The Little Black Book

The Little Black Book

Michael gripped the handle bars of his old rusty bike a little tighter than usual as he turned the corner. He had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, like something big was about to happen.

He had always had that ability since he was small, the ability to know what was going to happen before it did. He’d had the same sickly feeling the day of the crash that killed his parents. Although he was only 6 at the time, he could remember it as though it happened yesterday.

He’d woken up that morning with a stomach ache and his mum thought he might be coming down with something. She went to the drug store to get some ginger to settle him. His dad went with her with the intention for her to drop him off in town to go to work. But this was no ordinary day.

As they approached the intersection a huge red truck T-boned them, killing them both instantly.

Strangely enough the second it happened the boy felt better. Then the police knocked on the door and his whole world was turned upside down.

He knew something was going to happen that day and he was right.

As it turned out his gut was right again, as he turned the corner something got stuck under his front tyre and sent him flying over the handlebars. He wasn’t hurt thank goodness, years of Parkour and free running had taught him how to fall. But it took him a while to get over the shock.

Once he had recovered sufficiently he got up and went over to inspect the offending object that caused his sudden crash.

It was something black, it looked like a book of some kind, upon closer inspection he saw that it was indeed a book, it was a diary, he opened it and flicked through its pages and saw that it was filled with strange images and sketches and writing that he didn’t understand. It looked like an alien language, his suspicions of this were confirmed when he found that most of the sketches seemed to be Alien space craft.

“Holy... this is big!” he thought out aloud.. he scanned the inside front and back covers for a name or an address or anything that might give him a clue as to who it belonged to. But he found nothing.

Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder, he jumped a mile! His heart leaped into him mouth and was racing. He turned around to see a man dressed all in black. He was the stereotypical man in black, just like in the movies, Michael shuddered.

“What the... who are you?!” “I'll ask the questions sonny! Where did you get this?”

“It was on the ground, I came round the corner on my bike and it jammed my front wheel! I was just trying to see if there was a name or address to see who it belonged to!” “What did you see?” Michael was trying to back away but the mysterious stranger had a tight hold on his wrist.

“Ow! You’re hurting me! Let me go!” “When you tell me what you saw!”

“Nothing, I swear! Just some drawings of UFOs and some writing that I couldn’t understand!”

“Get in the van! You're coming with me!” he pointed to a van parked just across the street. “What?! No! STOP! LEAVE ME ALONE! Where are you taking me?!”

“It’s a secret. Don’t worry, you won’t come to any harm! Not if you do everything you’re told.”

“Why is this happening to me?!” Michael exclaimed to nobody in particular.

“Where are your parents?” the stranger enquired.

“They’re dead.” He replied coldly.

At that, the man seemed to soften.

“I'm sorry.” He said

“Yeah, me too!”

“So, where do you live?”

“The halfway house a few blocks away. Now I'm 18 nobody cares!”

“Look, I wasn’t going to say this until we got to where we are going but... we have been looking for that book for a long time, a very long time, you see it contains things that should and must be kept secret, a few years ago it was stolen, the guess was that someone was going to sell it to the press and expose it... there’s a reward for its safe return.”

“A reward?! How much?” “$20,000 dollars! I know, it’s worth a lot more but it will get you to college.”

“$20,000 Bucks! Me?! I Can’t believe it! I can go to art college now! This is amazing!” Michael can’t hide his emotions and tears start streaming down his face. He puts his hand up to wipe his eyes, that’s when the man notices the bright red handprint on the boy’s arm. “I'm sorry I hurt you.” He said contritely. Michael examined his arm.

“That’s ok, I've had much worse, trust me!” the man believed him.

The windows in the van were completely blacked out so he could not tell where they were going. The driver suddenly came to a stop and he heard a mechanical whirring sound like a barrier going down, but then realised they were descending, it must have been like a car elevator. Down, down, down, down, Michael thought they were never going to stop until they reached the centre of the earth. His ears popped painfully with the sudden change in air pressure, he swallowed several times before they went back to normal.

Finally, they stopped and the doors to the van were opened. A little disoriented he stepped out of the van and he was taken to a small 8 by 8 room, the room was completely white. Michael blinked, he thought he might go snow blind, now he could see why the men in black always wore sunglasses, he had always assumed it was to hide their identity but now he realised it was to shield their eyes from the blinding white room. The walls were white, the floor was white, the ceiling and even the doors, there were no windows in the room, adding to the claustrophobic effect.

The only things that weren’t white were the table and three chairs in the dead centre. Michael, the man in black and another man sat down. The new man had a black, shiny leather brief case and he hoisted it onto the table.

He remained silent throughout. There was a serious of loud metal clicking sounds as he opened the briefcase, there were two final satisfying clicks as the metal clasps flung open to reveal the $20,000 dollars in cold, hard cash!

He allowed Michael to examine it briefly before closing it again and handing it over to him. The first man in black wrote down the code to the briefcase in pencil, rolled it up and placed it in a silver capsule attached to a string and handed it to Michael.

“Put this round your neck and don’t take it off! Not even when you’re in the shower, it’s the code for when you want to open the briefcase.”

Michael did as he was told and placed the capsule around his neck and tucked it underneath his T-shirt.

“Congratulations!” the man shook his hand firmly. “Now go, have a better life! I'm sorry it’s not more.”

“No, don’t be, it’s just what I need, thank you so much!”

“And don’t forget, not a word of this to anyone!”

“Don’t worry!” he said.

“Oh, and if you ever need me, here is my card.” He produced a small piece of card from his breast pocket and handed it to Michael.

He stared at it confused. “It’s blank!” he observed.

“Breathe on it for thirty seconds and the words will appear!”

Michael stood up, took the briefcase in his hand and the two men lead him out of the room. He got back in the van and heard that mechanical whirring again, he could feel the van ascending, it felt like they were going up a lot faster than they came down.

A broad smile crept across his face as he sat there, briefcase on his lap.

Finally, they were above ground again and after only a short drive they stopped, the van doors slid open and he stepped out, exactly where he had been picked up. His rusty old bicycle still laying prone on the ground like a wounded soldier.

He turned around to give the man one last wave but he had vanished.

He looked around, there was an eerie silence. No birds were singing, no cars drove past. No children laughed. It was silent.

It was as if nothing had changed, nothing had happened. But something had happened! Michael now had a case full of $20,000!

“The first thing I’m going to buy myself is a new bike!” he thought.

The End