She had not stopped screaming, but he did not seem to mind. He smiled at her. “Nice bush,” he said, and the crudity of his words, juxtaposed against the smoothness of his voice, was somehow more terrifying than if he had simply come out and attacked her.

Why the hell hadn’t she checked the shower?

He bent down to pick up the knife and she leapt off the toilet and out of the bathroom in a frantic, instinctive escape attempt. Her body slammed against his in the constricted space before the doorway, and for a sickening second as she flew past him, she felt his clothed hardness against her naked skin. And then she was across the hall and in the bedroom, slamming the door shut. She fumbled with the knob for a second before turning the lock. Her eyes darted around the room as she searched for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon.

Outside, in the hall, she heard a clattering sound as the mailman threw the knife across the floor into the kitchen. Obviously, he didn’t want to kill her.

Then what did he want?

She pressed her shoulder against the bedroom door and let out an involuntary sound of raw animal fear. She was too afraid to cross the room to reach the telephone. The door lock was cheap and flimsy, and if she let up on her support for even a second, he would be inside.

Inside.

She closed her eyes, willing herself not to be overwhelmed by the fear. “Get out of my house,” she ordered. Her voice was wavering, unforceful. “Get out of here now!”

“You want it,” he said, his voice coolly unperturbed. “You know you want it.”

“Get the fuck out of here!” she screamed. “I’m calling the police.”

His voice dropped an octave to a tone of low insinuating intimacy. “Do you like your mail delivered at the back door?” he asked.

“Help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. She meant for the scream to be loud and piercing, a cry of terror and rage, but the shout was almost a sob, desperation eating away at its edges, and she abruptly fell silent, unwilling to let the mailman sense her weakness, the stubbornness within her unwilling to concede anything to the monster outside the door.

“Do you like blood?” the mailman asked in that same low intimate tone. He was right next to the crack of the door; she could hear the sound of his dry lips pressing together as he spoke. “Do you like warm, thick, salty blood?”

“Help me!” she cried, and this time it really was a sob. She heard the mailman’s low answering chuckle.

And the sound of a zipper being pulled down.

“You know you want it,” he repeated.

She held her breath.

There was the quiet slapping sound of skin against skin.

He was playing with himself.