The Face of Death
by Larry Sells

            Glen Grey walked to the elevator of the Towers Building and bumped into a couple of passengers. As Glen apologized, he looked at their faces.  In the place of their faces, Glen saw fleshless ghostlike skulls.   He allowed the elevator to leave the floor and started walking toward the stairs.  Few minutes later, the cable broke on the elevator.  The inhabitants screamed as the elevator fell to the bottom of the shaft.  A boom erupted from the shaft and dust raced to the top of the shaft covering the elevator.

              Glen shook his head as he walked up the stairs on his way to The Dreams Publishing Company.  He knew this wasn’t the first time his gift or curse saved his life.

 The first time he noticed that he had this gift was when he was eight years old.  When his parents and he went to Adventureland in Des Moines, he looked at their faces, and they were normal.   They drove to Adventureland without any mishap.  Two hours later, they were walking around the park then they waited in line for the roller coaster.  Glen looked at his parents’ faces and saw two ghostlike skulls in them and shook his head then he looked again.  The ghostlike skulls were still there.  We shouldn’t ride in this roller coaster something awful is going to happen,” Glen pleaded with his parents.

            His parents looked deep into his face and said, “You are being silly.  We will be fine.   Are you going to ride with us?”

            “No, and you two shouldn’t ride the roller coaster either.”

              His parents hugged him, left him on the dock, and climbed into the roller coaster car.  Tears flowed down his cheeks when the car started up the first hill.  It went around the first bend then around the second bend.  On the third bend, the foundation of the track cracked and dumped the track and the car to the ground.

              Glen screamed and tried to get his parents, but the operator held him.   “Don’t look.”  Tears landed on the worker’s shirt.

              When the gravediggers bury Glen’s parents, his grandmother took him by the arm and said, “You can come and live with Grandfather and me.   That’s if you want to.”

              Glen nodded his head and wiped off tears falling down his cheeks. “Yes.”

              Glen went into his office at The Dreams Publishing Company.   He poured himself a cup of coffee when his secretary, June, came bursting into his office.  “The elevator just crashed to the bottom of the shaft.”  June gave herself a hug.  Glen saw that she was upset, approached her, and put his arms around her.

              Glen shook his head and thought to himself.  Did he really hear the crash of the elevator in the stairway on his way to The Dreams Publishing Company?  “Is there an ambulance and rescue team on their way?”

              June swallowed hard and answered Glen’s question, “Yes the janitor called them after he found the battered elevator in the basement.  You usually take the elevator, why didn’t you take it today?”

              “I felt like I needed some extra exercise and decided to take the stairs,” Glen patted his stomach.

              June tried to laugh, but instead started to cry.

              Glen held June and looked at her.  “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?  We aren’t going to get any work done.”

              June wiped tears off her cheeks with a tissue.  “Okay, I think I’ll do that.  Thanks, Glen.  Are you going to take the day off too?”

              “No, I have some things to do before I can go home.”

              “You should at least allow yourself to get off early and surprise your wife.”

              “I just might put in a half day instead of a full day and surprise my wife by taking her out for lunch.”  He picked up the phone and dialed the local flower shop.

              An hour later, his wife, Chris, opened the door for the delivery person then took her flowers and her card from him.  She removed a dollar bill from her pants pocket and gave it to him.  As the delivery vehicle left, she looked at the card.

              See you at lunch.   Meet me at Happy Chef around noon.  Love, Glen.

             Chris smiled, put the flowers in a vase, and slipped the card in the drawer with the others.

            At noon, Chris sat at a booth in front of the door waiting for her husband to join her, and she looked at her watch.  She then waved down a waitress and ordered a pot of coffee.

              When the pot of coffee arrived, Glen rushed through the door.  He spotted Chris and joined her at the booth.  The waitress then gave them their menus and left them.

              “Sorry, that I was late.  I was working on something and lost track of time.”

              “That’s okay, thought that was the case, but I knew that you would be here.”

              Glen took a deep breath,  “The elevator at our building crashed into the bottom of the shaft.  It killed everyone on the elevator.”

              “Oh no! Chris said,  “Did they get anybody out and do they know any of the victims’ names.”

              “It was a big mess.  They were just starting to carry the mutilated bodies out of the elevator when I left.”

              Quickly, Chris changed the subject.  “How’s the writing coming along?”

            Glen realized that Chris changed the subject when something was too much for her to handle.   “Good.  I will be sending out some poems and some short stories tomorrow.”

