Maybe things would be okay.

They drove past the post office on their way to the meeting. The character of the small building had changed completely from the days in which Howard Crowell and Bob Ronda had happily worked behind its doors, from the days in which the entire town had purchased stamps and dropped off mail between its walls. The staid nondescript structure now appeared decidedly malevolent. The windows had been smashed, their openings hastily covered up with irregular lengths of board nailed from the inside. Piles of ripped and dirty envelopes, as well as broken pieces of the mail-sorting machine, were scattered over the concrete steps. In a defensive line directly in front of the post office a row of rural mailboxes had been placed upside down, the metal boxes on the ground supporting their inverted posts.

On top of the posts were nailed the severed heads of town dogs, the animals' glassy eyes staring, unseeing, toward the street.

The dogs' headless bodies, ten or fifteen of them, littered the small parking lot.

Doug shivered as he and Trish sped by. The mailman was inside there, he knew. Probably peeking out at them. He felt suddenly nervous. Maybe he shouldn't have made Tritia come. Maybe he should have had her stay with Billy.

No, Billy would be all right. The hospital staff and Dr. Maxwell would look after him.

The street in front of the school was already jammed with cars. Someone had opened the gym and turned on the lights and people were filing in. Doug and Tritia parked on a side street and walked, rather than trying to find a closer parking space. They were greeted at the door by Mike, who told them that everyone who could would be there. The police had combed the town for two days, spreading the word.

Doug thanked him and stepped inside the gym. He and Tritia made their way through the crowd by the door and stood near the entrance to the boys' locker room. All four walls of bleachers had been brought down, and three of them were nearly full. There would not be enough space in here for everyone, he realized.

Many people would just have to stand or sit on the floor.

He glanced around, trying to gauge the mood of the crowd. People seemed tentative, hesitant with one another. Awkward. Grudges had been formed and fanned through the mails, words of hate had been received and responded to, acquaintanceships had beenreforged and realigned on the basis of faulty information, misdirected emotions, lies. Everyone knew that now. Everyone realized that the hate o mail they'd been receiving, all of the gossiping innuendo, had not been sent by their neighboring townspeople but had been forced upon them by the mailman.

Still, feelings formed during that troubling period could not be instantly discarded, and there was tension among many members of the crowd. Arguments erupted. A small shoving match started in the stands, but was quickly stopped by a policeman.

And still people continued to arrive. People who had never before attended any civic function, people whose faces Doug did not even recognize, took seats on the bleachers. There were lone men in dusty hats and cowboy boots, impeccably dressed old couples, trendy young newlyweds, average families with children.

By eight o'clock, the appointed time, the gym was full, and Doug felt a little overwhelmed when he saw the size of the crowd. It was not speaking before so many people that daunted him -- he was a teacher and was used to speaking in front of groups -- it was taking the responsibility of leading so many individuals, of making the decisions for so many people.

He saw in the packed bleachers the faces of school-board members, city council members, policemen, the fire chief: people elected or appointed to positions of power. These men and women, supposedly trained to deal with public crises, did not know what to do in this situation and were looking to him for answers. The thought was intimidating, made even more so by the looks of worry and hope he saw on the faces of people he didn't even know, by the frightened murmurs of adults and the crying whimpers of children.

The room felt hot, the walls claustrophobically close, the air filled with the smell of old and new sweat. Tritia squeezed his hand, a gesture of faith and support that more than anything else gave him the strength to stride across the polished wood floor to the center of the gym.

There was no need for him to be nervous or worried or intimidated, he told himself. He was taking control in this crisis because he had to, because he was the only one who knew what had to be done. He had to think positively. There was no room for doubt. Not now. There was too much at stake. This was no time for indecision. They had to fight the mailman with everything they had, with their combined faith and belief. They had to do it or die.

The crowd was silenced immediately; he did not even have to raise his hand. The talking died down, and parents hushed the crying of their children.

Only the wailing of a few small babies disturbed the stillness.

"You all know why you're here," Doug began. "Why we're here. We're here to free our town from the tyranny of the mailman. He has held us captive all summer, has used the mails to pit brother against brother, friend against friend. He has stopped our utilities, disrupted our lives, ruined our relationships. He has killed directly or indirectly, and he has brought our town to this." He gestured before him, toward the world outside the walls. The people were silent. He had their attention. "Many of you may not know it, but we found Howard Crowell yesterday in his home. Dead."

