"So, are you a dead guy, or are you a zombie? Oh, wait! Are you actually alive, but don't want to tell anybody?" Scratch waved his own question away. "Right, you wouldn't tell me if you were."

The Postman was not having a good day. He had been delivering the mail in near-perfect silence for a long time. It had been peaceful. Serene, even. He would accept letters and packages from anybody who needed it, and then he would take them from point A to point B. Easy as that. Occasionally he might have run into the odd monster, but they never attacked him and they rarely hung around for long.

Scratch was the antithesis to that. It had been an hour since the Postman had agreed to deliver the strange monster to humans, and he was regretting it. Scratch hadn't lasted ten minutes before he'd blurted a question at him. The Postman couldn't even remember what the question had been, but he'd ignored it.

What a mistake that had been. Scratch had taken the silence as permission to speak, and he hadn't stopped talking since then.

"But if you were alive, would you tell someone? I mean, not me, obviously. But would there be someone? Like a friend?" He paused, crawling up a telephone pole and perching on the top. "Do you have friends? You don't seem like someone who would have friends. Not that that's a bad thing!"

The Postman stopped walking. Scratch agilely slid down the telephone pole, using his scythe-like forearms to swing himself around. Rolling forward, he paused with legs folded in front of the Postman. "What is it?"

"Why were you kicked out of your previous group?"

Scratch flinched. "That's... I don't really want to talk about it." Curling up tightly, he rolled backward and sprang to his feet, looking away from the Postman. "It's not that I'm not grateful to you for taking me - although... can you turn down a package?" He turned inquisitively towards the Postman, who closed his eyes.

Anger was a rare emotion to feel. Granted, any emotions were fairly rare, but the Postman was slowly coming to a simmer the more Scratch talked. "Do you ever cease asking questions?"

Scratch laughed. It was a strange sound, a chittering noise from the back of his throat. "Hehehe. Evelyn used to say the same thing. She was great..." He trailed off, his smile fading as he stared off into the distance. He was quiet for a long moment, and the Postman seized on the silence, committing it to memory. He had a feeling it would be a while before he got another one.

Pulling his satchel up onto his shoulder, the Postman continued walking. Scratch was quiet as he walked behind him, his footsteps perfectly inaudible even to the Postman's sensitive hearing. They kept moving for several minutes without either of them saying a word.

The Postman paused. In front of him was a river bed, the bottom dry and cracking. It'd probably been a long time since water had traveled through it.

Looking from side to side, he couldn't see a bridge, so he slid down. Long-dead skeletons of fish lay on the bottom, empty sockets staring into eternity. The garbage-soaked ground crunched beneath his shoes as he made his way up the other side, ignoring the petrified seaweed clinging to his clothing.

Crawling up, he dusted himself off from head to toe, ensuring that he would appear a model mailman to any casual observer. An expert might have noted the motes of green floating around his shirt collar, but he was otherwise in pristine condition. He would probably have to wash his clothes at some point, though.

Scratch was waiting for him at the top, swinging his legs aimlessly as he stared off at the ruined city skyline. "Hey, Postman. Can I ask you a question?"

The Postman eyed him. "Does the question you just asked apply?"

Scratch looked over at him. "Everyone makes mistakes, right?"

The Postman waited for him to arrive to the point. Scratch idly itched his neck with a wickedly sharp scythe. "Well... do you have any advice for apologizing for mistakes? There are some people back home I really want to make up with, but I don't really know how."

Shaking his head, the Postman straightened his cap and kept walking. "I know no one personally. Who would I apologize to?"

Scratch nodded, bouncing to his feet and absently sharpening his scythes on each other. "Yeah, you're right. No reason to be sorry if you don't have anyone to be sorry to. I get it."

They continued onward, the Postman keeping Ben's guide in the forefront of his mind. Scratch remained uncharacteristically silent, which the Postman couldn't help but feel was somehow his fault. It was an irritatingly persistent feeling, one that the Postman disliked immensely. He wanted Scratch to stay quiet!

He chanced a brief glance over his shoulder, keeping his face hidden under his cap. Scratch's head was hanging low, and he was plodding along with a glum expression. He didn't seem to be engaged with his surroundings at all.

Scratch would die in less than a day, the Postman realized. The monster had little to no survival skills. He wasn't unintelligent - he'd proved that much when he'd asked the Postman to deliver him to people. He just wasn't cut out for being by himself in the wasteland.

Watching Scratch quietly following him raised several frustrating emotions. Satisfaction, that the Postman was finally back to his quiet solace. Annoyance, mostly aimed at Scratch; the Postman was used to silent movement, and Scratch was paradoxically anything but silent. And finally... a feeling he didn't have a name for.

