Her Heart Was a Mailbox Full of Death Threats

Trina hunched over a small, round breakfast table in a small, square kitchen, carefully crafting the closing sentences of her finest death threat yet.

You’re going to die slowly, Mr. McGann. Wriggling like a worm in your own blood. Eyes rolling like a dynamited fish’s. Die die die, Mr. McGann. Die die die.

Trina’s black-lipsticked lips grinned around crooked teeth as she played that die die die part over again in her mind. She really liked that. It was weird and creepy, like those great letters the Son of Sam killer wrote to newspapers back in the 70s. God, she’d love to get her hands on the originals of those.

Twenty-year-old Trina was pale and thin. Her naturally blonde hair, dyed black with shoe polish, smelled faintly of menthol cigarettes. She liked to imagine that her skull was full of spider webs and her brain was a tarantula.

Trina’s tabby cat, Mephistopheles (Trina verbally eviscerated anyone who shortened the name to Mephisto), dozed in a beam of sunlight a few inches from the death letter. Trina scratched behind his ear. “This might be my best letter yet,” she said. Mephistopheles yawned in baleful indifference.

Trina folded the letter sloppily, the way she imagined a psychopath would. She slipped the paper into a black envelope, slid her body into a black fur-lined coat (the fur was fake but she said it was real to piss off animal rights activists), and stepped out into a winter morning.

Snowflake patterns of frost lined sidewalk edges. Concrete smell of cold. No bird song in the air. Winter was Trina’s favorite season.

Gary McGann lived eight blocks away. She’d targeted the absurd humanoid two weeks earlier, after discovering he’d self-published a series of unicorn novellas. Seriously. Fucking unicorns.

Trina had to be careful while delivering death letters these days. The local news had done a couple features on her work, and people on social media had even taken to calling her the Grim Dispatcher. She loved loved loved that, but it also meant people would be on the lookout for her.

McGann lived at the edge of town. Dead vines cocooned long, rectangular house.

Trina had studied McGann for weeks and knew he left at six-fifteen every morning to open up his antique shop that never sold anything.

Trina was just opening the lid of the mailbox at the end of McGann’s driveway when a police patrol car drove around the bend atop of the hill, suddenly in plain view of her — and she in plain view of it.

Trina slammed the mailbox shut, slipped the letter into her coat pocket, and walked up the drive towards the house. She’d rehearsed this moment in her mind a million times already. She’d walk right up to the front door and knock. If the cop stopped, she’d just say she was lost and asking for directions. Easy peazy.

She walked up to McGann’s aluminum exterior door and realized that the interior door was wide open. The realization nearly stopped her in her tracks, but she was trapped now and had to keep moving, lest the cop find her movements suspicious.

As she raised her hand to knock on the door, she could see straight through the glass of the exterior door into the house’s living room. She froze. On the floor a few feet inside the entryway was Mr. McGann.

His body was contorted like a discarded marionette, feet pointing away from Trina but head twisted around to look at her with a walleyed, mouth-gaping expression, like a cartoon representation of a surprise. It might even have been funny if it wasn’t for the gaping, bloody hole in McGann’s forehead. Was that his brain back in the recesses of the broken skull?

Trina shrieked and stumbled backwards. She fell. The back of her head cracked against the concrete walkway and sent fireworks exploding in her eyes.

Oblivious to the pain, she scrambled to her feet and looked at the street. The cop was gone. He apparently didn’t even notice any of it.

Trina ran. She didn’t know where she was going. She just wanted to get way.

Five blocks later her legs and lungs had given up on her. That’s when she realized the death letter was no longer in her pocket.

McGann wasn’t the only one. They were all dead — every single person that Trina had ever written a death letter to.

The news unfolded as she did her shift at the Burial Grounds coffee shop. She was so rattled that she kept forgetting to shape her customers’ latte foam into the shape of a skull — her signature trademark. Her regulars didn’t fail to take notice.

“What about my skull?” Missy Robison asked with a smile.

“Screw off,” Trina said.

The shop buzzed with news of the murders. Seven and counting. It’ll be eleven by the time this is done, a voice in Trina’s head said. You know it will be because you wrote eleven letters, and somehow, in some unspeakable way, you caused all of this.

At first the story was covered only locally, but by early afternoon the major networks had picked up on it. It was the talk the nation. All the bodies had been found in the same condition, broken and twisted around by some incredible force that authorities deemed “too powerful to be a man.”

The most perplexing thing about the deaths was that most of the victims had other people in the house at the time of their demise. In every case, those companions heard absolutely nothing. The victim simply disappeared before being found mangled. How was it possible for someone or something to twist another human being around like a pretzel without making any sound?

Nicotine Joe, Trina’s coworker, laughed when the first body was reported. “Whoa, a brutal murder right here in Craptown,” he said. “What an honor.”

At the news of third, his laughter reduced to a smirk. “Our very own serial killer. I’m so proud.”

