Dead Echo

  Chapter 13: The Mailman

  Samuel “Jester” Johnson had been a mailman for longer than he cared to remember, almost twenty-eight years now. He’d got on with an aunt’s help when he finished high school way back when the dinosaurs roamed the land. He’d known then school wasn’t going to take him far. The motivation and patience weren’t there, and he knew it, but at least he did have enough common sense to realize as much and move on. He’d been with the United States Postal Service ever since. Rain, sleet, or snow, just like the old saying. And he had to admit, the work suited him; there were a lot of people he knew who couldn’t say that. It allowed him to do his favorite two things: walk and observe. The twenty-eight years of walking had sharpened his body and the years of observation, his mind. Book sense had eluded him since birth but his common sense had flourished in the vacuum.

  He’d always taken country routes because he’d always been a country boy. He didn’t care much for the hustle and bustle, people running here and there, always busy and nervous. It wasn’t his kind of life. He lived in his dead grandmother’s house a stone’s throw from Gulliver’s Creek. The land had been in the family since just after the Civil War, if the stories he’d heard were true, but history was the kind of subject that occupied little of his time. What was gone was gone. There were birds to look at, places to walk; all of these things here and now. Around his grandmother’s house were trails old since before he was born. He’d run most of them in his childhood when there really hadn’t been anything else within seven miles except the paper mill. He never tired of walking and the trails eased him.

  He thought about his life a lot. Why he’d never married, or had any kids. Couldn’t pinpoint it down directly. It just was. And not like he’d ever intended to be alone late into his forties. It was just something that had happened, along with plenty of others. Still, it wasn’t too bad; he had his dogs, and of course the birds. The woods around his house rang with their songs. Many of them would line his porch when he sat outside, the dogs at his feet. Two twin Labradors, as black as midnight. They didn’t even blink their eyes to the noise and activity.

  And now, alone, that’s where he sat. Rocking into the shadows that crept across the yard. He’d heard Ole Shake, the male, barking not far off (probably at something in the creek) but there was nothing strange about that. Those dogs were relentless when they had something on the run. So he sat and thought. Trying to find a common ground for his unease. It had been coming on a little at a time lately, so slowly and stealthy that he’d been unaware until it filled him. And even full blown it was hard to strike the stone of its origin. He’d didn’t know many words on the subject nor take time to read much, but his unease, he would have had to acknowledge if the explanation were forthcoming, could be summed up in one word: foreboding. A sense that something was coming, that something was going to happen. Like someone watching who didn’t want you to be aware of the fact.

  It was the neighborhood, the old Leszno’s Acres, he felt sure, though for no reason he could fathom. Not really, anyway. He’d been delivering mail there since the neighborhood came into existence, and up until now there’d been nothing to cause him any consternation. It was a damning thought. He liked organization. Some of the other letter carriers were amazed he could consistently finish his rounds so early, and asked him as much, and that’s what he always told them. Organization. Putting things in order, having a plan, that was key. So now here he was working over this problem like a sore tooth. He taken to the trails when he’d gotten home, but today, and as of late, they did little to soothe him. The dogs had refused to accompany him the last couple of days and that was doubly disconcerting. It only heaped on the unease.

  He reached between his legs and grabbed the flask, snapped back the cap, and drank a nice long swallow. It would do little to clear his head but right now he didn’t care. Something was coming. Or maybe it’d always been here, but asleep. Jester had the idea it was waking. His grandmother had been one for signs, on the trees, in the sky, on the trails they walked together. She’d tried to teach him to no avail because it had always seemed too much like witchcraft, knowing what others didn’t. And he didn’t want any part of that. Why, there were things he sometimes did that made him uncomfortable now, and that was enough as far as he was concerned. But he couldn’t forget. She had foretold his uncle’s and dad’s deaths. And they hadn’t listened either, had scoffed at her warnings even, and look where it had gotten them. That goddamn old paper mill, nearly three years apart. Jester had only been a kid then and hadn’t inquired as to the circumstances because he didn’t see, then, how it would make any difference anyway. Now he wished he would have asked more questions, though, again, he didn’t know how that would have helped.

  He was near the last of his line. His mother struck dead in her early forties, now a lifetime ago it seemed, of a vicious heart attack. Likewise his grandmother several years later. His ticker, on the other hand, continued to roar along like a freight train. He did have a living sister but hadn’t heard from her in eleven years and didn’t figure things were gonna change any time soon. She’d gone off to California almost twenty years ago with some Black Panther, and when their mother died so had their relationship. In fact, Jester didn’t actually know if she was indeed still living, but there had been no messages to the contrary.

  But these thoughts only sidetracked him. Didn’t lead him any closer to an answer. Something was wrong; he could feel it in the air. Regardless what he knew about signs in the sky and all the other hocus pocus, he did have a good nose for trouble and he could smell this one coming. He glanced up from his musings and tried to spot the sun through the thick trees surrounding the house. It had receded to a ribbon slash of orange along the ragged tree top horizon and would be gone for good soon. That only increased his unease and made him shameful. He hadn’t been scared of the dark since he was a kid and goddamn didn’t intend on going back now. This whole business was vexing, ridiculous. Nothing was wrong, nothing had changed, and that was that!

  Except it wasn’t and he damn well knew it.

  The neighborhood was changing and that wasn’t all. A couple times lately he’d thought, only thought of course, but there it was regardless, he’d seen something too. And worse, not in the neighborhood, but right here near his own property. He shook his head and took another swallow. He wasn’t a particularly good drunk and knew his head would pound tomorrow, but right now with the sun cutting loose from the sky, it was the only medicine that worked. The mere thought of what he’d seen sent a chill along his spine and here he’d been the last few days trying to convince himself it’d been nothing.

  His instinct, hell, his eyes, told him different.