As before, they were before and after shots. An Oriental girl, fourteen or fifteen, head and vagina shaved bald, on all fours in a dark and dirty room. The same girl, legs amputated and propped in back of her head, face screaming with agony and terror. An even younger girl, possibly Asian, possibly white, tied spread-eagled to stakes embedded in the dirt, dark green jungle behind her. The same girl, eviscerated, eyes wide and unseeing, mouth frozen in arictus of tortured pain.

Hobiefelt his bowels contract. The fear was strong within him. His palms were sweaty, his hands shaking, and the paper rattled noisily as he held up the letter, but he forced himself to read it:

Bro, Things here are getting pretty hairy. We're out of the cities and into the villages. The damn jungle is really thick, green everywhere as far as you can fucking see. Even the sky's starting to look kind of greenish. We don't know where the VC is or when they're going to attack. It's a tense scene. Everything here makes you jump. We've been waiting on edge for something to .happen just like we were told, but the sergeant decided that the best defense is a good offense and the other day we went out on our own. You can see the pictures. A

guy named Mac took them and developed them. It was a VC village. The men were, all gone, but their wives and daughters were there and you know what they wanted. Lots of good healthy American dick. We couldn't just leave them, though.

They'd be able to tell the others which way we'd gone, so after we were finished with them we silenced them. You can see the pictures.Gotta go. You can tell Dad, but don't tell Mom. I'll write her a letter when I get a chance.

Dan Hobiestared at the letter a long time after he'd finished reading it. It was from Dan. There was no doubt about that. Even after all these years, he still recognized his brother's handwriting. But the hardness, the insensitivity, the casual approach to raping and killing, that was something entirely unlike Dan.

He found himself thinking for some reason of a time when he was eight or nine and he and one of his friends had been pouring salt on a snail, watching it dissolve. Dan had seen them and had burst into tears, crying for the snail and its now fatherless family, and it had taken both their mother and father to console him.

Hobiewanted to cry now, out of sadness for the loss of his brother, which even this tentative connection made once again real and immediate, and out of sadness for the change that had occurred within the boy before he died, a change that neither he nor his parents had ever seen.

What would Dan have been like had he come back?

Hobieput down the letter and scooped up the photographs. His gaze fell upon the eviscerated pubescent. The fear which had receded for a moment returned full-force, and he quickly reached over and turned on the lamp next to the couch,, clicking the switch until the bulb was on the third and highest wattage.

The light successfully evaporated the shadows in the room but could do nothing to dim the shadows stalking him from within.

He'd had enough of this. Doug was right. Something was definitely screwy here, and tomorrow morning he was going to go over to the post office and find out what it was. Find out why he was getting twenty-year-old letters and photographs, and why they were being delivered in the middle of the fucking night. He'd demand that Howard do something, and if the old man didn't want to, well, then, he'd damn well better have his insurance paid up.

Hobiefolded the letter and put it back in the envelope, shoving the pictures in with it. Half of him wanted to crumple up the letter, rip the photos, and throw the whole thing away, but another part of him wanted to save it all, to keep this last memento of Dan, and he put the envelope on the coffee table. He'd think about it later, decide what to do in the morning.

He was about to get up, turn the light off, and go back into the bedroom when he heard the sound of footsteps shuffling outside the door. Fear flared within him, and he sat unmoving, afraid even to breathe. A low metal clanking told him that the mailbox had been opened and closed.

Another letter delivered.

He knew he should jump up and confront the mailman, rush outside and beat the crap out of the scrawnyfaggoty bastard, but he was afraid to so much as acknowledge his presence. He shut his eyes, muscles tense, trembling within, until he heard the sound of retreating footsteps, the purring sound of a fading engine.

He sat there until dawn, afraid to return to bed, afraid to look into the mailbox, afraid to move, and it was only the sound of his alarm ringing at six o'clock that forced him to finally leave the couch.

22

Doug sat in the hard-backed chair, glaring at the police chief. "I saw it!"

"Okay, let's assume that the mailman was dancing in the dark. So what?

It's not against the law to dance. Dancing is considered a legitimate form of self-expression."

"Don't play games with me. There're some weird fucking things going on in this town, and you're giving me thispiddly -ass bullshit."

The chief eyed him coolly. "The law is not 'piddly-ass bullshit,' Mr.

Albin. I am well aware of your opinions on this subject, and I'll be honest and tell you that we are pursuing all avenues in our investigations."

Mike Trenton, next to the chief, stared silently down at the table.

"Don't patronize me with that Jack Webb crap. You know as well as I do that something strange is going on here."

"I don't tell you how to teach; don't you tell me how to do my job." The chief stood up. "I would appreciate it if you would stay out of police business.

We are fully capable of handling --"

" 'Fully capable?' "

"That is all, Mr.Albin ." The chief put his hands on the table and leaned forward. "I've wasted enough of my morning talking to you and listening to your theories. Please do not harass this department again or you'll find yourself charged with obstruction of justice. Do I make myself understood?"

Doug looked across at Mike, but the young cop was still looking down at the table, refusing to meet his gaze. "Perfectly," he said.

Doug spent the rest of the day the way he'd wanted to spend the entire summer -- sitting on the porch, reading. But try as he might, he could not relax and enjoy himself. He knew he had screwed things up royally at the police station, and the knowledge that he might have lent the mailman legitimacy in the eyes of the police gnawed at him. He should have known better. He should have been more cautious, should have at least maintained the appearance of calm rationality. Instead, he had ranted and raved like a fanatic.

He put down his book and stared out at the trees. Was it possible that he was reading into events interpretations that weren't there? That he really was suffering from some sort of obsessive delusion?

No.

He had seen the proof with his own eyes.

A bluebird flitted from tree to tree, searching for food, and he watched it impassively. Many of his fellow teachers, he knew, lived in little academic worlds of their own, completely disassociated from the life around them. He could not do that. It would be nice if he could, but fortunately, or unfortunately, he lived in the real world. He was affected by politics, by economics, by the weather.

By the mailman.

That was one thing he'd learned the past two weeks: how much he was affected by the mail, how much the mail intruded on all aspects of his life.

"Doug!"

He looked up. Trish was standing in the doorway, holding open the screen.

"You want to have lunch on the porch or inside?"

He shrugged noncommittally and picked up the book from his lap.

A moment later, he felt Trish's hand on his arm. "Why don't we go to Sedona for the day, get away from all this? We're both letting it affect us far too much."

He nodded slowly. "You're right."

"It would do us good to get away."

"Yeah. We can go up Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff. They have a real post office there. Maybe I can talk to --"

"No," she said firmly. "I mean, get away from _this_. All this craziness.

It seems like the mail's the only thing we think about or talk about anymore.

Let's just take Billy and go to Sedona and have a nice day's vacation, like we used to. We'll eat, shop, and be typical tourists. How does that sound?"

"It sounds good," he admitted.

"Are you willing to give it a try?"

He nodded.

"So, do you want to eat inside or on the porch?"

"On the porch."

She headed back toward the open door. "Food's on its way."

They left early the next morning, stopping first by the bakery for donuts, coffee, and chocolate milk. Trish was right, Doug thought as he drove out of town. Maybe they needed a short vacation, needed to get away in order to gain some perspective. The trees sailed by as he kept pace with the speed limit.

Already he felt easier, happier, more relaxed than he had in weeks. It was as if the mantle of responsibility he had placed upon himself had been left behind at the town limits. Although he knew it would be waiting for him when he got back, he was grateful to be rid of it even temporarily and was determined to enjoy the day. The forest grew thicker as they headed north. The narrow highway wound between cliffs and into gorges, following the lay of the land.Subforests of small saplings grew in the shade of huge ponderosas. Low bushes covered all available space. Here and there, they could see the stark leafless skeletons of trees hit by lightning, bare branches contrasting sharply with the surrounding lushness. Once, near a small pond in a grassy meadow, they saw a deer, frozen in place by the terror of seeing their car.

Then the trees tapered off, segueing from forest to high desert, and after another hour, the road hit Black Canyon Highway.

"Burger King," Billy said as they passed a sign that said it was forty miles to Sedona. "Let's eat at Burger King."

It was the most interest he'd shown in anything all day, and Doug was about to say okay, but Tritia said firmly, "No, we're going to eat at Tlaquepaque."

"Not that place again," Billy groaned.

"We haven't been there in over a year," his mother told him.

"Not long enough."

"You be quiet."

They were all silent after that, listening to the hum of the Bronco's wheels and the sounds of static and country music from the station in Flagstaff.

Fifteen minutes after they passed the turnoff for Montezuma's Castle, Doug pulled off Black Canyon Highway and headed down the two-lane road that led to Sedona. Of the three approaches to the town, this was the most spectacular.

There was no gradual shift in the color of the rocks as there was coming in from Camp Verde, and there were no obscuring plants and trees as there were along the road through Oak Creek Canyon. The land here was tailor-made for western movies:

great open expanses strategically broken by the dramatic shapes of the red rock cliffs. The colors were vivid: blue sky, white clouds, green trees, red rocks, sharp contrasts that could not be captured by any camera.

They drove past Bell Rock and past Frank Lloyd Wright's Church of the Holy Cross, the road gradually hugging closer to the creek and the cliffs as the first shops and resorts appeared.

They went directly to Tlaquepaque, a Spanish-styled complex of galleries, shops, and boutiques located in a wooded spot at the edge of Oak Creek. They strolled through the shops, taking their time. Billy soon grew bored and ran ahead, checking out the tiled fountains that seemed to be in every courtyard and counting the coins in the water while surreptitiously examining the bathing suited mannequins in the clothes store windows. Tritia fell in love with a Dan Naminghaprint she saw in one of the galleries, and while she and Billy continued on ahead, Doug doubled back on the pretext of going to the bathroom and bought the print, hiding it under a blanket in back of the car.

As Tritia had promised, they ate lunch in the outdoor patio of the small Mexican restaurant, listening to the burble of the creek. Their view was limited by the trees and the courtyard, but they could still see hills of red rock, the color made more brilliant in contrast with the green foliage.

It was a relaxing lunch, and for a moment Doug was almost able to forget about the mail, to forget about everything that had happened recently in Willis.

Then a blue-suited postal carrier, brown bag slung over his shoulder, stopped off and handed a stack of envelopes to the girl behind the cash register. The mailman smiled at the girl, seemingly normal and friendly, but for Doug the mood was spoiled, and as he ate his chilirelleno , he watched the mailman make the rounds of all the shops.

The trip home was uneventful. Billy slept in the back seat while he and Trish stared out at the passing scenery and listened to an old Emerson, Lake &

Palmer tape. They passed the green sign that announced the Willis town limit a little after four, and Doug drove past Henry's Garage and the Ponderosa Realty office, but just beyond the Texaco station, the road was blocked by two police cars with flashing lights. A single policeman stood next to each car, along with a crowd of motorists who had not been allowed to pass the barrier. Several local residents milled around nearby. Doug saw at the edge of the crowd the brown uniform of a member of the sheriffs posse.

Hepulled'to a stop in back of a battered jeep and told Trish and Billy to wait in the car as he got out to investigate. As he approached the makeshift blockade, he realized that one of the policemen was Mike Trenton. He strode up to the young cop. "Mike, what happened?"

"Please stay back, Mr.Albin . We can't let you through."

"What happened?"

"BenStockley went crazy. He took a pistol into the bank about an hour ago and started shooting."

"Oh my God," Doug breathed: "Was anyone hurt?"

The police officer's face was pale, tense. "Fourteen people are dead, Mr.

Albin."

23

The murders made national news. All three of Phoenix's network affiliates sent vans and reporters to Willis, and their stories were picked up for the national nightly newscasts. Channel 12 seemed to have the best coverage, and before going to bed Doug watched again as the cameraman's telephoto lens caught the white flash ofStockley's gun behind the smoked bank window at the precise moment that the editor killed himself. The suicide had happened live during the five-o'clock broadcast, and even the reporter had stopped talking as the sound of the shot echoed with a grim finality. Doug had known then thatStockley was dead, that he was not merely wounded or injured, and he'd watched with increasingly blurred vision as the remaining hostages ran out of the building and the police swarmed in.

By the time the commercial came on, he was openly crying.

He andStockley had not exactly been friends, but they were closer than acquaintances, and the man's death had affected him strongly. He had respected the editor. And he had liked him. It was strange watching it all on TV, seeing places he knew and people he knew in such a distanced and depersonalized form, and somehow it made him feel more depressed.

In an update, over a shot ofStockley's covered body being wheeled across the bank parking lot to an ambulance, the anchor said that a series of letters had been found in the editor's desk that police believed would give them a clue as to why he had suddenly gone on the killing rampage.

_Letters_.

Doug shut off the television and walked down the hall to the bedroom, where Trish was already asleep and snoring.

