Weekly Drabble #236: Pending Delivery (Patreon)

This week's prompt comes from Lev Chusovitin with "sus", and we have a somewhat sus situation here. Enjoy!

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Pending Delivery:

With a beep from a push notification, I got the shipping confirmation for my package. I opened it up, double-checked that everything was being sent... and then my heart skipped a beat when I saw the courier the seller was using. I stared at the screen for several moments, my fingers tapping on the pressed wood of my desk, my eyes drawn to the disclaimer under the seller’s notification.

Once your order has shipped it cannot be changed or cancelled.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. Most people in this situation might object to a specific courier if the drivers were careless, they didn’t actually come to the door, if they put the packages in full view of the street or some other general and expected fuckery. My problem with this courier wasn’t nearly so banal. I wish it was.

I’d have to be at home; this delivery required a signature. Fuck. I can’t even cancel it, so if I don’t collect, it gets shipped back and I’m out a chunk of cash. Fuck. FUCK!“Maybe,” I say the air. “Maybe they’ll have a different driver this time.” One can hope, right?

I get up and pace with a sudden onset of nervous energy. I haven’t told many people, but those that I did think I’m crazy. It would be easier if she wasn’t so... so normal. Or even if she was some sweaty, beady-eyed man who stares too long at you and asks if you’re home alone, something that you can point out as creepy and inappropriate.

Instead, the driver is just... she’s a bit shorter than average, with bright red hair, full, round cheeks decorated with freckles and shiny green eyes. She keeps her uniform unbuttoned a little more corporate regulations probably say that she should and every time she comes to the door, I get an eyeful of her cleavage. Her smile is infectious and she always talks with me, even if it’s just a few words. She’s peppy and upbeat and disarmingly friendly. Every now and again she says something... she talks about how thirsty she is, or that she’s got a hangnail or other small little thing. Not all the time. Maybe once every three or four deliveries and she never asks for anything, but it makes me want to invite her in. For a drink, or to borrow some clippers or for whatever.

No, she never asks, never even implies. But I can feel the invitation on my tongue, and every time I manage to hold it back. I don’t know why. I tell myself it would be weird for a guy to invite some random woman into his house. That’s the kind of thing where you can get blacklisted from delivery or publicly labelled a pervert and a creep. That’s what I tell myself, but I know that’s not the actual reason. It’s the justification. They say that you don’t actually deliberate things, not really. You make your decision and then your brain invents the rationale for it. Even if you’re agonizing over a decision, your brain already knows and the rest is just convincing yourself that there was a choice to be made.

I don’t know if that’s true – what does that say about free will, if it is? – but in this case, I think it is. I don’t want her in my house. I don’t want to be anywhere near her. It’s crazy, I know. “I know,” I say to myself again.What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with her?

Mark teased me about it. He and I were out for a drive and passed by her on her rounds. “That’s your delivery lady?” he asked. “Shit, man. I should order something. She’s...” he whistled, low and impressed. “She’s something, ain’t she? Not to be crass but those shirt buttons are in the fight of their life, aren’t they?”

I don’t remember what I said to him, but it wasn’t the enthusiastic agreement he expected. He pried the full storyit out of me. “So what’s creepy about her?” he insisted.

“I don’t know,” I told him. I didn’t. I still don’t. I feel like I’m the crazy one here.

He snapped his fingers. “She’s a ginger!” he exclaimed. “That’s it. You got some kind of sixth sense, right? You know she doesn’t have a soul.”

“Ha fucking ha.”

That was the first conversation with him I had. The second and last came few days later, he told me he’d ordered some stuff online. “Share the wealth!” he said. “I know a guy who’s on her route and he said she’s super friendly and really chatty. No harm in seeing for myself, right? And I needed this shit anyways.”

I thought about arguing with him, but about what? What am I trying to dissuade him from? Meeting a pretty delivery girl who flirts with single men? I’ve gotten enough shit about this already from my other friends. What was I going to say, exactly? Sorry, I’m the president of packages and I’ve decided that you shouldn’t do this? The true was, I didn’t have an argument that didn’t sound crazy to myself, so I didn’t say anything at all.

I should have, though. I should have... I don’t know what I should have done, but I should have done something. He called me up a few days later, saying he invited her in for a drink. They had a pleasant chat and she left, but he didn’t get her number. He asked for it and she laughed and told him that he’d probably see her again. He started ordering more shit online just to have her come around.

That was when he started to change.

I should have seen it sooner. He started to have unexplained injuries and he started acting different. And no, he didn’t turn pale like he was being drained of blood. Besides, she’d been on my doorstep in broad daylight lots of times. Whatever was going on with her, I don’t think she’s a vampire.

...God, just saying it to myself makes it sound so fucked-up that that would be a possibility I’d consider. Fuck.

Mark started to get... erratic. Scattered.Nervous, even paranoid. He wanted to hang out with me and everyone else a lot more and stay out later. I didn’t know why. One day, I visited him. His house was a mess, as if he hadn’t cleaned it in weeks. There was trash piled in front of the back door and patio windows. He kept the curtains closed the whole time. Jehovah’s Witnesses came to the door. I thought he was going to jump out of his skin when the doorbell rang. He tried to get me to spend the night.

I should have.

Two days later, he was gone. No one knows what happened to him. His front door was left open. His phone was found several streets over, the screen cracked and – from what I heard – blood on it. The police said there was an unsent message to me, but they didn’t tell me what it was. They found out about Mark’s weed habit and said the incident was probably drug-related.

I tried to track down that other friend of his to see if they knew anything. It was easier than I thought. The month before Mark disappeared, he checked himself into a mental institution. They wouldn’t let me see him, saying he was under protective observation. That means suicide watch.

Coincidence, right? Nothing even remotely connected to the Smiling Driver. Except... except Mark’s friend starting acting weird after he let her in. Except the same thing happened to Mark. Except, I remember what she looks like. That creamy skin that never tans all summer long. The friendly smile that’s just half an inch wider than it should be. The teeth that are whiter and straighter than anyone else’s. The eyes with the bright white scleroses, those shiny, perfect green irises and those dark, dark pupils that seemed just a little less than circular. All those little things makes me not want this pretty, chatty girl with lots of cleavage anywhere within a mile of my house, but every time I see her I still think about inviting her in.

Sometimes, when I feel particularly crazy, I wonder. Am I just being weird for no reason? Is this all just a coincidence. One guy with mental health problems and Mark... he had been talking about expanding. Maybe someone didn’t like that. But this doesn’t feel like it. Then again, if I am crazy, I’d say the same thing, right? Do crazy people ever doubt that they are crazy? I don’t know, but I just...

...your brain makes a decision and then you rationalize it later, right?

So what have I decided here? I don’t know, but it feels like... don’t laugh (don’t laugh, he says as he talks to himself, trying to defend his mental health), but it feels like she’s something that almost got its disguise perfect. Hasn’t anyone else noticed? Someone must have. The extra time on her route and the way she dresses has to have come up, right? Companies are sticklers for that, especially delivery companies. No doors, no left turns, right? So what... why is she the exception?

Maybe, I’ve told myself, maybe they’re afraid of her too.

Like I said, those are the thoughts I have when I’m a little bit crazy. I don’t know what’s going on. I just know my order is on its way here and when it arrives, there’s going to be a pretty delivery girl with a wide smile and a charming demeanour on my doorstep and I’m going to have try very, very hard not to invite her into my home.