Executioner's Lament

by Justin Rishel

  Surely not, Rudolfo thought.

  Then, as if in response to Rudolfo’s inner questions, Brother Wilcott lifted his right hand to the back of his neck. Bowing his head low, placing chin to chest, he touched a spot at the base of his skull.

  The world paused.

  Rudolfo’s breath trapped in his chest.

  Instantly, Wilcott’s body went limp, folding over on itself. He collapsed into open air, gravity flipping him end over end as his corpse plummeted twenty-six stories. Already dead from the self-inflicted tap to the neck, the fall for Wilcott would be peaceful.

  The initial excitement of the spectacle seemed to wear off as the hundreds of witnesses turned in still relative silence to go back to their day-to-day business.

  With his mind reeling from what he had just witnessed and attempting to organize his thoughts, Rudolfo turned to leave. As he did, an inmate standing ten feet in front of him in the emptying corridor looked straight at him with sunken, jaundiced eyes. This was strange, as Members of the Order held an almost mystical aura with the inmates and were rarely stared at for too long. Those in their right minds seldom made eye contact.

  “Room for one more up there,” the pale, pockmarked inmate said. Disdain and malice dripped with every syllable he uttered, his mouth upturned in a self-satisfied grin.

  Rudolfo stared back, unmoved. He made a mental note of the incident and strode past the man.

  2

  Signs

  Nicholas Fox, inmate number 6484, felt his breath quicken with excitement. With his arms folded in front of him, he leaned against a bulkhead on the twenty-fourth floor of the Keep.

  He had watched from behind a thick crowd of prisoners while the Tapper offed himself. He’d marveled while his fellow inmates pounded their fists against the thin steel cage that separated them from oblivion. He watched as his fellow inmates found courage. He watched them find themselves. He watched them wake up.

  Fox fully comprehended the irony that the impetus of this awakening was the man who’d fallen from the maintenance platform, the man in black. That face of death, that taker of life would ultimately resurrect the prison.

  “What do you think about all this, Professor?” said Warren, a short, fat man to his right.

  Fox had forgotten years ago why they called him the Professor. Something to do with the fact that he’d finished college, but so had many of the inmates in the Keep. Or maybe something to do with how he carried himself. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.

  He stood two heads higher than his tiny confidant Warren. He squinted at the man over a long nose and rolled his bony shoulders. He knew exactly what this was: a sign. A sign he had been looking for. A sign that it was time to begin.

  Several weeks ago, he received an impossibly cryptic message from an old friend. Even with exceptionally high mental acuity, it took Fox several days to decipher it. Once he knew his friend’s plan, he had looked desperately for the right time to begin. It must happen organically, he’d thought. There must be a unique and profound call to action.

  Here it was. And Fox could not have orchestrated it more perfectly.

  The Tapper had removed his gloves, then his long coat. His skin was solid black from his right fingertip to his shoulder; long branches stretched across the upper half of his body.

  Fox had heard the rumors, but he had chalked them up to overzealous storytelling. They had been wrong on some counts—the Tapper’s skin was not scaly and peeling and the arm itself was not withered and dying. The skin was certainly blackened, however, and if it indicated the man’s tenure in his position, as some speculated, he had been on the job for quite some time.

  How the stain grew and how it started, Fox could guess. It was probably a side effect of whatever poison the Tappers used to execute those unlucky birds who’d ended up on the wrong side of their ledger. The same toxin he and hundreds of other inmates had just watched the Tapper use on himself.

  One thing was certain: what they’d witnessed was unique and profound. Exactly what he needed.

  The Tapper had made a show of it, Fox thought. He’d wanted everyone to see. Fox didn’t know why he’d do such a thing and he didn’t care. The spectacle would serve his purposes and that was all he needed.

  Fox had seen other Tappers on his level and on those above and below him. Around each executioner, there had been a radius of several feet of space clear of inmates. As ever, the Tappers carried a mystique that generated superstition and fear.

  Perhaps that is changing, Fox thought.

  Moments passed and the levels cleared. Talk was high-spirited, the stories already being exaggerated.

  Fox felt something. There was something different in the air now. Something had changed.

  “Warren, I’ll tell you what I think. I think it’s time.” Fox unfolded his arms and sauntered away toward his cell; Warren close behind. It was indeed time, he thought, but first, sacrifices were needed.

  3

  The Apprentice

  “Hey, new guy,” a gravelly voice crackled in Ken Holt’s tiny ear piece.

  It was his first day on the job, but he felt certain he’d always be the “new guy” around the other train attendants. The shortest tenure among the others was eight years.

  “Go to the back and tell the senior officer that we will be making an unscheduled stop in a few minutes,” said Armen Muntz, Ken’s trainer for the day.

  Ken looked across the brightly lit train car toward his much older, much grumpier coworker. Compared to Ken in his newly pressed uniform still in mint condition, the older train attendant staring back at him looked downright shabby. His faded red uniform jacket and black slacks had the wear of twenty-three years on them with stains to match. Other than the two of them, there was a third attendant in the tenth and final car. The engineer sat in a cozy booth in the train’s nose to Ken’s left as he stood near the front entry doors.

