Honor the Horrors of the Internet

The Letter

You might not think that being a mail carrier in a small town is a very interesting job, and, for the most part, you'd be right. We have our share of inside jokes and kooky stories down at the post office, but those don't have a...a general appeal. Now, if you're a mailperson, you might find some of what I have interesting, but I'm betting my audience isn't composed entirely of you, so I'll just keep my anecdotes to myself, and then smile at them when times are slow.

But the story I have to tell today will intrigue most. It's one of the uncanny, and, as far as I know, those are as popular as ever. People love a good ghost/mystery/weird story. I've never been partial to them. When I read it's usually historical or religious, but I'm in the minority, I suppose.

Now, this is a true story. I'm not going to opine, just state the facts. You can take it or leave it.

Okay?

Good.

It was June, 1988, the hottest month on record in Pickett's Meade. I had been working at the post office on Oak Street for almost twenty years. The postmaster then was a tall, stern man named Gerald Sandford, a heck of a guy. You know, he dragged me out of a gutter when I was twenty and took me in, despite my shaggy hair and glassy eyes? Something most people wouldn't have done, I can assure you. He was the assistant pastor at the Methodist church, and loved by everyone who knew him. I adored him like he was my own father. He's the one who gave me God, his daughter, and my job, the three most important things in my life. My life entirely, in fact.

But I digress.

Anyway, on the morning of June 28th, Gerry took me aside as soon as I came into work and told me that he needed to see me during my lunch hour. Noon came around and the others went to Faye's Diner for a quick bite. I stayed behind in the deafeningly quiet mailroom, giddily ready like Spongebob Squarepants. When he poked his head out his office door and called my name, I leapt up.

His office was small, cramped, and comfortable. Its positioning allowed it to received direct sunlight most of the time, and the single window looked out over Derry Street and the park beyond. He sat down with a sigh, and gestured for me to sit.

"Tommy," he said, "you know what today is, right?"

Easing into the chair, I shook my head. "No, no I don't."

"June 28, 1988."

I nodded. "Okay."

Gerry chuckled. "The letter has to be delivered today."

For a moment I didn't understand what he was talking about, but then it hit me.

"The letter?"

He nodded.

In my line of work, the phrase "the letter" doesn't carry much weight. We deal with dozens of them a day. But when given a special little emphasis, it was enough to skip your heart. Why? Because the letter was something out of place, out of time, an odd bit of the mysterious. Not many people knew about it, only me, Gerry, and John Ballard (who'd been working in the mailroom since he came home from Vietnam in 1968)...or only people who could be trusted to suppress their curiosity, in other words.

You see, the letter was...puzzling, to say the least, and many a postal worker over the years lost his job over it.

It had been left with the postmistress in 1905 by a queer tramp passing through town, a man in dank clothes and with at least a week's growth on his face. He entered one December day, as the story went, and approached the counter. At once, the postmistress judged him as "not right."

"Hey, what's up?" he asked.

She didn't immediately reply. The man, seeming to realize he'd committed a faux pas, winked and said, enunciating very slowly like an unsure foreign speaker, "Good afternoon, ma'am, how are you?"