The Missing Pages

The judge stared at me with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

"Well," she said, "your testimony is certainly the most creative thing I've heard in this courtroom, but I guess I have no choice. Twelve months in the state penitentiary."

The sound of the gavel echoed through the room and I hung my head down. A year wasn't so bad I guess. But it was a heavy price to pay for a failed 24 hours. And it all started with Christopher Mulligan.

I had been driving the same road to get to and from work for years. At midnight when I was heading home, the streets were usually empty except for me and my thoughts. It was easy to get lost in them and let the muscle memory kick in to guide me through the darkness.

I was mulling over my failed relationship for about the thousandth time in the past three months. I'll admit, it was my fault and because of it, I spent more time than I'd like to admit trying to come up with plans to win my ex-girlfriend back, but all of them sucked. If only I had paid more attention to those Rom-Coms she was always trying to get me to watch.

My thoughts were becoming progressively more depressing when it happened. A loud thump sounded on the outside of my car and I felt the impact of whatever I had hit causing my car to jerk slightly.

I skidded to a stop, too surprised to worry about the rubber on my tires.

"Did I hit a deer?" I asked myself.

The street was dark, with only a few lights illuminating the pavement. Looking through my rearview mirror, I saw several yards behind me, a folded silhouette lying under a flickering streetlight.

My pulse pounded loudly in my ears as I reversed and jumped out of the car. As I got closer to the figure, I realized it was a man. I could barely make out the color of his sandy blond hair and the dark spots on his clothing under the light. Blood.

"Hey man," I said, squatting down next to him, "are you okay?"

No response.

"Hey," I tried again, "I'm gonna call an ambulance, okay?"

Still nothing.

With a shaking hand, I reached out and grabbed his wrist gently and immediately dropped it back on his body. He had no pulse.

I looked around quickly. There were no people, houses, or cameras on this road. Just me and a dead man.

Unsure of what to do, I dug through his coat pockets. He had two items on him. A wallet and a small black notebook.

I opened his wallet and stared at his driver's license. Christopher Mulligan. According to the address on his license, he lived on the outskirts of town. It hit me then; this man might have a family at home. A wife and kids waiting for him. But he wouldn't be returning. Because I killed him.

I killed a man.

I jumped up, my pulse now sounding like white noise in my head. And with the dead man's wallet and little black book still in my hand, I sprinted back to my car and sped off, leaving him motionless and alone on the concrete.

*******

The wallet and black book sat on my kitchen counter, staring at me accusingly. I hadn't meant to take them. I hadn't meant to leave at all. There was still time to report the body, but how would it look to know that I hit a man with my car and ran off?

I snatched the black book off of the counter and opened it. On the first page in scrawled black ink, it read:

The Rules are Simple:

1. Check the name that was written by the person who owned the book before you.

2. Find that person and make amends with them on behalf of the previous owner.

3. Tear the page with the name on it out and burn it.

4. Write the name of a person you want to make amends with on a new page.

5. Pass the book on.

If you complete the task, $20,000 will be deposited into your bank account. If you fail, something unpleasant will happen.

You have 24 hours.

"What is this Death Note crap?" I said to myself, turning the page.

The fold of the book had leftover paper edges attached to it, showing that the middle was missing pages already. But on the next available page, the name Isaiah Roberts was written in slanted cursive. Did Christopher write it?

"What the hell is this?"

I dropped the book back on the counter and opened up my kitchen cabinet to where a dusty bottle of whiskey was sitting. If ever I needed it, it was now. I poured myself a generous amount in a glass and allowed the warmth of the liquor to replace the cold I felt inside my body.

After a few more drinks, I scoffed at the black book sitting in front of me. Obviously someone was playing a bad joke. Maybe it was Christopher himself. What was he doing walking around at night all alone anyway?

I turned to where my laptop was sitting half opened on the coffee table and stumbled towards it. Logging onto Facebook, I tried three times to type the name Isaiah Roberts into the search bar. Not so surprisingly a slew of profiles popped up when I finally got it. It was a very common name. I typed the name Christopher Mulligan in next. Less common.

At the top, a profile with a picture of a man with sandy blond hair standing shirtless appeared. I clicked on it and confirmed that it was the man I had left not too long before. According to his profile, he was single. The knots in my stomach loosened a bit.

