Bentley Little - The Mailman

"There's no road to this spot," Doug said. "He had to walk here, to carry all those sacks, however many there were." He pointed up at the cliff beside them. "I figure he dropped them from up there. It's the only way they could be so scattered and the only way they could get into those top branches."

"But why?" Tritia asked.

He shook his head slowly. "I don't know."

A slight breeze stirred the trees, several envelopes falling from the branches on which they were perched into the creek, and the three of them stood there, silent, unmoving, as the envelopes swirled around their legs and continued downstream.

10

Doug tried to call Howard after they returned home from the picnic, but he wasn't at either his house or the post office. Or, if he was, he wasn't answering the phone. Doug let the phone ring fifteen times before hanging up.

"That mailman'll be fired for this once Howard finds out," he told Tritia . "It's a federal offense to tamper with the mail. He'll probably go to prison."

He hoped the mailman would go to prison.

They had picked up several envelopes from the creek and had brought them home. They'd looked for mail addressed to themselves but hadn't been able to find any, so they'd settled for envelopes addressed to people they knew. The rescued mail was still in the car. He was planning to show it to Howard as proof. Doug spent the rest of afternoon trying to call Howard, trying to read, trying to listen to the radio, trying to start on the storage shed, but he was anxious, hyper, and could not seem to settle down enough to concentrate on any one thing.

They had spaghetti for dinner that night. Billy complained because it was homemade, with herbs and vegetables from the garden, but he ate it anyway. "Next time," he advised, "let's just have Ragu like normal people."

"This is better than anything you could buy at the store," his father told him.

"And healthier too," his mother added.

Billy grimaced as he swallowed the food.

Doug tried to call Howard again after dinner, but when he picked up the phone, it was dead, no click, no dial tone. He jiggled the twin buttons in the cradle but to no avail. "Something's wrong with the phone," he said. "Did either of you call anyone recently?"

"No one's touched it since the last time you tried to call Howard," Tritia said, clearing the table.

"I'll try the one in the bedroom." He walked into the bedroom, picked up the receiver, but this phone was dead too. He hit the receiver once, hard, against the nightstand and put it to his ear, listening. Nothing. "Damn," he muttered, slamming it down. He'd have to stop by the phone company as well as the post office tomorrow. He stared at the white plastic telephone. He hated dealing with the phone company. Every time he went into their office he saw four or five workers lounging around, trying to pick up on the receptionist, but whenever he asked for someone to stop by his house to investigate a problem, it took at least three days to schedule the call, no matter how simple the problem was, no matter how great the rush.

"Nothing?" Tritia asked as he came back down the hall.

He shook his head. "It's dead."

"Well, there's nothing we can do until tomorrow." She finished putting the dishes into the sink. "You want to wash or dry?"

"Dry," he said tiredly.

She handed him a towel.

There was nothing to watch on either regular TV or cable, and after doing the dishes they decided to put in a videotape. "Something we can all agree on," Tritia said.

Billy trudged upstairs. "I'm watching regular shows."

"I said we're going to watch something we can all agree on," she called after him.

"TV shows are better than movies," Billy called back.

She looked at Doug. " 'TV shows are better than movies.' Did you hear that? Somewhere we went drastically wrong with that child."

He chuckled. "Okay, what's it going to be, then? _Deep Throat_? _Love Goddesses_?"

She hit his shoulder. "Be quiet. He can hear you."

"Yes I can," Billy called from upstairs.

"See?" She picked up the list of their videotapes from the table, scanning it. "Let's watch _Annie Hall_," she said finally. "I haven't seen that for a while."

"Sounds good." Doug got up and went over to the bookcase, turning his head sideways to read the titles on the videotape boxes until he found the right one.

_Annie Hall_ was on the same tape as _The Haunting_ and _Burnt Offerings_, sandwiched in between the two horror movies, and he had to fast-forward the tape to get to it.

"Last chance," he called upstairs as the credits began.

Billy did not even bother to respond.

The movie was as funny, and as on-target, as ever, and Doug was glad that they'd decided to watch a comedy. It helped take his mind off everything else that was going on.

Woody was just entering Christopher Walken's room to talk about night driving when the lights in the house suddenly dimmed into darkness and the television blinked off with a crackle of electronic static. The VCR hummed as it slowly powered down.

"Blackout," Tritia announced. She stood up and felt her way to the kitchen, where she took a flashlight from the junk drawer. She also withdrew a book of matches and two candles. "Are you coming downstairs?" she yelled to Billy. "No. I'm going to bed."

"At eight-thirty?"

"There's nothing else to do."

"You could come downstairs and read by candlelight with us," Doug suggested facetiously.

Billy loudly snorted his derision.

Tritia lit the candles, placing them in candle holders, while Doug moved over to the front windows. "It's kind of weird to have a blackout with no storm," he said, pushing aside the curtains. He peered into the darkness, toward the other homes down the road, and thought he saw yellowish light filtered through the branches of the trees. "That's strange," he said.

"What?"

"I think the Nelsons still have power."

"I could call them --"

"No phone," he reminded her.

She laughed. "It's a conspiracy."

"It's an adventure. We're cut off from the world, all alone. Kind of exciting, don't you think?"

"And romantic," she added, moving next to him. She put a candle on the windowsill.

"I'm still awake!" Billy yelled. "Don't do anything that'll embarrass you later."

They both laughed, and Doug felt Tritia 's arm snake around his waist. She drew him closer, giving him a light kiss that barely missed his mouth. "We'll wait until he's asleep," she whispered, promised.

Tritia woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Doug was asleep next to her, breathing regularly and half-snoring, and she quietly, carefully, pushed the sheet from her body and swung her legs off the bed, glancing at the digital clock on the dresser. The blue liquid quartz numbers said it was three-fifteen. She had put on her panties and nightdress after they'd made love, but she still slipped on a robe before padding across the hall to the bathroom. She'd never felt comfortable walking around the house undressed. The full moon shone through the opaque window above the bathtub like a streetlight, partially illuminating the small room. She pulled up her robe and nightdress, pulled down her panties, and sat down on the toilet to pee. When she was through, she pulled up her panties, flushed the toilet, and went into the kitchen to get a drink.

The night was quiet, but not as quiet as it should have been. Below the melodic chirping cricket music and the occasional cry of a nocturnal bird was another, less natural, noise. A low even rumbling that started and stopped and grew ever closer.

A car engine.

Tritia moved into the living room and bent forward to peek through a slit in the closed curtains. Who would be driving around here at this hour? Certainly not the Nelsons or the Tuckers or any of the other people who lived around them.