For the past twenty years, Tim Waggoner has been building his reputation as a true master of the uniquely strange and disturbing tale. That this is his first appearance in the series is a shock because he is one of his generation’s best. (You don’t get nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award for selling lottery tickets . . . ) His latest example is a subtle portrait of domestic discord worthy of the classic Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series.
“I promise you, this is the last time you’ll have to do that.”
Roy paused, the handle of the snow shovel he was holding cold in his bare hands. The mail truck was idling at the curb—in front of his mailbox, naturally enough. Funny, but he hadn’t heard it pull up.
The carrier—they used to call them mailmen when Roy was a child, but no longer, not in these enlightened times—leaned out of the window and gave Roy a grin. He looked normal enough, in his midforties, a bit older than Roy, thin face, scraggly brown beard, teeth yellowed but straight and even. Almost too even, as if they were all of a uniform shape and size. Roy couldn’t quite make out the man’s eyes. Though it was sunny out, his eyes were clouded by shadow, probably caused by the upper part of the mail truck’s doorframe, Roy guessed.
The mailman—mail carrier—kept grinning and looking at Roy (at least Roy thought the man was looking at him; it was hard to tell with his eyes in shadow like that) as if he was waiting for a response. Feeling suddenly awkward, Roy replayed the man’s words in his mind: “I promise you, this is the last time you’ll have to do that.”
Roy frowned. Do what? Shovel snow off the front walk? It was March 16th, and while it wasn’t completely unknown for it to snow this late in Southern Ohio, it was unusual. They’d gotten three inches since this morning, and Roy had come home from work to a walk and driveway that both needed to be shoveled clean. He might’ve let them go. Roy was a weather reporter for an all-news radio station. His own forecast called for it to warm up over the next few days, and he knew the snow would melt on its own soon enough. But he’d had lunch at a Chinese restaurant that afternoon, and the message in his fortune cookie had read Do today’s work today. As soon as he got home, he’d grabbed the snow shovel and gotten straight to work. He’d already finished the driveway and had been halfway through the front walk when the mail carrier drove up—without making a sound, a little voice inside his head added—and made his strange pronouncement.
The carrier waited, still grinning, as patient and motionless as a mannequin.
Roy decided the man was trying to be reassuring, telling him that this late snow was bound to be the last of the season and after today Roy could put his shovel up until next winter. What else could it be?
So Roy smiled and lifted a hand in acknowledgment. “Sounds good to me!”
The carrier’s grin widened, and though Roy couldn’t clearly see the man’s eyes, he had the impression that they flashed with amusement. He then reached through the truck’s open window, and though the motion was slow and nonthreatening, Roy nevertheless experienced a rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline.
“Here you go.” The carrier held out a small package. When Roy made no move toward the man, he wiggled the package as if trying to capture the attention of a small child, or perhaps a dumb animal.
“Come on . . . I’d tell you that I don’t bite, but that’s not strictly accurate.” Again that tone of amusement, this time with a dash of derision added for seasoning.
Roy told himself he was being ridiculous; the man was just delivering the mail. Even so, he nearly told the carrier to put the package in the mailbox and that he’d get it after he finished shoveling the walkway. But not wanting to be thought a coward even by a stranger—or for that matter, by himself—Roy laid his shovel in the snow and started toward the mail truck.
The carrier kept wiggling the package as if he thought Roy might change his mind and turn around, without the enticement of a constant lure. As Roy drew near, he was finally able to make out the man’s eyes. Brown, the whites tinged yellow as if the carrier suffered from a slight touch of jaundice, but otherwise unremarkable.
“Thanks.” Roy reached out for the package. It was small and rectangular, the sort of box that banks use when mailing new checks to customers. Roy closed his fingers around the package, started to pull . . . but the carrier didn’t let go right away. Roy looked into the man’s jaundiced eyes and saw mockery there.
“Hope you enjoy it,” the man said, then released the package, causing Roy to nearly stumble backward. “See you later!” The carrier gave a jaunty wave, then turned forward, put his truck in gear, and pulled away from Roy’s house.
