The Executor

The Man with the Notebook had summoned me once again.

A layer of fog drifted in lazy swirls outside the window of my favourite coffee shop. The aroma of fresh espresso washed over me as I breathed deeply, fighting to calm my shaking hands. Aside from us, only a solitary waitress occupied the lobby, patrolling the nearby booths with a rag and a pot of coffee as she waited for more customers to trickle in.

A large grandfather clock sat in the corner, its heavy ticks and tocks echoing through the mostly empty shop. I had once loved listening to it. Now its tones felt hostile, mercilessly counting down the seconds until it was once again time to fulfill my sister’s will.

I checked my clothing. I had on a pinstriped Bespoke suit; the same suit I had worn every time I was summoned. It was the first thing I’d bought after my sister’s death, and I wished, as I often did, that I could have returned it. Not that it would have done any good – returns didn’t count, as far as the curse was concerned.

The Man with the Notebook sat across from me, twirling a silver pen around his thumb. He was dressed far more casually than I was, sporting a thin raincoat draped over a polo shirt, along with a cotton hat that was pulled low over his forehead. His notebook lay closed on the table in front of him, next to a steaming cup of coffee that he still hadn’t touched.

I checked the time on the old grandfather clock. Eleven fifty-six; just four minutes to go. I fidgeted with my cuff links, trying to ignore the spots where sweat had soaked through my suit’s fabric.

“Who is it this time?” I asked. The question came out as a whisper.

“There’s only one left,” the Man with the Notebook replied in his gruff, passionless tone. He had his gaze trained on the front of the shop, and his eyes followed a young man in an apron who bustled about behind the counter, occasionally stopping to laugh at something with his coworkers. They seemed busy, though there was no one waiting at the till.

I tore my eyes away. A shudder coursed through me, jostling a weight in the back of my belt that I tried hard not to think about. The Man with the Notebook never gave more info than that. I would only know the details once it was time to perform my part in the will. That was how my sister had wanted it.

I checked the clock again. Three minutes.

He wiped his mouth and began flipping through his notebook. It was small, with a black leather cover that would have been beautiful had it been anything else. Hatred bubbled within me as I glared at it. I wanted to slap it out of his hands. Tear it up. Burn it. Anything to be rid of that horrible book.

The rustling of old paper lingered in the air as he slowly turned the pages. Columns of scribbled numbers filled each page, many of them struck through or blotted out. Haunting memories tugged at the edges of my mind as I watched. I hardened myself against them, though a few slipped through: the haunting echoes of the screams, visions of phantom faces pleading up at me. The faces were always the worst part.

I closed my eyes. It had been a year since my sister had died. She had been the black sheep of the family, a childish rebel, gambling and partying well into her forties. None of us had any contact with her for nearly a decade. We figured she had been destitute when she finally passed away. We were wrong.

She’d left behind a will that granted each of her ten closest family members an account containing $20,000. Blinded by our greed, we accepted them unquestioningly.

Fools, all of us.

The Man reached the end of the notebook and stopped there, creasing its centre to keep it from folding shut. The final two pages were emptier than the rest. One held two final columns of numbers, both incomplete. On the other was a list of ten names. They were all crossed off except for two.

Mine and one other.

From force of habit – or maybe just to distract myself – I pulled out my phone to check my own account. I already knew what I’d find. Sure enough, the balance matched perfectly with the number at the bottom of one of the book’s columns. A dollar fifty-five. Exactly enough to buy a medium coffee, my usual. The number in the column beside it was almost as low.

The ticking of the clock grew louder.

Two minutes.

The fog outside had thickened, swirling faster now in a storm of wispy tendrils, like ghosts who had gathered to revel in my misfortune.

A new wave of anxiety yanked away my breath. I couldn’t do it. Not again.

The clacking of shoes against tile disrupted my panic as the waitress approached our table. She bounced as she walked, sending coffee sloshing around in her pot. She stopped beside us and beamed at me. “Sitting alone again today?”

I glanced at the Man with the Notebook, who simply crossed his arms and watched, uncaring as always, from beneath his cotton hat. I looked back at the waitress and forced myself to return her smile. “Looks like it.”

