It was not dated, it was not signed.

"We found this in the chiefs hand."

"Where -- ?" Doug began.

"Come on." Mike led him quickly into the hall and down to the closed office at the far end. "Brace yourself." He opened the door.

Catfieldwas in his desk chair, facing the door. He had been thrown back against the wall behind the desk and was staring at them. Or would have been staring at them had he had a face. For the shotgun proppedori the desk before him had taken off half of his head, including his nose and eyes, leaving only a twisted bloody mess of bone and tissue. Five or six remaining teeth grinned out of the grotesquely misshapen hole that had been a mouth. The diplomas and certificates on the wall were splattered with a Rorschach of blood and brains.

"Jesus," Doug breathed. He looked at Mike. "You waited to call me?"

"No," the policeman admitted. "But I didn't want to argue. We went over to the post office, found nothing. I have five men and six volunteers combing the town right now."

"Have you tried Howard's house? That's where he lives."

"That's where the rest of us are going."

"Let's go,'" Doug said. He closed the door to the chiefs office.

The mailman's car was not in front of Howard's house, but the convoy of two police cars and two pickups parked catty-corner in the center of the street just in case, effectively blocking off any attempt to escape. The house looked even worse than it had the last time Doug had been by. The paint wasn't peeling, the shingles not falling off, but the house's overall appearance was so dilapidated that it gave the illusion that they were. The lawn was a brown weed jungle.

They got out of their cars and moved forward, two policemen in the lead, guns drawn. No one came out of any of the other houses on the street, and Doug found himself wondering if their owners had left, were dead, or were merely too frightened to come out.

A policeman knocked on the door, rang the bell, called out for someone to answer, then used a device tojim open the door. They walked inside.

The interior of the house was completely dark, the only illumination entering through the open door behind them. The heavy unmoving air stank of festering decay. Doug put his hand over his nose to block out the smell. He looked around, frowning. The entryway seemed narrower than he remembered, the walls rougher and more irregular. He reached out to touch the wall next to him, and his fingers touched packed paper. "Jesus," he whispered.

Stacks of envelopes stretched from floor to ceiling, covering every available inch of wall space, completely blocking the windows. The envelopes were fitted so neatly and precisely together that there was no space between them; they effectively formed an inner wall to the house.

The rest of them waited in place while two policemen went out to their cars for flashlights. Doug's eyes gradually adjusted. He could see into the living room beyond, and he noticed that the furniture had remained untouched.

The couches and tables were not covered by mail, but the walls were concealed with an inner layer of piled envelopes, and in the center of the room additional stacks of mail had been used to form low shapes, sculptures, vaguely geometric, vaguelypyramidic forms.

The lights came, strong halogen beams that penetrated the dimness and brought to their eyes the enormity of what they were up against, the sheer single-minded craziness of the mailman. Doug stared at the letter walls, at the patterns formed by precise placement of colored envelopes and overlapping stamps. He was reminded of the Aztecs or Mayas or Incas, one of those ancient civilizations that had been able to fit stones together so perfectly that their structures were still standing today without the aid of mortar or cement.

They moved forward, slowly.

"Mr. Smith," Mike called out. "Mr. Smith, are you here?"

The house was silent save for their own breathing and footsteps. They walked through the living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, marveling at the completeness of the mailman's insane renovation. The horrible, putrid smell grew stronger as they moved into the hallway. Mike, in the lead now, pushed open a bedroom door.

And there was Howard.

It was clear from the strength of the stench, a sickening acrid odor of gas and bile and feces, that Howard had long since started to rot, but the signs were not readily visible on his face,. The mailman had crudely painted Howard's lips with a dark-red lipstick, and ineptly applied eye shadow ringed the postmaster's widely staring eyes. There were twin rose circles of rouge on his pale sunken cheeks. Howard's hair had continued to grow after death, and it was piled on top of his head in a feminine swirl, held in place by greasy perfumed mousse. His toenails and fingernails had continued to grow as well and were obscenely long. The mailman had painted them a bright red.

He sat in a chair in the center of the room, staring at a dead television set, the only other piece of furniture in the room. On the floor surrounding him were crusts of moldy bread, old Twinkie wrappers, and the bones of rats.

Mike took a walkie-talkie from one of the other policemen and told the patrolling officers what they had found, requesting that the coroner come to Howard's after he had finished with the chief.

