The Mailman

by Bentley Little

  "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."

  The boy looked around with wild-rabbit eyes.

  "We're here. It's okay."

  Tritia moved over to the bed and hugged Billy. She was crying. "We're here," she said. "We're with you. Everything's going to be all right."

  Doug felt the tears in his own eyes as he held his son's hand.

  "Mom?" Billy said tentatively. "Dad?"

  "Is everything okay?" The doctor hurried into the room. He saw that Billy was awake and moved over to the bed. "How are you feeling?"

  The boy looked at him dully. "Tired."

  "Effects of the tranquilizer," the doctor explained to Doug and Tritia . He turned toward Billy. "You're not in any pain, are you?"

  Billy shook his head.

  "Good. Probably just the shock, then." He smiled at Billy. "I'll be wanting to do a few tests later, when you feel up to it. Right now, I'll leave you alone with your mom and dad, okay?"

  Billy nodded.

  The doctor smiled at Doug and Tritia , gave a surreptitious thumbs-up sign, and left the room.

  Left alone, the three of them were silent for a moment.

  "Do you remember what happened?" Doug asked softly.

  "Doug!" Tritia glared at him.

  "Do you remember?"

  "Leave him alone."

  Billy nodded silently, not able to look at his parents' faces.

  "Did he hurt you?" Doug asked.

  Billy shook his head. "He couldn't touch me," he said. His voice was a cracked whispered croak. "He wanted to, but he couldn't."

  Doug's blood was racing. "What do you mean he couldn't touch you?"

  "He couldn't touch me."

  "Why?"

  Billy turned toward his father, then looked away, ashamed, embarrassed, unable to make eye contact. "I don't know."

  "Think."

  "Doug," Tritia said.

  "He tried to give me mail," Billy whispered. "He wanted me to read it and he got really angry when I didn't. He said it was an . . . an invitation. I

  thought he was going to hit me, but it was like . . . like he couldn't touch me.

  Like something was stopping him. He started yelling at me and calling me names and threatening me, but I wouldn't take his invitation and he started going crazy, but he didn't touch me."

  "You've been through a lot," Tritia said. "It's no wonder you think --"

  "Let him talk." Doug nodded encouragingly at his son. "Go on."

  "That's it."

  "He couldn't touch you?"

  Billy shook his head.

  "What about the dress?"

  Billy buried his face in the pillow. His voice was muffled. "I'm tired now," he said. "Stop asking me questions."

  "What about the dress?"

  "He wanted me to wear it, okay? He wanted me to put it on."

  Doug patted his son's back. "Okay," he said. "All right." He stared at the headboard of the hospital bed and tried to recall whether or not he had ever seen the mailman touch anyone. He had not.

  The reason the mailman could not be implicated in any of the murders, Doug realized, was because he had never performed any of them. Ronda and Bernie really had killed themselves, as had Irene.Stockley andHobie had themselves been driven to murder. Unimaginable as it was, Giselle had actually raped and killed Ellen Ronda with the baseball bat.

  John Smith's only power was the mail.

  What was it Howard had said? The mailman spent all day Sunday hibernating in his room? And when he came out on Monday, he was tired, like he'd been sick?

  Doug remembered how pale and weak the mailman had seemed after the Fourth of July holiday.

  He needed to deliver the mail to survive.

  Tritia pushed Doug away and stroked Billy's hair. "What's the matter with you?" she asked angrily. "Hasn't he been through enough without his own father making him relive it?"

  "I have an idea," Doug said. "I think I know how to get rid of the mailman."

  Her eyes met his, and he saw in them a spark of hope. "How?" she asked.

  "It's crazy and it may not work."

  "If it doesn't, we can go to Phoenix and never come back." Her expression darkened. "If he doesn't follow us and find us." She held his gaze. "What is your idea?"

  "We cut off his power supply. We stop the mail."

  "What?"

  "That's the only way he can get to us. You heard Billy. The mailman couldn't touch him. And what about you? He didn't touch you either, did he?"

  Tritia recalled with sickening clarity the feel of his hardness beneath his uniform as she'd shoved her waypasfьim in the bathroom. She slowly shook her head.

  "You see? All he can do is manipulate people through the mail. That's it.

  If we can just stop people from reading or sending mail, we can get rid of him.

  But we have to get everyone in town together. Every last damn one of them. If this is going to work, it'll require the cooperation of every person in Willis."

  "I was talking to one of the nurses," Tritia offered. "I don't think that will be a problem. They all know what's going on. They're all scared. They'll do anything."

  "We have to get the word out fast. I'm going to ask the police to help me, call some of the other teachers. If we can, I want to have a meeting of everyone in town tonight."

  "Tonight's too soon. Word doesn't travel that fast." Dr. Maxwell stood in the doorway. He walked into the room. "I heard what you said, and I'm willing to try it."

  Doug looked at him, smiled. "Thanks."

