Package
It had your name on it.
When your fear of others gets so fierce that you believe you can threaten them without restraint or reasonable suspicion, your fear will end up killing you.
You're not an official. Who gave you the right to police people?
Package
The gate clanged shut behind the van, locking it inside the subdivision as if it had driven into a birdcage. Sprinklers hissed against the hedges, regular as a metronome. A camera on a pole watched the loop of clipped lawns and immaculate porches. Nothing impure, it seemed, had ever entered here.
The driver checked his scanner. Two parcels left today. He braked in front of number seventy-three.
The door opened. A man in a red cap stepped out, belly straining his polo, his chin jutted out as if carved from granite. The brim was sweat-stained, like the brims worn year-round by men who thought having such a cap made them sentinels. He raised his palm like a deputy stopping traffic.
“That’s far enough.”
The driver lowered the window. “Package for seventy-three. For Darrel Hebes.”
Darrel’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie. I’ve seen you circling. Outsiders casing houses. Happens everywhere—till somebody stands up.”
The driver shook his head. “Sir, I just deliver.” He lifted the scanner. Its screen glowed blue, indifferent.
Darrel’s voice got nasty. “Could be anything in that box. Fentanyl. Bomb parts. They’re bringing poison in every day, and nobody’s got the guts to stop it.”
Neighbors leaned from doorways. A woman shaded her eyes and raised her phone. Children straddled their bikes. Another woman, phone pressed to her cheek, whispered: “Armed man. Pointing a gun at the delivery guy. Hurry.”
Someone grumbled from the curb, low but audible: “Darrel and his watch group again.” Another voice said, “He’s gonna get somebody hurt.”
The driver opened the van door slowly, holding up his scanner like a warrant card. His movements were deliberate and non-threatening.
Darrel’s hand dropped to his belt. He drew a pistol, its black steel gleaming white in the hot sun. The crowd gasped in unison.
From the curb a man called, “C’mon, Darrel. He delivers here every day.” Another continued, “That’s the same van we always see.”
Darrel ignored them. His voice bristled with self-regard. “This is my neighborhood. My rules. The law’s gone soft, the cops don’t care. Somebody has to act, and it’s me.”
He mounted the steps, seized the parcel, shook it until the tape split. Sweat streaked his cheek. Drops fell onto the cardboard, darkening his name on the label.
Sirens began as a tremor underfoot, then rose into a howl that shook the hedges. Red and blue lights strobed across the white walls as the gate swung back.
Two squad cars braked hard. Officers spread across the lawn, weapons low. Their voices boomed.
“Sir, put it down. He’s a delivery worker. See the scanner? Put the gun down.”
Darrel’s eyes flitted from the driver to the officers to the neighbors with their phones raised like a wall of black mirrors. His face blotched crimson.
“You don’t get it,” he shouted. “You’re blind. They’re destroying us, and you’re too weak to fight it. You’d rather bow than protect your own.”
One officer edged forward, palm open, voice low. “Darrel. Step back. Nobody wants this to go bad.”
Darrel’s chest heaved. His mouth twisted with spittle. His knuckles whitened around the grip.
“If you won’t act,” he said, “I will.”
The pistol rose.
The shots came instantly, three cracks in the heat. Darrel’s body lurched backward and struck the steps with a hollow thud. His legs kicked once, then flopped apart, heels drumming the step. The parcel slid from his hand and toppled into the pool of blood spreading beneath him. The cardboard drank it up, edges curling as the tape unraveled.
No one cried out. The neighbors kept filming.
The driver waited until the officers holstered their weapons and rushed in to surround Darrel’s body. Then he bent, thumbed the scanner, and pressed it once. The screen blinked green—pitiless and bright. Delivery confirmed.
He left the box where it lay.
At last the police waved him on. He walked back to his van.
One package remained.
He rolled through the open gate, past the pistol marked by chalk, past the neighbors still staring at their phones.
The road stretched ahead in the silent, white heat.