The Calculator in the Drawer

It was a humid Tuesday afternoon in São Paulo when Marina, a student, received a call on her mobile while at home alone. The caller ID showed an unknown landline number, but the voice on the other end was oddly familiar, though she couldn’t place it. ‘Is your father there? This is his old friend, Henrique, I need to speak with him urgently.’ Marina, flustered, scribbled the number on a scrap of paper and promised to pass along the message. She forgot about it until dinner, when her parents were both seated across from her.

As she casually mentioned the missed call, her parents’ smiles froze. Her mother’s hand trembled, and her father’s eyes narrowed. ‘Henrique? Are you sure he said Henrique, and the number ends in 4732?’ her father asked, his voice strained. Marina nodded, confused by their reaction. Her mother whispered, ‘But Henrique passed away last year… and that number hasn’t worked since.’

Her father, a practical man, refused to let fear rule. He pulled out an old rotary phone from the basement, one that was directly connected to the copper landline, and dialed the number. The phone rang once, twice, and then a voice answered, crackling like static. ‘Hello, you’ve reached the Henrique residence. Please leave a message after the tone.’ The beep came, but before they could hang up, a distorted whisper seeped through: ‘I’ve been waiting for your call, Carlos. Come see me.’

Marina’s blood ran cold. That voice was her father’s voice, but twisted, as if from a great depth. Her father slammed the phone down, breathing heavily. ‘That’s impossible,’ he said, but his hands shook. He went to his study and returned with a dusty old calculator, the one he’d kept from his engineering days. ‘Henrique gave me this before he passed. He told me, ‘When the digits don’t add up, you’ll know it’s time.’ I never understood until now.’

The calculator turned on by itself, its display flickering between numbers: 4732, then 0, then 666. Marina felt a cold breeze pass through the room, and the lights dimmed. Her mother clutched a crucifix, muttering prayers. Her father, however, seemed to be hypnotized by the calculator, his fingers moving as if to press keys. Marina grabbed his arm, snapping him out of it. ‘We have to get rid of that thing,’ she said. ‘It’s got something to do with him.’

They drove to the cemetery where Henrique was buried. The night was heavy with fog. At the grave, her father turned the calculator on again, and the display read: ‘I left something for you in the drawer.’ Back at the house, they found a drawer in the study they had never noticed before, tucked behind a panel. Inside lay a cassette tape labeled ‘For Carlos, on the day of my death.’ They played it on an old boom box, and Henrique’s voice filled the room with a message: ‘You owe me a debt, Carlos. Your daughter answered my call, so now she’s mine. The only way to break it is to bring me a soul in return.’

Marina’s father broke down, confessing that years ago, Henrique had given him a sum of money to hide, but he had lost it gambling, and Henrique’s death was not accidental—it was suicide after he discovered the betrayal. The calculator, he said, was Henrique’s, and its number was his own private line to the afterlife. As the tape ended, the calculator’s display changed to a countdown: 10, 9, 8…

In a panic, Marina’s father realised that the only way to save his daughter was to give the calculator a new victim. He looked at her, his eyes empty, and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ But before he could do anything, Marina snatched the calculator and hurled it into the fireplace, where it burst into flames. The countdown stopped, but the room began to rumble. A deep, guttural laugh echoed from the chimney, and the embers formed a grinning face. ‘You can’t destroy the calculator, Carlos,’ Henrique’s voice hissed. ‘It’s already inside you.’

Marina looked at her father, and she saw something shifting in his eyes—a darkness that hadn’t been there before. He reached for a kitchen knife, but he was aiming at himself. Marina screamed and tackled him, but the fight was futile. In the end, it was her mother who found the strength to call for help, but by the time authorities arrived, her father was dead, and the calculator was sitting on the kitchen table, its display glowing with new digits: 1.

Marina moved to a different city, but the calculator followed her. It appeared in her bags, in her drawers, on her nightstand. Each time, the display showed a different number—a countdown of days, she realized. She was marked. The last thing she saw before the lights went out was the calculator’s screen reading ‘0’, and a voice whispering, ‘Time’s up.’