The Messenger (2011 reformat)

by Edward Lee

  "No," Marlene said, now swooning at the invisible touches. For the briefest moment, she cast an eye aside, at the long front window, and in it she glimpsed her reflection.

  She glimpsed someone else's reflection too.

  Someone standing directly behind her. A man, or something like a man. With his hands on her. The image was almost translucent, like an outline in distant fog. Then the nearly shapeless hands of that outline slid down Marlene's arms, to her own hands. The figure began to move her hands down.

  "No," she repeated. "Not really a package. It's a message."

  From her mailbag, Marlene withdrew an Ingram MAC-11 submachine gun. It was compact, weighed just over three pounds, and was scarcely larger than a typical pistol.

  Until she snapped in the high-capacity forty-seven-round magazine. No one screamed at this point, they simply stared through a paralyzing hush.

  Marlene yanked back the charging handle with a metallic crack.

  "Behold the Messenger," she said, and that's when everyone in the lobby began to scream. She fired in controlled bursts, three 9mm rounds slammed into Emmy's chest, then three more at the second teller, who'd been ducking but not quite in time. The bullets took off the top of his head and sent it across the room like a hairy Frisbee.

  Yes, she heard in her head. Yes. Yes.

  With the tellers dead, Marlene grinned and turned about. Her technique was tactically sound: she stood at the entrance door, the only exit for the remaining customers who were all screaming and backing up. Several tried to vault over the counter but when they did so, Marlene picked them off.

  Then she opened up on the crowd in the corner.

  She fired bullets as though she were spraying a garden hose. Her once pretty face was now twisted up like a grinning wooden mask. For some reason she didn't hear the weapon's earsplitting reports, and as she swerved the spray of bullets into the crowd, their screams faded to a muffled silence.

  Gun smoke rose like tear gas. The smoke amplified the details of the mirage standing behind her; at one point she looked down and saw bony yellow-skinned hands with long-manicured black nails wrapped around her own hands as she grasped the gun, the long triple-jointed yellow finger pulling her trigger finger back.

  Marlene emptied the clip into the mass of humans, then she smacked in another forty-seven-rounder and emptied that. By the time she was done, the pile of collapsed post-office customers looked as though they'd been run over by an aerating machine. A puddle of blood the size of a kiddie pool oozed out across the floor.

  Bring my message to them all...

  Marlene smacked in the next clip, then walked calmly around the counter and entered the office and processing areas.

  More staccato gunshots rang out, more gun smoke rising. Empty cartridges sprayed into the air in a golden arc. A few minutes later, the police charged in.

  II

  The blond newscaster looked more like one of those girls on an E! Channel beach show. The smart burgundy business dress didn't work with the implanted breasts, platinum hair, and rich tan. Yet she held the microphone like a stoic, and spoke like one too, as ambulance and police lights flashed in the background, vehicles all parked askew in front of the main branch.

  "...an unimaginable tragedy today at the Danelleton main post office on Rosamilia Avenue. Longtime employee Marlene Troy allegedly entered the office at approximately 9 a.m., withdrew an automatic weapon, and opened fire..."

  One after another, EMTs exited the building, bearing stretchers laden with black body bags. Trails formed of dots of blood tracked out to the lot, along with bloody footprints. The next shot showed the inside of the lobby after the bodies had been extricated: more footprints and gurney marks running out of a pool of blood that stretched nearly to the front doors. Gallons of blood must have been spilled there. Higher, on the back walls, more dots could be seen, not dots of blood but rip-stitch lines of bullet holes.

  "Authorities are mystified as to what might have caused the frenzied slaughter" the newscaster went on. Next, the scene cut back to the front of the main branch, where more police hovered with clipboards and evidence-collection material. And in the foreground, more EMTs loaded covered stretchers into ambulances. "The official death toll is twenty-six, with no survivors of this hideous and inexplicable rampage." To highlight bad taste, the camera homed in closer on one of the stretchers. By now, authorities had run out of body bags and resorted to sheets. The sheet over the current body was nearly saturated with blood, and when the stretcher was hoisted up to be pushed into the ambulance, an arm flopped out from under the sheet. The top of the sleeve was patched with the emblem of the U.S. Post Office.