"Occasionally..."

Scratch's head snapped up at the unprompted word from the Postman. "Yes?"

The Postman paused, considering what he wanted to say. "If the mail arrives in poor condition, I find it helps to offer some sort of compensation."

When he looked back, he saw a wide smile on Scratch's face, revealing a maw of teeth. "What is it?"

Scratch hastily erased the expression, forcing himself to look serious. His mouth kept threatening to tilt upward at the corners, despite his best efforts. "Nothing. Seriously, don't worry about it. It's nothing. Thank you for the advice."

The Postman's eyes slowly narrowed, fixed on Scratch. The monster started fidgeting, avoiding eye contact, and the Postman finally decided it wasn't worth exploring.

As they started walking again, he could just barely make out Scratch's gleeful whisper under his breath.

"I knew it."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was some time later before Scratch asked another question. The Postman had been studiously ignoring him, wondering how long it would be before the excitable monster cracked. As it turned out, Scratch's limit was one hour, thirty-eight minutes, and twenty-two seconds.

"So, where are we going?"

The Postman didn't stop walking. He knew by now that Scratch would keep up with him regardless. "I am delivering a letter to Ben Dawson, from Maria Dawson."

Scratch was walking along the top of a twisted railing, scythes held outward for extra balance. "Okay, cool. How do you know where he is?"

"I have a unique sense which guides me to the recipient of whatever mail I receive."

Nodding thoughtfully, Scratch asked, "So where is it telling you to take me?"

The Postman paused briefly, then frowned. Closing his eyes, he extended his senses to their maximum, and still found nothing. "Nowhere."

Scratch tripped and fell off the railing, somehow regaining his footing at the last second, rolling to his feet and lightly jogging over to the Postman. Even his gait resembled that of a human - just how long had he been with them? Grown from birth, perhaps? It was a query that needed to be posed... but not right now. "What does that mean? Is something blocking you?"

"Nothing can block me." The Postman said with certainty.

Itching at his neck, Scratch nervously asked, "But... aren't you following a human right now? And didn't you get that letter from one?"

The Postman continued walking, startling Scratch. "Think over exactly what you said. It might have something to do with the address. Moreover, there's a chance that it's a return-to-sender."

Scratch loped after him, trying to catch up. "What does that mean?"

Finally, a question related to the Postman's favorite subject. "A return-to-sender is when an undeliverable letter or package is taken back to the address or person it originated from. In your case, there is neither a person or a place to return to you."

A long silence followed, and Scratch quietly asked, "So what happens if I'm a return-to-sender?"

The Postman opened his mouth to reply and found he didn't have an answer. Straightening his tie, he continued walking. Scratch stayed next to him, expectantly watching him. "Postman? Do you... not know?"

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Not at the moment."

Scratch nodded, a worried expression on his angled face. "Okay. Can we stop for lunch?"

The Postman had the distinct sense of whiplash. How did someone change topics so quickly? "What?"

Pointing at his own thin frame, Scratch repeated, "Lunch. Can we have lunch?" He frowned. "Wait, do you eat lunch?" His eyes suddenly widened. "Do you even eat!?"

The Postman shook his head. "No. It would delay delivering the mail."

It took a few moments for the Postman to notice Scratch staring at him, piteous sympathy pasted all over his face. "So what you're saying is... you've never had food?"

Pointing at the horizon, the Postman bluntly said, "I need to deliver the letter to Ben Dawson. After that, I need to deliver you... somewhere. And after that, there is someone else who has a package they need to be delivered. Eating is something which consumes time."

Scratch nodded repeatedly, then immediately asked, "But you've never eaten?"

"No."

The way Scratch was looking at him, the Postman might have assumed that he had told him he burned the mail he received. "So you've never had fried meat? Or dessert? Or even a salad?"

What sort of place had Scratch grown up in where he would have access to that kind of food? "No."

Scratch gleefully began sharpening his scythes on each other. "Okay, we've got to get you some good food. Do you know where any farms are? I mean, I'm not asking for a quality one, but anything should do."

The Postman was not a curious creature by nature, but he couldn't help but wonder about Scratch's origins. "There are no farms. Where do you come from?" Where there were farms, there were people, and where there were people, there were packages. A lot of them.

Like a switch being thrown, Scratch immediately closed off, shrinking in on himself. "I don't want to talk about it. But... you're sure there aren't any farms nearby? I mean... I can wait a little longer if we need to go farther."

The Postman shook his head. "No. There are no farms, anywhere."

Scratch's black eyes blinked with an audible click of surprise. "Wh-what? But... how do we get food?"

