The Messenger (2011 reformat) (5 page)

Carlton's eyes
roamed up his daughter's elegant body to her face.

Blushing-pink
horns sprouted from her forehead, and in the pre-orgasmic grin, Carlton saw
fangs and a slender forked tongue. Eventually she pulled two hands from the
moving mass-a demonic hand and one that seemed octopod-then sighed when she
placed them on her breasts. The hands kneaded her independently, coaxing more
waves of writhing pleasure. Finally she picked up a third hand-a large human
one-and began to masturbate with it.

The image
blared bright...bright as a car’s headlights in his unblinking face.

"Good-bye,
Daddy. I'll see you again someday. And remember what I said. Remember his holy
message."

Carlton's
heart felt like a dying lump.

"The
arrival of the Messenger is at hand ..."

And then she was
gone.

The vision
vanished, leaving Carlton alone in utter silence. The cubby seemed cold, like a
walk-in refrigerator, and the flashlight's beam reflected off the narrow walls
so brightly it was hurting his eyes. I must've fallen asleep or something, he
told himself, and had a nightmare. And what a nightmare it had been, the
cruelest invention. How could his mind manufacture something so awful?

The imaginary
bracelet, too, was gone. None of it had been real. All that remained was the
square hole in front of him, the panel of which he'd knocked out previously. He
took a few moments to still his mind, to let the remnant images of horror
evaporate, then looked at the hole again.

I can't leave
it like that. Gotta put that panel back in.

He crawled
forward, moved his head and shoulders into the opening, and roved his light
around. The space beneath the post office seemed vast but totally empty. No
pipes, no wires, nothing he might expect. He didn't even see the panel. It
must've fallen below the opening.

For whatever
reason, and as hard as he was trying to forget the illusion of his lost
daughter, the vision's strange words dripped back into his head for a mere
second:

Behold the
Messenger. The arrival of the Messenger is at hand.

When Carlton
leaned farther into the opening, he saw the space wasn't totally empty.

There was
something there. He reached forward to touch it.

It looked like
a box.

I

Marlene always
had to have her morning coffee, a big one. Always black, no frills. So that's
what she got today, at the Qwik-Mart two blocks down from the main post office.

The only
difference between today and any other day was this:

Marlene didn't
work at the main post office anymore. She worked at the west branch office, which
had only opened yesterday.

She looked the
same. Short, pretty, mocha-brown eyes, and buffed straight hair that could be
called dark blond or light brunette, depending on the light. She was in
excellent physical condition, after a decade with the post office; half of her
delivery shift had always been in a vehicle, but the other half was on foot,
which left her legs toned and tan. Many an eye regularly glanced back at her
official post-office shorts, and at the light blue top that always seemed
strained across a more-than-adequate bosom. In her midthirties now, Marlene
looked as desirable as any woman in town a decade younger.

"Marlene,"
said Marvic, the gray-bearded proprietor of the Qwik-Mart. He was from the
Balkans, and had an interesting accent, which sounded part-German and
part-Arabic. "Please do not take this the wrong way, but you do fine
justice to those shorts."

Marlene
smiled, nonchalant, as she pulled the plastic cut-out tab from her coffee lid.
"Thanks, Marv. My husband tells me the same thing every morning but he has
an easier way of saying it. He just tells me I've got a killer ass."

"I would
definitely concur with that."

"Well, I
better go, Marv. Work's two blocks away, and I'm late."

"But
wait. I thought you mentioned yesterday that you no longer work at the main
post office."

"That's
right, Marv. I got reassigned to the west branch."

"But
that's on the other side of town, isn't it?"

"Sure is.
I just have something to drop off here first. Have a good day!" Then she
left the store, knowing Marvic's eyes were following her. Marlene appreciated
the compliment. It made her feel positive about herself. It made her feel
complete.

A few minutes
later, she was parking in the front lot of the main post office. She paused a
moment in the sun, to look at the long and rather sterile brick building. The
west branch looked so much nicer even though it was so much older. The west
branch was quaint, its drab bricks painted a vibrant white, with pastel blue
trim, and children's art work from the local elementary school adorning the
front windows.

But this
place...

This place
looks like shit, Marlene thought with rare profanity. It wasn't even her own
voice in her head, but she wasn't capable of comprehending that. It was
something else.

And the people
inside...are shit. The voice darkened.

It's time, my
lovely Marlene. It's time to deliver a message, isn't it?

"Yeah,"
Marlene replied to herself in a hushed voice.

The
motion-sensitive front doors parted; Marlene walked into cool air, so cool in
fact, her nipples seemed to pucker. The sensation struck her with such
intensity that she thought obliquely of her husband- the way he'd come up
behind her by surprise, slip his arms around her, and tweak her nipples. Yes,
yes, that's exactly what it felt like-

Someone standing
right behind her. Right up against her. Pinching her nipples.

But that was
impossible. Even Marlene, in the strange daze that had struck her since
yesterday when she'd gotten off her first shift at the west branch, knew that
no one was standing right behind her.

"Hi,
Marlene!" said Emmy, her friend at the first teller window. The line of
familiar customers looked over, too, and all smiled and waved. “How was your
first day at the new office?"

"Oh, it's
great. I love it."

"But I'll
bet you miss this place don't you? Just a little?"

Marlene shot
her friend the warmest smile. "Of course, and I miss working with you guys
too. A lot."

Really,
really? she thought in that weird voice again, the voice that seemed like her
own but with another voice hissing behind it.

You don't miss
this place. You don't miss these people.

Marlene
frowned to herself.

And they won't
miss this world...

