The List

John, woke up tired, hungover, and alone. "Here we go again," he thinks.

Wiping the sleep from his eyes he stumbled his way to the kitchen, searching for a clean glass to fill with water, trying to still the pounding headache he acquired from the night before. "Why do I keep doing this to myself? I'm never drinking again," he says aloud.

He reaches for the sink, turns the knob, nothing.

"Damn it," he exclaimed. "They shut the fucking water off again."

See, John hadn't paid the water bill in three months. The worst part is that he had just spent the last bit of money he had at the bar last night. "Well, this is just my luck." He says.

He tries to find something to quench this thirst. He riffles through the old beaten-up fridge he had gotten at a yard sale a few weeks back. He grabs a carton of milk, opens the top, and takes a drink. John spits the milk immediately out, spraying it all over the kitchen floor. Expired.

John grimaces, wiping his face with a dirty dishtowel in an attempt to remove every trace of the sour expired milk.

Defeated, he makes his way back to the bedroom trying to find his phone so he can try and piece together what he did last night. On the nightstand is a sea of half drank piss-warm beers and empty water bottles. Each one from every other night John had promised he wasn't going to drink again. He grabs a half-empty water bottle, searching it for cigarette butts and other foul signs, finding nothing, he takes it back. Relief.

John begins looking for his phone, sifting through a pile of old beer bottles, half-eaten take-out containers, and dirty clothes, he finds nothing. Lifting the piles of clothes John begins shaking each one out individually, in the hopes that he may dislodge his missing cell phone.

"My jacket!" John exclaimed. He had spotted it in the corner of the room, folded neatly, which to John seemed quite odd.

He climbs over the bed and picks it up. As he raises it high to inspect the pockets, a brick-sized envelope falls out, hitting the floor with a large thud.

John is confused, not exactly sure what it is, he reaches for it. It is a heavy, large yellow envelope, the kind you get from Amazon when they're too lazy to put it in a box. John inspects the outside of the package, searching it for a clue as to what it was, or where it came from. It's completely blank. Hesitantly, he lifts the flap of the envelope and has a look inside. He can't believe his eyes. Astonished, John removes the contents and finds, what appears to be, an old beaten-up black notebook and twenty thousand dollars cash.

"Fuck me," John says. You can hear the fear and confusion begin to raise in his voice. "What the fuck did I do last night?"

He sets the money on the bed and begins to search the notebook for clues. He opens it, he finds pages and pages filled with two columns. The first column is a written name. The second column is a series of dates.

Jim Geoffry Jan. 2, 1942 - Nov. 3, 1942

Kane Werner Nov. 7, 1942 - Nov. 12, 1942

Harry Watson Nov. 16, 1942- Mar. 3, 1954

Page upon page filled top to bottom. John flips to the back of the book and at the bottom of a page and the back of the book, is his name, with no other names beneath it.

Joel Smith Feb. 12, 2021- Feb 22, 2021

John Campbell Feb. 26, 2021-

"What the fuck is this?" he thinks. Confused John starts flipping back and forth through the whole book, trying to find some clue as to what it actually is. Nothing, except pages upon pages of these names and dates.

What does it mean? What am I supposed to be doing here? John sets the book down and starts making his way through his jacket again, trying to find his phone. He discovers it in his left front pocket. Dead. He finds his charger on the wall and plugs it in, it lights up with the charging symbol.

"Oh thank god." He says out loud, with the slightest bit of relief.

John drops to his bed. He slouches forward, head in hand, rubbing his face. The confusion and bewilderment set in. John starts thinking, mind racing, trying to piece together any part of last night. What did I do? Where did I go? Who was I with? The questions flood his mind, he is unsure of all of them.

" I don't usually blackout like this." He thinks to himself.

"Did someone slip me something?"

Finally, a sliver of information slips into his mind, a memory of the night before.

"A girl, there was that girl. What was her name?!"

She had long strawberry blond hair, way out of his league to be talking to John, A handyman from the middle of nowhere. On top of that, he was a drunk! He starts racking his brain, trying to piece together a name or anything at all so that he may find some answers. Slowly it starts coming to him, bit by bit.