  "I think you'll have to make it for tomorrow night. I can't be there, and neither can most of my staff, but you can talk to them beforehand. I think they'll go along with you on this." He looked at Billy, who was still facedown in the pillow. "We have to stop him."

  "If he can be stopped," Tritia said.

  "I think he can," Doug said.

  Billy's voice was muffled by the pillow, but it was clear. "I think he can too," he said.

  Doug grabbed Tritia 's hand and squeezed it tight.

  48

  They drove to the meeting together. Tritia had wanted to stay with Billy, but Doug said he needed her for this and she agreed to go along. They would return to the hospital afterward.

  They had both stayed with Billy the night before, and although he was plagued with nightmares so powerful that twice Doug had to wake him up, he was unsedated, and in the morning he was lucid and cognizant of what was going on.

  He even made specific requests for breakfast, and by late afternoon he seemed almost like his normal self.

&nbs
p; Dr. Maxwell got in touch with a friend of his in Phoenix, a psychiatrist specializing in childhood trauma, and he agreed to drive up and see Billy tomorrow.

  Maybe things would be okay.

  They drove past the post office on their way to the meeting. The character of the small building had changed completely from the days in which Howard Crowell and Bob Ronda had happily worked behind its doors, from the days in which the entire town had purchased stamps and dropped off mail between its walls. The staid nondescript structure now appeared decidedly malevolent. The windows had been smashed, their openings hastily covered up with irregular lengths of board nailed from the inside. Piles of ripped and dirty envelopes, as well as broken pieces of the mail-sorting machine, were scattered over the concrete steps. In a defensive line directly in front of the post office a row of rural mailboxes had been placed upside down, the metal boxes on the ground supporting their inverted posts.

  On top of the posts were nailed the severed heads of town dogs, the animals' glassy eyes staring, unseeing, toward the street.

  The dogs' headless bodies, ten or fifteen of them, littered the small parking lot.

  Doug shivered as he and Trish sped by. The mailman was inside there, he knew. Probably peeking out at them. He felt suddenly nervous. Maybe he shouldn't have made Tritia come. Maybe he should have had her stay with Billy.

  No, Billy would be all right. The hospital staff and Dr. Maxwell would look after him.

  The street in front of the school was already jammed with cars. Someone had opened the gym and turned on the lights and people were filing in. Doug and Tritia parked on a side street and walked, rather than trying to find a closer parking space. They were greeted at the door by Mike, who told them that everyone who could would be there. The police had combed the town for two days, spreading the word.

  Doug thanked him and stepped inside the gym. He and Tritia made their way through the crowd by the door and stood near the entrance to the boys' locker room. All four walls of bleachers had been brought down, and three of them were nearly full. There would not be enough space in here for everyone, he realized.

  Many people would just have to stand or sit on the floor.

  He glanced around, trying to gauge the mood of the crowd. People seemed tentative, hesitant with one another. Awkward. Grudges had been formed and fanned through the mails, words of hate had been received and responded to, acquaintanceships had beenreforged and realigned on the basis of faulty information, misdirected emotions, lies. Everyone knew that now. Everyone realized that the hate o mail they'd been receiving, all of the gossiping innuendo, had not been sent by their neighboring townspeople but had been forced upon them by the mailman.

  Still, feelings formed during that troubling period could not be instantly discarded, and there was tension among many members of the crowd. Arguments erupted. A small shoving match started in the stands, but was quickly stopped by a policeman.

  And still people continued to arrive. People who had never before attended any civic function, people whose faces Doug did not even recognize, took seats on the bleachers. There were lone men in dusty hats and cowboy boots, impeccably dressed old couples, trendy young newlyweds, average families with children.

  By eight o'clock, the appointed time, the gym was full, and Doug felt a little overwhelmed when he saw the size of the crowd. It was not speaking before so many people that daunted him -- he was a teacher and was used to speaking in front of groups -- it was taking the responsibility of leading so many individuals, of making the decisions for so many people.

  He saw in the packed bleachers the faces of school-board members, city council members, policemen, the fire chief: people elected or appointed to positions of power. These men and women, supposedly trained to deal with public crises, did not know what to do in this situation and were looking to him for answers. The thought was intimidating, made even more so by the looks of worry and hope he saw on the faces of people he didn't even know, by the frightened murmurs of adults and the crying whimpers of children.

  The room felt hot, the walls claustrophobically close, the air filled with the smell of old and new sweat. Tritia squeezed his hand, a gesture of faith and support that more than anything else gave him the strength to stride across the polished wood floor to the center of the gym.

  There was no need for him to be nervous or worried or intimidated, he told himself. He was taking control in this crisis because he had to, because he was the only one who knew what had to be done. He had to think positively. There was no room for doubt. Not now. There was too much at stake. This was no time for indecision. They had to fight the mailman with everything they had, with their combined faith and belief. They had to do it or die.

  The crowd was silenced immediately; he did not even have to raise his hand. The talking died down, and parents hushed the crying of their children.

