The List

Authors Note

We are not often cognizant of the importance of lists. The relevance of lists to our lives is as food is to hunger, as sex is to love, as clothing is to warmth. Lists keep track, lists organize, lists remind, lists guide, lists control.

One person’s list will differ from another’s depending on the demands of life.

Or death.

“You know I don’t mind you having nice things, Brendle. I only meant that I need to keep account of the spending. Just let me know when you’ve bought something. That’s all I ask.”

Brendle Railshare, dressed in her short nightgown, watched her husband in the mirror as she worked with her auburn hair. What a shame, she thought, to have spent her best years with a man shorter than herself. Had she not needed his influence and money, she would have left him years ago. The influence he held in the social community was not even his, not really. She

was the one they all wanted to see. Not one of the dinners or fundraisers had been in his honor, even though Rupert had believed as much. No, the men wanted her presence at the various company functions and house parties. If not for her, Rupert would never be invited anywhere. He’d not be second in line for vice president at Pendegrass and Plumbe, and he’d not have the salary he enjoyed if not for her wit and looks that swayed those who needed swaying.

And here in her room Rupert stood now, preaching to her about her spending. Where did he think the money came from? Rupert had turned his back a number of times while Brendle feigned illness to be taken home by men with power enough to elevate her husband’s station. Hypocritical, it was, for him to act as if he didn’t know.

Rupert—short, shy, and stupid. He had nothing whatsoever to interest her sexually. She’d tell him that someday, and she’d tell him that her spending concerned him about as much as the diet pills she took. Sometimes she wished he were just gone. She frowned now at her perfect features in the mirror.

She hadn’t even enough nerve to say the word in her mind. She just might say it now. And then suddenly she did.

DEAD, DEAD, DEAD! The words reverberated inside her head. After Rupert left for work, she’d say it aloud. She’d say it aloud or be damned.

She heard the front door closing softly and she stood to watch him go. His pudgy butt moved every bit as much as his legs as he waddled across the summer lawn toward the Lexus.

On an impulse, and in her state of half-dress, she turned from the window toward the closet where all but their most valuable records were kept. She found the insurance policy and delved into it until she found those bits of legal terminology she’d looked at twice already this month. She was the beneficiary

of $800,000 if his death were anything but suicide.

Next, she dug out her copy of the will, which left her everything—his stock in the company, the paid for home, the cars, the summer home at the lake, and “any and all funds currently drawing interest in First City Bank.”

She sat on the bed holding the documents on her shapely exposed legs and said it. “I wish he were dead, dead, dead!”

By midmorning, he was. She answered the door to the timid knocking of the city fire chief. She opened it to see the chief, a minister she recognized from the church she infrequently attended, and Mr. Goldfield, the company president. All six of their eyes went to her legs. She smiled inwardly.

“Mrs. Railshare,” said the chief, “I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

Her heart stopped. Could it have been this easy?

“Your husband has been killed. An accident with the elevator. I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t say anything. As nonchalantly as possible, she moved the papers she’d been holding to a place behind her back. Still, she hadn’t spoken.

“I know, Mrs. Railshare,” the said the chief, “that such news is hard to accept. Is there anything I can do? Would you like some time with the minister?”

“Where’s the . . . I mean, where is he?” She needed proof.

“At the morgue, but I wouldn’t advise you going there just now, Mrs. Railshare. You see . . . he was . . .”

“He was what?”

“Well, crushed. I’m sorry.”

Damn. She’d have to wait for an official identification.

She faked some tears and turned away, saying she needed to be alone.

Back in the bedroom, she put the paperwork back where it had been, and in that way, when the authorities asked her, she could dig the policy and will out of the closet just as if she’d not even thought about them.

Smiling at herself in the mirror, she said, “Thirty-seven, rich, single, and pretty.”

The transfer of funds proceeded smoothly. Within three weeks, Brendle had the insurance money as well as what the stocks brought. She said goodbye to the realtor who was just now pulling away from the Railshare home. Brendle looked at the sign sticking out of the front lawn like an obscene gesture.

Rupert had stupidly paid off the house a year before he died, and now every cent of the sale proceeds would be hers.

She reentered the house to find a stranger seated in the parlor with his black and shiny shoes propped on her hand-carved coffee table from France.  His presence startled her, but she refused to let it show. “May I helpyou?”

“Of course.”

What did he mean by that? Who the hell was he? His dress revealed neither wealth nor poverty. His plain suit was brown. He wore no jewelry that Brendle could see. “Are you with the realty company?”

“No.”

“P and P?”

“What? Oh, you mean Rupert’s company. No, I’m not from there. Try again.”

“Don’t be rude, sir. You’re in my house. I’ve recently suffered the loss of my husband. State your purpose or get out.”

As he stood, Brendle caught a glimpse of perfect teeth behind a false smile. The man was tall, his complexion dark, and his hair shiny with whatever product held it in the swept-back position that left no doubt that his eyes were small and black.

“I wish he were dead, dead, dead,” the stranger said. “Have you forgotten?”

“Get out, or I’m calling the police.”