_Letters_.

The connection was so damn obvious that even that doltish police chief would have to see the pattern. But, no, he remembered seeing news coverage of similar events, friends and neighbors uniformly repeating how they couldn't believe the kind, considerate, normal person they knew could have committed such horrible acts. The man who suddenly went crazy and murdered innocent bystanders was becoming a regular feature of the nightly news; there was nothing really unusual about it anymore.

Of course, Doug himself was one of those people who could not imagine how Stockleycould have done such a horrible thing. He had no doubt that the mailman was at the bottom of this, behind it all, but try as he might, he could not imagine anything written in a letter that could so completely send 'a person around the bend, that could make an ostensibly sane man start killing innocent individuals. Much as he hated to admit it, much as it hurt him to admit it, there probably had been something wrong withStockley to begin with, some breaking point, some button the mailman had known how and when to push.

There was something even more frightening about that, for just as it was said that everyone had a price, everyone probably also had a breaking point.

Maybe he'd been wrong before. Maybe the mailman hadn't killed Ronda and Bernie Rogers. Maybe they'd killed themselves because the mailman had known exactly what to do to set them off, to push them over the edge. Maybe the mailman knew what that point was for all of them, for everyone in Willis. For himself.

For Tritia .

For Billy.

It was long after midnight when Doug finally fell asleep, and his dreams were filled with white faces and red hair and envelopes.

The next day was hotter than usual; the sky clear, without a trace of cloud to offer the earth temporary shade from the hellish sun.Hobie dropped by just before lunch, dressed in his lifeguard uniform, though it was Wednesday and the pool was closed for cleaning. He came up on the porch, accepted Doug's offer of iced tea. He seemed distracted and ill at ease, unable to concentrate. Doug talked to him about the murders, but though his friend nodded in all the right places, even volunteering an occasional comment or opinion, he seemed not to be listening, the conversation going in one ear and out the other.

FacingHobie , Doug noticed food stains on the black swimming trunks, and this close he saw that his friend's T-shirt was wrinkled and not as white as it should have been, as though he had been wearing it for days, sleeping in it.

Even Tritia must have noticed something odd aboutHobie , for she was not as hostile to him as she usually was. Indeed, as the three of them ate Italian sandwiches on the porch, she seemed downright sympathetic toward him, going out of her way to bring him into the conversation, and for the first time that day he relaxed a little, though he was by no means his usual talkative overbearing self. After lunch, Tritia returned indoors, and the two men remained on the porch. "So, whatever happened with your books?"Hobie asked, belching loudly.

"Ever get an official no from the district?"

Doug nodded. "I sent them a letter back, though, complaining."

"What'd they say?"

"Nothing." Doug smiled wryly. "I guess their reply got lost in the mail."

"Willard Young. Shit, he's nothing but a dick with feet."

"Wrong side of the body. I'd call him an asshole."

"That too."

They were silent for a moment. From inside came the muffled clink of china as Tritia washed their plates.

"Something's happening in this town,"Hobie said finally. His voice was low, serious, totally unlike his usual loud bluster, and Doug realized that for the first time he was hearing the sound of fear in his friend's voice.

The emotion had to be transferable, he thought, for he could feel the cold prickling of peach-fuzz hair on his own arms and neck. "What is it?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

"You know damn well what it is."Hobie looked at him. "The mailman."

Doug leaned back in his chair. "I just wanted to hear you say it."

Hobielicked his lips, ran a hand through his already tousled hair. "I've been getting letters from my brother," he said.

"You never told me you had a brother."

"He was killed in Vietnam when he was nineteen."Hobie took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was filled with an uncharacteristic bitterness. "He was only nineteen years old. Richard Nixon's going to burn in hell for that one. He'll join Lyndon Johnson, who's already down there." He looked at Doug. "But the point is, these are letters Dan wrote when he was over there. Letters we never got. Letters that somehow got lost."

Doug didn't know what to say. He cleared his throat. "They might not be real letters," he said. "We've been getting . . . fake letters, letters supposedly from friends but written by the mailman himself. I don't know how he does it or why he does it, but --"

"They're real. They're from Dan."Hobie stared silently out at the trees, as if watching something. Doug followed his friend's gaze, but could see nothing there. When he turned back, he saw thatHobie was on the verge of tears. "I

don't know where the mailman found those letters, but they're in Dan's handwriting and they have things in them that only he could know. The only thing is . . . I mean, I'm not a religious guy, you know? But I keep wondering if maybe those letters were supposed to be lost, if we weren't supposed to get them because . . ." He shook his head, wiping his eyes. "I'm learning things about my brother that I didn't want to know. He's a completely different person than I

thought he was, than my parents thought he was. Maybe he changed in Vietnam, or maybe . . ." He looked at Doug. "You know, I wish I'd never seen those letters, but now that I got them, now that I'm getting them, I have to keep reading. It's like I don't want to know, but I have to know. Does that make any sense to you?"

Doug nodded. "How many have you gotten?"

"I get one a day."Hobie attempted a halfhearted smile. "Or one a night.

They come at night."

The two of them were silent for a moment.

"The mailman's responsible forStockley ," Doug said quietly. "I don't know what he did or why or how he did it, but he did it. He drove him to murder. He somehow got him to go into that bank and start shooting. It sounds crazy, I

know. But it's true."

Hobiesaid nothing.

"I'm not sure if Bernie Rogers killed himself, but I do know that if he did, he was pushed into it. The same goes for Ronda." He reached over and put his hand onHobie's shoulder. The gesture felt strange, uncomfortable, but not unnatural. He realized that, in all the years he had known him, this was the first time he had ever touched his friend. "I'm worried about you," he said. "I

want you to be careful. I don't know what's happening here, but it seems like the mailman's picking on you for some reason, that --"

"That what? I'll be next?"Hobie snorted derisively, and for a moment he seemed like his old self. "You think I'd actually kill myself? Shit. You got another think coming."

Doug smiled. "I'm glad to hear you say that."

"I'll admit, this thing's got me a little worked up, but I'm still playing with a full deck here. I'm not about to let a little mail drive me over the edge."

"Okay."

"But wegotta do something about that fucker, you know?"Hobie's voice was serious, intense. He looked directly into Doug's eyes, and what Doug saw there as he looked back frightened him. He glanced quickly away.

"You're with me on this, right? I mean, you're the one who first found out about him."

"Yes," Doug said. "But. . ."

"But what?"

"Just don't do anything stupid, okay? We'll get him, but just don't do anything dangerous. Be careful."

Hobiestood up. "I have to go. I have to get back to the pool."

"The pool's closed today," Doug reminded him gently.

"Yeah,"Hobie said. He shook his head absentmindedly as he walked across the porch and down the steps. "I been forgetting a lot of things lately."

"Be careful," Doug said again as his friend got into the truck. Tritia came out on the porch and stood next to him, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

Both of them waved asHobie backed up and swung onto the road.

Hobiedid not wave back.

24

Doug and Tritia walked out to the mailbox together.

It was strange how such a benign object, an inanimate hunk of hollow metal, could within such a short time have taken onsuoh a malevolent, threatening quality. They walked across the crunching gravel slowly, solemnly, with trepidation, as if approaching a gallows or guillotine. They said nothing, not speaking, almost afraid to speak.

The morning was overcast, unusual for late June, and Doug wondered if perhaps the rains would come early this year. The thought disturbed him somehow.

It was not unheard of, not even that unusual, but the fact that all of this strangeness was accompanied by a shift in traditional weather patterns gave the entire situation a broader, more cosmic quality. Ordinarily, he would have dismissed such an obviously ludicrous idea, but these were not ordinary times.

Both Trish and Billy had been withdrawn and uncommunicative the past few days, Billy downright sullen, and he suspected that each of them had seen something, though neither would admit it.

That was scary, Doug thought. They had always been a close family, had always shared everything, but now they were drifting apart, becoming more private, more closed with one another. And he didn't know what to do about it.

They reached the mailbox. As if it was a ritual they had performed before or an act they had practiced and worked out ahead of time, Doug opened the box and Tritia withdrew the envelopes.

There were two of them, one for each.

Tritia looked at him questioningly, handing him his envelope.

In answer, Doug tore it open. The envelope was empty.

Tritia 'sface was pinched, tense, as she opened hers. There was a letter inside and she took it out, unfolding it. She scanned the page, face blank, unreadable, then looked up at him. "Who," she asked, "is Michelle?"

Doug was puzzled. "Michelle?"

She handed him the letter and he read it over. Halfway down the page, he knew the Michelle to whom she was referring. Michelle Brunner, an old girlfriend from college, the only woman besides Tritia with whom he'd ever had what could be legitimately termed a sexual relationship. He frowned as he continued reading. The letter made it sound as though he and Michelle had been carrying on a hot and heavy affair for years, seeing each other whenever they could, though in reality he had not seen her since his Junior year in college, two semesters before he'd met Tritia .

"It's fake," he said, folding the letter.

"Who's Michelle?"

"Michelle Brunner. I told you about her. The crazy one?"

"The slut?"

Doug smiled wanly. "That's her."

"She still writes to you?"

"You know who wrote this," he said, his smile fading. "And it wasn't Michelle."

She nodded tiredly. "So what are we going to do? This is just getting worse."

"We've got to put a stop to this. After breakfast, I'm going to talk to Howard. And if I can't get him to do anything, I'm going to call the main post office in Phoenix. I don't know why I didn't do it before. I should have called them the first thing. I should have sent them samples of the letters we found in the creek --"

"They never would've got there."

"That's true."

"And how are you going to tell them everything? You think they'll believe you? They'll just think you're some paranoid crank."

"No, I won't tell them everything. But I'll tell them about the mail delivery. At the very least, they'll transfer the mailman somewhere else."

"And if he won't go?"

The question hung, unanswered, between them.

"Come on," Doug said. "Let's go have breakfast."

The line in front of the post office was long, the patrons irate. Doug walked slowly across the parking lot. The people in line looked different than usual. Shabbier, seedier. They were dressed not in the nice clothes they usually wore when going into town but in older dirtier garb -- painting clothes, work pants, torn undershirts. There was grease on the arms and faces of some of the men, and few of the women had bothered to comb their hair or take it out of rollers. One old woman was wearing a bathrobe and slippers.

Even from here, Doug could hear the menacing tone of the crowd's conversational buzz. The people in line were not chatting of the news, sports, or weather, not catching up on local gossip. They were not even sharing complaints or grievances. They were venting their anger, telling and retelling the same events in order to keep that anger fueled, speaking of canceled insurance, threatened lawsuits for nonpayment of bills, problems caused by the mail.

Instead of standing outside of the post office in line, Doug walked through the second of the double doors into the building. He looked around.

Things had changed since the last time he'd been here. The place seemed darker, dirtier. The blinds over the windows were drawn, and one of the recessed bars of fluorescent light had burned out. The swamp cooler was off again, and the room was sweltering, the humidprestorm air augmented by the sour odor of mingled sweat and breath. The posters on the walls were different as well, he noticed.

The Love stamp poster that had hung forever on the wall above the forms table had been replaced by a poster for a new fifty-cent commemorative guillotine stamp. The poster, white against a black background, depicted a large wooden guillotine, metal blade gleaming as hordes of vicious-looking people crowded around it. On the side wall, where Howard had traditionally hung advertisements for upcoming stamps featuring famous people, was a large poster of an Adolf Hitler stamp and, next to that, a stamp featuring the demented visage of Charles Manson.

At the counter was the mailman, red hair practically glowing in the dim room.

The hair was prickling at the back of Doug's neck, but he refused to let the mailman see his fear. He walked up to the front counter. "I want to talk to Howard," he said as forcefully as he could.

The mailman eyed him coldly. "I'm helping someone else right now. If you'll just wait your turn in line --"

"Just tell me whether or not Howard's here."

"You'll have to wait your turn."

"Yeah," several people echoed.

"He's not here," a man in line said. "I heard Mr. Smith tell someone else he's not here."

Doug turned to look at the owner of the voice. It was a person he did not know, a small timid man sandwiched between a scowling woman and a blank-faced teenager. The man was obviously not used to speaking up or speaking out. He had the naturally apologetic features of the perpetually frightened, but there was determination in his face, anger in his eyes, and at that moment he looked to Doug almost heroic. Someone else was willing to fight back against the tyranny of the mailman.

"Thank you," Doug said.

The small man grinned. "No problem."

The mailman was already helping the customer in line, pretending as though nothing had happened. Doug walked out the door and back outside. He crossed the small parking lot, taking his keys out of his pocket. He would go to Howard's house and catch up with him there. It was obvious to him now that, like the rest of them, the postmaster was afraid of his underling, but maybe he'd be able to talk Howard into taking some action. Something sure as hell had to be done.

