The Little Black Book

My name is Austin, Austin Pine. This is the story of how a little black book ruined my life. Keep in mind that I was a relatively normal university student. I had a part-time job and a girlfriend named Amber.

It was August 6th, 2019, Amber and I went to the beach with a group of friends. We played some volleyball as we were a sporty bunch, I went to spike the ball when I had tripped over something poking out of the sand. I dug out what was a little black notebook with gold lettering on the front that said “NOTES”.

I thought it looked cool, so I tossed it on my towel to bring home. We continued to play volleyball for a few more hours; when it started to get dark, we gathered our stuff and left. When we got home, Amber went to bed early because she had an exam early in the morning. I was so proud of her; she was going to college to be a nurse and was a week away from graduating. While she was sleeping, I grabbed the notebook from my bag and inspected the cover. I opened it up and dusted off the sandy pages. On the first page there was a note it read “To whoever finds this; this is a matter of life or death. You can save many lives, if you are not up to the task, hide this book for someone else to find. If you succeed there will be a reward, if you fail or turn this in to the police, you will die. Best of luck, Harold.”

I was confused by what I had just read, so I flipped through the sandy pages and saw that the book was full of women’s names, along with dates, times, and places. Some of them were crossed out with a thick, blood-like ink. One name stood out to me. Amber Horton… my girlfriend beside her name was the date “August 8th, 2019” which was weird considering it was only the 6th, the time 7:47 pm was also written as well as “Rose Garden Warehouse”. That made me feel a little uneasy as the Rose Garden Warehouse was an abandoned warehouse in a bad neighbourhood. I looked at the list some more and realized that all the names crossed off were dated in the past, except one, “Regina Holmes, August 6th, 2019, 9:28 pm, the corn maze Holmes Family Farm”. Regina’s name was not crossed off; 9:28 pm…that was about 2 hours ago, I wondered what it meant; however, I was too tired to try and figure it out tonight, so I closed the book, put it back in my bag and just went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning Amber had already left for school. I went to the kitchen to make some eggs. I turned the morning news on to have noise in the background. As I cracked my second egg into the pan, I heard the news anchor talking about a woman named Regina Holmes. I turned to see the tv and what was happening. The news anchor went on to talk about how Regina was found murdered in the corn maze that is on the family’s farm. I then went on to remember the notebook that I had found the day before, all the names and dates it contained, including my girlfriends. I was quickly snapped back into reality when the smoke alarm started going off as I had forgotten about the eggs. I rushed to the stove and turned it off, I opened a window in the kitchen to let out the smoke. I no longer wanted eggs. I wanted to find out what the notebook meant. I grabbed the notebook and my laptop and opened them both. I went to the first page of the notebook that had names on it, and I searched the first name, “Melanie Brewster”. I found that she was murdered on the date that was beside her name. I searched the next name, and the same thing, I did it again, and again and I got the same results. I thought about hiding the book for someone else to find, I was just your average tired university student, not a detective. I then remembered how Amber’s name was in the book and realized that people in the book had been murdered and if I were to do nothing, Amber would be next. I did some sleuthing to see if the victims had anything in common, they did not. I also didn’t know a guy named Harold; not that I could find at least. I had to figure out something and fast as the 8th was tomorrow and I wasn’t about to let Amber get murdered.

A few hours later the apartment door opened and there was Amber. I told her to sit while I told her about the notebook, about all the murder victims, Regina, and that her name was next. I asked if she knew any of the victims or a guy named Harold, she said no. I told her she couldn’t go anywhere tomorrow. She explained her final exam was tomorrow and that she would go to the exam and come right home. That still made me nervous so we agreed that I would drive her to the exam, wait in the parking lot, then drive her home. We both did more research on the names in the notebook; we also had the news on to follow the story about Regina, listening to what the police thought had happened. The next thing we knew it was dinner time and we were no closer to figuring anything out. We took a break and made some dinner and tried to enjoy our meal without thinking about what could possibly happen. As you could assume, it didn’t go that way. Amber broke down crying about the whole situation. I reassured her that everything was going to be okay. She fell asleep in my arms, so I carried her to our room and tucked her into bed. I went back to the living room to put our laptops away. I then went into the kitchen to clean up, I put the leftovers in the fridge, and put the dishes in the sink. I then crawled into bed beside Amber and fell asleep.