  Only the wailing of a few small babies disturbed the stillness.

  "You all know why you're here," Doug began. "Why we're here. We're here to free our town from the tyranny of the mailman. He has held us captive all summer, has used the mails to pit brother against brother, friend against friend. He has stopped our utilities, disrupted our lives, ruined our relationships. He has killed directly or indirectly, and he has brought our town to this." He gestured before him, toward the world outside the walls. The people were silent. He had their attention. "Many of you may not know it, but we found Howard Crowell yesterday in his home. Dead."

  A wave of words passed through the crowd.

  "He killed my Darla too!" David Adams called out. His voice was frightened, close to hysteria. "He promised her things! He lied about me and he made her . . . he made her . . ." David's voice trailed off.

  "My business is ruined because of that son of a bitch!" Hunt James announced. "And so is Dr. Elliott's! He spread rumors about us and these assholes believed it!" He motioned toward the people surrounding him.

  And now a lot of voices were speaking at once, people standing, yelling, screaming, competing for attention.

  "-- knew my mother had a heart condition!"

  "-- We've always paid our bills on time! Always!"

  "-- never hurt an animal in my life!"

  "-- illegal to send those kinds of things through the mail! Those videotapes! And those rubber --"

  Doug held up his hands for silence. It took a few moments, but when the crowd quieted down, he continued. "We have to get him out of our town," he said.

  "We have to exorcise him."

  "Let him do the rope exercise!" someone called out.

  Doug shook his head. "Lynching won't work."

  In the front row of the bleachers right before him,Tril Allison, the owner of Allison's Lumber, stood up. He was not used to public speaking, and he shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Next to him on the bleachers sat his sons, Dennis and Tad, both of whom had been in Doug's English classes last semester.Tril cleared his throat. "What is the mailman?" he asked.

  It was the question that had been on everyone's minds, if not everyone's lips, and Doug was about to respond when a shrill voice sounded off from somewhere in the upper portion of the bleachers.

  "He's the devil!" An old woman stood up, a woman Doug did not recognize.

  "Our only hope is prayer! Our only hope is to ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness and beg Him to protect us!"

  There were low murmurs of frightened assent.

  "He's not the devil!" Doug announced, raising his hands for quiet.

  "Then, what is he?"Tril asked. "He certainlyain't human."

  "No," Doug said, "he's not human. To be honest, I don't know what he is."

  "He killed my daughter!" someone yelled.

  "I don't know what he is!" Doug repeated, louder. "But I do know this: he can be stopped. We can stop him."

  SmithTegarden , one of the police officers who had been on the ridge the other night, walked Out of the crowd and onto the gym floor. There was confidence in his step, but Doug could see that that was m
erely habit, reflex.

  The Veteran cop was frightened. He stood in front of Doug. "We shot that bastard point-blank, and he didn't die," he said. "He fell off the ridge and walked away. How do you propose to stop him?"

  . Doug took a deep breath. "We're going to starve him," he said. "We're going to cut off his mail."

  "Cut off his male what?" someone yelled from the crowd, and there was a chorus of tension-relieving laughter.

  Doug smiled. "We're going to stop sending or receiving any mail. Whatever he delivers, don't take it, don't pick it up. Let it sit in your mailboxes. The mail is his only real power. That's all he's ever really done to us." He thought of Billy, thought of Tritia , thought of Howard. "The mail is how he's gotten to us. It's how he's brought us to this point. It's his only weapon. If we can stop the mail, we can stop him."

  Arguing broke out and Doug could tell immediately that his idea had not gone over well. He had been afraid of that. It sounded so stupid, so weak, so ineffectual, that it didn't seem as though it would do any good. He saw a couple of people heading for the door.

  "Wait," Mike's voice cut authoritatively through the cacophony. He walked across the floor to stand next to Doug. "Hear him out."

  The noise abated.

  "I know it sounds idiotic," Doug continued. "But we have nothing to lose by trying. The police officer's right. Bullets won't stop him. I don't think he can be killed. But I've been watching him. There was a holiday on the Fourth of July. No mail was delivered. The next day he was thin and sick. This week, when he came back after disappearing, he was even thinner. He needs mail to survive.

  That's where he gets his energy or his power or whatever it is. If we cut him off, if no one sends any mail or receives any mail, he will have nothing to do.

  He will die."

  "Maybe he won't die. Maybe he'll just leave," a woman said.

  "Fine. At least we'll be rid of him."

  "Then he'll come back."

  "And we'll do it again. Or maybe by that time we will have found something else."

  People were starting to talk again.

  "We all have to do it. Every one of us. If even one person gives him mail, it may be enough to keep him alive." Doug swallowed. His voice cracked. "Look, he attacked my wife and my son. Or he tried to attack them. But he couldn't do anything. He couldn't touch them. He wanted to, he tried to, but in the end the only thing he could do was try to get them to read his mail. That's all he has.