He opened the door of the car and got in. He hadn't noticed it from the outside, but his windshield, he saw now, was covered with spit. Saliva dripped from several spots on the glass. He looked over at the line outside the building, trying to determine who had done it, but no one glanced in his direction at all.

He turned on the wiper/washer and backed out of the parking lot, pulling onto the street. He headed toward Howard's.

The postmaster lived on a low hill in one of the nicer sections of town.

His house was in what passed for a subdivision in Willis, and was not far from the post office. Unlike the area in whichHobie lived, the single-story homes on Howard's street were all well kept up and well taken care of.

Doug parked the car on the street in front of the white clapboard house.

He turned off the ignition. There was no sign of Howard's car, but that meant nothing. It could very well be parked in the garage.

He got out of the car and headed up the front walk. The grass, he noticed, was yellowish brown, not green like the lawns in front of the other houses. Not a good sign. Like many older people, Howard had always been a fanatic about maintaining his yard.

He stepped onto the front stoop and rang the bell, listening for the ring.

Nothing. He knocked on the door instead. He waited for a few moments, then pounded again. "Howard!" he called, "are you home?"

There was no sound from within the house, and after three more tries and five more minutes he stepped off the stoop and moved over to the large living room windows. The curtains were closed, but they were sheer and he figured he'd be able to see something inside. No such luck. Through the material he could see nothing. The interior of the house was much too dark and monochromatic for individual elements to be differentiated. He moved around the side of the house to the dining-room window, then to the kitchen, then around to the back bedroom, hoping at least that a drape would be parted, open wide enough for him to see inside, but the curtains were all firmly and carefully shut. He tried the back door, but it was locked.

"Howard!" he called, knocking.

No answer.

There were other houses flanking Howard's, but their owners were either inside or at work, and the entire neighborhood seemed empty and abandoned. It gave Doug the creeps. He felt as though he was in one of those movies where the sun flared or some other pseudo-scientific catastrophe had occurred and he was the last man on earth, left alone to wander through the perfectly preserved artifacts of an otherwise untouched world.

A dog barked a few houses away, and Doug jumped. Jesus, he was getting skittish.

"Howard!" he called again.

No answer.

Either the postmaster wasn't here, or he was so sick he couldn't answer the door, or he was hiding.

No matter what, he would give the front door one more try, and if he didn't get an answer, he would call the post office in Phoenix. He walked back around to the front of the house and was about to knock on the front door one last time when he saw a white envelope on the brown straw mat at his feet. It had not been there before. Of that he was certain.

He picked up the envelope. His name was on the front, written in a shaky, childish scrawl. He tore the envelope open and pulled out the piece of paper inside. On it were written two words in that same shaky hand:

_Stay Away_

He pounded on the door. "Howard!" he called. "Let me in. I know what's happening. Howard!"

But the door remained stubbornly closed, the curtains unmoving, and for all of his effort he heard no sound from inside the house.

He got the number of the main branch of the post office from Directory Assistance and dialed from the bedroom. He closed the door with his foot. Billy was in the kitchen with Tritia , helping her to make bread, and he didn't want the boy to hear the conversation. A woman's voice came on the line. "United States Postal Service Information, how may I direct your call?"

"I want to complain about one of your mailmen."

"Just a moment, sir. Let me transfer you to our Personnel department."

Doug listened to a few seconds' worth of innocuousMuzak before a man's voice came on the line. "Hello, this is Jim. How may I help you?"

"I want to complain about one of your mailmen."

"Could I have your name and zip code?"

"My name's DougAlbin . My zip code is 85432. I live in Willis."

"Willis? I'm sorry, sir, but if you have any complaints you should direct them to the postmaster in your area."

"That's the problem. I can't get a hold of my postmaster. Besides, our mail service has deteriorated so much that I think it's time you knew about it."

"Let me connect you to my supervisor."

"I'd --" Doug began, but there was a click. MoreMuzak .Mantovani Beatle songs.

A minute or so later another man came on the line. "Chris Westwood."

"We're having a lot of problems here with our mail. I want someone to do something about it."

"You're in Willis?"

"That's right."

"What exactly is the trouble?"

"Our mailman is dumping our mail by a creek instead of delivering it."

Westwood's voice became more concerned. "That is a serious charge, Mr. --"

"Albin. DougAlbin ."

"Mr.Albin . That doesn't sound very likely to me --"

"I don't care if it's likely or not," Doug said, an edge of exasperation creeping into his voice. "That's exactly what has happened, and there are many witnesses."

"Well, there's nothing really that I can do, but I can fill out a complaint form for you if you wish. Once the complaint is processed, an investigator will be sent out to look into the problem."

"That's fine," Doug said.

Westwood asked his full name, address, occupation, and other personal information that he supposedly wrote onto the complaint form. "Now do you happen to know the carrier's name and number?"

"His name's John Smith. That's all I know."

"John Smith. John Smith. Let me check." Doug thought he heard the soft clicking of computer keys. "I'm sorry, but we have no John Smith working in Willis. I have listed here Howard Crowell as postmaster, and Robert Ronda, carrier."

"Ronda committed suicide over a month ago."

"I'm sorry. We have no record of that here. It's not listed on our computer."

"Well, he was transferred here from Phoenix. Could you just see if you could find any John Smiths working in the Phoenix area?"

"Just a minute. I'll browse by name instead of zip code." There was a pause. "No, Mr.Albin . There is no John Smith working for the post office anywhere in Arizona."

Doug said nothing.

"Did you hear me, Mr.Albin ?"

He hung up the phone.

25

The town was unusually subdued for the Fourth of July. Fewer than a third of the people who usually came to the annual Picnic in the Park showed up this year, and even the Jaycee's fireworks display was sparsely attended. Doug made Trish and Billy stay for both the daytime celebration and the fireworks, though neither of them wanted to, and while he pretended to have a good time for their sakes, he noticed a definite attitude change among their attending neighbors and acquaintances, and it unnerved him more than he was willing to admit. People he'd known for years, even other teachers and ex-students, seemed cold and distant, almost hostile. No one seemed to be having a good time.

He wasn't feeling that good himself. He'd gone to the police yesterday with his new information about the mailman, but they had treated him as if he was a chronic complainer, someone who consistently came to them with false information based on his own paranoid delusions. He had asked to see Mike but was told that the young policeman was off for the day, and instead he told his story to Jack Shipley, who humored him with the sort of condescending agreement usually reserved for drunks and crazies. As patiently and rationally as he knew how, he explained the facts, told Shipley that he believed impersonating a postal worker was a punishable crime and that everything he said could be verified by calling the main branch of the post office in Phoenix. The officer had said he would follow up on the information Doug had given him, but it was clear that he probably would not.

What could he do when the whole town was going to hell in ahandbasket and the damn police were too blind to see it and too dumb to act on it when it was pointed out to them?

He could not help wondering how the mailman was spending his time today, what he was doing for the Fourth. There was no mail delivery on the holiday, but somehow he just couldn't see the mailman eating hot dogs and apple pie and participating in patriotic celebrations.

The day was hot and at the afternoon softball game the mood was ugly.

There were barely enough men for two teams, and it was clear that most of those who had volunteered to play had done so out of obligation. The game was hard and dirty, with balls thrown intentionally at batters, hits aimed purposefully at pitchers. The spectators seemed to thrive on the nastiness and were soon yelling for blood. In the past, the competition had been light and friendly, with neighbors and families good-naturedly cheering on their teams. But today it was a cutthroat crowd, bent on violence. A fistfightbfoke out among two of the players, another among members of the audience. No one moved to stop either brawl.

Doug, Tritia , and Billy stayed for only a while, then moved on to the barbecue. The food was bad: hot dogs and hamburgers dry and burnt, Cokes Sat and warm. The familiar sight of BenStockley , intruding on family get-togethers with his camera, bothering the town officials with detailed questions they could not answer, conspicuously doing his job on a day when all others were having a holiday, was also missed; it contributed to the rather grim atmosphere that prevailed over this Fourth.

Irene showed up late in the afternoon, as she always did, and Tritia motioned her over. The old woman alone seemed to be in good spirits, and she helped cheer the three of them up, telling tall tales about holidays of the past as the four of them sat together at a picnic table under the pines.

That night, in the parking lot after the fireworks, Bill Simms and Ron Lazarus got into a shouting match and then a fight as their respective families looked on. They were rolling in the dirt, kicking and punching and screaming obscenities, and it took Doug and two other men to pull the two apart.

"You killed my dog!" Simms screamed. "You fucker!"

"I never touched your goddamn dog, you asshole!" Lazarus spit at the other man, a glob of saliva that landed harmlessly in the dirt at his feet. "But I

wish I had."

Doug held on to Simms. He could feel the man's muscles straining as he struggled to break free. The other men held Lazarus. One of the women ran to get a policeman and returned with Mike Trenton, who warned the two fighters that their butts would be thrown in jail if they didn't knock this crap off right now. The men angrily stomped off to their respective cars, the crowd dispersed, and Doug and the young cop stood looking at each other. The policeman looked away, unable to meet Doug's eyes.

"I guess they told you I came by."

Mike nodded. "I tried to call you this morning, but there was no answer."

"I was home. We were all home."

The policeman shrugged. "I called twice. No one answered."

"Why did you call?"

"I wanted to tell you that I'd interviewed Mr. Smith and that I called Phoenix."

"And?"

"And he denies everything. I didn't use your name, of course. I --"

"What about the post office? What did they say?"

"We couldn't verify what you said. Their computers were down. They'll call us back when they can access the information."

"What do you think?"

There was only a slight hesitation. "I believe you."

"But the chief doesn't."

"But the chief doesn't."

Doug looked over at Billy and Tritia . "Why don't you go over to the car?

I'll meet you there in a sec."

"Keys," Tritia said, holding out her hand.

He dug the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to her. She caught them in midair and, her arm around Billy's shoulder, headed toward the Bronco. Doug turned back toward the policeman. "He's not human, Mike."

There was silence between them.

"I got another letter from myfiancee yesterday. She said she wants to break up again."

"It's fake. You know that."

"I called her, but she hung up on me. Wouldn't even let me talk."

"Do you think --"

"I think he's sending her letters." The policeman took a deep breath.

Around them, people were walking to their cars, heading for home. "I'm not sure whether I should try to stay out of his way, to stay as far away from you as possible, or whether I should come down hard on his ass and make him pay."

"You don't need me to tell you. You know the right thing to do."

"What right thing? You want to know the truth? I don't care about doing the right thing. I care about keeping Janine. That's what I care about. That's all I care about."

"I don't believe that," Doug said softly. "And neither do you. That's why you're talking to me right now."

"I don't know."

"You know, Mike."

"But there's nothing we can do. Not really. Nothing we can pin onh'im .

Nothing we can prove. I'd like to be able to trip him up on something, to throw him in jail, but I can't."

"He's tampering with the mails. Get him for that."

"No proof."

"There will be when the post office calls you back."

"What if there isn't?"

"People are dying here, Mike. We have to do something."

"Yeah? What do you expect me to do? Hang up my badge? Go out and gun him down?"

"No. Of course not." But a small frightening voice within him was saying, _Yesyes _.

"I'm keeping my eyes open, like I promised. But I can't guarantee that I'll do any more than that. I'm a police officer, not a vigilante."

The young cop was looking for reassurance, Doug knew, but he had none to give. When it came to something like this, older did not necessarily mean wiser.

He was just as afraid as the policeman and just as much in the dark about what to do. Still, he nodded. "That's all I ask."

"I have to get back to work. It's a rough crowd tonight."

"Yeah. I have to go too." Doug started to turn, but he looked back again.

"Be careful, Mike. If he's sending letters to yourfiancee , he knows about you."

The policeman said nothing, but moved away, between the cars, toward the grandstand. Silently, Doug walked back to the Bronco, where Trish and Billy were waiting.

He drove home slowly and carefully, though the anticipated drunks did not materialize. There were very few cars on the road, in fact, and most of the houses they passed as they drove through town were dark. He looked at the clock on the dash. Nine-thirty. That was strange. People were usually up and about later than this on an ordinary Friday, not to mention a holiday. It was like driving through a ghost town, he thought. And even though Trish and Billy were with him in the car, he felt a slight tingle of fear.

Willis was changing.

There was no mail on either Saturday or Sunday, and when Doug went to the store on Monday and saw the mailman unloading one of the mailboxes, he was gratified to see that he looked paler than usual, and thinner, if that was possible. Maybe he's sick, Doug thought. Maybe he's sick and going to die.

But that was just wishful thinking. It wouldn't happen.

As always, the mailman smiled and waved at him as he drove past.

