Undelivered, page 1
UN
DELIVERED
USA Today Bestselling Authors
Erin Lee & Olivia Marie
Table of Contents
Title Page
Undelivered
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WHO TURNED HUNTER’S TRACKING OFF? | HE’S GONE UNDELIVERED. | UPDATES WITH SUB CARRIER. | HURRY BEFORE ACCESS BLOCKED.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Going Postal isn’t just for the carrier stuck in a snowbank or the mail lady freshly bitten by a nippy dog.
Going Postal is for the old woman dependent on medications in a rural town. It’s for the single mom balancing three jobs. Or the alcoholic who can’t drive for another year due to a suspended license.
Enter the small town of Rome, where mail delivery has never been something residents could count on. Since the pandemic, a shortage of workers, and a postmaster determined to go fully remote, things have gotten worse. As tensions rise, eviction notices go undelivered, and carriers refuse to answer phones, strange things begin to happen.
People begin to suspect that there’s a whole lot more going on than a string of undelivered Christmas cards and gift certificates and begin pointing fingers. The town of Rome takes a sinister turn as residents and carriers alike go postal.
Blocked access, harsh weather conditions, flight delays, power outages, down power lines, stolen mail, lost packages, and unkept drives:
Never trust the tracking. Because delivery updates?
These days, they aren’t so reliable.
Dedication
Olivia—Good things come to those who wait...unless your mailman holds them hostage because getting out and walking to a mail bin is just too hard. For all the mail people who actually do your job, thank you.
Erin—For my mailman. Thanks for the inspiration.
CHAPTER ONE
Karen
I wasn’t exactly fat anymore. Hell, for the first time in my adult life, even my BMI had dropped to “normal.” And it certainly wasn’t because I’d exercised in a gym or that I was dying. A regular exercise routine was for people who thrived on structure and had something I never would—discipline. When people asked me if I had leukemia or was otherwise sick due to the sudden, obvious weight loss, I rolled my eyes, humored them, and assured them I was fine. No one would believe me that I was 3000 percent convinced that there was one, and only one, reason for my weight loss. The reason was him: my lazy, good for nothing, slow as fuck mailman. Soon, the entire town of Rome would look anorexic.
For the fifth time in as many hours, I threw on a head lamp and began my decent down my windy, gravel driveway. Two football fields long and built on a hill at the base of Vermont’s most hiked mountain, I’d never looked into the cost of paving or leveling it. Not only did the twists and turns hidden under hanging maple limbs give off the impression that a hermit lived at the top of my drive, but I liked that the bumps and grooves from runoff and frost made my driveway less enticing as a public turn around. The first home on the very end of an equally twisty dead end, I’d spent years watching the Rome Elementary busses tear out the mouth of the driveway as they pushed toward the other end of the road.
Paying to pave a drive as long as mine would cost well over twenty grand and that just wasn’t going to happen. Still, the half dozen times a day I had to navigate the drive with a head lamp, grippy boots, and three sweatshirts, I was starting to wonder if it might be worth it to bite the bullet and call the asphalt guy—who, ironically lived at the very other end of Swine Drive. Maybe he’d cut me a deal, I mused, never forgetting my loyal Pitbull he’d hit and killed nearly a decade ago in a hurry to make a bid on another lumpy driveway. The fucker owed me. Rascal was a great dog.
Sucking in the crisp evening air, I looked to the inky black sky and promised myself I’d learn enough about astronomy to finally identify the stars I could see so clearly from every angle in my three-acre yard. Pissed off that it was already dark and not even six o’clock, the truth of my anger was that the lazy-assed postman had once again fucked the tracking up. Addicted to ordering shit from Amazon and trying to run a business from home, Christmases I’d learned three Christmas’s ago that ordering for the holidays had to begin well before the leaves fell from the trees and the sales turned on. It was just a cost to living out in the woods away from everyone. These days, I wasn’t sure the perks of rural living were exactly worth it but with nearly twenty years in Rome, I wasn’t about to let the mail guy run me out of town either. I’d leave when I was good and ready but not until my kids were settled. Life was hard and I knew exactly what the next generation had in front of them. I was determined that, should my three sons run into trouble, they still had a place to call home.
Hopping over what was always the most dangerous spot, I smiled as the solar motion detectors followed my footsteps and even got in front of me. Head lamp or not, there was never enough light in the yard after dark. Moving toward the far left edge of the drive, I reminded myself that while I didn’t expect the tracking to be right, there was the slight possibility my new office chair was waiting for me. Piglet pink, I had it on good faith that ordering the $300 gaming chair would be just what my 45-year-old bones and joints needed. For two years, I’d been running a marketing company from the kitchen table and spending ten plus hours a day in Aunt Jill’s hand-me-down wooden chairs. Darlene, who was like a real daughter to me, had told me a million times that my back issues weren’t in my head but instead in poor typing positioning. At this point, and lacking health insurance, I was willing to try anything.