By the time the seventh came out, the smile was gone. Nicotine Joe simply said, “Holy shit, there’s a goddamn serial killer on the loose.”

Joe’s reaction was par for the course. Whatever sick excitement had initially been generated by the novelty of small-town murder quickly turned into terror.

Trina worked frantically as Nicotine Joe and the customers blathered on and on about the deaths. She overstocked shelves, emptied them, restocked them again. The more the buzz built, the harder she worked, until 4 o’clock when the newsman on Nicotine Joe’s phone made an announcement that caused Trina to drop a carton of cream to the floor.

“In a strange twist,” the news anchor said, “investigators reveal that all of the victims were previous recipients of death threats from the Grim Dispatcher. Investigators believe those letters, in fact, may be the key to finding the person, or people, responsible.”

Trina’s mind blurred with fear. She hastily mopped up the cream and started a latte for regular-customer Brian Snaps. Her brain was on auto-pilot. She barely registered his order. After she slid the drink over the counter, she stared at Brian’s moving mouth for several seconds before comprehending that he was talking to her.

“What did you say?”

“I said this design is really gnarly.” Brian chuckled. “I feel bad even ruining your artwork by drinking it.”

Brian held the mug out for Trina to see. Her heart stopped dead in her chest.

Shaped into the latte foam was an emaciated humanoid figure with long, spindly arms, its only facial features two hollow eyes staring back into Trina’s own.

Trina hadn’t meant to shape anything into the foam. The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. Yet, there it was, in remarkable detail.

Trina hung up her apron and bolted for the door.

After a sleepless night, Trina stood in bitter-cold morning air staring at the metal flag standing up on her mailbox.

She couldn’t have left it up. She hadn’t sent snail mail in weeks. The mailman couldn’t have done it, either, because he never got to her house before eleven. More than either of those things, though, Trina’s instincts simply knew something was terribly wrong.

But you knew that yesterday, didn’t you, girlie? You knew it the moment you saw Mr. McGann dead on the floor with that cartoon surprise on his face. That deep, dark part of you just knew that his corpse was only the beginning. Something had been set in motion. You felt it from the very beginning.

Trina opened the mailbox and barely suppressed a terrified shriek when she saw the black letter inside.

After a few moments she caught her breath, steadied herself, and took the envelope out. Inside it was a letter written on material different than any paper she’d ever seen before — like parchment. Long, thin, stabbing letters filled the page.

“I trust you’ve seen the gifts I left for you.

We were made for each other, my little spider. For years I loved you from afar. Now, finally, I’ve managed to get into your world.

There will be trouble for you because of my gifts, but even this is just fate’s way of pushing us together — where we are meant to be.

There’s no place left for you in your world, my little spider.

Come join me in mine.”

Drawn at the end of the note was a crude map.

The letter sounded like a bird frantically flapping its wings as it rattled in Trina’s trembling hands.

Before she could scrutinize the map’s directions, the phone in her pocket started hacking and coughing, which meant Nicotine Joe was texting.

“Dude,” the text read, “the description of the suspect looks JUST LIKE YOU.”

Blood drained out of Trina’s face. She texted back. “What are you talking about?”

“Some cop saw a chick leaving the scene of one of the murders and the description sounds JUST like you. They’re asking for leads. Isn’t that crazy?”

A cop car appeared a couple blocks up the way, driving in Trina’s direction. She ran to her house.

She tossed clothes into a backpack and grabbed the framed picture of her parents from her nightstand.

She tried to kiss Mephistopheles goodbye, but the cat just swatted at her face.

Trina was climbing over the backyard fence when she heard two car doors slamming shut in her driveway.

As she bolted into the wooded lot behind the fence, one line kept repeating itself over and over again in her mind: “There’s no place left for you in your world.”

And there never was, Trina’s own internal voice added.

Mom and Dad died when Trina was fourteen.

“Died” is a bit of a euphemism, isn’t it, girlie? The familiar internal voice mocked Trina as she huddled beneath a pine tree holding the picture of her parents in her lap. Snow had begun to fall. “Obliterated” is more apt, isn’t it?

They’d been on their way to Hawaii, but the plane never got out of Pennsylvania before going down. The funerals had been closed-casket because nothing even resembling a head was left between the two of them. Just pine boxes full of bones and meat, Trina imagined.

That’s not the whole story, though, is it, girlie? They wanted to go Hawaii to get away from you, didn’t they? Little brat.

The lone picture Trina had of her parents wasn’t a good one in terms of composition or lighting. She chose it because she’d taken it herself on a good day.

It’d been just an afternoon at the park, really, except that Trina had secretly vowed to be kind to her parents. She’d managed to do it, too. Not a single snarky comment all day.

That simple thing had made her parents unbelievably happy. She could see the joy on their faces as she huddled beneath the tree looking at the picture of Mom and Dad hugging in front of a lake. Days later they’d laughed forever when they noticed a buck-naked kid wading in the shallow waters behind them.

