“No, Dan, that’s two friends fooling around. We were the same pay level and had the same time in grade. All that’s changed now.”

  “Yeah, since your big promotion. All of a sudden, Sarah the Party Animal becomes Sarah the Responsible Manager. Gimme a break. You’re such a hypocrite, it’s almost funny. Christ, I can’t believe how much you’ve changed in the last two days.”

  “Oh, poor little Danny Boy getting a little insecure. Big tough Danny Boy doesn’t like the idea that a woman two years younger than him is now his supervisor.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it. Some people are for real, some people aren’t. You aren’t.”

  “Poor little Danny Boy’s masculinity is being shattered. The big strong muscleman can’t hack being a subordinate to a hundred-and-twenty-pound woman—”

  “Shut up. You’re being stupid.”

  Dan loaded more boxes, in silence. Sarah just smiled. Yes, she had changed a lot in the last two days. She’d been blessed. The Messenger had shown her just how “for real” she truly was. He’d given her strength when before there’d only been weakness and vulnerability. Thank you, she thought dreamily.

  She could feel him behind her—the Messenger—right up close next to her, his ethereal hands roving her body, stimulating her for what was to come. His desires merged with hers, a perfect state of sharing. She could never be this close to anyone else.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s just fuckin’ grand,” Dan complained out of his silence. “You can’t date me anymore since you got your big, high-falutin’ promotion. Jesus Christ, Sarah, you spent the night with me last night. We made love…”

  Sarah couldn’t resist. “You call that making love? Don’t make me laugh, Dan. I hate to tell you this, but I get more action from a cucumber.”

  Dan gritted his teeth, bit away the anger. “What the hell are you talking about? You came like Halley’s Comet.”

  Again, Sarah couldn’t resist. “Yeah, it took you seventy-five years to get me off.”

  She stood back and watched, watched his anger boil up, watched his face redden. Dan was the kind of guy who had nothing beyond his macho image. His identity existed in his physical body, and in the cliché that women desired him because of it.

  Sarah always hated that cliché; it offended her. But before her indoctrination by the Messenger, she’d been victimized by it herself, for her entire adult life. Now she had changed. Now she was different. Now she was strong.

  Dan made her sick. His muscles, his tan, his clichéd good looks? It challenged her. He thought he was superior to women?

  It was time for her to—

  Do something about that, the Messenger whispered into her mind.

  “I will,” she said.

  Dan looked up from another box. “You will, what?”

  “Nothing, Danny Boy. Just keep flexing those muscles. Just keep thinking that you’re God’s gift to women. You gotta have something to keep that pea brain going.”

  He faced her, standing upright. “You really are trying me, aren’t you?”

  “What are you gonna do, Dan? Hmm?”

  “I’m gonna do my job—I’m gonna do it well, like I always do—then I’m gonna go home and chalk this one up to experience. I don’t know what your mind game is, Sarah, and I don’t want to know. You’re just a high-horse bitch who thinks she’s better than everyone because she just got a pissant one-level raise. So why don’t you go powder your fuckin’ nose or something? I’ve got work to do.”

  The Messenger caressed her; Sarah sighed. Now her master was walking her forward toward Dan, outstretching her arms.

  “What is the hell is wrong with you?” Dan said, but he had no time to say anything more because Sarah hopped up on the table, wrapped her legs around him, and yanked his face to hers. She kissed him as if famished. Bewildered, he kept trying to pull away but her arms just kept getting tighter, and soon he was lost in her again. He just gave up and kissed her back.

  Sarah and the Messenger loved to play with people.

  “I don’t get it,” he said between kisses. “You’re nuts. First you’re giving me a ton of shit, and then…this…”

  Sarah’s hand slid up and down over his groin, feeling him through his post office shorts. When she felt him rouse she said, “What did you just say? You’ve got work to do?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, sucking her neck.

  “Well, why don’t you do it, instead of slacking?”

  Dan pulled back, glaring at her.

  “Instead of coming on to me, you should be sorting the letter mail.”

