The jailors turn back to you. That feeling of dread returns, that lead weight in the pit of your stomach, that unbearable feeling of frustration that seems to course through your bloodstream, awakens every nerve ending. That feeling of utter helplessness, of hopelessness, lying there unable to move, unable to communicate. You feel violated, and completely vulnerable.
One touches your forehead. “Diseased,” she says and you shake your head over and over, disagreeing vehemently with her assessment and trying to shake loose of her touch. This one’s voice is familiar, that much registers, but in the grand scheme of things it hardly seems to matter.
No, you mouth, trying to give voice to the word though you know you can’t, trying anyway, and you know on some level it wouldn’t matter even if you could speak.
Please you try to say, begging now, knowing your brain probably really is diseased but not digging the thought of rats chewing their way through it.
Because how could you focus on that? How could you even begin to comprehend what that means? Your death. This means your death, as surely as the woman who was across from you, the eviscerated woman, the dead, deceased, formerly living woman, the tortured and punished woman. What was her crime? Jesus Christ, what was her crime? Her offense? What the bloody hell had she ever done to deserve this?
But you know. You know goddammit that if her crime was just a hundredth as vile as yours, even slightly as contemptible, an affront against man and nature … well then, she deserved her punishment. As surely as you deserve yours.
But then, there’s that. What do you deserve? The punishment fitting the crime and all that crap must surely be passé by now. In such a developed, industrialized world, where an eye for an eye must surely be outdated by now, no? These are not biblical times, the time of King Solomon or Herod, of pharos who cut off your hands if you got caught jerking off. This is a time of science, of advanced mental development. How, you wonder, can something so purely evil as vindication be allowed? What about the Geneva convention? What about fairness to prisoners? Appeals? First Amendment rights? Where the fuck is the fairness?
But strangely, you don’t remember an arrest. Or a trial. Or a conviction. Or a sentencing. You don’t remember due process. You don’t remember much, really, prior to waking in this place. The last thing you remember …
Damn. What is the last thing you remember?
Somehow that’s taken on grave importance. Somehow it’s become more important than the preoccupation of rats chewing around in your brain.
The last thing you remember is a gun. You don’t know what kind. You don’t even know who was holding it because you can’t see the face. You can’t see past the barrel.
You remember a gun and you remember waking here. Oh, you remember lots more, but not about the gun. Not about what was clearly your last moments before waking here.
“Diseased,” she says again after an eternity of silence and you can see the slight movement of her head, can almost hear her tongue clicking, an almost imperceptible lecture. As if she means, “Shame, shame, you diseased boy!” like one of your elementary school nuns, one that could cause you to feel terrible shame with the smallest frown. A frown that always seemed to place blame, to say I know your deepest, darkest secrets. Staring at you reproachfully, as if to say she knew what you were doing beneath the covers at night after lights out, after you finished leafing through your comic books and moved on to your dad’s copy of Playboy. As if to say she knew what you’d done and so you waited for your punishment, but it never came. Not then, and not later when you were under the covers not alone. They all knew what you were doing. You could see it in their eyes. They knew but did nothing about it. Why would they? No one ever complained. They were probably mistaken anyway. No one would ever do that. It was beyond reproach. It was an abomination. The worst sort of sin in the Lord Almighty’s eyes. He would prefer blindness over the abomination that was your life.
“Diseased,” she says again, and this time you nod. Unlike the woman who’d died across from you, you welcome this. Judgment is upon you. You’re ready now.
Two small clear domes are placed over your eyes. Your body tenses, fists clenching until fingernails draw blood against the pain you know is coming.
But you scream because the last thing you see is your jailer removing her hood.
You squeeze your eyes shut.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Monica J. O’Rourke has published more than seventy-five short stories in magazines such as Postscripts, Nasty Piece of Work, Fangoria, Flesh & Blood, Nemonymous, and Brutarian and anthologies such as Horror for Good (for charity), The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra, and The Best of Horrorfind. She is the author of Suffer the Flesh, the collection Experiments in Human Nature, and Poisoning Eros I and II, written with Wrath James White. Her new novel What Happens in the Darkness will be released later this year from Sinister Grin Press. She works as a freelance editor, proofreader, and book coach. Her website is an ongoing and seemingly endless work in progress, so find her in the meantime at www.facebook.com/MonicaJORourke.