  “How do I know which one is the senior officer?” Ken asked into his lapel mic.

  “Look, just find someone back there that isn’t shackled to their goddamn seat and tell them. Jesus.”

  Ken’s so-called trainer had hated him from the start. A train attendant job on the prison transport line was a government job and highly sought after for its stability, benefits, and low stress. Ken, at his age and by all rules of fairness, had no business in his position, but having a grandfather in an influential position in the city government had its perks.

  The high-speed rail line stretched one-hundred-fifty miles from New Aberdeen, Maryland to the massive Regional Correction Center prison complex, unofficially referred to as the Keep. The rail line stood a good deal higher than the surrounding forest of tall longleaf pines. The vast grove of trees, much like the train’s operation and routine, were orderly and set, standing tall and neat in long straight rows.

  Gliding along at an effortless five hundred miles per hour, the gleaming white transport was making the twenty-minute trip for the first of many times that day. The fifty passengers in the first car sat comfortably, six to a row on their way to the morning shift at the Keep.

  Two-thirds of the passengers wore the standard issue two-tone blue uniforms of corrections officers; the rest were in civilian attire—administrators, IT workers, and maintenance personnel. All of them sat quietly. Ken imagined they were mentally preparing for a long day.

  Ken nodded his compliance to the grizzled veteran attendant and made his way to the rear of the car. He continued through sliding doors into a small sealed compartment then into the next car. Though he knew what he would find in the second car, he was on edge. The chill hit him first, then the smell. The air was cold even through his woolen attendant’s jacket. His nose stung from the intense odor of sanitation solution.

  The sliding doors hissed closed behind Ken and he looked around for the senior officer. The scene was dramatically different from the one he just left.

  The last nine cars of the train were reserved for the Keep’s primary import: prisoners. Each of
the nine cars was identical to the one which Ken found himself. Down the center of the car ran rows of metal benches where four prisoners sat locked and clamped into place with magnetic restraints. They were all clad in fresh prison whites, their skin showing raw and reddened from the sanitation process, their bald heads ready for the tattooed stamp of their prison identification number.

  Looking around, Ken noticed one armed guard standing at the front of the car on the opposite side of the benches from him. Another stood toward the rear of the car with two more pacing up and down the outer aisles. To reach the nearest guard he’d have to walk in front of a row of four surly looking prisoners. Even with restraints securely in place, Ken felt uneasy at this idea; he felt it was best to avoid going near them at all if possible. The guard at the front hadn’t looked in his direction anyway, so Ken proceeded down the bulkhead aisle toward the officer pacing that area.

  Risking a glance to the left, Ken considered the prisoners; their faces wore the look of either resignation or pure insanity. He wondered what each of them must have done to end up here. What violence had they caused, he wondered. Were those bombers from a few weeks ago here in this car? No, he answered himself; they were all killed in that shootout with police.

  Ken’s grandfather, being a man of some standing in the government, knew a fair amount about the prison system and shared most of what he knew with Ken just yesterday. Ken knew all the unfortunate souls in this car and the others already at the Keep would serve an unknown amount of time there.

  No one on this train knew how long they’d be in prison.

  They would be judged by a mysterious group officially referred to as the Order of the Coppice, but unofficially known as Tappers. They would allow a few inmates to leave while others would only be worthy to live out their natural lives in prison. Most, however, would be found unfit to share the world with the rest of humankind; their lives would be taken from them while they slept.

  The justice system, as Ken knew it, was straightforward. If you found yourself convicted of a crime worthy of prison time, you were sent to the Keep. No judge or jury delivered your sentence; that was determined after you arrived at the Keep. The courts decided if you were guilty. Tappers decided how to punish you.

  Ken approached the guard, who was facing away from him and walking in the opposite direction. Ken chose not to call out to the officer, not wanting to draw the attention of the soon-to-be inmates. In fact, Ken thought if he stayed close enough to the gray bulkhead, he might just blend in, avoiding detection altogether.

  His plan failed.

  “Hey, boyo,” called a prisoner with a cheese grater for a voice.

  Instinctively, Ken turned and immediately regretted the decision.

  “Come sit on mama’s lap and let her make you a man.” She flicked her tongue through a large gap where her top four teeth should have been.

  “S-sorry, ma’am,” Ken stuttered. “I c-can’t do that. I just need to …”

  “Ohhh, don’t be sorry, baby,” she said. “Why don’t you let mama pop your cherry, boyo?” With a thumb and forefinger, she made a circle and, with the other hand, she stuck a finger through it. “I’ll go slow.”

  The prisoners around her burst out laughing. Men and women alike began catcalling in a similar vein. Ken was told he’d be their special boy, that he’d be treated right, that wifey at home couldn’t “make it happen” like they could.

  He didn’t know what to do. He turned in place several times, initially thinking he should go back to the first car then deciding he had to pass on the message they gave him. But at the moment he struggled to remember what the message even was. Something about stopping soon, he thought. The guard approached.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he bellowed, raising his baton threateningly. “Want a cracked skull on your first day? Want to get tapped on your first night? I’m in good with the Tappers and all it takes is a word.” He said this in almost a whisper which was all he needed. At the word “tapped,” every voice fell silent.