  "The alleged assailant, Marlene Troy, is said to have opened fire first in the crowded lobby, trapping over a dozen residents and killing everyone in a matter of minutes. Then Troy reloaded, swept the rest of the facility with gunfire, and killed the remaining occupants, all postal employees. Danelleton police responded shortly thereafter and gunned Troy down in one of the loading bays. She was reported dead on arrival at South County General Hospital."

  Jane Ryan bowed her head, finally looking away from the television screen. Her expression had gone from appalled to mystified. The brand-new office she sat in felt like an isolation chamber. She was unable to believe what was happening just a few miles away at the main branch.

  "Marlene was one of my best carriers," she said. "We worked together for five years in Pasco County. She's always been one of the most stable people I've known, not just a quality employee but a wonderful person."

  Jane wiped a tear from her eye, then snapped off the television with the remote. An older man sitting at the side of the desk seemed to be commiserating: Buchanan, the county postal superintendent.

  "I know how you must feel, Jane," he said. "When I got my first PM promotion in California, I had a carrier walk off his route and kill four people in a fast-food joint. Turns out he'd been cracking up for months over his wife leaving him, then he got into cocaine. Nobody knew. I guess sometimes people just snap. Doesn't matter why. Stress, mental illness, drug and alcohol problems. No town is immune to it-it can happen anywhere."

  The words didn't allay her grief and confusion. Nothing could. It just didn't make sense. Tragedies like this always happened somewhere else. All Jane could do was nod, repressing the her sobs.

  "Anyway, we're all done here with the paperwork for now. If you need anything let me know."

  "Okay."

  Buchanan was about to leave, to carry on with his own arm of the investigation, but he stopped just short of the door. "Oh, and there's a cop out here who'd like to talk to you. One of the local ones. You feel up to talking to him? I'm sure you probably don't but you're going to have to eventually."

  Dread swept over her, but she forced herself to straighten up. She wiped her nose with a Kleenex, fixed her hair as best she could.

  "I'm fine. Go ahead and send him in."

  Buchanan cast her a last consoling glance, then quietly left the office. A few seconds later, the door clicked back open, and a shadow crossed the floor.

  "Ms. Ryan?"

  The man Jane looked up at stood tall and lean, in dark slacks, white shirt, and a tie. He looked far more like an engineer or computer executive than a police officer; in fact, the only hint of his actual profession was the police badge clipped to his belt. Jane guessed him to be in his early forties. Short sandy hair, perennial Florida tan.

  Something about his eyes-intense and bright blue-seemed contrary: The hard-line cop was either confused or damaged.

  But damaged by what?

  "I'm Steve Higgins, chief of Danelleton police," he announced. "I know this is a bad time, Ms. Ryan, but I guess there never really is a good time for such things."

  Jane shook his hand from behind her desk. "No, there isn't."

  "I'm sorry we have to meet under such unpleasant circumstances, but I need to ask you some questions about Marlene Troy"

  Simply hearing the name in the context of
this aftermath shocked her. It reminded her that this was all real. An employee and a friend just went on a killing spree, she had to keep telling herself. There's just been a mass murder in our town, and the killer was someone from my post office...

  "Had Ms. Troy ever exhibited any... strange behavior in the past? Mood swings? Outbursts? Things like that?"

  "No, no. I was just telling my district supervisor that Marlene was an exemplary carrier as well as a very nice person."

  "Any disputes with other employees?"

  "No. Everybody liked her."

  "Any problems with the law that you know of? I mean, before working here? Her Florida record's clean but are you aware of any infractions in the past? Anything she might've mentioned, even just in passing, say, from her teens, early adulthood, college? We're particularly interested in any history of drug use or alcoholism."

  Jane just shook her head no.

