Living Proof

by Peter J Thompson

  He contemplated his card house for a long moment before punching the hold button and returning to his conversation.

  “Yes, General, I’m so sorry about the delay. As you were saying?” He picked up two more cards and added on to the foundation of his building.

  The door to the room opened and Captain Parker Cain walked in. He glided across the carpet, quietly sank into one of the immense leather chairs, and waited.

  “Yes, that is accurate.” Pope didn’t look up at the arrival. He placed another series of cards on the desk, connecting them with the others, broadening the base.

  “The bottom line, General, as we have discussed before, is the security of the United States of America.” He spoke with conviction. “Will our nation prevail, sir? That is the very question that you need to ask yourself. If you cut my funding, will our nation prevail?”

  Pope started on the second story of his structure, carefully placing cards slightly inside the perimeter of the first floor.

  “You have my report, sir. As you know, the potential impairment could be catastrophic. Are you prepared to make that decision, sir? Are you ready to place that burden on your shoulders?”

  There was a period of silence while he listened. He finished the second floor and began to work on the third. Then, “Very good, sir, a wise decision. You’ve done a great deed for the republic, sir… Yes, and the best regards to your family too.” With that, he hung up.

  The colonel continued to build his pyramid of cards. Without looking up, he spoke to the captain. “A buffoon. A complete buffoon. That’s the problem with our system, Parker. The people chosen to lead us are those least equipped to do so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Political considerations. This is just one more indication of how weak this country has become. The role of a leader is to lead. You make the decision, justify it after the fact if you must, but make the damn decision. History alone will say whether you were right or wrong. Remember that, Parker.”

  “Yes, sir. I will.”

  The colonel placed the cards with great care. “A leader’s role is to determine the correct path. People are like sheep. Left to their own devices, they’ll wander aimlessly. Lacking direction, they will flounder. They want someone to tell them what to do and where to go. Society functions because of strong leaders.”

  He picked up another card and stopped to look at Cain for the first time. “And here we have this buffoon talking about political considerations. He spends too much time in Washington.” His face puckered with disgust. “They have to take a poll out there before they can decide to move their bowels. Have you studied history, Parker?”

  “Well, some, sir. I know a little about the Civil War and such…”

  “Roman history, Parker. Ancient Rome.” He contemplated his tower again before placing two more cards on top. “Rome had a society much like ours, an empire that was the envy of its age. They had strong leaders who did what was necessary to build and expand their territory. They built a great society. They carved a majestic civilization out of a barbarous wilderness.”

  “Yes, sir. I know some about them.”

  “Their civilization lasted for a time, but they became rich and decadent. Morally corrupt.” He put another card on top. “Much like our society.”

  Cain nodded.

  “From talking with our scientists, I understand that we are very close to achieving our objective. The vaccine is in the seventh generation and showing positive results. They anticipate a breakthrough soon. We’ve come a long way.”

  Colonel Pope took the last two cards off the desk, and with steady hands, teepeed them onto the very top of his tower. He had used the full deck, and the structure was tall and well built. He leaned back in his chair and admired his creation.

  “We are very near our destination. We can’t afford to get careless at this juncture… What I need to know, Parker, are there any loose ends?” He looked Cain straight in the eye, and with his right hand, pulled a single card from the bottom of the structure. With that, the whole arrangement collapsed. Captain Cain watched with fascination as the cards sprayed across the table and skidded onto the floor. “Remember, Parker, we can’t afford any loose ends.”

  The five men in spacesuits surrounded Ramon. They disconnected him from the monitors and machines. They loosened his straps and he was allowed to stand up. It felt so good to move, but his body wasn’t accustomed to it. His legs felt like rubber, his muscles quivered like Jell-O. A thought flashed into his brain.

  Now’s the chance. RUN.

  This was an opportunity to escape; he could lash out at his captors and flee. His brain told him to run, but his body was doing its best trying not to collapse onto the floor.

