Run! Run! Run!

Mildred shuffled through the front room when she heard the bell, and then a heavy thud. Turning back the bolt, dropping the chain, and twisting the lock, she opened the big red door and saw the delivery man already halfway down the walk. “Excuse me!” she called. “Coo-ee! I think there’s been a mistake!”

The delivery man stopped. He hesitated, and for a moment it seemed like he wasn’t going to turn around, but he did, taking a few halting steps back up the path. “A mistake?”

“Yes,” said Mildred, beckoning him closer. “I don’t think the order is all here. You’re from Guilty Pleasures, yes?”

A few more steps up the path. “Yes. I am. I’m the delivery man.”

Mildred squinted. “I don’t see a nametag.”

The delivery man glanced down, but no nametag appeared. “McCormick.”

“That’s a nice name,” Mildred crooned. “You know,” she crooked her finger at him, lowering her voice as he leaned in. “I think it’s so unprofessional when you all just drop the delivery and run like that. It only takes a second for a quick confirmation that everything’s there.”

“Well, that’s what we all do, us delivery men," said McCormick, taking a sly step away from the house.

“Hold on, hold on.” Stooping down, Mildred double-checked the address, then used her house key to puncture the tape on the package, opening up the box to view the contents. “Now, this is the only box, yes?”

McCormick nodded. “Only box.”

Pushing her glasses up her nose, Mildred said, “Well, I see the chocolate, the whipped cream, the strawberry-flavored lubricant, the leopard-print handcuffs, the red feathered riding crop, the XL lockable ball gag, the bejeweled nipple clamps, and the wild berry edible lingerie, but what I don’t see…” she held the invoice at arm’s length. “Is the gingerbread man.”

McCormick took another step away from her. “There wasn’t one.”

“Well, yes, I have the receipt—”

“There just wasn’t one,” McCormick insisted, pulling his company hat down and wrapping up tighter in the company jacket. “Look, I’m a delivery man, I deliver things. Can’t deliver what’s not there.”

“There’s no need to be rude, dear,” Mildred sniffed. “Do you think you could—”

A groan from the rose bushes made Mildred shriek. Clutching the robe around her chest, Mildred peered through the blooms, adjusting her glasses to see a man stripped of his jacket and hat, and just coming back to consciousness. When Mildred turned to face McCormick again, he was already running, leaving behind a trail of molasses-baked crumbs.

McCormick, still wearing his disguise, jumped into the cab of the delivery van. He stared for a moment at the complex panel of buttons and dials, then hopped out of the cab, abandoning the van and running across the street and down a narrow mews, dropping crumbs with every step.

Slipping past the backyards of the row houses, McCormick bumped into a postal worker coming up the opposite way. “Oh, sorry, there,” said the postal worker, stooping to pick up McCormick’s hat. “I guess I just…are you frosted?”

“No,” said McCormick, taking a step back and hunching down into the jacket. “I have skin and hair, like a human might.”

The postal worker opened his mouth, and McCormick punched him, lashing out with a gingerbread fist. Hitting the cobbles, the postal worker felt his head thud against the stones, then vanilla-scented hands unbuttoning his uniform shirt. “Hey!” the postal worker groaned, as McCormick rolled him over and stole his bag of letters. “Hey!”

Tugging the postal cap down over his frosted head, McCormick made his way down to the busy main street, carrying the bag of letters in front of him as he hurried along the bustling sidewalk. “Just carrying letters!” he said to no one in particular. “Like a postal worker does!”

The people around him either smiled briefly or ignored him completely, and McCormick breathed a little sigh of relief. He strolled extremely, almost suspiciously casually toward the water, of the belief that boats would be easier to steer than cars turned out to be. He took great comfort in the scarcity of eye contact, until he heard the growl. The dog walker hadn’t noticed McCormick, but the Jack Russel did. And so did the black lab, the Basset hound, the two Cavalier King James Spaniels, and an Alaskan Malamute.

As McCormick ran, pursued by the pack of ravenous hounds trailing their distressed dog walker behind them, the identity-defining hat flew off into the street. Weaponizing his purloined artillery, McCormick flung the undelivered letters over his shoulder, first crumpling them into roughly the size and shape of a standard tennis ball. The tactic proved too much for the black lab, who leapt, tongue lolling, after the distracting decoys, his leash tangling up the attacking pack.

McCormick stumbled, over-balanced by the bag, and fell to the sidewalk on his hands and knees. “Hey!” a good Samaritan reached down to take his arm. “Are you okay?” Jerking away from the helping hand, McCormick ripped the postal worker’s shirt, and a single gumdrop button fell out onto the sidewalk. The do-gooder, who had just managed to graze McCormick with his fingers, sniffed, and then licked the icing at the tips.

“Now, look,” McCormick said, scooping up his button and climbing to his feet. “I’ve outrun an old woman, I’ve outrun a postman, I’ve outrun a dog walker, and I can outrun you. So if you could just be cool—”

“It’s a gingerbread man!”

McCormick punched him, and whirled, dodging behind the gumdrop just in time to suction-cup an incoming grasp. With the attacker’s hand trapped, McCormick steered him into another assailant, then dropped down, driving the gumdrop-encased fist into a woman charging from the rear. Giving the trapped man a gingerbread knee to the gut, McCormick leap-frogged over him as he fell, side-stepped and tripped an oncoming lunge, and released the gumdrop arm to slam down on an inadequately stealthy foe.

Forced to abandon the button and run, McCormick tore down the road, frosted assets on full display, dodging grabbing hands and leaping over obstacles, shedding crumbs as his gingerbread body was pushed well beyond its baked-in limit. Trapped between the main street and the harbor, McCormick could lose his short life by being devoured or being dissolved, and he had no time to strategize against either. Desperate for a way of escape, McCormick’s eye was caught by a boat at the end of the pier, flying a red fox flag.

“Over here!” the skipper shouted, waving her arms above her head. “I’m a vegan; I can help!”

Dashing down the pier, McCormick sailed onto the small boat as the skipper cast off, the motor already running as the mob of townsfolk surged along the boards. The fox flag fluttered in the breeze as the skipper steered away from the dock, piloting expertly out of range as a few hungry zealots were left reaching out and falling over in the brackish bay.

McCormick got his breath back on the short deck, watching as the town rolled away across the blue marble sea. “Thank you!” he breathed. “I’m vegan, too.”

“Oh, that,” said the skipper, idling the engine. “I only said that so you’d have nowhere to run.”