Zero Day

Rural mailman Howard Reed has one last delivery to make. The West Virginia landscape around him is cratered and barren from coal mining, and the air and water quality have given him lung, liver, and kidney damage, but he reflects that he can’t complain aloud because his neighbors would interpret that as being anti-coal, which is the same as being anti-jobs.

No one answers Reed’s knock at the delivery address. The door is open a crack, and the family dog is covered with blood. Going in, he looks into the living room. A moment later, he flees the house, screaming in panic.

Army warrant officer John Puller is visiting his brother at the United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The military policeman (MP) who checks him in recognizes his name on his ID card and asks if he is related to Lieutenant General “Fighting John” Puller. John answers that the general is his father. What he doesn’t say is that his father is in a VA hospital with dementia. As he is being scanned in, the guard notices the titanium rod in his forearm and the metal plate in his ankle, souvenirs from an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in Afghanistan.