26

Billy rode wildly through the brush, thick BMX tires rolling over weeds and rocks, plowing through thin bushes. He and Lane had both signed up weeks ago for the motocrosscompetition,.and while he had always planned on winning, it was now a necessity rather than a desire. He didn't really care at this point whether or not he came in first -- he just wanted to beat Lane. To beat him bad.

He spun around a large boulder, taking the turn as sharp as he dared without slowing. He and Lane were about equal in skill and experience, and he knew it was going to take a lot of practice and dedication to beat his ex friend.

But he _was_ going to beat him.

He was going to make him eat dirt.

Billy had not been planning to ride anywhere in particular, but he found himself heading down the hill toward the archaeological site. He hadn't been down here since he and Lane had had their falling out, not because he hadn't wanted to, but because Lane had always done most of the talking for the two of them and he felt a little nervous going to the dig by himself.

Today however, he found himself speeding down the hill toward the narrow valley. Ahead was a small natural ditch carved by runoff, and he yanked up on his handlebars, jumping it. The bike wobbled on the hard landing, but he maintained his pace and balance, pedaling furiously.

The ground leveled off, and he slowed as he approached the site, not wanting to startle anyone. When he reached the trees on the perimeter of the dig, he hopped off his bike and walked it the rest of the way.

But there was no one there.

The site was deserted.

He looked around. The university had not been scheduled to conclude their excavation until sometime in late August, but obviously they had decided to leave early. Billy's first thought was that they had all taken a day off, gone to town or to the lake or to one of the streams, but it was clear that they had packed everything up, finished their work, and gone home. Nothing was left save a few stakes embedded in the ground and a scattering of torn envelopes on the dirt.

Billy frowned. Something was wrong here. There had been no litter left behind on the dig last summer. None at all. The professor's motto had been "Pack it in, pack it out," and he'd made sure that his students left the area as close as possible to the way they'd found it.

He was suddenly scared, and he realized that he was all alone out here, that the closest person to him was up at the top of the hill. It came over him instantly, this feeling of being isolated, cut off from everything and everyone, and he quickly turned his bike around . . .

And he saw the mailman.

The mailman was striding toward him across the dirt, his hair a fiery red against the green background. There was no mail sack on his back, no letters in his hand, and the fact that he had come here to do something other than deliver mail scared Billy more than anything else. He jumped on his bike, swung it around, and began to pedal.

But he did not see one of the excavation trenches, and his front tire slid sideways, spilling him onto the ground. His head connected with the hard dirt.

He was stunned but not hurt, and he jumped to his feet. The mailman was standing right next to him, smiling.

"Billy," the mailman said quietly, horrifyingly gently.

He wanted to run but was powerless to do so. All the will seemed to have been drained from his body. The forest around the archaeological site seemed heavy and impenetrably thick, like a tropical jungle.

The mailman put a hand on Billy's shoulder. His touch was soft and tender, like a woman's. "Come here," he said.

He led Billy with unused force across the empty dig to a large pit at the far end of the clearing. Billy could not remember seeing the pit before, and he tensed as the two of them drew closer to it. He knew he didn't want to see what the mailman wanted to show him.

"Look," the mailman said, smiling.

The pit was filled with bodies and parts of bodies, eyes staring upward, hands fallen limply over torsos. In the split second before he shut his eyes against the horror, Billy saw an alternating color scheme of pink flesh, red blood, and white bone, and he thought he saw, somewhere near the top of the pile near his feet, amid a tangle of arms and legs, fingers and toes, the bottom portion of the professor's face.

Billy awoke from the nightmare drenched with sweat, his mouth dry. For a second, the loft seemed strange, facing the wrong direction, the individual elements of its composition, the furniture and posters, slightly off. Then his brain kicked into its awake mode and everything fell neatly into place.

Well, not everything.

For the images of his dream stayed with him, not as something he had viewed secondhand, like a movie or a regular dream, but as a five-sensory recollection of an actual event, something he had actually experienced, and try as he might to repeat to himself, "It's only a dream It's only a dream It's only a dream," something inside him told him it was not.

27

"It's gotten to the point," Irene said, "where I'm afraid to open the mail."

Tritia , seated on the antique love seat, nodded. "I know what you mean.

The first thing I do these days is check the return address. If it's unfamiliar, I toss it."

"I throw away all mail, even letters from people I've known for years. The last one I opened was from Bill Simms, accusing me of poisoning his dog. Can you believe that?" The old woman licked her lips nervously, and Tritia realized that her friend was frightened. Badly frightened. She frowned. Irene was not a woman who was easily scared, and Tritia was unnerved by the sight of her in such an uncharacteristic state. Something other than a few hate letters had made her so fearful.

Tritia put down her glass of iced tea. "What is it?" she asked. "What's the matter? This is more than just Bill Simms."

Irene shook her head. "Nothing."

"It's not nothing,dammit ! Tell me."

Surprised by the vehemence of her reaction, Irene stared at her. Then she nodded. "Okay," she said. "You want to know what it is? Come here." Her voice was low, conspiratorial, tinged with more than a hint of fear.

Tritia followed her down the hallway into the closed room that had been her husband's den. It was now simply a storage room, filled with the physical forms of painful past memories, items either owned by or associated with her late husband. Tritia looked around. She had never been in this room before, had never even been brave enough to ask about it. Now she saw that it was dominated by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined two opposing walls. Clothes and personal effects were piled high on an old oak dining table that had been placed in the middle of the room next to other unused pieces of furniture.

"There," Irene said. Her voice was shaking.

Tritia followed the old woman's pointing finger. On top of the open rolltopdesk, next to a dusty pile of old western paperbacks, was a small box still half-wrapped in the brown butcher paper in which it had been delivered.

There was an irregular trail of clearness, a skid mark through the dust on top of the desk, which made it obvious that the box had been thrown there in haste.

Irene stood in the doorway, tightly grasping the brass doorknob. "It was sent to me yesterday," she said. She swallowed with obvious difficulty. Her hands were shaking, and Tritia could hear her uneven breathing in the silence of the room. "There's a toe in there."

"What?"

"There's a toe in the box."

Tritia moved slowly forward. Her own heart was pounding loudly. She reached the desk, picked up the box, and opened it.

She had known what to expect, but it was still a shock. A toe, a human toe, lay in the bottom of the box, unnervingly white against the brown cardboard. It was such a small thing that she would have expected it to look fake, to look rubbery. But it was distressingly real. She could see the smooth rounded tip, the curved lines around the joints, the individual hairs growing from the flat skin below the pinkish nail at the top. It had been severed cleanly, cut somehow, but there was no blood, not even a drop.

Tritia put the box down, feeling slightly nauseous. The toe rolled over, and she could see red muscle, blue vein, and a core circle of white bone. The room suddenly seemed too closed, too cramped, and she backed up, away from the desk.

"Jasper lost his big toe in a logging accident in 1954," Irene said quietly.

The severed joint seemed suddenly more sinister, invested with a documented past that lent it a decidedly supernatural aura. Tritia looked at her friend. Irene was pale, frightened, and for the first time since Tritia had known her she looked far older than her years.

Irene closed the door as soon as Tritia came out into the hall, and led the way silently back to the living room. She picked up her iced tea before sitting down on the sofa. Ice cubes rattled nervously against the glass. "He was working in the Tonto," she explained, "out by Payson, and was doing ax work when he swung and missed and chopped off his big toe. I don't know how he got that toe and missed the others, or how he didn't chop off a whole chunk of his foot, but he chopped off only the toe. He said he was screaming so loud that loggers miles away could hear the echoes through the trees. He said the spurting blood turned the green pine needles all around him red.

"They always had someone with them who knew first aid, because there were always logging accidents like these, and somehow they got the bleeding stopped and took him to the hospital in Payson. They didn't have surgical techniques like they do today, and the doctor said he wouldn't be able to sew the toe back on, even though they brought it with them. He said it would be better to close up the existing wound and let it heal." She was silent for a moment.

"What happened to the toe?" Tritia asked.

"Jasper called me, told me what happened, and I had someone drive me to Payson. I didn't drive in those days. The toe was in a jar in his hospital room, floating in this clear liquid, and he asked me if I wanted to save it, but I

couldn't think of anything more repulsive. I hated just seeing it there, and I

had a nurse cover the jar while I was in the room. I certainly didn't want a severed toe in my house, so I told him to have the hospital dispose of it." She shook her head at the recollection. "Instead, I found out later, he and his logging buddies got drunk, had a mock funeral in the woods, and buried it." She looked at Tritia , her eyes haunted. "That was a long time ago. There's not many left who even know that story. And I can't figure out how the mailman learned what happened, let alone how he found the toe again or how it could be in such good shape."

"Maybe it's not --" Tritia began.

"It is," Irene said firmly.

"Did you call the police?"

"What for?"

"This is against the law. Some --"

Irene put a hand on her arm. The old woman's fingers felt dry, cold.

"Look," she said, "this is not a police matter. This is something private."

"No it's not." Tritia leaned forward. "You know what's going on in this town. And you know there's no way we can get the mailman. We have no proof to back up any of our allegations." She gestured toward the hallway and the den beyond. "Now we have proof."

"We have nothing. Do you know what will happen? He will say that he only delivers the mail and is not responsible for its contents, and he'll deny any knowledge of this. You know that as well as I do."

Tritia stared into her friend's eyes. She was right. Much as she hated to admit it, she was right. Irene knew exactly what the mailman would do.

"At least let me call Doug, tell him. He'll get rid of it for you. You don't want a --"

"No," Irene said. "I don't want anyone to touch it. And no one but you will ever see it." She lowered her voice and Tritia felt a chill creep down her spine. "It's evil."

Tritia nodded, feigning for her friend's sake an understanding she did not feel. Irene was slipping, she thought. This had pushed her dangerously close to the edge, and if something else occurred, it might push her all the way over.

Of course, that was exactly what the mailman wanted.

Tritia stood. "I have to go," she said.

"You can't go to the police," Irene said.

"I really think you should tell someone. This isn't right."

"No."

Tritia met her friend's gaze, then sighed. "Okay," she said. "It's up to you." She walked to the door, turning around before opening the screen. "Call me if you need anything," she said. "Anything. Doug and I can be right over, if there's an emergency."

"Thanks," Irene said. "But I'll be fine." She smiled. "Maybe I just won't open my mailbox."

"That's probably not a bad idea."

The old woman laughed, and for a moment she sounded almost normal. "Good bye,hon ," she said. "I'll see you."

Tritia walked slowly down the porch steps. " 'Bye."

She heard the sound of the door being locked behind her as she walked out to the car, the deadbolt being thrown.

Tritia waved as she drove off, not checking to see if her wave was returned. She turned onto the street, heading toward home. She'd known that the mailman was responsible for the deteriorating state of affairs in town, for the unpaid bills, the misdirected mail, the hate letters, and yes, probably for the deaths. But the extent to which he was willing to go in order to get someone, the extent to which he was _able_ to go in order to get someone, had never been brought home more forcefully than when she had looked in that box and seen the toe. Such random but well-thought-out malevolence was impossible for her to comprehend.

What frightened her even more was the realization that a mailman was the only person who had access to everyone in town, who dealt daily with each household, each individual. She had never been a religious woman, had not even been sure if she believed in such nebulous and culturally variable concepts as "good" and "evil." But she believed now. And she thought that evil had chosen a perfect form in which to do its work. If John Smith had been a preacher or a teacher or a politician, he would not have had access to nearly the number of people he did now and would not have been able to insinuate himself so subtly, so easily, so effortlessly into people's lives.

That bothered her, too. The passiveness of the town. The unwillingness of the people of Willis to face what was happening and do something about it. She and Doug themselves, for all their talk, had done very little to try to block the mailman, to put a stop to his plans. It was as if they were waiting for someone else to take on the responsibility, someone else to solve the problem.

But, then, what could they do? Even though they were aware of what was going on, had tried to effectively gird themselves against it, the mailman had made unwanted inroads into their lives. They had resisted the siren song of the mail, had turned deaf ears and blind eyes to the obvious psychological assaults on themselves, yet the ordeal had still subtly changed the dynamics of their family life. They had not drawn closer in the face of adversity but had, in a sense, retreated into themselves. There were no obvious walls or barriers, relationships were not tense or strained, but the comfortable spirit of joking camaraderie Doug and Billy had always shared was gone, replaced by a friendly but slightly more formal and less intimate set of roles. Her own relationships with Doug and Billy had gone through similar changes. She and Doug were more distant with each other; even their lovemaking seemed less a giving form of loving expression than the gratification of selfish needs, although the outward techniques had changed not at all. And lately she had taken to lecturing Billy in an authoritarian manner she had sworn she would never adopt.