It took the usual four minutes to maneuver down the driveway. From the three-foot plastic bin reserved for UPS I had a clear view of my mailbox. Waving my hands to trigger the light and using my head lamp the same way I’d done a million times, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream that the flag was still up. There was no possibility of the chair fitting in the bin, no sign that the lazy fuck had even bothered to pick up the mortgage payment from four days ago and due in three, and even the few inches of snow showed no signs of anyone using my driveway as a turnaround, let alone visiting me or doing there, well, goddammed job.
For the duration of the pandemic, I’d made excuses for the post man. And then the mail lady. The one after her and the two substitutes. For two years, I’d waited patiently, making excuses and trying to remember that most people weren’t even working – telling myself I should feel lucky and blessed if they even bothered to deliver to me once a week. But this was 2023 and vaccinated or not the entire world was done with the pandemic; including it’s novelties of slow work days, job vacancies, and more. Hell, we were heading into a recession and it made no sense why Rome could not find a single mail person interested in doing their job.
I didn’t need to bother going back to Amazon. There was no point. My orders list would still be marked ‘delivered.’ It was more hopeful than ‘lack of mailbox or drive access,’ ‘undeliverable,’ ‘dogs,’ or any of the other messages I’d received as an excuse as to why my Prime orders were running three and four weeks behind. Usually, it was a day or two after the account showed delivered that I could count on the mail guy gracing me with his half-assed presence. One of these days, I’d follow him and see if he did what I suspected: simply went home at lunch and dropped the remaining mail into a local pond. He sure as hell would not be the first. And I would know. In my empty home, the news was always on.
CHAPTER TWO
Sadie
I had half a mind to go downtown myself and wait for the laziest person in Rome to show up for work. “Order your stuff early and it will get there in time for the holidays,” they’d promised. That worked for everyone but us.
In my rage, I forgot about the one piece of tree limb that stuck out from the corner of the driveway just before the second turn. I was so mad that nothing was there that I wasn’t watching where I was going. With the glow of the flashlight pointing wildly as I swung it side to side, my foot caught.
Thud
“Shit.”
Not only had I found the ground with the palms of my hands and knees, but the flashlight hit the frozen dirt with so much force, the light flickered and went off before I could see where it came to a stop. Even though I knew I was the only one out there, I still looked around to make sure nobody saw the least graceful person in Rome fall... again. When I was sure I was alone, I let my temper go. Cussing under my breath, I took off my gloves and tried to feel if I had cut my hands. The
If only you did your job like you’re paid to do. How hard could it be to put mail in a box? And why did the dumb light have to hit the one spot that isn’t covered in snow?
After looking around in the dark for the flashlight and coming up empty, I decided to leave it there for the night. I could go back in the morning and try to see where it rolled.
The package would probably show up the next day like usual, and I would make the trip back down the driveway more than once to check. I wouldn’t have cared so much, but among other things, I was waiting for a gift from my favorite aunt, Linda, and it said it was there. Against my better judgement, I’d checked the tracking for two days to make sure. I knew better, but she sent it to me from her hospital bed and she was waiting to see what I thought of her gift.
Tracking:
8:07am Package left distribution center
11:53am Package label was created. Awaiting currier pickup
8:06pm Package picked up by currier
2:17am Package arrived at destination facility
9:11am Package out for delivery Rome, Vt
That was two days ago already and still nothing. The first day I got the lovely message that it couldn’t be delivered because “mailbox or driveway were inaccessible.”
Bullshit.
I spent over five hours out there the day before cleaning the path for the loser who delivered our mail. There was no excuse for me to still be waiting.
Today, it was marked “delivered” but I was still package-less.
I knew what would happen. Linda would be calling me in less than an hour because she also tracked the package from her hospital bed. If only she told me what it was she sent, I could lie and tell her I loved it and then wait in peace for the thing to actually show up. But she didn’t and I was clueless. I would have to tell her it wasn’t there and then listen to the disappointment in her voice. She knew there was nothing I could do about it, but I also knew how sick she was.
This was her third round of cancer and the one that would take her. It was our last holiday together and she wanted it to be special. It was also why she was sending my gift to me at the end of October instead of closer to Christmas. It was also the first year in over five that we had gotten over a foot of snow before Halloween.
The rate my postman went, I still wasn’t sure if I would get it before I lost her.
Stumbling back to the house, I heard the sound of my phone before I opened the door. I didn’t have to look at the caller ID to know who it was. Stomping my feet of on the worn out rug that laid by the front door, I tried to hurry while limping to the phone.