A wave of words passed through the crowd.

"He killed my Darla too!" David Adams called out. His voice was frightened, close to hysteria. "He promised her things! He lied about me and he made her . . . he made her . . ." David's voice trailed off.

"My business is ruined because of that son of a bitch!" Hunt James announced. "And so is Dr. Elliott's! He spread rumors about us and these assholes believed it!" He motioned toward the people surrounding him.

And now a lot of voices were speaking at once, people standing, yelling, screaming, competing for attention.

"-- knew my mother had a heart condition!"

"-- We've always paid our bills on time! Always!"

"-- never hurt an animal in my life!"

"-- illegal to send those kinds of things through the mail! Those videotapes! And those rubber --"

Doug held up his hands for silence. It took a few moments, but when the crowd quieted down, he continued. "We have to get him out of our town," he said.

"We have to exorcise him."

"Let him do the rope exercise!" someone called out.

Doug shook his head. "Lynching won't work."

In the front row of the bleachers right before him,Tril Allison, the owner of Allison's Lumber, stood up. He was not used to public speaking, and he shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Next to him on the bleachers sat his sons, Dennis and Tad, both of whom had been in Doug's English classes last semester.Tril cleared his throat. "What is the mailman?" he asked.

It was the question that had been on everyone's minds, if not everyone's lips, and Doug was about to respond when a shrill voice sounded off from somewhere in the upper portion of the bleachers.

"He's the devil!" An old woman stood up, a woman Doug did not recognize.

"Our only hope is prayer! Our only hope is to ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness and beg Him to protect us!"

There were low murmurs of frightened assent.

"He's not the devil!" Doug announced, raising his hands for quiet.

"Then, what is he?"Tril asked. "He certainlyain't human."

"No," Doug said, "he's not human. To be honest, I don't know what he is."

"He killed my daughter!" someone yelled.

"I don't know what he is!" Doug repeated, louder. "But I do know this: he can be stopped. We can stop him."

SmithTegarden , one of the police officers who had been on the ridge the other night, walked Out of the crowd and onto the gym floor. There was confidence in his step, but Doug could see that that was merely habit, reflex.

The Veteran cop was frightened. He stood in front of Doug. "We shot that bastard point-blank, and he didn't die," he said. "He fell off the ridge and walked away. How do you propose to stop him?"

. Doug took a deep breath. "We're going to starve him," he said. "We're going to cut off his mail."

"Cut off his male what?" someone yelled from the crowd, and there was a chorus of tension-relieving laughter.

Doug smiled. "We're going to stop sending or receiving any mail. Whatever he delivers, don't take it, don't pick it up. Let it sit in your mailboxes. The mail is his only real power. That's all he's ever really done to us." He thought of Billy, thought of Tritia , thought of Howard. "The mail is how he's gotten to us. It's how he's brought us to this point. It's his only weapon. If we can stop the mail, we can stop him."

Arguing broke out and Doug could tell immediately that his idea had not gone over well. He had been afraid of that. It sounded so stupid, so weak, so ineffectual, that it didn't seem as though it would do any good. He saw a couple of people heading for the door.

"Wait," Mike's voice cut authoritatively through the cacophony. He walked across the floor to stand next to Doug. "Hear him out."

The noise abated.

"I know it sounds idiotic," Doug continued. "But we have nothing to lose by trying. The police officer's right. Bullets won't stop him. I don't think he can be killed. But I've been watching him. There was a holiday on the Fourth of July. No mail was delivered. The next day he was thin and sick. This week, when he came back after disappearing, he was even thinner. He needs mail to survive.

That's where he gets his energy or his power or whatever it is. If we cut him off, if no one sends any mail or receives any mail, he will have nothing to do.

He will die."

"Maybe he won't die. Maybe he'll just leave," a woman said.

"Fine. At least we'll be rid of him."

"Then he'll come back."

"And we'll do it again. Or maybe by that time we will have found something else."

People were starting to talk again.

"We all have to do it. Every one of us. If even one person gives him mail, it may be enough to keep him alive." Doug swallowed. His voice cracked. "Look, he attacked my wife and my son. Or he tried to attack them. But he couldn't do anything. He couldn't touch them. He wanted to, he tried to, but in the end the only thing he could do was try to get them to read his mail. That's all he has.

That's his only power."

