Chapter 1

 

 

 

Nostradamus knew.  Edgar Cayce knew.  Jesus knew.

Jerry Flynn suddenly knew but wished he didn’t.

The thought was so abrupt and disturbing that when it popped into his mind he nearly drove off the road, killing himself before he was supposed to die.  The near miss temporarily distracted him from his horrid epiphany, but only for a few seconds.  Once he had regained control of his car he again realized he was on the path to an untimely demise. 

            Jerry’s mind raced.  He strangely thought of the 9/11 victims.  The ones in the planes must have known.  Those waiting to be rescued from the top of the towers eventually knew.  He wondered how soon they realized.  He suspected he knew how they had felt once they did. 

He considered calling his wife and kids to tell them he loved them.  He thought about going to the police, but what could they do? What would he tell them?  He considered the hospital.  Maybe he needed psychological help; perhaps he had just gone mad.

            No.  He knew.  He really knew. 

            Jerry sped to the elementary school.  He knew it would seem a strange destination but he thought if he had any chance to survive it had to be safe there.  He’d call his wife, and the police, and summon an ambulance.  He didn’t want to die.

But the feeling he was going to die in 23 minutes was overwhelming and absolute; he just didn’t know how he would die. 

He parked, got out of the car and jogged to the middle of the athletic field.  No harm could come of him there.  How could he die in the middle of a grass field with no one around?  He was healthy.  What, was a meteor going to fall from the sky onto his head?  If that was to be, at least no one else would get hurt.  School was in session but it was early.  Nobody was on the field.  Hopefully it would be a small meteor. 

            Jerry stood in the dead center of the field; what would be the 50-yard line during football season.  He fumbled with his phone. 

            A security guard at the entrance to the school watched Jerry punch the keys on his phone.  He wondered what a lone middle-aged man wearing a tie and a windbreaker was doing on the field at that hour.  He thought the man looked like he should be punching the clock at the local supermarket.

            Jerry waited as the phone rang at home.  His wife answered but he abruptly hung up without saying a word. 

Better call the police first.  He dialed 911. 

            “What’s your emergency?”

            “I think I’m going to die ma’am.  I mean, I know, I know I am, ma’am.”

            “Excuse me sir?  You’re going to die?  How do you know?  You’re not going to commit suicide I hope.”

            “No.  Not suicide.  I’m going to die.  I don’t know how I know.  I just know…maybe I’m losing my mind...No, I know.  I am going to die.”

            “Where are you sir?”

            “On the athletic field, at the middle school, please help me.  I don’t have much time.  Please send an ambulance, maybe they can save me.  And the police; send the police, please.”

            The police were on their way, alerted as soon as the dispatcher had heard Jerry’s location.  Crazy guy at the middle school.  Not good.

            The security guard walked slowly toward Jerry, his hand frequently feeling for his gun.  The guy looked harmless.  They can fool you sometimes.  Crazy people often looked so normal. He watched all the crime shows.  He should have been a real cop.  But at least he had a gun.   

            The dispatcher was still speaking to Jerry.

            “Sir, what is your name?”

            “Jerry.  Jerry Flynn.  Is someone coming?”

            “Yes sir.  They’re coming.  Please stay on the line with me until they get there.”

            “No.  I can’t.  I can’t.  I’m going to die.  My wife and kids.  I have to speak to them.

            Jerry terminated the call.  The security guard shouted.

            “Sir, what are you doing here?”  He was just crossing through the end zone.

            Jerry looked up, then back at his phone.  His hands shook.

            “Sir, please answer me.  Tell me what you are doing here.”

            Jerry punched in his home number again.  He put his phone to his ear and looked at the security guard.  Jerry raised his hand and flung his arm broadly from side to side, trying to tell the security guard to stay away.  Jerry’s wife Alyssa answered.

            “Hi Jerry, what’s wrong?  Aren’t you at work?”  Jerry never called before lunch.  “Is everything alright?  Did the car break down again?”

            “No.  The car’s fine.  I’m not at work.  Listen, are you, are the kids…Alyssa I love you.  OK.  Remember that.”

