The Mailman

It was only a matter of time.

52

Doug and Mike andTegarden sat silently on the lone bench in front of Bayless. From this vantage point, they could see most of the town's business section, and for the past hour they had watched as the mailman had driven up and down the street, desperately trying to find a place to deliver mail. All of the businesses had disposed of their mailboxes or blocked off their mail slots, and most of them had put up signs, some elaborately hand-painted onposterboard by wives and children, some banner-printed by home computer, some crudely scrawled on cardboard:

NO MAIL ON BOARD

ONE LETTER CAN RUIN YOUR WHOLE DAY

I WON'T TOUCH A LETTER UNLESS

YOU PRY IT INTO MY COLD DEAD FINGERS

MAIL IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN

AND OTHER LIVING THINGS

MAIL SUCKS

The mailman's behavior had become increasingly frantic as he darted from shop to shop, gas station to office, his driving increasingly crazy as he sped for the fourth, fifth, and sixth times over the same section of street. Observed from this vantage point, he seemed like a trapped and doomed bug trying to escape from the lethal confines of a killing jar.

Doug was nervous and excited, and he knew the other two men were too, but all three of them had for some reason assumed masks of laconic disinterest, as though they were three old-timers whiling away their hours on a park bench and casually commenting on the sights that passed before their eyes.

"Looks like he's going back to the donut hut,"Tegarden drawled.

"Yep," Mike said.

A part of Doug felt sorry for the mailman. He did not like to see anything hurt or wounded. But he had only to think of Trish and Billy, ofHobie and Stockleyand everyone else, for that sympathy to disappear and be replaced by a grim feeling of satisfaction.

The mailman was getting what he deserved.

"He's trying to shove mail under the door of the catalog store," Mike observed.

"Won't work,"Tegarden said.

The mailman ran wildly back to his car and drove back up the street for the eighth time.

53

The water came on sometime during the ninth morning, the electricity that afternoon.

By the end of the next day, both gas and telephone service had also been restored.

54

The mailman had not been seen for over two days, and when Doug called the police station, Mike told him that the mailman's car had not moved from the front of the post office for fifty-two hours. "I think it's time for us to go in there and check," he said. "Let's see what's going on."

They drove together, in four cars, and Doug couldn't help thinking about Jack and Tim. When this was over, they would have to have a memorial service for them. For all the victims of the mail.

Flies were buzzing on the dried heads of the dead dogs. The air was thick with the putrid odor of the decapitated carcasses. The eight men strode across the parking lot. Directly in front of the door, behind an overturned bench, Doug saw something he hadn't before.

An infant's head.

Speared on a fallen mailbox post.

He looked at Mike, but neither of them said a word. The child's head, like those of the dogs, was dried and old and swarming with flies. The small eyes were clear deflated sacs.

Mike motioned toTegarden , the biggest, strongest man on the force. "Kick it in," he said, gesturing toward the glass door.

Tegardenobliged happily and shattering shards exploded inward.

They stepped through the open door frame.

The interior of the post office was dark, windows completely boarded up, lights off. Brown packaging paper covered the walls and floor and ceiling. The men stepped hesitantly inside, Doug first. The sounds of their movement were loud in the stillness. "Where the hell are you?" Doug called.

There was no answer, and they moved carefully forward as one. The room was a shambles. The tall metal table that had stood against one wall was overturned, and the floor was littered with paper and boxes and pieces of broken furniture.

The body of a rat lay on the front counter, its head gone, chewed off. Next to it, large bones, probably from a dog, had been arranged in precise geometric patterns. The entire countertop was covered with dried blood.

Doug stepped slowly around the counter. The post office seemed empty, felt dead, but he was nervous nonetheless. He tiptoed toward the open door that led to the back room.

From inside the room came a long low sigh.

And a frightened whimper.

Doug stopped in his tracks, heart pounding. Looking behind him, he saw fear on the faces of both the old and young policemen. All of them had heard the noise, and none of them knew what to make of it. Only Mike seemed unaffected. He pushed roughly past Doug, preparing to lead the assault into the rear of the post office, but Doug held him back. He was scared, but he was not about to let Mike do what he knew was his responsibility. "No," he said.

The policeman looked at him.

"I want to go alone."

Mike shook his head, pulling out his revolver, snapping off the safety.

"It's too dangerous."