  “Coming on to you!” he almost shouted. “You came on to me!”

  “Come on, Dan. I ought to write you up for this. Sexually harassing your supervisor—”

  Enraged, he tried to push away again, but her legs wouldn’t unwrap. When he grabbed her knees and tried to pull her legs apart, they didn’t budge. Dan was a very strong man, and this puzzled him.

  “You’re just trying to set me up, you bitch,” he breathed. “You’re crazy. I’m gonna file a complaint about you.”

  Sarah chuckled. “Don’t bother; it won’t be taken seriously. I was going to fire you anyway—”

  “For what?”

  “Dan, you know what your job is. Every day when you’re done sorting the letter mail, you’re supposed to maintain the central collation machine, and I know for fact you haven’t done that all week.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “We’ve gotten a lot of complaints this week about letters getting torn by the machine. That means it’s not calibrated right, doesn’t it?”

  Anger was bulging veins in his forehead. “Yeah, that’s what it means, but that hasn’t happened. I clean the collator every day!”

  Finally her legs unlocked, and she released him. She could feel the Messenger behind her, reveling in every moment of this. Turning the big muscular moron on and off, on and off.

  When he pulled away, he stalked over to the collator, a long bulky machine nearly the size of a sedan. He flicked on the power switch—

  “Come here!” he yelled at her. At the stack tray at the end of the machine, letters were filing out, untorn, perfectly stacked.

  “There’s nothing wrong with this!” he continued. “You’re just trying to make up crap about me, phony negligence charges. This machine’s in perfect working order! I know it is, because I maintain it!”

  The dreamy smile never left Sarah’s face. She sauntered over and lifted the service hatch on the collator’s midsection. When she did this, the racket from the machine trebled. Inside, gears hitched and revolved. Sharp-edged ratchets, with tines like rakes, snapped back and forth.

  “Tell me those ratchets are aligned,” she said.

  Temper cresting, Dan looked inside, then glared back at her. “There’s nothing wrong with them! What’s your problem!”

  “The lead ratchet. Look. It’s out of line. Anyone can see that—at least anyone who knows their job.”

  Dan looked back in.

  Sarah was not a strong woman, but the Messenger loaned her some great strength. One hand latched to the back of Dan’s head by the hair, the other clamped his neck. Then she shoved him down.

  The resistance he offered was considerable in any other circumstance. In this circumstance, however, Dan’s strength against hers was akin to a palsied old man. He didn’t make a sound when she shoved his face into the ratchet’s teeth.

  The machine made a sound, though, the sound of the ratchets suddenly working against the burden of Dan’s face. Sarah’s arms held him down firmly as steel rods. His body shuddered. His massive legs kicked in futility, and blood flew out of the machine like spaghetti sauce being kicked out of a blender. When he fell still, Sarah pulled him out, let him turn over on the floor.

  “Poor big muscular moron Danny Boy,” she whispered down to her now-faceless subordinate. The rest of the DPS shift was gone now. She dragged him by the boots to the door in the corner.

  The door to the basement.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  * * *

  (I)

  Get over it, Jane told herself. You’re a big girl. Stop acting like a jilted teeny-bopper. It was easier said than done, though. Since her visit to the police station, she tried to keep her mind blank, tried but failed. It had been a bad day overall—the Martin Parkins problem, Dhevic showing up—and next, Steve, with another woman. No, blanking her mind was a cop-out. Jane knew she had to face the reality, she just didn’t want to now.

  At the end of her shift, she drove home in a gray daze. Paranoia kept forcing her eyes to the rearview, the fear that she would see Martin’s Ford Escort behind her, but then she had to continuously remind herself that the police had towed the car away to the impound lot. Kevin and Jennifer knew something was wrong; they could tell the minute she got home, but Jane smiled it off, a fake smile that hurt.

  A quiet dinner with the kids, then they were off to watch television. When the phone rang at about seven p.m., Jane lurched, nearly dropping the plate she was putting in the dishwasher. Part of her hoped it was Steve…but why? I know what he’s all about now, she told herself. I don’t want to talk to him, not ever again. Besides, he wouldn’t have the audacity to call. Had he seen her looking in through his office door? Had the desk sergeant told him she’d been in only to exit a few seconds later? It didn’t matter.