As the vehicle moved off, Roy saw a bumper sticker affixed to the back. It was a black-and-white picture of Marilyn Monroe’s face—eyes half-closed, lips forming a pouty O—and beneath it the caption: MURDER YOUR DARLINGS.
Roy watched, expecting to see the red glow of brake lights as the truck stopped at his neighbor’s home. But the brake lights didn’t come on; the truck picked up speed and continued past the next house, and the house after that, and all the others on Roy’s street, until it came to an intersection and turned left without so much as slowing, let alone stopping.
Roy stood for several moments, holding the small package at his side.
That was strange. Why had the carrier taken off like that? Roy checked his watch and saw it was 5:18. He was used to the mail coming late around here, but he’d never known any carrier to just quit before his deliveries were finished, no matter the lateness of the hour. Guess that stuff about neither rain nor sleet nor hail went out with the ten-cent stamp.
Roy examined the package. The rectangular box was addressed to him in simple black letters that looked as if they’d been placed directly onto the white cardboard with old-fashioned typewriter keys. No return address—he turned the package over—on either side.
He stared at the box for several moments. He thought of the strange thing the carrier had said: I promise you, this is the last time you’ll have to do that. Thought of Marilyn and MURDER YOUR DARLINGS.
He slipped the package into his coat pocket, and if his hand trembled a little, he pretended not to notice. Not much in the way of mail today, but he supposed it was better than getting a stack of bills. A sudden realization nagged at him, and he glanced at the mailbox, saw that it wasn’t covered with snow. He hadn’t brushed the snow off, had only finished half of the front walk. So if the snow had been knocked off by someone else . . . He opened the mailbox door and reached inside.
He took out a half-dozen pieces of mail, mostly those dreaded bills and several clothing catalogues for his wife. Odd, but he hadn’t seen the carrier put the rest of the mail in the box, hadn’t heard the metallic creak of the door opening, the hollow chunk! as it closed. And if the man had put the rest of the mail in the box, why had he insisted on handing the package to Roy? Unless . . .
Unless someone else had put the mail in earlier, before Roy had gotten home from work. But who?
The real mail carrier, of course, came the answering thought. Who else?
But if the man who’d handed him the package wasn’t a postal worker, then who was he? Now that Roy thought about it, he realized the man’s truck had displayed no logo to identify it, no UPS or FedEx. Nothing but that sticker of Marilyn. Maybe the man worked for some minor-league delivery service, Roy told himself. That would explain why he hadn’t stopped at any other houses on the street.
Roy then noticed he’d left the mailbox door open. Irritated, confused, and despite his best efforts at rationalization, more than a little afraid, he shoved the door closed harder then he intended, catching his thumb in the process.
“Goddamnit!” Nerves screamed in pain, and he yanked his thumb away from the mailbox, sending a splash of blood arcing through the air. It pattered onto the snow, staining the white crimson.
Cursing, and holding his thumb out to the side so it wouldn’t bleed on his clothes, he hurried up the half-shoveled walkway to the front door, leaving a trail of red behind him.
“This is officially the dumb-ass thumb,” Roy said.
Marcy looked at the thumb in question and smiled. He’d wrapped it in so many layers of gauze that it appeared to have swollen to twice its normal thickness.
“I mean, how many people cut themselves closing their mailbox?”
They sat on opposite sides of their small dining table, facing each other across a low-carb dinner of broiled boneless chicken breasts, peas, and pear slices. Since they didn’t have any children, a small table was all they needed.
“I appreciate your sacrifice, getting wounded in the line of duty and all.” Marcy took a bite of chicken and chewed, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She swallowed. “I’m surprised you didn’t take it as a sign of some sort.”
Roy stiffened, suddenly tense, a piece of fork-speared chicken paused in midair on the way to his mouth. He thought of the rectangular package still in the pocket of his coat, now hanging in the foyer closet. Right then Roy almost told her about the mail carrier, the bumper sticker, the other mail in the box, the white cardboard package with no return address . . . But if he told her all that, he knew he’d end up telling her the rest: that the reason the package was still in his coat pocket was because of his thumb. Hadn’t he cut himself right after he examined the package? Hadn’t it been a warning?
