The Grim Reaper Comes For Me

Justin Joseph                                                                          Word Count: 3, 904

Cell Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail] 









THE GRIM REAPER COMES FOR ME





    The air was cold on a late October night in Salem, Massachusetts while I was driving towards my apartment.  I watched as the weeping willow trees from the cemetery flew past my car as I drove past the cemetery. I am a twenty one-year- old college student, and a junior at Salem State College. I was feeling tired because I had just finished studying for five hours at the library for my history midterm.  While driving I wondered, “Why did the government and the college make a Liberal Arts major take History? I may never use history again in my life! I do not know why my History professor is so tough!” Driving into my apartment complex, I found the last empty parking spot in front of my apartment building. While sitting in the driver’s seat of my car, I looked out of the windshield, staring at the hundreds of tombstones in the cemetery across the street from my apartment.  After a few minutes, I could see fog surrounding the tombstones in the cemetery. It reminded me of a scene I had seen in an old black and white scary movie a long time ago.  While looking at the tombstones, which always sent a chill down my spine, I told myself, “This was the last apartment I could afford with my salary at my part time job as a waitress at the local diner near my college, and I didn’t have a lot of time because of the fifteen hours I am taking this semester.” As I opened my car door, I started to hear thunder rumbling in the sky. I rolled my eyes, while sighing and thought, “Oh great! This is just a perfect end to a perfect day!” I quickly grabbed my backpack, trying to get into my building before the rain started to pour down from the sky. But, as I was getting out of the car, I started to feel a few rain drops falling on my left shoulder. While grabbing my backpack and purse, I hoped that the rain would not be bad, since I did not have an umbrella in my car because the meteorologists were not predicting any rain storms in the area tonight.  After spending five hours in the library studying for my history midterm, the only thing I cared about now was getting into my apartment and taking a long nap. Walking towards my apartment building, I could see the rain shower was getting heavier as every second passed. Five minutes later, I had to put my backpack over my head to protect myself from the heavy rain. When I reached the lobby of my building, my clothes and backpack were completely soaked from the rain.  When I walking towards the elevator, I saw a sign on the door of the elevator which said, “Notice: Elevator out of order!” I bit my tongue because my only option now was to walk up the six flights of stairs to my apartment.

          I started to walk towards the door to the staircase. Climbing the stairs took me forty-five minutes to finally reach the floor of my apartment, and I was exhausted. After I caught my breath, I started to walk towards my apartment door.  I stood in front of the door of my apartment, holding my keys in my hands.  While looking at the door I could see the blue paint on the door was beginning to peel off of the door revealing the red color, which looked like blood underneath the paint.  I looked up at the door, seeing that the nine in my apartment number was missing the top screw was, and it was dangling upside down.

This got me more annoyed because when I told one of the maintenance workers to fix it, more than two weeks ago, they said, “We will fix it.”

I guess they did not care about fixing it, since it was a minor issue, but this annoyed me because it looked like instead of apartment number 669, it looked like I live in apartment 666! That did not concern me too much though.  All that I wanted now was to get into my apartment and take a good nap. I held the gold colored doorknob of my apartment with my left hand, as I slid my apartment key into the doorknob with my right hand and turned it half way to the left side to unlock the door.

Quickly stepping into my apartment, I locked the wooden apartment door behind me. I threw my backpack onto the fabric couch in my living room, as I walked towards my bedroom. As I was walking to my bedroom, I thought to myself, “It was lucky I was able to get a one bedroom apartment. I just need a little bit of quiet time to myself.” I placed my hand onto the wooden doorknob of my wooden closet to grab an old t-shirt and a pair of black gym shorts with little white stripes on the sides. Since I was not planning to go out in the evening, I did not really care about how I looked in my own bedroom. I jumped into my bed and a few minutes later, I was beginning to close my eyes to fall asleep.

        While sleeping, I had a strange dream, but it also seemed like a memory too.

