The Mailman

Billy looked at his mom, feeling his stomach knot up.

_Naked_.

"Yeah," he said. He dug into his cereal, focusing his attention on the bowl, not wanting to look at his mom, not wanting to think about Lane.

His dad came into the kitchen, dumped the last little bit of his coffee down the sink, and rinsed out his cup. "I think you'd better come with us today," he said.

Billy looked up at his father. "I think I'd be safer here," he said.

A look passed between them. Though none of them had said anything, the subtext of their conversation was clear to all of them, and Billy had obviously struck a responsive chord in his father with the word "safer." He was not sure if it was true, not sure if he really would be safer here, but he did want to stay, and he did not want to go to town. His dad continued to stare at him, but Billy did not avert his gaze, and he saw a host of conflicting emotions pass over his father's face.

His dad finally looked away and put hiscoffeecup on the drying rack. "Are you sure you'll be okay here by yourself?" he asked.

Billy nodded.

"You cannot leave the house," he warned. "I don't want you stepping outside that door until we come back. You understand?"

"Yes."

"If Brad and Michael come by," he added, "you just stay in here with them and watch TV or something, okay? Watch a videotape."

He nodded. "Don't worry."

His mom put a hand on his dad's shoulder. "I'm sure he'll be fine."

They finished breakfast in silence, his dad going back to the TV, his mom going into the bathroom to get ready. Something had happened here between them, something that he could almost but not quite understand, that barely eluded his grasp, and he wasn't sure if he was glad it had happened or not. He almost wished he had agreed to go to the store with them.

He sneezed, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

A half-hour later, his parents were ready to go. They said good-bye to him and gave him preparatory instructions that made it seem as though they were going to be embarking on a week-long journey instead of just going on a ten minute trip to the store.

Billy watched them drive away, then he looked back into the kitchen. They had taken care of most of the breakfast dishes, but had left some for him to do.

The sugar and orange juice and cereal boxes all still stood on the top of the counter, waiting for him to put them away. The TV was already off and he turned out the lights. The house grew dark, sliding into an artificial state halfway between night and day. He sat down for a moment on the couch to enjoy it. There was something special about being inside on a cloud-darkened day. Particularly when he was alone. It somehow made everything seem more valuable, more tentative and transitory and therefore precious. It was a strange feeling, as distinct from the feeling of safety and security he got from being warm inside the dry house on a snowy winter's night as it was from the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped inside on a warm sunny day, and it made him feel grown-up, as though he were already an adult and this was his house.

Outside, it began to rain. In the silence of the house, he could clearly hear the faint clattering sound of raindrops on the roof. He sat there for a moment, taking in the staccato rhythm of the rain, the modulating shift of daylight through the windows as the clouds above drifted, moved, overlapped.

He glanced at the clock. It was nearly nine-thirty. The twins were supposed to be here between nine-thirty and ten. Obviously, they wouldn't be able to go to The Fort if the rain kept up this way, but they could play a game inside or something until it abated.

First of all, though, he had to clean up the breakfast stuff. He sat up and walked into the kitchen. He put the orange juice in the refrigerator, put the cereal boxes in the cupboard. Moving over to the toaster, he glanced down at the counter.

Next to the loaf of wheat bread was a long white envelope.

An envelope addressed to him.

An icy finger of fear tickled Billy's spine. He stared down at the white paper rectangle. Had the envelope been there before? It couldn't have. If it had, he would have seen it.

He wanted to walk away, to go outside, to go back upstairs and wait for his parents to come home, to get away from the kitchen entirely, but the envelope beckoned him. He stared at it, unable to look away. He reached for the envelope as though it was booby-trapped, picking it up slowly, holding it at arm's length. He did not want to open it, was afraid to open it, but he had to see what was inside. Carefully, he pressed his fingers against the envelope, making sure it did not contain photographs.

_His mother, naked_.

His hand trembled. There were no pictures inside, the envelope was pliable, not stiff, and with one quick movement, he tore it open.

There were only four words typed on the plain white paper:

_Come out and play_

Come out and play. The words on their own were innocuous enough, innocent even, but the meaning behind them was anything but. He knew exactly who had sent the note, though there was no signature, and he knew exactly what the message meant. Come out and play.

He dropped the paper on the floor, stepping away from it. He should have gone with his parents. He should never have stayed here alone. What the hell was wrong with him? The darkened house, which only a few moments before had seemed so wonderfully special, now seemed sinister and filled with shadows. He reached over and flipped on the light switch next to the sink.

Nothing happened.

The electricity was out.

He was scared now. He quickly rushed to the phone, picking it up.

It was dead.

Outside, beneath the low clatter of the rain, he heard the unmistakable sound of a purring car engine. He ran to the back door, checking to make sure it was closed and locked, then locked the front door. He moved next to the window, peeking out. Through the blurred drizzle outside the glass, he could see an indistinct form standing near the end of the drive by the road. A figure with a blue uniform, white face, and red hair.

Come out and play.

He backed quickly away from the window, closing the drapes. The second the curtains closed, he knew that it had been a stupid thing to do. Now he was trapped in here, helpless, blinded, unable to see what was going on outside. He almost opened the drapes again, but immediately dropped the cord. What if the mailman had sneaked up onto the porch and was standing right in front of the window waiting for him, grinning at him? What would he do? What could he do? He had seen the mailman move in the direction of the house the second before the curtains closed. Or had he? He couldn't remember.

His eyes darted toward the back of the house, toward his parents' bedroom.

The drapes there were open, but the windows faced the forest. He would not be able to see anything other than trees.

And the mailman, if he sneaked around from that direction.

Billy ran upstairs. There was no door on the loft stairs, they simply came up through the floor, but his baseball bat was there and he could use that to protect himself if he had to. He picked up the bat and searched for something he could drop on the mailman's head if it came to that. He found several heavy old toys that he hadn't touched in years, and brought them with him to the bed. He gripped the bat tightly, waiting, ready to swing, listening for the sound of anything unfamiliar within the house.

But the only sound was the constant rain and he heard nothing else until his parents pulled into the drive an hour later.

34

Doug walked out to the mailbox. It had been quite a while since he'd actually looked at the mail, and he was more than a little curious to see what sort of letter the mailman was sending these days. For the past week or so, he had gotten up before Trish or Billy awoke and had dumped the mail directly into the outside garbage cans, making sure he buried them deep under the kitchen sacks and bathroom trash so they wouldn't be accidentally taken out of the can by a hungry dog or rambunctious skunk or raccoon.

Still, he was curious. It felt good to know that he was resisting the mailman's constant temptation, that whatever Postal Service pranks had been planned for he and his family had been successfully thwarted, but he could not deny that there was something inside him, that same stubborn something that had always made him do exactly what authority told him not to do, which made him now want to open up the mail and see what was inside, though he knew it was the dumbest move he could make under the circumstances.

He thought ofHobie and Irene, who had both stopped answering their doors or their phones.

His feet crunched in the gravel. He reached the foot of the drive and opened the mailbox. Inside was a single envelope addressed by computerized mailing label to "Occupant." Doug removed the envelope and slammed shut the box.

He was still debating with himself whether to throw it away or look at it when his hands ripped open the sealed paper. He withdrew the contents of the envelope -- a professionally typeset brochure and two photographs.

Nude photographs.

Of Tritia .

His mouth felt suddenly dry, his legs weak. He turned over the brochure and began to read. "Hi," it said. "My name's Tritia , and I want to be your very special friend. As an introduction to the Ranch Club, I am sending you two photos of myself, to show you what you get by taking advantage of our introductory offer. By night I am a wife and mother, but by day I am anything you want me to be. Your hot slut. Your love slave . . ."

He couldn't read any more. Breathing heavily with anger, revulsion, and trembling fear, he looked at the two photos. In one, a rear view, Tritia was bent over the back of a couch, offering to the camera a perfect shot of her whiteuntanned ass.

Only . . .

Only it wasn't Tritia . The cheeks were too firm, and too round, the buttocks of a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. He looked closer.

The small birthmark she had on her lower back was missing as well, and the fingers were too short and stubby. He looked at the other photograph, this one of Trish seated in a wicker chair, legs spread, eyes closed as she fingered herself. The breasts were wrong, he noticed. The size was about right, but Trish's nipples were much darker, much more prominent.

He tore up the photographs, tore up the brochure, tore up the envelope.

The mailman had obviously pasted photographs of Trish's head onto someone else's body, although he did not know how or where the mailman could have gotten a hold of pictures of Trish. The photos were done well, flawlessly executed, with no visible seams, and would probably fool anyone else but him. But what was the point? Why go to so much trouble?

Maybe it wasn't just for him. Maybe the mailman had sent the same brochure, the same photos, to other people in town. Maybe other men were right now staring at the false body of his wife, reading the mailman's fake words, fantasizing, planning.

He pushed the thought from his mind as he walked back toward the house.

He threw the torn scraps of paper into the garbage before going inside.

The town had seemed nearly abandoned the other day when they'd gone to the store, with very few cars on the street, very few people visible anywhere, so Doug was more than a little surprised to see a crowd gathered in the parking lot in front of the deli. He had been planning to go to the hardware store, to pick up some more flashlight and radio batteries before they were all sold out, but he pulled into theBayless parking lot when he saw the crowd. He parked next to a gray Jeep Cherokee and got out. The group of people standing in front of the deli was fairly quiet and fairly still, but there was something threatening about them as they stood in a rough semicircle around Todd Gold's station wagon.

Doug moved forward. He recognized the faces of several students and several adults. They appeared to be waiting for something, and although there was nothing unusual in either their individual expressions or stances, merely being part of the crowd made them seem menacing.

Todd came out of his store, carrying a large white box. He put the box into the open rear of the station wagon, next to a score of others that had already been packed. He slammed shut the hatch. Doug pressed through the group of people to the front as the deli owner angrily waved the onlookers away. "Get the hell out of here. Haven't you done enough already?"

The crowd stood dumbly, silently watching as he went into the store, emerged carrying several sacks, then closed and locked the now empty deli. "Get out of here," he yelled again. He dropped one of the sacks on the ground as he took out his car keys.

Doug reached him just before he opened the front door. "What is it, Todd?

What happened? What are you doing?"

The storekeeper glared angrily at Doug. "I at least expected better from you. Some of these rednecks" -- he waved a dismissive hand toward the crowd "I can understand. They've never seen a Jew before, don't know what to do or how to handle it, but you . . ."

Doug stared at him, confused. The man seemed to be talking gibberish.

"What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? What am I talking about? What the hell do you think I'm talking about?" The storekeeper dropped a sack of mail onto his seat and began sorting through it furiously, picking up envelopes, tossing them aside, until he found what he wanted. He held it up. "Look familiar?"

Doug shook his head dumbly. "No."

"No?" Todd read the letter aloud. " 'You Christ-killing kike, we're tired of your greasy fingers touching our fish and meat and food. How would your sheenywife like a nice white cock up her ass?' "

Doug stared, stunned. "You don't think I --"

"Oh, you're telling me you didn't do it?"

"Of course I didn't!"

Todd looked down at the paper, reading. " 'Why don't I feed your wife some real knockwurst?' "

"Todd . . ." Doug said.

The storekeeper spat on the ground at Doug's feet. The expression on his face was one of intense hatred, a hatred borne of betrayal, and Doug knew that there was nothing he could say or do that could repair the damage that had been done, that could convince the storekeeper he had had nothing to do with this.

"Baby!" someone in the crowd yelled. "Crybaby!"

Doug looked up to see who had made the comment, but the faces all seemed to blur together. He noticed now that although the people were silent, they were by no means passive observers. There was anger on several faces, along with the ugly ignorant shadow of bigotry.

"Jewpussy," a man yelled.

"Go back to where you came from," a woman called.

Todd dropped the letter in the back seat and got into the car. He started the engine, put on his seat belt, and looked up at Doug. "I expected better from you," he said. "I hope you're happy."

"I'm on your side," Doug said, but the car was already backing up, turning around. Someone in the crowd threw a rock, and the rock hit the back fender of the departing station wagon, bouncing off. The car pulled onto the street, rounded the corner, and was gone.

Doug looked into the empty store and saw only the reflection of the crowd in the mirror. He saw faces he didn't know on people he knew. He saw people he didn't want to know at all.

He turned around.

"You're on his side?" a man said, demanded.

Doug held up his middle finger. "Fuck off," he said. He walked slowly back toward the car.

35

Tritia lay staring up into the darkness, needing to go to the bathroom but afraid to get out of bed. He was out there, she knew. Somewhere close. She had heard earlier the low quiet sound of his engine approaching and then cutting off, but she had not heard it start up again. She knew she should wake Doug, but he'd been so tense lately, under so much stress, and had had such a difficult time falling asleep that she didn't want to disturb him.

Upstairs, Billy's bed creaked as he shifted restlessly in his sleep. He had been nervous and anxious the past two days, ever since they'd left him home when they went to the store, and she was worried about him. He was becoming ever more secretive. Once again, something was bothering him that he refused to discuss with them, and though she was trying to be patient and understanding, it was hard not to feel frustrated with his lack of cooperation.

The pressure between her legs increased. She would have to go to the bathroom soon. There were no two ways around that. And she would have to decide whether or not to wake Doug. He snored softly next to her, his breathing rough and irregular, and she found herself thinking for some reason of sleepapnia , a disease in which the sleeping brain forgot to work the involuntary functions of the body, and a person stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating and he never woke up.

Stop it, she told herself. You're just being crazy.

The pressure increased yet again. She recalled with terrifying clarity the dream she'd had the night before. A dream in which she'd gone into the bathroom to take a bath and had lain in the warm sudsy relaxing water only to find that the mailman's body was beneath her. A hand had reached up from the bubbles to silence her scream as his burning organ entered her from behind.

She reached over and cautiously nudged her husband. "Doug?" she said softly.

"What?" He jerked awake, instantly alert, instantly on the defensive.

"I'm afraid to go to the bathroom alone," she said apologetically. "Would you come with me?"

He nodded, and even in the dark she could see the circles under his eyes.

He stumbled out of bed, pulled on his robe, and they walked to the bathroom together. From the kitchen came the low sound of the refrigerator humming.

Tritia reached around the corner, found the switch, and flipped on the bathroom light. Sitting on the covered seat of the toilet was a white envelope.

"Oh, I left that there," Doug said quickly, picking it up, hiding it. But Tritia knew instantly with a feeling of terror that he had never seen the envelope before. She had been the last person to use the bathroom, just before going to bed, and there had been no mail in the bathroom at all.

_He'd been inside the house_.

"Check Billy," she ordered, running down the hall, through the kitchen.

She was panicked, gasping for breath. She saw in her mind her son's empty bed, covers thrown aside, an envelope on his pillow containing a ransom note . . . or something worse.

_Billy's nice too Billy's nice too. . . ._

They ran crazily, Doug following her lead, up the steps to the loft.

Where Billy, alone, was fast asleep.

She had never really understood what a sigh of relief was, though she had read the phrase often enough in novels, but she breathed a sigh of relief now, an exhalation of the air she had been holding in her lungs as she prepared herself for the worst. Her eyes met Doug's, and both of them began silently searching through the loft to make sure the mailman wasn't hiding anywhere.

The loft was empty.

They combed the rest of the house, carefully searching the closets, the cupboards, under the beds. Doug checked the windows and the locks on the door, but everything was as it should be. Finally, satisfied that the house was clean, that there was no one there, they returned to the bathroom.

Doug put a reassuring hand on Tritia 's shoulder.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" she demanded, pushing his hand away, turning on him.

He stepped back, surprised by her sudden fury. "What?"

"I said what the hell's wrong with you? You're all gung ho about going to the police and trying to get them to do something about the mailman, but when he comes in our own house when we're asleep and leaves a letter on the goddamned toilet, you pretend like you left it there and nothing's wrong."

"I didn't pretend like nothing's wrong."

"What did you do, then, huh?"

"I just didn't want to scare you."

"Didn't want to scare me? Didn't you think about our son at all? What if the mailman was still in the house? We all could've been killed."

"I wasn't thinking right, okay?"

"No, it's not okay. You endangered all of us. You didn't want to scare me?

I'm already scared. I've been scared all summer! But I'm not some helpless little nitwit who has to be protected from what's going on.Goddammit , I at least expect you to treat me like an adult."

"You'll wake up Billy," Doug said.

"The mailman was in our house!" she screamed. "What do you expect me to do? Whisper?"

"We don't know that he was here. The door's locked, the windows are all closed --"

Tritia slammed the door to the bathroom, almost hitting his nose. He stood in the hall, furious with her, wanting more than anything to go back into the bedroom and crawl into bed and leave her alone in the damn bathroom. That would scare her enough to teach her a lesson. But as angry as he was, he was more afraid. She was right. They were in danger. The mailman had been inside their house, had invaded the one sacred spot where they had always felt themselves to be safe, had entered their fortress against the outside world. He stood there with his ear to the bathroom door, hoping he wouldn't hear the sound of anyone but Tritia .

The toilet flushed and she came out a few seconds later. "Let me see the letter," she said.

He took the envelope from the pocket of his bathrobe. "Maybe we shouldn't touch it," he suggested. "It might be evidence --"

Tritia ripped it open. The envelope was addressed to her, and inside was a sheet of white paper on which was written, in a flowery feminine hand, a single word:

Hi Tritia began to tear the paper into little shreds.

"Hey," Doug said. "Don't do that! We need --"

"We need what?" she screamed at him. "This?" She continued to rip the letter. "Don't you know how he works? Don't you understand yet? Are you that stupid? He can't be caught. He can't be touched. The police will come and there'll be no fingerprints, no sign of forced entry, no proof of anything.

Nothing for them to go on!"

Doug stared at her, saying nothing.

"He knows what he's doing, and he doesn't do things that will allow him to get caught. Even this letter doesn't mean a damn thing unless it has his fingerprints on it or we can prove that it's his writing."

She was right and he knew it, and the knowledge made him feel both angry and helpless. Tritia continued to tear the letter into increasingly tinier pieces, her hands working faster, more nervously, as tears escaped from beneath her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. He reached out to grab her hands, to stop them, but she pulled away. "Don't touch me."

He moved closer still, putting his arms around her, pulling her close. She struggled. "Don't touch me," she repeated. But her struggles became progressively weaker, her protestations less adamant, and soon she was sobbing in his arms.

It was not yet eight, but Doug knew the post office would be open. He knew the mailman would be there -- if he had returned from his nighttime rounds.

The Bronco sped over the asphalt past the Circle K, past the bank, past the nursery. They had not slept last night after they'd gone back to bed, but they had talked, discussing in whispered voices their fears and feelings, their thoughts and theories. Nothing had been resolved, nothing had been solved, but both of them felt better, safer, more secure.

Doug's anger, however, had not abated one whit, and with the coming of the dawn he had taken a shower, eaten a quick breakfast, and told Trish to stay home and guard Billy. He was going to confront the mailman, and he wanted to do it while he was still mad enough not to be afraid. She had sensed this, understood this, and had not argued with him. She'd simply nodded and urged him to be careful.