            “Jerry, what are you talking about?”

            “Alyssa I’m, I’m dying.  I’m going to die.  Today.  Soon.  Any minute now.”

            “What…Jerry.  Where are you?  What are you…I don’t understand.  What are you talking about?”

            Jerry heard his voice shake.  “I’m at the middle school.  I don’t know Alyssa.  I don’t know how I know.  And I don’t know how I’m going to die. I just know I am.”

            The security guard continued toward Jerry silently with his gun drawn then stopped twenty feet away.  Far enough to be safe; close enough to shoot him.

            “Sir, you need to explain to me why you are here.”

            In the distance sirens were wailing and were coming closer.  The security guard had called for the police as well.

            Jerry looked at the guard and held up one finger. 

            He spoke in a sudden calm which surprised him.  “Alyssa, are the kids there?  No, at school, right?  Let them know I love them.  Remind them everyday for the rest of their lives.  I love you too, forever.”

            Jerry hung up the phone and didn’t hear his wife pleading.  He wondered if he felt the way terminal patients do as they breathe their final breaths.  He slowly slipped the phone in the pocket of his windbreaker.  He put his hands in the air.  He spoke to the guard.

            “I am dying.  The police and an ambulance are on the way; either to help me or to bring me to the morgue.”

            The guard had been nervous.  Now he was scared.

            “What are you talking about?”

            “I don’t know.  I just know I am going to die in 14 minutes.”

            The guard was shaking; his hands grew sweatier by the second.  He was gripping his pistol with both hands aiming at Jerry.  He wondered if he could hit Jerry.  He’d never shot at a human being before.

            Sirens wailed and tires squealed as the police car flew down the school driveway.  The car drove straight onto the field toward Jerry’s left flank.  Jerry thought about the tire marks they made in the field.  Someone would have to fix that.

            The car stopped and two officers emerged with their guns drawn.  The officers looked at Jerry, then the guard.

            “What’s going on?”

            “He says he’s going to die any minute now.”

            The officer’s attention shifted to Jerry.

            “Sir, keep your hands above your head and do not move.”

            The officers searched Jerry to their satisfaction.  He was unarmed.  There were no explosives strapped to his chest under the windbreaker.

            “I just need your help officers.  I am going to die.  Today.  Soon.”

            “How do you know this?”

            “I don’t know how I know.  I just know.” 

The officers gave each other barely concealed crazy-guy looks.  Jerry was cuffed

and loaded into the police car.  They drove off toward the hospital.  The security guard returned to his post and his People magazine.

The officer in the passenger seat spoke.  “We’re going to bring you to the hospital and have you checked out.  You have any mental problems?”

Jerry smiled a bit.  “Not that I know of, although I’m kind of hoping that I do.  I don’t want to die.” 

The officers looked at each other again, this time both with contorted faces of fear; the look of people who suddenly shared a terrifying and unexpected mutual awareness.  They knew what Jerry knew. 

Jerry screamed.  “WATCH OUT!”

The driving officer’s head snapped back toward the road.  He screamed as a double-trailered tractor trailer ran the red light and plowed through the intersection at the same time as their police cruiser was crossing on the green.  It hit them directly on the passenger side of the car.  The police cruiser became airborne and flipped several times.  When it returned to earth it landed hard and ejected the police officers, propelling them into the path of one of the supermarket-owned trailers which had disengaged.  Its mission shifted from deliverer of groceries to deliverer of death. 

Jerry was still in the car, locked within the “cage” in back.  He suffered a longer death than the others as the car seemed to flip endlessly, the front doors torn off like limbs, the back doors secure, keeping Jerry captive, like a rat in a drying machine. 

When the car finally stopped rolling Jerry was still conscious, but barely.  He could see one of the trailers, Safe-Shop emblazoned on its side.  It had been heading to his store.  He was to have supervised its unloading.  Safe-Shop – the irony.

Jerry’s cell phone lay at his side.  The message light blinked as the light in Jerry’s eyes dimmed.  His body was shutting down.  His eyes closed.  He thought his last thought.

Alyssa…