The Postman Read Online Free Page B

pull a trigger.
    He wiped the stickiness on his pants as he rounded the end of the thicket. And there, suddenly, a hundred feet or so away it seemed, a broad pane of glass glinted at him in the dim skyglow.
    Gordon ducked back behind the thorns. He drew hisrevolver and held his right wrist with his left hand until his breathing settled. Then he checked the pistol’s action. It clicked quietly, in an almost gentle, mechanical complacency. The spare ammo was heavy in his breast pocket.
    A hazard to quick or forceful motion, the thicket yielded as he settled back against it, heedless of a few more little scratches. Gordon closed his eyes and meditated for calm and, yes, for forgiveness. In the chilly darkness, the only accompaniment to his breathing was the rhythmic ratchet of the crickets.
    A swirl of cold fog blew around him.
No
, he sighed.
There’s no other way
. He raised his weapon and swung around.
    The structure looked distinctly odd. For one thing, the distant patch of glass was dark.
    That was queer, but stranger still was the silence. He’d have thought the bandits would have a fire going, and that they would be loudly celebrating.
    It was nearly too dark to see his own hand. The trees loomed like hulking trolls on every side. Dimly, the glass pane seemed to stand out against some black structure, reflecting silvery highlights of a rolling cloud cover. Thin wisps of haze drifted between Gordon and his objective, confusing the image, making it shimmer.
    He walked forward slowly, giving most of his attention to the ground. Now was not the time to step on a dry twig, or to be stabbed by a sharp stone as he shuffled in the dimness.
    He glanced up, and once more the eerie feeling struck him. There was something
wrong
about the edifice ahead, made out mostly in silhouette behind the faintly glimmering glass. It didn’t look right, somehow. Boxlike, its upper section seemed to be mostly window. Below, it struck him as more like painted metal than wood. At the corners …
    The fog grew thicker. Gordon could tell his perspective was wrong. He had been looking for a house, or large cottage. As he neared, he realized the thing was actually muchcloser than he’d thought. The shape was familiar, as if—
    His foot came down on a twig. The “snap!” filled his ears and he crouched, peering into the gloom with a desperate need that transcended sight. It felt as if a frantic power drove out of his eyes, propelled by his terror, demanding the mist be cloven so he could see.
    Obediently, it seemed, the dry fog suddenly fell open before him. Pupils dilated, Gordon saw that he was less than two
meters
from the window … his own face reflected, wide-eyed and wild haired … and saw, superimposed on his own image, a vacant, skeletal, death mask—a hooded skull grinning in welcome.
    Gordon crouched, hypnotized, as a superstitious thrill coursed up his spine. He was unable to bring his weapon to bear, unable to cause his larynx to make sound. The haze swirled as he listened for proof that he had really gone mad—wishing with all his might that the death’s head was an illusion.
    “Alas, poor Gordon!” The sepulchral image overlay his reflection and seemed to shimmer a greeting. Never, in all these awful years, had Death—owner of the world—manifested to him as a specter. Gordon’s numbed mind could think of nothing but to attend the Elsinorian figure’s bidding. He waited, unable to take his gaze away, or even to move. The skull and his face … his face and the skull.… The thing had captured him without a fight, and now seemed content to grin about it.
    At last it was something as mundane as a monkey reflex that came to Gordon’s aid.
    No matter how mesmerizing, how terrifying, no unchanging sight can keep a man riveted forever. Not when it seemed that nothing at all was happening, nothing changing. Where courage and education failed him, where his nervous system had let him down,
boredom
finally took