The sound of the crowd was different this time, louder, less argumentative, hopeful. They wanted to believe. Next to him, Tritia held his hand. She looked up at him and smiled. "No mail!" she yelled. "No mail!" She began to chant in a cheerleader cadence. "No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"

It was picked up by Mike and by some of the people in the front rows. Two of the school's real cheerleaders took up the cause, lending their considerable vocal talents to the chant, and from elsewhere in the audience the other cheerleaders followed suit.

"No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"

The sound grew, spread, and soon the entire gym was filled with the echoing reassuring sounds of theimpromtu cheer.

"No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"

Never before had Doug experienced such a sense of community, such a spirit of cooperative togetherness, such a willful optimism. For the first time, he really and truly believed that they might have a chance to put a stop to this nightmare. He grinned at Tritia , and she grinned back.

The lights in the gym flickered.

"Stay calm," Doug ordered. "Don't panic!" But his voice was lost in the cry of the crowd, in the thump of stamping feet.

A moment later the electricity went off for good.

But no one seemed to notice and the people of the town continued to chant.

"No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"

49.

In the morning Doug awoke to see outside his window a winter wonderland.

The sight was beautiful. It had snowed during the night, and ground and porch, trees and bushes were all completely covered with pure glorious white.

Only . . .

Only the air was warm and humid, the sky cloudless, and the ivory blanket that covered the world outside seemed smoothly even, strangely symmetrical.

He opened the back door and looked down.

The ground was not covered with snow.

The ground was covered with envelopes.

He stood there stunned. The envelopes had been placed, facedown, end-to end over everything, their flat edges fitting perfectly against the side of the house in a straight line and continuing over the back porch, over the storage shed, over themanzanita bushes and the trees. The enormity of such an effort was overwhelming, and the fact that it had been completed in one night, directly outside his house while he had been sleeping undisturbed inside, was terrifying.

He was glad that Trish had spent the night at the hospital with Billy. He would not have wanted her to see this.

Gingerly, Doug bent down and picked up the envelope nearest the door, turning it over. It was addressed to him from his mother. He picked up the one next to it, addressed to him from his father. The one next to that was from his Aunt Lorraine.

He had the feeling that the mailman had grouped the envelopes in a specific order and that, if he made the effort to trace the pattern, he would find that the lineage of his life spread outward from that point in the return addresses of the letters.

Doug stood up. He'd thought at first that the whole town had been covered by mail, but he saw almost instantly that past the white blanket covering his own trees was the natural green of real nature. He slipped on his sandals and stepped onto the back porch. The paper crinkled beneath his feet, but he continued forward, determined to see how far the mailman had gone. When he came to the first bush, its leafy shape entirely hidden by the back-to-back envelopes that domed its true form, he extended a cautious hand, curious to see how the envelopes had been attached together.

The dome collapsed.

A house of cards. The mailman had used the envelopes to construct a house of cards, balancing them one on top of the other with no adhesive until they covered the bush.

He walked across the white ground to the first tree, touching it.

The tree covering, too, collapsed in a rain of letters.

In the house the phone rang, its jangling loud in the early-morning stillness. He knew it was probably Trish calling, but he still hurried forward through the bushes and trees, away from the house, starting off letter landslides as he ran. He had to see how far this extended.

He was not surprised to discover that the white blanket stopped at the exact edge of his property line, that the straight sides of the carefully placed envelopes marked a perfect border around the irregular shape of his land.

He dashed back to the house, experiencing a perverse sense of pleasure as the envelopes crunched beneath his feet. The phone was still ringing, and he ran into the bedroom, picking it up as he fell back onto the bed. "Hello?" he said.

"Letters," the mailman sang in a cruel parody of a Las Vegas lounge singer. "We've got letters!"

Doug hung up the phone, his hand suddenly sweaty. His heart was pounding, and not just with the exertion of running. He lay there for a moment, breathing, thinking, then picked up the phone again to dial Mike.

"Letters," the mailman sang through the receiver.

Doug hung up. The mailman was staying on the line, keeping it open, not letting him make or receive calls.

Fine, Doug thought, his mouth set in grim determination. If the mailman wanted to play hardball, hardball was what he was going to get.

He unplugged the receiver. First he would drive to the hospital, see Billy and Trish. Then he would go to the police station. Then he would go to the hardware store and buy some extra garbage cans.

Then he would come back here and rake the yard and throw away all of that fucking mail.