I had just turned sixteen, and I just received my driver’s license yesterday in the mail. I was so excited. I finally had the freedom every sixteen year old had dreamed about. I was driving my 1958 blue Ford Thunderbird, which was a gift I had received from my grandmother on my sixteenth birthday. The sky was pitch black and the rain was falling hard outside. My eyes could barely see anything, since the headlights were broken on the old car. I was listening to some rock n’ roll music on my car radio and driving forty miles per hour on the road.  I was driving on one of the roads near my parent’s house on my way to visit my friend, Kelly. I felt my car going over a bump in the road about an hour and thirty minutes later. I looked through my rearview mirror to see if I had accidently run over an animal, but I was too far to clearly see anything. I continued to drive because I did not see anything lying on the road. But, as I was driving further down the road, I had a nagging feeling. Something was saying, “Sara Willows, go back and look on the road.” I was trying to ignore the eerie feeling within me, but I could not understand why I was feeling this way.  I quickly found the next available u- turn, and turned onto the road going in the opposite direction.  About thirty minutes later, I stopped on the opposite side of the road, where I had felt the bump a while ago. I parked the car on the side of the road and felt that same eerie feeling coming over me. Suddenly I was overcome with dread. While looking out the window, I still could not see anything, because it was still too dark outside, and the rain was beginning to make large puddles on the road. There was something inside of me telling me, “Get out of the car. You need to see what you did!” I did not understand where this very strange feeling was coming from. I began to wonder, “Am I the only one, who has ever had these feelings, or does everybody get this type of feeling at some point in their lives?” I quickly pulled my car keys from the ignition of the car and placed it into my purse. I pulled the door handle towards me, while pushing the car door open with my right hand. 

      I began to hear something in my subconscious yelling, “HURRY UP, SARA, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!”

        I was still unsure about what was happening to me. I slowly stepped out of my car with my left foot onto the asphalt of the road. I gently moved my right foot as I stepped out of the car. I was beginning to feel scared about what I might find lying on the street. My whole body was trembling with each step I took. I could feel goosebumps appearing on my arms and all over my body. It felt like I had committed an awful crime, but I did not think I committed any type of crime, not even a misdemeanor. As I was walking, I began to wonder, “Why am I hearing a voice? I have always considered myself an atheist, and I don’t even believe in a God or the soul.  Am I going crazy?”

Suddenly, I felt a huge gust of wind behind my back as I smelled the car fuels in the air. I started to walk faster with each step. It was as if somebody or something was making me walk faster because if I did not hurry up, something bad was going to happen to somebody. Two minutes later, I was close enough to see a lump lying on the road. At first I thought it was a pile of laundry that had fallen off from a pick-up truck.  But as I got a few feet closer, I could see a face lying on the ground. I bent down next to the object, and looked closer at the face. I was shocked and completely horrified to see a small African American boy lying in the middle of the road.  The boy looked like he was about nine years old. I placed both of my hands on the boy’s chest, trying to give him CPR, hoping that would save his life. But, after a few minutes of pressing on his chest and doing mouth to mouth, I still could not feel a pulse. After a few seconds, I immediately knew the boy was dead. I placed my left forearm underneath the corpse’s head to lift him off of the gray asphalt of the street. I gently rocked back and forth as I held the corpse of the boy while I started crying. My tears were flowing like a river out of my eyes, as I looked up at the night sky and screamed, “No!” I could not believe I accidently killed a nine-year-old boy, I did not know what I should do. Still holding the nine-year-old boy, I quickly opened my flip-phone and dialed 9-1-1 with my trembling fingers on the number pads. I held the cold cell phone up to my ear, but after the dial tone the only thing I could hear was a busy signal.

      I cursed under my breath as I thought, “Isn’t this number supposed to be for emergencies? Why did I get a busy signal? Someone should have been on the other end!” I was so frustrated and very angered by the event I was witnessing.  I slammed my flip-phone closed and  held the phone with my clenched fist next to my head and threw the phone as far as I could. I watched as the phone flew from my hand, through the night air, and finally landed about forty five feet away. My eyes darted across, as the phone was falling to the ground and broke into a million pieces onto the hard asphalt of the road.