"Well, we
miss you too," Emmy went on, stamping a postmark onto a customer's
package. "But it's all for the best. Opening the west branch really takes
a lot of the workload off us. I still can't believe how much Danelleton has
grown in the past year."

"Yeah,"
Marlene muttered.

She was just
standing there. Staring.

"So what
are you doing out our way?" Emmy asked.

Marlene almost
felt as though she were hovering. It took her several moments to answer:
"Oh, I just..." Then a long pause.

Emmy cast a
concerned look past the register. "Marlene? Are you all right?"

Now Marlene's
eyes felt hot, like coals punched into her eye sockets. Her words droned from
her mouth. "I just stopped by to say hi."

Emmy was
squinting over, and so were several customers in line.

"Plus I
needed to drop off this package."

"A
package?" asked another teller. "For us?"

"Yeah.
Special Delivery" Marlene said.

Marlene stood
wavering in place, yet she felt quite secure in what she was about to do. That
voice in her head, too-part hers, part someone else's-etched with confidence. I
am the Messenger. Bring my message...

Again, she
felt as though someone were standing right behind her, surely a male figure,
for she could still feel his incorporeal hands running up and down her sides
and sweeping up over her breasts. Were someone to be looking closely, they'd be
able to see it, the most minute indentations sliding up against the fabric of
her work shirt.

"Marlene,
what is wrong with you?" Emmy said more sharply now. "And what's this
about a package? What, something of ours got mis-delivered to your
branch?"

"No,"
Marlene said, now swooning at the invisible touches. For the briefest moment,
she cast an eye aside, at the long front window, and in it she glimpsed her
reflection.

She glimpsed
someone else's reflection too.

Someone
standing directly behind her. A man, or something like a man. With his hands on
her. The image was almost translucent, like an outline in distant fog. Then the
nearly shapeless hands of that outline slid down Marlene's arms, to her own
hands. The figure began to move her hands down.

"No,"
she repeated. "Not really a package. It's a message."

From her mailbag,
Marlene withdrew an Ingram MAC-11 submachine gun. It was compact, weighed just
over three pounds, and was scarcely larger than a typical pistol.

Until she
snapped in the high-capacity forty-seven-round magazine. No one screamed at
this point, they simply stared through a paralyzing hush.

Marlene yanked
back the charging handle with a metallic crack.

"Behold
the Messenger," she said, and that's when everyone in the lobby began to
scream. She fired in controlled bursts, three 9mm rounds slammed into Emmy's
chest, then three more at the second teller, who'd been ducking but not quite
in time. The bullets took off the top of his head and sent it across the room
like a hairy Frisbee.

Yes, she heard
in her head. Yes. Yes.

With the
tellers dead, Marlene grinned and turned about. Her technique was tactically
sound: she stood at the entrance door, the only exit for the remaining
customers who were all screaming and backing up. Several tried to vault over
the counter but when they did so, Marlene picked them off.

Then she
opened up on the crowd in the corner.

She fired
bullets as though she were spraying a garden hose. Her once pretty face was now
twisted up like a grinning wooden mask. For some reason she didn't hear the
weapon's earsplitting reports, and as she swerved the spray of bullets into the
crowd, their screams faded to a muffled silence.

Gun smoke rose
like tear gas. The smoke amplified the details of the mirage standing behind
her; at one point she looked down and saw bony yellow-skinned hands with long-manicured
black nails wrapped around her own hands as she grasped the gun, the long
triple-jointed yellow finger pulling her trigger finger back.

Marlene
emptied the clip into the mass of humans, then she smacked in another
forty-seven-rounder and emptied that. By the time she was done, the pile of
collapsed post-office customers looked as though they'd been run over by an
aerating machine. A puddle of blood the size of a kiddie pool oozed out across
the floor.

Bring my
message to them all...

Marlene smacked
in the next clip, then walked calmly around the counter and entered the office
and processing areas.

More staccato
gunshots rang out, more gun smoke rising. Empty cartridges sprayed into the air
in a golden arc. A few minutes later, the police charged in.

II

The blond
newscaster looked more like one of those girls on an E! Channel beach show. The
smart burgundy business dress didn't work with the implanted breasts, platinum
hair, and rich tan. Yet she held the microphone like a stoic, and spoke like
one too, as ambulance and police lights flashed in the background, vehicles all
parked askew in front of the main branch.

"...an
unimaginable tragedy today at the Danelleton main post office on Rosamilia
Avenue. Longtime employee Marlene Troy allegedly entered the office at
approximately 9 a.m., withdrew an automatic weapon, and opened fire..."

One after
another, EMTs exited the building, bearing stretchers laden with black body
bags. Trails formed of dots of blood tracked out to the lot, along with bloody
footprints. The next shot showed the inside of the lobby after the bodies had
been extricated: more footprints and gurney marks running out of a pool of
blood that stretched nearly to the front doors. Gallons of blood must have been
spilled there. Higher, on the back walls, more dots could be seen, not dots of
blood but rip-stitch lines of bullet holes.

"Authorities
are mystified as to what might have caused the frenzied slaughter" the
newscaster went on. Next, the scene cut back to the front of the main branch,
where more police hovered with clipboards and evidence-collection material. And
in the foreground, more EMTs loaded covered stretchers into ambulances.
"The official death toll is twenty-six, with no survivors of this hideous
and inexplicable rampage." To highlight bad taste, the camera homed in
closer on one of the stretchers. By now, authorities had run out of body bags
and resorted to sheets. The sheet over the current body was nearly saturated
with blood, and when the stretcher was hoisted up to be pushed into the
ambulance, an arm flopped out from under the sheet. The top of the sleeve was patched
with the emblem of the U.S. Post Office.