Bentley Little - The Mailman

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.