Death Is the Judge

And the future will present the mysterious traveler. This is the mysterious traveler inviting you to join me on another journey into the realm of the strange and the terrifying. I hope you will enjoy the trip, that it will really feel you a little and chill you a little.

So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves and be comfortable. If you can. Where are we going? We're going to delve into the strange story of a Chinese bell. A bell whose ringing is a summons for the dead to live and the living to die.

As you shall see in the story I call, Death is the judge. Our story begins in a small curioshop in New York's Chinatown. Dr. John Williams, one of the finest brain surgeons in the Middle West and his wife, are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary by a trip to New York.

They have stopped in at this curio shop for sentimental reasons, just as they did on their honeymoon 20 years before. Oh John, it's the same. It's exactly the same as it was. Doesn't look as the whole thing had been sold as we were in here last.

Certainly doesn't. But wasn't it all key wrong? He's dead now. I'd be tempted to believe we'd gone back 20 years when we came through the door. Even the smell of incense and ginger is the same thing.

We must buy something, John. Even if it's only a trinket. Just the sentiment's safe. If you want to trinket, how about this statue of Buddha here? It only weighs about three tons. Oh, it's silly.

But what about one of these bells, John? We need it in a bell. How would this one do? That would be better for a temple gone, darling. Better try again. All right. Oh, I have it.