Dead Man's Playlist: Chapter 11

Junie hadn’t touched the crate in a month.

The record player had gathered a fine layer of dust, and the black envelopes sat untouched beside her bookshelves like the bones of some long-dead truth. She’d stopped waking up with ghosts in her chest. Mostly. Her days had found rhythm again, work at the bookstore, late dinners with Sasha and Mira, episodes of garbage television that made them laugh harder than they should have.

The ache hadn’t left. But it had dulled.

Some nights she still dreamed of the cabin. Other times, of the motel. Once, she dreamed her father was sitting on the fire escape of their old apartment, tossing records like Frisbees into the street while the world burned down around him. She didn’t tell anyone about that one.

But life, for the first time in a long while, felt like something she could hold. Then the cassette arrived.

It was waiting on the doormat when she came home from work. No return address. No label. Just a plain plastic case wrapped in a brown paper sleeve with her name scribbled in pencil across the front.

Junie picked it up slowly, frowning. It felt warm, as if someone had dropped it off just minutes before. Inside, the tape was blank. No markings. No handwritten track list. Just a single side of magnetic tape, wound tight and silent.

Mira was in the kitchen, stirring noodles with headphones on, nodding to a beat Junie couldn’t hear. Sasha was sprawled across the couch, flipping through a zine she’d sworn she’d return to the shop days ago.

“You guys order something weird again?” Junie asked, holding up the tape.

Sasha glanced up. “Not unless it’s cursed jewelry or leftist tarot. Why?”

“This was on the mat.” Junie unwrapped it and dropped it on the table. “No sender.”

Mira popped out an earbud. “Cassette? That’s creepy.”

Junie forced a smile. “Maybe it’s from my secret admirer.”

Mira raised a brow. “If your secret admirer knows what a cassette is, I think we have bigger problems.” They laughed. Just enough to shake off the static that had started to cling to Junie’s skin.

That night, long after everyone had gone to bed, she slipped into her room and set the tape on her desk. It was nearly midnight. Outside, the city was humming in that familiar, distant way. Steam vents sighed. A siren cut across the skyline like a violin note out of tune.

Junie turned the tape over in her hands. She didn’t know why she was afraid to play it. She just was. The old stereo she’d rescued from a yard sale years ago still had a working tape deck. She hadn’t used it in ages. It clicked open with a shudder.

She pressed play. At first, just silence. Then, the warble of tape hiss. Then… a voice. Her father’s voice.

But not the same way it had sounded on the records. This was rawer. Breathier. Like he was speaking from the bottom of a well.

“—you won’t understand this yet, Junie,” he said. “But I hope someday you will.” She sat up straight, heart thudding. “I couldn’t send this to the house. Your mother would’ve found it. I’m leaving it here instead. Where I know it’ll get to you eventually.”

There was a pause. A cough. The rustle of paper.

“I lied to you. In the other messages. Not about everything. But enough. There’s someone else who knows. Someone who kept things from you. I didn’t plan for that. I didn’t think—God, I didn’t think she’d still be around.”

He coughed again, harsher this time.

“I hope you’re safe. I hope you have people you trust.” Then a loud click. The tape stopped. Junie stared at the deck, waiting for more. Nothing.

She hit rewind. Listened again. Same message. No new clues. Just that stilted, tired voice and the sharp twist of a sentence she couldn’t get out of her head:

“Someone else who knows.”

“She’s still around.”

She left the tape in the stereo, climbed into bed fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling until the morning light turned everything pale.

—

Work felt wrong the next day. Too bright. Too loud. Naomi, her manager, was restocking the front window display with spring poetry collections and books no one ever bought.

“Junie, can you check the backroom? Someone said we got a damaged return,” Naomi asked. Junie nodded absently and walked into the backroom, weaving between stacked crates of old lit journals and indie magazines.

The box was on the floor, lid slightly askew. She opened it.

Inside: a single book. One of the old editions they never stocked anymore—The Art of Listening: A Memoir. She’d never heard of it. The jacket was black and white, a photograph of a man standing beside a piano, head bowed.

She flipped it open. On the title page, someone had scrawled a message in red ink: “It’s not just your story.”

Junie slammed it shut. She took the book to Naomi.

“Did this come in today?”

Naomi frowned. “That? No, I haven’t ordered that title in years. Why?”

“There was something written inside.”

Naomi took it, flipped to the page, and paused. Her brow creased. Then her face went blank.

“There’s nothing here.”

Junie’s chest tightened. “What?”

Naomi turned the book around. The page was blank. White as snow. No red ink. No handwriting. Just a barcode.

“You okay?” Naomi asked.

Junie nodded too quickly. “Yeah. Just tired. Long night.”

Naomi gave her a look that said I’m not buying it, but said nothing else.

—

That evening, Junie sat on her bed with the tape in her lap. She hadn’t told Sasha or Mira. Not yet. Part of her was afraid. Part of her didn’t want to know what they’d say.

She stared at the black plastic shell, the way the tape coiled inside like something sleeping. The message had been real. Hadn’t it? Or had she imagined it? Like the book?

She pulled out her journal. The page was half full from the last time she’d written.

She began a new entry.

I was doing better. I swear I was. And now I don’t know. I heard his voice again. Not in the records. On a tape. He said someone else knew. He said she’s still around. Who is she? Why now? Why like this?

There was a knock at her door. Mira poked her head in. “You okay?”

Junie nodded, then stopped. “No. Not really.”

Mira stepped inside, sitting beside her. “You don’t have to say anything. Just… I’m here.”

Junie handed her the cassette.

“What is it?” Mira asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Junie said.

Mira turned it over, then looked up.

“Weird,” she said. “We don’t even have a tape deck.”

Junie stared at her. “What are you talking about? The stereo in the living room has one.”

Mira blinked. “We sold that a month ago. Remember? Put it on Marketplace when we cleaned out the storage unit.”

Junie’s stomach dropped. She rushed into the living room. The stereo was gone. Only a gap in the shelf where it used to sit. Junie turned, heart thundering.

Mira stood behind her, confusion etched across her face. “What’s going on?”

Junie clutched the cassette tighter. She didn’t have an answer. Just the sound of her own breath. And the sense, rising like static in the back of her throat, that this was only the beginning.