She knew Doug had noticed these differences too, although neither of them had spoken of it to the other. She could see it in his eyes, read it in his attitude. It was expressed more by what he did not say than by what he did. They still talked of current events, household affairs, even, tentatively, of the mailman, but there was a superficiality to their conversations, a superficiality that extended even to subjects and thoughts that were not superficial, a failure to meet and communicate on the deep and important level so necessary to lasting relationships. More than once she'd felt as though they were talking at each other rather than to each other.

And it was the mailman's fault.

But she would not let him win. She refused to let him tear apart her family. It would be easy to succumb, to allow the breach between her and Doug to widen. But she vowed that she would not let things deteriorate any further. She was going to reach out to her husband and son, to put an end to this emotional lethargy, and she was going to force them to do likewise.

Part of her wanted to stop by the post office, to let the mailman know that she was no longer going to put up with his attempts to break her, that she was going to take a stand against him, but she remembered the last time she had tried to confront him, and the emotional clarity of the encounter remained horrifyingly undimmed. A field of goose bumps arose on her bare arms, the peach fuzz hair at the back of her neck pricked. She was angry now, she was determined, but she was not stupid.

_You're nice_.

Never again would she go to the post office alone.

Tritia was nearly to thetumoff that led toward home when she realized she had forgotten to pick up food for dinner. She had come to town this afternoon not merely to see Irene, but also to pick up groceries. They hadn't been shopping in days and were in desperate need of milk and butter and other essentials as well as something for tonight's meal.

She made a U-turn, turning back toward the store. Usually, she planned out the family's meals a day in advance, but for the past week or so she'd been too tired and distraught to do anything but throw something together at the last minute, an attitude so entirely out of character for her that she wondered why she hadn't noticed it before. This craziness had affected not only the emotional life of her family but its culinary life as well.

She decided to stop by the delicatessen to see if they had any fresh fish.

She was in the mood for trout, and if there'd been a good catch, she'd pick some up for dinner. Barbecued fish sounded wonderful right now.

She pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center. Although the spaces in front ofBayless were filled with cars, she was surprised to see that the area in front of the delicatessen was nearly empty. That was weird. Todd had the finest selection of cheeses and the best fresh fish in town, and usually whenBayless was busy, his store was even more crowded.

She parked in an empty space directly in front of the small store and walked inside.

She noticed the difference immediately. It was nothing she saw, more like something she felt. A tension. A strange uncomfortable feeling in the air that was entirely uncharacteristic of the store's usual atmosphere. She looked around. The deli was empty save for her and Todd behind the counter. She moved forward, examining the meats in the meat counter. She smiled at the shopkeeper, but he did not smile back, and she decided to quickly buy her food and get out of the store.

She pointed toward a selection offileted trout on ice behind the counter.

"Fresh catch?" she asked.

Todd nodded silently.

Her unease increased, and she said quickly, "I'll take three large fish."

The storekeeper opened the back of the counter, pulled out three trout, and placed them on the scale. "Tell your husband I don't appreciate what he's doing," he said.

Tritia frowned. "What are you talking about? What is he doing?"

"Tell him I don't appreciate it at all."

"Don't appreciate what?" Tritia stared at him. "Todd, tell me what's going on here. I don't know what you're talking about."

His reserve broke. He smiled at her as he wrapped the fish, and there was sadness in the smile. "I know you don't."

"Todd?"

"I believe you. Otherwise you wouldn't be here." He gestured around the empty store. "You're my first customer today."

"What's wrong?" she asked. She leaned forward over the counter. "Is it the mail?"

His face grew stony, cold. "That'll be three-fifty," he said.

"Todd?"

"Three-fifty."

She paid for the fish and walked out of the store. As she backed up in the parking lot, she saw him standing in the doorway, staring after her. It looked as though he was crying.

28

Billy sat in the darkened living room watching TV. _Dick Van Dyke_ segued into _Andy Griffith_, which segued into _The Flintstones_, which segued into _The Brady Bunch_. There was something comforting about the unchanging characters of the people on television, a reassuring element in the familiar plots and predicaments of the shows. Outside, things might be getting stranger, more chaotic. But on TV Mike and Carol Brady were still good-naturedly understanding parents trying to quell a war between the sexes that was brewing between their children.

A commercial came on and Billy got up to get something to eat. He had been glued in front of the TV set for most of the past three days, and though he enjoyed watching the shows, he was starting to feel a little restless and stir crazy. He also felt a little guilty. His parents had never let him watch this much television before, and he could not help feeling that he was doing something wrong, that he should be doing something productive instead of wasting his time vegetating in front of the tube.

But his parents didn't seem to care. They were too preoccupied with other matters. His dad had not even commented when he'd walked through the house a few minutes ago, had not even seemed to notice that he was there.

Billy made himself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, then moved back into the living room and sat down in his chair before the TV. He had tried finding other things to do the past few days, but had been spectacularly unsuccessful. He had called everyone he'd known, asking if they wanted to go biking or go swimming or come over to The Fort, but his friends either weren't home or didn't want to talk to him. He had ridden by himself to the hill above the dig, but he knew without venturing down the slope that the archaeology students had gone, that the dig was over. He had pedaled as quickly as he could back toward home. The hill frightened him.

He wondered what Lane was doing.

He found himself thinking a lot about Lane lately, wondering how this estrangement could have happened to the two of them. He was aware that friendships often ended quickly and bitterly. He remembered how he and Frank Freeman, his best friend from fourth grade, had broken up after a relatively minor argument, and how alliances were quickly shifted, effectively redrawing the social map of the playground. He and Frank had ended up enemies, hanging out with rival factions of students, never missing an opportunity to hurt each other as deeply as possible.

And no one knew how to hurt more than an ex-friend.

But he and Lane had been buddies for a long time, had weathered rights both minor and major, and had still remained friends. It was hard to believe something like this could happen.

But Lane had changed.

A lot of people had changed.

_The Brady Bunch_ ended and Billy switched the channel to the Flagstaff station to watch _Bewitched_.

He finished his sandwich, wiped his hands on his pants. He had never thought this was possible, had never thought this would happen, but for the first time in his life he was looking forward to the end of summer. He could not wait for the start of school.

Doug sat on the porch thinking about the mail. Brooding about the mail.

This morning, he had received a slew of returned envelopes, some of them bills made out weeks ago, stamped with the notice "Not Deliverable as Addressed."

There had also been an envelope addressed to Tritia , written in a flowery hand, smelling of perfume, which he had torn up and thrown away without opening.

The walk to the mailbox was really frightening him, he realized. Much as he tried to hide it, much as he tried to deny it, he felt nervous walking down the drive and was now almosthypersensitively aware of the bushes and trees on the way to the mailbox, knowing they could be used for possible hiding places.

He thought of moving the mailbox to a spot right next to the door, like mailboxes in the city, but he rejected that idea immediately. He did not want the mailman coming up to the house, coming that close to Tritia and Billy. He also thought of taking the mailbox down entirely. If they had no mailbox, they could get no mail, right? But that was not only cowardly, it was crazy. What the hell was he doing hiding from the mail? Did he think if he ignored the problem or tried to avoid it that it would go away?

Tritia pulled into the driveway. Doug looked away, toward the trees. He heard the muted clicking of the emergency brake being put on, the slam of the car door, followed by the sound of Trish's steps on the wooden porch. "I'm back," she announced.

When he did not respond, she walked over to him. "I said I'm back."

He looked up at her. "You want a medal?"

Her expression went from anger to hurt to a calm neutrality. He felt guilty and looked away. He didn't know why he was being so mean to her. She was only trying to be friendly. But there was something about her Pollyanna attitude, her pretending that everything was okay, that grated on him and made him mad. Made him want to hurt her.

He had been mad at her a lot lately, though he didn't really understand why. "We're having fish tonight," she said. "Barbecued trout. I'll let you set up the barbecue."

"Did you buy any charcoal or lighter fluid? We're all out."

She shook her head. "Forget it. I'll broil it, then."

He stood up. "No. I'll go buy some. I want to get away from the house for a while anyway."

Tritia put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

He stared at the hand, surprised. It had been days since they'd touched each other. He looked into her eyes and his voice softened. He felt some of his hostility, some of his tenseness, dissipate. He knew she was trying hard not to fight with him. "Yeah," he said. "I'm fine."

"Okay." She opened the screen door. "Better put some gas in the car too.

We're almost out."

"Yeah."

As he walked down the porch steps and across the gravel to the Bronco, he heard the television shut off, heard Trish talking to Billy. The sound of her voice, used not in anger but in concern, was nice and familiarly comforting, like the voice of an old friend not heard in a while, and suddenly he felt much better.

The Bronco was nearly out of gas, the fuel gauge on empty, and the first thing he did was stop by the Circle K and put in five dollars' worth.

The second thing he did was drive to Howard's house.

He pulled to a stop in front of the low ranch-style home. It now looked definitely abandoned. The lawn was tan, even the weeds dried up and dead. Next door, a man was just getting out of his pickup and Doug quickly got out of the car and tried to wave him down. "Hey," he called.

The man took one look at him and hurried into his house.

Doug stopped walking. The whole damn town was acting squirrelly. He considered approaching Howard's neighbors on the other side, knocking on their door, asking if they'd seen the postmaster, but he had a feeling that he wouldn't get much cooperation from them. Or anyone else in the neighborhood.

He noticed that several other lawns were starting to look kind of ragged.

Knowing he would probably get no answer or response, he walked up Howard's driveway and knocked on the door. Pounded on the door. Yelled for Howard to come out. But his entreaties were met with no response. Again he checked the front door, the back door, the windows, but again everything was locked up tight. A

darker, more solid drape seemed to have been put up behind the original curtains because now nothing could be seen inside the house, not even a shadow.

He wondered if he should call the police. Howard's house now showed definite signs of abandonment, and since no one except the mailman could claim to have seen him at all within the past few weeks, there seemed to him good cause to break into the postmaster's house and see if he was all right.

But he knew calling the police would do no good. He had told them the same story last time, and they'd donezippity shit. Besides, they'd never even try to get a search warrant or break into Howard's house unless they saw the mailman run inside the door with the postmaster's bloody head in his hands.

Doug shook his head. If there was one thing he hated about Arizona, it was the almost fanatic worship of land and property common to nearly everyone in the state. Here, people still had an Old West mentality, a perverse worldview that placed possessions above people in importance. He remembered one time when he and Billy had gone hiking out toward Deer Valley. They had been walking through a drycreekbed , following its course, when they happened upon a cabin in the woods. They turned immediately around, but not before they heard a young boy's voice call out, "Intruders, Pa!" A minute or so later, they heard the thunderous echoing sound of a shotgun blast. He'd felt like he was in some sort of damn movie. The noise was not repeated, but he and Billy had run the rest of the way back to the car, keeping low to the ground. When he told the police what had happened, the desk sergeant had merely smiled tolerantly and told him he shouldn't have been trespassing, as though death would have been fair punishment for a person who had inadvertently stepped on someone else's land.

It was this attitude that a man should be allowed to do whatever he wanted, with no restraints, that led to situations such as this.

Still, he got back in the Bronco and drove to the police station. It couldn't hurt to try. The chief, fortunately, was not there, but unfortunately, neither was Mike, and Doug ended up telling his story to a young female clerk who took down his statement and promised to give it personally to the lieutenant assigned to that sector of town. Doug was nice to her, cooperative, smiled at her, thanked her for her help, and left knowing nothing would be done.

Hell, maybe he should break in there himself, take this into his own hands.

But, no, the chief would just have him arrested and thrown in jail.

He drove toBayless to pick up the charcoal and lighter fluid, aware that Trish was probably already starting to worry. He had gone to town to buy two items and had been gone for more than an hour.

He quickly went into the store, walked directly to the aisle containing nonfood items, and picked up a cheap bag of charcoal and a plastic container of store-brand lighter fluid. The express checkout lane was closed, and the three registers that were open had long lines of customers, so he picked the shortest one and got behind an elderly man carrying a handheld grocery basket piled with dairy products.

As he stood in line, Doug saw empty wire rack space formerly taken by the newspaper. The rack seemed sad and forlorn, if emotions could be ascribed to newsstands, and he found himself wondering what had happened to therisque fortune cookies in BenStockley's desk drawer. He could still see in his mind the editor sitting behind his desk, but that image was beginning to fade, replaced by that of the bullet-riddled body he had seen on TV. What had happened toStockley ? A lump formed in Doug's throat and he forced himself to look away from the rack to the impulse items next to it.

It had been nearly half a month that the town had been without a paper.

The _Weekly_ had been, for all intents and purposes, a one-man operation, and whenStockley died, the paper abruptly ceased publication. Doug had no doubt that it would eventually get back on its feet once everything was sorted out there were a few part-time reporters who could probably take over the editing duties, and the secretary pretty much knew how the business end of the operation worked -- but for now the press in Willis was effectively shut down, and Doug couldn't help feeling that that was exactly the way the mailman wanted it. No independent means of disseminating information. No official way to learn what was going on.

