Cul-de-sac
Jim didn’t trudge on his route. Trudging might indicate he didn’t enjoy his job. He loved the walking, the fresh air, the wind, sleet, rain and snow. He even didn’t really mind the dogs. Most of all, he loved the solitude and the freedom.
He didn’t miss desks. No TPS reports. No micromanaging or awkward break room conversations. He didn’t even mind the uniform, and the bag slung across his chest with its sturdy leather strap was the best he’d ever owned.
He smiled on the inside as he walked, headphones on, a special AI-curated Halloween playlist buzzing in his ears. Around him, the blustery wind shook the trees, streets still damp from earlier showers. There was the promise of a cool evening, the air tasted clean and crisp. Jim breathed in as much as he could, let it out in a slow, steady trickle.
He made the corner of 55th St., deposited a small box on the Taylor’s doormat that looked like a street grate with a creepy clown beneath it. At the Redman’s, he dropped letters through the slot, along with a couple Milkbones for Fletcher, their Jack Russell who bounced up and down behind the door, intermittently peeking at him through the door’s window panes.
Ahead of him, kids in costumes raced from porch to porch, little cabals of super heroes and monsters. He noticed they avoided the house at the end of the cul-de-sac. Mr. Smith’s house, a boring, red-brick home with weathered black shutters, black trim, and a small front porch full of cobwebs, curtains behind windows occluding any view of the inside. Never a car in the driveway, but the lawn was always mowed.
He’d never actually seen Mr. Smith, now that he thought about it. And Mr. Smith only ever received the weekly junk mail. Never a bill. Never a letter. No postcards or packages. If anyone asked, Jim would be hard-pressed to remember ever stepping onto Mr. Smith’s porch, even to deliver the Wednesday coupons.
Jim stopped and watched the children avoid it. They didn’t seem to discuss avoiding, but their groups skipped from the house on one side of the street straight to the other. It made him laugh, and remember Halloweens from his youth. There were always houses you skipped, always dark streets you sprinted rather than strolled.
He trooped up a driveway, filtering the letters in his hand for the Moyers, the last house on the right before Mr. Smith’s. He dodged a gaggle of big kids in last-minute costumes before stepping onto the porch. Ms. Moyer, whom he’d shared many a superficial greeting, smiled at him. She wore a long, black sparkly dress that pooled on the ground around her feet, a tall, pointy witches’ hat on her head. She opened the door as he extended her mail.
“That is a nice costume,” she said.
He smiled. “Worked hard on it. Totally authentic.”
She took her mail from his hand, replaced it with a full-sized Snickers. He smiled and nodded, thanked her.
“Make good choices!,” she said as he walked off across her lawn, slipping the Snickers into his jacket pocket.
As he stepped from the curb, he reached in his bag for the next batch of mail. On top was a weathered looking No. 10 envelope, corners bent, with a diagonal crease running from a top corner to the opposite bottom. Mr. Smith’s name and address were scrawled across the front, almost from one side to the other. No return address.
Jim stopped in the middle of the street staring at the letter. He had no memory of loading it into his bag.
“Huh,” he said, to no one in particular. He looked at the unremarkable house. Behind him, to the west, the sun had finally slipped below the horizon, turning the sky dim, transforming the trees to silhouettes, houselights to beacons of orange. The wind trashed the trees, the sound of crashing leaves almost louder than his music.
He headed up Mr. Smith’s driveway, scooted down the sidewalk, onto the porch, and lifted the hinged lid to the mailbox, which screeched as it moved. As he stepped back, he noticed the front door open behind a glass storm door. A tall, thin man with a long, sharp nose, bright blue eyes behind round, black wire-framed glasses stood staring at him. The man’s black suit, white shirt and black tie made Jim think of a hitman, or an undertaker, maybe the owner of a bookstore. The man behind the glass smiled, of sorts. It didn’t reach his eyes or show any teeth.
He creeped Jim out.
The storm door pushed open. Another not smile.
“Jim, yes?”
Jim nodded.
“We’re in a bit of a … predicament. Do you think you could come inside and help us?”
The man stepped out onto the porch, holding the door open with his back, motioning Jim inside with an expansive sweep of his left arm. Jim stared at his hand, then looked back to the fake smile.
“What sort of help do you need?”
“I’ll explain as we go, but trust me, time is of the essence, and the safety of the world is at stake.”
Jim exerted will to not roll his eyes, thought maybe Mr. Smith was delusional and might be in actual need of help. That or it was a heck of an elaborate Halloween prank. Despite the quiet, voice saying, “Dude, what are you doing?” in the back of his head, Jim stepped into the house.
The man closed the door behind them.
Jim glanced around, noticed a reddish orange glow coming from deeper in the house, but the rest of the lights were out. The air smelled of sweat and incense, and as he shuffled his feet, the scuffs echoed on the walls.