I awoke the next morning with a headache so bad I could barely open my eyes. I squinted at my phone to the time read 2:13 pm. I was confused, Ambers exam was at 8 am, and I was supposed to drive her. Amber was not in bed beside me, I heard the shower running in the bathroom, so I assumed she was too scared to go to the exam. I walked to the bathroom and knocked on the door; no answer, I knocked again and called Amber’s name, but still no answer. I opened the door to the bathroom; the shower was running but Amber was not there. I turned the shower off and checked the other rooms calling her name. Panic started to set in as I realized Amber was not in the apartment. I ran to my phone and dialled her number as fast as I could, but there was no answer, I texted one of her friends from her class to see if Amber had been in the exam, and I got a response almost immediately saying no and asking if everything was alright. I didn’t respond, I didn’t know what to say. I went into the kitchen to get the notebook to see the place beside Amber’s name so I could try going there to see if she had been taken there; but it wasn’t there, it was gone, the notebook was gone, and I couldn’t remember the place beside Amber’s name.

I started to panic even more as I assumed the worst. I decided to go looking for her, so I got dressed then went out to my car and drove around town. I couldn’t remember where the notebook said she would be. It was almost 7 pm which meant I had just over 40 minutes to find Amber. I drove by a house with a small rose bush out front.

Roses! That was it, I remembered, the Rose Garden Warehouse. It was all the way across town, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it there in time, so I turned around and drove as fast as I could to the warehouse. I pulled up at 7:40, which meant I had 7 minutes to find her. I ran over to the main building and ripped open the door, it opened to a large, dark room with one singular light bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminating only the center of the room, underneath the light bulb I saw Amber tied to a chair, a briefcase at her feet. There was a man standing behind her holding a gun to her head. He was starting to bald, but what little hair he did have was turning grey, he was on the shorter side and was a little overweight, he had big dark brown eyes that felt like they were looking right into my soul. A giant smile came across his face, “I was starting to lose faith in you, Austin” he chuckled. He put the gun down and untied Amber, she ran over and hugged me. We turned to leave when the man shouted “WAIT! I said there would be a reward so here” he handed me the briefcase. “$20,000 that’s how much this job pays, now that I have finally been stopped, it’s yours.” The man explained.

“Thanks…?” I stammered; I didn’t really know what to say. Was he a hitman? If so, who wanted Amber dead? Was he just some psycho? I didn’t know and I didn’t ask, frankly, I didn’t care, all that mattered was that Amber was safe. We walked towards the door that I had entered a moment earlier, I opened and was greeted by the darkness that was the night. I heard Amber scream, I turned to see the man pulling her back into the room and the door slamming shut behind me. “AMBER!” I screamed.

“Tricked you.” The man cheered.

I pulled on the door, but it wouldn’t budge, I looked through the tiny window on the door as the man threw Amber back in the chair; he pulled a small matchbook out of his pocket, lit one and threw it on a gas can that laid on its side next to the chair Amber was in. I watched as the match hit the gas igniting instantly, I watched the flame get bigger and ignite the chair, I heard Amber scream my name in fear. I could no longer see her; the room was filled with smoke.

A smile came across my face.

“Goodbye Amber”, I said as I got into my car with the briefcase still in my hand, I put it on the seat beside me and drove away as I watched the warehouse go up in flames, sirens growing closer. I pulled into my parking spot next to Amber’s, I sighed, grabbed the briefcase and trudged back up to my apartment. I set the briefcase on the counter amazed at how I got away with it, how I managed to hire a hitman to kill my girlfriend, himself and steal all her money. I took a deep breath and opened the briefcase; there inside was Amber’s life savings of $20,000. Now to move to a new city and find a new victim… I mean girlfriend.