  But the call mystified her. It wasn’t Steve, it was the maintenance supervisor from the post office. More strangeness. He told her that Dan Winston, one of the DPS operators, hadn’t clocked out, and his car was still in the lot.

  What’s going on? “He probably just forgot, and went out with a friend after work,” she suggested. “But thanks for calling. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

  Then the phone rang again.

  “Hi.”

  It was Steve.

  Don’t yell, don’t explode. There’s no point in any of that. The self-advice made good sense, but then Jane snapped. She yelled. She exploded.

  “You’ve got balls calling me! What kind of an idiot do you think I am! I’ve got better things to do than be jerked around by you! Don’t ever call me again!”

  Steve sounded alarmed. Obviously, he hadn’t been told that she was at his office earlier. “Jane, what are you—”

  “Don’t give me that crap! I came to see you today at your office!”

  “Yeah? Why didn’t you come in?”

  Jane’s temples pounded. “Oh, I came in. Your door was opened a crack. I was about to knock, but then I looked in. Can you guess what I saw?”

  “What?”

  “Jesus! You kill me. I saw you making out with that woman! That blonde!”

  The moment caught him off guard. “You saw me— Oh, you mean Ginny? She’s my—”

  “Your new girlfriend, obviously!”

  “She’s my sister—”

  “Get out of town! Oh, yeah, your sister! Is it a common practice in your family to stick your tongue down your sister’s throat?”

  “Jane, you’re really overreacting here, you’re jumping to a very wrong conclusion.”

  Jane couldn’t think through the wall of anger. She wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t going to be lied to. I’m not going to let this guy make a sucker out of me, she thought, and then she said, “Don’t ever call me again! Ever!”

  Tears were welling in her eyes when she slammed the phone down. She hitched through a few sobs, dried her eyes with a paper towel, and tried to compose herself. God, I hope the kids didn’t hear all that, she fretted, but when she peeked into the living room she saw them contentedly sitting on the couch, engrossed in Discovery Channel. She slipped out through the other side of the kitchen and down the hall toward her bedroom. Emotions assaulted her; she felt naive and juvenile. She felt heartbroken. What did I expect? she scolded herself. I only met the guy a week ago, and now I’m acting like I just got dumped out of a ten-year relationship. Grow up, Jane. But rationalizations didn’t help. It wasn’t black or white—it was all gray. Did it matter she hadn’t known him long? I was falling in love with him, she realized, tears returning. And now it’s over. One way or another, this was going to hurt.

  Numb, she stripped out of her clothes, shuffled to the shower. She hoped the cool spray would relax her but instead it affected the opposite. All the tension of the day dumped on her, and suddenly she felt bogged down, exhausted. She turned the water up harder, colder, till it stung like pinpricks, but she just grew more groggy. Her eyes were drooping when she got out and dried off. Did she hear a tick? She covered up with a towel and looked out the bathroom window, Stop being paranoid! Martin Parkins is NOT outside! He’s out of the state by now…

  She slipped into her nightgown. Her heart was thudding; she couldn’t get Steve out of her mind, couldn’t erase the image of him kissing the blonde.

  Later, after she put the kids to bed, she tried to watch some television, but it was useless trying to concentrate. It was still early, but she turned in anyway. I’ll feel better tomorrow, she resolved. In bed, she flicked off the light and darkness came down on her like a wall falling.