“Hello, Aunt Linda,” I said.
“Hi, Honey. Did you get it?”
She sounded hopeful and happy but I could hear how worn out she was.
“No. I just walked down there and nothing.”
“But it says...”
“I know. I’m sure it will be here tomorrow. He doesn’t usually keep our stuff hostage for more than a few days.”
“I don’t know how you put up with that.”
“There isn’t much I can do about it. He has our mail; he holds the power.”
“I would lose it if that was my mail guy.”
“Trust me, I’m about there.”
She was so quiet, I wasn’t sure if she was still on the other end or not.
“Linda?”
“Yeah. I’m here. I think the meds they gave me are kicking in. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I wouldn’t let them give me my pain pills earlier because I didn’t want to miss when you got your mail. I think I better go sleep now.”
“Okay. Don’t worry. It will be here tomorrow. I can call you when he drops it off, so you don’t have to wait up.”
“Okay, Dear. You take care.”
“I will. You too. Love you.”
“I love you too.”
The click on the other end was so soft, but it echoed in my ears. It only added to my pure rage at him not doing his one and only job.
I wished there was some way to make him see that holding our stuff could hurt people. I wondered if he ever had a package coning and it not show up. Maybe he didn’t have family or friends that cared enough to send him stuff so he got mad when we got packages. Whatever his reason was, it was time for us to make him realize what he was doing was wrong and that he needed to fix it.
I knew just who to call about it, too. I wasn’t the only one on Swine Drive that had it with him. Maybe it was time for us to make our own “special delivery”.
Only ours wouldn’t get delayed.
CHAPTER THREE
Karen
The next morning
I wasn’t sure if it was my parents back in the late seventies after too many joints or God himself who’d played the joke on me when they named me Karen. What I knew was that being cursed with the name after 2019 meant I had to go out of my way to NOT come off as ‘a Karen’ if I wanted to get anywhere. And that wasn’t easy when it came to the county’s top postmaster; the very man I had to go to in order to get a message out to the local Rome carriers.
If it wasn’t for Darlene’s upcoming fabric sale and Derrick’s grand studio opening, I wouldn’t bother to make another call to the county hub. Per usual, the postmaster would cut me off and promise a call from the Rome guy or a carrier – something that would never come. But with my marketing company’s reputation on the line, I had to at least be able to say I gave it a shot. After a quick check at tracking only to learn there were no changes, I pulled up the hub number and hit ‘1’, ‘2,’ ‘4’ with zero need to listen to the prompts. By now, I knew them by heart.
Twenty minutes later, after another lame promise that I’d hear from the local office in 24 hours or less, I did what I could to take my mind off of it. I was tired of starting and ending my days like this. If only Rome had Dash delivery for FedEx or UPS. It was just another reason to consider moving.
The dreaded blue wheel slugged along as I worked through emails and my morning ‘to do’ list. While I waited for my website back end to load, I popped into Facebook. A silly dog or cat video might do the trick in helping me to get into a better mood. Per usual, John Finders was the first name I saw. The most active poster in the Rome Community Facebook Group, he’d plastered another picture of Mount Munson; as if we hadn’t seen the place before. A wanna-be photographer, Finders had a long way to go. Blurry at the bottom and grainy at the top, this morning’s sunrise was no better than his sunset post two days before. But who was I to judge? At least the guy had the heart to wish everyone a great morning and remind us of this weekend’s free community meal at the Rome Rec Department. The biggest townie there ever was, it was hard not to like John.
Curious to see if Sadie Edwards-Roberts had made another post about the shit internet and worse mail service in town, it was John’s post that made me think to enter the 300 member strong group. Scanning the posts, it was the usual shit – a free piece of furniture, reminders about burning permits, transfer station hours, but nothing from Sadie, Danika, or Marie. The only three ‘Karens’ in town louder than me, I was disappointed.
Vowing to steal Danika’s mail for the third time this month just so she’d snap and make a fuss, I choked my lukewarm coffee down as my Messenger app lit up. The incoming message, ironically, was from one Sadie Edwards-Roberts.
“Hey. Don’t mean to bother you again. Did they fuck you again?”
She didn’t need to explain herself. Every conversation we’d ever shared was about the same thing. ‘They’ was whichever carrier was pretending to have a job, the postmaster, and every worker at the county hub. Smiling and determined to find a way to become friends with her simply to break my boredom, I decided right then and there that we had to find a way to get power in numbers.
“Of course. And the tracking is off. Asshole pressed delivered again. It’s been sitting there. I need this stuff for my clients!”
“Yeah, you think he cares that people have jobs? Newsflash: He doesn’t.”
“I called the hub.”