“What do you mean?” he asked, though he knew exactly what she meant.
Marcy was a petite woman with short black hair and an almost comically expressive face. When she smiled, she exuded waves of unadulterated joy. But when she scowled, like now, every line of her face—forehead, the corners of her eyes and mouth—deepened, became more pronounced.
“Never mind. Forget I said anything.” She scooped up a spoonful of crisp, hard peas—Marcy believed that if you cooked vegetables too long, they lost most of their nutrition.
Roy knew he shouldn’t pursue the matter, that doing so would probably just lead to an argument, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“I just wonder why you brought it up.” He lowered his hand with the newly christened dumb-ass thumb below the table so Marcy couldn’t see it. He rubbed his index finger against the smooth surface of the gauze, pressing a little, and his cut throbbed in response.
Marcy swallowed her peas, put down her spoon, and took a sip of wine. Roy knew from long experience—they’d been married sixteen years—that she was stalling for time to think. Finally, she put down her wineglass and sighed.
“You know you have a . . . thing about seeing signs.”
Roy thought of the fortune he’d gotten this afternoon. Do today’s work today. He’d put it in the jar on his dresser with all the others that he’d saved over the years.
“I don’t know if I would call it a thing. I’m just detail oriented. It’s a necessary quality in my line of work.”
“I’m not talking about precipitation levels, Roy, and you know it. Fortune cookies and horoscopes are harmless enough, if you take them the right way. You know, like the disclaimer for those 1-900-PSYCHIC commercials: for entertainment purposes only. But when you take it too far . . . ”
It was an old argument, and Roy could say his wife’s lines as well as his own. But he couldn’t stop himself from continuing with the same tired script, “And you think I take it too far.”
Marcy sighed. “You know you do. Remember when we first looked at this house? You were dead set against buying a ranch . . . until you saw a cardinal perched on the roof.”
He almost said, But it’s the state bird. My mother always said seeing one was good luck. But he decided to skip this line of the script. Bringing up his mother now would only give Marcy more ammunition.
“And how about a couple years ago when we were talking about having children? You were all for it until you read that article in the newspaper.”
The headline flashed in his memory: Marriages and Stillbirths on the Rise. The article had nothing to do with them . . . it wasn’t even about America, for God’s sake, but some country in Africa.
“Too far is when you let these signs of yours control your life.” He thought she added “and mine” beneath her breath, but he wasn’t certain. And then Marcy returned her attention to her meal, their perpetual argument over again, at least for now.
Roy did the same, though he continued rubbing his wounded thumb and listening to its soft whispers of pain.
After dinner, Marcy sat on the couch and watched a home design show on HGTV while Roy sat in the chair next to her and looked at the paper. There was really only one thing that he was interested in, but after what Marcy had said at dinner, he made a show of going through the paper slowly, one section at a time, skimming articles rather than reading them, until he finally reached the Lifestyle section. There, right next to Dear Abby, was today’s horoscope. He was a Pisces.
Today you’ll find it a bit harder than usual to preserve domestic harmony, but don’t give up; the effort is worth it.
He looked up from the paper, started to say something to Marcy, but he caught himself in time and kept quiet. It didn’t matter how accurate his horoscopes were; she always put it down to coincidence and his imagination. Besides, didn’t his horoscope say that it was important to maintain “domestic harmony” tonight? Why start a pointless fight that would do neither of them any good?
He folded the paper and set it on the chair arm. Later, after Marcy was asleep, he’d clip out the horoscope and save it with all the others he kept hidden in a scrapbook under the bed. He’d then put the paper in the recycling bin so Marcy wouldn’t see that he’d cut out the horoscope, though he was pretty sure she knew that he kept them.
On the television, a woman burst into tears after seeing what the designers had done to her family room.
Marcy laughed. “I know it’s awful of me, but I love it when they cry.”
Roy smiled as if he were paying attention, but he absentmindedly rubbed his dumb-ass thumb and thought about the package.