He pulled into the parking lot of the post office. The only other vehicle in sight was the mailman's red car, and he parked right next to it. He got out of the Bronco and walked toward the glass double doors. They were being targeted, he and Trish and Billy, though he did not know why. Everything else at least fit together, made a kind of perverse sense. Ronda and Bernie had been killed because they were rivals;Stockley had been done away with to shut him up; the dogs had been murdered because, as everyone knew, mailmen hated dogs.

But no such reasons or rationalizations could be found for the mailman's unceasing harassment of Doug's family and friends. Of course, other people in town were being harassed too, but not as subtly, not as purposefully. Doug knew what was going on, and the mailman knew that he knew and was playing games with him. The horrors were gradually increasing in intensity and proximity, moving in concentric circles toward he and Billy and Trish at the center.

The doors were open and Doug stepped into the post office. The morning chill had not penetrated the inside of the building. The temperature of the stale humid air felt as though it was in the high nineties. He walked up to the front counter, refusing to look at the twisted and repugnant wall posters. The floor felt wet and sticky beneath his feet.

The mailman emerged from the back, smiling. As always, he was wearing his full uniform. As always, his voice was smoothly plastic. "How may I help you, Mr.Albin ?"

"Knock off the shit," Doug said. "We both know why I'm here."

"Why are you here?" The mailman's smile widened.

Doug leaned forward. "Because you're threatening my family. Because you came into my house last night and left us a note."

"What kind of note?"

"You know damn well what kind of note. It said, 'Hi.' "

The mailman chuckled. "That is pretty threatening."

Doug clenched his fist and held it up above the counter. "You can stop the innocent act. There's no one here but me and you, and we both know you broke into my house last night."

"I did no such thing. I was at home all evening with Mr. Crowell." The look on the mailman's face was an obvious parody of bruised innocence.

"And where is Mr. Crowell?"

The mailman grinned. "Unfortunately, he's sick today."

"I want you to stop it," Doug said.

"Stop what?"

"This. Everything. Just get the hell out of Willis, or I swear to God I'll make you get out."

The mailman laughed, and this time there was a harshness under the false nicety. His eyes, hard and blue and dead, bored into Doug's, and his voice, when it came out, had none of its usual calculated blandness. "You can't make me do anything," he said, and his tone made Doug's blood run cold.

Doug backed up a step. He realized that for the first time he was seeing the true face of the mailman, and he had to resist the instinctive impulse to flee. The fact that he had been able to goad the mailman into dropping his cover scared him much more than he ever would have thought. He shouldn't have come here alone. He should have brought Mike or Tim or another cop. But he refused to let the mailman sense his fear. He held his ground. "Why are you harassing my family?" he asked, and his voice came out strong, assured. "Why are you picking on me?"

"Because you know," the mailman said.

"I don't know anything."

"Because you complained."

"A lot of people have complained."

"Because I feel like it," the mailman said, and the random callousness of that admission, the utter lack of reason, struck Doug as the truth. He stared into those cold eyes and saw nothing. No passion, no feeling, nothing. Evil was not hatred, he thought. Evil was this.

The mailman smiled, and his voice was filled with an ugly undercurrent of threatening sexuality. "How's the little woman, little man?"

"You bastard!" Doug struck out at the mailman, but the mailman stepped easily back, avoiding the blow. Doug, thrown off-balance, fell against the counter.

The mailman chuckled, then his usual benign mask fell into place. "I'm sorry, Mr.Albin . The post office is not open yet, but if you'd like to buy a book of stamps --"

"Just leave us alone," Doug said, standing straight.

"It's my job to deliver the mail, and I will continue to perform my duties to the best of my ability."

"Why? No one reads it anyway."

"Everyone reads their mail."

"I don't. I stopped reading it weeks ago."

The mailman stared at him, blinked. "You have to read your mail."

"I don't have to do anything. I take my mail directly from the mailbox to the garbage can, no stops in between."

For the first time, the mailman seemed to Doug at a loss for words. He shook his head as if he didn't understand what Doug was saying. "But you have to read your mail," he repeated.

Doug smiled, realizing he had hit a nerve. "I don't read my man. My wife doesn't read her mail. We don't look at it at all. We don't even look to see who it's from or who it's addressed to. We just throw it away. So just stop wasting your time and leave us alone."

"But you have to read your mail."

Giselle walked into the office from the back.

"Just leave us alone," Doug said to the mailman. He turned and strode out of the building. He was trembling, shaking, as he walked out to the car.

He thought he heard the mailman say something to him as he left, but he didn't hear what it was and wasn't sure he wanted to know.

36

Doug drove through the night shirtless, his hair still uncombed, wearing only his Levi's and a pair of tennis shoes. He had driven this route a thousand times, but now he seemed to be moving in slow motion, the Bronco putting along at a pitifully inadequate speed. He hit the steering wheel as hard as he could, angry at the car and at himself. The horn bleated, and he almost drove into a tree as he turned a corner too sharply. He slowed down as much as he dared, but he had to get moving. He'd already taken far too long. The Bronco bumped onto the pavement as the dirt road ended, and he pressed down on the gas pedal.

He'd been scared a lot lately and he'd thought he'd reached the limit of terror, that he'd been as frightened as he could be, but when he'd picked up the phone from a sound sleep and heardHobie's panicked high-pitched voice screaming of blood and virgins while in the background the static of a police radio crackled, he knew that fear had no limit. It was bottomless, and he just kept sinking deeper and deeper into it.

He saw the police lights from far down the street, a twin red-and-blue pulsing against the trees and houses of the neighborhood. The cars and the ambulance were directly in front ofHobie's house, so he had to park several houses away. He slammed the car door shut and ran down the cracked and dirty sidewalk. A gang ofbathrobed men and women, neighbors, mingled about behind the yellow ribbon used to cordon offHobie's trailer, and he pushed his way through them to reach the driveway.

"Hey!" a policeman yelled at him. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm here to seeHobie ," Doug said.

"I'm sorry," the policeman said, blocking his way. "But you cannot move beyond the barrier."

"I called him,"Hobie yelled from the doorway. "Goddammit! Let him in."

Doug looked over at his friend.Hobie's eyes were wide and wild, his short hair sticking out crazily in irregular clumps. He was wearing only Jockey shorts and a T-shirt, and Doug saw with horror that both were streaked with blood.

"Let him through," Tim Hibbard ordered from behindHobie , and the first policeman motioned Doug under the barrier. Doug ducked under the ribbon and crossed the yard. Sealed plastic containers and boxes marked "Willis Police Department" had been placed next to the walk, and from inside the house came the hissing of radio static, the beeping of electronic instruments, and rough voices ragged with frightened disgust.

"I didn't do it, Doug."Hobie's voice was high and frightened. "I --"

Doug walked up to the door. "Don't say anything until you get a lawyer,"

he said.

"I didn't --"

"Don't say anything." Doug put a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder, hoping he appeared calmer than he felt. Something worse than horrible had happened here, something that had turnedHobie into this frightened gibbering creature before him, and he wished for one cruel selfish instant that he had never metHobie and that he could be one of the hundreds of other people in Willis sleeping right now, totally unaware and unaffected by what was going on.

But then he saw the simple look of blind need on his friend's face and was sorry such a thought had even crossed his mind. He turned toward the closest policeman, a middle-aged man with a mustache he had seen around but did not know. "What happened here?"

The policeman looked at him with barely concealed disdain. "You want to know what happened here? You want to see what your buddy did? Come into the bedroom."

"I didn't do it,"Hobie insisted. "I swear --"

"Shut up," Doug told him. "Don't say anything." He followed the uniformed officer into the bedroom, where another group of policemen were looking through the closet.

The smell hit him immediately. A thick sour-sweet stench that sickened his stomach and made him want to gag.

Blood.

"Oh, God," Doug breathed. "Oh, Jesus."

The girl's body was lying on the bed. Next to the knives. She was nude and on her stomach, facing away from him. The back of her skull was visible through the bloody hole that had been carved through her scalp. The bone had been chipped off in several places, revealing the pale red-tinged worm twists of her brain. Across her back were scores of stabs and slices, and the skin on her buttocks had been completely peeled off, exposing the wet muscle beneath. A

stain of blood that took up half of the sheet spread outward from between her legs.

Doug looked up, unable to bear the sight. On the wall above the bed, snapshots of nude girls had been taped to the paneling. Dozens of them. All of the girls had been tortured and mutilated, sexually violated with knives identical to the ones lying on the bed.

"I didn't do it,"Hobie insisted. "I swear to God I didn't do it. I just got here and found --"

The men by the closet turned around. ChiefCatfield's eyes widened when he saw Doug. "Get him out of here!" the chief roared.

"I just wanted him to see what his friend did," the mustached policeman stammered.

"I don't give a flying fuck what you wanted!"

Doug staggered backward out of the room, gulping air, not needing to be told to leave. He could still smell the sickening heavy odor of fresh blood, could taste its disgustingly salty muskiness in his mouth. He stood for a moment with his hands on his knees, trying to keep down the gorge threatening to rise in his throat.

"I didn't do it,"Hobie said. "He did it!" He grabbed Doug's shoulders, and Doug could see small flecks of blood splattered on his cheeks. "He set me up!" "Who?" Tim asked from the other side of the room.

"The mailman."

"Don't say anything until you get a lawyer," Doug ordered. He glared at his friend, andHobie looked subserviently away.

"We have his ass dead to rights," the mustached policeman said. "Ain'tno way he'sgonna get out of this."

"It wasn't me --"

"Shut up!" Doug roared.

"We'll do the shutting up around here." The chief emerged from the bedroom. "What are you doing here anyway?"

Doug was still trying to get the taste out of his mouth, the smell out of his nostrils. "Hobiecalled me."

"Are you his lawyer?"

"No. I'm his friend."

"Well, who let you through? Friends are not usually allowed on crime scenes."

Doug held up his hands. "You want me to leave, I'll leave."

"No!"Hobie cried.

"I'll find you a lawyer," Doug promised. "I'll get you whatever you need.

Don't worry. There's nothing I can do here anyway."

"I didn't do it,"Hobie said. Tears trickled down his cheeks, turning pink as they mingled with the flecks of blood on his skin.

"I know you didn't. And we'll get you out --"

"No you won't," the chief said.

"But you'll have to stay in jail for a few days until everything gets straightened out. Do you want me to call anyone? Your parents?"

"No!"

"Fine. But I'll do what I can, and I'll see you in the morning. Don't worry."

"Jeff!"Catfield motioned for the mustached policeman. "Escort Mr.Albin to the street."

The policeman nodded. "Yes sir."

"We'll get you out," Doug promised.

On the street, the neighbors were talking loudly and animatedly about what they thought had happened insideHobie's trailer. One squat ugly woman with huge curlers in her hair insisted that she'd known for years the auto teacher was a practicingsatanist .

Doug walked slowly back to his car. He wanted to run, he was so pumped up with adrenaline, but he forced himself to move deliberately, trying to keep under control the conflicting emotions raging through him. There was a lot to do. He had to find a lawyer, a good lawyer, getHobie's stuff together, find out whatHobie's rights were, what could be done for him, whether he was going to be kept in Willis, taken to the county jail, or put in the state prison in Florence. But nothing could be done until morning.

He started the Bronco and backed up. He had not accomplished anything by coming over, he realized, had not helped his friend in any way, although perhaps he had succeeded in gettingHobie to keep quiet until he had legal counsel. What he really needed to do was to nail the mailman, to prove that the mailman had really committed the murder. But that was going to be impossible. There had been no witnesses; andHobie himself was too far gone to be believable to anyone.

He turned the corner and saw the mailman's car on the next street over. He watched as the mailman's pale hand opened the mailbox in front of a house and inserted a stack of letters.

The hand rose up above the roof of the car and waved once, lazily.

Doug turned in the opposite direction, toward home.

37

Yard Stevens, the lawyer Doug retained forHobie , was a southern gentleman of the old school who had emigrated to Arizona late in life and still retained many of the mannerisms of the Deep South. He lived and practiced in Phoenix but had a vacation home in Willis, where he spent the summers to escape the heat. He was well-known for both accepting and winning garish tabloid murder cases, and when Doug described to himHobie's situation, he agreed to take it, even though it meant cutting his vacation short. Stevens' fees were so astronomical as to be unbelievable, but Doug was assured by a school-district representative that Hobie'sinsurance would cover the cost.

"You know," the lawyer drawled as they drove over to the police station in a huge white Lincoln, "I've been having trouble with the mail myself this summer. I have tried several times to speak to the postmaster about this, but he never seems to be in when I call."

Doug had debated whether or not to tell Stevens all, and he had decided it would be better forHobie if he did not. At least not yet. He didn't want the lawyer to think both of them were nuts, and if Stevens discovered during his research what was really going on here, well, then they'd have another ally on their side. If he discovered nothing, Doug could always fill him in on the details later. "I've had trouble too," Doug admitted.

"If, as I believe, this is atownwide problem, we may be able to work this to our advantage."

Doug smiled. "Let's hope so."

The lawyer looked at him. "Do you think your Mend's guilty? Tell me the truth. We're covered here by lawyer-client privilege, and it will never go further than this."

Doug was surprised by the forthrightness of the question. "He's innocent,"

he said.

"That's what I like to hear."

"What do you think?"

Stevens 'chuckled, a low mellifluous comforting sound. "I'll make my decision once I talk to my client."

At the police station, they were searched, then led into a small room empty save for three chairs and a table, all bolted to the floor.Hobie was brought in, handcuffed, and remained silent until his guard left the room. He looked even worse, even crazier, than he had last night, and Doug had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He'd been hopingHobie would make a good impression on the lawyer.

"Okay," Doug said. "Now we can talk."

Hobieglanced furtively around. He looked under the table, felt under the chair, as if searching for electronic listening devices. Under other circumstances, the paranoia ofHobie's reaction would have been funny. But nothing seemed funny anymore.

"There're no bugs," Doug said. "Our police department can't afford any."

"And even if there were," Stevens said, "evidence gathered through their use would not be admissible in court."

"This is your lawyer," Doug said. "Yard Stevens."

The lawyer held out a thick pink hand. "How do you do?"

"How do you think? I'm in jail for murder."

"Did you do it?"

"Hell, no."

Doug felt a little better.Hobie still looked awful, but the shocked incoherence of last night and the dissolution of the past few weeks seemed to have disappeared. He seemed more confident now, closer to his normally abrasive self.

"Doug?" Stevens turned toward him. "I would like to speak to my client alone from here on. I may need your testimony in court, and I don't want to jeopardize its validity by allowing you access to privileged information."

Doug nodded. "Okay. I'll be waiting right outside."

"Fine."

"Thanks,"Hobie said.

"I'll be by to see you later." Doug knocked on the closed door and it was opened from the outside. He was walking down the hall toward the front office when he heard a familiar voice behind him. "Mr.Albin ? Can I talk to you for a moment?"

He turned to see Mike Trenton beckoning him from the doorway of an office.

"Doug. I thought I told you to call me Doug."

"Doug?"

He followed Mike into a small room dominated by a huge desk. Two walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with textbooks and bound case studies. "This used to be the police library," Mike explained, noticing his glance. "Well, it still is, but now it doubles as my office."

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Mr. Beecham."

"I thought you were off all mailman cases."

Mike shrugged. "It's a small department. A lot's been happening. We're shorthanded. Besides, this is not a 'mailman case.' "

"It is too, and you know it."

"I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Mr. Beecham."

Doug began pacing up and down the length of the tiny crowded room. "Come on, Mike. You know damn well thatHobie didn't kill that girl."

"I know no such thing. I'd like to help you, I really would, but Mr.

Beecham's fingerprints -- bloody fingerprints, I might add -- were found all over the murder weapon and all over the room. And those photos on the wall . .

." He shook his head. "They're not proof of anything, but they're certainly a sign of a sick mind --"

"Those photos were sent to him by his brother."

"His dead brother?"

"What's the matter with you, Mike? What's happened? A week ago you had an open mind about this, now you're just . . ." He groped for the right word.

"Facing the facts," the policeman finished for him.

"Hiding," Doug said. "Grasping at any answer that fits into your police logic, that can be easilycatagorized and catalogued and filed away and forgotten. I know you're scared. Hell, we're all scared. But you're looking for reassurance, and you're not going to find it. You want to believe that we're crazy, that none of this is happening, that life is going to go on as normal.

But it's not going to go on as normal. People are dying here, Mike. You might not want to admit it, but everyone knows it. I know it, you know it, everyone in town knows it. People are dying because of the fucking mailman. Call it supernatural, call it whatever you want, but it's real, it's happening."

"His prints were on the weapon," Mike repeated tiredly.

"Be serious with me, Mike. Level with me. Don't hand me that official line crap. Be straight with me."

"It's an open-and-shut case --"

"Come on. I'm not your enemy here, Mike. Jesus, if we all just spent a little more time working together and a little less time trying to keep all of our goddamn roles so virginal and separate, we'd get a hell of a lot more done."

The policeman smiled slightly. "You were always a good talker. That's why you were one of my favorite teachers."

"I'm not just talking here."

"As far as I'm concerned, you are. We have proof, Mr.Albin . His prints are on the weapon. Blood was found under his fingernails, on his clothing, in his hair."

Doug opened the door. "Fine," he said, pointing an accusing finger at the young policeman. "Toe the party line, hide your head in the goddamn sand. But the next one's on your head. You could've done something about it. You want to talk to me aboutHobie ? Get yourself a subpoena." He slammed the door behind him, strode through and out of the police office, and stood in the open air, breathing deeply, trying to calm down. The warm morning air filled his lungs, tasting clean and fresh and good, reminding him of happier, far more different summers. His eyes scanned the small parking lot and found the shiny metal mailbox standing on a post at the juncture of the parking lot and the road, next to the low ranch fence. Sunlight glinted off the box's curved top.

He hated those aluminum pieces of shit.

He waited for Stevens by the car.

38

"Let me in! Let me in,goddammit !" Tritia stood on Irene's front porch alternately ringing the doorbell and banging on the door itself. She knew the old woman was home. The car was in the driveway and she had seen movement behind the lace curtains. Irene just didn't want to talk to her.

The cooler weather of the past few days was gone, and the hot afternoon sun beat at her back. She was already sweating, dying of thirst, and that gave her another idea. She decided to try a different tack. "Just let me in for a minute!" she called through the closed door. "All I want is a glass of iced tea!

Then I'll be out of your hair for good!"

She waited a moment and was getting set to launch another pounding barrage when she heard the metal jingle of the chain being unhooked from inside, the sound of the deadbolt drawing out. A few seconds later the knob rattled as the lock was undone. The door was slowly pulled open.

Tritia barely recognized her friend. Irene appeared to have shrunk three or four inches and to have lost at least ten or fifteen pounds since the last time she'd seen her. She had never been a big woman, but now she appeared definitely small, shriveled. Her thin wiry hair was uncombed and spread out from her head in tangled wisps. Her face looked frighteningly gaunt, and she was wearing what looked like her pajamas. She glared at Tritia accusingly. "I told you not to tell anyone," she said.