          This is when I finally woke up from my dream or my nightmare. I sat up in my bed and discovered my body was covered with sweat. I placed my hand on my bed sheets and found that it was completely soaking wet with my sweat. I lifted my legs, as I placed my elbows onto my knees. While rubbing my eyes with my fists, I began to wonder, “Was that a dream or was it a memory?” All the memories of when I was sixteen came back, and I tried to remember if an event like that had ever happened to me. As I tried to recall all of the events that had happened in my life that year, I could not remember anything like that really happening to me. But, I began to wonder, “Could it be a suppressed memory, and for some reason I don’t remember anything like that?”  I shook my head at the notion, sincerely hooping that it was just a very strange nightmare, because how could the brain naturally suppress a memory like that?  I did not really run over and kill a nine year old African American boy when I was sixteen-years-old, but I still had this strange and gloomy feeling hovering over me. I did not understand why I was feeling this way.  It was as if something evil was coming for me.

        Lying back down on the bed, while wondering why I was feeling this way, I tried to fall back asleep. As I was beginning to close my eyes to fall asleep again, I could hear a knock on the front door of my apartment. I quickly opened my eyes again and groaned. I rolled over onto my left side to look at the clock which said, “10:00 p.m.” I slowly got up wondering, “Who would be knocking on my door at this late hour?” I slowly walked towards my front door, still half asleep.

          A few minutes later, I finally arrived at my front door. After unlocking the front door and opening it, I did not see anyone standing out in hallway. I figured it was just the wind hitting the window, but that only annoyed me further, especially after the horrible nightmare I just had, which interrupted my sleep! I quickly slammed the apartment door and locked it again.  I went to the door of my balcony, which overlooked the cemetery, to see if something was hitting the window, but I did not see anything that was hitting the window and could see that the rain had finally stopped. I could also hear a murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens, and the swinging of metal gates from the cemetery across the street from my apartment. As I was turning around to go back to my bedroom again, I heard another knock on my front door. I was beginning to get frustrated with the person who was knocking on my front door. I yelled at the person on the other side of the door, “WHO IS IT?” After a minute I did not hear any response to my question, I quickly turned back around, stomping my feet on the carpet of my living room as I was walking back towards the front door of my apartment. I quickly unlocked the door before yanking the door open towards me. After opening the apartment door, I was surprised to find an elderly man standing in front of me. The man looked like he was about eighty-five years old. I spotted that the man was very thin, with wrinkled skin all over his body. His head was almost completely bald, except for little white hairs, which were as white as snow, on the back of his head. The man was wearing a black suit, dress shoes, a tie, and he was also wearing a white dress shirt, underneath his suit jacket. I thought to myself, “He must be the undertaker for the cemetery across the street.”  I was going to ask, “Are you the undertaker for the cemetery?”

  Before I could ask the elderly man anything, he stepped into my apartment. I was taken aback by the actions of the old man. I yelled at him, in frustration, “HEY, DON’T YOU HAVE ANY MANNERS?” The man did not say anything to me, but I watched the man as he reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, producing a black business card.  I looked at the card in the man’s hand while thinking, “That’s a strange color, for a business card.” When the old man finally spoke, I was surprised how much he sounded like Vincent Price.



          The old man looked at me, as he asked, “Are you Sara Willows?” I was completely shocked because I had never met this elderly man before.  I began to get scared because this stranger knew my name. “Y-yes!” I stuttered as my lips quivered. “W-who are you?” 

      “Well, this is for you,” the man said handing me the black business card.

As I took the card from the man, I looked at the words on the card. I could see there were four words on the card which read, Death and underneath was another group of words in parenthesis which read, The Grim Reaper! The bottom part of the letters looked like dripping blood. I recognized the font on the card was written in a font called, Rocky. It reminded of the font on The Rocky Horror Picture Show t-shirts, which I had seen other students wearing around my college’s campus. I got a sly grin on my face as I quietly laughed to myself because I thought it was some type of Halloween prank. I looked at the old man in front of me. Did one of my friends hire this old man? I know that some people hire someone that is dressed like The Grim Reaper for their fortieth birthdays, but this was a rather unusual costume. I began to wonder. “What’s your real name?”

      “That is my real name,” the man said. “Some people call me by what I do, while others call me ‘The Grim Reaper’!”