"It's not dangerous. Not anymore." He looked into the policeman's troubled eyes. "This is between me and him."

Mike was silent for a moment, his gaze searching, then he nodded, something like agreement or understanding entering his expression. "All right,"

he said. "But take this." He handed Doug the gun. "You know how to use it?"

Doug shook his head. "Not really. But it doesn't matter. It won't work on him anyway. You know that."

"Take it just in case."

The whimper came again. It sounded like someone in pain.

"That's it --" Mike began, moving forward.

"No," Doug said, grabbing his arm, pulling him back. "I'm going in alone."

The policeman stopped, stared at him, but did not move away. Doug held his gaze, hefted the revolver in his hand. "I'll be okay."

Mike nodded slowly. "Okay," he said finally. "But we'll be right here if you need us." The policeman's words were reassuring, his tone anything but. "If I hear anything weird, I'm going in."

"Got it."

Doug stepped into the back room.

Into the lair of the mailman.

He glared at Doug from the rubble. Or, rather, _it_ glared at him. For the mailman now appeared only vaguely human. His body had shrunk, become thin and twisted and malformed like that of some giant insect. The red hair on top of his head, now blondish pink, had grown out tremendously and hung down in thick irregular tufts. His teeth looked overlarge in his caved-in head and sharp, as though they had been filed. Around him the desks and shelves, machines and bins, canvas bags and postal paraphernalia, were littered in a jumbled chaotic mess.

Behind Doug the door slammed shut.

The mailman laughed, a rasping chuckle that sent a shiver of primal fear down Doug's spine. The air was filled with a strange heaviness, a crackling eddying current of power that felt like charged electricity.

In the shifting emphasis of light caused by the closed door, Doug saw for the first time that he and the mailman were not alone in the room. In the far corner, against the wall, almost hidden by the shadow of a vertically overturned table, was an unmoving figure with wildly uncombed hair. The figure whimpered pitiably. Doug stepped forward until he could see a face.

Giselle Brennan.

His breath caught within him. Giselle was wrapped, mummy like, in brown packaging paper. One arm had broken free from the covering and was twisted at an unnatural angle, affixed to her side with rubber bands and encased in layers of folded orange and blue Express Mail envelopes. Blood had seeped through the wrapping in innumerable spots and had blackened and dried in even, regular stripes. Giselle's face, her neck and chin and cheeks, were crisscrossed with paper cuts, straight intersecting lines that sliced through skin and formed a field of squares, rectangles, parallelograms. Paper cuts also scored her lips, making it appear as though they had been sewn shut. One ear was torn off.

"Giselle," Doug said, moving forward.

She moaned.

It was then that he saw on the white skin of her forehead several wavy lines of black ink protruding from a circle filled with writing.

The mark of cancellation.

From under her hairline he saw an even row of pasted stamps.

He turned on the mailman. "What is this?" he demanded. "What happened?

What the hell have you done to her?"

The mailman laughed again, the rasping sound as grating as that of fingernails scraping across a chalkboard. "Mail accident," he said. His voice was a low whisper, barely recognizable.

"You bastard," Doug breathed. He suddenly realized what the mailman had done. He had turned her into a package. A fucking package ready to be mailed.

The creature coughed. "The Postal Service cannot be held responsible for injuries occurring as a result of delivered mail. If she had been injured as a result of her work, she would have been covered under federal employment statutes. But she is a part-time worker injured in anonjob related accident. I

have helped her as much as I can. I have bandaged her wounds. I can do no more.

Now it is up to you." There was hunger in hisinsectile eyes. "If you do not take her to the hospital immediately, she will die. It may already be too late."

This time the young woman's moan was a word. "Help."

Doug stood unmoving, not knowing what to do. The seconds seemed like hours, endlessly long. He could almost hear them ticking off, one after the other. The room was still, silent, and so, he noticed, was the room out front, the town outside. Not a sound disturbed the perfect quiet. It was as if the whole world awaited his decision.

"Help me," Giselle pleaded. Her voice was weaker than her moaning. Fresh blood spread over her chin from her serrated lips.

"She will die unless you save her," the mailman whispered.

This was not something that could be decided quickly. This was not the sort of answer that could be decided byeeny-meeny-miney-moe , in which the outcome didn't matter. The outcome _did_ matter, and both the possibilities were wrong. He took a deep breath. If he had been a doctor, he might have been able to judge if recovery was possible or death inevitable, he might have been able to base his decision on knowledge and experience. But he knew nothing.