Doug stepped out of the room and walked down the hall, through the living room, and outside to catch his breath. Even with his nose plugged he had been able to smell the rot, and his stomach had churned as he saw what had been done to the postmaster. Part of him had wanted to grab Mike and shake him and say, "I told you so," but he knew that that was stupid and petty and that this was not the time or place for it.

He stood on the dead lawn, staring up at the sky, breathing. It was getting late. The sun was beginning to sink, the shadows to lengthen. In other towns throughout the state, throughout the country, people were settling down to dinner, talking, watching the news. But here such normalcy was merely a memory.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Mike. "The patrols report no sign of him.

Do you have any idea where he might be?"

The creek, Doug started to say, but then he saw the thin sliver of moon hovering over the dimming horizon in the east. He remembered the mailman's dance of triumphant celebration. "I know where he is," he said, looking confidently into the policeman's eyes. "Get everyone together. Everyone. We can't let him get away this time."

"He won't get away," Mike said softly. He patted Doug's shoulder and went back into the house. Doug could hear his voice, though he could not tell what he was saying, and a few moments later he heard the sound of footsteps behind him as the policemen hurried outside.

The rocks of the ridge were orange in the light of the setting sun, the trees black triangular outlines. Venus had already appeared low in the west, and in the east the moon had risen, brightened. They drove up the narrow road slowly, in single file. Below them, the lights of the town seemed deceptively tranquil, benign, as though nothing out of the ordinary could ever happen in such a sleepy little community.

Doug drove with Tim in his pickup, and neither of them spoke on the ride up the ridge. The radio was off as well, and the only noise was the rattle and clatter of the track as it bounced over the ruts and washboards of the rough road. Doug looked in the side mirror and saw Mike and the other policemen following close behind in their patrol cars, the other pickup bringing up the rear. When they reached the top of the ridge, Doug toldTun to pull over and motioned out the window for Mike to follow suit.

They all got out of their vehicles. The night was cool, an advance scout for the coming fall. There were no clouds, and the new moon was surrounded by a faint hazy white halo.

"Why are we stopping here?" Mike asked.

Doug put a finger on his lips to tell the policeman to be quiet. "We have to walk the rest of the way. It's the only way we'll catch him. If he hears all those cars and trucks driving up the road, he'll be gone before we even get there."

Mike nodded. "All right, then. Lead the way."

They walked slowly across the bumpy ground, the policemen with their guns drawn, everyone nervously alert, on edge, listening for the smallest sound, looking for the smallest movement. They passed through a patch of sticker bushes, maneuvered through the giantmanzanita .

And then they heard it. The familiar rhythmic chanting that brought a chill to Doug's blood, raised goose bumps on his arms.

He looked back at Mike, who nodded for him to keep moving. They crept forward slowly, quietly, until they were at the edge of the field. Doug stopped.

The mailman was dancing, as Doug had known he would be, arms flailing with wild abandonment, legs kicking up in spontaneouscounterrhythm .

And the chant.

". . . rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail. . ."

The chill that had enveloped Doug increased as they approached. There were ten of them all together, he was not alone, but he felt as afraid as if he had been facing the mailman by himself.

The mailman continued to dance. He looked extraordinarily thin, and he seemed ghostly in the moonlight, his red hair fake.

"Okay," Mike whispered, gathering them around. "We'll spread out in a net, a half-circle. He can't go down the cliff, so he'll be trapped." The policeman looked at Doug, then back at his colleagues. "He's not armed, but he's dangerous. If he tries anything, shoot him."

The other policemen nodded.

"Let's go."

The grass and bushes rustled as the men spread out, but the noise was more than covered by the mailman's chanting. Doug, weaponless, stayed close to Mike.

When the policemen saw that they were all in place, he stepped forward. The others followed suit.

The mailman saw them but did not falter in his ritual, continuing to dance without pause, raising his arms toward the sliver of the moon.

"I am placing you under arrest," Mike announced.

The mailman laughed, changing the words to his chant: "Neither men nor women nor hail of bullets shall keep this mailman from his appointed rounds."

Mike stepped forward, Doug next to him. The half-circle began to close in.

The mailman danced away from them, across the rocky field toward the edge of the ridge.

"Stop right there," Mike ordered.

The mailman laughed, leapt, danced, chanted. "Nor dark of night. . ."

They followed as he led them toward the ridge's edge, closing in, tightening their trap until they were almost upon him.