  “Take off your clothes,” the short spaceman ordered. Out of habit, Ramon did as he was told. He peeled off his soiled robe and dropped it to the ground. Standing naked before them, he felt even more exposed and vulnerable.

  “This way.” The short spaceman’s voice rasped electronically as he turned towards the door. The others flanked Ramon and herded him towards the exit. The door slid open and they moved into the hallway.

  His legs still felt weak. It was taking all his powers and will to stay upright and walk forward. All thoughts of running disappeared. He just wanted to cover his nakedness. He looked around. They were in a short corridor with walls of smooth orange-painted concrete. He tried to glance behind him, but his captors were obstructing his view. He saw one of them was holding a small black device in his hand. It looked like an electric razor, but he held it like a weapon.

  They came to the end of the corridor. The door slid open and they entered a small chamber with another door directly in front of them, an air lock. The door behind them closed and the door in front opened. They moved through into a wide hallway. There was a loud rushing sound of air being sucked upward. They moved to the end of the hallway and through another door.

  “Close your eyes. It won’t hurt you,” the short spaceman rasped. Ramon almost gagged. The air was filled with the fumes of disinfectant. A mist fell on him from all sides. He tried to hold his breath so he wouldn’t choke, but his nostrils burned and his lungs were on fire. Just as he reached the point where he could stand no more, the spray stopped. They stepped through another set of doors into a new room.

  Ramon opened his eyes again and gasped for breath. One of the spacemen was staring at him, the eyes barely visible through the mask.

  “Shower,” the man said, motioning to a stall off to the side of the hall.

  It looked like a normal shower stall, but Ramon felt uneasy. He he’d heard stories of the Jews being given showers in the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. It would be so easy to kill him before he had a chance to resist. But it didn’t make sense. If they wanted him dead, they would have killed him already. He was still alive for a reason. He moved into the stall and turned on the water.

  The water was hot and soothing. His muscles relaxed while seeming to firm at the same time. He washed the accumulated grime off his body. The oils, the sweat, the stench. He rubbed himself with soap from head to toe and let the hard stream of water cascade over his skin. Breathing in the steam, he felt renewed and strong again. He didn’t even care that they were watching him. Something was happening, but he was here for a purpose. They wanted him alive—at least for now. All he could do was to wait and hope for the best. After a time, he turned off the water.

  One of the spacemen handed Ramon a towel. He dried himself off. Another of the spacemen thrust a robe at him. “Put this on.” He was happy to comply. It was just a thin cotton hospital robe but being dressed made him feel better.

  His captors flanked him again and herded him forward. A sign by the door said they were entering Quarantine Number Two. They stepped through into an open rectangular area with doors on three sides and a corridor going off on the fourth side. The rooms were all numbered and had darkened windows looking into them.

  “Number three is open,” the short man s
aid in his electronic drone.

  They moved over to the room marked number three. The short man swiped a card through and the door slid open. Ramon was pushed forward into the darkened room. He could just make out the outline of a bed, a chair, and some equipment of some sort.

  One of the spacemen flipped a switch and the room flooded with light. This was an ordinary room with an ordinary bed. But there was a movement on the bed. It was only a second before the guards realized that something was wrong. Someone was in the room. The figure on the bed had sat all the way up before the spacemen reacted.

  “Out! Wrong room, get the hell out!” Even through the electronic crackle, Ramon could sense the panic in their voices.

  They tried to push Ramon out of the room, but he resisted as he stared at the figure on the bed. He was an image from a nightmare. The man was tall but skeletally thin, his skin covered with oozing purple boils. The room had the putrid smell of waste, disinfectant, and decaying flesh.

  “Please… please help me,” the man croaked pleadingly.

  Ramon was in a state of shock. There was something about the man, something about his dead eyes and huge misshapen nose that seemed so familiar.

  The spacemen shoved Ramon. He stumbled out of the room and the door slid shut behind them. They were back in the hallway. In a flash, it hit Ramon why the monstrous figure looked so familiar. Yes, he looked very different from when Ramon had last seen him, but there was no doubt. It was him. It was Billy Dale Burke.