Also from Monica J. O’Rourke
Novels:
Suffer the Flesh (2002, Prime Books)
Poisoning Eros, with Wrath James White (2003, 3F Publications)
Short Stories:
“An Experiment in Human Nature” -- Horrorfind.com {2001}; Splatterpunk (German site) {2001}
“Asha” -- Red Scream {2006}
“Attainable Beauty” – Gothic.net {2002}
“Awakening, The” – The Edge, Tales of Suspense {1999}
“Babes in the Woods” – Twilight Showcase {2001}
“Carrion on Canyon Way” – HorrorFind {2001)
“Common Courtesy” – Gathering Darkness {2001}
“Despair” – The Gallows (Horror Author’s site) {2001}
“Exposed” – Terror Tales Online {2000}
“Eye Contact” – Redsine {2002}
“Feeding Desire,” with Jack Fisher – Ruthie’s Club {2004}
“Fire God, The” – MediaPlus Magazine {2001}
“Five Adjectives about My Dad, by Nadine Specter” – Full Circle Journal {2002}
“Flesh is Willing, The” – Nasty Piece of Work {1999}
“Goodnight” – Writer Online; Dark Muse {2000}
“Huntin’ Season” – Nemonymous {2005}
“Lachesis” – Inhuman magazine {Forthcoming 2006)
“Lucky” – 69 Flavors of Paranoia {1999}
“Maternal Instinct” – Nasty Piece of Work {1999}; Sinister Element {2001}
“Moving to Poplar” – Dark Planet {2001}
“Not with a Bang” – Brutarian {2004}
“One Breath” – Ruthie’s Club {2005}; Cthulhu Sex magazine {Forthcoming 2006}
“Oral Mohel” – Desdmona.com {2004}
“Persistence of Dreams” – Underworlds magazine {2002}
“Please Let Me Go” – Deviant Minds {2001}
“Rest of Larry, The” – Nemonymous {2005}
“Sick of the Whole Thing” – The Harrow {1999}
“Sisters” – Red Scream {Forthcoming 2006}
“Someone’s Sister”— Nasty Piece of Work {1999}
“Sweet Song” – Twilight Showcase {2000}
“Three Wishes of Henry Hoggan, The” – Deathlings.com {2006}
“Twelve Dollars” – Orchard Press Mysteries {2001}
“Vade in Pacem” – Surreal magazine {2005}
“Voices” – 69 Flavors of Paranoia {1998}
“Waiting” – Flesh & Blood {2002}
“Weapon of Your Choice” – Fangoria {2002}
Anthologies (as contributor):
“An Experiment in Human Nature” -- RARE Anthology {2001}{
“Behind Closed Doors” – Tears on Black Roses anthology {1999}
“Bloodshed Fred” – These Guns for Hire anthology, ed. J.A. Konrath (Bleak House books) {Forthcoming 2006}
“Carrion on Canyon Way” – The Best of HorrorFind {
2001)
“Company of Humans, The” – Southern Comfort charity anthology, eds. S.A. Parham & W. Olivia Race {2006}
“Dancing into October Country” – Octoberland anthology (F&B Press) {2002}
“Ginger” – Reckless Abandon anthology {2002}
“Identity Crisis” – Strangewood Tales anthology {2002}
“In the Attic” – Darkness Rising anthology {2002}
“Jasmine and Garlic” – The Fear Within anthology {2002}
“Loathsome in New York” – SCARS anthology {2001}
“Mourning” – STONES anthology {2002}
“Perspective” – Femmes de la Brume anthology {2003}
Anthologies (as Editor):
Decadence (Prime Books, 2002)
Decadence 2 (Flesh & Blood Press, 2002)
Dreaming of Angels (with Gord Rollo) (Prime Books, 2002)
Fear of the Unknown (with Kfir Luzzatto) (Echelon Press, 2005)
Random Acts of Weirdness (with Brian Knight) (Catalyst Press, 2002)
Royal Aspirations III (Catalyst Press, 2002)
Non-fiction:
“Lest We Forget” -- The Pedestal magazine, 2001 (special 9/11 edition)
In The End, Only Darkness Page 21