The Little Black Book

I

I've lived a fairly ordinary life working at a supermarket, stocking the shelves, scanning codes and feigning smiles to passing customers; rewarded with ten percent discount and the ability to pay off my bills.

In recent years, Urban Exploring has been my greatest satisfaction.

My colleague, Julia, told me out of the blue one day about an abandoned house with a piano and a stone well. She said she'd been there once with an ex-boyfriend. A surge of jealousy and hope ran through me.

Julia was baffled I had not been aware of the house considering the number of explorations I'd been on in the past. I was surprised when she explained the house was tucked behind the very supermarket we work at. How could I have missed such a place?

Julia instructed me to walk up a set of concrete steps, behind the bins, in the corner of the supermarket's underground parking area.

I was intrigued to hear more about the house, but our fastidious supervisor swept Julia away for one reason or other. Regardless, I decided I’d visit immediately after my shift and investigate myself.

My working day finished, and I was fidgety with anticipation. As I said goodbye to Julia, she gave me that sweet smile of hers, which only added to my excitement. She got into a car with a guy a similar age to us. A boyfriend? My stomach dropped, as if suddenly filled with lead.

Only a few cars remained in the parking area. I followed the instructions given and pushed myself between the bins that concealed the external concrete steps. The steps led to a sheet of metal fencing which vainly acted as a deterrent against intruders.

I pushed myself through, shielding my eyes from hanging weeping willows that appeared like draped curtains on a stage.

My view opened up to an expanse of overgrown land, dotted with wild and unusual flowers amongst a scourge of weeds. The ambient moonlight heightened the feeling that I had crossed another dimension. A forgotten territory.

In the haze of the evening, I could see the stone well, presumably long out of use. To the right stood the decrepit house, consumed by ivy growing on top of crumbling red brick and rot from exposed pipes.

There was no door, just a black void that seemed to swallow the space around it, including myself.

The smell was dank inside. The walls were strewn with profane graffiti, warning any visitors to stay away. In one room, a pentagram bled on the floorboards in an insipid red color; small mounds of melted red wax sat at each point. Nothing unusual in these places.

Newspapers were scattered on the floors throughout the house; surprisingly, I noticed, the papers only dated back to the late 1990's.

I eventually found the old piano in the front room- Oak veneered, the keys in perfect condition. I considered the hundreds of fingers that may have tapped across the ivory over the years. Despite knowing so little about pianos, I was intrigued to open the top and look at its internal organs.

It was then that I found a little black Moleskine notebook. I wiped the dust off and opened it. There were dozens of pages of rare and international stamps. The other half of the book's pages were empty apart from a single note that read:

"Gold in the water."

I found it bizarre how these were the only few cryptic words, written in a stamp collection of all places. And why was it placed inside a piano?

I would have supposed a visitor had placed the book there but some of the stamps matched the dates of the newspapers.

As I studied the book, I heard a whisper coming from the kitchen. My instincts placed the book back in the piano, and then I crept into the kitchen. Broken crockery and black mold infested the room. I stood silent and still, trying to make sense of the sound I’d heard. It was then that a single note played on the piano in the other room.

I didn't hang about for fear of coming face to face with a squatter. They can be unpredictable and volatile. I ran past the well, through the wild garden, back down to my car. It was difficult starting the engine- a reoccurring problem- but soon enough, I was on my way home, and feeling less shaken up.

I barely slept that night. I wished I could remember those few words that were written in the little black book, but from the shock the message was lost on me.

It was raining on my second visit, the following day, which made the house smell even worse. I searched for the notebook in the piano to retrace the note. There it was.

A monochrome polaroid picture of a man in a suit, against the well in the garden, slipped out the book. The man appeared still, but strangely his face was blurred as if his head had been shaking. On the back of the photo there was another message:

"The well has not dried up. Here lies 20,000. Another way."

The same handwriting. A second clue. But someone has to be watching me to have placed the photo in the notebook after I left last night? Some kind of game.

I placed the photo in the notebook, before putting it in my backpack. I left the house and acted on my hunch to investigate the well. I bowed my head into the well's black abyss and dropped a stone to try to judge the depth of the groundwater. I could barely differentiate the sound of the stone falling amongst the pelting rain. I'm sure I heard a muffled scream coming from inside the house. Perhaps it was a cat in the distance?

I left there and then, sodden to the core, and once again fighting to start the engine of my car.

