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THE MAILMAN

Bentley Little
Chapters (57)
  1. DEDICATION
  2. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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THE MAILMAN

Bentley Little

DEDICATION

For Wendy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special Thanks To:

My agent, Dominick Abel, again. Keith Neilson, for his advice, criticism, and his knowledge of all things dark and terrible, all horrors great and small. Don Cannon, bookseller supreme. Jeff Teets, photographer extraordinaire. And my family, for their problems with the post office.

1

It was the first day of summer, his first day of freedom, and Doug Albin stood on the porch staring out at the pine-covered ridge above town. It wasn’t technically the first day of summer—that was still three weeks away. It wasn’t even his real first day of freedom—that had been Saturday. But it was the first Monday after school ended, and as he stood at the railing, enjoying the view, he felt great. He took a deep breath, smelling pine and bacon, pollen and pancakes, the mingled odors of woods and breakfast. Morning smells.

It was cool out and there was a slight breeze, but he knew that that would not last long. The sky was a deep navy blue, devoid of even a single cloud, and by noon the temperature would be well into the nineties. He scanned the horizon. A hawk circled lazily overhead, moving in ever-widening circles away from its point of departure. On the ridge, he could see the thin gray line of a single campfire rising into the air above the line of trees. Closer in, small animals flitted about, stirred into hyperactivity by the breeze: rabbits, squirrels, hummingbirds, quail.

Although he had arisen with the sun the way he did every Monday morning, he had done so out of choice not out of necessity, and the pressure of impending work that usually marred his mornings was absent. He didn’t have to rush to get dressed, he didn’t have to speed through his breakfast and read only the headlines of the newspaper. He didn’t have to do anything. The whole day was before him and he could do with it as he pleased.

The front door opened behind him and he glanced around, hearing the sound of the latch clicking.

Trish stuck her head out from behind the screen. “What do you want for breakfast?”

He looked at her wild hair and her still-sleepy visage, and he smiled. “Nothing. I’m not hungry. Come on out here with me.”

She shook her head dully. “No. It’s cold. Now, what do you want? You can’t skip breakfast just because you’re on vacation. It’s—”

“—the most important meal of the day,” he finished for her. “I know.”

“Well, what do you want? French toast? Waffles?”

Doug breathed deeply, smelling other breakfasts from other homes. “Eggs,” he said. “And bacon.”

“Bran cereal,” she told him. “And wheat toast. You’ve eaten enough cholesterol lately.”

“Then why did you even ask me?”