The Mail Lady

The mail lady knew her route well. Though she had only been on it for three months, she had made an effort to get to know every face in every neighborhood. She knew a house that never received any mail. She assumed it was abandoned. Its yard and extensive gardens were extremely overgrown, and the siding was gray and peeling. The mail lady was sure that it would soon collapse. The windows were nearly all broken and there was trash on the large front porch. One of the steps up to the front door was broken.
Even so; one day, the house did get a package. The mail lady almost passed the house out of habit, before remembering the small package beside her. She double checked the address. It was certainly for this house, but it didn't have a mailbox. So, she cautiously approached the door and knocked. No one answered. She knocked until she was certain no one was there, and then; overcome by curiosity, she tried the door and it was unlocked. The house took her breath away. Anyone could see it had once been grand, the home of someone incredibly rich. The massive double staircase had a faded carpet runner down the middle. It was red in the past, but was now more of a pinkish color. The mail lady went up the stairs, running her hand along the elaborate railing, in awe of the detail and how it had been preserved, dusty as it was.
When she got to the top of the landing, she was facing a long, narrow hallway with many mahogany doors. She was so enchanted by the beauty of it all that she didn't notice the bloodied handprints running all along the walls to the single door at the end of the hallway.
She entered the first door on the left. It was a large, ornate bedroom. The king-sized poster bed had a canopy over top that draped down the sides and could be used as curtains, an intricate mahogany wardrobe with carvings of people dressed in lovely gowns and smart suits. The mail lady explored every single room, going in one room and then the one right across from it, until she reached the final door at the end of the hall.
Just another beautiful bathroom. She was blind to all the suspicious things about the room: the blood on the floor, the walls, the mirror and sink and bathtub... and on the note of the bathtub, the dead body sitting and staring at her, tilting its head back and forth like a confused puppy. The brown packing paper torn to pieces and lying on the ground beneath her feet.
Suddenly, she remembered the package she had come to deliver. Once again, her curiosity overcame her and she opened it. Inside the package was a small knife. The mail lady oohed and aahed over the golden handle and the lovely engravings in the blade as she walked distractedly back to the stairs. She saw a shape at the bottom.
Realizing what it was, she gasped. It was her: it had her hair, her uniform, her body shape... but it was dead. Blood pooled around its chest, and its extremities were bent at odd angles. She gasped and stumbled back, but cold hands caught her and shoved her towards the stairs. The fall broke all her limbs and most of her fingers and toes, but the knife was what killed her. As she fell, knife in hand, flailing to try and stop herself, she accidently stabbed herself in the heart. When she finally came to a stop, she looked exactly like the body she had seen.
     When she finally got up, the dead body from the bathroom was there, waiting for her, telling her how to plan the next mail lady's death so that this mail lady could be free to leave the earth. The plan would take three months to carry out.

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