“Drowning people die smiling”. That was a popular “Did you know-?” when I was a kid. It was the right amount of strange and scary that helped it spread around during recess. It stuck with me but I always wondered, if true, do all people who are dying, and know they are dying, smile?
The answer is no. I can say that for a fact. 6 weeks ago I was in a car accident and a man was killed. It wasn’t my fault. That’s what I logically know to be true, it’s what the police kept telling me and what the witnesses corroborated. It helps some but it certainly doesn’t take all the pain and guilt away.
What happened was as I was approaching an intersection the light was red for me as the cross traffic was going. But I knew the timings more or less and knew it would be changing in moments so I only slowed down slightly just to be safe, but as expected it turned green before I got to it so I pressed back on the gas. What I didn’t see was the car that was gunning it to run the red. I T-boned him, me going about 35 at that point, I don’t know how fast he was going but his car compressed then spun out across the intersection.
It was bad for my car but fortunately the hit was straight-on for me, so my car absorbed most of the energy. Once my airbag deflated and I was able to do an inventory of myself I found I was mostly unscathed. I could see the spotted marks on my knees and forearms that precedes bad bruises, but the adrenaline was pumping and I didn’t feel them yet.
I pried the door open enough that I could step out- more so fell - as I didn’t have my balance yet. But after catching my breath on the ground I stood up and saw the far far worse condition that the other car was in. Not unlike a ball of tin foil.
At this point I assume someone called 911, which is fortunate since that hadn’t dawned on me in the moment. Instead, I shuffled over toward the car, finding the rhythm of my steps again. As much as I hate to say it, but nowadays I can’t help but wish more that I didn’t look inside the car than I wish the accident didn’t happen at all.
Hoping to help somehow I looked through one of the shattered windows. I saw the driver, a man. I learned his name later, but I’m going to keep that private for now. My eyes started at his waist and stomach. What was happening there…well I don’t want to describe it, but upon seeing it I had assumed he was already dead. He was not. As my eyes slowly moved up I saw that his chest was heaving. Breathing quickly and deeply. But seeing his face, I can say he did not die smiling. His face was contorted in such a way that he was bearing his teeth, his mouth spread wide and the muscles in his cheeks and jaws were taught. His eyes were open so wide you could see the white all around the iris. It made my blood go cold. It’s hard for me to imagine that any more anger or rage could exist in one person. The furious rancor he was directing at me made me want to run, but I didn’t want to turn my back as if he could somehow pick up his insides and come after me.
I watched as his chest moved up and down as he stared at me with his eyes wide open and his teeth squeezed so tightly I felt they might shatter under the force. But after what probably was only seconds his chest suddenly slowed down and took in one last feeble breath before stopping completely.
What makes it so much worse is that after he died his eyes did not close and his jaw didn’t relax. The muscles in his cheeks and neck were just as tight and flexed as they had been before. I started to back up but I still didn’t dare turn my back to him, frankly just as afraid he might get up.
Eventually the paramedics came, police made reports and whatnot. I was taken back to the hospital and examined and had to stay for a few hours to see if I was in shock or not. And when they had learned a man had died I had to talk to someone I believe to be a psychiatrist.
Early the next morning I was able to go home.
But things got worse for me. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I saw. Even as I replayed it over and over in my brain until the image started to blur, the white of his eyes and teeth seemed to stay crisp and clear in my mind. The way he died and remained so tense, his jaw so tight, made it feel like the anger he felt didn’t stop when his heart did. I’ve heard of death grips when someone’s grabbing something when they die and their muscles stay contracted but I never imagined that could happen to your face.
Because of the endless amounts of business with insurance I did hear his name probably three to four dozen times in the next couple weeks. In an effort to make these images go away I looked him up.
If the eulogy is to be believed he was a loving and kind husband, and a patient and gentle father. Gentle. Somehow gentleness seemed impossible to come from someone capable of making that face. Truth be told, I thought I found the wrong eulogy at first when I saw the picture they used. Who I saw in the wreckage and the man wearing a matching Han and Leia costume with his wife, his daughter in an R2D2 costume, in the eulogy’s picture could not be the same person. I was so sure of it I went looking for another so-and-so who died the same day. But yes that was him. Now sure, he did have the same features; his dark hair was the same color, as were his eyes, and his nose and ears are the same shape. But I could not imagine that man’s face could possibly be contorted into the horrific expression I saw in the car. It didn’t seem physically possible. But apparently it was.
