Doug smiled. That, he was certain, had been a tactical error on the mailman's part. The stench and the disease accompanying the rotting fruit, animals, and whatever else had been in the bundles would have eventually forced him to clean his yard, thereby granting the mailman more power. Instead, the mailman had been forced to expend power in order to remove the packages.
The signs were subtle, but they were there.
The mailman was getting scared. He was getting sloppy.
He was slipping.
They just had to wait him out.
50
The days were long. The nights were longer.
The utilities had been off since the day after the packages had disappeared, and both Doug and Trish smelled from not bathing. For meals they had sandwiches and barbecues, drank warm beer and Cokes. During the interminable days, they waited on the porch, trying to read but not reading, or went to the hospital to sit with Billy. The hospital had its own self-powered emergency generators, and while they were not allowed to use the rationed water or spend the night in semi-air-conditioned comfort due to the new overcrowded conditions, at least they had the satisfaction of knowing that Billy was being taken care of.
The psychiatrist who had come up from Phoenix told them after an afternoon-long meeting with Billy that he was a healthy and extremely well adjusted young man and that with the proper counseling he should be able to recover nicely.
At night Doug's fitful sleep was disturbed by dreams. Dreams in which Willis was a ghost town and all of the buildings were made from mail. Dreams in which Tritia lay naked and beckoning on the bed, covered head to toe with canceled stamps. Dreams in which Billy wore a Postal Service uniform and grinningly accompanied the mailman on his hellishly appointed rounds.
The gas in the Bronco was getting low, but Doug couldn't help driving into town to check with the police. Each night the mailman came, delivering mail, depositing it now in the mailbox, and Doug kept thinking that with no visible progress someone was going to crack, was going to accept a letter or, worse, send one. But Mike andTegarden said each time that as far as they could tell, the dam was holding.
The sixth day passed.
The air-conditioning was shut off in the hospital to save the generator fuel, but the windows were open and a slight breeze cooled Billy's room. The two of them played Monopoly while Tritia watched, then Tritia and Billy played Parcheesi while he watched.
How thin was the veneer of civilization, Doug thought. How little it took to send them scurrying back to the caves. It was not laws that separated man from beast. It was not reason. It was not culture or government. It was communication. Communication made possible the niceties of modern life, ensured the continuation of society. A breakdown in communication, particularly in this global age when so much depended on the proper relay of correct information, left people feeling lost and helpless, resulting in an arrest of the normal rules of behavior, paving the road for chaos.
But he was waxing pretentious again. He found himself doing that often, even aloud, which annoyed the hell out of Tritia . He should have learned by now to save those sorts of ruminations for the classroom and not to inject them into real conversations.
The classroom.
How far away school seemed, how quaint and innocent. He tried to think of when school was going to be starting, but though he thought it was pretty soon, he wasn't sure. He realized he didn't know what date it was.
He left Tritia at the hospital while he went to the police station to see what was happening. On the way, he passed by the Circle K, and he slowed down as he saw the mailman opening the blue mailbox in front of the convenience store.
The mailbox was completely empty and he slammed the metal door shut angrily. He looked bad, Doug thought. He had always been thin, but now he seemed gaunt, almost skeletal. His pale skin was bleached nearly bone-white, and there was no differentiation in color between his lips and the rest of his skin. Even his once fiery red hair seemed faded and lackluster.
Doug's heart leapt hopefully in his chest. It was working. He had been right. The mailman might be able to substitute mail, even to generate mail, but to do so he had to have other mail coming in. He smiled to himself. Mail, he thought, could be neither created nor destroyed.
Doug watched the mailman stand. He seemed weak, frail. All they had to do now was wait him out.
The mailman suddenly turned toward him and grinned, eyes fastening sharply and instantly on his own, as though he had known exactly where Doug had been watching the whole time. The effect of those perfect teeth in that skeleton face was horrifying. A comic-book monster come to life. The mailman reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of envelopes, fanning them like cards, offering them to Doug. But Doug pressed down on the gas and sped past the Circle K not looking at the mailman, heart hammering in his chest.
His fear did not survive the trip to the police station. He ran inside.
For the first time, he had something to tell them, good news, and when he described what he had seen, the policemen cheered.
'No mail,' Mike said, grinning. 'No mail! No mail!'
The others took up the chant.
'No mail! No mail! No mail!'
51
TrilAllison stood in front of the living-room window with his sons, watching as the mailman's red car pulled in front of their driveway. Annie stayed in the kitchen, refusing to look, afraid to look.
The car came to a full stop and the mailman got out. He looked extraordinarily thin, almost emaciated, and even from here,Tril could see the bony fingers emerging from the drooping uniform, could see the haggard gauntness in the pale face.Tril's hands tightened on the windowsill. He was scared, but he was also exhilarated, horrified and at the same time thrilled. It was working. The English teacher had been right. Without any mail to deliver, John Smith was losing his strength. He was dying.
Through the window, he met the mailman's gaze, and for the first time in a long while he did not look away.
The mailman moved over to the wooden mailbox and opened the hinged door.
Out spilled envelopes, white and manila, thin and stuffed, large and small: the untouched mail that had been delivered over the past few days. The mailman looked up again at the house, andTril could see in the white skeletal face a ferocious rage, an expression of pain and hate so raw and unfettered that both boys moved back from the window, too frightened to watch.
ButTril watched.
He watched as the mailman angrily picked the envelopes off the dirt and shoved them back into the box. Watched as he brought more mail from the car and shoved it in as well. Watched as he slammed shut the mailbox door.
The mailman moved around to the driver's side of the car. He glared at the house and mouthed somethingTril could not make out before getting in and driving off in a cloud of dust.
Trilwaited a few moments to make sure he was not going to return, then looked back at Annie, at his sons, picked up the hammer and nails, and went outside to nail the mailbox shut.
Hunt James pulled into the six-space parking lot in front of the building he shared with Dr. Elliott. He had come here to tape up the mail slot in his office door, to make sure that the mailman would not be able to deliver anything to his business address. He strode across the faded and broken asphalt and stepped onto the short sidewalk. In the window of the dentist's office, next to the familiar 'No UPS today' sign, he saw a hastily lettered square of white cardboard that said 'NO MAIL EVER!'
Good idea, Hunt thought. He used his key to open the door to his own office and flipped on the lights. He strode purposefully across the carpeted floor. From his secretary's desk, he took a thick black felt-tipped pen and a sheet of typing paper as well as a roll of masking tape. Smiling to himself, he began to write.