  The guard pulled a stunned Ken to the bulkhead. “What is it, new guy?”

  “I … um, oh yeah, we’re making a stop soon, but only for a few minutes.” Immense relief passed over Ken as the memory of the message finally came back to him.

  “All right, I’ll pass it on to the commanding officer. And listen kid, don’t talk to the prisoners … ever. Got it?”

  Ken nodded. “Hey, how did you know I was new?”

  The guard chuckled and shook his head. “First, no one who knows his ass from a hole in the ground talks to these animals. Second, they always send the new guy back here with messages. They could just call us.” He pointed to his earpiece. “Instead, they decide to fuck with you. Next time, tell them to use the radio.”

  Ken nodded, feeling sheepish. The guard resumed his patrol.

  Ken moved as quickly as he could to get out of the second car without running. Catcalls complimenting his rear-end followed him until he passed gratefully through the pair of sliding doors and into the comparatively luxurious and warm passenger car.

  Nearly stumbling into the car, he immediately looked for Muntz. He saw him still stationed behind the engineer’s booth. Muntz could barely contain himself with laughter; his entire body convulsed as he gasped for breath.

  “Did they like you, kid?” he said when Ken came near. “Did they? What did they say, huh?”

  Muntz was bent nearly double, slapping his thighs with his hands.

  “Fuck you, Muntz,” Ken said. “Next time use the radio … you … crusty old buffoon.”

  Ken turned and quickly resumed his prior station by the front doors. He ruminated on his choice of insult, not his best. Staring out of the large windows in the front entry doors, he let the moment pass like the stalwart trees below them.

  The prison transport would make twenty-four trips during Ken’s shift. It would make another twenty-four during the next shift, after which Ken would be back to resume his post as a dutiful attendant.

  Several moments passed and Armen Muntz joined him at the entry doors. He said nothing for a short while as he watched the endless forest of trees go by.

  “See that one there,” Muntz said, pointing at a random longleaf pine, tracking it with his finger as it flew past. “That one is my favorite.”

  Ken appreciated the attempt at a peace offering and gave Muntz’s joke a sincere but suppressed chuckle.

  “Today is your lucky day, Ken,” Muntz said with a sideways glance at Ken. “I’ve been working this train for twenty-three years and I’ve only seen what you’re about to see five times.”

  “What? Does it have something to do with the unscheduled stop?” Ken craned his neck to look down the track, but the curve ahead made it impossible to see anything but the green tops of more trees.

  “You’ll see, kid. Don’t worry, you’ll know exactly what it is when you see it. And a word of advice, don’t make a spectacle of yourself when you do.”

  Muntz turned and walked back to his side of the train just as Ken was about to ask another question. More hazing, Ken thought. It was probably just more bullshit to make the new guy look like an idiot.

  * * *

  Francesca stared up at the bright, late morning sky wondering when she’d see it again. Bold blue stood behind impossibly white clouds that skittered past. She did her best to be in the moment, tracing the outer curves of the fluffy white puffs as if she could commit each one to memory.

  She stood on a high square platform above the trees, waiting for her train. The track stretched beyond the horizon in both directions allowing the bullet train to surf over the treetops. After she boarded, free moments like these would be precious few.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The piney scent of the woods below her filled her nose. The musty smell of the damp forest floor left her moments ago as she ascended the many flights of stairs to reach the top of the platform. The wind caressed her face, threatening to pull loose ends of her hair from the tight platinum braid
hanging between her shoulder blades.

  The fourteen-mile trek to the platform was compulsory, as it had been for all Apprentice Members of the Order. She turned her head, scanning the forest in search of the path she knew was down there somewhere. It eluded her. The trees were too tall, the canopies too broad. She had walked that path once before, but away from the train, not toward it. That had been eighteen years ago when she was just a child leaving a life at the orphanage behind to start a new one at the Pupil’s School of the Order.

  Her legs burned from climbing the stairs and her back ached from the hike. The walk exhausted her, but she also felt the weight of the responsibilities that awaited her at her new home, the Coppice. Would she be capable of performing the Sacred Task? Was she mentally skilled enough to clear her mind and judge with wisdom and without bias?

  Earlier that day, as Francesca set out in the still dark morning, one of her teachers had seen her off.

  “As you know, I cannot go with you,” the auburn-haired master said. “A Member’s life is one of solitude, willingly accepted. Your decisions, your judgments are your own, as they should be. Your journey to the train platform is symbolic of your taking these steps on your own and ultimately accepting what this life will bring you.”

  “Thank you for your wisdom.” She looked at the ground and adjusted her duffel bag hanging from her shoulder. “I know the rules, but I hope…”

  “We will not.” He shook his head. “We will not see each other again. Mine is simply to prepare Apprentice Members for the next phase of their journey. The first phase, now complete, was merely education. Now you must experience. True learning has not yet occurred.”