Of course, news still traveled through unofficial channels. And traveled quite well. Through overhearing several unconnected conversations the past few minutes, for example, he knew that several more dogs had been murdered, not poisoned this time but decapitated, their severed heads stolen.

Gossip might be reviled in certain quarters for being unreliable -- a children's party game of pass-the-message had been designed precisely to support that argument -- but Doug knew from past experience that word-of-mouth was not nearly as faulty a means of learning news as it was made out to be.

He looked up to see Giselle Brennan walk into the store.

She saw him at the same time and waved. "Hi, Mr.Albin ." She walked through the turnstile and around the cash register to meet him.

She was wearing no bra, he noticed immediately, and the hard points of her nipples were visible through the thin material of her tight T-shirt. Her large breasts jiggled as she walked toward him. She was grown now, he knew. An adult, a woman, but in his mind he still thought of her as a young teenager, and he felt strange seeing her in such an obviously sexual light. It disturbed him somehow, bothered him. He smiled warily as she approached. "Hi," he said. "How's it going?" He moved up in line.

"I got a job."

"Really?" he said. He placed his items on the moving black top of the register counter, automatically inserting a rubber divider behind it. "Where at?" She grinned widely. "The post office. Can you believe it?"

The smile of congratulation froze on his face. Yes, he could believe it.

"I didn't know they were hiring," he said carefully.

"Yeah, well, it's just temporary. I guess their sorting machine broke down and they were looking for someone to do it manually."

Doug moved forward. "Who hired you? Howard?"

"No, Mr. Crowell was sick. I guess that's one of the reasons they need an extra person. Mr. Smith hired me."

Doug forced himself to smile. "What do you think of Mr. Smith?"

Giselle's face clouded over for a second and he thought she was going to say something about the mailman, but instead she just shrugged. "I don't know."

The man in front of Doug paid for his groceries. Doug put a hand on Giselle's shoulder. She did not move away. "I don't know if you should work there," he said seriously.

She laughed. "My mom said the same thing. Don't worry. I'll be all right."

"Be careful," Doug warned her.

She smiled and pulled away. "Of course." She wiggled her fingers at him as she headed toward the frozen foods. "See you."

He watched her walk away, saw the outline of her tight ass beneath her jeans, the material pulled provocatively in at the crack.

"Two-eighty-five."

"What?" Doug turned around to face the cashier.

The young man smiled knowingly. "Two-eighty-five."

Doug took out his wallet.

In bed that night, Tritia snuggled next to him, laying an arm across his chest, holding him close in a way that she hadn't for quite some time. The dinner had been good and, more important, healthy. Trout and rice and asparagus stalks. She was back to her old nutrition-conscious self, and for some reason that made him feel more optimistic, less worried. Everything else might be going to hell, but at least they were going to be all right.

Her head shifted under the crook of his arm as she looked up at his face.

"Do you still love me?" she asked.

"What kind of question is that?"

"Do you still love me?" Her voice was quiet and there was a seriousness in it he did not quite know how to take.

"Of course I love you."

"You never say it anymore."

"I didn't think I had to." He smiled. "God, we've been married for fifteen years. Why else would I put myself through this hell?"

"Be serious."

"Look, if I didn't love you, I wouldn't be with you."

"It's not that simple. Besides, I like to hear it sometimes."

"Michelle," he said. "That letter. That's what this is all about, isn't it?"

She said nothing but held him tighter. He kissed the top of her head.

"I'm afraid," she said finally.

"So am I."

"But I'm afraid for us. Our relationship. I mean, I get the feeling that you're keeping things from me, that you're afraid to talk to me. Or that you don't want to talk to me."

"That's not true," he protested.

"You know it is."

They were silent for a moment. "You're right," Doug said. "We have been drifting apart. I don't know why. I'd like to blame it all on the mailman, but I

know that doesn't account for everything. It's my fault too."

"It's our fault," Tritia said.

And they held each other, and they snuggled closer, and Doug had the feeling that they had averted the disaster toward which they'd been heading, that they had bucked the trend that had been developing between them, and that they had successfully screwed up the mailman's plans.

29

Tritia awoke feeling jittery and out of sorts, the emotional residue of an unfortunately remembered nightmare that had, of course, been about mail. She'd been young, a child, but had been living here in this house, and she'd walked down the drive to the mailbox. It was a gorgeous day, the sky blue, the sun shining, and she was wearing her favorite pink dress with the little pinafores.

She opened the mailbox and drew out a stack of brightly colored envelopes, the top one decorated with dancing teddy bears. Careful not to rip the beautiful paper, she pried open the sealed flap . . .

And a white hand shot out of the envelope and grabbed her neck.

She screamed, dropping the other envelopes, and they flopped open, hands shooting out from each of them. One hand shot immediately up her dress, grabbing her crotch. Two more stretched up to knead and fondle her fledgling breasts.

Another shot up between the crack of her buttocks. Others grabbed her arms and legs. She screamed, but a final hand covered her mouth and she was pulled to the ground.

And then she woke up.

Not a good way to start the day.

It was her turn to fix breakfast, and she made bran muffins and squeezed the last of the oranges before going outside to check her garden. She felt tired and more than a little unpleasant, but she remembered her vow of yesterday, her promises to Doug, and she tried to push aside her negative feelings. She picked up the hose arid turned on the faucet. Her plants had really gone to seed. She had continued to water them, but she. had not weeded the garden for quite a while, had not taken the time to fight off bugs or prune leaves, and as a result, the vegetables this year were the worst she'd ever raised.

That too was going to change, she decided. She would spend this morning taking care of her garden, putting it back in shape. It was time for her to take control of her own life and not let herself be manipulated by the mailman.

She thought of Irene. She would give her friend a call today, make sure she was okay.

Doug awoke soon after, and when she heard the shower water running through the pipes, she went back inside and woke up Billy. They were all going to eat breakfast together this morning. Like they were supposed to.

Following breakfast Doug washed the dishes, with Billy drying, and when they were finished, she enlisted the aid of both of them to help with the garden and the yard. Billy tried to get out of it, tried to explain why it was more important for him to watch television, but she and Doug forced him to rake the drive, and for the first time in recent memory he actually did the work without complaining. He even seemed to be enjoying himself a little, and shewhisperedly pointed this out to Doug, who said there was nothing like a short stint in hell to make a person long for even the non-pleasures of everyday living.

They ate lunch on the porch together -- bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches -- and afterward Doug and Billy decided to go hiking out toward the oldSutpen ranch. She filled up two canteens with water and ice, packed a sandwich apiece just in case, and told them to be back by five or she was calling the ranger station. They drove off in the Bronco, waving.

When they were gone, Tritia called Irene.

She had thought about what she was going to say, had planned out what she thought was a fairly compelling argument for her friend to tell the police what she had received in the mail, or at least to allow her to tell Doug, but when she heard Irene's frightened cracking voice, she knew that no logical argument would be able to sway her.

"Hello?" Irene said.

"Hello. It's me, Tritia ."

"I knew it was you. That's the only reason I answered the phone."

Tritia took a deep breath. "Look," she said, "I'm your friend --"

"No, I'm not telling anyone."

Tritia was taken aback by the old woman's determination. "How do you know that was what I was going to say?"

"We both know why you called," Irene said. She coughedbrittlely . "I have to work this out in my own way. Do you understand? This is something I have to do myself."

"Yes, but --"

"There are things you don't know," the old woman said, and there was something in her voice that sent a chill down Tritia 's spine. "Ishouldn't've told you as much as I did."

"I just want to help."

Irene coughed again. "I know."

Tritia thought for a moment. "At least promise me you'll call if something happens, okay? Call if you need any help."

"You know I will."

"Okay." She was reluctant to hang up, but she could tell that Irene really didn't want to talk to her right now. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay."

The old woman hung up without saying good-bye.

Doug was wrong, Tritia thought, replacing the receiver. People weren't changing in ways entirely unconnected to the mail. Directly or indirectly, everything was connected to the mail. At the bottom of all that was occurring in Willis, at the root of all the hostility, all the craziness, was the mailman.

She walked outside to where she had left the mail she'd taken out of the box this morning before Doug and Billy awoke. There were two envelopes, both addressed to her, and all day she had debated with herself whether or not to open them.

Now she picked up a shovel and dug a deep hole on the forest side of the garden.

She threw the envelopes into the hole and buried them, unopened.

Tritia walked down the road toward the Nelsons' house. Hannah hadn't called for over two weeks. In fact, Tritia hadn't talked to her friend since Scooby had been poisoned. That was unusual. Ordinarily, she and Hannah went over to each other's houses or talked on the phone at least every other day.

She'd tried dialing the Nelsons' number more than once the past week or so, but she kept getting a busy signal, and when she'd called this morning, a decidedly robotic phone company voice had told her that the line had been disconnected and was no longer in service.

So she decided to walk over and see her friend.

There had been a light rain just after Doug and Billy had left, a short shower from a lone cloud that lasted less than ten minutes, and the dust on the road was packed down. For that she was grateful. Usually, dust flew with each footfall and she was filthy by the time she reached Hannah's house. But while the rain had settled the dirt, it had also upped the humidity, and that she could have done without. By the time she arrived, the sweat was dripping down the sides of her face.

The Nelsons' car was in the driveway, Tritia noticed immediately, so she knew they were home. She walked past the car up to the house, shoes noisily crunching the gravel beneath her feet. Her eyes wandered over to the metal stake where Scooby's chain had been tied. Next to the stake was an empty plastic water bowl. It was strange not hearing the dog's happy bark as she approached the house, and it made her feel uneasy, as though she had come to the wrong place.

She stepped up to the porch and knocked on the outer screen door. There was the sound of someone moving within the house, but the heavy front door did not open. She waited a few moments, then knocked again. "Hannah!" she called.

"Get out of here!" came her friend's angry voice from inside the house.

"It's me, Trish!"

"I said get the hell out of here!" Hannah Nelson opened the door, standing behind the screen. Her hair was tangled and unkempt, her housedress dirty.

Tritia could not remember seeing her friend looking anything less than her best, ever, and the sight of her disheveled form was shocking.

"Hannah!"

"Get out of here, bitch."

Tritia stared, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to respond.

"Dog-killer!" Hannah screamed. She spat at her. The saliva, caught in the fine screen mesh, dripped down in thick sickening threads between them.

Tritia was confused. "What are you talking about?"

"We got the letter. We know all about it. Ron!" She turned back toward the living room, leaving Tritia to stare at the glob of dripping saliva.

Ron emerged from the dim gloom of the living room, opened the screen door, and stepped onto the porch. He stood before Tritia , legs slightly spread in a stance of threatening belligerence. "I didn't think you'd ever have the guts to show your face around here again."

"I don't know what you --"

"Get out of here!" Hannah screamed.

Ron glared at Tritia . "You heard my wife. Get out of here. And don't you never come back."

Tritia backed off the porch, feeling for each step. "I really don't --"

"Go home, bitch." Ron spit on the ground in front of her. "And you tell your boy we don't want him around here neither. I know he's been coming here and stealing our lemons, and if be don't stop it, he's liable to catch a bullet in his butt. Get my drift?"

Tritia felt a rush of white-hot anger rush through her. "My son has never stolen anything in his life! He has been at home the past week. And if you weren't such an ignorant uneducated asshole, you might be able to figure that out!"

Ron advanced on her, fist outstretched, and she ran from him.

She turned back at the end of the driveway. "And if you thought about it some more, you'd know we wouldn't do anything to harm Scooby either!"

Ron picked up a rock and threw it at her. It went wide, missing her entirely, and she held up a defiant middle finger before running tearfully toward home.

She had regained her composure by the time Doug and Billy returned an hour later. She told Doug what had happened, and both of them marched down the road to the Nelsons' house, warning Billy to stay inside while they were gone.

But though the Nelsons' car was still in the driveway, though Doug knocked for five full minutes, no one came to answer the door.

30

The electricity went out on Tuesday morning during the second hour of the _Today_ show. As before, the television simply winked off, the lights in the kitchen disappearing simultaneously. When Doug finally got through the wall of busy signals to the electric company, a very unsure man assured him that electrical service would be reestablished as soon as the problem could be identified and corrected.

"Approximately when will that be?" Doug asked.

The man cleared his throat nervously. "At this point I'm afraid I can't say, sir."

"Are we talking minutes or months here?"

"Possibly by the end of today. Maybe as late as tomorrow."

Doug hung up not knowing any more than he had before he called. It was stupid and ridiculous, but he had the strange feeling that the electric company's bill had gotten lost in the mail and that their machines couldn't work because they weren't paid up.

Or something along those lines.

Something to do with the mail.

By five o'clock that afternoon, the water, gas, and phones were out as well.