“Are you telling me you didn’t make such a wish?”

Brendle said nothing to that. What could she say to someone who obviously knew her very words the day Rupert died?

“Are you a detective? Is there some suspicion that I killed my husband?”

“You weren’t there,” he said. “The elevator malfunctioned. It’s all a matter of record now.”

“So what do you want?”

“Why, payment of course?”

“For what?”

“For granting your wish.”

“I’ll ask you once more to leave. If my husband owed you some debt, take it up with the lawyers.”

“Brendle, please,” he crooned. “Don’t act as if you don’t know. You’re a member now. I’m afraid you have to pay. Club rules, you know.”

“Who are you?”

“Just another member. Perhaps I should explain. Sometimes new members are confused at first.” He sat down again. “You wished for your husband to die. You said it aloud. You can’t do that without becoming a member. I’m simply here to collect what you owe His Excellence.”

“His Excellence? Who in hell is that?”

 “There you go. If you know where he lives, surely you know who he is.”

This was beyond bazaar. This creep obviously wanted something from her. Maybe she ought to know what.

“What is the payment? My soul?”

“I’ve not been clear,” he said. “If your soul were your own, you wouldn’t be a member. You lost that the moment you verbalized the death wish against Rupert. Having established that, what else might His Excellence require?”  The tiny dark eyes turned yellow. “A few more souls, Brendle, that’s all. His

Excellence is impatient. Of our many members, there are those who cannot be expected to die for some time. Your payment is that you simply verbalize your wish that they die immediately.” He reached inside his coat. "Here’s a list. You must select each one in order as it appears. The left column first, then to the top of the second.” He stood and handed the parchment to

Brendle.

“I don’t want your list.” She let it fall to the table. “I’ll make no such statements against anyone. This is the last time I’ll tell you to leave.”

“Very well, Brendle.” He started for the door. “But a member not in good standing shall not be permitted to live.” He said not another word before leaving her alone in the house.

She sat on the sofa where he had sat and picked up the paper—a handwritten list of names in two columns. So many. She read the names then, recognizing each one. One was her brother, Danny. His was the second name in the second column.

Danny was a member? What might Danny have done in his twenty years of life to deserve damnation?

Surely, the visitor was a fraud—just someone that overheard her when she wished Rupert dead. A cruel and evil joke, this was. She’d have no part of it.

She carried the parchment to the library and began to build a small fire in the fireplace. She placed the paper on the rising flames and stood to watch it flare up, wither, and fall apart.

Brendle slept well that night, dreaming of nothing. She arose fresh and ready to go about the business of sorting her belongings for the moving company to pack. A midmorning spark of pain in her breast made her flinch, but it was gone as quickly as it came. But the discomfort returned, and made itself

at home. Indigestion, she thought, and took the appropriate remedy. No relief.

A heart attack? Surely not. She was only thirty-seven.

The pain increased. A numbness absorbed the left side of her face. In the hall mirror she was horrified to see that side drooping, the skin sagging.

A stroke! She was having a stroke. She had only to reach out to get to the wall phone. Picking out 9-1-1, she put the receiver to her ear. Nothing. No ringing, no dial tone. She would die!

With that thought came another. She rushed to the cold fireplace and poked gently at the ashes. No worse for being burned, the paper was there, the names as clear as her knowledge of what she must do.

She sat in the floor, put her finger on the first name, Silas Beamington, a druggist she’d known all her life. “I wish you were dead, dead, dead,” she said, and immediately the pain left her chest. A tingling on her cheek told her that

the numbness was fading.

She looked at the list. Beamington’s name had disappeared.

He was bound for hell anyway, she thought. The old coot, twice he’d made passes at her right in the store, and him married. Good riddance.

Just the same, Brendle avoided the drug store that week. The news came to her from her hairdresser, Mrs. Turnell, whose name was also on the list.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” Mrs. Trundell was saying about the druggist. “But my goodness, it was so sudden. Not even his wife knew he had been ill. A brain tumor, they said.”

Quoting scripture, of all things, and her a member, Brendle thought.

Brendle had apparently been given a reprieve. The house was sold, the new Corvette gleamed in the new garage, and she had new friends closer to her age than were Rupert’s fuddy-duddies. With the passing weeks, she thought of the list, of Danny, and of the likelihood that it all had been a mean prank and that Beamington’s death was coincidental.

A humid August afternoon had driven Brendle inside to set beside the enclosed pool. Her new home was bigger than what Rupert had given her.  She stretched out on the lounger to give the sunlight full access to her slender features. She liked the glassed-in pool. She especially liked it when the gardener

or the postman paused to gawk. Maybe she ought to go in the water and let them see the crystal droplets falling from her tanned skin. She mustn’t get her hair wet, though. Wet hair was definitely not sexy.

She sat up and realized she’d developed a nosebleed. Oh, bother. Her suit would be stained. She headed for the door that led into a bathroom. By the time she was there, her bare feet were slapping in her own blood. It gushed out with every heartbeat, like an artery inside her head had been severed.

Suddenly knowing the cause, she rushed to her upstairs room, feeling weaker by the second. The list was in her purse.

