⚠️Content Warnings: death, alcohol abuse, grief, psychological horror
Laura was sorting through her grandmother’s things when she found the pen. It was a gold-plated pen nestled in velvet inside an elaborately carved wooden case. The carvings were odd, the ends seeming to flow together until it was hard to tell where one figure ended and the next began.
The pen itself didn’t seem all that special, but it fit her hand perfectly, and it was pretty, so she tucked it into her purse and continued digging through the detritus of a long life, all hidden away in a dusty attic.
After a couple more hours, she decided she’d done enough. Her sister was supposed to help, but of course she hadn’t shown up. Unsurprising for several reasons, but especially since the next day was her 30th birthday.
On the way home, Laura stopped to pick up a birthday card. In the car, she pulled out her ‘new’ pen to add a note to the funny card.
To Becca, my favorite (only) sister on her birthday…
Wishing you the very best day of the year. I hope you get lots of cake, lots of alcohol, and lots of man-meat!
Love you, little sis.
Laura
Driving by her sister’s house, she noticed the car wasn’t in the driveway. Imagining her sister out pre-birthday partying, she grinned as she slid the card under the front door, then headed home.
The next afternoon, she was busily finishing up the last of her weekend chores when the first texts arrived.
Becca: Got your card
Becca: You’re the best sister ever
Becca: And this is the best birthday ever!
Becca: Seriously, it’s been perfect.
Becca: Love you ♥️
Laura smiled before she texted back a thumbs-up and a happy face emoji, then returned to her tasks.
She was getting ready for bed that night, already dreading work the next morning, when the phone rang. Seeing her mother’s name on the screen, she answered it right away. “Hey Mom, what’s up?”
Her mother was crying, deep wrenching sobs that sounded like they came up from deep in her soul.
“Mom? What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, a worm of fear writhing deep in her gut.
The answer was almost unintelligible amidst the sobs and sniffling, but Laura knew what she’d said. She just knew…
“It’s your sister. Becca… she’s dead.”
Laura’s heart stopped beating for a moment. She felt the emptiness in her chest where that steady beat used to be. Where Becca used to be. And then it started again, leaving her gasping in a ragged breath.
“What? No. No, Mom. I just got a text from her a few hours ago,” she babbled frantically, desperate to get the words out. If she said them aloud, then they’d be true. Becca would show up, and everything would be okay.
But it wasn’t.
The next few days were a grey blur with occasional moments of clarity — choosing a casket, pulling the black dress from her closet, the smell of lilies and roses mingling with a faint hint of antiseptic, the bite of whiskey on her tongue, and the salty tears drying the skin beneath her eyes.
Life felt empty. She remembered this hollow feeling from when her dad died. The grief journal her therapist suggested had helped her back then, so she sat down at her desk, intending to write.
It only made sense to use grandma’s pen. After all, her sister had always been the old woman’s favorite. And Becca would’ve loved the box the pen came in — she’d had such a love of unique and odd knickknacks.
Laura started by writing her best memories. The two of them as preteens giggling in their sleeping bags in their backyard tent. Pinning up her sister’s long curls in preparation for her prom when she’d been nominated as queen. Looking out at Becca’s beaming face in the audience as she graduated from college.
Then she added some bad memories. The fight they’d had as teenagers over Keith Demmler when he’d asked them both out; they hadn’t spoken for almost three weeks until their Mom stepped in and forced them to talk. When Becca had married that asshat Chad, and he’d had the nerve to hit on Laura at the wedding; when she’d told her sister about it, Becca hadn’t believed her.
Then she wrote the one thought she couldn’t escape…
I wish I could tell you how much I love you, Becca. And how much I’ll miss you.
Sighing, she closed the leatherbound book, dropped the pen and its box in a drawer and headed for bed. Maybe writing all that had helped a little.
Maybe not.
That night Laura dreamt that Becca was sitting on the edge of her bed. It felt so real she could almost see the funeral home makeup caked on her sister’s pale face and smell that hint of antiseptic.
But then Becca smiled, and none of that mattered. Her sister was here. Laura’s words tangled as she rushed to get them out, “I love you so much, Becca. I miss you. I hate that you’re gone.”
Becca’s smile grew sad, and she reached out with emaciated arms to pull Laura into a tight hug. Laura wrapped her arms around her sister and hugged her back, ignoring the disturbing firmness of her sister’s body and the waxiness of her cold skin.
But Becca’s hug grew tighter and tighter, until Laura realized she couldn’t pull air into her lungs. She tried to pull back, but her sister’s grip was steady and unbreakable. Her lungs screaming, Laura began to gasp, trying desperately to suck in another breath, but there was nothing but the choking bite of formaldehyde.
Her vision started to go black at the edges, her struggles growing weaker as she shoved at her sister. And Laura realized she might join her sister in death tonight…
Then she woke with another harsh gulp of air, sucking in a breath easily now that she was awake. She shot up in bed and switched on the lamp, but the room was empty and silent aside from her own heaving breaths and racing heart.
But a faint hint of antiseptic lingered.
She shook her head to get rid of the images still vivid in her mind. What a godawful nightmare. Knowing she wouldn’t be sleeping again anytime soon, Laura went to the kitchen and made tea.
A few weeks later, Laura sat down at her desk on a Saturday, intending to pay some bills and write her monthly spousal support check to her ex-husband — the greedy asshat. She’d married too young and definitely made a poor choice she was now forced to live with. She wrote out the $450.00 check, signed it, and added a note in the MEMO line:
Hope you choke on it, Mike.