  "Do you know anything about her religious beliefs, Ms. Ryan?"

  Jane peered up at him. What a strange question, but come to think of it, she didn't recall ever hearing Marlene mention any spiritual beliefs. Odder than the question, though, was the tone with which Steve had asked it. As though it were a loaded question of some kind. "I'm totally unaware of any of Marlene's religious beliefs," Jane finally answered after a bit more thought. "I can't ever remember her saying anything about it. For all I know, she had no religious beliefs."

  Steve looked puzzled, withdrawing a slip of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it, looked at it a moment, then passed it to Jane.

  "Does this design mean anything to you, Ms. Ryan? Have you ever seen it in relation to anything that might have to do with Marlene Troy?"

  Jane gave the paper a look of puzzlement. It was a drawing, a sketch in black ink, crudely but deliberately formed, clearly not by an artistic hand. It looked like a cup with a flanged edge, and hovering at the top of the cup was a single asterisk-like star. The drawing, in fact, seemed manic, desperate.

  "I don't get it," Jane said. "A sketch of a cup."

  "Sorry, other way," and he quickly took the paper, turned it around, and gave it back to her. "Not a cup, we don't think."

  No, Jane saw. Now that the sketch inverted, it was easier to guess what it was. "A bell?"

  "It would seem so."

  "A bell with a star at the edge," she observed. "How strange. There's just something about it..."

  "Yes, there is. Hard to say what, but I know what you mean."

  It's just ... creepy.

  "Is that design familiar to you in any way, Ms. Ryan?"

  Jane snapped out of a fog. "No, Chief Higgins. I've never seen anything like this before in my life. What is it?"

  Steve paused, almost as if he were hedging something. "It's best that I just say this design pertains to the evidence on the scene."

  "You found this at the main post office?"

  "No, no, I mean secondary evidence. We found it at Marlene Troy's house after the shooting."

  Jane gasped, a shock seizing her. "Her house...my God. I didn't even think of it until now, but Marlene has a husband and a son in grade school," and then an edgy despair set in. They'd have to be told right away, if they hadn't been already. How do you deliver a message like that? It was always the same, she supposed. A police officer would come to the house, grim-faced, and say something like I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but to this, Jane could relate quite well, forced to recall the time not so long ago when a state trooper had come to her door. To notify her that her husband was dead.

  "Have you already notified her husband and son?" she asked.

  Another pause from Steve, and a discomfited look on his face. "That's what makes all this even worse-no notification will be necessary. It appears that Marlene Troy stabbed both her husband and son to death this morning before she left for work. Both were mutilated." Steve closed his eyes for a moment. "It looked like she'd painted the walls with their blood."

  Jane felt numb for the rest of the day; the shock was wearing off, replaced by a cold disillusionment.

  Details of the case haunted her, the murders of Marlene's husband and, even more particularly, the son, Jeff, who knew Jane's own children. A mass murder of adults was awful enough, but the murder of a kid? It just made the worst thing seem that much more insane.

  When she locked her office at the west branch, the rest of the building was grimly silent, even though the crew in back was still working. She pulled out of her parking spot and switched on the radio, hoping for some cheerful music but instead got:"... the latest on today's horrific murders in a Danelleton, Florida, post office, where an employee in good standing opened fire on a crowd of customers with an automatic weapon, and then proceeded to kill everyone else in the building-"

  Jane changed stations:"... thirty-six-year-old Marlene Troy, known to coworkers as a friendly, diligent, and level-headed postal carrier, carried out the most tragic one-day killing spree in Florida history... "

  Jesus! Jane punched another button:"... stabbed and mutilated her husband and young son in their beds before killing twenty-six people with a machine gun..."

  Jane snapped the radio off, grinding her teeth.

  She drove through downtown, hoping it would clear her mind, but the peaceful city, and its appearance of sheer normalcy, only reinforced the horror of the day. Things were never as they seemed. People were never as they seemed. Danelleton seemed like the most tranquil-and sane-town anyone could imagine. But look what happened, she thought. Insanity could be the only explanation-and insanity was undetectable in most cases.

