David Morrell - Black Evening

Three weeks ago, another paper boy disappeared, this time right here in Crowell, and you remember how the neighbors searched the same as in Granite Falls, and his picture was in the Gazette , and the parents offered a reward, but they didn't find him, only his sack of papers stuffed behind some bushes like the last time. The police said it looked like the same M.O. That's fancy police talk for "pattern." But heck, you don't have to go to police school to figure out that both kids disappeared the same way. And one kid might have run away, but not two of them, leastways not in the snow.

Oh, yeah, that's something I forgot to mention. Both mornings when the kids disappeared, it was snowing real hard, so there weren't any tracks except for the neighbors searching. No kid runs away in a blizzard, I'll tell you. The rest of us paper boys nearly went on what my Dad calls a strike. Actually it was our parents wanted us to quit delivering. They demanded police protection for us, but the police said we were overreacting, we shouldn't panic, and anyway there weren't enough police to protect us all. The Gazette said if we stopped delivering, the paper would go out of business. They asked our parents to keep a close watch on us, and they made us sign a contract agreeing to give up seventy-five cents a month, so the paper could insure us in case something happened to us on the route.

Well, that made my Dad twice as mad. He told me to quit, and I almost did, but I couldn't stop thinking of all the money I like to spend on Saturdays. My Dad says I was born a capitalist and I'll probably grow up to vote Republican, whatever that means, but I told him I won a ribbon last year on the sixth-grade track team, and I could run faster than any pervert, I bet. Well, he just laughed and shook his head and told me he'd go out with me every morning, but my Mom looked like she was going to cry. I guess Moms are like that, always worrying. Besides, I said, I only have to worry if it's snowing. That's the only time the kids disappeared. My Dad said that made sense, but all my Mom said was "We'll see" which is always bad news, like if you ask for a friend to stay overnight and your Mom says "We'll see," you figure she means "no".

But she didn't. The next morning, my Dad went with me on the route, and it was one of those sharp cold times when your boots squeak on the snow and the air's so clean you can hear a car start up three blocks away. I knew for sure I'd hear any pervert if he tried sneaking up on me, and anyway my Dad was with me, and all the other carriers had it as easy as I did. Still, every morning I got up praying it wasn't snowing, and lots of times it had snowed in the night but stopped, and when I saw the house across from ours clear in the streetlight, I felt like somebody had taken a rope from around my chest.

So we went on like that, getting up at five-thirty and doing the papers, and once my Dad got the flu, so my Mom went with me. You can believe it, she was nervous, more than me I guess. You should have seen us rushing to finish the route all the time we were looking over our shoulders. Mr. Carrigan was yelling at his wife like always, and Mr. Blanchard was crying for his own wife, and Mr. Lang was drinking beer when he opened his door and scared me, getting his paper. I almost wet my pants, no fooling. He asked if I wanted to step in and get warm, but I backed off, saying, "No, Mr. Lang, no, thank you," holding up my hands and shaking my head. I forgot about his stairs behind me. I bet I'd have broken my arm even sooner than now if he'd shoveled them. But the snow made them soft, and when I tumbled to the bottom, I landed in a drift. He tried to help me, but I jumped up and ran away.

Then last Sunday I woke up, and even before I looked out, I knew from the shriek of the wind that it was snowing. My heart felt hard and small. I almost couldn't move. I tasted this sour stuff from my stomach. I couldn't see the house across the street. The snow was flying so thick and strong I couldn't even see the maple tree in our front yard. As warm as I'd been in bed, I shivered like I was outside and the wind was stinging through my pajamas. I didn't want to go, but I knew that'd be all the excuse my Mom'd need to make me quit, so I forced myself. I dressed real quick, long under-wear and the rest, and put on my down-filled coat that almost doesn't fit me anymore and my mitts and ski mask, and it wasn't just my Mom or Dad who went with me that time, but both of them, and I could tell they felt as scared as I was.

Nothing happened, as far as we knew. We finished the route and came home and made hot chocolate. All our cheeks were red, and we went back to sleep, and when we woke up, my Dad turned on the radio. I guess you know what we heard. Another paper boy had disappeared, right here in Crowell. That's an M.O. if I ever heard of one. Three carriers gone, and two of them from town, and all three when it was snowing.

The storm kept on, so this time there weren't even any tracks from the police and the neighbors searching. They couldn't find his sack of papers. A couple of people helping out had to go to the hospital because of frost bite. The missing boys didn't live on our side of town, but even so, my Dad went over to help. With the streets so drifted, he couldn't drive – he had to walk. When he came back after dark with his parka all covered with snow, he said it was horrible out there. He couldn't get warm. He just kept sitting hunched in front of the fireplace, throwing logs on, rubbing his raw-looking hands and shivering. My Mom kept bringing him steaming drinks that she called hot toddies, and after an hour, he slumped back snoring. Mom and me had to help him up to bed. Then Mom took me back downstairs and sat with me in the living room and told me I had to quit.

I didn't argue. Crowell's got forty thousand people. If you figure three-quarters of them get the paper and most of the carriers have forty customers, that's seven hundred and fifty paper boys. I worked that out on my Dad's pocket calculator. Kinda surprising – that many paper boys – if you're not a carrier yourself. But if you're on the streets at five-thirty every morning like I am, then you see a lot of us. There's a kid on almost every corner, walking up somebody's driveway, leaving a paper in front of a door. Not counting the kid in Granite Falls, that's two missing carriers out of seven hundred and fifty. That might make the odds seem in my favor, but the way I figured it, and my Mom said it too, that many paper boys only gave the nut a lot of choice. I like to play video games and all, but the money I earned wasn't worth disappearing the way those other boys did with my sack of papers stuffed behind some bushes, which by the way is where they found the third kid's sack like the others, when the snow stopped. After we put my Dad to bed and my Mom looked out the living room window, she made a funny noise in her throat. I walked to her and saw the house across the street, all shimmery, covered with snow and glinting from the streetlight. Any other time, it would've looked peaceful, like a Christmas card. But I felt sick, like all that white had something ugly underneath. I was standing on a vent for the furnace, and I heard the gas burner turn on. Warm air rushed up my pajama leg. All the same, I shivered.

I've told you I quit. But my Dad says we've got something called a body clock inside us. It comes from being used to a regular routine, like when you know even if you don't have your watch on that it's time for your favorite TV program or you know you'd better get home 'cause your Mom'll have supper ready. I wasn't going to deliver papers, but I woke up at five-thirty the same as usual, even if Mom didn't wake me. For just a second, I told myself I'd better hurry. Then I remembered I wasn't going to deliver the papers anymore. I slumped back in bed and tried to go back to sleep, but I kept squinting at the digital clock Mom and Dad gave me last Christmas, and the red numbers kept changing, getting later. 5:40. Then 5:45. At last I couldn't bear feeling guilty, like I'd done something wrong even though I hadn't. I crawled from bed and opened my curtains and peered at the dark snow in our driveway. I could see the tire tracks on the street where the guy from the Gazette had pulled up and thrown my bundle. It was all by itself in the driveway, sunk in the snow. It was wrapped in a garbage bag to keep it dry, this big black shape with all this white around it.