[Short Fiction] The Last Delivery

By Manager

Ding-dong. The doorbell rang.

Then again.

And once more.

Sitting at my computer in the study, I muttered, “Damn it.” I had finally gotten into a rhythm. I had a deadline breathing down my neck.

Ding-dong.

Utterly indifferent to my circumstances, the bell rang for a fourth time.

I heaved an industrial-strength sigh, dragged myself out of my chair, and left the study.

By the time the fifth ring echoed through the apartment, I had skidded to a stop in front of the intercom and hit the Talk button. The monitor lit up, revealing a man standing in the lobby. Judging by his uniform, he was some kind of delivery driver.

“Oh. You really are home.”

“Huh?” The word escaped me before I could stop it.

“Got a package for you,” the man said in a voice that somehow managed to sound both motivated and completely unmotivated at the same time.

Desperate to get back to work, I irritably jabbed the Unlock button several times. The automatic doors in the apartment lobby slid open. With the practiced ease of someone who had done this countless times before, the man pushed the hand truck he had brought with him onto the door track to keep the doors from closing.

That was when something struck me as odd.

There was nothing on the hand truck.

No package.

Nor was the man carrying anything under his arm or in either hand.

He was completely empty-handed.

“Uh, by the way,” I asked through the intercom, “what kind of package is it?”

“This kind,” he said.

I had no idea what he meant.

“You’re not carrying anything.”

The man turned his back to the intercom camera.

Stuck to the back of his uniform was a pink shipping label.

“I’m the package.”

He said it with a crooked little smile.

“Wait, what does that even—”

As I stumbled over the words, the man chuckled deep in his throat.

Then he turned around and leaned his face close to the intercom camera.

“Five times.”

“What?”

“You told me to ring it five times. So I did.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you don’t actually have a package, could you just leave?”

I reached to turn off the monitor.

Then—

“You ratted me out.”

All warmth vanished from his voice.

“You complained to the company, didn’t you? Said there was a driver who’d ring the bell three times and then leave straight away. Said, I can’t receive my packages unless he rings at least five times. Remember that?”

The man paused.

Then, quietly:

“They fired me.”

And suddenly, I remembered.

There had once been a delivery driver who barely gave me time to answer before giving up and putting my packages straight into the parcel locker in the lobby. I had contacted the delivery company and complained, asking them to make sure their drivers actually gave residents enough time to answer the door.

Was that him?

Was this that driver?

He’d been fired?

“So I did exactly what you told me to,” the man said with a grin.

“I rang your bell five times.”

The automatic doors slid shut.

Then struck the hand truck and opened again.

The man slipped through the gap and into the building.

He disappeared from the intercom monitor.

“Anyway,” his voice said, growing fainter in the distance.

“I’ll come up and get your signature.”

—The End