"I'm sorry," Tritia apologized. "But I was worried about you. I knew what was happening, and I wanted to help --"

"You made it worse," the old woman said. She jumped suddenly with a cry of fright, whirling around, looking behind her as though searching for someone, but there was no one there. She turned nervously back toward Tritia , her eyes haunted. "Leave me alone," she said. "Please."

"I'm your friend," Tritia said. "I care."

Irene closed her eyes and sighed. She stepped aside, pulling the door open, and Tritia walked into the house. It was a shambles. Closet doors were open, their contents tossed into the center of the living room, cardboard boxes overturned on the Oriental carpet. Broken glassware could be seen through the doorway of the kitchen. Irene, cheeks sunken, staring eyes hollow, backed quickly away from the door, her hands nervously folding and unfolding.

Tritia swallowed heavily, feeling an ache of sadness in her breast as she looked at the frightened pitiful woman before her. A month ago, she would not have thought this possible. She would have said death, and only death, would be able to break Irene, and even then the old woman would go out kicking and fighting. But obviously the mailman had been able to do it just as well. She spoke softly to her friend. "Irene, what's happened?"

The old woman blanched visibly when Tritia spoke, cringing as though she were being yelled at, as though afraid of being hit. She suddenly cocked her head, listening to a noise that wasn't there, then dropped to her knees and righted one of the boxes on the floor, throwing in some of the small knickknacks that were lying on the carpet.

Tritia knelt down next to her. "Irene?" she said softly.

The old woman stopped picking up items off the ground and began to cry.

Her voice was thin and reedy, the powerful assured voice Tritia remembered long gone. Tritia reached out and hugged her friend. Irene stiffened noticeably at first, tensing as if preparing to be attacked, but she did not pull away, and gradually her muscles relaxed, giving in. She continued to sob, a seemingly endless flood of tears, and Tritia patiently held her, murmuring soothing noises in her ear.

When her crying finally stopped, she pulled away, wiped her eyes, and looked up at Tritia . "Come here," she said, standing up.

"What is it?"

"Come here."

Tritia followed Irene down the hall to her husband's den. She tried not to think of the toe, the severed toe, lying in the box, as Irene opened the door.

Tritia peeked over her friend's shoulder. The room was filled with boxes of all shapes and sizes. They had been thrown into the room and left where they'd landed, right side up, upside down, on their sides. All were wrapped in brown butcher paper.

Tritia stepped around Irene into the room.

"Don't touch them," Irene screamed.

Tritia jumped. She turned around. She hadn't been planning to touch anything. "What's in them?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

"Jasper."

"Your husband?"

"The parts of his body."

Tritia felt suddenly cold, chilled to the bone. She backed away from the open door. "None of the boxes are open," she said. "Maybe you're wrong."

"I don't have to open them." Irene pointed toward a square box big enough to contain a stack of hardback books. "I think that's his head."

Tritia closed the den door, pulling her friend away. "You have to get out of here," she said. "Why don't you come home with me?"

, "No!" The old woman's voice was still capable of surprising sharpness.

"At least tell the police. Have them get these boxes out of here. You can't live like this."

Irene's face clouded over. "I'm sorry, I have no tea. You'll have to leave now." She jumped, crying out, and instantly looked at the floor behind her, but there was nothing there.

"Please," Tritia begged.

"It's my house. I want you out of here."

"I'm your friend."

"You _were_ my friend."

"I'll call the police and tell them what I've seen and they'll come in here anyway."

"You do what you have to do."

Tritia felt like crying with frustration. She yelled at her friend. "Can't you see what's happening here? Can't you see what the mailman's doing?"

"I see better than you. Please leave now."

Tritia allowed herself to be pushed out the doorway. She remained on the porch for several minutes after the door was slammed shut, after she heard the sounds of locks and latches being drawn. She thought about the boxes in the den.

The mailman might just be trying to scare her. They might not really contain body parts.

But they might.

What were they going to do? They couldn't just sit around until they were all knocked off or driven crazy. Something had to be done. But what? The police were no help. Apparently the higher-ups in the Postal Service weren't either.

Maybe someone should kill him.

The thought came, unbidden, but though she tried to push it away, tried to tell herself it was wrong and unmoral and illegal, the idea stayed with her.

And by the time she had driven home it was starting to sound pretty damn good.

39

The phone rang, and Doug was awake instantly. He reached over Tritia 's sleeping body and picked it up in the middle of the second ring. A feeling of heavy foreboding had awakened with him, and he glanced at the clock on the dresser as he brought the receiver to his ear, thinking with the fading vestiges of dream logic that he needed to remember the time of this call.

Two-fifteen.

"Hello?"Dpug said. His voice was tired, tinged with annoyance at being disturbed, but there was an edge in it as well as he prepared himself for bad news. No one called at two-fifteen in the morning if it wasn't bad news.

"Mr.Albin ?" It was Mike Trenton. Doug's throat felt constricted, his chest tight, and he had to force himself to swallow. The policeman sounded strange. Not exactly frightened, but something very close to it.

"What happened?" he asked.

"It's Mr. Beecham. He's, uh, he's dead."

Doug closed his eyes, letting his head fall onto the pillow, unwilling to make the effort anymore to keep it up.

"We found him on the floor of his cell," Mike continued. "His forehead is completely caved in, and there's blood all over the wall and floor. It's hard to tell, but it appears as though he butted his head against the wall until he smashed open his skull.

"We took away his clothes and shoelaces when we admitted him, but he didn't seem dangerous or self-destructive and we didn't think there was any need to restrain him or --"

Doug reached over Tritia 's body and hung up the phone. After a second's thought, he took it off the hook.

"What is it?" Tritia asked groggily.

Doug said nothing but simply stared into space, and a moment later she had again fallen asleep.

He did not sleep until morning.

40

The funeral was short and sparsely attended.HobieBeechain had not been the most popular man in Willis during the best of times, and the mailman's successfully slanderous framing of the auto-shop teacher had obviously taken its toll onHobie's already low popularity rating. As Doug stood next to the open grave, he found himself wondering if anyone would have shown up even if the murder hadn't occurred. The mailman's continued psychic assault on the town seemed to have drained a lot of the energy from people, had made them less social, angrier, less trustworthy. He wondered if even Bob Ronda could draw the crowd today he'd been able to draw a month ago.

That was a strange way of looking at it, to see a funeral as a popularity contest in which final judgment was passed on a man's life by the number of people who attended, by the size of the crowd. But it was also strangely appropriate since many people did judge the worth of others by the quantity of their social relationships. Particularly in a small town like Willis. A man could be rich, famous, successful, but if he lived in Willis and he wasn't married, if he stayed home alone on Friday nights instead of going out with friends or family, there was definitely something wrong with him.

And there had always been something wrong withHobie . He'd admitted it himself, many times. Making friends, as he was fond of saying, was not his major goal in life. Doug found himself smiling, though his eyes were moist.Hobie had been loud, obnoxious, iconoclastic, and fiercely independent. He was who he was, and if someone didn't like it, that was their problem.

He had also been a good friend and a damn fine teacher, and Doug thought that if all of the students whomHobie had taught and befriended, had helped and counseled over the years, were still in town the cemetery would have been full.

He looked over at Tritia . No love had ever been lost between her and Hobie, but she was crying now, and more than the coffin in the ground, more than the gathered mourners, more than the carved tombstone, her tears made him realize that his friend was really and truly gone.

Doug looked into the sky as the tears rolled down his own cheeks, trying to think of something neutral, something unconnected with death, so he would not start sobbing.

Billy was taking it really hard. This time, they had sat him down and discussed it with him and left it up to him whether or not he wanted to attend the funeral. He had almost said yes because he felt obligated, felt he might not be showing how much he cared if he did not attend, but Trish had assured him that they did not expect him to go, that it was not required, thatHobie , wherever he was, would understand, and Billy had elected to stay home. There was no sitter for him this time and both of them worried about leaving him alone, but he promised to keep all the doors locked, the windows shut, and to remain upstairs until they returned. Doug told him that it was all right if he watched TV downstairs or made himself food in the kitchen, but Billy declared with an adamancethat surprised them both that he would not go downstairs until they returned.

The morning, appropriately enough, was overcast, funereal. The storm season was upon them, and the weather from now until fall would be characterized by the dichotomous extremes of dry heat and cold rain. Doug said a few words over the casket, as did several other teachers, and then the nondenominational minister began his eulogy and consecration. Before the minister had finished, light drops of rain were falling, and by the time the graveside service was over it had turned into a real downpour. No one had brought umbrellas, and everyone ran through the cemetery to their cars or trucks.

Doug thought of the cars and car parts sitting inHobie's yard and wondered what would happen to them.

He and Trish were the last to leave the gravesite, and they walked slowly between the stones, even though the rain was coming down hard. They watched Yard Stevens' Lincoln pull out of the parking lot, following the small line of vehicles heading down the road.

Hobie'sparents had not come, although Mike said they had been notified and were the ones who had made all the arrangements, and Doug found himself wondering if perhaps they had missed their son's funeral due to amixup in the mail. It was entirely possible that they had received a letter from the funeral director telling them that, due to scheduling conflicts,Hobie's funeral had to be put back a day, and that they would arrive in Willis tomorrow to find that everything was over, their son buried, services finished.

"He killed him," Doug said aloud. "He killed him as surely as if he put a bullet to his head."

"I know," Tritia said, squeezing his hand.

Doug was silent for a moment as they walked. His shoes sunk in the mud.

"Let's leave, he said. "Let's get the hell out of this town." He looked at her.

"Let's go."

"Permanently or for a vacation?"

"Either."

"I don't know," she said slowly. "It doesn't seem right to just abandon everyone here."

"Abandon who?"

"Everyone. Our friends."

"The ones that are dead, the ones that are crazy, or the ones who've disappeared?"

She turned on him. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter with me. I just want to get out of here so we can get our lives back together while we still have lives."

"And who's going to stop him?"

"Who's going to stop him if we are here?" Doug ran a hand through his wet hair. "In case you haven't noticed, we haven't exactly sent him packing. Hell, we're batting 0 for 0 here. We haven't done a damn thing. Maybe if we leave things'llcalm down."

"And who'll be here to fight him?"

They stared at each other through the thin wall of rain between them. Doug glanced down the hill toward the post office and saw that the flag was flying mockingly at half-mast.

"We can't leave," Tritia said gently. "We have a responsibility here."

"I'm tired of responsibility."

The rain died, cut abruptly off as though a spigot in the sky had been turned, but wetness continued to run down Doug's face, and he discovered that he was crying. Tritia reached out to him, tentatively, touching his cheek, his forehead, his chin. She moved forward and put her arms around his back, drawing him close, holding him, and they stood like that for a Longlong time.

For dinner they had chicken tortilla crepes. The meal was one they all enjoyed, and Tritia had spent much of the afternoon preparing it, but none of them seemed to have much of an appetite and they picked silently at their food, lost in separate parallel thoughts.

The electricity went out again in the middle of the meal, and Tritia picked up the matches and lit the candles she had placed on the table. The power had been going on and off so often lately that she now kept candles and flashlights in each room of the house for backup sources of light. It was getting to be almost second nature. If this ordeal was teaching them anything, it was teaching them to be self-sufficient, teaching them that they did not really need all the amenities they'd always thought they'd needed in order to survive. She wondered how some of the other, older people in town were getting along. Her family, at least, had had a head start -- she had always made food from scratch and over the years had implemented many of the independent natural living suggestions she'd learned from _Mother Earth News_ -- but adjusting might be a little more difficult for some of the other residents of Willis.

The reason for these constant outages was obvious: the mailman wanted to break down their resistance, to make sure they knew that nothing could be relied upon, nothing was safe. The security blanket of civilization was one that he could rip off at will, exposing their helpless nakedness, and doing so was something he clearly enjoyed. Exactly how he accomplished the blackouts, how he brought about the cessation of water and gas and phone service, was still not known. She and Doug had talked to people at the offices of each of the respective utilities until they were blue in the face, but the answers they received were vague and inconclusive, having something to do with fines and penalties, work orders and correspondence.

Paperwork that had gotten fouled up through the mail.

According to a representative for the town's department of water and power, it could not provide services because _its_ water and electricity had been cut off at the source -- the Salt River Project in Phoenix. The project had said, alternately, that the department had not paid its bills and that its quota of services had already been provided. Cited as proof were invoices received through the mail.

But the representative assured Doug and Tritia that the problems would soon be solved, and water and electricity restored.

The man at the phone company, the same manager Doug had talked to before, was even less specific and promised nothing.

It was ironic that the people who were probably having the least difficulty adapting to these circumstances were the ones living on the outskirts of the town, those who normally lived in the most primitive conditions. Now, with their wells and septic tanks and butane generators, their lives were going on as normal, while the rest of them ate cold food and took cold showers and lit candles for light.

"I hope this doesn't last all night," Tritia said.

Doug took a bite of his tortilla crepe. "It probably will."

Billy dropped his fork, and it fell loudly onto his plate. He had hardly eaten anything, had merely cut up and smeared and played with his food.

Tritia fixed him with a no-nonsense stare. "Finish eating your dinner,"

she said.

Billy groaned. "I don't --"

A rock crashed through one of the front windows, glass shattering explosively, muffled not at all by the closed curtains. There was the sound of another rock hitting hard against the outside wall.

"Fucker!" someone yelled angrily. The voice was that of an adult male, not a child, not a teenager.

Doug quickly pushed back his chair, knocking it over as he scrambled around the table toward the front door.

"Don't!" Tritia yelled. Her face was white with fear.

Billy, too, looked scared, and Doug could feel his own heart pounding within his chest, but he rushed to the door anyway.

Another rock hit.

"Fucker!"

And then there was the sound of flying gravel, a pickup peeling out and speeding away.

Doug pulled open the door and ran onto the porch in time to see the taillights of a truck disappearing between the trees. There was still a cloud of dust in the drive. He looked down. At his feet on the porch were several rocks approximately the size of softballs. Although only one had hit the window, two of the others had hit the wall and had been thrown with enough strength to make small splintered indentations in the wooden front of the A-frame. How the hell had someone been able to drive close enough to the house to throw rocks this size and not be heard?

From down the road in the silent forest, he heard the sound of triumphant whooping and hollering, growing fainter as the .truck sped farther away.

"What was it?" Tritia stood in the doorway, trembling, holding Billy's shoulders.

"Idont know."

"Why?"

"Why do the Nelsons think we killed their dog? Why did Todd think I was persecuting him?" Doug looked at his son. "You don't know who did this, do you?"

Billy shook his head, still frightened.

"I didn't think so. Come on. Let's go inside." He herded Tritia and Billy through the door, then closed and locked it behind him. Tomorrow, he'd have to find someone to replace the window. He glanced around the front of the living room. In the candlelight broken shards and bits of glass glittered on the chair and part of the couch. They would have to rearrange the furniture in case something like this happened again. He didn't want Tritia or Billy hit by a rock or cut by a stray piece of glass.

His muscles were still tight, knotted. Although he wanted to know who had thrown the rocks, who had been in the truck, he found himself strangelyunangry with the men involved. He was beginning to see the people of Willis as either victims or puppets, manipulated by the controlling will of the mailman. It was the mailman he blamed for everything, from the deaths of dogs and people to racial attacks to utility failures, and that worried him a little. His attitude seemed too close to that of classic paranoia for him to feel entirely comfortable with it. But, farfetched as it sounded, he knew it was the truth. He was not ascribing an omnipotence to the mailman he did not possess; he was merely recognizing an existing situation. He would not be at all surprised to learn that the mailman had orchestrated everything to occur in such a manner that it would engender within him exactly the sort of doubts he was harboring now. He shook his head. He really was getting paranoid.

Tritia was already clearing the dinner dishes. They had not finished, but no one felt like eating right now. Doug walked over to help her. Even Billy took his plate to the kitchen, though he normally would not be caught dead voluntarily doing any sort of labor connected with the family.

A car drove by on the road, stereo blasting, and all three of them tensed as they waited to hear whether it would turn into their drive. The car continued down the road, the sounds of the engine and stereo fading. They looked at one another silently, then continued to clear the dishes.

The curtain covering the broken window blew inward with the light night breeze.

41

After breakfast, Doug called around trying to find someone who would replace the window. Harmon's carried the glass, but there was no one available to do the installation. IfHobie were here, he would have known how to install the window, but Doug was not even willing to attempt it. Aside from the simplest and most necessary household chores, he was incompetent at manual labor. The shed was one thing -- it was designed for construction by people like himself and came with simple step-by-step instructions -- but the window was something else. He called several handymen listed in the phone book, but two did not answer and one refused to perform the work. The only man who would even consider doing the job said the labor would cost $150, and he would not be able to get to it for another two weeks.

Doug was tempted to just board the damn thing up and hang a picture of a window in front of it.

He made some more calls, then went back to the original handyman, whose price had now gone up to $175, apparently as punishment for daring to shop around and try to find someone else.

He hung up the phone and felt Tritia 's hand on his shoulder. He turned around. She was dressed in jeans and a nice blouse, and her purse was over her shoulder. "Do you have the keys?" she asked.

"Where're you going?"

"Irene's. I'm worried about her. I try to call and there's never any answer, and after what happened toHobie . . ." Her voice trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence.

Doug pulled the keys from his pocket. "I'll go with you."

"I think it's better if I go alone. She's not really up to seeing people right now. I don't even know if she'll see me. You just stay here with Billy."

Doug's eyes met hers, and she saw worry in them, concern. "It's dangerous out there."

"I know. I'll be careful."

"Why don't I drop you off and park down the road? You can --"

"No," she said firmly. She took the keys from his hand. "Don't worry. I

can take care of myself. I'm just going to check on her and be right back. You won't even notice I'm gone."

"Why don't you have the police check on her? She's an old frail woman, tell them you think she might have slipped and fallen in the bathtub. They'll do it." "No," Tritia said. She gave him a quick kiss. "I'll be back in twenty minutes."

"The car's almost out of gas, but there's enough for you to get there and back. Don't buy any. I'll get it later."

"Okay," she said.

Troubled, he watched her get in the car, back up the drive, and head through the trees toward town.

Something was wrong. Tritia felt it the instant she stepped out of the car. The atmosphere was changed, strangely and indefinably altered. The air was still, even the birds and insects quiet, as though some vast invisible soundproof barrier had been placed over the property. The house itself seemed empty, abandoned, though nothing physical appeared to have changed. She shivered. Death hung over Irene's house. She knew it as surely as she knew today was Tuesday. She pushed the thought from her mind. She was just being foolish.

Superstitious. She forced herself to walk across the dirt to the front door.

Peering through the lace curtain, she saw no sign of movement.

She knocked on the door. "Irene!"

Her voice died flatly, without even the faintest hint of an echo.

Still no movement inside. Something was definitely wrong. She knocked harder, rang the bell. "Irene!"

What if the old woman really had fallen down and had broken something and couldn't move? What if she had had a heart attack or a stroke?

What if the mailman had gotten her?

"Irene!" Tritia rattled the doorknob, but it was locked as usual. Worried now, she moved around the side of the house to the back door, weeds scratching her bare ankles. The back door was unlocked and she pushed it open carefully. A

bad sign. Irene always locked both doors.

Maybe he was in the house.

"Irene!"

The house was silent.