      My jaw fell open because I was in utter shock. Suddenly, I could see a cloud of black smoke surrounding the old man in my living room. I watched with fearful eyes as the old man changed his form within a split second.  After the dark smoke disappeared, I saw that the old man was gone, but a dark cloaked figure, with a hood covering his face and bony fingers wrapped around the wooden handle of the scythe, was now standing in front of me. I screamed in horror while running to my kitchen. The Grim Reaper followed me to my kitchen. “YOU CAN’T TAKE ME!” I said grabbing a knife, sitting on the kitchen counter. I tightly gripped the handle and threw it at the figure. The blade of the knife stabbed him in his left shoulder, but it seemed like the knife did not really hurt him at all.

      He simply put down his scythe, raised his right arm and pulled out the knife that was in his shoulder. “You can’t kill me,” he said placing the knife back onto the kitchen counter as he picked up his scythe again.



      I was surprised and horrified, watching as the bone and the robe of The Grim Reaper quickly healed themselves. I silently opened a kitchen drawer as I reached behind me to grab another knife. I reached into the drawer to grab a sharp steak knife. Holding it tightly in front of me, I watched the figure starting to walk towards me again. I became more frightened, and screamed at the top of my lungs. “GET AWAY FROM ME, I CAN’T DIE NOW!” I yelled.

      The Grim Reaper did not respond to my screaming, but he continued to walk towards me.  “This is my job,” he answered when he was in front me.

I threw the knife at the dark figure, but the knife bounced off of the scythe and flew back towards me. The steak knife missed my ear by an inch and flew into the kitchen cabinet behind me. I screamed again.  “GET OUT OF MY APARTMENT, AND GET AWAY FROM ME!” I yelled, hoping he would disappear from my sight.  “LEAVE ME ALONE!”  My screams fell on deaf ears again as The Grim Reaper was a few inches away from me now.

      The Grim Reaper extended his arm forward, placing his left hand onto my chest. “I guess I’ll have to do it the hard way,” he said.

I was going to ask what he was doing, but before I could say anything else, I felt a pain in my chest. “WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?” I screamed feeling that my whole body from my neck to my stomach was aching all over. As I reached for the counter to keep my balance, I began having trouble breathing, and my body began to sweat too. I felt that something was in my throat, so I bent over the kitchen sink, and to my shock, I started to throw up.  After I had thrown up, I started to feel dizzy. I could feel my knees weaken before I fell down into a kneeling position onto the floor of the kitchen. As I was reaching for the side of the kitchen counter, I fell facedown onto wooden floor. After a few seconds, the pain in my chest was gone and realized I had a heart attack. Suddenly, I was in the cemetery in front of a tombstone.

The Grim Reaper pointed to the name. “That’s the name of the boy, you killed!" he said with a cold breath and grabbed my arm. “It’s time for us to go!”

I started to get scared when I heard the words ‘It’s time for us to go’. I wondered what he had meant by “us” before realizing he had meant to the afterlife. “N-NO!” I pleaded, feeling my eyes begin to water as I struggled to free myself. “P-PLEASE, G-GIVE M-ME A S-SECOND CHANCE!”

        I watched hopefully as The Grim Reaper looked down at his list as if he was thinking for a moment. “FINE!” he yelled in frustration because this rarely happened to him. “I’LL GIVE YOU A SECOND CHANCE. I’LL MOVE YOUR NAME DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF MY LIST.”

  I watched as his finger near my name moved to the bottom of his list. I was shocked that he was going to let me live. “Thank you,” I quickly replied, feeling his cold breath send a chill down my spine.

      I watched as The Grim Reaper shook his head. “DON’T THANK ME!” he demanded. “THE NEXT TIME I COME, YOU WILL JOIN ME!” He tapped his scythe twice onto the wet cemetery grass.

        Suddenly, I found myself lying on my bed in my bedroom. I looked at my alarm clock, on my nightstand and found it had said one o’clock in the morning. I was beginning to think that it had been some strange dream. After a moment, I could feel a piece of paper in my right hand. When I looked down at my hand I found I was holding a business card. I lifted it up to my eyes to read it. I instantly recognized the business card from my dream. I instantly remembered the old man from my dream. I shot up in shock and was horrified, realizing it was not a dream. “IMPOSSIBLE!” I screamed. “IT WASN’T JUST A DREAM!” I placed my hands in the middle of the business card and tore it in half. I continued to tear it into little pieces, before I threw it in the trash can near my closet. Then I went back to bed where I cried and tried to forget what had happened to me before I finally fell asleep.