The Messenger (2011 reformat) (9 page)

What had been his
final thoughts in life?

These horrible
things ran around Jane's head until she was nauseated. She was barely sentient
when she scribbled her name at the bottom of some identification form for the
coroner's office, then the state trooper was helping her out of the cold,
harshly lit morgue suite. She staggered out, choking on sobs, dreading the
horror that awaited, the horror of having to tell Jennifer and Kevin why Daddy
was never coming home again. The worse horror was knowing that she'd never see
him again, and that her last vision of him hadn't been when they were making
love on the couch: It was Matt on a slab, dead, shrouded by a black sheet, his
wounds unrevealed. When the trooper was helping her out she took a stray glance
to her right and saw something in a clear plastic bag lying on a lab counter.
It was a hunting knife-its blade covered with blood.

And then the
memory was over and Jane was sitting at her kitchen table with her children,
over food none of them wanted to eat. These kids are to young too have to see
murder again.

Jane forced
herself to eat another stalk of fried asparagus, acting as though she liked it,
acting as though this were a normal dinner like everyone else in the world was
having. "Well, yes, honey? she eventually answered her child's troubled
question. "Like the man who killed your father. The man was very sick; he
was mentally ill. And sometimes these things happen. Nobody knows why, really.
Sometimes people are born that way, and sometimes something happens to them, in
their minds, and they start doing really bad things. That's what happened to
Marlene."

She looked at
both their faces, hoping her explanation would help them but also knowing that
it didn't. It didn't even come close. If anything, she realized, they're just
more confused now.

"Anyway,
kids, you both better get started on your chores before it's TV time."

"Okay,
Mom," Jennifer said.

Kevin jumped
up, ran to the other room, and returned a moment later holding a plastic
terrarium. "Mel's gonna help me with mine, okay?"

Jane smiled
meekly, glancing at the spiky horned toad. "Sure, honey"

"Cool!
Then we can watch TV!" Kevin said. "I think that guy who wrestles alligators
is on at eight!"

The boys got
reptiles on the brain, Jane thought. She smiled after them as they zipped out
of the kitchen. Thank God I have good kids. She only hoped the whole ordeal
with the killings didn't scar them for too long.

She picked up
the dishes, elected to do them later, and meandered into the living room. She
collapsed on the couch, then cringed, recalling what it would symbolize on a
day like this: the last place she'd made love to Matt. What a mistake coming in
here, but how could she get rid of the couch? All the images flooded back to
her; they submerged her in the beauty of that night. First Matt's whispers of
love into her ear as he kissed her neck, his hands touching very faintly at
first, then so smoothly and firmly he could've been making a sculpture, forming
every curve and every contour, every inch of her breasts. Desire pushed her
nipples out, their tips so aroused they tingled as if pinched by tweezers. His
kisses deepened, his heart stepped up as all that love began to surge for her.
He was pushing her legs back, opening her first with his mouth, then entering
her again, just as he had that night, her bliss reemerging as a crescendo.

Then the
memory crashed.

It was all a
lie. The last thing she saw behind her closed eyes as she lay on the couch was
Matt's dead face in the county morgue.

The smallest
gasp of despair escaped her throat.

Next, her eyes
darted; she heard something, lightly at first, then with increasing volume.
Pattering on the roof.

It was
starting to rain.

I

Carlton awoke
as he normally did-alone. He hated it after all these years, but by now he was
used to it. In fact, the idea of not waking up alone seemed alien. The clock
glowed 4:12 a.m., yet it felt as though he'd only been asleep for fifteen
minutes. I wasn't drinking last night, was I? he asked himself. The inside of
his mouth and his lips tasted awful. His eyes felt like they had sand in them.
God, I feel like shit. But he hadn't been drinking, had he? He'd been cutting
down at lot lately. Christ, if I was drinking last night, I'd remember...

Wouldn't I?

He lay back,
muggy in the bed. The air-conditioning droned yet his skin was clammy, stale
with sweat. Something nagged at his brain, the notion that something bad had
happened, a subconscious terror that cruelly refused to reveal itself, like a
hideous face behind a dark veil. Had he dreamed it?

He fought to
remember, gritting his teeth. Then, in visual wafts, like smoke, it replayed in
his mind, image by grueling image.

He'd dreamed
about Marlene.

Oh, God. It
was true. How could he feel more ashamed? And the dream itself?

Carlton felt
ill.

If dreams
could have a smell, this dream stank. It made him mentally recoil, just as
someone would physically recoil after stepping in wormy road kill on a
hundred-degree day. In the dream, he hadn't been making love to Marlene, he'd
been fucking her. Using her body as a receptacle for pleasure, not a person, a
thing to placate his sex drive. He also knew that he didn't care about Marlene
at all in the dream-it didn't matter that he knew her, it didn't matter that
they were friends. Carlton discarded all that; in fact, he even hated her in
the dream, hated her for being more than simply a luscious physical body with a
hole for his needs. The soulless lust and hatred made him think of serial
killers who murder the women they raped after they'd had their orgasm.
Marlene's hands were at his throat as he thrust into her, and his were on hers.
They were strangling each other as they bucked, and when Carlton came and
looked down at her-expecting her to be dead-she grinned up at him in lust as
perverse as his own. "Do it again," she panted, "do it again. Do
it real hard this time, do it to me till I pass out. You can even kill me if
you want-I don't give a shit. Just do it to me again." It was awful, it
was so wrong, and in the dream part of him knew this-and was repulsed-but it didn't
matter. The sexual Mr. Hyde in him had been tapped and was unloading full
force-on her. They did it again and again and again, just like that, spending
themselves and bringing each other to near-death at the brink of each demented
climax.