Tritia 'sheart was pumping crazily, pounding with an amplified fear rhythm she could feel in her stomach and throat and could hear in her head. She should get out of here now, fast, and drive straight to the police station and bring someone back. The last thing she should do was explore on her own. But her feet carried her forward into the kitchen. The floor was littered with pots and pans and broken china, and she stepped gingerly over the smashed pieces of shattered glass. On the counter, she could see a loaf of homemade bread covered with splotches of green mold. In the window, Irene's plants had grown wildly before succumbing to the brown dryness of a waterless death. The room was filled with the mingled odors of spices, herbs, and decay.

"Irene!" she called.

No answer.

She continued through the doorway into the living room, took in at a glance the ripped upholstery of the antique furniture, the overturned television, the debris on the Oriental carpet, and realized that Irene was not here.

She recalled the parcels in the den, and she thought she knew in which room she would find her friend. She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Irene!" she called.

No answer.

Now was the time for her to leave, or at least to pick up the phone and call the police, but she continued to move deeper into the house. She would check the other rooms first. If Irene was not in any of them, if it was clear that she was in the den, then she would call the police.

Tritia walked down the hallway. She glanced into the bedroom. The pillows had been ripped open, feathers were everywhere, but there was no sign of her friend. She saw her own reflection in the cracked mirrored door of the busted armoire. She had not realized how truly frightened she was until she saw the anxious expression on her pale face.

She moved down the hall to the bathroom.

Where the tiled floor was covered with ripped brown packaging paper, untied string, opened boxes.

Where Irene was lying in the tub, wrists slit.

Tritia stared at her friend. She had obviously been here for some time.

The skin on her body was white and waterlogged, her sightlessly staring eyes glazed over with dried cataracts. The blood had settled, separating from the lighter water, and the bottom portion of her body was hidden beneath a heavy red liquid blanket. Around her floated the individual pieces of her husband's body.

Arms. Legs. Hands. Head. The pieces were white and bloodless, pruned with water, and they bobbed in the bath, crowding for space.

Floating between Irene's outstretched legs was a small severed, castrated penis.

Tritia wanted to look away but could not. Her gaze was fixed on the bloody bathtub.

She did not realize she was screaming until her throat began to hurt.

42

Doug made lunch, hot dogs, and as he spread mustard over the buns, he glanced worriedly out the window at Tritia . She was working in her garden, trying once again to get it into some semblance of order. He was concerned about her. After her initial shock at finding Irene's body, she had quickly returned to normal. Two days later, she was her usual self. She was not disturbed, not frightened, not withdrawn, not anything. That wasn't right, he knew. That wasn't natural. He himself was still coming to grips withHobie's death, and he had not even seen his friend's body. Tritia had discovered Irene in the tub, wrists slashed, surrounded by body parts, and she was acting as though nothing unusual had happened, as though nothing was wrong. He had not talked about it with her, had not brought up the subject of Irene at all for fear of disturbing her unnecessarily. He had assumed that when she was ready to discuss it, she would do so. But so far she had not been inclined to bring it up, which was definitely out of character for her.

He watched her through the window, pulling weeds, wondering if this was some sort of elaborate denial, if one day, unexpectedly, she was just going to snap and all of her pent-up emotions would explode.

Maybe he would broach the subject with her, bring it up gently.

As usual, the mailman had gotten off scot-free. The police had questioned him, but he had pulled the old the-Postal-Service-is-not-responsible-for-the content-of-the-mail-it-delivers crap, and as usual, there was not a damn thing anyone could do about it. There was nothing linking him specifically to the mail sent to Irene, nothing anyone could prove.

The mailman promised that he would institute a thorough Postal Service inquiry to discover the source of the body-part packages.

A thorough Postal Service inquiry . . .

Shit.

The hot dogs were boiling, and Doug told Billy to run outside and get his mother, it was time for lunch.

"Wait," Billy said. "It's almost time for a commercial."

"You've seen that show a thousand times. Go get her now."

"Wait a sec."

Doug sighed, shaking his head. He opened the window, letting in a breath of warm summer air. "Time to eat," he called.

She looked up at him, squinting, and waved. "Be right there."

He watched her put down the trowel, brush off her hands and knees, and jog toward the porch. They should have gotten out of here. They should have left Willis a long time ago, when everything first started, before it all got too deep. Now it was too late. They were stuck. The gas stations in town had run out of gas, and no new fuel was scheduled to be delivered because none of the stations, not even the name franchises, had paid their bills.

The checks had gotten lost in the mail.

Doug turned off the stove, took out the hot dogs, and used a fork to pick them up, putting them in the buns. The gas shortage was only temporary, he knew.

Phone calls were being made, problems explained, deals negotiated, but for at least the next three or four days no one could leave Willis unless they already had a full tank of gas. The Bronco was only half full.

He couldn't help feeling that everything was coming to a head, that three, or four days was all the mailman needed to accomplish whatever it was he had set out to do.

Tritia came in sweating, wiping her forehead. "Whew! It's hot out there today. I hope we get some rain this afternoon to cool it off. Anybody hear the weather?"

Doug shook his head. Billy, watching _Dick Van Dyke_, did not even hear the question.

Tritia washed her hands and face in the bathroom. She gratefully accepted the plate of hot dogs, though her face clouded over for a second when he handed her a glass of iced tea. She took her food onto the porch and Doug followed her outside, bringing his own lunch. They sat next to each other at the table.

Tritia took a bite of her hot dog. "What are your plans for this afternoon?" she asked.

He frowned. "Plans? I don't --"

"Good. I want you to dig up thatmanzanita by the side of the house. I

want to expand my garden."

"Look --" he began.

"You have something more important to do, Mr. Teacher?"

He looked at her, and the worry must have shown in his eyes because she looked away, refusing to meet his gaze. "No," he said softly. "I don't have anything else to do. I'll help you with your garden."

"Thank you." She took another bite of her hot dog.

Inside, the phone rang, its tones clear and pure in the still noon air.

Doug stood up, pushing back his chair. "I'll get it," he called. He hurried inside and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

A woman's voice jumped out at him. "Help me! Dear Jesus God, help! Oh, God! I'm here by myself!"

Goose bumps arose on Doug's arms. "Who is this?" he asked.

" Tritia ? Help me!"

"This isn't Tritia , this is --"

"Oh God oh Jesus I hear him now!"

"What is it?"

" Tritia !" the woman screamed.

"Trish!" Doug yelled. "Get in here fast!"

Tritia ran inside and took the receiver from his grasp. "Hello?"

"He's here again!"

Tritia recognized the voice. Ellen Ronda. She had not called since the time Tritia had been alone at the house, and she sounded much worse now.

Hysteria had not merely crept into her voice, it had transformed it completely, until she no longer sounded even remotely like herself. The woman on the other end of the line was not someone who could have ever been referred to as The Rock. This was a woman firmly in the grip of madness, a gibbering fool, a babbling idiot.

"What is it?" Tritia demanded.

"He's coming after me," Ellen screamed. "With a baseball bat!"

"Calm down," Tritia told her. "Just --"

And then she heard the sound of glass breaking.

The sound of a baseball bat hitting a wall.

"Get over here!" Ellen screamed. "Bring the police! He's --"

There was a loud crack as the line went dead.

Tritia dropped the phone and grabbed Doug's hand. "Let's go," she said.

"What's happening?"

"Ellen's being attacked! Right now!"

"Let's call the --"

"There's no time!" Tritia pushed open the door. "You stay here," she yelled at Billy. "Lock the doors! Stay inside!" She pulled Doug across the porch toward the car. "Let's go. Now!"

Doug drove as quickly as he could, but theRondas ' house was on the other side of town and there was no shortcut. The Bronco bumped along, splashing through the creek crossing, bottoming out in the ruts. As they sped through town twenty miles over the speed limit, Doug hoped that a cop would see them and chase them, but the street seemed to be deserted. He glanced quickly over at the post office as they sped past it. The parking lot was empty. Even the mailman's car was gone.

The front door of theRondas ' house was wide open. Doug pulled to a quick stop in the driveway, then ran inside the house without waiting for Tritia . He had nothing in his hand and cursed himself for not taking out a tire iron or something that could be used as a weapon.

He ran through the wrecked living room, through the trashed family room.

Ellen was lying on the floor of the kitchen, naked. Dead. A knife was clutched in one hand; her other hand was clawed into the linoleum. She had died with her mouth open, screaming or trying to scream, and her face was frozen in a rictusof terror.

But it was not the upper half of her body that commanded Doug's attention.

He stared down at Ellen's body as Tritia came up behind him. The old woman's legs were broken and spread wide apart, the ankles jutting out at impossible angles. Whatever had been used to assault her vagina had left behind a huge gaping hole from which hung small clinging pieces of flesh. The skin up to her navel had been split, and blood was everywhere, covering her legs, the floor, the kitchen table, thickly, darkly red.

"Oh, God," Tritia said. "Oh, my God." She rushed outside and promptly threw up.

Trying to keep his own lunch down, Doug called the police.

They were seated in theRondas ' living room, listening to the sounds of the police and the coroner working in the kitchen. Doug found his eyes fixating on a photograph of Ronda, his wife, and both boys displayed on the mantel above the rock fireplace. Next to him Tritia sat silently. He held her hand, periodically giving it a small squeeze, but she said nothing and her hand did not react back. He heard a noise behind him as someone emerged from the kitchen.

"We'll get him," Mike said. "We'll get him now."

"Kind of late, don't you think?" Doug stood up, turning to face the policeman, but the anger within him dissipated as he saw the look of devastation on the young officer's face.

Mike closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath. "Yes it is," he said.

"Way too late."

The coroner emerged from the doorway behind him. A sharp hawk-nosed man with the lean look of a meaner Harry Dean Stanton, he alone seemed unfazed by what he had seen. He handed Mike a clipboard and several forms.

"What caused it?" Doug asked.

The coroner looked at him. "Her death? The official story will be that she was raped and murdered."

"What is the unofficial story? The real story?"

"The real story? You saw for yourself. She was raped to death. She was raped and sodomized with a large blunt object, approximately the size of a baseball bat. Her intestines are ruptured, her liver and kidneys smashed, and her gall bladder has been completely torn apart. I'll have to conduct an autopsy and examine her more thoroughly before I can determine the exact extent of the damage and the precise organ stoppage that caused her death."

Mike looked over the forms, signed the top one, then handed the clipboard back to the coroner, who went back into the kitchen. Mike followed. Through the doorway, Doug saw two white-suited men unrolling a plastic body bag.

Doug sat back down on the couch, grasping Tritia 's limp hand. A moment later, Mike emerged from the kitchen with ChiefCatfield .

"Mr.Albin ," the chief said, nodding in acknowledgment.

Doug glared at him, pointing toward the kitchen. "So, tell me, Chief, did she kill herself too?"

"That's not funny, Mr.Albin ."

"You're damn right it's not funny. I told you assholes about the mailman weeks ago. I told you something like this would happen. I warned you. Are you happy now? Now do you believe me?" He slammed his palm angrily against the table in front of him. "Shit!"

"For what it's worth, I believe you, Mr.Albin . But it's not as simple as you seem to think it is. Of course, we're going to question Mr. Smith. But unless we find some prints or threads of clothing or other physical evidence, or unless we can find a witness who can place him at the scene of the crime, there's no way in hell we'll be able to detain him for more than an afternoon."

"Ellen told my wife this was going to happen! She said the mailman was going to kill her! Isn't that proof enough? Doesn't that count for something?"

The chief turned toward Tritia . "What exactly did she say, Mrs.Albin ?"

Tritia stared at him dazedly for a moment, then shook her head as if to clear it. Her voice, when it came out, was rational, lucid, and completely normal. She looked from Doug to Mike to the chief. "Actually, she did not say the name of the man who was after her. She just said 'he,' although I knew immediately who she was talking about."

Doug ran an exasperated hand through his hair. "Can't you get the federal authorities involved here?"

"How?" Mike said. "This doesn't involve interstate commerce, international terrorism, or anything else the feds would ordinarily investigate."

"It involves the mail."

"Easier said than proven," the chief said.

"What about the state police?"

"We'd prefer to tackle this on our own,"Catfield explained. "This is a local matter, and I think we can handle it better without any outside interference."

"Yeah, I can tell. You're doing a hell of a job."

"For your information, Mr.Albin , even if we did want to get the help of an outside agency, the state authorities require more than just a phone call before they get involved in a matter that clearly should be under local jurisdiction. Documentation must be provided, forms must be completed --"

"All of which are sent through the mail," Mike said.

"Shit!" Doug stood up. "There has to be something we can do."

The chief turned back toward the kitchen. "We'll do what we can."

The electricity was on, and Billy was upstairs watching his usual Thursday-night shows. The television was off downstairs, and both Doug and Tritia were reading -- he an old JohnFowles novel, she a new JosephWambaugh book. They'd told Billy what had happened, in simplenongruesome terms, but they had not spoken of the afternoon since then, and dinner had been marked by long silences and irrelevant conversation.

The phone rang and Tritia got up to answer it. "Hello?" She turned around and offered the receiver to Doug. "It's for you."

. He put down his book, stood up, and took the phone from her hand. "Who is it?"

"Mike Trenton."

He held the receiver to his ear. "Hello?"

"Doug? Mike. We found the bat. It was in a ditch down the street." There was a pause, a beat. "It was covered with bloody fingerprints."

Doug frowned. The news was good, exactly what they'd wanted, what they'd been looking for, hoping for, but the policeman's voice was neither excited nor happy. It was flat, unemotional, devoid of any feeling. Something was wrong.

Things hadn't worked out the way they were supposed to. "What's the matter, Mike?"

"The fingerprints are Giselle Brennan's."

Doug was silent.

"You still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"We took him in and held him, but there's nothing we can do. We had to let him go."

"He did it, Mike."

"I know," the policeman said. He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was low, conspiratorial. "Is it all right if I come over?

There's something I'd like to show you."

"Of course. When do you want to come by?"

"Would right now be okay?"

"Fine."

"I'll see you in a few minutes."

Doug hung up the phone and turned toward Tritia . "They found the bat used to rape Ellen, but the fingerprints on it were Giselle Brennan's."

"Oh, my God."

He nodded. "They're going to throw her in jail. Mike's coming over right now. He said he has something to show us."

She closed her book, dropping it on the floor next to her. "When is this all going to end?"

"Soon I hope."

Tritia was silent for a moment. "What if someone kills him?"

Doug was shocked. "What?"

"I've been thinking about this for a while." She stood up excitedly. "What if someone cuts his brake lines or shoots him or --"

"Trish!"

"Why not? Can you think of any reason why not?"

"Because . . . because it's wrong."

"That's not much of an argument."

"Killing is not an option," he said. "I don't want to discuss it anymore."

"Fine." She picked up her book from the floor, turned to the page she had marked, and began reading. He stared at her as she read, but there was no anger in her face, no defiance, no resignation, nothing but a relaxed ease. He realized that he was worried about her, about what she might try. He didn't entirely trust her. He was going to have to watch her very carefully from now on.

True to his word, Mike pulled up in the drive fifteen minutes later. He was wearing not his uniform but his street clothes, and under his arm he carried a large photo album.

Doug met him on the porch. "Hi."

Mike looked around. "So this is where you live. I always wondered what a teacher's house looks like."

"The same as everyone else's." Doug pointed toward the boarded-up window and the splintered holes in the wall. "Compliments of some of our mailman's rock-throwing friends."

"Did you report that?"

Doug shook his head. "What's the point?"

"Well, if we can ever find a way to tie all these together, we can nail his ass once and for all, put him away for good."

Doug smiled wryly. "Yeah. Right." He opened the door. "Come on in." Mike followed him inside. "So you have the weapon."

"That's right."

"What does Giselle say about it?"

Mike shook his head. "We don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? Don't you have her in custody?"

"We can't find her," the policeman admitted. "Her mother says she hasn't been home for three days. Smith claims he hasn't seen her since the afternoon of the murder."

"You think he killed her?"

"Who knows?" Mike shrugged. "Anything's possible."

"Why don't you hold him on suspicion of murder?"

"Without a body?"

"Kidnapping, then."

Mike sighed. "We're doing what we can."

"I've heard that before."

Tritia stood up and Mike nodded to her. "Hello, Mrs.Albin ."

She smiled back. "Hello." She glanced at Doug. "I'm going to bed. You don't need me for anything out here, do you?"

He looked over at the clock. "It's only eight-thirty."

"I've had a busy day."

"Yeah," Doug said. "We all have."

"I'll see you later." She waved to Mike. "Good night, Mr. Trenton."

"Good night."

Doug pulled a chair next to the coffee table and motioned for Mike to sit down on the couch. The young policeman sat down tiredly, placing the photo album on the table before him. "Did you know Mrs. Ronda painted?"

"What?"

"She painted. You know, art. She was like an amateur artist."

Doug shook his head, puzzled. "No, I didn't. But what does that have to do with anything?"

The young policeman reached for the photo album. "We found some paintings in her closet. She kept them secret." He opened the book and Doug suddenly knew what was coming next. "I'm not supposed to show you this. This is police evidence. The chief said these paintings mean nothing, that if anything they're merely signs of a disturbed personality, but . . ." He looked up at Doug and pushed the open album across the table.

The paintings were indeed disturbing, done in bright garish colors, executed in an angular expressionistic style. Doug stared at the picture of the first canvas. A blue-uniformed man, carrying a jagged baseball bat, was treading on a field of anguished screaming faces. The sky was an apocalyptic red, the same color as the man's fiery hair. The man's face was a grinning white skull.

The next picture was of a monster, a hideous creature with a sharply fanged mouth that took up a full half of its malformed face. The monster held in its obscenely twisted claw a white letter. The street down which the creature was walking was an off-center path dividing identical rows of mailbox houses.

The pictures were all variations on a theme, personal and highly idiosyncratic depictions of a horrific mailman.

In the last, unfinished painting, the mailman was dressed as the Grim Reaper, and the blade of his scythe had shishkebabbed several women between their legs.

"She knew," Mike said.

Doug closed the album. "So what? Who doesn't know?"

"But she knew what was going to happen to her. Did you see those women?

Did you see that baseball bat?"

"Yes."

"Well, my idea is that if she knew, others do too. We just have to find them. It'll be tough. People aren't being real cooperative right now. But if we can find his next victim, we can stake him or her out and catch Smith with a sting operation."

It sounded good, but Doug did not think that the mailman was a killer who was methodically murdering people in town. He was something far worse than that.

Murder was merely one tool he used to get what he wanted. For all they knew, he had killed all the people he needed to kill and now he was moving on to something else.

Or perhaps he was going to kill them next.

"I think it's a good idea," Doug said. "I hope it works."

Mike frowned. "But I need your help. I was hoping you'd --"

"Sorry. I don't think I have any help to give."

"Sure you do --"

"You want my opinion?"

The policeman nodded. "Of course."

"Don't wait for him to do something else. Get him now. Charge him with anything, charge him with everything. If nothing sticks, fine. But at least you'll have kept him off the streets for a while. And maybe by that time, with the hearings and jailing, the Postal Service will have appointed someone else to the job and we can get rid of him for good."

