Postman Rings Only Once

"Now listen very carefully, and there is no ifs and buts about it, at this neck of the wood the postman rings only once. You got that? Only once, not twice, not three times, never, and let me underline that for you, never more than once. So you think you can handle that and live by this rule, because if you can't and you can't right now give me your ironclad promise to stick to it all the time, then move on."
"Sure I can, but may I ask why?" Tom asked innocently and the chief laughed and said, "Because your life may depend on it. Those folks on the Crow's Hill road are very strict and don't like to be bothered, highly peculiar I must say, but at the end of the day they need their mail, and they understand that. And believe me, the less you know, the better. But don't worry, as long as you ring only once, nothing is going to happen to you."
Reflecting for a moment on the big display notice right outside the window "Hiring 100 an hour," Tom was naturally curious why such a relatively high salary? After all, he knew as a fact that in his hometown in Ohio the average salary for mail delivery was a fifth of that. But, he was sure far away from home and was merely passing through when his motorcycle broke down and he barely had any money to fix it.
"We pay top wages because there's some extra driving through the wooded areas and then some houses you can only get to on foot, not that many though, I'd say ten or twelve. But, don't worry, they all have a walking path and just to make you feel safe, we also give you a carry-on gun, which is part of the regulation here."
"A gun? What for?"
"As I said, just for precaution, you know in case you run into some animal or something, but that rarely happens." The chief paused and then asked, "You can shoot, can't you?" And seeing that Tom nodded positively, he continued, "swell. Just one final thing. You deliver all the mail by no later than 3 pm, you got that? That means, if you still have undelivered mail by, let's say, 2:30, you leave that for tomorrow. So, we give you this beeper too that beeps at exactly 2 O'clock to give you headsup."
"And what happens if I forgot or the beeper didn't go off?"
"Well, you need to make sure you're aware of time because in those hills the sun sets pretty early and we don't want you to get lost in the darkness, and it gets foggy too sometimes. Of course, you'd be equipped with a flashlight. Still, that's another specific requirement for this job, alright kid?"
Tom and the chief then shook hands and, feeling hungry, he headed for the dinky coffee shop across the street for a bite. As he sat at the counter, he was greeted by a bored middle age man sitting a couple of seats away from him.
"Hi stranger. What brings you to this god forsaken place?"
"Hi. My name is Tom. I just got hired as your new postman."
"Congratulations. My name is Sam. Do you have a place to live yet?"
"Not yet. But I was told to check in at the inn."
"Yeah. You 'll like it. Mrs. Bowman makes terrific breakfast."
Sipping his coffee while waiting for his order, Tom decided to take advantage of the moment and learn some more about the town.
"Hey. I was curious why they're short of delivery men when the pay is so high?" His question provoked a terse smile on Sam's face. He simply got up and began walking toward the door, laughing to himself.
"Did I say something funny?"
At the door, Sam paused, turned around and simply whispered "ghosts" and then stepped out.
Precisely a week later, after the mandatory training on how to sort the mail and punch in his card and so on and so forth, Tom began his daily routine with a great deal of energy. His truck was practically brand new and was equipped with a state of art dispatch radio as well as a GPS device hooked to the dashboard. He had been assigned to a wooded community that, it turned out, received very little mail, i.e., mostly the utilities bill and some greeting cards with no mention of the sender's addresses, which in essence meant that he would be done for the day even before noon time. His first few days went completely uneventful. His boss contacted him every hour or so to ask how it was going? "Great, happy to hear that." And, when he was back at the post office, Mike the other delivery man immediately posed a curious question. "So how was your first day? Nothing unusual I hope."
"Unusual? Well, no, not really, except."
"Except what?"
"Well, I didn't see a single soul the whole time, only some dogs barking from the inside."
"Oh yeah, be careful with those dogs, can be very vicious."
"I can see that. Well, maybe they are all out at work."
"Who knows. The guy before you lasted three days because he freaked out, and the one before that half a day, chief didn't tell you?"
"Really?! No, he didn't. He just laid down some rules, like no ringing the bell twice and no delivery after 3."
"That's right. Simple rules but you better engrave them in your brain buddy," Mike said as he was carrying a bin full of mail to the next room.
"I'm curious Mike. Why don't you deliver in that area?"
"Look. I'm not suppose to tell you this because you might freak out. That's a cursed area as far as we're concerned, a lot of disappearances over the years, so folks here simply avoid it."
Tom's reaction was swift. "Come now Mike. You're fucking kidding me. I should have been told all this shit last week, don't you agree?"
Mike concurred, but then again no delivery man had ever disappeared, except "once."
