Chapter 6: Mr. Beaky

“I’ll take it from here, fleshie,” Death whispers in a voice oozing with menace, enough to turn a sumo wrestler’s knees into jelly.

Unlike Kharon’s voice which sounded like it was borrowed from an ogre, Death’s works on a whole different level of threat-making. Its calmness will paralyze you right where you stand. It’s the perfect voice from beyond the grave: gravelly and frosty,giving the impression that Death is a gangster of the literal underworld.

The elevator operator makes the big mistake of doubting what he has just heard and looks over his shoulder for the first time. Like an owl, he swivels his head 180 degrees so I see that for a face he has nothing but two dots for eyes and one eternal frown, basically an upside-down smile, all slit into a smooth, round mass of flesh. The face is as heartrendingly crude as a stickman’s face traced in dirt by a preschooler. But once those inanimate peepers lock on Death, they bulge. No sight could be more apt for the expression “eye-popping