"That's your plan?"

Doug leaned forward. "He's a fake. I called the main post office in Phoenix, and they have no record of him. When you guys called, their computer was mysteriously down and my story couldn't be corroborated. But he's not a real mailman. If you can get a postal inspector up here, if you can get the federal authorities to charge him, I think we'll be safe. The problem is, you're not going to be able to get through by mail or phone. You're going to have to go to Phoenix in person."

"No gas," Mike reminded him.

"That's why you throw his ass in jail until you can get someone up here, put him out of commission for a while."

"I don't know," Mike said.

"Well, then, don't throw him in jail. But at least try to get a representative from the post office up here. He's not a real mailman, but he recognizes the authority of the Postal Service. Hell, it's the only authority he does recognize."

"What makes you think so?"

Gooseflesh cascaded down Doug's arms as he remembered the mailman dancing on the ridge. "I just know."

"I still want to stake him out."

"Then stake him out. Tail him. Follow him wherever he goes. Maybe you'll be able to catch him that way."

"But you don't think so?"

"I don't think so."

Mike stood up, picking up the photo album. "I'm on my own on this, you know. The department's not behind me. The chief would shit if he knew I was even talking to you."

"Why?"

"I don't know. But I do have a few others with me. Tim, of course. And Jack and Jeff. We all know what's going on."

"I think you should nab him now."

Mike walked to the door. "I'll think about it." He turned on the porch.

"It would mean my job, though."

"It may mean your life if you don't. Or mine."

"Maybe he'll just go away."

Doug smiled grimly. "No. That's what I was hoping, too. But that's the one thing he won't do: he won't go away."

Mike walked out to his car, got in, and backed up the drive, and Doug stood on the porch until the policeman's taillights were gone and the noise of his engine had faded into the sounds of the night.

43

But Doug was wrong. The mailman did disappear. He was gone the next day, and when Doug drove by the post office in the afternoon, it was closed. At the police station, Mike said that SmithTegarden , the officer assigned to man the speed trap at the edge of town, had seen John Smith's car heading toward Phoenix.

The next day passed, and the next, and there was still no sign of him.

When the weekend rolled by and Monday arrived with the post office remaining closed, Doug began to relax.

It looked like it was over.

The mailman was gone.

44

The morning dawned clear and cool and sunny, the first August merging of the disparate weather trends that would eventually crystallize into fall. Doug awoke early, showered, shaved, and went out to check the mailbox. He was gratified to find that it was empty.

By the time he'd walked back to the house, Tritia was up and making coffee. There was annoyance on her face as he said "Good morning" to her, and when he repeated the greeting, she refused to respond, unintelligibly grunting some sort of reply.

Doug turned on the television, and the familiar set of the NBC _News at Sunrise_ blinked into existence. There had been no problems with the electricity since the mailman left, and gas, water, and phone services had continued uninterrupted. Life, it seemed, was settling back into normalcy.

Billy was still asleep, but Tritia ordered Doug to wake him and make him come down for breakfast. She was making Spanishomelettes for each of them, using vegetables she had grown in the garden, and she refused to suspend her culinary efforts until Billy graciously decided that it was time for him to awaken. "Get him up now," she said.

They ate breakfast together, and Tritia announced that this morning they were going to go to the store and do some serious shopping. The cupboards were nearly bare, as were the refrigerator shelves, and she had a stack of coupons whose expiration dates had nearly arrived. She began making out a list of items they needed while Doug washed the dishes and Billy dried.

"Okay," she said finally. "Ready."

"I don't want to go," Billy said.

"You have to go."

"Why?"

Tritia looked at her son. He was mature for his age, intelligent, strong, but he had been forced to absorb far too much the past two months, had been expected to deal with things that most adults never had to deal with. She felt a strange sadness settle over her as she looked at his weary face. She hadalwaw wanted Billy to remain a child as long as possible and not grow up too fast.

Childhood was a magical special time and could only be experienced once. Yet at the same time, she did not believe in sheltering children from reality. Like it or not, they eventually had to live in the real world, and they could adjust to that world better if they were adequately prepared to deal with it.

This summer, however, had not been the real world. The horrific events of the past two months would not prepare Billy for things to come. Nothing like this would ever come again.

She stared at him, saw the pleading in his tired eyes. Her tone of voice softened. "Okay," she said. "You don't have to go."

Billy smiled, relieved, although there seemed to be something else in his eyes, something lurking just beyond the obvious emotions mirrored in his face.

This had probably scarred him more than she would ever know. "Thanks," he said.

"But," she warned, "you have to stay in the house. Keep all the doors locked and don't let anyone inside until we get back. Understand?"

He nodded.

"Okay." She looked over at Doug and saw his slight smile of approval. It never hurt to be careful.

Billy got dressed and stood on the porch as his parents got in the car and backed up the drive. "Lock the door," his dad called.

"I will."

He went back into the house and locked the door. His eyes were drawn to the piece ofplyboard still covering the broken window. He hoped the guy was going to come and fix the window soon. The board helped television viewing in the afternoon, virtually eliminating the glare from the sun, but it also made the house seem far too dark.

He didn't like darkness.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do today after his parents got back.

He thought of calling the twins, but then decided he really didn't want to see them. What he really wanted was to do something with Lane, but he was afraid to call his old friend. With the mailman gone and everything over, Lane might be back to normal. But then again, he might not, and Billy wasn't brave enough to find out.

Right now, he had to go to the bathroom, and he walked through the kitchen to the hall. He went into the bathroom, already unbuckling his belt. He froze.

An envelope was perched on the edge of the sink.

Another lay atop the closed lid of the toilet.

He wanted to scream, but he knew no one would hear him. His cries would only alert whoever the mailman? -- was out there.

Or in here.

He backed into his parents' bedroom. He saw one sealed letter on the dresser, another on the bed.

The house seemed suddenly much scarier, much more frightening. He walked slowly, silently toward the front room. The board over the window cut off an awful lot of light, he noticed, throwing nearly half of the room into darkness, creating pools and boxes of shadow within which a figure could hide. He saw a trail of envelopes leading upstairs to the loft, to his bedroom.

He carefully picked up the phone next to the TV. It was dead.

He heard a rustling noise upstairs.

He had to get out of here. But where could he go? There were not many homes nearby. He certainly couldn't stay at the Nelsons'. He couldn't go to Lane's house.

The Fort.

Yes, The Fort. He could go to The Fort and wait there until his parents came home. He and Lane had purposely built the structure sturdily in order to withstand outside attack, and he would be able to hide safely in there.

As quietly as possible, he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. The boards creaked beneath his feet and he stood still, unmoving, listening for any reaction upstairs, ready to run at the slightest sound, but he heard nothing.

He had never realized before how noisy the porch really was, and it seemed like a squeaking creaking eternity before he reached the steps and hurried down.

Beneath his feet, the gravel crunched with thunderous volume, but he ignored it and ran as fast as he could down the path toward The Fort. He leapt over familiar rocks and logs, skirted known sticker bushes. With one leap and expert footwork, he was on top of the camouflaged structure's roof, and then he was dropping inside, closing and locking the trapdoor.

He lay panting on the floor for a moment, trying to catch his breath, listening for any sounds that he had been followed, but the only noise he heard was the obnoxious cawing of a blue jay in a far-off tree.

He was safe.

He stood up, praying that his parents would come home soon. Praying that when they did come, he would be able to hear the noise of their car. He listened again for foreign sounds, alien noises, but the woods were clean.

He looked around the Big Room. The Fort seemed different with Lane gone, abandoned. The other time he had come in here without Lane, it had felt strange, but it had still been _their_ Fort. Now he wasn't sure whose it was. The structure was in the green belt by his house, but the materials had come from Lane's father and they had done all the work in tandem. He walked slowly through the room like a stranger, touching objects which had once been familiar to him but from which he now felt impossibly distanced. Everything seemed weird, as though it had once been his but was his no longer.

He supposed this was what a house must feel like to people who got a divorce.

Every so often, he stopped in his tracks, unmoving, listening to hear if there were any sounds outside, but always there was nothing.

He walked into the HQ, looking down at the pile of magazines on the floor.

Even the _Playboys_ no longer seemed as though they belonged to him, although they did not seem as though they belonged to Lane either. They were caught in some timeless netherworld in-between, ownerless. He picked one up. The page opened to the spread of "Women in Uniform," and he saw the naked body of the female postal carrier.

"BillyAlbin ."

He stopped moving, holding his breath, trying not to make any sound. His heart was trip-hammering wildly.

"BillyAlbin ."

The mailman was just outside The Fort. He had tracked him somehow and had found him. Billy was too terrified to move. He tried to exhale silently, unable to hold his breath any longer, but the noise sounded like a hurricane in the silence. Outside, the feet stopped moving.

"Billy."

He did not move.

"Billy."

Now the voice came from the other side, although he had heard no scuffling feet, no rustling leaves, no sound of any kind.

"Billy."

The voice came again, a low insistent whispering. He wanted to scream, to cry out, but he dared not. The mailman obviously knew he was here, but Billy did not want to confirm his presence. Maybe if he pretended that he wasn't here, if he just laid low and waited it out, the mailman would go away.

"Billy."

No. He wasn't going to go away.

Billy stood stock-still, only his mind moving, his brain trying desperately to think of something he could do. There was only one entrance to The Fort, no way to get out without the mailman seeing him. He and Lane had often talked about making an escape hatch, an emergency exit, building an escape tunnel under the dirt, but they never had. Now, he considered his choices. Or his choice. He had only one, really. If he could make it up to the roof, through the trapdoor, without the mailman seeing or hearing him "Billy."

-- he could jump and haul ass to safety.

Tiptoeing carefully, lightly, quietly, he stepped into the Big Room.

"Billy."

The voice was closer this time. Extremely close. Billy looked up.

The mailman stared down at him through the open trapdoor, grinning. There was corruption in that smile, a twisted cruelty in the hard blue eyes.

"Want to have a good time?" the mailman asked.

Billy backed into the HQ. He glanced down at the stack of _Playboys_ as he retreated, but they were not _Playboys_. They were _Playgirls_.

"Billy," the mailman said again.

Panicked now, he began kicking at the back wall of the HQ, trying to knock off one of the boards so he could crawl through and out. He kicked with all of his might, putting the strength of desperation behind each kick, but they had built The Fort well -- too well -- and the boards would not budge.

He heard the mailman drop through the trapdoor to the floor of the Big Room behind him.

"I brought you a present, Billy," the mailman said.

"Help!" Billy screamed at the top of his lungs. He kicked furiously at the wall. "Mom! Dad!"

"Want to have a good time?" the mailman asked.

Billy turned around and saw over his shoulder the mailman smiling, holding forth his present.

When Billy was not home when they came back from the store and had still not returned an hour later, Tritia began to panic. She had Doug call Mike at the police station, who promised to comb the town, starting with the post office, and she began calling all of Billy's friends. She dialed theChapmans ' number and Lane answered the phone.

"Hello," Tritia said. "This is Mrs.Albin . Is Billy there?"

"No." Lane's voice sounded at once cold and suggestive, not unlike that of the mailman, and the fear grew within her.

"Have you seen him at all today?"

"No." Lane paused. "But I've seen you."

There was a click as the connection was broken.

Tritia hung up the phone. What the hell did that mean? She didn't know, and she didn't think she wanted to know. She started to dial the twins, when she heard Doug come in through the back door.

"He's not under the house or by the clothesline," he said. He was trying to keep the worry out of his voice, but he was not having much luck. "His bike's still here. I'm going to start looking in the back, around the green belt."

"Okay," she agreed. "I'll keep calling."

Doug walked out the front door.

God, she prayed silently, let him be all right.

Doug walked across the length of their property, venturing into the green belts on both sides, searching under every bush, looking up in every tree, calling his son's name. "Billy! Billy!"

Lizards scuttled out of his way, frightened by the noise. Quail flew frantically up from their herbaceous hideaways.

"Billy!"

He continued pressing toward the hill in back of their house until he saw the camouflaged exterior of The Fort before him. "Billy!" he called.

There was no answer.

He stared at The Fort, and there seemed to him something ominous about it.

He had never before thought of the wooden structure as anything more threatening than a children's playhouse, but as he looked at it now, it seemed low and dark and claustrophobically closed, and he realized that the feeling he got from it was uncomfortably close to the feeling he had had when he'd looked at the house in which Ellen Ronda had been killed.

He took a tentative step forward. "Billy?"

He pressed his ear to the wooden wall. From inside The Fort, he could hear a low steady whimpering. "Billy!" he cried. He looked frantically for a weak point in the structure where he could pull off a board and get inside, but the makeshift building was remarkably well-constructed, with no protruding panels or obvious weak points. Desperate, he grabbed hold of the roof and tried to pull himself up. He was horrendously out of shape, and even a partial pull-up caused him to grunt and strain with the effort. A sliver slid into his palm, and his right ring finger pressed painfully against the bent head of a crooked nail, but with the aid of his feet kicking against the side wall for support, he managed to reach the roof and roll on top of the clubhouse.

Nearby, he saw the square open trapdoor that led down into The Fort. He peered in but could see nothing; he quickly dropped through the opening, landing hard. The whimpering was louder now, and he whirled around. "Billy?"

His son was crouched in a dark corner of the room in a modified fetal position, knees drawn up to his chin. His shut was ripped and tattered, covered with grease and dirt. His face was blank.

He was wearing no pants.

"Billy," Doug cried, rushing forward. He was screaming and crying all at once and he fell to the ground, hugging his son. Within him the rage and fear and pain had coalesced into one horrible all-consuming feeling of hatred, and tears flowed down his cheeks as he gripped Billy tightly.

"No," Billy was saying softly. "No. No. No. No . . ."

Doug moved back, still holding his son. Through his tears, he looked into Billy's face. The boy's eyes were wide and scared and staring.

"No. No. No. No . . ."

On the dirt next to him was a soiled wedding dress.

And a pair of bloody underwear.

And several postmarked packages and envelopes.

A bolt of emotional pain wrenched Doug's midsection, so sharp it was physical.

Billy's faraway gaze focused on him for a moment. "I won't wear it!" he screamed. "You can't make me." His entire body shook.

Doug pulled him close. He realized for the first time that his son's skin was warm, feverish. He pulled himself together, forcing himself to act logically, though the bitter hatred that flowed through his veins rebelled against all rationality. He stood and was about to pick up Billy when he noticed the corner of an envelope protruding from underneath one of the folds of the soiled dress. He reached down and grabbed it, saw his name on the front, tore it open. There were only five words and an exclamation point on the otherwise blank page:

I like your wife too!

"No!" Doug screamed, a loud primal denial directed to no one who could hear. "No," Billy repeated. "No. No. No. No. No . . ."

Doug picked up his son without thinking and with adrenaline strength pushed him up through the opening. He guided the limp body away from the hole, then lifted himself up. His muscles were aching, his tortured insides on fire, but he forced himself to move across the roof. He had to get home to Tritia .

Tritia hung up the phone, palms sweaty, the fear feverishly alive within her. She walked into the kitchen to get herself a glass of water, and it was then that she saw the envelope on the counter next to the microwave. Frowning, she picked it up. She could not remember seeing it on the counter before. She certainly hadn't checked the mailbox today, and she was pretty sure neither Doug nor Billy had either. She looked at the front of the envelope. It was addressed to her, but there was no return address.

It's starting again, she thought. And Billy's missing. But she refused to let herself think that way. She tore open the envelope and pulled out the piece of paper inside.

I'm in the bedroom.

The words jumped out at her, hitting her with the impact of a blunt cudgel. He was back. It hadn't ended.

He was back and he was after her.

Fumblingly, she opened the top drawer nearest the sink. She drew out a carving knife and gripped it tightly, holding it before her as she walked slowly down the hall toward the bedroom, prepared to lash out at any sign of movement.

She knew that it was stupid and foolhardy to try to take on the mailman by herself -- she should run to a neighbor's house, call the police -- but he had pushed too far. She had reached her limit and she was damned if she was going to let him terrorize her anymore.

If he was here, she would kill him.

She would slit his fucking throat.

He was not in the bedroom. Knife in front of her, poised to stab, she checked the closet, looked under the bed. Nothing. She poked her head in the bathroom. All clear. She knew he was neither in the kitchen nor in the living room because she had been in both.

That left the loft.

She thought she heard a footstep creak upstairs.

Run, a part of her brain -- the intelligent part of her brain -- was telling her. Get out of here now. But she gripped the knife tighter and headed through the kitchen, through the living room, to the stairway. It was day, but the loft's small lone window was not able to illuminate the entire room, and the top of the stairs was in shadow.

She crept upward as quietly as possible, fingers white on the knife handle. She was almost to the top of the stairs and was bending over to keep her head below the level of the floor so he would not be able to see her approach, when her foot landed on a loose board. The stair groaned. She froze, not daring to breathe, but there was no sound from the loft. Holding the knife before her, she dashed up the last five steps, ready to lash out.

The loft was deserted. There was no one there.

Still holding the knife, she made a quick check of the closet, of the area behind Billy's bed, but the loft was empty.

He had gone.

The house was clean.

She made her way downstairs. In the living room, she peered out the window, trying to spot any unnatural objects in the drive or in the surrounding trees and bushes, but the property was disturbed only by a pair of battling blue jays. She double-checked first the front door, then the back, and when she found that both were locked, she allowed herself to relax a little.

Her bladder had been considerably weakened by the tension, and she walked into the bathroom, still clutching the knife. She no longer had a death grip on the handle, but she was taking no chances -- she might have missed him in her cursory examination of the forest in back. He could have been hiding behind a tree, knowing she would not go out of the house to search for him, and he might be waiting outside right now, listening in at the door, waiting for precisely a moment like this, a moment when she was vulnerable, to come inside and attack.

She left the bathroom door open and quickly pulled down her pants, sitting on the toilet.

The mailman stepped out of the shower.

She screamed in terror, dropping the knife, then immediately reached down with scrambling fingers to pick it up off the floor. He stepped on top of it, his shiny black shoes completely covering the blade. He was fully dressed, wearing his pressed postal uniform, but she could see the huge bulge in his trousers as he stood in front of her. She covered her exposed lap with one hand and held the other tremblingly in front of her to push him away.

She had not stopped screaming, but he did not seem to mind. He smiled at her. "Nice bush," he said, and the crudity of his words, juxtaposed against the smoothness of his voice, was somehow more terrifying than if he had simply come out and attacked her.

Why the hell hadn't she checked the shower?

He bent down to pick up the knife and she leapt off the toilet and out of the bathroom in a frantic, instinctive escape attempt. Her body slammed against his in the constricted space before the doorway, and for a sickening second as she flew past him, she felt his clothed hardness against her naked skin. And then she was across the hall and in the bedroom, slamming the door shut. She fumbled with the knob for a second before turning the lock. Her eyes darted around the room as she searched for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon.

Outside, in the hall, she heard a clattering sound as the mailman threw the knife across the floor into the kitchen. Obviously, he didn't want to kill her. Then what did he want?

She pressed her shoulder against the bedroom door and let out an involuntary sound of raw animal fear. She was too afraid to cross the room to reach the telephone. The door lock was cheap and flimsy, and if she let up on her support for even a second, he would be inside.

