Bentley Little - The Mailman

"Fuckers," the mailman said softly. He moved backward to the very edge of the cliff, darting agilely from rock to rock, movingsurefootedly across treacherous stretches of loosely packed dirt away from them.

Mike fired a warning shot in the air, and the mailman stopped. Mike aimed the pistol at him. "If you make one more move, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

Doug was not sure whether Mike was serious or not, but the mailman thought he was, and he remained in place.

"Tim," Mike said, "cuff him."

Tim nodded, moved forward, open cuffs in hand. "Mr. Smith, you are under arrest for --"

He never finished the sentence. The mailman quickly reached out and, before Hibbard had a chance to react, grabbed the handcuffs and yanked them from the policeman's grip. Tim lunged for the cuffs, but the mailman stepped neatly aside and with a quick well-placed push sent the young policeman over the edge of the ridge. There was a raw scream of terror that was cut off almost immediately. Doug heard the sickening thump-crack of the body hitting rock and, for a second, a fault echo of the scream before the echo, too, was cut off.

The mailman grinned. "Next?"

It had happened in a matter of seconds, almost before Doug knew what was going on, but Lt. Jack Shipley was already in action, moving forward, pistol pointed directly at the mailman's midsection. The mailman's white hand darted out, reaching for the gun.

Jack shot.

The bullet hit the mailman full in the chest, blood spurting from the ragged hole. The mailman toppled backward from the force of the blast, but he managed to grab the gun anyway. With a quick yank, he pulled the policeman with him over the edge. Jack was too startled to scream or react in any way. The mailman fell over the cliff, clutching tightly to the policeman, and the two of them tumbled to the rocks below. In the second before he fell, Doug thought he saw a smile on the mailman's bloody lips.

The rest of them ran to the edge, looking down, but the ground below was dark. Several policemen switched on their flashlights.

The intersecting beams quickly found and illuminated Jack's broken unmoving form.

The beams crossed and crisscrossed, searching the rocky floor below, spotlighting inch by inch the ground surrounding the spot where Jack had fallen.

Tim lay nearby, arms twisted to the sides in impossible angles, head cracked open on a boulder. The lights lingered, then moved on, hitting trees, hitting bushes. Doug said nothing, and neither did any of the other men, but they were all thinking the same thing, and they were all scared shitless.

The beams continued to explore the terrain below the ridge, covering and recovering the same area.

But there were only two bodies on the ground.

The mailman was gone.

46

Doug sat on the porch and looked at his watch. It was after midnight already. He had been here for four hours, since leaving Trish at the hospital.

He had wanted to stay too, but the doctor on duty, not Dr. Maxwell, had said that only one parent would be allowed to spend the night.

Doug had driven home alone.

On the ridge, he had hitched a ride back with Jeff Brickman, the officer who had volunteered to return to the station and coordinate communication while the other men figured out how to bring up the bodies. Jeff was going to try to get through to the county sheriffs office or the state police, and Doug seriously hoped he succeeded. For now, the policemen were following Mike, but he could already see them falling into disarray with the regular chain of command broken. When he had left, they were almost to the drawing-straws level of assigning responsibilities. It frightened Doug to see how easily such a trained group of individuals, such a structured organization, could fall apart, and he was glad when he was once again in the Bronco and driving.

He wondered now what the police were doing.

He thought of calling, but decided against it.

He finished off the last swallow of his fifth beer and stared up at the stars. Far above, one of the lighter heavenly bodies was traveling west to east in a steady line. A satellite. Lower, he saw the blinking lights of an airplane pass by, though the airplane made no sound.

Outside Willis, the world continued on.

He had called Tritia every half-hour, but she kept telling him there was no change, Billy was still sleeping. The last call had obviously woken her up, and she had irritably told him to stop calling, she would tell him when something happened.

Stop calling.

He wondered if she blamed him for what had happened.

He lay back in the soft seat, unmoving, unthinking, ready himself to drift drowsily into sleep, when he realized suddenly that the atmosphere had changed.

Something was not quite right. He sat up, alert and awake. The crickets were silent, he noticed. There was no sound, no noise at all.

Yes, there was a noise.

From up the road, from the direction of the Nelsons', he heard the low purr of an engine drawing closer.

He froze, unable to react, unable to do anything.

The sound approached, growing louder in the stillness. He wanted to run and hide, to get into the house and lock the door and shut the curtains, but he remained in place.

And there it was, at the far end of the drive, the red car of the mailman, pulling in front of the mailbox.

He was dead. Doug had seen him shot, had seen him fall over the edge of the ridge. He was dead.

Doug stared at the red car. The driver's window rolled partially down and a white hand emerged from the dark interior, placed a letter in the box, then waved tauntingly good-bye as the car pulled away.

It was several moments later before the crickets started up again.

Doug's heart slowed, but he remained on the porch, unmoving. The mailman could not be killed. He could not die. There was nothing they could do. Doug prayed to a God he had not talked to in decades, but there was silence on the other end of the line. He sat there, unmoving.

He was still awake five hours later when dawn arose in the east.

47

He called the hospital before he went over, but Billy was still asleep.

Good. That would give him time to get there. He wanted to be at his son's side when he awoke.

Tritia was seated, bleary-eyed, on her bed next to Billy's. She was dressed, her clothes wrinkled from having been slept in, her hair mussed and tangled. He hugged her tightly.

"You look like hell," she said.

"You don't look much better."

They both looked at Billy. Asleep, his features seemed restful, normal, as though nothing had happened to him and he was going to awaken the same as always. But he would not be the same. He would never be the same again.

"He's back," Doug said. "The mailman. I saw him last night. He delivered our mail." He had told her the mailman had been shot and killed, leaving out the part about his disappearing body, hoping against hope that they had merely not seen him in the night, that the flashlights had not illuminated the contents of an overlooked shadow or that he had crawled off somewhere to die.

Tritia paled. "He died and came back?"

"Or he didn't die at all."

Her expression collapsed, bravery fleeing in the face of overwhelming despair. "That's it, then."

Billy stretched, yawned, groaned in his sleep. Doug sat down on the edge of the bed and put a hand on his son's forehead. He found himself wondering why the mailman had not actually harmed Billy or Tritia . The mailman had been after him and his family from the beginning, but when he had finally caught Billy and Tritia , when he had had them in his power, he had done virtually nothing to them. Maybe he couldn't do anything to them.

Billy sat upright in bed. "No!" he screamed. "No!"

Doug grabbed Billy's shoulders, guiding him down. "It's okay, Billy," he said gently. "You're safe now. You're in the hospital. It's over now. You're safe."