  But Billy Dale was dead.

  He’d been executed a week before Ramon. But then he was supposed to be dead too, which meant that this was to be his fate also. Adrenaline surged through his body and Ramon snapped. All the fear and anger he’d been living with for so long exploded in his brain.

  One of his captors grabbed him by the arm, trying to move him toward a different room. Ramon shook the captor off and came back hard with his elbow, hitting the guard in the stomach and emptying him of breath. Before the others could react, Ramon was on him. He knocked the guard against the wall and hit his head with his fists. Fast, hard shots.

  The first hit cracked the plastic of the visor in his helmet. The second shot knocked the headgear halfway off his head, exposing the guard to the dangerous air. As the guard fell to the floor, Ramon pivoted toward the others. They’d been slow to react and weren’t expecting the viciousness of the attack, they seemed stunned and frightened.

  “Grab him!” the short one shouted.

  One of the guards tried to grab Ramon from the side, but the spacesuit was too bulky and he was too tentative. Ramon sidestepped him, grabbed on to his suit, and threw him into another guard. They both tumbled to the ground. Ramon stepped forward to attack—hitting and kicking.

  For the moment, there were only two left on their feet and Ramon was a whirlwind. Fast and brutal. He was fighting for his life and ready to destroy anything in his way. He grabbed the short guard, hit him once on the side of the head, then grabbed for his headgear, trying to yank it off. His head too.

  The last standing guard quickly stepped behind Ramon, holding the black device in his hand. He swung it to the small of Ramon’s back and pressed the trigger. A spark, an arc of blue electricity jumped from the small device to Ramon, who instantly let go of his hold, arched his back and dropped to the floor.

  The fallen guards got to their feet and joined their comrades. They looked down at the floor. The last guard lay dazed on the ground. His mask was off and he was breathing in the unfiltered air.

  Ramon lay next to him, shaking with spasms on the cold cement floor, flopping like a landed trout.

  7

  The routine was always the same on execution nights. Dr. Meeks would arrive early and check all the equipment to make sure it was working properly. Then he’d move the van into position near the loading dock and make sure the exit route was clear. Then he would personally prepare the chemicals for the lethal injection machine. The proportions had to be exact. Too much and he’d have a dead body on his hands; too little, and the body would show signs of life. Either outcome was unacceptable. The mixture had to be precise.

  Leonard Stoats, the lead technician, was supposed to be in charge of setting up and running the machine. The machine’s manufacturer had trained and certified him in its use. Stoats had only been at the Ellis unit for three months. Prior to that, his resume stated that he had been on the death row staff for the state of Florida. His time was actually spent closer to home, working as a sergeant at the Lyndon B Johnson Army Installation. Captain Parker Cain had taken a special interest in Stoats and pegged him for special duty and accelerated advancement. As was the agreement, Stoats deferred to Meeks in all matters. This was to be their twenty-third execution together.

  Tonight, Meeks finished all his tasks early. He was in his office writing out the preliminary information on the death certificate for that night’s subject, when Stoats came into the room. Stoats was young, athletic, and perpetually cheerful. Each of those qualities was enough to irritate Meeks.

  Stoats grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and sat down, straddling it backwards. “Hey, Doc. How’re we lookin’ tonight?”

  Meeks ignored him and continued with his paperwork. In the week since the last corpse was delivered, he’d given the matter a good deal of thought. He had been threatened. Thinking back on the conversation with Cain, he was sure of that. Who were they to threaten him? After all he’d done for them too. Just thinking about it made him angry. He felt an involuntary twitch in his droopy eye. He steadied himself by force of will. It wouldn’t do to show his emotion. That was a sign of weakness. Meeks put down his pen and shook a new cigarette out of his pack. He lit up and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. He acknowledged Stoats for the first time by blowing the stream of smoke straight back into his face.