  In this case.

  The street along the pier, faced by its row of shops, looked abandoned. Only few passersby could be seen strolling, but they were all sullen, hunched. This town is a mask, Jane thought, just like any town could be. Normal on the outside, but who knew what was really on the inside? Anyone, any of these normal-looking people, could snap, could go out of their minds the same way Marlene did.

  She shoved the thought away. Ordinarily she would've driven straight home to see her children, who'd be home from the recreation center by now, but something unbidden steered her away from the main road out. She was driving around the block, pulling in and parking at the main branch post office ...

  The EMTs were gone, all the bodies had been carried off. Several police cars remained, along with an evidence van. The long brick building looked monotonous, cold, even in the blaze of sun, nothing like Jane's cheerful, brightly painted west branch facility. Again, it was appearances that miffed her: true. The main post office looked like a lot of federal facilities-rather somber-but it didn't look like the site of a mass murder. Jane couldn't come to terms with what had happened here this morning.

  A uniformed police officer stopped her, noticing her postal uniform. "Sorry, ma'am. This is a restricted crime scene."

  For a reason she couldn't place, Jane felt that she needed to go inside. She'd worked at this building for years but now, after what had happened, she felt she had to go back inside. "I'm Jane Ryan," she said, distracted. "I'm the postmaster at the west branch."

  She showed the cop her ID. "I knew a lot of the people who were killed. Could you let me go in for just a minute, please?"

  The cop contemplated her request. "Sure, Ms. Ryan. But there are still a few evidence people inside, so try to keep out of the way. And try to make it quick, too. When they're done, they're going to seal the building."

  "Thank you."

  He let her pass the cordons, and then she was wandering into the lobby.

  Dead silence stared back at her when the doors swooshed closed. It was very cold; Jane shivered as she walked disconcertedly past the stamp machines and the PO. box coves. Then she heard voices.

  The glass door to the customer service area had been propped open. Jane began to smell something that reminded her of disinfectant. Two men in blue utilities meandered within, one holding a large plastic evidence bag heavy with spent bullet cartridges, the other holding something that looke
d like a tackle box.

  "Guess that's it," one of the technicians said. "The cleanup crew did a hell of a job with this place, huh? They should get a fuckin' trophy!"

  "Shit, all that blood?" the one with the cartridge bag replied. "I hope they wore hip-waders."

  A detached laugh. "Better them than us."

  "You got that right. And it's hard to believe there was a pile of dead bodies in here just a few hours ago. I've been working CES for ten years, six of 'em in Miami, and I've never seen that many bodies in one place. They'll be working overtime at the county morgue tonight, you can bet your ass."

  "You see the one chick they were hauling out of here-one of the last ones? It was one of the employees working in back."

  A grim dip in the response. "Oh, the pregnant one..."

  "Man, I could shit my pants when I think about what this world is coming to. And this one was a woman. How many times you see that-a chick on a shooting spree?"

  "Never. Chalk up another one to PMS."

  "It's getting so you can't tell the crazies from the normal people. Christ, my house was on this woman's route."

  "Makes ya wonder, you know? She carves up her hubbie and kid like lunch meat, then comes here and rip-stitches the place like it's the fuckin' Valentine's Day Massacre. Shit, man."

  "And you gotta wonder ..."

  "What?"

  "This sort of shit can happen any place, any time."

  A laugh broke the profane solemnity, but it was a strained laugh. "Next time it could be me. Could be you."

  "Could be anyone."

  A pause, for a last look around, then: "Come on, man. Let's get out of this fuckin' slaughterhouse."

  Jane's distracted daze snapped when the morose banter ended. She didn't want to be seen by them, and she didn't want to be here anymore. In fact, she still wasn't sure why she'd come in at all.

  She grabbed her car keys and rushed out of the building, hoping to never have to enter it again. Even though all the bodies had been transported out hours ago, it felt to Jane as though she were fleeing a mass grave.