_Inside_.

She closed her eyes, willing herself not to be overwhelmed by the fear.

"Get out of my house," she ordered. Her voice was wavering,unforceful . "Get out of here now!"

"You want it," he said, his voice coolly unperturbed. "You know you want it."

"Get the fuck out of here!" she screamed. "I'm calling the police."

His voice dropped an octave to a tone of low insinuating intimacy. "Do you like your mail delivered at the back door?" he asked.

"Help!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. She meant for the scream to be loud and piercing, a cry of terror and rage, but the shout was almost a sob, desperation eating away at its edges, and she abruptly fell silent, unwilling to let the mailman sense her weakness, the stubbornness within her unwilling to concede anything to the monster outside the door.

"Do you like blood?" the mailman asked in that same low intimate tone. He was right next to the crack of the door; she could hear the sound of his dry lips pressing together as he spoke. "Do you like warm, thick, salty blood?"

"Help me!" she cried, and this time it really was a sob. She heard the mailman's low answering chuckle.

And the sound of a zipper being pulled down.

"You know you want it," he repeated.

She held her breath.

There was the quiet slapping sound of skin against skin.

He was playing with himself.

"Billy likes his mail delivered upstairs and at the back door."

That gave her the strength that had been eluding her. White-hot anger coursed through her veins. "You son of a bitch!" she screamed; "Don't you dare touch him!"

From outside the house, from the rear, she heard Doug's voice. "Trish!"

Again: "Trish!" He was running; the amplification of his words came at a pace much faster than it would have had he been moving more slowly. Something had happened. She could hear the fear in his voice, and the burning anger. Something had happened.

But she was just thankful to hear his voice at all. She was saved.

Whatever else had happened, he was here to save her. "In here!" she yelled as loud as she could. "I'm in the bedroom!"

She had not heard the mailman leave, but from the silence on the other side of the door she knew he was gone.

There were heavy running steps on the porch. "Trish!" Doug called frantically. The screen door slammed shut.

"I'm in here!" She fumblingly opened the bedroom door and flew out of the room, sobbing. "I --"

Her sobs stopped when she saw that Doug was carrying Billy into the living room. She stopped breathing. Time stood still. The boy's unmoving body was draped limply over his father's outstretched arms, and for one sick second she was reminded of a scene from _Frankenstein_. She had to will herself into action. She snapped out of her trance and ran forward, putting an ear to her son's chest. "What happened?" she demanded.

"I found him in The Fort." Doug's voice was a shocked emotionless monotone. "The mailman found him first."

Tritia noticed for the first time that Billy was wearing no pants.

Doug placed his son carefully on the couch. Billy's skin was grayish, pale. His lips moved silently in unbroken fever sentences. Tritia could not make out what he was saying.

"When we get to the hospital, I'm calling the police," Doug said in the same flat tone. "And if they won't go after him, I'll kill him myself."

Tritia felt Billy's forehead with a trembling hand. "What happened?"

"I don't know. He was lying in The Fort like this. His pants were off and his underwear was bloody and there was a . . . a wedding dress next to him."

Tritia put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, my God."

Doug felt the hot tears spilling onto his cheeks. His voice cracked. "I

think he was raped."

"We have to get him to the hospital. I'll call the ambulance."

"Fuck the ambulance. There's not enough time."

Tritia cradled her son's head in her arms.

"No," he murmured. "No I won't. No. No. No. No . . ."

"Let's go," she said.

The thoughts that ran through Doug's mind as the Bronco sped over the rough dirt road were fragmented, disjointed: what he should have done, what he could have done, what he did wrong, what he would do over again if given the chance. Billy moaned in the back seat, a muffled delirious sound followed instantly by Tritia 's soft soothing. Doug cursed himself for not living closer to the hospital.

They sped past the trailer park and bumped onto paved road. The shock had left him, had disappeared as quickly as it had come, and had been replaced by a seething bottomless anger that could be assuaged only by revenge. Once Billy was okay, he would go to the police. And if the police refused to do anything, he would go after the mailman himself. There was no way in hell he was going to get away with this.

Willis Community Hospital was a low white brick building located off the main road in the center of town. It was situated between the Presbyterian church and a short row of tract houses, the model homes from one of the town's aborted real-estate developments. Although the hospital was the newest and best-equipped medical facility in the county -- it even had its own heliport for the transporting of serious cases to Phoenix or Flagstaff -- it now seemed to Doug small and seedy and hopelessly out of date. He wished they lived in a metropolitan area with access to state-of-the-art medical technology.

They pulled into the emergency loading area, and Doug ran around the back of the Bronco to open the passenger door. He let Tritia out, and she ran into the hospital to explain the situation while he carefully lifted Billy from the back seat and carried him into the building.

A doctor, an orderly, and two nurses were already wheeling out a gurney, and Doug placed his son gently down on the crinkling sanitary paper that covered the gurney's thin mattress. The doctor introduced himself as Ken Maxwell, and he fired off questions one after another as they headed through the double doors and down the hall, asking a follow-up before Doug or Tritia had time to adequately respond to its predecessor. The pinched-faced woman at the admissions desk tried to insist that someone had to stay and fill out forms, but the doctor snapped at her, telling her to shut up and leave it for later as he followed the orderly pushing the wheeled stretcher through the corridor. The two nurses had already hurried ahead to prepare the examination room.

The gurney was pushed next to a stationary operating table in the center of the room, and the doctor helped the orderly shift Billy onto the raised platform. He listened with a stethoscope to Billy's chest, checked his eyes with a pen-light. His hands expertly prodded and probed the boy's prone form, but Billy noticed nothing. He neither moved nor flinched, and he kept up the low insistent words he had been repeating since Doug found him.

Doug licked his dry lips. The doctor was busy. This would be a good time to call the police. He caught the eye of the orderly. "Is there a phone around here?" he asked. "I have to call the cops and tell them what happened."

"There's one out in the waiting room."

The doctor finished his external examination of Billy's body and said something to the nurse nearest him. He looked up at Doug and Tritia . "I will have to give him a thorough examination," he said. "And I'll have to take some X

rays, perform a few standard tests." The nurse handed him a pair of clear rubber gloves taken from an unopened package. "As you're his parents, you may remain here if you wish, but it may be a little rough to watch." He pulled on the gloves and picked up his penlight. Both nurses carefully rolled Billy over onto his stomach. Doug could see the smeared dirt on his son's buttocks, and he turned away.

"I'll stay," Tritia said, giving his hand a small squeeze. "You go make your phone call."

Doug nodded slowly. He really did have to call the police, but he was glad that he did, grateful to have that excuse to fall back on, and for that he felt guilty. He knew he should be there for Billy, but he could not watch the doctor examine his son. Tritia knew that, and this was her way of telling him it was okay. But he still felt awful about it. He had always been like this. He had not wanted to watch his son's birth and had thrown up himself when Billy was an infant and had vomited on his shoulder. Sickness involving members of his family made him squeamish, particularly if it involved blood and bodily functions. He wished he didn't feel this way, wished he could let it not affect him, the way Tritia did, but he had no control over his reactions. He had often wondered if this was a trait common to all fathers, and he thought that perhaps this was one reason why young children inevitably felt closer to their mothers and turned to their maternal parents when they needed comfort. After sharing bodies for nine months, mothers did not seem to mind a little blood or pain. It wasn't as alien to them as it was to fathers.

He looked over at his son, saw the smeared dirt, saw red lines that looked like scratches.

"No," Billy was murmuring. "No. No. No. No . . ."

"You go," Tritia prodded him.

The doctor bent over Billy's body.

Doug squeezed Tritia 's hand and walked quickly out of the room. He was angry at himself and he flinched as Billy's murmurs cut off with a sharp gasp.

The door swung shut behind him, and he was in the corridor. He hurried back the way they had come in. At least the doctor seemed to know what he was doing. He had wasted no time, had reacted instantly to the situation, had cut the red tape off at its source, and had exhibited a no-nonsense attitude in his quick appraisal of what was to be done. For that Doug was grateful, and despite his initial paranoid misgivings, he was now confident that his son would receive the best medical attention possible.

There was going to be hell to pay in the psychological department, though.

The damage here was not entirely, or even predominantly, physical. What had happened to Billy would probably scar him emotionally for the rest of his life.

The anger burned through Doug, unwavering,undiminishing . They were going to have to really search around and make sure they found someone who could help Billy. But now it was time for the mailman to pay.

The pinched-faced woman glared at him from behind her glass-walled room as he walked up to the pay phone in the waiting area. He ignored her and dialed the number of the police department. He closed his eyes. The phone rang once, twice, thrice.

An unfamiliar voice answered. "Willis Police Department."

Doug cleared his throat. "I'd like to speak to Mike Trenton, please." He sounded like a stranger to himself.

The voice on the other end of the line was cautious. "Who shall I say is calling?"

"DougAlbin ." There was a pause, then Mike came on the line. Doug gripped the receiver tightly, not bothering with pleasantries. "The mailman's back."

"I know."

"He attacked my boy, Mike, and he threatened my wife. I'm going after him." "We're going after him too. He killed the chief."

It took a moment for the information to sink in. Doug felt cold, frightened. The mailman was no longer playing around. He was not hiding behind rules and regulations, not working through letters. He was coming in for the kill. But though the fear was strong within him, it paled next to the towering strength of his anger.

"We just found the chiefs body a few minutes ago," Mike said. "How's your son? Is he going to be okay?"

"We don't know."

"We're gathering everyone together. We'll be leaving in ten minutes."

"Wait a sec, Mike." Doug felt weak. He saw Tritia running down the hall toward him, nearly tripping on the slippery tile. She was crying, sobbing, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach he knew that Billy was dead. Then she drew closer, and he saw that she was crying and laughing, sobbing and smiling.

"He's okay," she cried. "He's all right."

"Hold on, Mike," Doug said into the receiver. He left the phone dangling as he took Tritia 's hand and ran down the corridor to the examination room. The doctor was just maneuvering the largecranelike X-ray machine over Billy's back.

"Is he okay?" Doug asked.

"There's been no real physical damage," the doctor told him. "Billy is clearly suffering from traumatic shock, but he seems to have sustained no actual injuries. There're a few scratches and bruises, and I'll continue the tests, but I think you're safe."

"He wasn't . . . ?" Doug left the question unfinished.

"There does not appear to have been any penetration," the doctor said quietly, "although I have no doubt that he was assaulted."

"But the blood on his underwear . . . ?"

"It's not Billy's blood."

A flood of relief washed over Doug, and he held Tritia , who continued to sob. The doctor gave him a quick reassuring smile, then moved the X-ray camera into place.

Five minutes later, Doug was back in the waiting room. He picked up the receiver. "Mike? You still there?"

The other end of the line was silent. "Mike!" He heard a low knock as someone obviously picked up the phone from where it had been lying. "Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"He's okay."

"Thank God."

"I want to be in on this," Doug said.

"I can't --"

"Mike?"

Silence.

"Mike?"

"All right," the policeman conceded. "How fast can you get over here to the station?"

"I'll be there as soon as I can. Wait for me."

"Make it fast. We want to get him before he leaves town. You have five minutes."

"Goddammit!"

"All right," the policeman said. "Sorry. We'll wait."

"Thank you. I'll be there in ten."

"Meet you here." Mike hung up and Doug did the same. He returned to the examination room, where the doctor was putting away a hypodermic syringe. One of the nurses covered Billy with a sheet. "Get him a room," the doctor ordered. He looked from Doug to Tritia . "He'll be sleeping for a while now. I suggest you try to get some rest. He'll be coming out of it before morning, and he's going to want you nearby."

"I'm staying," Tritia said.

The doctor nodded. "We can set up a chair in his room. Or even a cot, if you'd like."

Tritia looked up at Doug, who put his arms around her. "Have they caught him?" He shook his head. "We're going after him now."

"'We?' "

"We."

The doctor, orderly, and nurses worked busily next to Billy.

Doug squeezed Tritia tightly. "Watch him," he said. "Take care of him."

She shivered as he pulled away, rubbing her arms. "Where are you going?

What are you going to do?"

"I'll meet them at the police station. Then we'll go to the post office."

They both followed the hospital team as they wheeled the now sleeping and silent Billy into his room, a large private room witha.raised color television and two adjoining beds. Doug gave Tritia the pertinent insurance information from his wallet, and she promised to take care of everything.

She followed him out to the waiting room. "Be careful!" she called after him as he walked between the sliding glass doors.

45

Doug ran into the police station. He noticed the difference immediately.

No one was working or talking. The room was still and silent. The policemen were standing around the front office, visibly nervous, unsure of what to do. Mike seemed to have taken charge, though there were one or two officers above him in rank, and he alone appeared to be thinking clearly and rationally. He was on the phone, apparently talking to someone important in Phoenix.

There were piles of unopened letters on each of the desks, Doug noticed.

The letters were untouched, as if everyone was afraid to go near them.

Mike got off the phone, saw Doug, and hurried over. "Finally," he said.

"How's your boy?"

Doug nodded. "He'll be okay."

"Your wife?"

"All right."

"Good." He was holding a letter in his hand, and he handed it to Doug.

"Read this."

Doug looked down at the paper. Scrawled in smeared pencil was a simple sentence:

Your services are no longer needed.

It was not dated, it was not signed.

"We found this in the chiefs hand."

"Where -- ?" Doug began.

"Come on." Mike led him quickly into the hall and down to the closed office at the far end. "Brace yourself." He opened the door.

Catfieldwas in his desk chair, facing the door. He had been thrown back against the wall behind the desk and was staring at them. Or would have been staring at them had he had a face. For the shotgun proppedori the desk before him had taken off half of his head, including his nose and eyes, leaving only a twisted bloody mess of bone and tissue. Five or six remaining teeth grinned out of the grotesquely misshapen hole that had been a mouth. The diplomas and certificates on the wall were splattered with a Rorschach of blood and brains.

"Jesus," Doug breathed. He looked at Mike. "You waited to call me?"

"No," the policeman admitted. "But I didn't want to argue. We went over to the post office, found nothing. I have five men and six volunteers combing the town right now."

"Have you tried Howard's house? That's where he lives."

"That's where the rest of us are going."

"Let's go,'" Doug said. He closed the door to the chiefs office.

The mailman's car was not in front of Howard's house, but the convoy of two police cars and two pickups parked catty-corner in the center of the street just in case, effectively blocking off any attempt to escape. The house looked even worse than it had the last time Doug had been by. The paint wasn't peeling, the shingles not falling off, but the house's overall appearance was so dilapidated that it gave the illusion that they were. The lawn was a brown weed jungle.

They got out of their cars and moved forward, two policemen in the lead, guns drawn. No one came out of any of the other houses on the street, and Doug found himself wondering if their owners had left, were dead, or were merely too frightened to come out.

A policeman knocked on the door, rang the bell, called out for someone to answer, then used a device tojim open the door. They walked inside.

The interior of the house was completely dark, the only illumination entering through the open door behind them. The heavy unmoving air stank of festering decay. Doug put his hand over his nose to block out the smell. He looked around, frowning. The entryway seemed narrower than he remembered, the walls rougher and more irregular. He reached out to touch the wall next to him, and his fingers touched packed paper. "Jesus," he whispered.

Stacks of envelopes stretched from floor to ceiling, covering every available inch of wall space, completely blocking the windows. The envelopes were fitted so neatly and precisely together that there was no space between them; they effectively formed an inner wall to the house.

The rest of them waited in place while two policemen went out to their cars for flashlights. Doug's eyes gradually adjusted. He could see into the living room beyond, and he noticed that the furniture had remained untouched.

The couches and tables were not covered by mail, but the walls were concealed with an inner layer of piled envelopes, and in the center of the room additional stacks of mail had been used to form low shapes, sculptures, vaguely geometric, vaguelypyramidic forms.

The lights came, strong halogen beams that penetrated the dimness and brought to their eyes the enormity of what they were up against, the sheer single-minded craziness of the mailman. Doug stared at the letter walls, at the patterns formed by precise placement of colored envelopes and overlapping stamps. He was reminded of the Aztecs or Mayas or Incas, one of those ancient civilizations that had been able to fit stones together so perfectly that their structures were still standing today without the aid of mortar or cement.

They moved forward, slowly.

"Mr. Smith," Mike called out. "Mr. Smith, are you here?"

The house was silent save for their own breathing and footsteps. They walked through the living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, marveling at the completeness of the mailman's insane renovation. The horrible, putrid smell grew stronger as they moved into the hallway. Mike, in the lead now, pushed open a bedroom door.

And there was Howard.

It was clear from the strength of the stench, a sickening acrid odor of gas and bile and feces, that Howard had long since started to rot, but the signs were not readily visible on his face,. The mailman had crudely painted Howard's lips with a dark-red lipstick, and ineptly applied eye shadow ringed the postmaster's widely staring eyes. There were twin rose circles of rouge on his pale sunken cheeks. Howard's hair had continued to grow after death, and it was piled on top of his head in a feminine swirl, held in place by greasy perfumed mousse. His toenails and fingernails had continued to grow as well and were obscenely long. The mailman had painted them a bright red.

He sat in a chair in the center of the room, staring at a dead television set, the only other piece of furniture in the room. On the floor surrounding him were crusts of moldy bread, old Twinkie wrappers, and the bones of rats.

Mike took a walkie-talkie from one of the other policemen and told the patrolling officers what they had found, requesting that the coroner come to Howard's after he had finished with the chief.

Doug stepped out of the room and walked down the hall, through the living room, and outside to catch his breath. Even with his nose plugged he had been able to smell the rot, and his stomach had churned as he saw what had been done to the postmaster. Part of him had wanted to grab Mike and shake him and say, "I

told you so," but he knew that that was stupid and petty and that this was not the time or place for it.

He stood on the dead lawn, staring up at the sky, breathing. It was getting late. The sun was beginning to sink, the shadows to lengthen. In other towns throughout the state, throughout the country, people were settling down to dinner, talking, watching the news. But here such normalcy was merely a memory.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Mike. "The patrols report no sign of him.

Do you have any idea where he might be?"

The creek, Doug started to say, but then he saw the thin sliver of moon hovering over the dimming horizon in the east. He remembered the mailman's dance of triumphant celebration. "I know where he is," he said, looking confidently into the policeman's eyes. "Get everyone together. Everyone. We can't let him get away this time."

"He won't get away," Mike said softly. He patted Doug's shoulder and went back into the house. Doug could hear his voice, though he could not tell what he was saying, and a few moments later he heard the sound of footsteps behind him as the policemen hurried outside.

The rocks of the ridge were orange in the light of the setting sun, the trees black triangular outlines. Venus had already appeared low in the west, and in the east the moon had risen, brightened. They drove up the narrow road slowly, in single file. Below them, the lights of the town seemed deceptively tranquil, benign, as though nothing out of the ordinary could ever happen in such a sleepy little community.

Doug drove with Tim in his pickup, and neither of them spoke on the ride up the ridge. The radio was off as well, and the only noise was the rattle and clatter of the track as it bounced over the ruts and washboards of the rough road. Doug looked in the side mirror and saw Mike and the other policemen following close behind in their patrol cars, the other pickup bringing up the rear. When they reached the top of the ridge, Doug toldTun to pull over and motioned out the window for Mike to follow suit.