“If you’ll come with me,” the man said, then strode toward the glow. Jim took a breath and followed. They passed through what Jim assumed was the living room, complete with and old, cold, rock fireplace and no discernible furniture. They stepped through a sliding glass door and down into a high-ceilinged, rock-walled room.
In the middle of the space, five men sat at equal distant points around a glowing red circle. One of the men wore a brown terry cloth bathrobe. Another, what looked like graduation regalia. A third wore a blue and white Hawaiian shirt with giant hibiscuses all over it. The fourth, khakis, loafers and a muted pink polo shirt. The fifth wore a black suit, white shirt, black tie, and looked the twin of the man next to Jim. All were thin, almost gaunt, with sunken cheeks and dark eyes. They murmured together in an almost discordant chant.
One of them, the one in the bathrobe, appeared somehow worse than the others, his skin pale, almost gray. His body shuddered as he breathed.
In the middle of the circle stood a figure, vaguely human in shape, but its lines blurred, shifted as Jim stared at it. White eyes in a flaking black face stared at him through a soft column of pale red light.
Jim’s brain screamed at him, gibbering like a monkey in a zoo. He took a step back. Another.
“Jim, what do you know about magic?”
Jim swallowed to wet his throat. “Other than it doesn’t exist?”
The man in the suit gave the smile again. “That,” he said, and pointed to the thing in the circle, “is unimaginable evil from beyond our world. We have it contained, have had it contained, for decades. Were it to escape, our entire existence would be doomed.”
Jim, feeling a tad steadier, nodded along.
“We five are all that stand between it and our collective oblivion.”
Feeling better still, Jim said, “Sure. And it looks like you’re doing a great job. I’m going to go ahead and get back to my route.”
“Do you see the ill-looking gentleman in the bath robe?”
Again, Jim nodded, considered himself master of witty repartee.
“That is Mr. Smith, the owner of this domicile. At any moment, perhaps his next breath, he is going to pass from this world, and the circle will be broken. We have moments for someone to assume his spot, to maintain its integrity. Will you help us?”
Jim nodded, then, “Wait, what?”
“We need you, Jim, to help us save the world.”
“Who are you people?”
“We are masters of the arcane, stewards of the forbidden knowledge, keepers of the gates.”
“And what happens if Mr. Smith dies?”
“You are being obtuse. Assist us or … calamity.”
“You are a bit melodramatic.” Jim stared at the thing in the light, considered his options, considered the absurdity of the moment. “What do I have to do, and how long is this going to take? I have to finish my route.”
The man in the suit smiled, an actual smile, and his shoulders dropped. He said, “Open your mind, and hear my words. Mark them to your memory for all time, and may your will never falter,” and then the man’s words shifted to a language Jim had never heard before, not even in grad school. They circled and swooped round his brain, behind his eyes, and down this throat, through his body, and emerged from his mouth, filling in the proper spaces left by the men around the circle.
The man in the suit listened to Jim for a moment, then turned and walked around the circle to his twin. He met Jim’s eyes, motioned to Mr. Smith and his dirty bathrobe.
“Quickly, he hasn’t much longer. Be ready to assume his place.”
Jim stepped behind Mr. Smith, and as he did, he realized the words coming from his mouth synced perfectly with those of Mr. Smith. He tried to pause to listen, to be sure of what he was hearing, but the sounds didn’t stop, did not respond to his will.
He looked across the circle to the man in the suit. The man stepped forward and sat down, into his twin, the two figures becoming one. Jim tried to say, “What the h …” But his words could not overcome the murmured spell.
And then Mr. Smith collapsed, backward, his body withering to a husk in moments. Jim considered running again. The man in the suit motioned for Jim to sit.
Jim lowered his mail bag to the ground, sat, cross-legged.
The thing in the column loomed over him, its burning skin flaking off, falling ash, which Jim could now see piled along the edge of the circle in ebony drifts. He looked up, into the deep, white, endless eyes of the thing, watched as another piece of its face peeled off, floated down like a black feather, back and forth in an infernal wind. The ash settled on Jim’s forehead. It felt warm and soft, then hot.
Jim tried to scream. The thing looked down at Jim’s mailbag, which sat across the boundary of the circle, and smiled an endless white smile.
The end of the world screamed. Jim heard the sound in his soul, with his heart. The murmured words vanished from his mind, and he watched as the thing lashed an arm at the guy in the pink polo shirt. The man smashed into the wall.
Jim grabbed his mail bag and ran. He ran for the temporary safety, solitude and freedom of his route. He ran from the house at the end of the cul-de-sac that no one visited. He ran from the ash and screams and smoke.
And for the first time since becoming a mail carrier, he wished he’d kept his desk job.