You can always tell when it’s going to rain. The sky gets dark, the wind picks up, mourning doves call out, animals and little children get antsy. There are signs for everything, Roy. Hints and warnings . . . you just have to pay attention, that’s all. Pay attention and you can get inside before it rains. Ignore the signs, and you’ll get drenched.
He woke with his mother’s words still echoing in his ears. He rolled over and checked the clock radio on the nightstand—4:34. He worked the morning shift at the station, but even so, he didn’t have to get up for another twenty-six minutes. But he was the sort of person who, once he was up, he was up. Unlike Marcy, who could sleep through a nuclear detonation. She was a lump under the covers next to him, still as stone, her breathing soft and slow. He considered reaching over to her, stroking her side, seeing if he could wake her up and convince her to help him make good use of his extra twenty-six minutes. But Marcy didn’t rouse easily, and besides, he still felt out of sorts after last night’s almost argument. So, dressed only in his underwear, he climbed out of bed as quietly as he could and let Marcy sleep while he went into the kitchen to get coffee started.
As he listened to the burble and hiss of the coffeemaker, he thought about the package in the pocket of his coat, still hanging in the closet. He knew he was going to have to do something about it. He couldn’t very well carry the damn thing around in his pocket for the rest of his life, could he? He thought about going outside to get the paper so he could check his horoscope and get some idea what, if anything, he should do about the box. But the carrier always left the paper at the end of their driveway, and as cold as it was this morning, Roy would have to get dressed if he wanted to go outside to get it.
He could imagine what Marcy would say if she woke up and saw him consulting his horoscope before checking out the box. And did he really need astrological guidance this morning? Weren’t the dream of his mother’s advice, as well as waking up early, clear enough signs on their own?
Roy left the kitchen and walked to the foyer. He hesitated only a moment before opening the closet door. The hinges creaked and he winced, hoping the noise wouldn’t wake Marcy. He paused, listened, didn’t hear anything. She was still asleep. Good. He reached into his coat pocket and removed the rectangular white box. He avoided looking at it as he closed the door and returned to the kitchen.
The coffee was almost finished, and its rich, warm smell filled the air, its familiar comfort making the box seem less sinister. He sat down at the breakfast nook and lay the box on the table in front of him. What was he worried about, really? Just because there was no clear indication of who had sent it, and why, didn’t mean anything. Lots of promotional mail omitted return addresses so people would have to open it to see what it was, and thus be exposed to the pitch contained within. Most likely that’s all this box was: just another sales gimmick. He picked the package up, held it close to his ear, and like an eager kid on Christmas morning, shook it to see if he could get a clue as to its contents.
He heard a low, angry drone, along with the rustling of dozens of tiny bodies.
Roy jerked the package away from his ear, nearly dropping it. He set it on the table with a trembling hand, and then scooted his chair back, as if to put as much distance between the box and himself as possible without actually fleeing. The buzzing continued for several moments, slowly growing softer, less agitated, until finally the box—or rather, whatever was inside—fell quiet once more.
Lines of nervous sweat rolled down his face and neck as he stared at the box, and his bandaged thumb throbbed.
He’d heard that bees were often transported by mail to beekeepers and laboratories, though until now he’d never believed it. Bee-lieved it. He tried to chuckle, but the sound was forced, hollow, desperate. Though why in the world anyone would be sending him bees . . . But it hadn’t sounded like bees, not exactly. More like the ratcheting thrum of cicadas, but even that wasn’t quite right.
Whatever it was, he wanted nothing to do with it. Pay attention, his mother had always said, but though he’d been warned clearly enough, he hadn’t heeded the signs. Instead he’d listened to a small nagging voice—a voice that sounded more and more like his wife’s—that he shouldn’t let himself be ruled by superstition. But Roy didn’t care about any of that now. Whether it was instinct or neurosis, or some uneasy blend of the two, he knew there was something seriously wrong with the package, and there was no way in hell he was going to open it.
He heard a toilet flush from down the hallway, and he knew that Marcy was up, drawn out of sleep by the insistence of a full bladder. She might crawl back into bed or, lured by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, she might head for the kitchen.