  With all her fatigue, it should’ve been easy to fall asleep. Instead, she tossed and turned, entwined herself in the sheets. Her mind wouldn’t let go of the day. In half-dreams, she kept relaxing in the impression that passionate hands were on her—Steve’s—rousing her, but then she’d flinch awake when she realized they were someone else’s. Large hands, callused and clammy, enslimed. Each time she’d bring her own hands to her skin, revolted by the certainty that she’d find slime, but there was nothing. The dream deepened later, though she couldn’t be sure how much later. She could barely move, trapped under squirming weight. Were two men molesting her in the dream? One hand on her breast felt smaller than the hand on the other, and less slimy. Grainy darkness swirled around her; she was being mauled. When the form of a face moved close to hers, she reached to the side, to her nightstand, and grabbed the pen she kept there to jot down phone messages, and then she jammed it into her attacker’s eye. There was no sound, no scream. The face hovered closer, and now she could see it in the moonlight: it was Martin Parkins. He was smiling at her, the pen sticking out of his eye. He simply got up and walked away, disappeared into the room’s murk.

  Then she awoke with a gasp, the room safe and empty, of course. A glance at the clock showed her that only a minute had elapsed.

  God…

  When she finally did fall fully asleep, her dreams were ugly and demented. The hands were on her again, and so was a mouth. No, not Steve’s mouth by any means, and not Martin’s. Jagged teeth clicked against hers. Jane squirmed, masturbating against her will. Atrocious, soup-thick breath gusted her face, and the tongue slipping around inside of her mouth was very long, very thin…

  And forked.

  (II)

  Next morning the sun shined through wisps of snow-white clouds. Around back of the Danelleton police station, cops were changing their shifts in the motor pool, exchanging blotter reports and gossip. Things seemed to be getting back to the normal, if not boring, pace everyone was used to.

  Out front, a mail truck pulled up. The postal worker got out and entered the building, work boots snapping on the clean pavement. Several cops smiled and waved. One may have whistled.

  Inside, the desk sergeant barely looked up from his paperwork. One eye spied the package that was placed down on the desk.

  “Express Mail, great,” he said. “Must be those DNA results we ordered from McCrone Labs in Chicago. The chief’s been waiting on this. Do I need to sign for it?”

  The postal worker smiled and gave a nod, handed him the receipt board. The slip was signed, then a copy torn off for the sergeant.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You’re quite welcome. Have a great day,” and then the worker left the building. The sergeant opened the package, then slowed. No return address? he noticed. The FROM square on the mailing label was blank. On an Express Mail? That’s weird. Then he fully opened the package and found a sheet of white Xerox paper sitting on top of some packing tissue.

  This ain’t good, no, this ain’t good at all, he thought. I better get the chief… On the sheet of paper someone had crudely sketched a bell with a star for a striker. The sergeant had seen others like it before, from the murders.

  He picked up the phone to call Chief Higgins but paused. The box felt fairly heavy and was about the size of a VCR. He pulled out the packing tissue, looked inside, and—

  (III)

  Oh, my generous Messenger, thank you for this blessing, Sarah thought, walking briskly back to the mail truck. Yes, the Messenger was full of blessings to bestow. Sarah felt electrified to be of such importance. The LLV waited for her, no more mail in it—she’d delivered the Messenger’s package, so she was done for now. She got into the truck, restarted it, and was casually pulling away when the entirety of the police station entrance exploded. Sarah scarcely flinched at the howitzer-loud sound, and scarcely glanced at her handiwork. Shattered glass rained down in bits; it sounded like rain on the LLV’s metal roof. Flames billowed from the blown-out windows, and shouts and screams could be heard. The two-step ammonium-nitrate explosive device had been relatively easy to make; she got the directions off the internet. Even the primer and contact trigger and incendiary material were a cinch.

  Sarah smiled as she drove off. In the background, chaos ensued, cops from the motor pool trying to enter the building but staved off by flames. Several men, blackened and smoking, crawled out only to die on the front pavement.

  It’s beautiful, she heard the Messenger congratulate her.

  Another cop ran out screaming, full flames wafting off his back and head.

  Yes. Beautiful

  Sarah sighed, and rejoiced in the Messenger’s caress as she drove away.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  * * *

  (I)

  The television screen throbbed with action: the Danelleton police station almost completely burning down. Fire trucks encircled the building’s front, their hoses shooting plumes of water into the conflagration. Ambulances screeched off, sirens wailing, only to be replaced by more.