They all got out of their vehicles. The night was cool, an advance scout for the coming fall. There were no clouds, and the new moon was surrounded by a faint hazy white halo.

"Why are we stopping here?" Mike asked.

Doug put a finger on his lips to tell the policeman to be quiet. "We have to walk the rest of the way. It's the only way we'll catch him. If he hears all those cars and trucks driving up the road, he'll be gone before we even get there."

Mike nodded. "All right, then. Lead the way."

They walked slowly across the bumpy ground, the policemen with their guns drawn, everyone nervously alert, on edge, listening for the smallest sound, looking for the smallest movement. They passed through a patch of sticker bushes, maneuvered through the giantmanzanita .

And then they heard it. The familiar rhythmic chanting that brought a chill to Doug's blood, raised goose bumps on his arms.

He looked back at Mike, who nodded for him to keep moving. They crept forward slowly, quietly, until they were at the edge of the field. Doug stopped.

The mailman was dancing, as Doug had known he would be, arms flailing with wild abandonment, legs kicking up in spontaneouscounterrhythm .

And the chant.

". . . rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail. . ."

The chill that had enveloped Doug increased as they approached. There were ten of them all together, he was not alone, but he felt as afraid as if he had been facing the mailman by himself.

The mailman continued to dance. He looked extraordinarily thin, and he seemed ghostly in the moonlight, his red hair fake.

"Okay," Mike whispered, gathering them around. "We'll spread out in a net, a half-circle. He can't go down the cliff, so he'll be trapped." The policeman looked at Doug, then back at his colleagues. "He's not armed, but he's dangerous. If he tries anything, shoot him."

The other policemen nodded.

"Let's go."

The grass and bushes rustled as the men spread out, but the noise was more than covered by the mailman's chanting. Doug, weaponless, stayed close to Mike.

When the policemen saw that they were all in place, he stepped forward. The others followed suit.

The mailman saw them but did not falter in his ritual, continuing to dance without pause, raising his arms toward the sliver of the moon.

"I am placing you under arrest," Mike announced.

The mailman laughed, changing the words to his chant: "Neither men nor women nor hail of bullets shall keep this mailman from his appointed rounds."

Mike stepped forward, Doug next to him. The half-circle began to close in.

The mailman danced away from them, across the rocky field toward the edge of the ridge.

"Stop right there," Mike ordered.

The mailman laughed, leapt, danced, chanted. "Nor dark of night. . ."

They followed as he led them toward the ridge's edge, closing in, tightening their trap until they were almost upon him.

The mailman stopped dancing. He was not sweating, not even breathing hard.

He grinned at Doug. "Billy is such a nice boy," he said. "Such a _nice_ boy."

"Put your hands above your head," Mike ordered.

"What for, Officer?"

"Put them up!"

"You have no proof."

"We have all the proof we need."

The mailman smiled as he looked around the semicircle. "Fuckers," he said quietly.

"Put your hands above your head," Mike repeated.

"Fuckers," the mailman said softly. He moved backward to the very edge of the cliff, darting agilely from rock to rock, movingsurefootedly across treacherous stretches of loosely packed dirt away from them.

Mike fired a warning shot in the air, and the mailman stopped. Mike aimed the pistol at him. "If you make one more move, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

Doug was not sure whether Mike was serious or not, but the mailman thought he was, and he remained in place.

"Tim," Mike said, "cuff him."

Tim nodded, moved forward, open cuffs in hand. "Mr. Smith, you are under arrest for --"

He never finished the sentence. The mailman quickly reached out and, before Hibbard had a chance to react, grabbed the handcuffs and yanked them from the policeman's grip. Tim lunged for the cuffs, but the mailman stepped neatly aside and with a quick well-placed push sent the young policeman over the edge of the ridge. There was a raw scream of terror that was cut off almost immediately. Doug heard the sickening thump-crack of the body hitting rock and, for a second, a fault echo of the scream before the echo, too, was cut off.

The mailman grinned. "Next?"

It had happened in a matter of seconds, almost before Doug knew what was going on, but Lt. Jack Shipley was already in action, moving forward, pistol pointed directly at the mailman's midsection. The mailman's white hand darted out, reaching for the gun.

Jack shot.

The bullet hit the mailman full in the chest, blood spurting from the ragged hole. The mailman toppled backward from the force of the blast, but he managed to grab the gun anyway. With a quick yank, he pulled the policeman with him over the edge. Jack was too startled to scream or react in any way. The mailman fell over the cliff, clutching tightly to the policeman, and the two of them tumbled to the rocks below. In the second before he fell, Doug thought he saw a smile on the mailman's bloody lips.

The rest of them ran to the edge, looking down, but the ground below was dark. Several policemen switched on their flashlights.

The intersecting beams quickly found and illuminated Jack's broken unmoving form.

The beams crossed and crisscrossed, searching the rocky floor below, spotlighting inch by inch the ground surrounding the spot where Jack had fallen.

Tim lay nearby, arms twisted to the sides in impossible angles, head cracked open on a boulder. The lights lingered, then moved on, hitting trees, hitting bushes. Doug said nothing, and neither did any of the other men, but they were all thinking the same thing, and they were all scared shitless.

The beams continued to explore the terrain below the ridge, covering and recovering the same area.

But there were only two bodies on the ground.

The mailman was gone.

46

Doug sat on the porch and looked at his watch. It was after midnight already. He had been here for four hours, since leaving Trish at the hospital.

He had wanted to stay too, but the doctor on duty, not Dr. Maxwell, had said that only one parent would be allowed to spend the night.

Doug had driven home alone.

On the ridge, he had hitched a ride back with Jeff Brickman, the officer who had volunteered to return to the station and coordinate communication while the other men figured out how to bring up the bodies. Jeff was going to try to get through to the county sheriffs office or the state police, and Doug seriously hoped he succeeded. For now, the policemen were following Mike, but he could already see them falling into disarray with the regular chain of command broken. When he had left, they were almost to the drawing-straws level of assigning responsibilities. It frightened Doug to see how easily such a trained group of individuals, such a structured organization, could fall apart, and he was glad when he was once again in the Bronco and driving.

He wondered now what the police were doing.

He thought of calling, but decided against it.

He finished off the last swallow of his fifth beer and stared up at the stars. Far above, one of the lighter heavenly bodies was traveling west to east in a steady line. A satellite. Lower, he saw the blinking lights of an airplane pass by, though the airplane made no sound.

Outside Willis, the world continued on.

He had called Tritia every half-hour, but she kept telling him there was no change, Billy was still sleeping. The last call had obviously woken her up, and she had irritably told him to stop calling, she would tell him when something happened.

Stop calling.

He wondered if she blamed him for what had happened.

He lay back in the soft seat, unmoving, unthinking, ready himself to drift drowsily into sleep, when he realized suddenly that the atmosphere had changed.

Something was not quite right. He sat up, alert and awake. The crickets were silent, he noticed. There was no sound, no noise at all.

Yes, there was a noise.

From up the road, from the direction of the Nelsons', he heard the low purr of an engine drawing closer.

He froze, unable to react, unable to do anything.

The sound approached, growing louder in the stillness. He wanted to run and hide, to get into the house and lock the door and shut the curtains, but he remained in place.

And there it was, at the far end of the drive, the red car of the mailman, pulling in front of the mailbox.

He was dead. Doug had seen him shot, had seen him fall over the edge of the ridge. He was dead.

Doug stared at the red car. The driver's window rolled partially down and a white hand emerged from the dark interior, placed a letter in the box, then waved tauntingly good-bye as the car pulled away.

It was several moments later before the crickets started up again.

Doug's heart slowed, but he remained on the porch, unmoving. The mailman could not be killed. He could not die. There was nothing they could do. Doug prayed to a God he had not talked to in decades, but there was silence on the other end of the line. He sat there, unmoving.

He was still awake five hours later when dawn arose in the east.

47

He called the hospital before he went over, but Billy was still asleep.

Good. That would give him time to get there. He wanted to be at his son's side when he awoke.

Tritia was seated, bleary-eyed, on her bed next to Billy's. She was dressed, her clothes wrinkled from having been slept in, her hair mussed and tangled. He hugged her tightly.

"You look like hell," she said.

"You don't look much better."

They both looked at Billy. Asleep, his features seemed restful, normal, as though nothing had happened to him and he was going to awaken the same as always. But he would not be the same. He would never be the same again.

"He's back," Doug said. "The mailman. I saw him last night. He delivered our mail." He had told her the mailman had been shot and killed, leaving out the part about his disappearing body, hoping against hope that they had merely not seen him in the night, that the flashlights had not illuminated the contents of an overlooked shadow or that he had crawled off somewhere to die.

Tritia paled. "He died and came back?"

"Or he didn't die at all."

Her expression collapsed, bravery fleeing in the face of overwhelming despair. "That's it, then."

Billy stretched, yawned, groaned in his sleep. Doug sat down on the edge of the bed and put a hand on his son's forehead. He found himself wondering why the mailman had not actually harmed Billy or Tritia . The mailman had been after him and his family from the beginning, but when he had finally caught Billy and Tritia , when he had had them in his power, he had done virtually nothing to them. Maybe he couldn't do anything to them.

Billy sat upright in bed. "No!" he screamed. "No!"

Doug grabbed Billy's shoulders, guiding him down. "It's okay, Billy," he said gently. "You're safe now. You're in the hospital. It's over now. You're safe."

The boy looked around with wild-rabbit eyes.

"We're here. It's okay."

Tritia moved over to the bed and hugged Billy. She was crying. "We're here," she said. "We're with you. Everything's going to be all right."

Doug felt the tears in his own eyes as he held his son's hand.

"Mom?" Billy said tentatively. "Dad?"

"Is everything okay?" The doctor hurried into the room. He saw that Billy was awake and moved over to the bed. "How are you feeling?"

The boy looked at him dully. "Tired."

"Effects of the tranquilizer," the doctor explained to Doug and Tritia . He turned toward Billy. "You're not in any pain, are you?"

Billy shook his head.

"Good. Probably just the shock, then." He smiled at Billy. "I'll be wanting to do a few tests later, when you feel up to it. Right now, I'll leave you alone with your mom and dad, okay?"

Billy nodded.

The doctor smiled at Doug and Tritia , gave a surreptitious thumbs-up sign, and left the room.

Left alone, the three of them were silent for a moment.

"Do you remember what happened?" Doug asked softly.

"Doug!" Tritia glared at him.

"Do you remember?"

"Leave him alone."

Billy nodded silently, not able to look at his parents' faces.

"Did he hurt you?" Doug asked.

Billy shook his head. "He couldn't touch me," he said. His voice was a cracked whispered croak. "He wanted to, but he couldn't."

Doug's blood was racing. "What do you mean he couldn't touch you?"

"He couldn't touch me."

"Why?"

Billy turned toward his father, then looked away, ashamed, embarrassed, unable to make eye contact. "I don't know."

"Think."

"Doug," Tritia said.

"He tried to give me mail," Billy whispered. "He wanted me to read it and he got really angry when I didn't. He said it was an . . . an invitation. I

thought he was going to hit me, but it was like . . . like he couldn't touch me.

Like something was stopping him. He started yelling at me and calling me names and threatening me, but I wouldn't take his invitation and he started going crazy, but he didn't touch me."

"You've been through a lot," Tritia said. "It's no wonder you think --"

"Let him talk." Doug nodded encouragingly at his son. "Go on."

"That's it."

"He couldn't touch you?"

Billy shook his head.

"What about the dress?"

Billy buried his face in the pillow. His voice was muffled. "I'm tired now," he said. "Stop asking me questions."

"What about the dress?"

"He wanted me to wear it, okay? He wanted me to put it on."

Doug patted his son's back. "Okay," he said. "All right." He stared at the headboard of the hospital bed and tried to recall whether or not he had ever seen the mailman touch anyone. He had not.

The reason the mailman could not be implicated in any of the murders, Doug realized, was because he had never performed any of them. Ronda and Bernie really had killed themselves, as had Irene.Stockley andHobie had themselves been driven to murder. Unimaginable as it was, Giselle had actually raped and killed Ellen Ronda with the baseball bat.

John Smith's only power was the mail.

What was it Howard had said? The mailman spent all day Sunday hibernating in his room? And when he came out on Monday, he was tired, like he'd been sick?

Doug remembered how pale and weak the mailman had seemed after the Fourth of July holiday.

He needed to deliver the mail to survive.

Tritia pushed Doug away and stroked Billy's hair. "What's the matter with you?" she asked angrily. "Hasn't he been through enough without his own father making him relive it?"

"I have an idea," Doug said. "I think I know how to get rid of the mailman."

Her eyes met his, and he saw in them a spark of hope. "How?" she asked.

"It's crazy and it may not work."

"If it doesn't, we can go to Phoenix and never come back." Her expression darkened. "If he doesn't follow us and find us." She held his gaze. "What is your idea?"

"We cut off his power supply. We stop the mail."

"What?"

"That's the only way he can get to us. You heard Billy. The mailman couldn't touch him. And what about you? He didn't touch you either, did he?"

Tritia recalled with sickening clarity the feel of his hardness beneath his uniform as she'd shoved her waypasfьim in the bathroom. She slowly shook her head.

"You see? All he can do is manipulate people through the mail. That's it.

If we can just stop people from reading or sending mail, we can get rid of him.

But we have to get everyone in town together. Every last damn one of them. If this is going to work, it'll require the cooperation of every person in Willis."

"I was talking to one of the nurses," Tritia offered. "I don't think that will be a problem. They all know what's going on. They're all scared. They'll do anything."

"We have to get the word out fast. I'm going to ask the police to help me, call some of the other teachers. If we can, I want to have a meeting of everyone in town tonight."

"Tonight's too soon. Word doesn't travel that fast." Dr. Maxwell stood in the doorway. He walked into the room. "I heard what you said, and I'm willing to try it."

Doug looked at him, smiled. "Thanks."

"I think you'll have to make it for tomorrow night. I can't be there, and neither can most of my staff, but you can talk to them beforehand. I think they'll go along with you on this." He looked at Billy, who was still facedown in the pillow. "We have to stop him."

"If he can be stopped," Tritia said.

"I think he can," Doug said.

Billy's voice was muffled by the pillow, but it was clear. "I think he can too," he said.

Doug grabbed Tritia 's hand and squeezed it tight.

48

They drove to the meeting together. Tritia had wanted to stay with Billy, but Doug said he needed her for this and she agreed to go along. They would return to the hospital afterward.

They had both stayed with Billy the night before, and although he was plagued with nightmares so powerful that twice Doug had to wake him up, he was unsedated, and in the morning he was lucid and cognizant of what was going on.

He even made specific requests for breakfast, and by late afternoon he seemed almost like his normal self.

Dr. Maxwell got in touch with a friend of his in Phoenix, a psychiatrist specializing in childhood trauma, and he agreed to drive up and see Billy tomorrow.

Maybe things would be okay.

They drove past the post office on their way to the meeting. The character of the small building had changed completely from the days in which Howard Crowell and Bob Ronda had happily worked behind its doors, from the days in which the entire town had purchased stamps and dropped off mail between its walls. The staid nondescript structure now appeared decidedly malevolent. The windows had been smashed, their openings hastily covered up with irregular lengths of board nailed from the inside. Piles of ripped and dirty envelopes, as well as broken pieces of the mail-sorting machine, were scattered over the concrete steps. In a defensive line directly in front of the post office a row of rural mailboxes had been placed upside down, the metal boxes on the ground supporting their inverted posts.

On top of the posts were nailed the severed heads of town dogs, the animals' glassy eyes staring, unseeing, toward the street.

The dogs' headless bodies, ten or fifteen of them, littered the small parking lot.

Doug shivered as he and Trish sped by. The mailman was inside there, he knew. Probably peeking out at them. He felt suddenly nervous. Maybe he shouldn't have made Tritia come. Maybe he should have had her stay with Billy.

No, Billy would be all right. The hospital staff and Dr. Maxwell would look after him.

The street in front of the school was already jammed with cars. Someone had opened the gym and turned on the lights and people were filing in. Doug and Tritia parked on a side street and walked, rather than trying to find a closer parking space. They were greeted at the door by Mike, who told them that everyone who could would be there. The police had combed the town for two days, spreading the word.

Doug thanked him and stepped inside the gym. He and Tritia made their way through the crowd by the door and stood near the entrance to the boys' locker room. All four walls of bleachers had been brought down, and three of them were nearly full. There would not be enough space in here for everyone, he realized.

Many people would just have to stand or sit on the floor.

He glanced around, trying to gauge the mood of the crowd. People seemed tentative, hesitant with one another. Awkward. Grudges had been formed and fanned through the mails, words of hate had been received and responded to, acquaintanceships had beenreforged and realigned on the basis of faulty information, misdirected emotions, lies. Everyone knew that now. Everyone realized that the hate o mail they'd been receiving, all of the gossiping innuendo, had not been sent by their neighboring townspeople but had been forced upon them by the mailman.

Still, feelings formed during that troubling period could not be instantly discarded, and there was tension among many members of the crowd. Arguments erupted. A small shoving match started in the stands, but was quickly stopped by a policeman.

And still people continued to arrive. People who had never before attended any civic function, people whose faces Doug did not even recognize, took seats on the bleachers. There were lone men in dusty hats and cowboy boots, impeccably dressed old couples, trendy young newlyweds, average families with children.

By eight o'clock, the appointed time, the gym was full, and Doug felt a little overwhelmed when he saw the size of the crowd. It was not speaking before so many people that daunted him -- he was a teacher and was used to speaking in front of groups -- it was taking the responsibility of leading so many individuals, of making the decisions for so many people.

He saw in the packed bleachers the faces of school-board members, city council members, policemen, the fire chief: people elected or appointed to positions of power. These men and women, supposedly trained to deal with public crises, did not know what to do in this situation and were looking to him for answers. The thought was intimidating, made even more so by the looks of worry and hope he saw on the faces of people he didn't even know, by the frightened murmurs of adults and the crying whimpers of children.

The room felt hot, the walls claustrophobically close, the air filled with the smell of old and new sweat. Tritia squeezed his hand, a gesture of faith and support that more than anything else gave him the strength to stride across the polished wood floor to the center of the gym.

There was no need for him to be nervous or worried or intimidated, he told himself. He was taking control in this crisis because he had to, because he was the only one who knew what had to be done. He had to think positively. There was no room for doubt. Not now. There was too much at stake. This was no time for indecision. They had to fight the mailman with everything they had, with their combined faith and belief. They had to do it or die.

The crowd was silenced immediately; he did not even have to raise his hand. The talking died down, and parents hushed the crying of their children.

Only the wailing of a few small babies disturbed the stillness.

"You all know why you're here," Doug began. "Why we're here. We're here to free our town from the tyranny of the mailman. He has held us captive all summer, has used the mails to pit brother against brother, friend against friend. He has stopped our utilities, disrupted our lives, ruined our relationships. He has killed directly or indirectly, and he has brought our town to this." He gestured before him, toward the world outside the walls. The people were silent. He had their attention. "Many of you may not know it, but we found Howard Crowell yesterday in his home. Dead."

