The murmuring grew slightly louder.
Doug continued walking. His keys and change were jingling in his pants and he put his hand in his pocket to muffle the noise. The road curved slightly, the land leveling off, and he came to an abrupt stop, his heart thumping loudly in his chest. The mailman was about half a mile directly ahead of him, off the road, in the middle of the field. Even from here, he could see the lithe thin figure dancing madly amid the rocks and boulders, arms flailing with wild abandonment. He knew who it was without moving closer, but he wanted to be near enough to see everything, and he left the road, ducking through the grass, creeping forward, the fear a palpable presence in his body. Behind him, the moon was rising, full and bright, throwing the top of the ridge into phosphorescent relief, casting a soft light on the entire scene.
He moved silently forward. The sounds grew louder. The mailman was chanting something. At first it sounded like a foreign language, so strange and alien were its rhythms and cadences. But, listening closer as he approached, Doug realized that the words of the chant were English.
"Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail. . . ."
He was chanting the motto of the Postal Service.
The skin on the back of Doug's neck prickled, peach fuzz standing on end.
He crept behind a large irregularly shaped boulder and peeked out from behind its bulk. The mailman was leaping in the air, twirling joyfully, not following any steps or preplanned moves, dancing wildly and impulsively. This close, Doug could see that the mailman was dressed in his full postal uniform: shoes and pants, shirt and cap. Brass buttons glinted in the moonlight. Blue-blackness was reflected off the spit-shined shoes.
Doug's mouth was dry and cottony, his heart pounding so loudly that he was sure the mailman would be able to hear it. He had known there was something odd, something strange, something evil about the mailman. But he realized now that he was in far over his head. The mailman's dance was spontaneous and celebratory and could very well have had something to do with witchcraft orsatanism , but he had an intuitive feeling that the dance was related to something much worse, something much more primal and unfathomable, something he did not and perhaps could not understand.
The mailman stopped chanting and grinned crazily, perfect teeth seeming, to glow in the moonlight, staring raptly up at the sky as his legs moved in impossible steps, his arms mirroring each foot movement. He began to chant again. The Postal Service motto.
The mailman had been dancing for at least the five minutes that Doug had been watching, dancing at full throttle, using all of his strength and all of the energy at his disposal, but he showed no signs of tiring. Indeed, he did not even appear to be sweating.
Doug had no doubt that the mailman could keep this up until dawn.
He began backing away the way he had come, retreating behind the boulder, into thegrassFor a second, he thought he saw the mailman look directly at him and laugh, but then he was running, hurrying through the grass and down the road to the Bronco.
He turned around without flipping on his headlights and sped down the Ridge Road toward home.
He had forgotten all about Billy's Big Hunk and his supposed trip to Circle K, but neither Tritia nor Billy said anything to him when he arrived back, and he knew that they knew he'd been lying.
In bed that night, he stared up into the darkness, listening to Tritia 's deep even breathing and to the sounds of nocturnal nature. Somewhere near the house a cricket chirped tirelessly, and from the trees in back came the intermittent hooting of an owl.
Usually, he had no trouble falling asleep. He had needed a lot of rest as a child, and even as an adult had always been able to dive into dreamland soon after hitting the sheets. But tonight he lay awake with his eyes closed through Carson, through Letterman, then got up to turn off the TV, thinking perhaps that the noise was keeping him awake, though it had never bothered him before. But the outside noises also seemed to shut off at the same time as the television, and as he lay there in bed, staring up into the darkness, he imagined he heard on the slight breeze the sound of distant chanting.
21
Hobiewas awakened by the noise of clanking metal, and it took his sleep numbed brain a moment to identify the sound. His mind was still half-trapped in hisdreamworld , a wonderful place where there was a gigantic swimming pool and he was lifeguard and all the women swam naked. He had taken off his trunks and was just about to join one blond lovely on a beach towel when the noise had intruded on his sleep and returned him to the real world.
The sound came again, a metal clanking, and this time he recognized it.
The lid of the mailbox. He frowned, glancing over at the alarm clock next to his bed. Jesus, it was three in the morning. Why the hell was his mail being delivered at three in the morning?
He pushed off the covers and started to get out of bed when he suddenly stopped himself. How had he been able to hear the opening and closing of the mailbox lid? The mailbox was at the far end of the trailer, and the sound it made could be heard only when standing right next to it. And how had the sound woken him up? He was a heavy sleeper and ordinarily he slept through the night without awakening. Even his alarm usually had a difficult time rousing him.
He felt a sudden chill, and he quickly stood up and put on his robe.
Something strange was going on here. If the mailman was still outside, he was going to ask that queer little son of a bitch . . .
How had he known it was the mailman?
The chill grew, coldness creeping up his spine. It was such a bizarre thought to begin with, why had he assumed -- no, _known_ -- that the mailman had just made a delivery in the middle of the night? Why hadn't he thought that vandals were tampering with his mailbox? That kids were dropping eggs in there?
Hobiewalked out to the living room in the front of the trailer. He was not a timid man, but he had to force himself to move forward across the carpet.
What he really wanted to do was return to bed and hide his head under the covers.
He opened the door. The street was empty. Moonlight shone on the hoods of his cars in the front yard. He put his hand in the mailbox and withdrew an envelope. It was thick, stuffed. He closed and locked the door behind him, turning on the lamp in the living room and looking at the envelope in the light.
There was no return address, but the postmark was Vietnam.
_Vietnam?_
He examined the postmark more carefully. It was dated June 4, 1968.
A cold sweat broke out on his body. The temperature in the trailer seemed at once too cold and too hot, and he sat down heavily on the couch, staring at the envelope in his hand, not having the nerve to open it.
Vietnam. 1968.
It wasn't possible. A letter could not have been lost for over twenty years and then found and delivered. Could it? He fingered the envelope nervously. Maybe Doug was right. Maybe it was the mailman himself doing this, sending these fake letters to people. Why else would he be delivering them in the middle of the night?
But why would he do such a thing? What could he possible hope to gain? It was a felony to tamper with the mails. If he got caught, he would go to prison.
Hobietore open the envelope.
Four photos fell out. As before, they were before and after shots. An Oriental girl, fourteen or fifteen, head and vagina shaved bald, on all fours in a dark and dirty room. The same girl, legs amputated and propped in back of her head, face screaming with agony and terror. An even younger girl, possibly Asian, possibly white, tied spread-eagled to stakes embedded in the dirt, dark green jungle behind her. The same girl, eviscerated, eyes wide and unseeing, mouth frozen in arictus of tortured pain.