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Day 01
My grandmother told me it was a gift to see the angel of death in front of people’s houses waiting to collect their souls. I never thought it was a gift, especially when I accidentally brought one home.
Angel
Karl Rogers first saw Death’s face when he was seven years old.
He’d asked Dad who the funny looking monster outside was, and Dad had told him to shut up.
Grandma, however, kindly explained that he was looking at Death.
Death was a horrifying figure with a battered horned skull for a head and a big crown of twisted black horns. His eyes were empty black sockets, lit only by a faint amber glow like the end of his dad’s cigarettes. Death’s broad torso was flesh covered in thick fur, and he wore a skirt of animal skins and leather. A cluster of skulls and bones, including ones that were definitely human, hung at his waist.
Grandma said that Karl had the Sight.
Not everyone in their family could see Death when he came to reap souls. It tended to skip a generation. She had the Sight, and she’d expected Karl would eventually since his father hadn’t ever shown any signs. She said Karl should be happy to have such a wonderful and rare gift.
Karl didn’t think knowing their neighbor was about to die was much of a gift. It made him sad and scared him, and it was not the last time he saw Death.
A car wreck had stopped traffic on their way to the grocery store during that same visit to Grandma’s, but this time there were two.
Karl recognized the horrible figure of Death immediately as the one he’d seen before in the yard, but there was another one,anotherDeath. This one had blue flames glowing in his eyes, and he was much shorter than the first. He still easily towered over most of the nearby cars, and Karl remembered wondering if he was looking at a teenage Death.
He watched as the larger Death vanished around the side of a car, leaving the little one behind.
The little Death turned around to face him, as if sensing Karl staring.
Karl remembered waving.
The little Death tilted his head, but then he waved back.
Karl didn’t know why he’d started crying then, but he did remember his father beating him for it.
Grandma and Dad had a big fight after that, and Dad told Karl he wasn’t allowed to see her anymore.
What Karl had seen that day gave him nightmares for years, and his father decided a firm hand was the best way to cure his ailing son of his awful dreams. Karl quickly learned not to cry when he saw Death or woke up with nasty visions of it looming over his bed at night.
Its eyes were always the empty sockets with the cigarette glow burning down into his, and he never saw the little one with blue flames again.
He made himself block out the horrifying creature entirely, and he didn’t see Grandma again until he was out of high school.
She was in hospice then, dying of cancer, and Karl was with her when she died. It was weird at first since he hadn’t seen her in so long, but they’d spent the day catching up and it was like no time had passed at all. They’d reminisced about the silly antics Karl had gotten into when he was a kid, and Karl had regaled her with stories of the long string of broken hearts he’d left behind his senior year, but then…
Something weird had happened.
Grandma had kept looking over Karl’s shoulder, and the last time she did so made her gasp. She’d smiled, asking Karl in a hushed whisper, “Do you see him?”
“See who?” Karl remembered scoffing. “Grandma, there’s no one here but me and you.”
“Oh, my sweet boy.” Grandma had looked sad, and she’d patted Karl’s hand so tenderly. “Don’t worry. You’ll see him again.”
“Seewho?”
“Death.”
Karl had thought she was nuts. He’d tried to joke with her, lighten the mood a bit, but then…
She was gone.