              “Glad to hear that home office of yours is doing you some good.”

              “Yep, thanks to you for giving me the space to create my own world,” Glen said as he grabbed Chris’s hand and pulled it toward his face.

              “Are you going back to the office?”

              “No, everything at the building is closed down due to the accident.  I will go home with you and start writing a story.  Who knows it might deal with an elevator accident.”  He paused and drank some coffee.  “Any plans for the rest of the day?”

              “I plan on going shopping for groceries and will return before five.”

               “That sounds good, honey.  I should be done by then and we can eat together and do something afterwards.”

            “Perfect.  I plan to be back by five and will look forward spending to time with you after supper.”

              Glen sat with his mind heavy with thought.  Glen’s mind went back in time to when he was a teenager.  Grandmother Grey tucked Glen in bed.  Looking at her face, Glen saw a ghostlike skull in the place of her face. He shut his eyes real fast and hard then opened them.  The skull was still there.  “Grandma, can I sleep with you tonight.”

              “Why?”  Grandmother looked at Glen’s face and saw real concern in them.

              “I think that you are in danger of dying.  And I think that if I go and sleep with you that you will be okay.”

              “Sure, even though I think that you are a little old to sleep with me.”  Grandmother Grey walked down the stairs in front of Glen.  Suddenly, Grandmother tripped on her shoestrings and fell down the stairs.  Glen tried to grab her.  As Grandmother tumbled down the stairs, Glen looked at the piece of her nightgown in his hand.  After she struck the bottom of the stairs, Glen ran to her, and phoned 911.  “Hello could I have an ambulance sent to 303 East Street, New Hartford, IA.”  My Grandma just fell down the stairs and isn’t moving.”

              “I will send one right away.  I just want to make sure I have the address correct.  It’s 303 East Street, New Hartford, IA.” 

              When Glen understood that an ambulance was on its way, he hung up the phone and dashed to his Grandmother’s side.  He lifted her head and rested it on his lap.  Blood flowed on his hands and his pajama bottoms.  Glen looked at the blood on his hands and wiped them on his pajama top.

              Grandfather Grey walked through the door, looked at Glen and his wife on the floor.  He dashed to her side.

“Did you call an ambulance?”

              Glen nodded his head, “They’re on their way.”  He started to sob.  Between sobs, Glen said, “It’s all of my fault.  It’s entirely my fault; I told her that she was going to die.

              “That’s nonsense.  You didn’t cause the accident.  Nor could you have known that she was going to die.”

            The ambulance arrived and the attendants ran to the side their aid.   One of the attendants took her pulse and couldn’t find one.  “Get the EKG ready we are going to have to shock her.”  Attendant stuck the patches on Grandmother Grey while the other set the defibrillator, greased up the paddles, slipped the paddles on her, and shocked her.  Grandmother’s body jumped up and down.  Still no change, they shocked her again. Her line was still straight. An attendant performed CPR.  Ten minutes later, there was no change and the attendant pronounced her dead, he looked at his watch, and wrote the time of death in his log book.

            At his Grandmother’s funeral, Glen realized that his gift or curse was real and when he saw a ghostlike skull in people’s faces that they were going to die.  Glen also realized that if he warned them they might not believe him, forcing him to keep it to himself.

            After Glen and Chris finished eating their meal and drinking their cups of coffee, they left a couple dollars on the table, paid for their meals, and left Happy Chef.

            When they got home, Glen kissed Chris deep on the lips and went into his home office.  Chris shook her head and smiled then started to prepare the barbecue ribs for their supper.  After Chris finished, she knocked on his home office door.  

            Glen shouted so she could hear him, “Come in, honey.”

            Chris walked in and stood next to her husband.  Glen turned his head to look at her and saw a ghostlike skull in the place of her face.  He quickly shut his eyes for a few seconds and looked back at her face.  The skull was still there.  Tears started to flow down his cheeks and his hands started to tremble.

            Chris wiped his tears off.  “Is there anything wrong with you?”

            He took his time to form his words.  Dear God let her believe me.  Don’t let her end up like my parents, dead.  “I believe that you are going to be in some kind of danger.  Maybe you shouldn’t go shopping alone.”  He hoped that with him going with her to the shopping center would prevent her death.

            “Don’t be silly, I’ll be fine and you have writing     to do.”

            “My writing can wait.  I should go with you.  I really think that you are in some kind of danger.”

