Lucifer's Hammer

“No. And I don’t want one. Wrong image.”

Lilly nodded and laid the pistol on the table.

Bill Freehafer started to say something, but Lilly’s look cut it off. “Okay, Harry, let’s go,” Norm said. He didn’t comment when Harry carried his mailbag to the car.

They got in. They’d gone halfway when Harry patted his bag and, half laughing himself, said, “You’re not laughing at me.”

“How can I laugh at a man who’s got a purpose in life?”

They pulled up at the gate. The letters were gone from the mailbox. The padlock was still in place. “Now what?” Harry asked.

“Good questi—”

The shotgun caught Norm Lilly full in the chest. Lilly kicked once and died. Harry stood in shock, then dashed across the road for the ditch. He sprawled into it, headfirst into the muddy water, careless of the mailbag, of getting wet, of anything. He began to run toward Many Names again.

There were sounds ahead of him. Right around that bend — and there was someone coming behind, too. They weren’t going to let him get away this time. In desperation he crawled up the bank, away from the road, and began scrambling up the steep hillside. The mailbag dragged at him. His boots dug into mud, slipping and sliding. He clawed at the ground and pulled himself upward.

SPANG! The shot sounded very loud. Much louder than the .22 yesterday. Maybe the shotgun? Harry kept on. He reached the top of the first rise and began to run.

He couldn’t tell if they were still behind him. He didn’t care. He wasn’t going back down there. He kept remembering the look of surprise on Norman Lilly’s face. The big man folding up, dying before he hit the ground. Who were these people who shot without warning?

The hill became steeper again, but the ground was harder, more rock than mud. The mailbag seemed heavy. Water in it? Probably. So why carry it?

Because it’s the mail, you stupid SOB, Harry told himself.

The Chicken Ranch was owned by an elderly couple, retired L.A. business people. It was fully automated. The chickens stood in small pens not much bigger than an individual chicken. Eggs rolled out of the cage onto a conveyor belt. Food came around on another belt. Water was continuously supplied. It was not a ranch but a factory.

And it might have been heaven, for chickens. All problems were solved, all struggling ended. Chickens weren’t very bright, and they got all they could eat, were protected from coyotes, had clean cages — another automated system—

But it had to be a damned dull existence.

The Chicken Ranch was over the next hill. Before Harry got there he saw chickens. Through the rain and the wet weeds they wandered, bewildered, pecking at the ground and the limbs of bushes and Harry’s boots, squawking plaintively at Harry, demanding instructions.

Harry stopped walking. Something must be terribly wrong. The Sinanians would never have let the chickens run loose.

Here too? Those bastards, had they come here too? Harry stood on the hillside and dithered, and the chickens huddled around him.

He had to know what had happened. It was part of the job. Reporter, mailman, town crier, message carrier; if he wasn’t that, he wasn’t anything. He stood among the chickens, nerving himself, and eventually he went down.

All the chicken feed had been spilled out onto the floor of the barn. There was little left. Every cage was open. This was no accident. Harry waded through squawking chickens the full length of the building. Nothing there. He went out and down the path to the house.

The farmhouse door stood open. He called. No one answered. Finally he went inside. It was dimly lit; the shades and curtains were drawn and there was no artificial light. His way led him to the living room.

The Sinanians were there. They sat in big overstuffed chairs. Their eyes were open. They did not move.

Amos Sinanian had a bullet hole in his temple. His eyes bulged. There was a small pistol in his hand.

Mrs. Sinanian had not a mark on her. Heart attack? Whatever it was, it had been peaceful; her features were not contorted, and her clothing was carefully arranged. She stared at a blank TV screen. She looked to have been dead two days, possibly more. The blood on Amos’s head was not quite dry. This morning at the latest.

There wasn’t any note, no sign of explanation. There hadn’t been anyone Amos had cared to explain it to. He’d released the chickens and shot himself.

It took Harry a long time to make up his mind. Finally he took the pistol from Amos’s hand. It wasn’t as hard to do as he’d thought it would be. He put the pistol in his pocket and searched until he found a box of bullets for it. He pocketed those, too.

“The mail goes through, dammit,” he said. Then he found a cold roast in the refrigerator. It wouldn’t keep anyway, so Harry ate it. The oven was working. Harry had no idea how much propane there might be in the tank, but it didn’t matter. The Sinanians weren’t going to be using it.

He took the mail out of his bag and put it carefully into the oven to dry. Circulars and shopping newspapers were a problem. Their information wasn’t any use, but might people want them for paper? Harry compromised, throwing out the ones that were thin and flimsy and soaked, keeping the others.

He found a supply of Baggies in the kitchen and carefully enclosed each packet of mail in one. Last Baggies on Earth, a small voice told him. “Right,” he said, and went on stuffing. “Have to keep the Baggies. You can have your mail, but the Baggies belong to the Service.”

After that was done he thought about his next move. This house might be useful. It was a good house, stone and concrete, not wood. The barn was concrete too. The land wasn’t much good — at least Amos had said it wasn’t — but somebody might make use of the buildings. “Even me,” Harry said to himself. He had to have some place to stay between rounds.

Which meant something had to be done about the bodies. Harry wasn’t up to digging two graves. He sure as hell wasn’t going to drag them out for the coyotes and buzzards. There wasn’t enough dry wood to cremate a mouse.

Finally he went out again. He found an old pickup truck. The keys were in the ignition, and it started instantly. It sounded smooth, in good tune. There was a drum of gasoline in the shed, and Harry thoughtfully filled the tank of the truck, filled two gas cans, then stacked junk against the drum to hide it.

He went back into the house and got old bedclothes to wrap the bodies, then drove the truck around to the front of the house. The chickens swarmed around his feet, demanding attention, while he wrestled the corpses onto the truck bed. Finished, Harry stooped and quickly wrung six chickens’ necks before the rest of the chickens got the idea. He tossed the birds into the truck with the Sinanians.

He went around carefully locking doors and windows, put Amos’s keys in his pockets and drove away.

He still had his route to finish. But there were things he must do first, not the least of which was burying the Sinanians.