The Mailman
Page 10
The mailman emerged from the white haze, as if materializing from thin air. He trudged up to Jade’s front door, where he disappeared from sight for a few moments before reappearing once more and continuing to the neighbor’s house.
Jade tried to ignore the tightness that squeezed her chest. It happened every time she saw a mailman. It didn’t matter if she was in a car, or on a busy street, or peering out her living room window—the sight of a mailman, any mailman, frightened her. She shouldn’t be surprised after what she’d been through. She was simply annoyed and embarrassed by the onset of the irrational fear, and it was irrational, because Ronnie was locked up for life. She would never see him again.
Ducking outside to retrieve the mail from the mailbox, she returned inside, stamping snow from her slippers. She set her coffee and the few letter-sized envelopes aside so she could study the small parcel she’d received. Her name and address were handwritten on the front. She flipped it over.
The return address was the Department of Correctional Services.
Jade swallowed hard. She had been waiting for something like this to eventually arrive on her doorstep, she dreaded opening it, yet she knew she couldn’t not open it.
Her fingers worked purposefully on the packaging, peeling and tearing, before a copy of the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles slid free, the cover showing the granite bust of a tormented man bleeding from his eyes.
Jade stared at it for a very long moment, trying not to feel or think. She didn’t want to allow Ronnie the satisfaction her anguish would give him, even if he couldn’t be there to witness it.
She flipped to the title page, on which were four scribbled words:
Thinking of you, Mom
Jade threw the play onto the fire and watched it burn.
♀
Ronnie was pacing in his eight-by-ten-foot cell, thinking what he did almost every minute of every hour of every day since his incarceration: how much he hated prison. He hated everything about it. The lack of privacy, the shitty food (moldy baloney three times a week), the cockroaches in his bed (which he sometimes caught eating his earwax late at night), the gang culture (he’d been forced to get an Aryan Brotherhood tattoo on his neck), the racial division (especially given he was now a minority), the plugged and overflowing toilets (where inmates shot up crystal meth), and the mind-numbing routine (don’t forget you’re on work detail in the kitchen tomorrow beginning at five a.m.). Everything. And he was here for the rest of his life. The rest of his life. He didn’t know how he was going to cope. He didn’t think he could. The mere thought of never again seeing the sky on his own terms was giving him a nervous breakdown.
A prison guard appeared in front of his cell, running his baton along the bars—ting, ting, ting, ting.
Ronnie jumped.
“Calm down, Captain Kidd,” the screw said, in reference to the eye-patch Ronnie now wore over his right eye, courtesy of that fucking crazy singer who was responsible for him rotting away in this hell. If he hated anyone in this world more than his mother, it was that English asshole. “Got some mail for ya. Looks like Santa came early.”
He held a small package between the bars.
Ronnie took it with barely contained excitement. Jade would have received the play he’d sent her last week, and she’d apparently sent him something right back.
But what?
He tore off the Christmas-themed wrapping paper (which had clearly been removed and taped back together courtesy of some correctional services prick) to reveal a boxed Sony Walkman cassette player.
Ronnie thought this must be a joke, something else was inside the box, but upon opening it he discovered a bran-new Sony Walkman and a set of headphones.
His grin soured to a frown—why would Jade ever buy him such a gift?—when he realized there was a tape inside the disc drive. He didn’t have to pop it out to guess which band’s album, or to be more precise, debut album, it was.
“Oh, Jade…” Ronnie said, a contemptuous laugh bubbling up his throat. “Oh Jade, you bitch, you goddamn bitch. You goddamn bitch!” The laugh escaped his lips as a shrill, escalating cackle.
Disembodied voices from adjacent cells, mean and gruff, clamored for quiet, some issuing profanity-laced death threats, one gratuitously denigrating his mother.
