-- he could jump and haul ass to safety.

Tiptoeing carefully, lightly, quietly, he stepped into the Big Room.

"Billy."

The voice was closer this time. Extremely close. Billy looked up.

The mailman stared down at him through the open trapdoor, grinning. There was corruption in that smile, a twisted cruelty in the hard blue eyes.

"Want to have a good time?" the mailman asked.

Billy backed into the HQ. He glanced down at the stack of _Playboys_ as he retreated, but they were not _Playboys_. They were _Playgirls_.

"Billy," the mailman said again.

Panicked now, he began kicking at the back wall of the HQ, trying to knock off one of the boards so he could crawl through and out. He kicked with all of his might, putting the strength of desperation behind each kick, but they had built The Fort well -- too well -- and the boards would not budge.

He heard the mailman drop through the trapdoor to the floor of the Big Room behind him.

"I brought you a present, Billy," the mailman said.

"Help!" Billy screamed at the top of his lungs. He kicked furiously at the wall. "Mom! Dad!"

"Want to have a good time?" the mailman asked.

Billy turned around and saw over his shoulder the mailman smiling, holding forth his present.

When Billy was not home when they came back from the store and had still not returned an hour later, Tritia began to panic. She had Doug call Mike at the police station, who promised to comb the town, starting with the post office, and she began calling all of Billy's friends. She dialed theChapmans ' number and Lane answered the phone.

"Hello," Tritia said. "This is Mrs.Albin . Is Billy there?"

"No." Lane's voice sounded at once cold and suggestive, not unlike that of the mailman, and the fear grew within her.

"Have you seen him at all today?"

"No." Lane paused. "But I've seen you."

There was a click as the connection was broken.

Tritia hung up the phone. What the hell did that mean? She didn't know, and she didn't think she wanted to know. She started to dial the twins, when she heard Doug come in through the back door.

"He's not under the house or by the clothesline," he said. He was trying to keep the worry out of his voice, but he was not having much luck. "His bike's still here. I'm going to start looking in the back, around the green belt."

"Okay," she agreed. "I'll keep calling."

Doug walked out the front door.

God, she prayed silently, let him be all right.

Doug walked across the length of their property, venturing into the green belts on both sides, searching under every bush, looking up in every tree, calling his son's name. "Billy! Billy!"

Lizards scuttled out of his way, frightened by the noise. Quail flew frantically up from their herbaceous hideaways.

"Billy!"

He continued pressing toward the hill in back of their house until he saw the camouflaged exterior of The Fort before him. "Billy!" he called.

There was no answer.

He stared at The Fort, and there seemed to him something ominous about it.

He had never before thought of the wooden structure as anything more threatening than a children's playhouse, but as he looked at it now, it seemed low and dark and claustrophobically closed, and he realized that the feeling he got from it was uncomfortably close to the feeling he had had when he'd looked at the house in which Ellen Ronda had been killed.

He took a tentative step forward. "Billy?"

He pressed his ear to the wooden wall. From inside The Fort, he could hear a low steady whimpering. "Billy!" he cried. He looked frantically for a weak point in the structure where he could pull off a board and get inside, but the makeshift building was remarkably well-constructed, with no protruding panels or obvious weak points. Desperate, he grabbed hold of the roof and tried to pull himself up. He was horrendously out of shape, and even a partial pull-up caused him to grunt and strain with the effort. A sliver slid into his palm, and his right ring finger pressed painfully against the bent head of a crooked nail, but with the aid of his feet kicking against the side wall for support, he managed to reach the roof and roll on top of the clubhouse.

Nearby, he saw the square open trapdoor that led down into The Fort. He peered in but could see nothing; he quickly dropped through the opening, landing hard. The whimpering was louder now, and he whirled around. "Billy?"

His son was crouched in a dark corner of the room in a modified fetal position, knees drawn up to his chin. His shut was ripped and tattered, covered with grease and dirt. His face was blank.

He was wearing no pants.

"Billy," Doug cried, rushing forward. He was screaming and crying all at once and he fell to the ground, hugging his son. Within him the rage and fear and pain had coalesced into one horrible all-consuming feeling of hatred, and tears flowed down his cheeks as he gripped Billy tightly.

"No," Billy was saying softly. "No. No. No. No . . ."

Doug moved back, still holding his son. Through his tears, he looked into Billy's face. The boy's eyes were wide and scared and staring.

"No. No. No. No . . ."

On the dirt next to him was a soiled wedding dress.

And a pair of bloody underwear.

And several postmarked packages and envelopes.

A bolt of emotional pain wrenched Doug's midsection, so sharp it was physical.

Billy's faraway gaze focused on him for a moment. "I won't wear it!" he screamed. "You can't make me." His entire body shook.

