BooksBarbecue
Back THE MAILMAN
Chapters (57)
  1. DEDICATION
  2. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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Bro,

Finally got some R&R. I’ll be coming by to see you in a week or so, soon as I can get a transport out of here. I’m bringing some prime poon don’t no one know about, so we can have us some real fun. She’s 12 and a virgin to boot. At least that’s what the guy who sold her to me said.

I’ll be bringing my knives.

See you soon.

It was signed “Dan,” and it was dated last week.

Doug folded the paper and looked at Hobie. “You know this isn’t real,” he said. “He’s doing it. The mailman. He’s trying to—”

“It’s Dan,” Hobie insisted. “I know my brother.”

Doug licked his lips, which had suddenly become very dry. “What is this about a twelve-year-old? What does he mean when he says he’s bringing his knives?”

Hobie stood up and began pacing nervously around the room. His face was tense, muscles strained. There was an element of the caged animal in his walk. “I don’t want to see him,” he said.

“What about the twelve-year-old girl and the knives?”

Hobie stopped pacing. “I can’t tell you that.” He looked at Doug, eyes frightened. “I don’t want him coming here. He’s my brother and I haven’t seen him since I was sixteen, but… but he’s dead. He’s dead, Doug.” Hobie resumed his pacing. “I don’t want him coming here. I don’t want to see him.” He took a deep audible breath. “I’m afraid of him.”

Doug heard the wildness in his friend’s voice, the threat of hysteria just below the surface. He stood up and grabbed Hobie’s shoulders, confronting him. “Look,” he said, “I know you recognize your brother’s handwriting. I know he says things in those letters that only he could know. But listen to me carefully. It’s a trick. The mailman’s doing it. You know as well as I do what’s going on in town, and if you think about it logically you’ll realize that the same thing is happening to you. You said yourself that your brother is dead. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but do you honestly think that his rotted corpse is going to fly on a transport plane from Vietnam, land in Phoenix, and take a bus or cab or rent a car to come to Willis? Does that make any sense to you?”

Hobie shook his head.

“It’s the mailman,” Doug said.