Death Trap

I was working at a little store on the Elk River, near Elkview. I always got stuck with the night shift and it was boring most of the time. One night at about 3AM I was standing behind the counter looking out the window when a car pulled in, it was an orange 1966 Chevelle SS. It pulled in and backed up to the window. A young man, around 19 or so, came into the store. I said, “Nice car”, he turned and looked at me with sunken eyes and said, “It’s a death trap”.

He asked for a pack of Lucky Strikes and when I asked if he wanted filtered or non-filtered he looked at me as if I was crazy and said non-filtered. I told him it was $1.25 and he looked at me strange again. He handed me 5 quarters. I laid the money on the register but did not put it in the drawer. As he left, I told him again that he had a nice car. Again, he turned and said, “It’s a death trap”. I looked back out the window and noticed the car had 1966 license plates on it. As he pulled out, he just barely missed the girl that made the biscuits in the mornings as she pulled in. When she came in I said, “That was close”, and she said, “What was close?” She never saw the car. I picked up the quarters and noticed they were ice cold and all dated before 1966. I talked to an old man that lived near there and he said the store was built on the old railroad tracks and the young man was killed trying to beat a train across the tracks near there in 1966! He was driving an orange 1966 Chevelle SS.