El Ángel de la Muerte

byAmanda Ong

“Why do we have to help hand out Halloween candy? I wish we could go to a haunted house and do something scary and fun.” Lucia and her younger sister were mourning the fact that they were stuck inside with their grandma. Their grandma, Salma, feeling empathetic, let them have a break inside while she told them a spooky tale about El Ángel de la Muerte. The girls begrudgingly gathered around Grandma Salma as she recounted the tale of Veronica Y. Sanchez.

Veronica Y. Sanchez was 15 when she began her infatuation with cars. So at 17, when she saw this rusted, abandoned Chevrolet truck in the city’s junkyard, she knew she had to have it. She fixed it up, and the next day, she was driving wherever she pleased. Most of the time, she was giving her best friend rides. On Halloween night, Vero and her friend decided to take an hour-long drive to a nearby city that was having a scare fest. On their way to the fest, Vero kept telling her friend that she could see a man in a cloak in her rearview mirror. Vero was freaking out and telling her friend that the man was getting closer. To calm her down, her friend advised that they stop at the gas station.At the gas station, Vero got out to get fresh air as her friend pumped gas.

“When did you get a customized license plate?” Vero’s friend asked. Vero looked confused, and walked around to see the license plate. She stared with a surprised face at the plate that had her exact initials. VYS, Veronica Yvonne Sanchez.

“Huh, I never noticed that, how ironic!” They continued on the road after, but Veronica started mentioning the man in a cloak again. She grew frantic and began to yell that he was right in the backseat, but her friend couldn’t see anyone. She began to lose control of the wheel as though someone else was controlling it, and swerved straight into a tree.

“CRASH!” Veronica’s friend dizzily woke up and saw Veronica limp in the driver’s seat. She stared in horror, and called an ambulance. Help arrived at the scene to assist Veronica’s friend with her injuries, but nothing could be done for Veronica. She was pronounced dead at 9:37 PM.

As EMT’s carried Veronica's body from the truck, she couldn’t help but notice the numbers on the truck’s license plate. 9-3 -7, the same time that Vero died. The numbers, the initials, the man in the cloak, something didn’t sit right with her. She began to feel sick to her stomach and then she saw him- a man in a cloak. She couldn’t make out any features, but she finally believed Veronica. The next day, she came back to the scene of the crash, and set the truck to drive into a lake. She didn’t feel comfortable with the truck being around after everything that happened. It just made her uneasy. She watched as it sank deep into the water. She never saw the man in the cloak again after that.

“Well girls, enough chit chat. Let’s go finish giving the candy away.”

“No! We want to hear more stories, Grandma Salma!” cried Lucia.

“Sorry girls, another time.” replied Grandma Salma. They went back to handing out candy outside and Grandma Salma reminisced on her days with her best friend Veronica.After a moment of silence to herself, Grandma Salma headed outside to help out Lucia and her sister. She was handing out candy when she saw a familiar truck parked in the field across the street. She felt her stomach drop. She apprehensively shuffled across the street and felt a hot wave of fear rain over her. The closer she got, the more her fears were confirmed. She checked the license plate to see if it was the exact same truck, but felt relieved when it didn’t say VYS 0937. Then it hit her, she read the license plate over and over again hoping it wasn’t true, but her eyes didn’t lie. SLJ 0138Salma Lizette Jurado. Her death note was written in front of her, she was sure of it. She looked across the street and faked a smile so as to not instill fear in her grandkids.As she slowly walked back to her house, she turned around to see the truck and saw the man in the cloak. This time, his features were clearer. She could see his poncho and hat. He stood ominously by the cursed truck, while her initials and the numbers 0138 burned into her eyes.

Accepting her fate, Salma chose to spend her next few hours with her grandkids. She watched as the clock ticked towards Death. It was midnight, meaning she had one hour and thirty-eight minutes left. Salma’s daughter had finally arrived to pick up Lucia and her sister. Salma’s daughter assumed her mother was teary because it was the anniversary of Salma’s husband’s death.

Salma lied in bed and stared at the clock. Tick, tock, tick, tock. The ticks and tocks bellowed through her ears like drums. She awaited her fate but was confronted with confusion when the clock hit 1:39AM. She was still alive and well. Had it all been in her head? Tired from a stressful night, she fell asleep. When she woke up, she found that the truck was gone. She internally rejoiced and proceeded to have her usual 12 o’clock brunch.

In the afternoon, Salma’s daughter decided to bring her a homemade pumpkin spice loaf to cheer her up from what she thought was just widow’s grief. However, she never fulfilled her purpose, as when she arrived at her mom’s house, she was given the news that her mom had died at 1:38 PM from a sudden heart attack.