It seemed so sad now that Trina simply being a decent human being had made her parents so happy. What did that say about the way she was the rest of times?

“I’m sorry,” Trina said to the picture.

Mom and Dad didn’t answer.

Of course they didn’t, girlie. They’re dead. Obliterated.

Trina stuck the picture into her backpack and looked at the map drawn on the letter. She knew the place it led to.

Going there’s a bad idea, girlie.

“I know,” Trina answered the internal voice. “I just don’t care.”

She waited at the edge of the woods for night to come. Under cover of darkness she followed the map to an old post office at the edge of town. Its windows and doors were boarded up, but around back of the building she found an entryway open, the plywood that once covered it torn off and tossed aside. She turned on her phone’s flashlight and stepped inside.

The interior must have previously been the sorting room, she decided. It was too big to be anything else.

“My little spider,” a soft, metallic voice said from the shadows.

Trina’s blood chilled, but her fear wasn’t as bad as it would otherwise be. She had no place else to go, after all. She also felt very tired.

Tired of what, girlie?

Tired of everything.

“What are you?” she asked.

The creature had moved to the furthest edge of her flashlight’s illumination. It was little more than a silhouette, except for its two spindly arms and knife-like claws.

“I’m your creation,” it said. “Your love.”

“I didn’t create anything.”

“You did. You just don’t know what you really are. You were never made for this world, Trina.”

Trina trembled. She’d gone to the post office not particularly caring what happened to her, but the reminder of her parents struck home the reality of this seemingly unreal situation.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

“To serve you.”

“Serve me how?”

The creature paused for a moment before stepping fully into the light.

“By killing them all, Trina. By killing them all.”

Trina sat cross-legged in the snow in front of her parents’ tombstones as the sun came up over the horizon. The creature was somewhere behind her, close enough to hear its ragged breathing. It had followed her all the way to the cemetery. It had sworn to always follow her.

“Mom, Dad,” Trina said to the tombstones, “I know I’ve said this before, but I need your help.”

She was crying. She hadn’t cried openly since before the plane went down. That was the day she vowed to never cry again

“I’ve got myself in a bad situation, and I don’t know how to get out.”

That’s a lie, girly. You’re not here for what you’ve done. You’re here for what you’re about to do. Because you’re thinking about using that thing, aren’t you? You’re thinking of using it to kill them all. Isn’t that right, girly?

Yes, Trina thought. It is.

“I hate this life,” she said out loud. “I hate myself. I hate everything.”

She blubbered uncontrollably. The feelings had only truly become clear as she expressed them, and in that moment she realized how truly hateful she’d felt for the last six years of her life.

“Most of all, I hate both of you.”

That last statement stunned her for a second, then the dam broke open even worse and let loose a wave of uncontrollable weeping.

“I hate you for leaving me, and I hate you for bringing me into this stupid world.”

First I’ll start with Nicotine Joe. Then Brian Snaps. Then the whole damn cheerleading squad, too. All of them.

The creature’s breathe quickened behind her.

“Yes,” it whispered. “Yes.”

That’s when her mother’s voice broke into her mind.

“Why’d you write those letters, honey?”

Trina’s tears stopped. It seemed insane, but the voice had been clear as day. Was it any less insane then everything else that had happened, anyway?

“Why’d you write those letters, Trina?” This time it was her Dad’s voice.

“Because I hated those people,” Trina said. “I hated them.”

Even as she said it, Trina realized it didn’t make any sense. She could have egged their cars or burned their houses down. Yet, she chose to write them letters.

Because, in your own bizarre way, you were reaching out, girlie. You were trying to make contact.

It was true. She needed to talk to someone, but she was terrified of what would happen if she tried.

Trina began to cry again, but the tears were different this time. They felt cleansing.

“I’m so sorry you guys had to go to Hawaii to get away from me.”

The ghost-voices laughed.

“Honey,” her mother said, “that’s not why we went.”

“We just wanted to have fun, knucklehead,” Dad added.

Trina didn’t know if the voices were real or just in her head. They certainly felt real. She didn’t care either way. Things made sense now.

“I love you guys,” Trina said.

“We love you, too, honey.”

Trina was still scared about what would happen to her regarding the murders, but all that mattered was doing the right thing. She’d started this whole mess in the first place by being selfish.

Trina got her pen and the creature’s letter from her bag. She started to write. Without turning out around to look at the creature, Trina asked, “So, the way this works is that you’ll kill anyone I write a death threat to, right?”

“Yes,” the creature said. “Anyone.”

“It’s, like, a rule, right?”

“Yes.” The creature was practically panting with lust. “A rule that can’t be broken.”

“Great.”

Trina turned and faced the thing. She stared into the vacuums of its black eyes and held out a letter to it.

“Here,” Trina said. “I wrote this letter for you.”