Doug pulled him close. He realized for the first time that his son's skin was warm, feverish. He pulled himself together, forcing himself to act logically, though the bitter hatred that flowed through his veins rebelled against all rationality. He stood and was about to pick up Billy when he noticed the corner of an envelope protruding from underneath one of the folds of the soiled dress. He reached down and grabbed it, saw his name on the front, tore it open. There were only five words and an exclamation point on the otherwise blank page: I like your wife too!

"No!" Doug screamed, a loud primal denial directed to no one who could hear. "No," Billy repeated. "No. No. No. No. No . . ."

Doug picked up his son without thinking and with adrenaline strength pushed him up through the opening. He guided the limp body away from the hole, then lifted himself up. His muscles were aching, his tortured insides on fire, but he forced himself to move across the roof. He had to get home to Tritia .

Tritia hung up the phone, palms sweaty, the fear feverishly alive within her. She walked into the kitchen to get herself a glass of water, and it was then that she saw the envelope on the counter next to the microwave. Frowning, she picked it up. She could not remember seeing it on the counter before. She certainly hadn't checked the mailbox today, and she was pretty sure neither Doug nor Billy had either. She looked at the front of the envelope. It was addressed to her, but there was no return address.

It's starting again, she thought. And Billy's missing. But she refused to let herself think that way. She tore open the envelope and pulled out the piece of paper inside.

I'm in the bedroom.

The words jumped out at her, hitting her with the impact of a blunt cudgel. He was back. It hadn't ended.

He was back and he was after her.

Fumblingly, she opened the top drawer nearest the sink. She drew out a carving knife and gripped it tightly, holding it before her as she walked slowly down the hall toward the bedroom, prepared to lash out at any sign of movement.

She knew that it was stupid and foolhardy to try to take on the mailman by herself -- she should run to a neighbor's house, call the police -- but he had pushed too far. She had reached her limit and she was damned if she was going to let him terrorize her anymore.

If he was here, she would kill him.

She would slit his fucking throat.

He was not in the bedroom. Knife in front of her, poised to stab, she checked the closet, looked under the bed. Nothing. She poked her head in the bathroom. All clear. She knew he was neither in the kitchen nor in the living room because she had been in both.

That left the loft.

She thought she heard a footstep creak upstairs.

Run, a part of her brain -- the intelligent part of her brain -- was telling her. Get out of here now. But she gripped the knife tighter and headed through the kitchen, through the living room, to the stairway. It was day, but the loft's small lone window was not able to illuminate the entire room, and the top of the stairs was in shadow.

She crept upward as quietly as possible, fingers white on the knife handle. She was almost to the top of the stairs and was bending over to keep her head below the level of the floor so he would not be able to see her approach, when her foot landed on a loose board. The stair groaned. She froze, not daring to breathe, but there was no sound from the loft. Holding the knife before her, she dashed up the last five steps, ready to lash out.

The loft was deserted. There was no one there.

Still holding the knife, she made a quick check of the closet, of the area behind Billy's bed, but the loft was empty.

He had gone.

The house was clean.

She made her way downstairs. In the living room, she peered out the window, trying to spot any unnatural objects in the drive or in the surrounding trees and bushes, but the property was disturbed only by a pair of battling blue jays. She double-checked first the front door, then the back, and when she found that both were locked, she allowed herself to relax a little.

Her bladder had been considerably weakened by the tension, and she walked into the bathroom, still clutching the knife. She no longer had a death grip on the handle, but she was taking no chances -- she might have missed him in her cursory examination of the forest in back. He could have been hiding behind a tree, knowing she would not go out of the house to search for him, and he might be waiting outside right now, listening in at the door, waiting for precisely a moment like this, a moment when she was vulnerable, to come inside and attack.

She left the bathroom door open and quickly pulled down her pants, sitting on the toilet.

The mailman stepped out of the shower.

She screamed in terror, dropping the knife, then immediately reached down with scrambling fingers to pick it up off the floor. He stepped on top of it, his shiny black shoes completely covering the blade. He was fully dressed, wearing his pressed postal uniform, but she could see the huge bulge in his trousers as he stood in front of her. She covered her exposed lap with one hand and held the other tremblingly in front of her to push him away.

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.

"Billy likes his mail delivered upstairs and at the back door."

That gave her the strength that had been eluding her. White-hot anger coursed through her veins. "You son of a bitch!" she screamed; "Don't you dare touch him!"

From outside the house, from the rear, she heard Doug's voice. "Trish!"

Again: "Trish!" He was running; the amplification of his words came at a pace much faster than it would have had he been moving more slowly. Something had happened. She could hear the fear in his voice, and the burning anger. Something had happened.

But she was just thankful to hear his voice at all. She was saved.

Whatever else had happened, he was here to save her. "In here!" she yelled as loud as she could. "I'm in the bedroom!"

She had not heard the mailman leave, but from the silence on the other side of the door she knew he was gone.

There were heavy running steps on the porch. "Trish!" Doug called frantically. The screen door slammed shut.

"I'm in here!" She fumblingly opened the bedroom door and flew out of the room, sobbing. "I --"