The first name now was Frank Maloney, Rupert’s barber, a man she hardly knew.

A bloody finger on that name, she said, “I wish you were dead, dead, dead.”

And Frank died that day from an aneurysm.

Danny’s name was now two names closer to the top of the list. Brendle had no doubt now that the curse was real, and that she was sending people to hell before their time. What would she do when Danny’s name came up?

Six more people died before Brendle broke. She released the tension of seven months in the dead of night, screaming for another chance to bargain with the stranger from hell.

He appeared at the foot of her bed wearing the same brown suit.

“Thank you,” she breathed, “for coming. I’ve done your bidding thus far, but you’ve assigned a name to me that I cannot mention. He’s a good boy, never been in trouble, a hard worker. I beg you to remove his name from the

list.”

“You know your brother not at all, Brendle. He’s a rapist. He hates women.”

“Liar!” she screamed. “Not Danny. Oh, please, not Danny!”

The man in the brown suit came around and sat beside Brendle on the bed. His tone was calm as he put a hand on her leg. “Hush now, Brendle. His Excellence has heard you. Every member gets one change to the list. We really should have a form with all the rules.”

“Change? I can remove Danny’s name?”

“Yes, yes, of course. But we’ll have to replace his with another name of our choosing.”

Brendle’s mind raced. She had no one, not really, other than Danny. She hated her parents. She had no friends she couldn’t replace, what with all her money and looks.

“All right,” she said. “Add any name other than Danny’s or mine.  Agreed?”

“Agreed,” he said, and walked out. She heard no steps on the stairs as he departed.

She reached to the nightstand for her purse. In the low light of the bedlamp, she looked for Danny’s name on the list. It had been replaced with that f Chester. No last name, just Chester. She knew no Chester. The demon had mde a mistake. She smiled. A deal was a deal. It should prove no chore at all

to wish for the death of a stranger.

Brendle took no chances on close encounters with her own death. She carried th list religiously, and uttered the necessary words once each week. Rupert’s friends escaped the trials of life one by one, week by week.

And in that way, Brendle’s days and months fled from her, leaving her with new possessions, new acquaintances, and memories of sensual pleasures she’d never known.

One such pleasure was Ian Fielding. Brendle discarded caution where Ian was concerned. Ian’s age was less than hers, as was his social standing. His business involved the buying and selling of livestock, and he looked the part, always under dressed for the flings and parties Brendle hosted. He wore jeans

usually, and a faded leather jacket. She blatantly pursued his attention, and she gained it time and time again. As trim as the racing horses he bred, Ian was indeed a beautiful man, and his anxiousness to please kept her mind away from other men.

He moved in. Talk of marriage rose and fell with their days and nights together. When Brendle learned that she carried his baby, she was not unpleased.  Her doctor told them it would be a boy, and that he expected no problems.

“I’ll chose the name,” she told her lover, and he agreed.

On an autumn morning as unblemished as the newborn’s skin, Robert Ian Fielding came willingly from the darkness of Brendle’s womb into the light of love—love that deepened between mother and father because of what they’d created.

The child grew in age measured in moments, and as he developed, the list dwindled. Brendle checked it today by the kitchen window light that fell upon her perfect son, illuminating hair, eyes, and facial expressions identical to his father’s.

Brendle, having been blessed with the child, wanted to be done with the killing, and knowing she had no way out but to proceed with the next name, she breathed it now, glad in the fact that she had started the second column.  She’d be over halfway done when Arthur Fairchild, Rupert’s uncle and a man

with a gambling problem, died today. She touched the name and said again, “I wish you dead, dead, dead.”

She had stopped checking the obituaries. She refrained from listening to the news or reading the paper. Nothing in the forced bargain mandated that she know about the deaths. She had no time for depressing thoughts now.  She and Ian had a son to raise.

Two things Brendle needed. To be done with the list, and to be married to Ian. The latter she would bring to Robert’s father’s attention again tonight.  Surprisingly, Ian welcomed the topic. He’d been wanting to get her feelings on the matter, he said.

“I love you, Brendle. I’ll not be complete until you are legally mine.”

His words drove deep into her consciousness. He truly loved her, he was the first that ever had, and he’d be the last she’d ever want.

Two weeks fell away as the wedding plans unfolded. In the bustle, Brendle forgot the list. Perhaps it was that she deliberately forgot it, not wanting the morbid business interfering with her life at this special time.

But as before, a reminder came upon her in the form of an illness. She developed an uneasiness in her chest, this time accompanied by a cough, and then a bloody cough arrived as she laid Robert in his crib.

No matter. She’d get the list. In the kitchen now, by the window, she placed her finger on the second name of the second column. She said the words. Her discomfort subsided. From hence forth, she’d not let the matter go untended for so long, she decided.

Through the window, she saw Ian stepping hurriedly along the sidewalk, papers in his hand. He entered, breathing hard.

“Darling, it’s official. I have the license. We shall be as one in less than a week. I need your signature here.” He pointed to a dotted line just above his own name, Chester Ian Fielding.