The parking lot was virtually deserted, only one car and one pickup in the spaces next to her. That was unusual but not completely unheard of for this time of day, but what was weird was the fact that no one was sitting on the benches outside the building. The old men who usually wiled away their days in front of the post office were nowhere to be seen.

She stepped inside. The mailman was alone behind the counter, helping an elderly man with a white mustache. This close, his sharp red hair seemed somehow threatening, particularly when paired with the blandness of his pale features. Howard was nowhere to be seen. She tried to catch a glimpse of the room behind the partition in back of the counter, to see if the postmaster was working in the back, but she could see nothing from this angle.

She looked around the lobby. She had not been here in several weeks, and the room had changed. In place of the Selective Service poster that had been prominently displayed on one wall—a poster featuring a benign young man seated on a stool next to his pretty girlfriend—was a poster filled with the grimacing sweaty head of an ugly marine, flecks of blood on the collar of his uniform, aggressive words printed over his photo, demanding, ordering that all eighteen-year-old males register upon reaching their birthdays. The entire character of the post office seemed different. Even the stamp posters on the walls had changed. Where once had hung beautiful posters for the most recent nature stamps and wildlife philatelics were now three identical signs for a new stamp celebrating the anniversary of the invention of the hydrogen bomb.

The room seemed very hot, almost oppressively so. The day was not particularly warm or humid, was in fact uncharacteristically cool for this time of year, but the inside of the post office was roasting.

The man at the counter finished his business, turning to go, and Tritia realized with something like panic that she was the only other patron in the post office. She, too, turned quickly to leave, but the mailman’s smooth professional voice held her. “Mrs. Albin?”

Tritia turned around. The mailman was smiling kindly at her, and she thought for a second that she and Doug were wrong, they’d both been paranoid, there was nothing wrong with the mailman, nothing unusual. Then she moved forward and saw the hardness of his mouth, the coldness of his eyes, remembered the creek, the letters.

And the night-time delivery.

The mailman continued to smile at her, although it was really more of a smirk than a smile. “May I help you?”

She was determined to remain strong and confident, to not show her fear. “I’d like to speak with Howard.”

“I’m sorry,” the mailman said. “Howard went home sick this morning. Is there something I can help you with?”