Doug was nervous and excited, and he knew the other two men were too, but all three of them had for some reason assumed masks of laconic disinterest, as though they were three old-timers whiling away their hours on a park bench and casually commenting on the sights that passed before their eyes.

“Looks like he’s going back to the donut hut,” Tegarden drawled.

“Yep,” Mike said.

A part of Doug felt sorry for the mailman. He did not like to see anything hurt or wounded. But he had only to think of Trish and Billy, of Hobie and Stockley and everyone else, for that sympathy to disappear and be replaced by a grim feeling of satisfaction.

The mailman was getting what he deserved.

“He’s trying to shove mail under the door of the catalog store,” Mike observed.

“Won’t work,” Tegarden said.

The mailman ran wildly back to his car and drove back up the street for the eighth time.

53

The water came on sometime during the ninth morning, the electricity that afternoon.

By the end of the next day, both gas and telephone service had also been restored.

54

The mailman had not been seen for over two days, and when Doug called the police station, Mike told him that the mailman’s car had not moved from the front of the post office for fifty-two hours. “I think it’s time for us to go in there and check,” he said. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

They drove together, in four cars, and Doug couldn’t help thinking about Jack and Tim. When this was over, they would have to have a memorial service for them. For all the victims of the mail.

Flies were buzzing on the dried heads of the dead dogs. The air was thick with the putrid odor of the decapitated carcasses. The eight men strode across the parking lot. Directly in front of the door, behind an overturned bench, Doug saw something he hadn’t before.

An infant’s head.

Speared on a fallen mailbox post.

He looked at Mike, but neither of them said a word. The child’s head, like those of the dogs, was dried and old and swarming with flies. The small eyes were clear deflated sacs.

Mike motioned to Tegarden, the biggest, strongest man on the force. “Kick it in,” he said, gesturing toward the glass door.

Tegarden obliged happily and shattering shards exploded inward.

They stepped through the open door frame.

The interior of the post office was dark, windows completely boarded up, lights off. Brown packaging paper covered the walls and floor and ceiling. The men stepped hesitantly inside, Doug first. The sounds of their movement were loud in the stillness. “Where the hell are you?” Doug called.