He needed time to figure this out. He needed time to ponder, analyze, study the situation.

But there was no time.

"Mr.Albin ," the mailman whispered.

"Help," Giselle pleaded.

Doug closed his eyes. Everything within him, his heart, his soul, all of those elements that made him human were telling him to get moving and take her to the hospital. But a stubborn core of icy resolve kept him from acting. If he helped Giselle, all would be lost. The mailman, obviously, was near death. This was merely a last gasp, a final attempt on his part to turn the tide. If Doug accepted this "mail," it might energize him enough that he might be able to really fight back. If mail's power was proportionate with its weight or value, Giselle was the equivalent of hundreds of checks and letters.

"Help me."

He could not let her die. She might die anyway, but he could not be responsible for her death. It would mean sacrificing all of the work, all of the effort performed by himself and everyone else in town; it could even mean that the mailman would be restored to full power, free to kill other people. But Doug could not stand idly by and watch Giselle die. He had to take her to the hospital. By refusing to condemn her to death, he might be condemning others to death. But he had to take that chance.

He took a step forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the mailman's skeletal arm trace a pattern in the air. He stopped, turning.

A tear rolled down Giselle's cheek, diverted by the paper cuts into increasingly smaller rivulets. "Mr.Albin ," she cried softly.

The mailman's twisted lips moved silently. His eyes wereclqsed .

"Don't let me die," Giselle pleaded.

Her voice sounded different than usual, Doug noticed, more rhythmic, less natural, and there was something about her words that seemed stiltedly formal, which did not ring true. He looked from Giselle to the mailman and back again.

The mailman's head moved to the right.

Giselle's head moved to the right.

He stood unmoving, unsure of what to do.

"You're the only one that can save me," Giselle pleaded, her voice fading.

Doug stiffened. "The only one _that_ can save me."

_That_.

Giselle would have said "who."

She was already dead. She had been dead even before he had stepped through the door. He looked closely into the young woman's face, saw now the slightly glassy sheen of her eyes, the vaguely translucent thickness of the tear that had coursed down her serrated cheek. She had died sometime earlier, maybe today, maybe yesterday, maybe the day before, and the mailman had kept her here to use as bait, knowing Doug would come eventually and knowing that he would not be able to let her die. The mailman had played her like a puppet, manipulating her limited facial expressions, using her voice to say his words, animating her dead form with whatever was left of his power.

"Nice try," Doug said coldly.

The mailman opened his eyes, glared. Their glances locked, and this time Doug did not look away. His gaze remained hard, even, unblinking. The mailman's stare was equally unwavering, but the strength was tentative, a front maintained at great cost. There was defeat behind the iron, fear behind the aggression, recognition that he had miscalculated. He had lost, and he knew that he had lost, and he knew that Doug knew he had lost.

"You're finished," Doug said.

The mailman hissed. Behind them, Giselle's body slumped to the ground in a loud crinkle of paper as around the room letters, envelopes, bills, began swirling up from the floor as though caught in a dust devil. Doug half-expected the mail to attack him, to fly at his face, but all it did was circle impotently upward in the air.

The mailman did not even have enough power left to control a few small envelopes.

"It's over," Doug said.

The door flew open, Mike,Tegarden , and the others bursting in. "We couldn't --" Mike began. He saw the swirling letters, saw Giselle's body.

"Jesus!"

Tegardenaimed his revolver instantly and fired at the mailman. The bullet passed harmlessly through him. The mailman laughed, a rasping chuckle that was supposed to be frightening but somehow was not.

Doug suddenly remembered that he was holding a weapon himself.

The mailman pulled an envelope from the air. He lurched forward on skeleton feet, the envelope in his outstretched claw. He smiled up atTegarden .

"For you," he croaked.

The policeman shook his head in disgust.

The mailman's smile faltered.

"Let's get out of here." Doug's voice was calm and self-assured. "We'll come back in two more days." He returned the revolver to Mike.

Mike looked from Doug to the mailman, then back again, taking everything in. He nodded silently and motioned the others to leave.

"No!" the mailman rasped, screamed.

They ignored him as they walked over the broken glass out of the office.