Starting about a few weeks ago, things got even worse. One night, I turned up the heater as we’re approaching winter, it’s getting unpleasantly cold, and went to bed. I turned on my bedside lamp and flicked off the overhead so I could read a bit before bed. I read a couple pages. It was as my eyes went to the top of the next page that I saw it. Just above where my eyes were focused, across the room from me the closet door was cracked open a few inches. Without looking directly at it, I thought I saw, just barely visible, the white of teeth and eyes from inside the dark of the closet. It was as if they were only visible because they were so bright white and the closet totally dark.
I didn’t look up immediately. I intently focused my vision on the words on the page “…paved the way to the front door…” as I tried to discern what was really there. I knew it was an optical illusion coming from stress. It was white letters on a shirt reflecting the lamp light just right or something like that. But hoped and prayed, as I may, it did not dissipate into letters on a shirt. It persisted. Finally I looked up.
I didn’t see the face, of course. But I felt if I stared at it long enough I could pick out the white in the dark. Perhaps I was just willing it to be there, in some self-destructive anxious way. I decided I would sleep with the lights on. But first I turned on my phone flashlight so I could cross the room to the light switch. When I shined the light into the closet I fortunately saw no one. But what I didn’t anticipate was a possibility, which made the hair on my neck and arms stand up; was that there was nothing in that half of my closet. No dark shirts with white lettering, only the flat gray wall at the back of the closet. No irregularities that would reflect parts of the light…It certainly would be a lights-on night.
I started to see those eyes and those teeth more and more. First it would be in the distant corners of my house. From the mirror in the bathroom facing down the hall into the dark bedroom I’d swear I could make them out. No larger than my finger nail in the reflection, but I was almost sure it was there. Though it could have just as easily been a stain from toothpaste splatter. But it was getting to me. This started to happen again, I came home late from the gym and briefly thought I saw that face in the dark to the side of the house. Or when I was looking for my drill and opened the door to the garage, I could just make it out, in the corner of my eye, those teeth and eyes to my immediate left. Once again, after I had spun to the side and made an embarrassingly shrill noise, I saw nothing there.
This is when I got back to researching and I read somewhere that because of the way the cones and rods are arranged in your eye your center most vision is the most sensitive to color differences, but the off-center of your vision is more sensitive to light changes. So in astronomy they will sometimes tell you to look just to the side of a nebula if it’s just a little too dark to pick up with your center vision. I fear this is playing a big part in this.
I figured maybe my subconscious was looking for those teeth and eyes to perhaps punish me for guilt I didn’t know how to place. I began going to therapy to hopefully assuage this. It did help as I definitely had tremendous guilt that I was struggling to process, because logically I knew what happened wasn’t really my fault. After two hour-long sessions a week for three weeks I had been making great progress. I truly felt better, the weight on me lighter, and I was no longer searching for nor finding faces in the dark. Until four days ago.
In my last session as I was talking to my therapist, having some final words in those last 5 minutes, intent to use every minute I was paying for, but also not really trying to dive into anything deep before I had to leave I was rambling on about some fixation of mine. When my eyes wandered over to the coat closet behind my therapist, where I saw the most defined white teeth and eyes I had seen yet. Looking at them directly did nothing but make my skin crawl and my eyes water, and I could more clearly feel the anger and spite being fired at me. My therapist turned, surely having noticed my strange change in demeanor, but her confused look back at me told me that I alone was to see this sight. I stared at it for a while. It never disappeared even as I left, but to be truly honest I couldn’t face it directly as I headed toward the door to leave. I was too afraid to see it that closely.
The research this time took a new direction. I wouldn’t say that I was fully convinced it was real or paranormal, part of me still clinged onto the possibility that it could be some intense psychosomatic reaction. I didn’t research into that because I was afraid of cutting what little tether I had on my sanity. I did research into the paranormal world. I figured maybe if a large part of me believes that this is truly really happening then if I can figure out how to make it stop according to paranormal rules then I can make my mind believe it has stopped. Like throwing real water on an imaginary fire. During this time work was alright, but nights were spent with every light on, all the time, with me sitting in the living room where there’s the most light and the shortest angles of vision around the house that I could possibly see something.
