Bentley Little - The Mailman

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

So she decided to walk over and see her friend.

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

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

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

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

"It's me, Trish!"

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

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

"Hannah!"

"Get out of here, bitch."

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

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

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

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

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

"I don't know what you --"

"Get out of here!" Hannah screamed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30

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

"Approximately when will that be?" Doug asked.

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

"Are we talking minutes or months here?"

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

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

Or something along those lines.

Something to do with the mail.

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

31

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

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

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

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

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

Hobiehad not even answered his phone.

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

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

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

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

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