Examining his guide once again, the Postman turned fifteen degrees to the left and started walking. "I don't know. There are plenty of monsters and animals around. Eat those."

Scratch snorted scornfully. "Why would I eat animals?"

The Postman stared at him for a long time, trying to figure out what Scratch was trying to say. "Because they are made of meat."

When he spoke again, Scratch's voice held far more uncertainty than it had before. "But... Evelyn had a lot of cows back home. We never ate those. I mean, sure, some of them had to go away to a different farm, but they were really nice! We never would have eaten them."

Closing his eyes, the Postman wondered how exactly he should go about explaining the truth to Scratch and came to the conclusion that he didn't have the time or patience to deal with the emotional fallout that would likely occur from the revelation. Shaking the thought away, he went for the short version. "Animals are edible. If you're hungry, eat one."

Scratch folded his arms. "No."

"Then don't eat."

His expression went from stubborn resolution to hungry aggravation in a split second. "But I'm hungry!" He wailed, sprinting around the Postman to face him. "Do you have any food?"

The Postman looked at him evenly. "Why would I carry food if I don't need to eat?"

Scratch glared at him. "Well... where can I find food?"

Gesturing to the wasteland around him, the Postman bluntly told him, "Go look for it."

He was constantly being surprised by the range of emotion that the monster's face was capable of expressing. He was further surprised as Scratch somehow contrived to look hungry, indignant, and worried at the same time. "But... I don't want to be alone. Can you come with me?"

The Postman shook his head. "I'm going to deliver the mail to Ben Dawson. Find food, come back. If not, I'll find you. I have to deliver you to people regardless."

Scratch smiled. "So what you're saying is that you care about me?"

He shook his head again. "No. I'm saying I care about delivering you as a package within a reasonable time frame so that I can get to the next customer and take their mail."

Scratch's smile flipped upside down. "You really don't think about anything outside of mail, do you?"

"No." The Postman was proud of it, too. No human or monster was single-minded enough to do one thing for six decades, but he was.

He noticed something on the horizon and paused. Scratch had been walking backward, keeping up with the Postman with a complicated gait that had to have taken a good amount of practice to get down. Turning, he followed the Postman's gaze and squinted at the misshapen object rapidly approaching them. "What's that?"

The Postman sighed. "You may want to go and find some food. Right now."

Scratch spun to him in confusion. "What do you-"

"Get going."

He scratched the back of his head, trying to catch up. "Okay, so where do I-"

"It doesn't matter." The Postman looked at him dead in the eyes. "I want to deliver you intact. If you do not vanish and leave, right now, there is a very high chance that I will be unable to do so."

Scratch raised his scythes defensively. "Okay, I get it. But... what is that?"

The Postman straightened all his tie and leveled his cap, pushing the wrinkles out of his uniform. He wasn't nervous, per se - it took more than this particular type of monster to rattle him, but most of his previous encounters had not gone well at all. "That is a mobile reactor."

Scratch's eyes widened to the size of dimes. "Evelyn calls them the dragons of the wasteland."

"That is..." The Postman paused. "A surprisingly accurate comparison. So go away."

Scratch folded his arms. "I'm not missing my first dragon."

The Postman leveled his gaze at him, well aware of the growing rumbles that shook the ground, making rocks bounce. "It will be the last one if you don't leave right now. It will kill you the moment it sees you."

Without any warning, Scratch faded entirely from existence, leaving only a pair of strangely shaped footprints. The Postman put a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. "If it sees or hears you-"

"It won't!" Scratch promised, and the Postman shook his head. Turning around, he prepared himself to meet one of the most dangerous beings in the apocalypse, one of the only ones that trumped humanity.

As the reactor slowly drew closer, the Postman was able to make out more details. The reactor measured at least two hundred feet across and easily twice that in length. It towered over everything near it, toppling houses and crushing storefronts without noticing. It had six enormous legs attached to the bulky armored hull, pitted with scrapes and dents from previous battles. A wide variety of weapons were fused to the shell at certain points, ranging from handguns to assault rifles to mutilated weapons the Postman couldn't begin to imagine the purpose of.

Squinting, the Postman realized he was familiar with this particular reactor. At least he now knew why she was coming towards him - she probably wanted a 'chat'. He could only assume what she wanted.

A large camera, built to look like a three-foot eyeball, protruded from the front. A nest of saws, blades, and arms was clustered around it, twitching and jittering as the reactor moved towards him. A communications android, one of the expensive ones designed to look like a female secretary, dangled from the camera. It had been fused from the neck down to the camera and ragdolled in a disturbing manner as the reactor came closer.

