The Obituary Club

The Woman Who Read Her Own Obituary "There's only one thing more terrifying than reading about someone else's death... reading your own." My name is Nora Hayes. I'm twenty-eight years old. I'm an investigative journalist for The Daily Herald. For years, I built my career exposing lies, uncovering corruption, and dragging hidden truths into the light. I believed every mystery had an explanation. Ghosts? Fairy tales. Curses? Stories people invented when reality hurt too much. Magic? Only in books. The irony? The biggest story of my life began because I laughed at the truth. If someone had told me that within seven days I'd be reading my own obituary, I would've smiled politely... and recommended they seek professional help. Now... I'd give anything to laugh like that again. This story didn't begin with a murder. It didn't begin with a scream. It began with the quietest Sunday morning I'd ever known. --- Sunlight poured over the streets of Ashcroft City, painting rooftops in warm shades of gold. Church bells echoed lazily through the crisp morning air. Children chased one another along the sidewalks, their laughter drifting between rows of brick houses. An elderly woman watered flowers on her balcony while her husband struggled to fold his newspaper without tearing it. Everything felt... Normal. Peaceful. Safe. Completely unaware that before the week was over... Five strangers would begin counting down the final days of their lives. At exactly six o'clock, a lone figure appeared at the entrance to Maple Crescent. He wore the faded blue uniform of a postman. Yet something about him felt... Wrong. He carried no letters. No parcels. Only a neat stack of identical newspapers tucked beneath one arm. Without greeting anyone... Without knocking... He stopped outside Apartment 3B. He bent down. Slid a folded newspaper beneath the door. Then continued walking. He never looked back. Not once. As though he'd delivered that same newspaper a thousand times before. An elderly neighbor opened her door just in time to catch a glimpse of him disappearing around the corner. She blinked. The street was empty. No footsteps. No sound. Nothing. Almost as though he'd never been there at all. --- Inside Apartment 3B... My alarm blared for the third time. I groaned, buried my face beneath a pillow and muttered, "Five more minutes..." The alarm, unfortunately, had other plans. After losing the argument, I dragged myself out of bed. Coffee. Black. Cheap. The only thing in my apartment that had never lied to me. My apartment wasn't exactly impressive. The wallpaper peeled from the corners. The kitchen sink leaked whenever it pleased. Books covered almost every surface because I'd run out of shelves months ago. My desk disappeared beneath notebooks, camera lenses, newspaper clippings and unfinished investigations. Messy? Absolutely. Home? Without question. As I shuffled toward the kitchen, something near the front door caught my eye. A folded newspaper rested quietly on the floor. I frowned. We hadn't received Sunday deliveries since the publishing company ended the service over a year ago. Curiosity got the better of me. I picked it up. The paper felt... Different. Thicker than any newspaper I'd ever held. The ink smelled strangely fresh. As though it had only just come off the printing press. Across the top of the front page, printed in faded black letters, was its name. THE OBITUARY CLUB Beneath it, stretching boldly across the page, sat the week's headline. THIS WEEK'S DEAD I couldn't help laughing. "What kind of ridiculous newspaper is this?" There were no advertisements. No politics. No business section. No weather forecast. No sports. Nothing. Only obituary after obituary. Whoever printed this wasn't looking for attention. They were looking for believers. I turned the page. One obituary immediately caught my eye. --- Margaret Ellis Beloved mother. Cherished grandmother. She will pass away after suffering a sudden heart attack. Location: Hawthorne Bakery Date: Wednesday Time: 10:14 a.m. --- I stared at the page for a long moment before shaking my head. "They even included the exact time?" Whoever created this... Was disturbingly committed to the joke. I tossed the newspaper onto the couch and reached for my coffee. Outside... A church bell rang softly in the distance. At that moment... I had no idea that before the next Sunday arrived... I would stop laughing forever. Because somewhere inside that newspaper... My obituary had already been written. Some newspapers report yesterday's news. This one reports tomorrow's deaths.