            “You know what I think, honey.  I think that you have been writing horror stories too long.  They have got you spooked.”

              Glen quickly got out of the chair and grabbed Chris.  “You are not going anywhere.”

              “Okay, okay.  I’ll just go down to the basement and do some laundry.”

              Glen let her go and said, “Good but be careful.  I would hate to see you fall down the steps and break your neck.”

              “I’ll be careful.”  Chris said then she ran to the front door, started the car, and left for HyVee.

              Glen heard the door shut and thought that it was the basement door, but he wanted to make sure that Chris did not leave the house.  “Chris.”

              No answer.

               He walked to the basement door, opened it, and said, “Chris.”

              Again there was no answer.

             Glen realized that she had left the house got inside his car, removed his keys from his left pocket, and tried to start the car.  The car didn’t even turn over and the generator lights would not light up. Glen pulled the door open, slammed it, and struck the window.  Blood flowed from his swelling hand.

             Chris parked her car by the outside light as it went out.  She thought about moving the car, but decided against it.  Chris shook her head and laughed.  She allowed Glen’s warning to spook her, and walked into HyVee.  She grabbed the only cart it was lucky thirteen.

              Chris finished her shopping and went to the cashier aisle.  She took out the groceries as the cashier put them through the scanner.  A clerk bagged them while Chris paid for the groceries with her debit card as the clerk set her bags into the grocery cart.

             “Miss, do you want to use the pick-up or do you want to unload it yourself?”

              “I’ll use the pick-up, thank you.”

              The clerk wrote the number of the cart on a piece of paper and handed it to Chris.

              Chris went to her car underneath the blind outside light.  She got into the car unknowing that two people were hiding in her back seat.  When Chris sat in the car and put her key in the ignition, the two men jumped out from the back seat.   One of the men shoved a revolver into her face as the other one climbed into the front seat next to her.  “Be quiet and you won’t be hurt.  Do you have groceries to be picked up at the door?”

              “Yes, don’t hurt me.”

              “Go get your groceries and have the clerk put them in the trunk.”

              She calmly pulled into the lane with the pick-up window was and showed the clerk her number.  The clerk found cart thirteen and pushed it in the pick-up lane.

              “Where do you want the groceries, miss?”

              Instantly, Chris replied to the clerk, “The trunk, please.”   She pulled on the inside trunk release.   The clerk opened the trunk door and put the sacks of groceries into the trunk.  The clerk tapped on the trunk door to make sure it was properly closed and waved at Chris as she pulled away.

              The men made her drive on a deserted road and told her to stop the car.   “Get out of the car, now.”

              She did what she was told to do and held her arms up.

              One of the men was going through her purse and removed all of her money then he handed the purse to her.  They looked at each other and shot her in the head.  She fell back onto the side of the street.  They pulled away from Chris’s body as a jogger approached.  The jogger pulled out a cellular phone, called 911, and told the 911 operator the car’s license plate number.

              Within a few minutes, the police and an ambulance were at the scene.

              With one hand, Glen was typing away at his computer hoping that Chris would me all right.  Suddenly, he felt a chill; he shivered, and looked at the clock.  It was almost five when Glen went in the kitchen, pulled out the barbecue ribs, took off the cover of the roaster, and pulled a piece off a rib and tasted it.  “Hmm, it’s done and good.”  He was setting it on the table when he heard a knock at the back door.    Glen pulled open the door and saw a policeman at the door. As the policeman told Glen that his wife was dead, Glen started to cry.  The policeman also told Glen that they had the men in custody.

              Glen heard what he said through layers of grief.  He shook the policeman’s hand and watched him walk to his car.

              A couple days after the funeral, Glen was shaving his face.  He looked at the mirror and saw a ghostlike skull in the place of his face.  Good, it’s my turn to die.  Glen wiped the shaving cream off his face then went inside his home office and started to write.

               Suddenly, Glen felt a sharp pain in his chest, and a sharp pain in his left arm.   Glen went to the medicine cabinet, saw the ghostly skull in the place his face.  With shaky hands, he slowly opened up the medicine cabinet door, removed an aspirin, and put it back into the bottle.  His legs barely carried him to the living room and he lay down on the couch.  He closed his eyes and died.

              He picked himself out of his body and walked out into the street.   Glen saw Chris and ran to her then they went into the light. 

©2000 Larry Sells 

Larry Sells lives in Cedar Falls, IA and work as a dishwasher.