Survived By

Description

Your obituary runs in Tuesday’s paper — full name, kind words, surviving family, a date of death still a week away. The paper is never wrong about the date.

The Ledgerton Courier prints what it’s told, and lately someone has been feeding it the dead in advance: complete, dignified obituaries for people very much alive, each listing a date that arrives right on schedule. By the time the ink dries, the clock is already running.

Copy editor Junie Vásquez catches the pattern on the layout desk and can’t make anyone believe her until the bodies start matching the print. Then a galley proof lands in her inbox that she didn’t typeset — her own name in the headline, her own date a week out, every detail correct except the one she gets to decide.

A tightening dread of a book about deadlines made literal, this is horror with newsprint on its fingers. Walton plays the countdown like a held note. You’ll start reading obituaries to check for your own.

Find the paper. Read to the bottom. Note the date.