The mailman stopped dancing. He was not sweating, not even breathing hard.

He grinned at Doug. "Billy is such a nice boy," he said. "Such a _nice_ boy."

"Put your hands above your head," Mike ordered.

"What for, Officer?"

"Put them up!"

"You have no proof."

"We have all the proof we need."

The mailman smiled as he looked around the semicircle. "Fuckers," he said quietly.

"Put your hands above your head," Mike repeated.

"Fuckers," the mailman said softly. He moved backward to the very edge of the cliff, darting agilely from rock to rock, movingsurefootedly across treacherous stretches of loosely packed dirt away from them.

Mike fired a warning shot in the air, and the mailman stopped. Mike aimed the pistol at him. "If you make one more move, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

Doug was not sure whether Mike was serious or not, but the mailman thought he was, and he remained in place.

"Tim," Mike said, "cuff him."

Tim nodded, moved forward, open cuffs in hand. "Mr. Smith, you are under arrest for --"

He never finished the sentence. The mailman quickly reached out and, before Hibbard had a chance to react, grabbed the handcuffs and yanked them from the policeman's grip. Tim lunged for the cuffs, but the mailman stepped neatly aside and with a quick well-placed push sent the young policeman over the edge of the ridge. There was a raw scream of terror that was cut off almost immediately. Doug heard the sickening thump-crack of the body hitting rock and, for a second, a fault echo of the scream before the echo, too, was cut off.

The mailman grinned. "Next?"

It had happened in a matter of seconds, almost before Doug knew what was going on, but Lt. Jack Shipley was already in action, moving forward, pistol pointed directly at the mailman's midsection. The mailman's white hand darted out, reaching for the gun.

Jack shot.

The bullet hit the mailman full in the chest, blood spurting from the ragged hole. The mailman toppled backward from the force of the blast, but he managed to grab the gun anyway. With a quick yank, he pulled the policeman with him over the edge. Jack was too startled to scream or react in any way. The mailman fell over the cliff, clutching tightly to the policeman, and the two of them tumbled to the rocks below. In the second before he fell, Doug thought he saw a smile on the mailman's bloody lips.

The rest of them ran to the edge, looking down, but the ground below was dark. Several policemen switched on their flashlights.

The intersecting beams quickly found and illuminated Jack's broken unmoving form.

The beams crossed and crisscrossed, searching the rocky floor below, spotlighting inch by inch the ground surrounding the spot where Jack had fallen.

Tim lay nearby, arms twisted to the sides in impossible angles, head cracked open on a boulder. The lights lingered, then moved on, hitting trees, hitting bushes. Doug said nothing, and neither did any of the other men, but they were all thinking the same thing, and they were all scared shitless.

The beams continued to explore the terrain below the ridge, covering and recovering the same area.

But there were only two bodies on the ground.

The mailman was gone.

46.

Doug sat on the porch and looked at his watch. It was after midnight already. He had been here for four hours, since leaving Trish at the hospital.

He had wanted to stay too, but the doctor on duty, not Dr. Maxwell, had said that only one parent would be allowed to spend the night.

Doug had driven home alone.

On the ridge, he had hitched a ride back with Jeff Brickman, the officer who had volunteered to return to the station and coordinate communication while the other men figured out how to bring up the bodies. Jeff was going to try to get through to the county sheriffs office or the state police, and Doug seriously hoped he succeeded. For now, the policemen were following Mike, but he could already see them falling into disarray with the regular chain of command broken. When he had left, they were almost to the drawing-straws level of assigning responsibilities. It frightened Doug to see how easily such a trained group of individuals, such a structured organization, could fall apart, and he was glad when he was once again in the Bronco and driving.

He wondered now what the police were doing.

He thought of calling, but decided against it.

He finished off the last swallow of his fifth beer and stared up at the stars. Far above, one of the lighter heavenly bodies was traveling west to east in a steady line. A satellite. Lower, he saw the blinking lights of an airplane pass by, though the airplane made no sound.

Outside Willis, the world continued on.

He had called Tritia every half-hour, but she kept telling him there was no change, Billy was still sleeping. The last call had obviously woken her up, and she had irritably told him to stop calling, she would tell him when something happened.

Stop calling.

He wondered if she blamed him for what had happened.

He lay back in the soft seat, unmoving, unthinking, ready himself to drift drowsily into sleep, when he realized suddenly that the atmosphere had changed.