31

Strange, Doug thought, how they had not even considered leaving town, going to visit his parents for a few weeks or stopping off to see Trish's dad in California. There was nothing stopping them, no reason why they shouldn't get away from this madness for a while, but though they had not really talked about it, he knew that Tritia felt the same way he did: trapped in Willis, caged.

As far as he knew, no one had left town. They remained passively in place, like sheep, while a wolf prowled among them.

Why? he wondered. What was this malaise that had so gripped the community?

What forced them to stay here, against common sense, against what must surely be natural instinct? The same thing that compelled people to remain in towns that were dying and rapidly heading toward ghost status, no doubt. Some illogical idiotic conception of "home."

The electricity was still off after three days, and he was getting mighty tired of cold baths and silent nights and sandwiches, but at least gas, water, and phone service had finally been restored. That was something he supposed he should be thankful for, but it seemed to him that the utility blackout period had served to sever ties among the people of the town more than anything else up to this point. He himself had talked to no one but Billy and Tritia for the past few days, and when he called Mike Trenton, the policeman had been cold to him and distant.

Hobiehad not even answered his phone.

Which was why he was driving over to see him now.

He drove through the center of town towardHobie's neighborhood. As much as anything else, he thought, it was the small things that were disturbing: the unmowngrass at the park, the weeds protruding from the asphalt in the bank parking lot, the garbage cans lining the streets, filled with uncollected trash -- insignificant items on the surface, but telltale signs that something was seriously amiss. Just driving through Willis, Doug had the impression that many people were not at work, had not gone in today, that their jobs were not being performed. It was almost inconceivable that a single individual could have this much of an effect on an entire town, but the evidence was before his eyes and indisputable.

He pulled in front ofHobie's trailer. All of the cars seemed to be in place, so he was obviously home.Hobie never walked anywhere if he could drive.

Doug walked up the dirty path to the door, pushing the bell.

A moment later,Hobie answered the door, obviously shaken. He was wearing a black-and-gold Willis Warthogs T-shirt, and above the school colors his face looked pale, bleached, even his lips drained of pigment. "Hey," he said. "Long time no see."

Doug smiled, though he felt like doing nothing of the sort. "How're you doing?"

Hobieshrugged. "Not too good. But I'm glad you came." He opened the door wider and gestured for Doug to come inside.

The electricity was off here, as it was almost everywhere, but rather than open the drapes and windows,Hobie kept the curtains shut, relying solely on candles for illumination. The trailer was filled with the smell of burning wax and rotting food, and as Doug's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw that the refrigerator had been left open and that the food inside was spoiling. Trash and clothes were scattered everywhere, over both the living room and kitchen. He looked over at his friend.Hobie may have been loud and crude, but he had always been neat in his personal habits, and the shape of the trailer's interior frightened Doug more than he was willing to admit.Hobie's mental state had clearly deteriorated since the last time they'd spoken.

"I got another letter from Dan,"Hobie said, sitting down on the dirty couch. "He wrote it last week."

Doug looked sharply up, but it was obvious that his friend was not joking.

He was completely and totally serious. And he was terrified.

"Here. Read it."Hobie handed him a page of crude white paper on which was written a message in a thick bold hand. Doug could not see to read, and he got up and pulled open the drape, letting sunlight into the room.

In the light, the state of the trailer looked even worse and more disgustingly filthy than it had in the dark.

"He says he's coming to visit,"Hobie said quietly.

Doug read the letter:

Bro, Finally got some R&R. I'll be coming by to see you in a week or so, soon as I can get a transport out of here. I'm bringing some primepoon don't no one know about, so we can have us some real fun. She's 12 and a virgin to boot. At least that's what the guy who sold her to me said.

I'll be bringing my knives.

See you soon.

It was signed "Dan," and it was dated last week.

Doug folded the paper and looked atHobie . "You know this isn't real," he said. "He's doing it. The mailman. He's trying to --"

"It's Dan,"Hobie insisted. "I know my brother."

Doug licked his lips, which had suddenly become very dry. "What is this about a twelve-year-old? What does he mean when he says he's bringing his knives?"

Hobiestood up and began pacing nervously around the room. His face was tense, muscles strained. There was an element of the caged animal in his walk.

"I don't want to see him," he said.

"What about the twelve-year-old girl and the knives?"

Hobiestopped pacing. "I can't tell you that." He looked at Doug, eyes frightened. "I don't want him coming here. He's my brother and I haven't seen him since I was sixteen, but . . . but he's dead. He's dead, Doug."Hobie resumed his pacing. "I don't want him coming here. I don't want to see him." He took a deep audible breath. "I'm afraid of him."

Doug heard the wildness in his friend's voice, the threat of hysteria just below the surface. He stood up and grabbedHobie's shoulders, confronting him.

"Look," he said, "I know you recognize your brother's handwriting. I know he says things in those letters that only he could know. But listen to me carefully. It's a trick. The mailman's doing it. You know as well as I do what's going on in town, and if you think about it logically you'll realize that the same thing is happening to you. You said yourself that your brother is dead. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but do you honestly think that his rotted corpse is going to fly on a transport plane from Vietnam, land in Phoenix, and take a bus or cab or rent a car to come to Willis? Does that make any sense to you?"

Hobieshook his head.

"It's the mailman," Doug said.

Hobielooked straight into his eyes, and for the first time since he'd stepped into the trailer, his friend seemed rational, lucid. "I know that," he said. "I know the mailman's doing this. The letters come at night. I can't sleep anymore because I stay awake listening until I hear his car and hear him drop the letters in the slot. I'd like to go down to the post office and beat the living fuck out of thefaggy son of a bitch, but I'm afraid of him, you know?

Maybe . . . maybe he really can deliver letters from Dan. Maybe he can bring Dan back from the dead. Maybe he can bring Dan here."

"He's just trying to pressure you, to make you crack."

Hobielaughed a short nervous laugh. "He's doing a damn good job." He pulled away from Doug and walked into the demolished kitchen, picking up a bottle of Jack Daniels from the crowded counter and pouring himself a shot in a dirty glass. He quickly downed" the liquor. "If he is faking those letters, writing them himself, then he knows a lot of things only Dan could know. He's even been able to copy Dan's handwriting perfectly. How do you explain that?"

"I can't."

Hobiepoured himself another shot, drank it. "There's a lot of evil shit going down," he said. "A lot of evil shit."

Doug nodded. "You're right there."

Hobielooked at him. "He's not human, is he?"

"I don't think so," Doug admitted, and just saying that aloud made him feel cold. "But I don't know what he Js."

"Whatever he is, he can bring back the dead. Dan's been writing to me. And now he's coming to visit."

"Maybe we should tell the police --"

"Fuck the police!"Hobie slammed down his shot glass, spilling whiskey. He shook his head, his voice softer. "No police."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"If you're going to act like this, then get the hell out of here and go home."

Doug held up his hands in acquiescence. "Okay, okay."

And he stood there silently as, shot by shot,Hobie finished off the bottle.

And he did not leave until afterHobie had passed out on the couch.

Five rings. Six. Seven. Eight.

On the tenth ring, Tritia finally hung up the phone. Something was wrong.

Irene always answered her phone by the third ring. It was conceivable that she was out of the house, but it was hardly likely. She did not seem to be of a mind lately to leave the house for any reason.

Maybe she had to buy groceries.

No, Tritia thought. Something had happened.

As soon as Doug got back, the two of them would drive over there and see if Irene was all right.

She picked up the phone again and dialed Irene's number.

One ring. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

On an impulse, Doug pulled to a stop on the side of the road just after the crossing. It wasmidafternoon and the cicadas were out in force, their airplane humming the only counterpoint to the muted splash-babble of the stream.

Near the road, the banks of the creek were narrow and rocky, with saplings creating a maze out of any attempted walkway. He was wearing his good tennis shoes and he knew he should stick to the bank no matter how awkward it was, but he stepped into the middle of the stream itself, waiting for a moment for his feet to acclimatize themselves to the coldness of the water before heading upstream.

He began wading purposefully upstream, toward the spot where Billy had discovered the mail. He had not been here since the day of the picnic, though he had thought of it often. Somehow, he had never heard whether the police had checked out the creek. They had taken his soggy samples, and Mike had confronted the mailman with them, but he did not recall hearing that the creek had been investigated.

Maybe he'd just forgotten.

Maybe not.

He was acutely aware of the loneliness of this place, of its relative inaccessibility. High cliffs rose up on both sides of the creek, and the sounds of man were nonexistent. Geographically, this area was not really remote; it was a mile or so from town, and fairly close to their settled section of the forest.

But the lay of the land ensured that the creek remained as removed from civilization as the most out-of-the-way corner of the Tonto.

He moved forward. It was stupid of him to have come here by himself without telling anyone where he was going. He should have at least called Trish.

If something happened to him . . .

He passed the spot near the path where they'd had their picnic and continued wading through the water. The bend was just ahead. How much mail would be there now? he wondered. Maybe it would not have been just dumped randomly.

Maybe the mailman was now using the discarded mail for a purpose. He saw in his mind a mail city, small shacks constructed next to the creek from millions of dumped envelopes, letters meticulously arranged into foundations and floors, walls and roofs.

But that was crazy.

What wasn't crazy these days?

He stood just before the final turn, listening for any unnatural sounds, but could hear only the water and the cicadas. He moved slowly forward and peeked around the bend.

There was nothing there.

The mail was gone.

He was almost relieved. Almost. But his satisfaction in discovering that he had forced the mailman to dump the mail elsewhere, to find another spot in which to deposit the town's real correspondence, was offset by the knowledge that the mailman had been so frighteningly thorough that he had cleaned up the mail he had already dropped there, that, one by one, he had meticulously picked the thousands of envelopes from the water, from the ground, from the trees, from the bushes, and had taken them all away.

Billy was upstairs when Doug arrived home, watching his own TV because Tritia had on _Donahue_ in the living room. The electricity, apparently, had finally been restored. Tritia was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, but Doug made her quit and dragged her into the living room, sitting her down on the couch. He told her what had happened toHobie , and as she sat silently listening to his story, she grew increasingly pale.

"He's doing the same thing to Irene," she said when he was finished.

"What happened?"

She hesitated for only a second. Although she had promised Irene she would tell neither Doug nor the police what had occurred, that promise was no longer valid. Her friend might be in trouble, in danger, and it was more important to help her out than to remain true to some ridiculous promise.

Tritia told him of the toe and of Irene's husband's accident, explaining also that she had tried calling four or five times this afternoon but that no one had answered the phone.

"Jesus! Why didn't you call the police?"

"I didn't think --"

"That's right. You didn't think." Doug strode across the living room to the phone and picked up the receiver.

The phone was dead.

He slammed it down angrily. "Shit!" He looked over at Tritia . "Come on, get ready. We're going to talk to the police." He walked upstairs. Billy was lying in bed, watching _Bewitched_. "We're going into town," Doug told his son.

"Put your shoes on."

Billy did not even look at him. "I want to watch this show."

"Now!"

"Why can't I stay here?"

"Because I said you can't. Now, get your shoes on or that TV goes off permanently." He clomped back down the stairs, checked the back door to make sure it was locked. Tritia emerged from the bedroom, patting down her hair, a purse slung over her shoulder. Billy's angry sullen footsteps could be heard on the stairs.

"Let's go," Doug said.

They drove all the way to town in silence, Tritia worried beside him, Billy, arms folded across his chest, angry in the back seat. Doug drove into the parking lot of the police station, pulling next to a beat-up Buick. He told Billy to remain in the car, and he and Tritia walked into the building. The desk sergeant on duty came immediately to the front counter when he saw the two of them standing there. "May I help you?" he asked.

Doug glanced around the office. "Where's Mike?"

"Which Mike?"

"Mike Trenton."

"I'm sorry, but information concerning the shifts and hours of department employees is confidential."

"Look, I know him, okay?"

"If you knew him well enough, you wouldn't have to ask. I'm sorry, but for security reasons we do not give out personal information concerning our officers. Now, is there anything else I can help you with?"

"I hope so." Doug told the sergeant aboutHobie and Irene. At first, he left out the details, explaining merely that their friends were being harassed through the mail and had reason to believe that the mailman was behind it, wanting to let the police discover for themselves what had happened. But when the sergeant looked doubtful and started to give him a vague "we'll-look-into it" answer, Doug decided to tell all.

"HobieBeecham has been getting letters from his dead brother," he said.

"Irene Hill was sent a severed toe through the mail.Hobie's dead drunk right now because of it, passed out on the couch where I left him. Irene's not answering her phone. Now, do you think, possibly, that you could spare a few minutes from your busy schedule to check this out?"

The sergeant's attitude had changed completely. He was suddenly eager to help, although there was a strange anxious nervousness to his manner. He took down Doug's and Tritia 's names and address as well as the addresses ofHobie and Irene. He knows, Doug thought. He's been getting mail too.