Looking through his friends' list, I scrolled until I found Isaiah Roberts. A post-middle aged Black man with a wide smile and a love for fishing based on the bass he was holding in his profile picture. His account was private. What did Christopher need to make amends with him for? And was I really going to go looking for this man?

If you fail, something unpleasant will happen, the book had said.

Images of Christopher lying under the streetlight flashed in my mind.

After an hour of scrolling, I found a common friend of both Christopher and Isaiah's. I typed a quick message explaining that I was a friend of Christopher's and needed to find Isaiah for him.

Isaiah Roberts? The message came back a few minutes later. What for?

Christopher asked me to give him something, I typed back.

Oh okay. I'm sure he doesn't get many visitors. You can find him here: 1682 N. Groveland Blvd.

That was surprisingly easy. It was nearly 2 a.m. at this point and I was drunk out of my mind so I decided I would go to bed and take the trip to see Isaiah Roberts in the morning.

***

I had been driving for roughly a half hour. The GPS on my phone was taking me through back roads and being that I had slept like I was in a coma and woke up with a terrible hangover, I was short on time.

"Destination will be on your left," the GPS voice said.

"Thanks," I mumbled. I squinted through the trees. There weren't any houses or buildings around as far as I could see. Coming up on my left, however, was a large black metal arch and a stone sign next to it.

Groveland Cemetery.

A cemetery? This had to be some sick joke. I was tempted to keep driving but the GPS announced that I had arrived at my destination. Turning into the cemetery, I parked my car on the side of the road and got out. All around me were grave markers and dying flowers.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and walked around peering down at the names on the headstones, praying silently that Isaiah Roberts' name wasn't on one of them. But not even five minutes had passed before I was staring down at a headstone sporting his name solemnly.

Isaiah Roberts. April 1965 - December 2020.

I had missed him by a few months. The black book suddenly felt like a lead weight in my pocket. What now? I had tried, but Christopher wanted to make amends with a man who was also dead.

I pulled the black book out of my pocket and with shaking hands, grabbed the pen from my front coat pocket and the lighter in the opposite pocket. On the next page in the book, I scribbled the name Diamond Walker. Then I ripped the page with Isaiah Roberts' name on it out and held the lighter to it. As it began to burn, I dropped it on Isaiah's grave.

I watched as the flames consumed the paper, blackening wherever it touched. Once the flames had engulfed the name on the paper entirely and it was nothing more than a black pile, I stamped the flame out. As I stood staring at the pile of ashes, a car pulled up behind me. A woman stepped out of the car and gave me a polite smile.

"Just visiting my grandpa," she explained, gesturing to the grave next to the one I was standing at.

"I was just leaving actually," I said. I walked past her and bumped her slightly.

"Sorry," I said quickly and before she could respond, I took off to my car at a near sprint and didn't look back. I wondered how long it would take her to notice the black book in her coat pocket.

When I got home, I shut my door quickly and bolted it behind me. My chest felt tight. I hadn't been able to make amends, but if he's dead, does it count?

For the rest of the night, I sat with my knees to my chest on my couch, staring straight ahead at my front door. A long steak knife sat on the arm of the couch next to me.

As the clock approached midnight, my breathing grew heavier. The twenty-four hours was almost up. I held my breath at midnight and then at 12:15 and 12:30. The last time I remember was 1:30.

Before I knew it, I was waking up to sunlight in my face. I was alive. And it had been more than 24 hours. It worked. Or maybe the book didn't really matter. Maybe it really was just a prank.

I grabbed my phone and swiped the screen down to see my notifications when a headline popped up at the top.

Local bus driver receives $20,000 from mysterious benefactor.

My blood turned to ice.

No, it was just a coincidence. It couldn't be connected to the black book. I was just being paranoid.

There was a knock on the door then. I grabbed the knife and walked to the door.

"Who is it?" I asked, wishing that I had a peephole.

"The police."

My heart stopped for a second and I opened the door slowly.

"Jeremiah Daniels?"

I nodded.

"You're under arrest for the murder of Christopher Mulligan."

Two months later, I was found guilty of manslaughter. They figured out it was me from the Facebook message I sent to Christopher's friend the night I killed him and Christopher's wallet that I had left sitting on my kitchen counter when the cops arrived. I can't say I didn't deserve it.

As the bailiff ushered me out of the courtroom, I looked over to where the spectators' seating was. A young man who looked barely old enough to drive was sitting there alone, staring at me. With a twinge of guilt, I turned away from him to stare straight ahead. In his hands was a little black book.