55

Doug awoke fully alert, the dream he'd been experiencing disappearing instantly without leaving even a vestigial memory. At first he thought he must have been awakened by a noise -- the telephone, a knock on the door, something falling over -- but the air was still and silent, only the ever-present sound of the crickets outside disturbing the peaceful night air. He glanced at the clock, its blue letters glowing in the darkness. Three. Three o'clock. The dark hour of the soul. He had read that somewhere, "the dark hour of the soul." Three in the morning was supposed to be the time when the human body is physically closest to death, when all functions are at their lowest ebb.

So why did he feel so up, so alert, so aware?

Outside, the crickets stopped chirping and in the resulting silence he heard a low bass oscillation, a slight auditory disturbance that he knew would resolve itself into something familiar but that he now could not quite place.

The noise grew louder, approaching, and he realized that it was the sound of a car engine.

The sound of the mailman's car engine.

It wasn't possible. Yesterday the mailman had been too weak to move, almost too weak to stand, in nowhere-near-good-enough shape to drive a car. Even if he had successfully delivered a letter, or several letters, between then and now, it was impossible for him to have so suddenly improved.

But there was no mistaking the sound of the car. In the stillness of the night he heard its tires crunching gravel, heard the low purr as it idled at the foot of the drive.

The low purr.

The sound was not frightening to him, but it was compelling, and he sonically followed its approach.

The purr.

The alertness with which he'd awakened began to fade. He wanted to sit up in bed, to walk to the living room and peek put the front window to see just what was happening, but either his mind was too tired to issue the command or his leg muscles were too tired to follow it, and he remained in bed, listening to the purr.

The purr.

He realized that the low drone was acting as a somnolent, that its unchanging rhythm was hypnotizing him back into sleep, but he was unable to fight against it. His eyes began to close. He faded back into dreamland still hearing the low sound of the quiet engine.

He knew when he awoke that the mailman was gone. He knew without hearing, without seeing, without checking. It was a feeling, a subtle difference in the air, in the atmosphere, that he could not have explained if he'd had to. An oppressiveness was missing; and the feeling of lurking dread to which he had grown accustomed, which had awakened with him each morning, which had seemed after all this time to have become an integral part of his makeup, had disappeared.

He picked up the phone and called Mike. The policeman was not at home, but he was at the police station, and he answered immediately. "Willis Police Department, Mike Trenton speaking."

"Mike? This is Doug."

"He's gone."

Doug was silent for a moment, closing his eyes, feeling the relief wash over him. Confirmation. He was gone. "I knew he would be," Doug said.

"I noticed this morning as I drove in that his car was not in the post office parking lot, and I went in there withTegarden and Jeff. Nothing. The place was empty. He may be coming back, though --"

"He's not," Doug said.

"We don't --"

"He's not."

"You may be right," Mike said slowly. "We got a report this morning over the radio, from the DPS, that there was a single-vehicle accident out on Black Canyon toward Camp Verde. There're no details, but it could be him; the car was headed in the right direction. The vehicle and driver were so badly burned that they were unrecognizable, but we'll know soon enough. Even if we can't find dental records, an examination of the car should show if it was his make and model, and we can go on from there. We should know in a few days."

"It doesn't matter," Doug said.

"It doesn't matter? You don't seem too concerned about this."

"He's gone. Can't you feel it? I don't know whether we drove him out or he accomplished what he wanted to accomplish or he died or whatever. But he's gone.

He's not here. He's not coming back."

"I hope you're right."

"I am right."

"Wait a minute." There were muffled voices on the other end of the line as Mike put his hand over the receiver. "You still there?" Mike asked.

"Still here."

"I just got a note from Jeff that a postal inspector called. He's coming up later this week."

Doug smiled. "A little late, isn't he?"

The policeman chuckled. "A little."

They were silent for a moment, and Doug realized that for the first time in over a month the two of them had nothing to say to each other. "Well, I'll let you go," he said. "But I'll be by later. We'll talk."

"Okay."

"It is over, Mike."

"I believe you."

Doug laughed. "_Now_ you believe me."

"Get out of here."

"Later," Doug said. He hung up the phone. What had the mailman been after, he wondered, and had he found it or done it or completed it? He had arrived in Willis two months ago and had left the town a shambles. Had that been what he wanted? Or had it been something else, something more? Perhaps they had thwarted him before he could finish what he had started. Or perhaps he had really had no motive.

Unbidden, Doug thought of the letter of resignation William Faulkner had tendered after working for a short time for the Postal Service: "I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp."