As the images come into his mind, he starts piecing them together. He's speaking out loud at this point, all small pieces of information as they come.

"Taverties, blonde girl, book, money." He repeats it.

"Taverties, blonde girl, book, money, Taverties, blonde girl, book, money."

"Why is my name in there? Did I make a bet? Is this some kind of bookie notebook?" The answers elude him.

He seems to be lost, picking up his phone, which is still plugged into the wall, he powers it on.

As soon as the phone comes on, he notices that he has three new text notifications. He opens the text app, the first is from his best friend Ryan and the second is a number he doesn't have saved.

"Hopefully Ryan has some answers." John thinks to himself.

He opens the texts.

Ryan

8:20 pm

" You better be coming to Taverties tonight bro! There's this blonde girl she keeps asking about you! You better hurry your ass up before she leaves!"

John

8:24 pm

" Yeah man, I'll be there."

8:29 pm

" I'm on my way!"

Ryan

11:20 pm

"Hey man, where did you go?"

Ryan

11:30 pm

" I hope you didn't leave with that girl. She was crazy man. All that talk about not drinking and stuff really freaked me out. Call me ASAP I'll come pick you up."

John hit's the call button on Ryan's name, lifts the phone to his ear, and waits. Straight to voicemail. John leaves a message.

"Uhh, hey man, call me back. I have no idea what we did last night and was hoping you could help me out." He laughs " Well anyways man I'm completely lost here. Sorry if I did anything stupid, talk to you later, bye."

John goes to open the other text from the unsaved contact.

281-330-8004

11:43 pm

"Remember what we talked about, you've made your choice."

John hits the call button on the unsaved number, just a dial tone.

"I guess I'll go to Taverties and see if Ryan is there. It is Saturday."

John grabs the money and the book, placing them back in the envelope where he got them. He starts sifting through the clothes strewn all about, picking up each one and smelling them, trying to find something that is not too dirty to put on. He finally manages to find a clean shirt and shorts, throwing them on, hurriedly. He then grabs the envelope, placing it in the drawstring book bag he had hung up on a hook behind the door. He then unplugs his phone, wrapping up the charger and placing it in the bag as well. John continues to search through the debris field that is his room, looking for a pack of cigarettes. Success! John finds a crumbled-up carton on the ground, opens it, and to his delight, there are one and a half cigarettes left. He immediately finds a lighter, lights the half-smoked one, and takes a drag. The relief was instantaneous.

As John starts to head for the door he realizes something, Taverties isn't open yet, it's only ten o'clock and they don't open until eleven. He decides to head that way anyway. Maybe he will bump into Ryan at the corner store they always go to. As he heads out the door, bookbag in tow, he calls Ryan one more time.

Voicemail again. He leaves another message.

"Hey man, me again. I really need you to call me back, I'm kind of freaking out here. Anyways I'm headed up to the store and then to Taverties. Hopefully, I'll see you there. Call me back, Bye." He hangs up The phone.

He opens the front door, the sun is blindingly bright. He reaches into his bookbag and grabs the sunglasses that he usually keeps in there and places them on his head. He makes his way towards the corner store, which is on the way to Taverties, by the time he walks there will hopefully be someone there opening the bar and he can grab a drink while he waits for Ryan. "I am rich now." He thinks.

About fifteen minutes later, John gets to the convenience store. He grabs the door handle and steps inside.

"Hey Mike, you seen Ryan today at all?"

Mike, an older man, rife with the effects of drinking a fifth of Jack and smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, answers in his usual smart-alecky tone.

"No John, But I have seen You!"

"Shit." John thinks to himself. Normally Ryan would have been in by now, he always was an early riser, it didn't matter how late or hard they partied the night before. The first thing he would do every morning would be to come down to the store and pick up a fresh pack of smokes for the day.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," John replies with a half-smirk half-laugh. Can I have a pack of Newport short one-hundreds, in the box then Mike"?

Mike grabs the cigarettes with his old wrinkled hands and throws them on the counter.

"That'll be six twenty-three," Mike says, voice raspy from all the cigarettes he's smoked.

John pulls out his wallet, it's empty. He then remembers the twenty-thousand dollars in his backpack.