My plan was to return to the house the following day, but I didn’t anticipate falling sick, later that night. I barely thought about the house in all my time at home- I was riddled with a fever, I didn't need to be addled by anything else.

It wasn't until the following week that I returned to work.



II

Today is my first day back at work. I remind myself to put the little notebook in my back pocket in the possibility of visiting the house again.

No matter how hard I try to revive my car, it fails to start. Frustrated, but eager to arrive to work on time, I ride my bicycle instead.

Later that morning, I find myself back in the stationery section of the supermarket when Julia walks at the end of my aisle. Once she sees me, she comes my way. In the back of my mind, hoping one day that Julia will join me on my urban explorations, I soon move onto the subject of the house. I ask her if she'd remembered seeing a notebook in the piano.

She says she never looked inside the piano, in fact, she didn’t stay long as the stench of the house was too much for her to bear.

Julia suggests I visit again before they knock the place down. She says she'd seen a demolition company on the grounds, the past few days on her way to work.

I suddenly become quite nervous, especially as I'm due to work a double shift. I'm running out of time.

Julia senses my agitation and offers to switch shifts with me today if I take her out on a date, tomorrow night. I jump at the chance, barely concealing my cool. She melts me with her smile before heading off to get the manager's shift switch approval.

I take the notebook out from my back pocket and reread the messages:

"Gold in the water. The well has not dried up. Here lies 20,000. Another way."

My supervisor breaks my concentration when she walks round the corner, prompting me to press on with my duties. As to not appear suspicious, standing next to the notebooks, I don’t hesitate in placing the Moleskine notebook with the others filed away next to me, before moving on. I'll retrieve it later, as soon as I'm free from my supervisor's watchful eye.

Having finished work, I rush up the concrete steps. I hear the growling and whirring machinery beyond the wild garden. To my horror a wrecking ball is beginning to swing into the front section of the house. The timing couldn’t be worse.

I scurry over to the well, staying well out of sight. The well isn't as deep as I’d initially thought- perhaps fifteen feet to the bottom. The water is shallow enough for me to notice the outline of a rectangular box, protruding from the water.

I can't imagine climbing down the well without being seen or injuring myself. I scale the grounds with my eyes, considering another entrance.

"Another way." The words echo in me.

The sound of the demolition at work gets my mind swelling around all aspects of the house- the living room is nothing but rubble now, burying the piano in its descent. The kitchen and dining room is all that remains- the kitchen being the closest room to the well.

It's blindingly obvious now, the kitchen smells so dank because it leads to the building’s cellar.

Light on my feet and quick on my wits, I hurry into the back door of the house, leading to the kitchen. I scan the room for any concealed doors. The wrecking ball approaches as plaster shudders from the walls. I cover my face with my arms, worried about asbestos, and the thought of imminently being crushed.

I see clearer now the green and brown mildew around the floor of the fridge. On my first visit I assumed it had been stale water that had defrosted from the freezer, but now I see an outline. I topple the fridge over without a second thought. There are cracks in the floorboards, in the shape of a large square and a leather strap sits in the center of it. Of course, a cellar door!

Forcing the warped wood, I pull the door up. As I walk the first few steps down a ladder, I close the door behind me. A colossal thump of rubble falls above my head, making me since with fear.

Once I reach the bottom, I walk down a damp pathway, similar to a sewer. I can feel the vibration of the machinery above me, but I'm so close to the reveal, I can feel it.

Ten feet ahead of me I see the box, laying in the water at the pit of the well.

I kneel down to open the box. It's an old briefcase. The clasps click open under my wet fingers. For a second I can’t grasp the sight of stacks of ten dollar notes, wrapped in rubber bands.

"Here lies 20,000."

20,0000 dollars!

Stunned.

It suddenly becomes dark and void of sound as the bricks from the well come tumbling down.

III

Julia goes about her working days at the supermarket. She never got the date she was promised. Her friend has been missing for four days now, after he never showed for work, never answered his phone. They found his car at his home, but failed to find him.

As Julia finishes sorting the magazines, she turns to face the notebooks. It dawns on her about the little black book in the piano.

Julia opens the first Moleskine notebook on the shelf. She notices it’s faded- it doesn’t look new. So many different stamps inside. And what of this photo, and these words?

She suddenly recognizes the handwriting on the last entry:

"Cold in the water. The well has fallen. Here I lie."