The irony of that last remark was too much for Ronnie, aka Captain Kidd, aka Prisoner 373737 (the number written on the back of his shirt lest he ever forget) to take, and the cackle took on a life of its own, becoming a kind of music to his ears, although music playing to the tune of a man well on the way to losing his mind.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for taking the time to read The Mailman. If you enjoyed the story, it would be wonderful if you could leave a review on the Amazon product page. Reviews might not matter much to the big-name authors, but they can really help the small guys to grow their readership.
Also, please check out the books in the award-winning “World’s Scariest Places” series below:
BOOK 1: SUICIDE FOREST
SUICIDE FOREST IS REAL - ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
CLICK HERE TO GET IT NOW (FREE WITH KINDLE UNLIMITED)!
Just outside of Tokyo lies Aokigahara, a vast forest and one of the most beautiful wilderness areas in Japan...and also the most infamous spot to commit suicide in the world. Legend has it that the spirits of those many suicides are still roaming, haunting deep in the ancient woods.
When bad weather prevents a group of friends from climbing neighboring Mt. Fuji, they decide to spend the night camping in Aokigahara. But they get more than they bargained for when one of them is found hanged in the morning—and they realize there might be some truth to the legends after all.
“In Bates’ (The Taste of Fear, 2012, etc.) horror novel, a simple excursion into a reputedly haunted forest turns into a nightmare when people start dying in conspicuously unnatural ways. Ethan Childs, an American teaching English in Tokyo for the last four years, plans to climb Mount Fuji with girlfriend, Mel, and a few pals. But when a looming storm nixes the outing, Israeli tourists Ben and Nina convince the group to join them on a hike through nearby Aokigahara Jukai. The forest is infamous for an incredibly high number of suicides, reportedly in the hundreds per year, and some believe the ghosts of the dead haunt it. What begins as an unsettling ambience (there are no sounds of animals or any trace of wind) quickly gives way to serious, tangible threats when one of the party members dies from an apparent suicide. Ethan and company are soon lost, and the noises they hear in the woods either confirm the existence of ghosts, or perhaps worse, mean that a murderer is tracking them down. Readers may recognize a slasher-film vibe—people willingly go into the creepy woods—and familiar characters...But Bates’ approach to the story is surprisingly restrained, cultivating impressive frights in the unnerving environment...No one is sure whether the unseen villain is human or apparition or whether they are simply victims of unfortunate circumstances...Bates’ choice to avoid brazen scares makes for an understated horror story that will remind readers what chattering teeth sound like.”
- Kirkus Reviews
BOOK 2: THE CATACOMBS
WELCOME TO THE EMPIRE OF THE DEAD
CLICK HERE TO GET IT NOW (FREE WITH KINDLE UNLIMITED)!
Paris, France, is known as the City of Lights, a metropolis renowned for romance and beauty. Beneath the bustling streets and cafés, however, exists The Catacombs, a labyrinth of crumbling tunnels filled with six million dead.a
When a video camera containing mysterious footage is discovered deep within their depths, a group of friends venture into the tunnels to investigate. But what starts out as a lighthearted adventure takes a turn for the worse when they reach their destination--and stumble upon the evil lurking there.
“Some books use different approaches to characterization as their ‘hook’ and others have a twist to their plot, but few sport the attraction of The Catacombs, a novel in ‘The World’s Scariest Places’ series, set in the catacombs of Pari
s. Why should the setting be such a draw? Because in creating a story that revolves strongly upon a sense of place (and an unusual place, at that), it succeeds in making a horror story like none other. There really could be no better place for horror than the Catacombs, when you think about it: an ancient burial place for the dead, they hold antique mysteries and a foreboding reputation as “the world’s largest grave”...The first-person story of growth and challenge fuels the underlying horror in The Catacombs: readers live every footstep, every decision, and every uncertainty in a gripping story that is hard to put down. The protagonist, a feisty female whose new moniker is ‘Stork Girl’, is anything but staid and retiring and drives a story replete with as many twists and turns as the Catacombs themselves hold. It’s the ‘you are there’ feel that creates compelling tension throughout... Readers don’t just follow the story line; they are in the Catacombs right there with the protagonists, reliving the decisions and choices that come with exploring the unknown...If it’s one thing that can be said about The Catacombs, it’s that the combination of a back-and-forth perspective that enhances overall events and a focus on action that is less than anticipated makes for a read that will delight horror fans who want their novels steeped in psychological suspense as well as action.”