  Stoats just smiled good-naturedly, blinking back the smoke. “What do you say, Doc? We rock and rollin’ tonight?”

  Meeks leaned back in his chair with a forced calm. “What time is it?”

  Stoats glanced down at his watch. “Eleven o’clock. One hour to show time.”

  Meeks took another draw on his Marlboro before responding. “Everything’s set to go. I’ve got some paperwork I need to catch up on. You go down and look important. I’ll be there in a little while.”

  Stoats shrugged. “Sure, Doc. Whatever you think.” He flashed his smile again. “I’ll be seeing you down there.” He slid the chair back toward the corner as he got up and left the room.

  Meeks sat silently as he finished his cigarette. When it burned down almost to the filter, he stubbed it out and stood up. He opened his black medical bag and pulled out a hypodermic needle, removed the safety cap and placed the needle on his desk. Above the desk was a small safe. He withdrew the key from his pocket and opened the safe. Inside there were two wire racks with several rows of small glass vials. He looked through the vials until he found the one he was looking for. He took it out and closed the safe again. He picked up the needle, pushed the tip through the rubber stopper of the vial, and pulled back on the plunger to load.

  When the hypodermic was full, he tossed the empty vial into the trashcan and placed the safety tip back onto the needle. Meeks put the loaded needle into a compartment at the top of his bag and stuffed some papers into another compartment. He took the bag with him as he left the office, locking the door behind him.

  The execution went just as planned. At 12:32, Meeks checked the body and announced the official time of death. An hour later, the warden had left, the witnesses were dispersed, and Meeks and Stoats moved the prisoner’s body back to the room adjacent to the loading van. They wrestled the body into the green canvas body bag.

  “God damn, Doc, there’s got to be a better way to do this,” Stoats said.

  Meeks was silent as he lit up another cigarette. He took a few long puffs before speaking. “Go check out the van. Make sure we’re ready to go.”

  “I thought you did that already.”

  �
��Do it again. You need to make sure it’s clear before we just wheel him out.”

  Stoats nodded his head, opened the door, and stepped outside. Meeks opened his medical bag and withdrew the loaded hypodermic. He took off the safety cap and slipped the needle into his side pocket.

  A moment later, Stoats came back in. “No problem. It’s all clear.”

  Meeks took a last puff on his cigarette, threw his butt down, and crushed it under his heel.

  “Let’s do it then.”

  They propped the door open, and together, wheeled the gurney through the door and out onto the loading dock. The doors to the van were spread wide open. The van had one long shelf on the left side for placing the body, a space in between, and then another bench that opened up for storage underneath. They moved the gurney alongside the shelf in the van and used a board to position the body on the shelf. When they were finished, they moved the board out of the way. Meeks picked up a handful of bungee cords and tossed them over to Stoats.

  “Strap him in.”

  Stoats bent over the body near the head and began to connect a cord from the side of the shelf to the van wall, holding the body in place. Dr. Meeks reached into his pocket and withdrew the hypodermic. Quickly, he stepped in close behind Stoats and jammed the needle into the muscle at the back of his neck. He hit the plunger in with his other hand, releasing the contents.

  Stoats cried out. He grabbed his neck and began to turn, an expression of shock on his face. Meeks stepped backward. Stoats pulled the empty needle from his neck and looked at it as if it was some strange kind of bug. Then he dropped it and stepped toward Meeks with his hands out as if to throttle him. He managed one step forward before he dropped to the ground unconscious.

  Meeks stepped forward again and gave Stoats a vicious kick to the ribs. Stoats didn’t move. Meeks kicked out again, this time connecting with the head, which flopped over to the side and bounced off the van floor. Meeks bent down and checked to make sure Stoats was still breathing, then grabbed onto his feet, pivoted him, and pulled the body to the back of the van. He reached into his medical bag and pulled out a roll of duct tape. He yanked Stoats’ arms behind the back and wrapped the wrists tight with the tape. Then he wrapped some more tape around the ankles and knees.