Perhaps it had been a motive as simple as that.

But they would never know, he realized. They would never know what the mailman had wanted, or whether he had failed or succeeded.

It didn't matter, though.

None of it mattered now.

It was over. It was finished.

He and Tritia brought Billy home from the hospital later in the morning, and Doug turned on the television while Trish made a bed for their son on the couch. For the first time in nearly two weeks the house did not seem to Doug like a violated fortress, like a temporary shelter in which he slept. It felt once more like a home.

Tritia poured Billy a glass of 7-Up and took it to him.

"Dad?" Billy asked from the couch.

Doug turned. "Yes?"

"It's over, isn't it?" he asked.

He nodded at his son. "Yes," he said. "Finally."

"Finally," Billy breathed gratefully, settling back on the pillow.

They made sure Billy was comfortable, then Tritia went into the kitchen to fix his favorite lunch -- macaroni and cheese with chopped-up hot dogs. It was about as nutritious as lint, but this was a special occasion and he deserved a special lunch to go with it.

Doug turned the TV to Channel 5 so Billy could watch _Dick Van Dyke_, and he watched it with him for a few minutes. On an impulse, during a commercial break, he walked outside, onto the porch. He stood there for a moment, then began to walk down the drive to the mailbox. It was a beautiful late-summer day.

The temperature was hot but not uncomfortably so, the harshness of June and July mellowed and gone. In the trees, bluebirds chattered happily and the sky above was cloudlessly blue. There was a slight breeze, not strong enough to disturb anything, but strong enough to act as a natural fan and keep his face cool as he walked.

He reached the mailbox and stopped. The box was open and Doug moved forward to peer inside.

Three coal-black envelopes lay neatly stacked next to the opening.

He remembered the sound of the car the night before, and he felt the return of a familiar coldness. Reaching in, he pulled the envelopes out. The paper felt strange and thick to his touch, slightly slimy, as though it was made from something organic. The contents were heavy and oddly shaped. A wave of revulsion passed through him. He had the sudden urge to drop all three envelopes on the ground, to stomp on them, to bury them with dirt. Without looking at their contents, he knew that whatever was inside the envelopes was evil.

He examined each piece of mail. On the front, in red scripted Old English letters, were his, Tritia 's , and Billy's names. No addresses.

He wondered if other people in town had received letters like these. If everyone in town had received letters like these.

He stared down at the mail.

Inside the envelope addressed to him, something squirmed.

He dropped all three envelopes on the ground and involuntarily jumped back. He was about to stomp on them, to kill and crush whatever was enclosed within the black paper, but he had a better idea and ran as quickly as he could back up the drive to the car. Pulling open the driver's door, he leaned across the seat and opened the glove compartment. He dug down under the flashlight, the repair receipts, theHandi -Wipes, and the AAA maps until he found what he was looking for.

A book of matches.

He ran back down the drive to where the three envelopes lay in the dirt.

Gingerly, he picked up the two marked with Tritia 's and Billy's names and placed them atop his own. He struck a match, but it blew immediately out. He tried again, cupping his hand around the timid flame, and was rewarded when the fire grew. He bent down, holding the match to the edge of the top envelope, hoping it would catch on fire.

It did, and he watched as the strange multicolored flames, now blue, now red, spread over the thick slimy paper. He had half-hoped to see what was inside once the fire had eaten away the envelope, but at the last second he looked away. Something told him it was not knowledge he wanted to have.

The envelopes burned quickly, brightly, and when the fire had done its work, there was only a small pile of smoldering ashes left. Doug kicked the pile, and blackened flakes scattered in the road, the light breeze sending the burned dust skittering across the dirt, fanning out in all directions. He watched the ashes dance into the ditch, under the brush, over the groundcover, mingling with the elements of the forest until all trace of them had disappeared.

He stood there for a moment, staring at the spot where the letters had been. Looking over at the empty open mail-box, he realized that this was the first time since the beginning of the summer that he was not afraid of it.

He was free.

The town was free.

The mailman was gone.

He breathed deeply. Lunch was waiting for him. He smelled hot dogs on the breeze. And macaroni and cheese. From the house he heard the welcome sounds of Billy's voice and Tritia 's voice and a television laugh track.

He had things to do. He had a storage shed to build. Smiling, feeling happy, feeling good, he closed the mailbox door and walked back up the drive toward home.