Carlton had
chuckled after finishing. She'd been on top for the last one, and he simply
shoved her off on to the dirt-flecked floor, his handprints throbbing on her
throat. Had he actually killed her this time?

He didn't
care. He'd had his fun.

An even more
forbidden idea began to occur to him as she lay there unmoving, but then her
puffed eyes opened to slits, and she frowned.

"You are
one dull lay, Carlton, Jesus Christ," she griped, and then she was up in a
huff, beads of sweat flying off her flushed skin. Stomping away, putting her
postal uniform back on, grabbing her route gear. Carlton particularly noticed
her carrier bag, and...

What appeared
to be the wire-stock of a small machine-pistol sticking out of it.

"Now I'm
gonna go have some real fun, you asshole," she said, and left.

The dream's
fringes were throbbing, like the choke marks on her throat, pinkish-blue around
the edges. That's when Carlton noticed where the demented foray had taken
place: in the basement of the newly reopened west branch.

Awake now,
head thumping as if hungover, he shivered at the nightmare in disgust. How
could his mind create such a scenario? Marlene was a friend, a coworker, and I
just dreamed about having sex with her. Hardcore sex, like nothing I've ever
had or would ever want to have. She'd been married, had a son. She'd been a
good person. Carlton had never felt so ashamed in his life. The shame tripled when
he made this next observation: He was outrageously aroused.

What the hell
is wrong with me?

A final image
nagged him. It was something from the nightmare, but the nightmare had changed.
It had changed places. The humid night beat down on him. He was standing
outside, and could hear crickets. Mosquitoes buzzed around his head, some
landing on his skin to taste his sweat and drink his blood. The moon shone
behind him and in its light, when he looked down, he realized where he was.

A cemetery.

But not any
cemetery. Winter-Damon Cemetery.

He realized
what he was looking at.

Marlene's
gravestone.

For a moment,
just a single moment, he brought his hand to his erection in the most ultimate
shame of all. But he stopped at the effort: His hand came away...gritty.

He jerked
himself to one side, hugging the pillow, as if to turn away from all that
disgust that his brain had produced. But...

The pillow
felt gritty, too.

The awful
taste in his mouth raged, and when he licked his lips...

They felt
gritty.

Gritty as if
with flecks of soil.

II

What a
flippin' week, huh, Bobby? Bobby asked himself. He had a way of having conversations
with himself, after so many years of first shift.  Who's on the mound for the
Yanks tonight? Hmm, Bobby, I don't really know but I'd guess it's Mussina. Oh,
yeah, I guess you're right. Like that. He was a little screwy. Bobby Weaver
wasn't a carrier or anything. He was the maintenance supervisor for West
Branch, more title than function, though. Pretty funny, huh, Bobby? You ain't
kidding, it's funny. Yeah, like who the flip do we supervise when we're the
only maintenance employee in the flippin' building!

You got that
right, Bobby.

Bobby was
typically the first employee in the building. Arrival time? 4:30 a.m. Bobby
didn't mind. He made sure all the lights worked, prepped the sorting machines,
cycled the circuits, that sort of thing. Not a hard job, but essential in its
own way. The first drop-offs usually started coming in around five o'clock, so
he had to get ready for that, too.

No biggie,
right, Bobby? Naw, it's a walk in the park.

He whistled,
going down his daily checklist. This building's unfamiliar look comforted him;
until very recently he'd worked at the main branch, and nobody would ever
forget what had happened there. Yeah, can ya believe that shit, Bobby? Flippin'
broad MACHINE-GUNS the main branch! Yeah, but AFTER offing her hubby and kid! No,
neither of them could believe that shit.

Bobby didn't
know her, really, he'd just seen her coming in each morning to do her pre-sort.
Never saw her when she got off because his shift'd be over by then. Seemed nice
enough, though, huh, Bobby? Sure, and a looker too. Nice little apple-dumpling
cart up front and not a bad bucket in back, either. Cut that shit out, Bobby!
The broad's DEAD and you're rapping about her bod for chrissakes! Yeah,
sorry...

Proof that it
was a nutty world, though. A sure-fire, whacked-out flippin' world.

Bobby sighed.
The last item on his checklist was always the kick in the tail. Come on, Bobby.
Let's go reload ALL the flippin' stamp machines out front. Aw, Christ, I HATE
doing that. There's TEN machines out there!

Tell me about
it, Bobby.

Three-cent,
thirty-seven-cent, Priority, Air, dollar stamps, ten packs, twenty packs, and
hundred-stamp first-class rolls-all these slots had to be filled, the change
removed, the changers topped off. Pretty tedious.

But there was
nothing tedious about the rest of the day when Bobby waltzed into the vending
lobby, keys in one hand, sack of packed stamps in the other, whistling Dixie.

He walked
around the counters, passed the first rank of PO. boxes, then stopped cold.

Dropped his
keys.

Dropped the
stamps.

Then all the
blood drained out of his head from the vision of horror that stared right back
into his face.

A woman was
standing there in the corner of the vending cove, her arms spread out as if in
wait for Bobby. She was naked and very pale. Hair that was a blend of blond and
brunette straggled to her shoulders. Bobby thought for sure that some nutty
homeless woman must've gotten into the post office, or some drug addict or
something like that. What else could explain this woman being here, and in this
state? Naked, ragged, pale?

But then Bobby
recognized the woman...

It was Marlene
Troy, who'd been killed by police a few days ago, and who'd just been buried.

Bullet holes
full of clotted blood pocked her torso. Dirt clods hung in her hair, while more
grave dirt peppered her skin. The woman was dead but she was standing there on
her own. Her eyes were open, mortician's glue unseated, their whites jaundiced
by embalming fluid. Bobby knew it was impossible but for a split second it
seemed as though she'd blinked.