"One second," John says hesitantly.

He turns around, away from Mike, blocking the drawstring backpack as he pulls one, one-hundred-dollar bill out. He turns back around and hands Mike the money.

"Here you go Mike, hopefully, you can break it. I don't have anything else."

"I think I can," says Mike "What? Did you get a new job or something? I haven't seen you with that much cash since you worked on the old Miller place."

"Yeah, something like that," John says tentatively.

Mike fishes the change out of the old cash register that had seen better days and hands it to John.

"Thanks, Mike, if you see Ryan have him call me, alright? Tell him I'm up at Taverties."

"Anything for you John, y'all are my best customers!"

John proceeds out the door and on to Taverties. It's about a ten-minute walk from where he's at now, plus, John knew a shortcut. He had to find out what was going on.

As John makes his way to Taverties, through his secret shortcut, he catches a glimpse of an old man reading a newspaper. On the front page, he sees an article titled.

" Local man, Joel Smith still missing."

John couldn't shake this eerie feeling, he knew he had seen that name before, but he just couldn't remember where. All of a sudden it hits him.

"The notebook!" John exclaimed.

He whips the bookbag around, ripping the notebook from the envelope, and flips to the last page with names on it. Right above his name, he sees it.

Joel Smith Feb. 12, 2021 - Feb 22, 2021

John Campbell Feb. 26, 2021 -

His heart sinks.

"This has got to be a coincidence right?" He thinks to himself.

He looks at the list and finds the name right above Joels and his. He pulls out his phone and searches the name.

Aaron Hernandez Dec. 1, 2020 - Feb. 8, 2021

As he looks through the search results, his heart sinks further.

"Local family man missing" "Aaron Hernandez, still missing" "Still no sign of missing father."

John continues to go up the list, every name above his yields the same results.

"This can't be happening," He says out loud.

He goes back to his search trying to find more details. He starts reading further into each one and then he finds something, a quote from one of the missing men's wives.

"He used to always drink and leave for a couple of days, but after day three I started to worry."

Still searching, John, stumbles across a picture. Something immediately stuck out. It was that woman! She was there in the background of one of the photographs, way back in the distance, smirking. He could see the evil in her eyes. The photograph was faint but still, he could tell, something was off.

He tries Ryan again. No response.

"Fuck man, It's that girl from the bar. I... I can't even explain what the fuck is going on. Please call me back. This shit is crazy man, It's fucked up. You Have to call me back!" He says in a panic.

His pace quickens as he makes his way to Taverties. He's panicked, scared, and has no idea what's going on. He weaves his way in and out side-streets, walking so fast it's almost like a light jog.

He finally sees Taverties and picks his pace up a little more. Now he's definitely jogging. He gets to Taverties just in time for it to open. The door is unlocked and he makes his way inside. He sees Denise the bartender, pouring ice into the beer-well. She looks up

"Hey, John! You sure were wasted last night!" She yelled with a smirk.

"Uh, yeah, actually I was hoping you could help me out with that."

"What do you mean John?" Denise asks, her brow furrowed.

"Well I don't actually remember being here, or when I left. That's the problem."

"Ohh, one of those kinds of nights, huh? Well, you were here with Ryan for a while, and then you left with that girl." She pauses shortly. " I was actually quite proud of you, she's way out of your league John." She says with a smirk.

"Have you seen Ryan at all? I've tried his number a couple of times, but I can't seem to get ahold of him."

"No, John I haven't. Last I saw of him was when you two got in an argument and he took off outside."

"Fuck, that's what it was," John thinks to himself.

"Well, what are you having John, Yeungling?" Denise inquires.

" Yeah, I'll take one, in a glass if you don't mind."

Denise pulls a mug out of the cooler, pours John his beer, and takes off to the back to continue her opening duties.

"I'll be right back John. Let me know if you need anything, I just have to grab some lemons." She says as she walks through the doors to the back of the building.

John picks up his drink and takes a sip. It was delicious and he had needed it after everything he had gone through that morning.

A few moments later Denise reemerged from the back of the bar.

"John?" Denise asks.

He's nowhere to be found.

John Campbell Feb. 26, 2021 - Feb. 27, 2021