She added the same note every month. He’d complained the first couple of times, but now he just accepted it along with her money. She dropped everything in the mail and went on with her weekend.
The following Tuesday, Laura was chatting with several of her coworkers in the office breakroom when her cell rang. Excusing herself, she answered the unknown Oregon number.
An unfamiliar man’s voice came through the line, “Mrs. Jones? Mrs. Laura Jones?”
She grimaced before replying, annoyance dripping, “No. I used to be Laura Jones. I’m Ms. Laura Edgewild now. Who is this?” She intentionally dragged out the ‘z’ of Ms. longer than could be considered polite by anyone.
A cough came through the line, “I’m sorry, Ms. Edgewild. You are listed as the contact for a Mr. Mike Jones. I’m afraid I have some bad news…”
Her name was still on the emergency contact form. Divorce hadn’t erased all their connections, it seemed.
Fear crawled slowly up her throat at the words. She cleared it and responded in as even a tone as she could manage, “What’s happened? Is Mike alright?”
A long pause, then a somber response. “I’m afraid not, ma’am. I’m sorry to tell you that Mr. Jones was found dead in his apartment yesterday.”
“What?” Laura’s cry was loud enough to draw the attention of her colleagues, who shot her worried, questioning glances. She waved them off impatiently and headed out to her car where she could have privacy.
“What happened to him?” she asked quietly.
“We don’t exactly know, ma’am. It appears he suffocated.”
Mike’s choking kink immediately popped into her mind. A disgusted snort escaped her before she could stop it.
“Ma’am?” came the response.
“Sorry. Just coughing,” she answered. “Can you tell me anything else?”
“It’s been designated an accidental death, ma’am. All I know is that he was found with a small piece of paper in his windpipe.”
MEMO: I hope you choke on it, Mike.
The words floated through her mind. She shook her head and blocked the words. It was a coincidence. That’s all.
“Thank you for letting me know,” she finally said and ended the call.
She sat in her car, staring blankly out the windshield for another half hour. But her mind was spiraling through crazy ideas. She couldn’t stop picturing those words she’d written on the check.
I hope you choke on it, Mike.
“This is stupid,” she finally muttered, pushing out of the car and heading back to work.
She kept reminding herself of that for the rest of the day, so distracted she missed a scheduled customer call and completely missed a regular meeting. She told them she’d gotten bad news and wasn’t feeling well, and she left a little early, heading home by midafternoon.
She pulled into the garage, snatched her special-occasion bottle of Macallan 18 from the pantry and headed to her home office. Settling in behind her desk, she pulled the pen from the drawer and stared at it. There was nothing special about it. It was just an old gold pen.
Feeling ridiculous, she pulled out the grief journal she hadn’t touched in weeks, opened to a blank page and began to write.
This is really stupid. I’m writing with a pen like something might happen. It’s fucking ridiculous. I’m fucking ridiculous.
She sat back and waited. Nothing happened. She rolled her eyes and took a sip of scotch.
After a few minutes of empty waiting, she gritted her teeth, snatched up the pen, and began to write again.
Why am I doing this? It’s so stupid. What? Am I suggesting this pen is cursed or some shit? What the fuck is wrong with me?
She waited. Drank. Nothing.
Finally, she sighed and tried one last time.
I’m wasting my time. I just wish I could stop wondering about this and let it go.
She sat back and swallowed the last of the scotch in her glass. Nothing. She clearly needed to get her imagination under control.
She dug in the bottom drawer of the desk for the old box, intending to put the pen back in it and throw the whole mess away. When she picked up the box, she noticed a hint of white at the edge of the box’s maroon velvet interior.
Digging at it, she discovered a folded piece of paper, wrinkled and yellowed with age. She carefully pulled it free and spread the paper open. There were faded words barely visible on it. Her pulse began to race as she read:
Don’t use the pen. It’s cursed. You’ll get what you say you want, but it won’t be what you think.
Don’t use it. Ever.
Eyes wide, Laura sucked in air as she stared at the page. It was exactly what she’d been thinking. But it couldn’t be true, could it?
Suddenly she remembered the first time she used the pen, what she’d written in Becca’s birthday card…
Wishing you the very best day of the year.
It had been the best day of the year for Becca. She’d said so in her text. And it would stay the best day of her year, because there weren’t any more days.
A sob choked from deep in her chest, and she wept. The tears continued for hours, her grief and guilt mixing with scotch until she couldn’t think or see clearly anymore.
The bottle was nearly empty by the time she made the decision.
“One last time,” she slurred as she reached for the pen.
She hunched low over the grief journal, her face only centimeters from the page and wrote:
I wish Id never found this fuckign pen.
With a sloppy grin, she sat back. “Problem fucking solved, bitch,” she crowed, then downed the last swallow in the bottle in celebration.
She fell asleep slumped across her desk.
Laura was sorting through her grandmother’s things when she found the pen. It was a gold-plated pen nestled in velvet inside an elaborately carved wooden case. The carvings were odd, the ends seeming to flow together until it was hard to tell where one figure ended and the next began.
As she gazed at it, she had an odd sense of déjà vu, like a memory she couldn’t quite reach. But she was sure she’d never seen it before. And the pen itself didn’t seem particularly special, but it did fit her hand perfectly, and it was pretty, so she tucked it into her purse and continued digging through the detritus of a long life, all hidden away in a dusty attic.
—
‼️ If you liked this story, you may want read some of my other fiction.
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Ewwwwwwwwwwwww. What a revelation. Very haunting. I appreciate you sharing 🙏
Fits the theme perfect, well done