- Midwest Book Review
BOOK 3: HELLTOWN
NO ONE LEAVES ALIVE
CLICK HERE TO GET IT NOW (FREE WITH KINDLE UNLIMITED)!
Since the 1980s there have been numerous reports of occult activity and other possibly supernatural phenomenon within certain villages and townships of Summit County, Ohio—an area collectively known as Helltown.
When a group of out-out-town friends investigating the legends are driven off the road by a mysterious hearse, their night of cheap thrills turns to chills as they begin to die one by one.
“I just tore through Helltown by Jeremy Bates and I have to tell you—I am fast becoming a fan! The latest in Bates' World's Scariest Places books is a bloody romp through backwoods horrors and Satanic Terrors. Reminiscent of books by Richard Laymon, the story telling is hard and fast, barely leaving you any breathing room between thrills. Now this one isn't quite as epic as some of the others. While we get a little of the history of Helltown, I wanted more history to add to the atmosphere. This is a little more of one of those 1970's horror flicks starring Ernest Borgnine mixed with a little Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Still supremely cool, but I did miss the history and the atmosphere that Bates had in his books in Japan and Paris. Nitpicking aside, this is still good, gruesome horror. And the fact that it takes place in a place you could actually visit only adds to the fun. I'm on board for whatever Bates throws at us next!”
- OulawPoet [Top 1000 Reviewer Vine Voice]
BOOK 4: ISLAND OF THE DOLLS
THE CREEPIEST ISLAND ON EARTH
CLICK HERE TO GET IT NOW (FREE WITH KINDLE UNLIMITED)!
Deep within an ancient Aztec canal system on the outskirts of Mexico City lies Isla de las Munecas...a reportedly haunted island infested with thousands of decrepit dolls.
While there to film a television documentary, several friends discover a brutal murder. Soon fear and paranoia turn them against one another—even as the unknown killer stalks them throughout the longest night of their lives.
“Island of the Dolls adds to the ‘World's Scariest Places’ series with Book Four. Each book’s setting is actually a real-world place, and so Isla de las Mune-cas (the Island of the Dolls) is actually a floating garden in Mexico. A legend about a drowned girl and dolls that haunt the premises forms the foundation for a gripping story that is a fine addition to the series, but also stands well on its own, making it an attraction for newcomers.
The tale opens with a little girl’s near-drowning and the threat from gruesome dolls that leads her to flee. The compelling opener immediately shifts to the first person as the protagonist awakens from a nightmare and an alcoholic binge from the night before. He’s part of an ad hoc TV documentary group that has come to investigate the legend of an area haunted by dolls, but the truth is even more bizarre when they find themselves immersed in murder, mayhem, and a legend that may prove all too real for comfort…
Thriller fans and readers of Stephen King, Joe Lansdale, and other masters of the art will find much to love in this highly recommended, action-packed read.”
- Midwest Book Review
For a limited time, visit www.jeremybatesbooks.com to receive a free copy of the bestselling novel The Taste of Fear and the award-winning novella Black Canyon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Bates is a USA TODAY bestselling author of more than a dozen novels and novellas, which have been translated into several languages and downloaded more than one million times. Midwest Book Review compares his work to "Stephen King, Joe Lansdale, and other masters of the art." He has won both an Australian Shadows Award and a Canadian Arthur Ellis Award. He was also a finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards, the only major book awards decided by readers. His debut novel reached #1 in the Amazon Kindle Store, while the novels in the “World’s Scariest Places” series are set in real locations, and so far include Suicide Forest in Japan, The Catacombs in Paris, Helltown in Ohio, and Island of the Dolls in Mexico.