Black Book

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Jared is ripped away from his afternoon nap by three loud knocks at the door.

He stumbles off of his couch and makes his way to the apartment door. He rubs his eyes and lets out a yawn. Jared looks through the peephole and sees nothing but a dimly lit hallway.

He turns the deadbolt and pulls the door open but the door abruptly and somewhat violently stops. The chain! He forgot about the chain again...

He slides the chain free and opens the door wide. As he steps out into the hallway he looks both ways. “Like crossing a road”, he thinks.

Nothing. He sees nothing in either direction.

As he turns back into the apartment he steps on something. He looks down. He sees a small black book. It’s one of those little leather-bound notebooks like the ones that bookies and loan sharks always have in the movies.

He picks it up and goes back inside. He closes the door, locks the deadbolt. He skips the chain this time.

He returns to his couch and opens the little book. As he does so, a small piece of paper falls to the floor. It’s folded but when Jared picks it up and unfolds it, he realizes it’s a check.

It’s a check made out to him.

It’s a check made out to him in the amount of twenty thousand dollars!

What? Who would...? It makes no sense. Who would send him this much money? Why? Why send it like this? Not a proper check in the mail, but a loud knock and a vanishing act and a little black book on his doorstep. The book!

Maybe the little book would have answers. He opens the book and he is immediately struck by what’s written on the first page.

It reads:

Jared Larkin

1215 Conference Street, Apt. 4B

Railhead, FL 32573

You have three days.

Spend it wisely.

We are watching.

What??? Who is watching? Three days for what? Does he have three days to spend the money? What happens if he doesn’t spend it? What happens if he donates it to charity? What if he just parties really hard for three days? What if he invests it? And who is watching him?

What if it’s some weirdo group of rich people that mess with poor saps like him for fun? What if it’s a setup by the IRS? He spends the money and then, “Gotcha! Time for jail, thief.” What if it’s the mob and if he uses the money, now they own him? “Deliver this package little Jerry. And don’t look inside!”

How could getting a check for $20,000 be this stressful? Maybe he’s overthinking it. This is a good thing, right? What could be bad about an unexpected twenty thousand dollar check?

So now he starts thinking about what he can control. He can’t control where or how he got the check. However, he can cash it if the bank is still open. He can find out if it’s even real.

And so he does. He quickly gets himself together and heads down to the bank. (It was open.) He deposits the check and asks for one hundred dollars back in cash.

It works. It goes through. No problems. Not a joke. Not an elaborate prank. What now?

He starts heading home. He stops somewhere along the way to eat. He breaks the hundred to pay the bill like it’s one final test to make sure this is really happening. He drops a twenty in a hat on the ground in front of a homeless man. “God bless you,” the homeless man says as Jared just continues on his way home.

Back in the apartment Jared is on his couch and looks at the little book again. The words on the first page are still roaring at him. Looking further, he discovers that every other page in the book is blank.

He’s tired. He’s unsure of what to do. Should he get started right now? What should he do? Can’t he just keep the money? What are the rules?

He decides to put it off until the next day. He falls asleep watching tv.

The next morning he is startled awake again by three loud knocks. Only this time they were coming from inside his apartment. And this time they didn’t stop after just one round.

Rather quickly Jared realized that the booming thuds were coming from the notebook itself.

What??? How??? The noise stops as soon as he touches the book.

He opens it.

And this time the words were different.

Use it all.

Or you die.

We are watching.

“No!”, he yells. He immediately takes the book to a nearby window. He opens the window and throws the book outside. He’ll cut his losses. He’ll replace that hundred bucks he used and get rid of the entire $20k. He’ll just turn it into the police. He’ll tell them everything. Whatever is going on, he doesn’t want to be a part of it.

He sits down, feeling like a weight has been lifted off of his chest. What a weird situation. He lets out a massive sigh. Whatever that was, it’s over.

But just then, he hears three loud knocks at the door.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

He’s frozen. He’s shocked. How??? He just threw the book outside and down four stories! How? It can’t be...

But the knocking continues.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

He gets up and makes his way to the door. He turns the deadbolt. Opens the door and is jolted as it gets stopped by the chain yet again... He slides the chain. He opens the door and, no one’s there.

The banging continues.

The book is there on the threshold.

He picks it up.

The banging stops.

He closes the door, leans his back against the door and slides down to the floor. He opens the book. The words are the same.

Use it all.

Or you die.