"You see, there was this kid, barely 20, who was working for us a few months and he was kind of goofy, smoked a lot, and tampered with some mail too, so he was on his way out when we found his body in the woods there, shredded to pieces, literally. Apparently, he fucked with the rules and didn't take it seriously."
At that moment, the chief stepped in and, seeing the expression of shock and disbelief on Tom's face, wondered what was going on?
"I told him what happened to Steve."
"You did?" The chief gave an admonishing twist to his question and then tried to comfort Tom by saying, "that's right. He had no listening. We warned him about not fooling around with those rules and he paid the ultimate price for ignoring them. Now, I don't suppose you're that dumb, are you Tom?"
"No chief, I'm not. But then again, I didn't know any of this and now need to think about it."
"Fine, you do that. Just remember we pay well above the pay scale and I guarantee one hundred percent nothing is going to happen to you as long as you stay with those simple rules."
"What makes you so sure, I like to know. How can you guarantee anything?"
"Simple kid. We have, this town has, made a pact with that community, and they are honorable people honoring every word of it for years, you get that?"
"That's comforting to know, but I still need to think about that now."
"Sure, that's your right. Just let me know first thing tomorrow morning kid, okay?"
"Okay."
After a long debate in his head all night, the next day Tom showed up for work with only minor hesitation, letting the 'tough guy' in him take over and put out the fire of his fear. It was snowing heavily and after dropping a small box in front of one of the secluded houses away from the dirt road, Tom momentarily lost his way in the woods and went the wrong direction. His beeper went off, reminding him of the time: 2 pm. He touched the gun strapped to his side for self-reassurance and continued walking. Suddenly he saw a man wearing a dark winter coat and covering his face with a black hood glaring at him from a distance, pointing at the opposite direction; he had ski gloves on and Tom could not make out any aspect of his face. When he saw that Tom has frozen in his spot motionless, the stranger menacingly pointed away, and this time his finger seemed to suddenly grow by several inches. Tom turned around and ran as fast as he could, falling a couple of times, until he reached the truck and quickly locked the door when he jumped behind the wheel, looked at his watch: 2:55. "Let's get out of here," he exhorted himself as he turned the key and pressed the gas paddle.
But, that turned out to be Tom's only adventure the whole winter months and he never encountered that stranger again; naturally, the more he worked, the more he fell into a pattern and soon the memory of that strange encounter faded to the back of his memory. Then one day, close to the Valentine's Day, it was an unusually foggy morning; Tom saw that there were several boxes intended for the same address, i.e., one of the houses right on the main dirt road that cut through that "invisible" community; he had to make at least two trips from the truck. One of the boxes was heavy and Tom inadvertently dropped it and saw through a tear in the box that it contained expensive silver plates. As usual, he rang the bell once and then returned to the truck for the second batch of boxes and when he unloaded them on top of the other boxes in front of the mysteriously quiet house, Tom had a momentary lapse of memory and rang the bell again.
"Oh my God. What have I done? This is the same delivery. I should have rang only once. now what?"
Tom started racing toward the truck without waiting to find out. Suddenly, he could hear a growing commotion that initially came from the direction of the house and then spread all around him, as if he was being chased by a crowd of zombies. He could hear them without seeing anyone, however, adding to his growing sense of terror. Panic-stricken, he made it to the truck and quickly started it to speed away. But, no matter how hard his foot pressed on the gas paddle, he couldn't. The howling noise was now deafening, surrounding the truck and Tom's heart was racing. "I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Forgive me please." It was useless and the truck was shaking now, as if a hundred people were pounding on it and trying to rip the doors open. Instinctively, Tom reached for his gun and began shooting. He heard some shrieks, followed by more violent shaking of that huge truck. He then tried to call for help. Luckily his chief was on duty and answered immediately. "Chief. I need help. There are some forces, some ghosts, chasing me and trying to force open the door."
"My God, Tom. Just drive away."
"I can't chief. They're all over the truck."
"What did you do? It's not 3 yet."
"I made a mistake, rang a bell twice."
"That's so fucked up Tom. How many times I reminded you?"
"I'm sorry chief. I had to drop off multiple boxes at this house and my mind calculated repeat delivery. Please help me."
"I'm sorry kid. There's nothing anyone can do for you."
At that moment, the windshield was smashed to pieces and Tom kept firing until the last bullet. The horrible, the immeasurably horrible moment of death in his own hands had finally arrived.

"My god. I shot myself."

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