no mind. He just walked out of the woods. Fearless. He felt the voices come back to him through the string. The voices didn’t rip his head apart anymore. There were no headaches. There was no fever. All he did was listen to the voices on the string. Everyone’s past. The secrets. The lost innocence. The pain. Identity. Disappointment. Rage. Confusion. The regret. The guilt. The love. The loss. Of all humanity. It wasn’t pain. It was power. Fear is not fear. It is excitement afraid of its own light. The whole world stretched out in front of him. All of the people on Earth. Christopher never felt such love. Such hope. Such gratitude. Every single soul in that line. He knew their names and their loves and their hopes and their dreams. He knew them, and he was them. Just as they were him.
“You are free now.”
Christopher felt the mailbox people tear at the strings like elephants who suddenly remembered that a rope is not a chain. They opened their eyes like miners seeing the sun after a hundred years underground. They tore the strings from their mouths. The words spilled through the valley. The woods. The clearing. This fight wasn’t over. The nice man had not won. It was still a war, and the good guys would keep fighting this war until there were no good guys left. They didn’t need an army.
They were the army.
Chapter 132
Christopher emerged from the woods with Ambrose, David, the sheriff, and a thousand mailbox people behind them. They looked down the street where the other mailbox people stretched as far as the eye could see. The threads from their mouths now resting on the ground around their feet. Their eyes unzipped. Finally opened.
In silence, they turned their gaze to the nice man. They glowed with the rage of centuries. For all of the misery. For the million times he made them see a loved one die. A mother suffer. A child harmed. Christopher took the string in his hand, and the energy shot through him as he spoke.
“We are free now,” he said.
The string dropped.
And the mailbox people ran at the nice man.
Starting with Christopher’s father.
Kate was speechless. For a moment, she forgot where she was. Even with everything she had seen, she still didn’t know if he was real. Until their eyes met, and she felt the whispers travel from his gaze to hers. She knew he was sorry for forgetting what he had in her. She knew that he thought the sheriff was a good man. She knew he was saying goodbye. For now.
“Wait. Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m going to protect my family this time,” he said. “I love you, Katie.”
With that, he kissed his wife. All of her regret and loss gone in an instant of peace. Then, he turned and ran at the nice man, yelling to the rest of the mailbox people,
“FOLLOW ME INTO THE LIGHT!”
He launched himself at the nice man. The moment he hit skin, Christopher’s father transformed into light. Burning hot like the sun. The son. The star. The soul. Ascending to Heaven.
The nice man screamed, his skin burning.
The dominoes fell. The mailbox people followed Christopher’s father, running full speed at the nice man. They jumped on his back like fleas on a dog and burst into light. Floating up to the sky like embers from a campfire. The message spreading to everyone.
“We are free!”
The mailbox people kept coming. Trampling the damned in a stampede. The nice man hit back. With each swing of his powerful arms, dozens would burst into sparks. But they kept coming. Faster and faster. The light inside cracked them open and pulled them into the sky. Forever free. He swung his fists, but there were too many. They jumped onto his body, burning him with light. Filling the sky with shooting stars.
The nice man got weaker with each soul. With each sun. Son. Daughter. Father. Mother. Emily Bertovich smiled at the sheriff, then ran straight at the nice man’s heart, breaking into a million pieces of light. The sky burned so brilliantly that the deer froze, staring into this massive headlight. The bodies piled on faster and faster until they couldn’t see the nice man anymore. He was screaming in pain, buried in a pile of light.
Christopher looked up into the sky. He saw a cloud begin to gather.
“Mom?” he said, terrified.
The sheriff saw the deer blink and adjust to the light. They began hissing as the