It wasn’t possible. Yesterday the mailman had been too weak to move, almost too weak to stand, in nowhere-near-good-enough shape to drive a car. Even if he had successfully delivered a letter, or several letters, between then and now, it was impossible for him to have so suddenly improved.

But there was no mistaking the sound of the car. In the stillness of the night he heard its tires crunching gravel, heard the low purr as it idled at the foot of the drive.

The low purr.

The sound was not frightening to him, but it was compelling, and he sonically followed its approach.

The purr.

The alertness with which he’d awakened began to fade. He wanted to sit up in bed, to walk to the living room and peek out the front window to see just what was happening, but either his mind was too tired to issue the command or his leg muscles were too tired to follow it, and he remained in bed, listening to the purr.

The purr.

He realized that the low drone was acting as a somnolent, that its unchanging rhythm was hypnotizing him back into sleep, but he was unable to fight against it. His eyes began to close. He faded back into dreamland still hearing the low sound of the quiet engine.

He knew when he awoke that the mailman was gone. He knew without hearing, without seeing, without checking. It was a feeling, a subtle difference in the air, in the atmosphere, that he could not have explained if he’d had to. An oppressiveness was missing; and the feeling of lurking dread to which he had grown accustomed, which had awakened with him each morning, which had seemed after all this time to have become an integral part of his makeup, had disappeared.

He picked up the phone and called Mike. The policeman was not at home, but he was at the police station, and he answered immediately. “Willis Police Department, Mike Trenton speaking.”

“Mike? This is Doug.”

“He’s gone.”

Doug was silent for a moment, closing his eyes, feeling the relief wash over him. Confirmation. He was gone. “I knew he would be,” Doug said.

“I noticed this morning as I drove in that his car was not in the post-office parking lot, and I went in there with Tegarden and Jeff. Nothing. The place was empty. He may be coming back, though—”

“He’s not,” Doug said.

“We don’t—”

“He’s not.”