A wave of words passed through the crowd.

"He killed my Darla too!" David Adams called out. His voice was frightened, close to hysteria. "He promised her things! He lied about me and he made her . . . he made her . . ." David's voice trailed off.

"My business is ruined because of that son of a bitch!" Hunt James announced. "And so is Dr. Elliott's! He spread rumors about us and these assholes believed it!" He motioned toward the people surrounding him.

And now a lot of voices were speaking at once, people standing, yelling, screaming, competing for attention.

"-- knew my mother had a heart condition!"

"-- We've always paid our bills on time! Always!"

"-- never hurt an animal in my life!"

"-- illegal to send those kinds of things through the mail! Those videotapes! And those rubber --"

Doug held up his hands for silence. It took a few moments, but when the crowd quieted down, he continued. "We have to get him out of our town," he said.

"We have to exorcise him."

"Let him do the rope exercise!" someone called out.

Doug shook his head. "Lynching won't work."

In the front row of the bleachers right before him,Tril Allison, the owner of Allison's Lumber, stood up. He was not used to public speaking, and he shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Next to him on the bleachers sat his sons, Dennis and Tad, both of whom had been in Doug's English classes last semester.Tril cleared his throat. "What is the mailman?" he asked.

It was the question that had been on everyone's minds, if not everyone's lips, and Doug was about to respond when a shrill voice sounded off from somewhere in the upper portion of the bleachers.

"He's the devil!" An old woman stood up, a woman Doug did not recognize.

"Our only hope is prayer! Our only hope is to ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness and beg Him to protect us!"

There were low murmurs of frightened assent.

"He's not the devil!" Doug announced, raising his hands for quiet.

"Then, what is he?"Tril asked. "He certainlyain't human."

"No," Doug said, "he's not human. To be honest, I don't know what he is."

"He killed my daughter!" someone yelled.

"I don't know what he is!" Doug repeated, louder. "But I do know this: he can be stopped. We can stop him."

SmithTegarden , one of the police officers who had been on the ridge the other night, walked Out of the crowd and onto the gym floor. There was confidence in his step, but Doug could see that that was merely habit, reflex.

The Veteran cop was frightened. He stood in front of Doug. "We shot that bastard point-blank, and he didn't die," he said. "He fell off the ridge and walked away. How do you propose to stop him?"

. Doug took a deep breath. "We're going to starve him," he said. "We're going to cut off his mail."

"Cut off his male what?" someone yelled from the crowd, and there was a chorus of tension-relieving laughter.

Doug smiled. "We're going to stop sending or receiving any mail. Whatever he delivers, don't take it, don't pick it up. Let it sit in your mailboxes. The mail is his only real power. That's all he's ever really done to us." He thought of Billy, thought of Tritia , thought of Howard. "The mail is how he's gotten to us. It's how he's brought us to this point. It's his only weapon. If we can stop the mail, we can stop him."

Arguing broke out and Doug could tell immediately that his idea had not gone over well. He had been afraid of that. It sounded so stupid, so weak, so ineffectual, that it didn't seem as though it would do any good. He saw a couple of people heading for the door.

"Wait," Mike's voice cut authoritatively through the cacophony. He walked across the floor to stand next to Doug. "Hear him out."

The noise abated.

"I know it sounds idiotic," Doug continued. "But we have nothing to lose by trying. The police officer's right. Bullets won't stop him. I don't think he can be killed. But I've been watching him. There was a holiday on the Fourth of July. No mail was delivered. The next day he was thin and sick. This week, when he came back after disappearing, he was even thinner. He needs mail to survive.

That's where he gets his energy or his power or whatever it is. If we cut him off, if no one sends any mail or receives any mail, he will have nothing to do.

He will die."

"Maybe he won't die. Maybe he'll just leave," a woman said.

"Fine. At least we'll be rid of him."

"Then he'll come back."

"And we'll do it again. Or maybe by that time we will have found something else."

People were starting to talk again.

"We all have to do it. Every one of us. If even one person gives him mail, it may be enough to keep him alive." Doug swallowed. His voice cracked. "Look, he attacked my wife and my son. Or he tried to attack them. But he couldn't do anything. He couldn't touch them. He wanted to, he tried to, but in the end the only thing he could do was try to get them to read his mail. That's all he has.

That's his only power."

The sound of the crowd was different this time, louder, less argumentative, hopeful. They wanted to believe. Next to him, Tritia held his hand. She looked up at him and smiled. "No mail!" she yelled. "No mail!" She began to chant in a cheerleader cadence. "No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"

It was picked up by Mike and by some of the people in the front rows. Two of the school's real cheerleaders took up the cause, lending their considerable vocal talents to the chant, and from elsewhere in the audience the other cheerleaders followed suit.

"No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"

The sound grew, spread, and soon the entire gym was filled with the echoing reassuring sounds of theimpromtu cheer.

"No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"

Never before had Doug experienced such a sense of community, such a spirit of cooperative togetherness, such a willful optimism. For the first time, he really and truly believed that they might have a chance to put a stop to this nightmare. He grinned at Tritia , and she grinned back.

The lights in the gym flickered.

"Stay calm," Doug ordered. "Don't panic!" But his voice was lost in the cry of the crowd, in the thump of stamping feet.

A moment later the electricity went off for good.

But no one seemed to notice and the people of the town continued to chant.

"No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"

49

In the morning Doug awoke to see outside his window a winter wonderland.

The sight was beautiful. It had snowed during the night, and ground and porch, trees and bushes were all completely covered with pure glorious white.

Only . . .

Only the air was warm and humid, the sky cloudless, and the ivory blanket that covered the world outside seemed smoothly even, strangely symmetrical.

He opened the back door and looked down.

The ground was not covered with snow.

The ground was covered with envelopes.

He stood there stunned. The envelopes had been placed, facedown, end-to end over everything, their flat edges fitting perfectly against the side of the house in a straight line and continuing over the back porch, over the storage shed, over themanzanita bushes and the trees. The enormity of such an effort was overwhelming, and the fact that it had been completed in one night, directly outside his house while he had been sleeping undisturbed inside, was terrifying.

He was glad that Trish had spent the night at the hospital with Billy. He would not have wanted her to see this.

Gingerly, Doug bent down and picked up the envelope nearest the door, turning it over. It was addressed to him from his mother. He picked up the one next to it, addressed to him from his father. The one next to that was from his Aunt Lorraine.

He had the feeling that the mailman had grouped the envelopes in a specific order and that, if he made the effort to trace the pattern, he would find that the lineage of his life spread outward from that point in the return addresses of the letters.

Doug stood up. He'd thought at first that the whole town had been covered by mail, but he saw almost instantly that past the white blanket covering his own trees was the natural green of real nature. He slipped on his sandals and stepped onto the back porch. The paper crinkled beneath his feet, but he continued forward, determined to see how far the mailman had gone. When he came to the first bush, its leafy shape entirely hidden by the back-to-back envelopes that domed its true form, he extended a cautious hand, curious to see how the envelopes had been attached together.

The dome collapsed.

A house of cards. The mailman had used the envelopes to construct a house of cards, balancing them one on top of the other with no adhesive until they covered the bush.

He walked across the white ground to the first tree, touching it.

The tree covering, too, collapsed in a rain of letters.

In the house the phone rang, its jangling loud in the early-morning stillness. He knew it was probably Trish calling, but he still hurried forward through the bushes and trees, away from the house, starting off letter landslides as he ran. He had to see how far this extended.

He was not surprised to discover that the white blanket stopped at the exact edge of his property line, that the straight sides of the carefully placed envelopes marked a perfect border around the irregular shape of his land.

He dashed back to the house, experiencing a perverse sense of pleasure as the envelopes crunched beneath his feet. The phone was still ringing, and he ran into the bedroom, picking it up as he fell back onto the bed. "Hello?" he said.

"Letters," the mailman sang in a cruel parody of a Las Vegas lounge singer. "We've got letters!"

Doug hung up the phone, his hand suddenly sweaty. His heart was pounding, and not just with the exertion of running. He lay there for a moment, breathing, thinking, then picked up the phone again to dial Mike.

"Letters," the mailman sang through the receiver.

Doug hung up. The mailman was staying on the line, keeping it open, not letting him make or receive calls.

Fine, Doug thought, his mouth set in grim determination. If the mailman wanted to play hardball, hardball was what he was going to get.

He unplugged the receiver. First he would drive to the hospital, see Billy and Trish. Then he would go to the police station. Then he would go to the hardware store and buy some extra garbage cans.

Then he would come back here and rake the yard and throw away all of that fucking mail.

Tritia said that she'd stay at home tonight if Doug wanted, keep him company. Billy was feeling better, she said, and wanted to be alone, didn't want his parents hovering over him every second of the day like he was some kind of baby. But Doug insisted that she remain with their son, telling her that it was important for the boy that she be with him. She said that in that case it was important for both of them to be there, but he told her that he and Mike had a strategy meeting to conduct. They had things to discuss and plan out. She should stay at the hospital.

It was a wise decision, for the next day the property was again covered with mail, although the pure white envelopes of the previous morning had been replaced by an odd assortment of strangely shaped packages, poorly wrapped parcels and filthy postmarked bundles. As before, every inch of ground was covered. The mailman had somehow managed to fit the pieces of this motley collection together like some giant jigsaw puzzle, finding complementary curves for the sides of bent boxes, finding corresponding accordion sides to match mishandled packages.

Doug opened the door and stepped outside. The smell hit him immediately, a rancid fetid odor of rot and decay. Through the ripped corner of one of the packages nearest him he saw a bunch of moldy grapes. The package was addressed to Tritia , obviously one of her Fruit-of-the-Month Club deliveries. Next to that was an irregularly shaped, awkwardly wrapped object covered with postage stamps that could only have been a cat. Blood had soaked through the brown butcher paper. It too was addressed to Tritia .

Doug surveyed his property, a feeling of dread settling over him.

Obviously his plan wasn't working. The whole town was supposed to be ignoring their mail, sending and receiving nothing, and according to Mike, everyone was complying. Yet still the mailman had enough power to do this, to manufacture or gather together hundreds of packages of perversities and within the space of a single night arrange them over his entire property. How could they even hope to fight a being who could pull off something of this magnitude?

But maybe that was the point. Maybe that was why this whole scene had been staged. Maybe that's what the mailman wanted them to think. Maybe the mailman was scared and on the ropes, using everything he had, trotting out his big guns in an effort to demoralize them and bully them into submission.

Or maybe, Doug thought, his disposal of the envelopes yesterday had given the mailman an energy boost. It was possible that _any_ action involving mail, even its disposal, empowered the mailman to a certain extent.

He immediately retreated into the house, threw on his clothes, grabbed his keys, and drove into town to talk to Mike. He asked the policeman to have his men tell everyone that, no matter what happened, they were to leave their mail untouched, not burn it, not throw it away, not do anything with it. Let it pile up if they had to, but don't touch it.

Doug practiced what he preached, leaving the packages in his own yard and spending the night at the hospital with Tritia and Billy. When he returned home the next afternoon, the yard had been cleared. All of the packages were gone and nothing had been left to take their place.

Doug smiled. That, he was certain, had been a tactical error on the mailman's part. The stench and the disease accompanying the rotting fruit, animals, and whatever else had been in the bundles would have eventually forced him to clean his yard, thereby granting the mailman more power. Instead, the mailman had been forced to expend power in order to remove the packages.

The signs were subtle, but they were there.

The mailman was getting scared. He was getting sloppy.

He was slipping.

They just had to wait him out.

50

The days were long. The nights were longer.

The utilities had been off since the day after the packages had disappeared, and both Doug and Trish smelled from not bathing. For meals they had sandwiches and barbecues, drank warm beer and Cokes. During the interminable days, they waited on the porch, trying to read but not reading, or went to the hospital to sit with Billy. The hospital had its own self-powered emergency generators, and while they were not allowed to use the rationed water or spend the night in semi-air-conditioned comfort due to the new overcrowded conditions, at least they had the satisfaction of knowing that Billy was being taken care of.

The psychiatrist who had come up from Phoenix told them after an afternoon-long meeting with Billy that he was a healthy and extremely well adjusted young man and that with the proper counseling he should be able to recover nicely.

At night Doug's fitful sleep was disturbed by dreams. Dreams in which Willis was a ghost town and all of the buildings were made from mail. Dreams in which Tritia lay naked and beckoning on the bed, covered head to toe with canceled stamps. Dreams in which Billy wore a Postal Service uniform and grinningly accompanied the mailman on his hellishly appointed rounds.

The gas in the Bronco was getting low, but Doug couldn't help driving into town to check with the police. Each night the mailman came, delivering mail, depositing it now in the mailbox, and Doug kept thinking that with no visible progress someone was going to crack, was going to accept a letter or, worse, send one. But Mike andTegarden said each time that as far as they could tell, the dam was holding.

The sixth day passed.

The air-conditioning was shut off in the hospital to save the generator fuel, but the windows were open and a slight breeze cooled Billy's room. The two of them played Monopoly while Tritia watched, then Tritia and Billy played Parcheesi while he watched.

How thin was the veneer of civilization, Doug thought. How little it took to send them scurrying back to the caves. It was not laws that separated man from beast. It was not reason. It was not culture or government. It was communication. Communication made possible the niceties of modern life, ensured the continuation of society. A breakdown in communication, particularly in this global age when so much depended on the proper relay of correct information, left people feeling lost and helpless, resulting in an arrest of the normal rules of behavior, paving the road for chaos.

But he was waxing pretentious again. He found himself doing that often, even aloud, which annoyed the hell out of Tritia . He should have learned by now to save those sorts of ruminations for the classroom and not to inject them into real conversations.

The classroom.

How far away school seemed, how quaint and innocent. He tried to think of when school was going to be starting, but though he thought it was pretty soon, he wasn't sure. He realized he didn't know what date it was.

He left Tritia at the hospital while he went to the police station to see what was happening. On the way, he passed by the Circle K, and he slowed down as he saw the mailman opening the blue mailbox in front of the convenience store.

The mailbox was completely empty and he slammed the metal door shut angrily. He looked bad, Doug thought. He had always been thin, but now he seemed gaunt, almost skeletal. His pale skin was bleached nearly bone-white, and there was no differentiation in color between his lips and the rest of his skin. Even his once fiery red hair seemed faded and lackluster.

Doug's heart leapt hopefully in his chest. It was working. He had been right. The mailman might be able to substitute mail, even to generate mail, but to do so he had to have other mail coming in. He smiled to himself. Mail, he thought, could be neither created nor destroyed.

Doug watched the mailman stand. He seemed weak, frail. All they had to do now was wait him out.

The mailman suddenly turned toward him and grinned, eyes fastening sharply and instantly on his own, as though he had known exactly where Doug had been watching the whole time. The effect of those perfect teeth in that skeleton face was horrifying. A comic-book monster come to life. The mailman reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of envelopes, fanning them like cards, offering them to Doug. But Doug pressed down on the gas and sped past the Circle K not looking at the mailman, heart hammering in his chest.

His fear did not survive the trip to the police station. He ran inside.

For the first time, he had something to tell them, good news, and when he described what he had seen, the policemen cheered.

"No mail," Mike said, grinning. "No mail! No mail!"

The others took up the chant.

"No mail! No mail! No mail!"

51

TrilAllison stood in front of the living-room window with his sons, watching as the mailman's red car pulled in front of their driveway. Annie stayed in the kitchen, refusing to look, afraid to look.

The car came to a full stop and the mailman got out. He looked extraordinarily thin, almost emaciated, and even from here,Tril could see the bony fingers emerging from the drooping uniform, could see the haggard gauntness in the pale face.Tril's hands tightened on the windowsill. He was scared, but he was also exhilarated, horrified and at the same time thrilled. It was working. The English teacher had been right. Without any mail to deliver, John Smith was losing his strength. He was dying.

Through the window, he met the mailman's gaze, and for the first time in a long while he did not look away.

The mailman moved over to the wooden mailbox and opened the hinged door.

Out spilled envelopes, white and manila, thin and stuffed, large and small: the untouched mail that had been delivered over the past few days. The mailman looked up again at the house, andTril could see in the white skeletal face a ferocious rage, an expression of pain and hate so raw and unfettered that both boys moved back from the window, too frightened to watch.

ButTril watched.

He watched as the mailman angrily picked the envelopes off the dirt and shoved them back into the box. Watched as he brought more mail from the car and shoved it in as well. Watched as he slammed shut the mailbox door.

The mailman moved around to the driver's side of the car. He glared at the house and mouthed somethingTril could not make out before getting in and driving off in a cloud of dust.

Trilwaited a few moments to make sure he was not going to return, then looked back at Annie, at his sons, picked up the hammer and nails, and went outside to nail the mailbox shut.

Hunt James pulled into the six-space parking lot in front of the building he shared with Dr. Elliott. He had come here to tape up the mail slot in his office door, to make sure that the mailman would not be able to deliver anything to his business address. He strode across the faded and broken asphalt and stepped onto the short sidewalk. In the window of the dentist's office, next to the familiar "No UPS today" sign, he saw a hastily lettered square of white cardboard that said "NO MAIL EVER!"

Good idea, Hunt thought. He used his key to open the door to his own office and flipped on the lights. He strode purposefully across the carpeted floor. From his secretary's desk, he took a thick black felt-tipped pen and a sheet of typing paper as well as a roll of masking tape. Smiling to himself, he began to write.

The mailman drove by the house three times before stopping. David Adams grinned to himself as he saw the red car brake in front of the house. He had dug up the mailbox, had filled in the post hole, and had dumped the whole thing into the back yard. Later, after breakfast, he would cut up the post for kindling and smash the mailbox itself.

The mailman got out of his car and, letters in hand, walked straight up the driveway toward the front door.

David quickly locked the screen door, shut the real door and pulled the curtains, still grinning. The mailman was getting pretty damned desperate. He looked like hell, and he was even delivering mail in the daytime. They had the bastard on the ropes now.

There was a knock at the door. "Mr. Adams!"

David said nothing, did not move.

Another knock. "Mr. Adams!"

David did not respond.

"I know you're in there," the mailman said. He knocked again, loudly, more forcefully. "Mr. Adams? I regret to inform you that you are in violation of federal statute. Since you do not have a post-office box or drawer, you are required by law to have either a mailbox or mail slot at your place of residence so that mail can be properly delivered. If you do not have a mailbox or mail slot, you are interfering with the daily operation of the federal government and, as such, can be prosecuted."

David smiled. There was a hard edge to the mailman's voice and more than a hint of desperation.

"I know you're in there," the mailman repeated. His voice took on a sly tempting quality. "I have things here that I know you'd like to see. Darla's last letter. A letter from her lover. This is good mail today, Mr. Adams. Good mail." David said nothing, though he wanted to scream at the son of a bitch;

remained unmoving, though he wanted to attack. He heard the mailman angrily throw the letters on the stoop and stalk off. A moment later, he heard the start of a car's engine and then a decreasing purr as the car pulled away. David opened the door, opened the curtains, breathed deeply, feeling good.