We are watching.

What is going on? Why him? What freaky supernatural thing is happening? How did the words change? How did the book come back?

Whether he spends the money or not, this can’t be good...

“I guess I need to spend some money then,” he says.

He thought of running right then. Maybe he calls their bluff. Maybe there is no one watching. But the book came back. And that pounding noise. Was he going crazy?

No, instead of breaking, he decides to embrace the task at hand. Everyone has plans of what they’d do if they got a big pile of money all of a sudden. No one thinks of having to spend it all in three days. Absolutely no one expects some unseen force to threaten their lives if they can’t spend twenty grand in a few days.

He still didn’t know the rules but he knew he wanted to keep as little of that money as possible.

If this was a movie, this is where the spending spree montage would start playing. He bought a bunch of super expensive things on the internet. He paid extra to overnight it all. He had a bunch of groceries delivered. He’ll never run out of corn chips or energy drinks. He did all of this right there from his apartment.

Exhausted and emotionally drained, he went to bed early. He still had eight thousand dollars to spend. He had to sleep, though.

Just like the previous two days, the book woke him up. This time the first page had yet another message.

Last day.

Spend or die.

We are watching.

“We are watching,” he says mockingly.

Jared gets ready quickly. He’s actually in a good mood. He leaves his apartment and even remembers the chain on the door this time. He is heading to the bank.

He withdraws the remaining eight thousand dollars. Now he is looking for people to help. He passes by the same homeless man as before. This time he drops five hundred dollars in the man’s bowl. He doesn’t even give the guy time to say thank you.

$7,500.00

He steps into a coffee shop and pays for everyone’s order and leaves an extra hundred on the counter for good measure.

$7,230.56

A little later he seeks out a grocery store. It’s rather busy. He takes five hundred dollars and throws it up in the air. It doesn’t quite go as he hoped. The money doesn’t fan out quite as well as it does on tv. However, there is still a substantial scrum for the money by the store’s patrons.

$6,730.56

Jared decided that he needed to go quicker. He started offering random people a ridiculous amount of money for whatever they had on them. He bought some guy’s snapback for three hundred bucks. He paid a homeless man four hundred fifty dollars for a dirty old jacket. He just gave some random kid a thousand dollars. Then he saw a pawn shop.

$4,980.56

Once in the pawnshop, Jared speaks with the owner. He asks if any people have pawned their things but may not be able to pay back the loan and get their stuff back. “Of course.” the owner said. “Most of them are just good people that are down on their luck.” Jared asks, “Can I help them?” “Help them how?” the owner says. “You gonna pay their bills?” Jared says, “Yes. Yes, I am. I’ve got nearly five grand that I want to use to pay off their pawn loans.”

The shop owner tells Jared that they only have around thirty-eight hundred dollars outstanding from people with pawnshop loans.

Jared says, “Fine! I’ll pay them all. I’d also like to look at your guns and your guitars.”

Jared paid off the pawnshop loans and he walked out with a small handgun and an exquisite guitar.

$397.39

The day was almost over and Jared still had nearly four hundred dollars. Who knew spending that much money could be so exhausting? He decided to catch a lift home. He ordered the car and paid extra so he could stop and get some food along the way. His favorite pizza place was a little out of the way but he was trying to run up the bill anyway. He got the biggest pizza they had along with a salad and some cannoli for dessert. He left a very big tip. Once he finally got home, left a big tip for the driver. He just dropped the cash in the front seat and got out of the car. He even tossed the loose change on the seat, just to be on the safe side.

$0.00

He did it. Twenty thousand dollars spent in just three days. He felt relieved and pretty good. He bought a bunch of stuff but he did help some people too. That feeling of actually helping people was pretty great.

He didn’t know if he’d done it all correctly. He still didn’t know who was watching him. He wasn’t completely sure that he wouldn’t be dying the next day. He had some pizza and some tv and it wasn’t long before he was asleep on the couch again.

The next morning Jared woke up startled again but this time nothing was happening. He stumbled around to find the book. No thumping noises. No bangs at the door.

He opened the book and was more than relieved at what he read.

Well done.

Tell no one.

We are watching.

Tear out this first page and keep it to remind you that we are always here.

Write this name at the top of the new first page.

Brad Jones

Throw the book out the window.

Jared did all of this. After throwing out the little book he looked at the page he had kept. It was blank! Except for three short lines.

Well done.

Tell no one.

We are watching...