The mobile reactor paused about thirty feet away from the Postman, waited a few seconds, and then lowered itself to the ground. Glowing a vibrant green shade, the camera looked straight at the Postman. The decapitated body of the droid jerked to life a moment later, posing as though it were seated on a chair. Several circular saws moved underneath it, adding to the illusion. "P-Postman, darling! I h-haven't seen you in so long. How are you?"

The Postman wasn't sure how he managed to avoid giving her a look of disdain. The fact she probably would have crushed him into paste helped. "I'm delivering the mail, Verse."

With an unsteady jolt of joints and machinery, Verse's body moved forward. The droid folded her arms, looking for all the world like an irascible woman, provided you ignored the scratched paint and missing head. "Of course you're delivering the mail. You know, y-you should take a break once in a while! Let's hang out like we used to! We c-could even go on a date." Verse gave him a wink.

A hint of annoyance came into the Postman's voice. "Thank you for the invitation. I have mail to deliver."

Verse's tone hardened. "Yes, you always do. Just once I'd like you to put some time aside for me!"

The Postman was nonplussed. "And what would you have me do with that time?"

Leaning to one side, Verse pointed off to the hazy horizon in a grand gesture. "W-why, whatever we wanted to! We could burn the world down, and leave the ashes for us to build a brand new family on!" She sounded gleeful at the prospect.

The Postman shook his head. "That sounds tedious, and there would be no one to send or receive mail."

The weaponry around her camera bristled. "It's just an idea, Postey. You don't have to be so critical."

"I am the Postman."

He spoke with steel in his voice, and Verse raised her arms defensively. "F-fine, fine. It's just a lil' pet name I thought of. Something special between you and me! Just like our relationship. Which reminds me!" A hydraulic claw extended forward with more speed than the Postman had anticipated and slammed shut on empty space. A startled yelp came from the place, and Scratch decloaked in her grip, struggling to escape.

"W-who's your little friend here? I haven't b-been replaced, have I?" Verse's voice was teasing with a hint of murder in it... just like the Postman remembered it. A very misplaced and ill-timed sense of nostalgia hit the Postman, and he shook it off.

Squaring his shoulders, he calmly said, "That is a package I'm delivering."

Verse moved Scratch closer to her lens. "Hmmm... it's kind of cute, in a murdery way. We c-could adopt it! I don't even have to graft knives onto it - look, it already has some!" She held up Scratch's scythes with a pair of claws, her camera watching the Postman for a reaction. Scratch's expression was somewhere between panic, excitement, and confusion. "What do you say? Parents until the sun blows us to pieces?"

The Postman's eyes were cold. "Scratch is a package. I am going to deliver him to a group of humans, as requested, and then our business will be done."

Verse's eye creased in macabre pleasure. "Can we adopt him if I kill all the humans you deliver him to?"

"What you choose to do is up to you." He didn't miss it when Scratch stared at him, blatant shock all over his face. "I am going to deliver the mail, Verse. When there is none left, we can..." His face twisted as he prepared to use one of her slang terms. "...hang out."

All six of her legs shivered with barely contained joy. "How magnificent! Y-you have a strange way of saying you want me to get rid of everybody. For now, I'll let you deliver that mail. Don't clean your uniform, I like the look. Until we meet again, adieu, darling, adieu!" Her claws abruptly opened, dropping Scratch on the ground. With an ear-rending sound of grating metal, Verse slowly stood up, the android going limp once more. Blaring one final message through hidden loudspeakers, Verse bellowed, "Tell me when you're done! I have an excellent date planned."

Turning, the reactor began to head away. Scratch scrambled to his feet, breathing hard and eyes wide. Turning to the Postman, he asked, "Did you mean it when you said she could choose what she wanted to do? When she said she would kill all those people?"

That hadn't even been in the top five for questions the Postman had thought Scratch would ask. "What did you expect me to say? She could level a city with ease." He searched for Ben's guide and found it was weaker than ever. Was Ben dying? He'd have to deliver the letter sooner than later. "Come on."

He began walking, but Scratch stepped in front of him. He looked worried. "And... did you mean it when you said I was a package? I mean... am I really just another piece of mail?"

The Postman stared him in the eye. "Yes."

Scratch flinched. "Oh. But - oh. Okay." His shoulders went down, and he slowly moved behind the Postman. "Yeah, we should get going."

The Postman had been expecting a barrage of questions about Verse. He'd been prepared to refuse to explain a lot of things. He expected to hear about Scratch still being hungry.

But he received no questions. Scratch didn't ask if Verse and the Postman used to date, which was a solid no. He didn't ask how they'd met, which was too long of a story anyway. He didn't bring up his appetite - in fact, he seemed to have lost it entirely.

Scratch didn't say another word for the rest of the day.