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”

I pulled a bright blue debit card from my shirt pocket and ran my thumb along its worn edge. Plastic threads had begun peeling off at the corners, and the numbers on the front had faded from frequent use. I didn’t dare use it again. I was the only one who knew what happened when the accounts hit zero.

I turned the card over in my fingers for a few seconds before replying. “Not today. Thanks.”

She pulled a rag from her pocket and leaned over to wipe the table. Her hand passed through the cup of coffee and the notebook sitting there.

Satisfied with her work, she straightened and winked at me. “If you’d like anything, just holler.”

I nodded weakly, feigning my smile for a moment longer as she moved on to clean the next booth. Once she was gone, I checked the clock again. Less than a minute to go.

The ticking of the clock grew deafening. Wind whipped the fog outside, whistling against the windowpanes and sending mocking shadows dancing across the floor. Then, for a moment, everything went silent.

And the clock chimed noon.

The sound sent a jolt through my core.

The Man with the Notebook returned his attention to the front counter. I couldn’t stop myself from following his gaze. The young man in the apron punched his timecard and circled around to the front of the till. I already knew what he would order: a pastrami sandwich on whole wheat and an iced tea. The same thing he had always ordered, ever since he was a kid.

The Man with the Notebook set his pen against the paper and began scrawling a new number in one of the columns. “It’s time.”

Tears welled in my eyes. “No,” I begged. “Please. Not him.”

I knew it wouldn’t do any good. These were the terms I’d accepted. The terms we had all accepted, the moment we’d started spending the money.

The Man with the Notebook finished writing. An icy feeling crawled through me, starting at my ankles and creeping upward, stealing away my movement. He lifted his pen, and all at once my body was ripped away from me.

I rose to my feet and marched toward the front counter. Just like all the times before, I was powerless to stop myself, locked away within my own mind until I had fulfilled my sister’s will.

My hand reached for the weight in the back of my belt, and my fingers closed around the grip of a handgun.

I was the only one who knew what happened when the accounts hit zero.

I was the only one who had to.

Time slowed around me. I passed the waitress, who had stopped halfway through one of her bouncy steps as though she’d been suspended in amber, the coffee in her pot frozen in mid-slosh. The employees behind the counter were stuck in similar positions. The only one who still moved was the young man in the apron, who reached into his pocket and pulled out a bright blue debit card.

I got within a few feet of him and paused. He looked at me, stumbling as he stepped backward, his eyes wide as he looked at the handgun, then at me. “Dad?”

A new wave of tears surged inside me, though my eyes remained dry.

I pointed the gun at his head.

His hands trembled as he turned back to the till and reached the card forward. It was too late for him to stop now; he would go through with the payment. They always did, compelled just as I was by the binding power of the will.

The card slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. The echo of plastic against tile rippled through the silence.

The Man with the Notebook stood nearby, watching, as he always did, from beneath his cotton hat. The notebook was open in his hands, his pen poised above it.

The memories I had fought to suppress now swam to my mind’s surface. Memories of watching my family die, one by one. Seeing their pleading eyes as I fulfilled my awful duty.

I stared at the bright blue debit card as it came to a rest on the ground. And deep within my mind, where my consciousness lay trapped and screaming, I made a choice.

The iciness pulled back a little, enough that I could now move my head. I craned my neck to look at the Man with the Notebook. He blinked at me with a raised eyebrow, then nodded, so slightly that I nearly missed it.

The icy feeling retreated from one of my arms, allowing me to control a part of myself once more. I pulled my own bright blue card from my pocket.

There was one way to stop it. One way that I could end all of this.

I looked at him again, trembling as I nodded in return. In an instant I was back in the booth, and the Man with the Notebook once again sat across from me. At the front, the young man in the apron bent over to pick up his card, no longer shaking. He and everyone else continued about as though nothing had happened.

The Man with the Notebook positioned his pen over the notebook, and he stared at me.

Smiling.

I raised an arm to call the waitress. She walked over, black liquid sloshing in her pot…

And the Man with the Notebook laughed.

He set the tip of his pen against his notebook and slowly began to cross off my name, still laughing – a dreadful laugh that seemed to make the world darken around me. Amid his glee, the old grandfather clock in the corner gave one last powerful tick, then fell silent as I spoke.

“Medium coffee, please.”