"I'll have an officer sent out to interview both Mr. Beecham and Ms.

Hill," the sergeant said.

Doug glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was nearly four. The post office would be open for another hour. "What about John Smith? Are you going to send someone over to the post office to talk to him?"

"Of course."

"I'm going too," Doug said.

The sergeant shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid the civilians --"

"Fine." Doug smiled thinly. "Then I will just go to the post office and happen to be there the same time as your man." He looked at Tritia . "Let's go."

The two of them walked out of the police station without looking back.

Doug was sweating and his body was charged with adrenaline. Encounters with authority, even on such a minor level, still made him nervous, although he was getting increasingly used to them.

He had left the keys in the car for Billy, who had turned on the radio.

His mood seemed to have improved during their absence, and he was no longer silently sullen when they got into the car.

"Why did we come here?" he asked.

"Because," Tritia told him.

"It's about the mailman, isn't it?"

Doug looked at his son in the rearview mirror as he started the engine.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Are they going to get him?"

Doug nodded. "I hope so."

Billy sat back in his seat. "Probably not, though."

Doug did not respond. He waited for a moment until he saw Tim Hibbard and two other officers emerge from the building. Tim waved to him, motioned for him to follow, and Doug put the Bronco into reverse, pulling out of the parking space. He got behind the patrol car and followed it out of the lot, onto the street, and to the post office.

"Stay here," Doug said as he got out of the car. Tim was already waiting for him near the building's entrance.

Tritia unbuckled her seatbelt. "No way. I'm coming with you."

"Me too," Billy said.

"You definitely stay here," Doug told his son.

"Yes," Tritia agreed.

"Then why couldn't I just stay home and watch TV?"

Because I was afraid to leave you alone, Doug thought, but he only shook his head, saying nothing. He left the keys in the ignition, turned the radio to Billy's favorite station, and closed the car door. He and Tritia walked over to where Tim stood waiting.

The officer grinned as they approached. "The chief would croak if he knew you were here with me," he said. "He doesn't like you at all, you know."

Doug pretended to be surprised. "_Moi_?"

Tim laughed.

Doug looked toward the door to the post office. The afternoon sun reflected off the glass so he could not see clearly inside, but there appeared to be no patrons in the office. He turned toward Tim. "Where's Mike?" he asked.

"The truth? He was taken off this case because the chief thought he was getting too close to it."

"Too close to me, you mean."

"Well, yeah."

Doug frowned. " 'This case?' You mean the mailman?"

Tim smiled again. "Unofficially."

"Well at least something's being done. I was getting really worried about you guys."

"Don't stop worrying yet. The chief still thinks it's a load of crap, and we still haven't been able to substantiate anything."

"Until now," Tritia said.

"We'll see." Tim looked from Tritia to Doug. "You two ready to go in?"

Doug nodded. "Let's do it."

The day was waning, the air cooling, but the inside of the post office was extraordinarily hot and muggy. It had changed again, Doug noticed immediately.

The walls, formerly a drab public-building grayish-green, had been painted a deep black. He had never before noticed the color of the floor, but the cement was now an unmistakable blood red. The philatelic posters on the wall were all of stamps that could not possibly exist. Bloody tortures. Unnatural sex.

Behind the counter, Doug saw Giselle. She was sorting through a pile of letters. She looked almost Nazi-like in her new blue uniform, Teutonic hair swept under her cap, and the sight of her in this place, in this position, made her seem like an entirely different person. She seemed tainted, corrupt, merely by her association with him, as though she had somehow turned her back on everyone else in town, on her parents and her old friends, and had betrayed them.

The thought crossed his mind that the mailman's goal all along had been to establish some sort of paramilitary organization using the local kids, a youth group that would usurp the power in the community. But, no, if that had been his plan, there would have been earlier signs and indications; he would have recruited other people already. Besides, that answer was too easy, too clean, too literal. The mailman's real goal, he felt sure, was not so simple, not so clearly defined.

If he had a goal at all . . .

Real life, Doug reminded himself, was not like literature. As an English teacher, he dealt constantly with the themes and motives of fiction, and he had a tendency to ascribe a similar structure to reality. But this was not a novel where acts were performed for a reason: to illuminate character, to reveal a truth, or to achieve an end. It was possible, more than possible, that the mailman was here in town not for a specific purpose, not as part of some evil grand design, but for his own entertainment or amusement. Or for no reason at all. He found Tritia 's hand and held it.

Tim cleared his throat, approaching the counter. He, too, must have been surprised by the state of the post office, but he let none of it register. "I

need to speak with Mr. Crowell and Mr. Smith," he said.

Giselle looked up from her work and glanced from Tim to Doug and Tritia .

She smiled at Doug, and he instantly regretted his superficial characterization of her. She bad not changed, after all.

Then why was she working for the mailman?

"Is Howard here?" Doug asked.

Giselle shook her head. "He's still sick."

"Could you please tell Mr. Smith I'd like to talk to him," Tim said.

The mailman emerged from the back room. As always, he was dressed impeccably in his uniform. His hair, Doug noticed, was very nearly the same color as the floor. "Hello, gentlemen," he said. He smiled at Tritia , nodding his head. "Ladies."

Tritia tried to hide behind Doug. She did not like the mailman's eyes. She did not like the mailman's smile.

_You're nice_.

His eyes remained on her, holding her gaze though she wanted to look away.

"How's your son?" he asked. The question was asked innocently, casually, but beneath the superficial interest was a deeper, obscene, frightening implication.

_Billy's nice too_.

"We didn't come here to chat," Doug said coldly.

"We've had reports that there has been some tampering with the mails," Tim said. His voice was steady, even, but Doug could sense a hint of fear in it. He knew the mailman could too. "Two citizens have complained that they have been receiving" -- he reached for a word -- "rather bizarre items in the mail."

The mailman stared at the policeman calmly. "Such as?"

"Illegal items."

The mailman smiled patiently, understandingly. "The Postal Service is not responsible for the contents of the mail it delivers and under federal law cannot be held liable for damage caused as a result of its delivery. However, we are just as concerned as you are about abuses of the postal system and are willing to cooperate fully with any efforts designed to get to the root of this problem."

Tim did not know how to respond, and he looked to Doug for help.

"You're sending mail yourself," Doug said.

The mailman's gaze was unwavering and unreadable. "Of course I am," he said. "We all send mail. Are you implying that became I work for the post office I cannot send letters to people? Do you think that is some sort of conflict of interest?" He laughed, a false plastic laugh Doug knew he was supposed to see through. This conversation, Doug realized, was operating on two levels. The mailman was threatening him.

John Smith smiled. "I have to pay for postage just like everyone else. I

don't even get a discount. But there is no limit to the amount of letters I can send. I can mail as many items as I want to."

"And have you mailed any threatening letters?" Tim asked. "Have you mailed any body parts?"

The mailman did not even pretend to be surprised. "I don't like your insinuation," he said.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to let me search this post office."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to get a search warrant," the mailman said. "And I'm afraid you're going to find it fairly difficult to obtain a warrant to search an office of the federal government." He looked past Doug and Tritia out the window. "How's Billy today?" he asked.

"You leave him alone, damn you." Tritia glared at him.

The mailman chuckled.

Doug noticed Giselle backing away from the mailman behind the counter. She looked confused.

"I'm afraid you gentlemen" -- the mailman smiled at Tritia -- "and ladies will have to excuse me. I have work to do."

"I haven't finished talking to you," Tim said.

"I'm finished talking to you," the mailman replied, and there was something in his voice that made the rest of them fall silent. They watched him retreat back into the rear of the building.

Giselle tried to smile apologetically, but the smile did not quite work.

"Tell Howard to call me," Doug told her. "If you ever see him."

She glanced behind her to make sure she wasn't being watched, then shook her head slightly from side to side.

"To hell with the search warrant," Tim said angrily. "I'm going to get an arrest warrant. Let's get out of here."

They walked out of the hot dark building and into the fresh outside air.

Behind them, from somewhere deep within the post office, they heard the mailman laugh.

32

The next day the telephones went out again, and Doug had to drive into town to discover that the police had questionedHobie and Irene and that both of them had denied receiving anything unusual in the mail.

He talked to the desk sergeant since neither Mike nor Tim was in the office.

When he drove out to seeHobie afterward, his friend refused to answer the door, pretending not to be home.

Irene did exactly the same thing.

33

Billy awoke early, his nose stuffed, his eyes itchy and watery, the nightmare from which he had awoken all but forgotten in the face of his overwhelming physical discomfort. He sneezed, then sneezed again, wiping his nose on the sheet, since there was no handkerchief handy. It was going to be one of those allergy days. He could feel it. He lay back on the pillow, eyes open.

More than once, his parents had talked about taking him up to Flagstaff for tests, to find out exactly what he was allergic to, but when he'd learned that the tests involved needles, he promptly vetoed that idea. There was nothing he hated worse than needles. The allergy was horrible but bearable, usually not lasting more than a day or two at a time, and was infinitely preferable to being poked and scratched and jabbed.

He sneezed again. He had been planning to take Brad and Michael out to The Fort today to check out the _Playboys_. The twins had never really believed that he and Lane had as many magazines as they said they did, and had often begged, had even offered to buy, their way into The Fort. Lane had always turned them down, insisting that only the original builders were allowed to see The Fort's interior, but now Lane was gone, and Billy had decided to invite the twins to come over and check it out for themselves.

Brad had sounded a little strange when he'd talked to him over the phone, hostile almost, as though he was mad for some reason, but since Billy had no one else to hang out with . . . Well, beggars couldn't be choosers.

Besides, it would be nice to see someone besides his family again. And he knew the twins would be impressed with the _Playboy_ collection.

He forced himself to sit up. Behind his eyes, his head felt thick and heavy. He wasn't sure he should be walking through the forest with his allergy this bad; all the plants would probably only make it worse. But he didn't want to spend the whole day in bed. That was fine during the school year, when he could cajole his mom into bringing him toast and tea and could lie in his pajamas and watch cartoons and TV shows from morning to afternoon, but when it was summer and he had plans for the day . . .

He got out of bed and padded across the floor to the closet, taking out his bathrobe and putting it on. An old handkerchief was wadded up in the robe's pocket and he used it to blow his nose.

"Allergies?" his mom called from downstairs.

He didn't answer, hoping that if he ignored her she would go back to whatever she was doing and leave him alone. He moved over to the window, looking out. The sky was overcast, a cumulus ceiling painted with gradations of gray, and the morning sun was a hidden light dimly brightening a small section of cloud cover in the east. Above the pointed silhouettes of the pines he could see a lone hawk circling upward toward the top of the hill. Though it was not raining now, the ground was wet, the window misty.

Maybe he wouldn't be taking the twins to The Fort, after all.

He walked downstairs. The electricity was on again, and his dad was watching the morning news. His mom was standing in the kitchen at the sink, looking out the window at the forest, her back to him. On the counter were several boxes of high-fiber cereal along with freshly squeezed orange juice.

Next to the toaster was a cut loaf of whole grain bread.

Things were back to normal.

Billy sneezed, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his bathrobe. He could barely breathe and his head was throbbing to the rhythm of his pulse, but when his mom turned around, a questioning look on her face, he said, "I'm fine,"

before she could even ask how he felt.

"You don't look fine," she said, walking over to the cupboard. She took out a glass and poured some orange juice, giving it to him. "You look sick."

"Allergy."

She nodded. "It's the rain. It gets those mold spores in the air. I want you to drink your juice and take some vitamin C."

He sat down at the counter and sipped from the glass. He chose the least objectionable cereal, poured about half a bowlful, and sprinkled several spoons of sugar on top of it.

"What do you think you're doing?" his mom said.

"I can't eat this stuff without sugar."

"One spoon. That's all."

Billy smiled at her. "Too late now." He poured the milk in his bowl.

"Hurry up and eat and get ready," his dad said from behind him. "We're going to the store this morning, and I want to get it over with as soon as possible."

Billy swallowed his cereal. "I don't want to go."

"You have to go."

"My allergies are bothering me. I feel kind of sick. I think I'd better stay home."

"I thought you said you were fine. What a liar." His mom tried to make her voice light and playful, but he could hear an undercurrent of tension in it. He saw worried concern in the glance she shot over his head at his dad. "Why do you really want to stay?"

"Brad and Michael might be coming over. We were going to go play in The Fort."

"You're coming with us," his dad said.

"You guys always treat me like I'm a baby. I'm old enough to stay by myself. God, Lane's parents left him by himself for two days before."

"When?" his mother asked. "When you were staying overnight?"

"No," he lied.

"Where is Lane, by the way? I haven't seen him around lately. Did you two get into a fight or something?"