Roy’s hand shook as if palsied as he reached for the box. He held his breath as he lifted the package off the table, fully expecting whatever was inside to start buzzing and crawling around again. But nothing happened. He hurried toward the foyer, doing his best to keep his upper body as still as possible. He opened the closet door, grimacing as the hinges protested again. And then, like a reverse pickpocket, he slipped the box back into his coat pocket, and once again closed the door. And this time, did he hear a muffled buzzing accompany the hinges’ creaking? Maybe.
He was standing at the kitchen counter, pouring himself a cup of coffee, when Marcy walked up, hair mussed from sleep and eyes still half-closed.
“Morning,” she mumbled.
“Good morning, sweetheart.” Roy gave her a peck on the cheek—Marcy didn’t like kissing on the lips until both of them had brushed their teeth—and she shuffled past him, desperate to get at the coffee.
He stepped aside and waited for her to say, So what were you doing in the front closet, Roy? Trying to hide something from me?
But she finished pouring her coffee, took a sip though it was still hot enough to scald, and shuffled into the dining room without another word.
Roy felt relieved, as if he’d gotten away with something, though he couldn’t have said exactly what.
Roy pulled into the parking lot of the radio station fifteen minutes before he was due to go on the air. He got out of his car and started walking. Normally, he would’ve gone directly into the building and to the studio. But today wasn’t a normal day, was it?
He took a detour around the side of the building, hoping that none of his colleagues was looking out a window at this exact moment. The sun was still down, but the lot was lit by the sterile glow of fluorescent lights. Roy’s breath drifted out of his mouth in curled wisps of fog, as if the frigid air were sucking the life out of him breath by breath. He continued around the rear of the building and saw what he was looking for: a Dumpster.
He’d never been so thrilled to see what was essentially nothing more than a giant garbage can. He’d intended to throw away the box at home, but he hadn’t been able to find a way to do so without Marcy knowing. So the box had remained in his pocket when he’d slipped the coat on to go to work, and it had sat there as he drove, shifting about from time to time in ways that Roy knew had nothing to do with the car’s momentum.
Well, if he couldn’t throw the damn thing away at home, he’d just get rid of it at work. A much better plan, really, since there was no way for Marcy to find out what he’d done.
The area around the Dumpster had been cleared of snow, but there were mounds shoved up against and packed on either side of it. Roy could see tiny tracks on the mounds—cat pawprints, as well as smaller, more narrow depressions that could only have been made by rats. He stomped his feet as he approached, to scare off any lurking vermin, and then he lifted the Dumpster’s lid. The plastic was cold and hard to the touch, and Roy’s wounded thumb started to throb. He wished he’d put on his gloves, but one of them was in the same pocket as the box, and he wasn’t about to reach in there until he had to.
But had to had finally come at last. Slowly, so as to avoid disturbing whatever was inside the box, Roy slipped cold-numbed fingers into his pocket and gently took hold of slick cardboard. He then pulled the box out, moving so slowly, as if he were handling a deadly explosive instead of a plain white package with no return address.
The box shook and juddered in his hand, and the angry buzzing erupted, as if whatever resided in the box understood what he intended to do and wasn’t happy about it.
Tough shit, Roy thought. After all the warnings he’d received, he wasn’t about to—
His gaze was suddenly drawn by white letters of graffiti spray-painted on the brick above the Dumpster.
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT.
Roy held the box over the open Dumpster, but he didn’t drop it. Instead, he read the graffiti over and over, hearing the words in his mother’s voice.
“Goddamnit,” he muttered in disgust. He put the box back in his coat pocket, turned away from the Dumpster, and headed for the front of the building. The box, as if pleased, grew quiet and still.
“In a change from yesterday’s forecast, the National Weather Service is now predicting that the cold front which brought nearly five inches of snow to the Ohio Valley yesterday will continue to linger for the rest of the week, with the possibility of more snowfall to come. Looks like winter’s not quite done with us yet, folks.”