So I arrived at an exorcism. Actually, it was a little less formal than that, since it turns out it is a very long process that involves the Bishops and the Vatican and all that, and it doesn’t especially help that I am not a churchgoer nor particularly religious. But I did find a very open minded priest that I think more so took pity looking at the bags under my eyes than anything else I said. I never imagined I would ever be in a state where I was on my knees, literally kneeling, and begging a priest to come to my house to banish a spirit that was tormenting me. But as my sleep was beginning to dwindle to restless minutes and my eyes were watering 24/7 due to the constant exposure to bright lights, I was even using eye drops every hour, which at this point felt like it was only making things worse, my sense of shame and embarrassment had sort of evaporated. So he took pity on me and came back to my house.
To his credit he took the job with enthusiasm and integrity. He spent the afternoon walking from room to room flicking Holy water and bellowing prayers until it felt like they reverberated into every nook and cranny. At one point I was to join him in prayer, but I had to repeat after him since I didn’t really know any prayer, but even if I had, in that state I don’t think I could have recalled a single line. That night; last night. I decided I would try to sleep in my own bed. I was exhausted and on a precipice and I decided I would jump in, both feet.
With the overhead light and bedside lamp still on I stood in my doorway. My heart raced, so fast that I was legitimately concerned that combined with my level of exhaustion I could suffer a cardiac episode. But I continued on. After many painful seconds, I committed and turned off the overhead. Darkness fell, but the lamp kept the shadows at bay. I looked around slowly from one corner of the room to the other. Nothing. My heartbeat softened and settled. I carefully stepped over to my bed and looked around…again nothing. Tentatively I laid down. I started to cry a little as my hope was beginning to overwhelm what little emotional fortitude I had left. I reached out to the lamp and clicked it off. Darkness fully enveloped me. But, no teeth or eyes were seen, no hatred felt. And I waited. And waited and waited. Nothing.
I have not seen the face since. As I laid in my bed and my body accepted that I was safe I quickly fell into a deep deep sleep. And amazingly, one that wasn’t fraught with terrible visions. I think my brain may have been too tired for even that. I woke up at a little past 3:00 am. As I laid on my side I looked across the room in front of me and saw nothing but my stuff vaguely outlined by the moonlight that filtered through the blinds. I was terrified I was going to see him in front of me, but even as my eyes adjusted I didn’t see anything unusual. I think it was because I was returning to being fully conscious, as the last of my sleep left me, that I finally noticed it. I don’t think it started right then, I think it was already going for a while but it was just then that I heard it.
It sounded like a small chorus of whistles, going back and forth from a higher then to a lower tone. It was as if air was being pushed through a collection of instruments. My brain desperately tried to identify what it was I was hearing. I felt like while I hadn’t heard it before I should be able to picture it, I knew I could figure it out. And then I did. And my blood went cold again, last time was when I first saw him, this time was when I first heard him. It was the sound of breath being pushed back and forth through clenched teeth. And it was happening right behind me. Now that I figured it out I could so clearly picture it. I thought I could even feel it on my neck. It was so close. I was terrified. I think I was even shaking. But I decided I had to do something, I was too scared to sit like that much longer. The lamp was just in front of my face. I moved my arm ever so slowly upward. My teeth were clenched too, terrified and bracing myself for any change in the rhythm of the whistle. I reached the lamp switch and turned it on. If I hadn’t been sure what I was hearing was actually there, then I certainly was as the silence filled in the space it left when it stopped. Deafening proof that it had been there.
It was gone and I have not seen or heard it again since last night. But I know that it is waiting for me. Just waiting for a dark enough corner of a room or window facing into the night before it reveals itself to me again. I plan to keep every light on in my home. I will change out each light every week just to be safe. Also I’m rearranging my work schedule to guarantee I am never out after dark, which is getting increasingly earlier as the winter approaches. Of course this makes having a social life nearly impossible, but at this point that’s barely a thought. I’ve ordered a gas generator from Lowe’s but I’m not sure how I’m going to even use that yet. My big fear is that around this time of year when the snow storms start coming in, old power lines under the weight of new snow will often collapse or disconnect, plunging neighborhoods into the dark. This had never been more than an annoyance, but now the threat of these late night outages terrify me. I bought the generator, but I’m not sure how to set it up in a way where I have guaranteed light all the time. It seems like the best case is a few moments of dark before the generator kicks in. As I sit here, I have an obsessive nagging feeling that if the lights go out even for just a couple seconds, I won’t be there when they turn back on.
The irony of course is I, like many kids, was terrified of monsters in the dark until I got a bit older. Now I don’t know if there’s normally monsters in the dark, but I know this one is.