Chapter 1
The bright autumn morning had been like every other, according to the UPS driver. He was on his normal route, up First street two blocks then down Hatchet Boulevard. Within his truck were yesterday’s shipments that he acquired at the start of his shift. Sipping his black coffee, the UPS driver tucked his baseball cap down a little farther while resting at a stop light.
Winter is bound to be cold this year, he thought to himself as the hot coffee almost burned his tongue. It was his twentieth year as a driver for UPS, and he liked his job. His single life made the early schedule unproblematic, and he enjoyed listening to the radio and seeing new places – even if he was in the middle of nowhere Michigan. Besides the mundane lifestyle of a small town, he enjoyed his job – the worst thing out of it was the winter driving and occasional unchecked dog.
This morning HAD been like every other, except for one small package that lay nearest to his driver's seat. Unlike the brown and white packaging that usually supply the truck, this one was ebony black with strange gray writing over it in another language. He did not know the language, only that it was eastern or Asian. A sickly cold crept up his spine as his eyes looked in the rearview mirror to check the package every few blocks.
“Maybe I will drop this one off first,” he grumbled, pulling into a used car dealerships lot to turn around and adjust his route for this one package.