As Roy drove home from work that afternoon—the box still in his coat pocket, still quiet, still still—tiny flakes of snow began to drift down from the sky. He drove past a synagogue, read on the message board out front that The Day Is Short; The Task Is Great. A mobile billboard truck passed him going in the opposite direction. On its side was an advertisement, a picture of brown cardboard boxes stacked haphazardly, the ones on top beginning to fall. Written below: Don’t get boxed in! Call Crouch Movers! As he turned onto his street, he saw a Lexus parked in front of a neighbor’s house. The vanity plate read TNGLD UP.
Roy knew exactly how the car’s owner felt.
His driveway was already coated with a light dusting of white when he pulled into his garage. He closed the garage door, got out of the car, saw the snow shovel propped in a corner, right where he’d left it.
“I promise you, this is the last time you’ll have to do that.”
He looked away from the shovel and went inside. He still had his coat on when he saw the note taped to the microwave.
Have to run a few errands after work. Can you start dinner?
Love,
Me
He usually got home a couple hours before Marcy, but now this note, this sign, told him he’d have even more time than that. Still wearing his coat, he went out the back door and around to the side of the house, where they kept their trash cans.
They had two receptacles, both made of brown plastic, so they technically weren’t garbage cans, he supposed. The lid was off the one on the right, and the trash bag inside had been torn open and bits of refuse were strewn about. Roy glanced down, saw animal tracks in the snow. He wasn’t surprised. They’d had trouble with raccoons getting into their trash last year, and now it seemed that, despite the late season snow, they were back.
It was another sign, of course.
Snowflakes fell all around him, larger now, heavier.
The day was TNGLD UP and he was boxed in, but the task was great, and he was supposed to murder his darlings in order to preserve domestic harmony, and what the hell did it all mean?
He reached into his coat pocket—bandaged thumb throbbing—and took out the box. No sound came from within, and there was no movement.
Just throw the box away, put the lid back on, go inside, and forget you ever saw the damn thing.
But he hesitated.
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT.
His mother had always said that the signs would tell him what to do, just as long as he paid attention to them. And he had, but he couldn’t decide what they meant. Throw the box away? Keep it? Open it?
He knew what Marcy would say if she were there. That this was exactly the problem with letting his life be controlled by signs and portents—that in the end they provided no answers. Only more questions.
“Screw it.”
He started to open the box.
He’d managed to pry back a corner when the box shuddered in his hand and a loud droning cut through the air. Small, dark shapes flooded out of the opening and swirled upward, shadowy counterparts to the falling snowflakes.
Roy yelped and dropped the box. It plopped into the snow, but the black forms continued streaming out. He tried to run, but the small ebon things—not insects, more like bits of darkness come to angry, buzzing life—circled around him, trapping him in a cloud of shadow.
And then the darkness began to close in on Roy.
He tried to scream, but when he opened his mouth, shadows rushed forward and poured down his throat, choking him, filling him, absorbing him . . .
Several moments passed as the dark cloud went about its work. And then it flowed back into the box, and when the last bit of darkness was gone, the opening that Roy had made resealed itself, and the box lay in the snow as flakes continued to fall.
Roy was gone.
A couple hours later, a feminine hand reached into the snow, found the box, and carried it back into the house.
Marcy was shoveling the walk when the small white truck pulled up to the curb. Snow was still falling, but it had begun to taper off.
The carrier leaned out the open window of his vehicle.
“Got something for me?”
Marcy lay the shovel aside and stepped to the end of the walk. She reached into her coat pocket and removed a rectangular cardboard box. There was no address on it this time.
She handed the box to the carrier. “Thanks a lot.”
He took it and flashed her a yellow-toothed smile. “No problem. All part of the service.”
She returned the smile then headed back up the walk to finish shoveling.
Inside the truck, the carrier held the box to his face, and his smile took on a grim edge.
“Told you,” he said.
The carrier then tossed the box into a large gray bag that sat on the backseat—a bag filled with dozens of similar white boxes. Then he pulled away from the curb, whistling an off-key tune. He had other stops to make before he could knock off for the day.
A lot of them.