Posted by Sawney Beane on June 08, 2006 at 23:52:03:
The Collected Works of Sawney Beane: Volume #27
DEATH ROW: A LOVE STORY
by Sawney Beane
24 September 1995
1,824 words
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE and DISCLAIMER: Sawney Beane requests that any distribution of this work of fiction remain within the realm of social responsibility. This story is suitable neither for minors nor for the seeming majority of adults who have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It is pure fantasy, which means that, for whatever reason, someone has found it interesting to think about the events depicted herein. It does not in any way mean that the author would like to see this fantasy become reality, so if you are the type of person who might be swayed into doing something irrational by reading a work of fiction, the author respectfully requests that you decline to read further.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sawney Beane, originally a native of Edinburgh, lived for twenty-five years in a cave on the coast of County Galloway, subsisting on the flesh of unfortunate travellers, roughly a thousand of them all told. He and his wife raised a large family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters. Eventually, the family was captured, and the whole lot was brutally and unjustifiably tortured and executed without trial. Since his death in the early 17th century, Beane has reformed his ways and now confines his atrocities to his literary endeavours.
WARNING: This story contains scenes of non-consensual male and female snuff and cannibalism. If you find such things offensive, please steer clear; you have been warned.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is basically the story of two executions. The narrator is a man who is about to be put to death, and he describes the awful spectacle of his wife's execution the previous day. Sick but mildly interesting.
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I have about an hour...give or take a few minutes...to live. I'm not particularly happy about this, but there is no doubt that I deserve to die. I am not sure I want to be making this tape, but I am sure that I don't want the psychologists that look at the transcript to mark me down as having said nothing and sobbing a lot during the last hour of my life. Anyway, I just want to curse the guy who came up with the idea of taping the last hour of convicted criminals' lives. Then I'll tell my story.
Actually, I'll first tell you what I'm doing now. I'm on my back on a long sheet of metal. My wrists, ankles, neck, and waist are clamped down to the metal. It's very cold and very uncomfortable. Also, I'm next to a large window overlooking the death chamber. I can see the awful contraption that took my wife's life just yesterday. I will also be watching as the prison official, reporters, and other important people show up for my last party. They'll be watching me too.
OK, about my...our...crime. I don't know what Sheila told you yesterday, but I'm telling the truth when I say it was her idea. Don't get me wrong: I love her very much, but she was the one who wanted to rob the bank. Actually, I did mention it first, but I was only joking and she had just been lamenting our mounting debts. But Sheila took me very seriously and said, "OK, when?"
Well, I shrugged it off for the time being, but we kept coming back to the idea, and she finally convinced me that we should go for it. After all, the insurance would pay everybody off anyway. I won't bore you with the details, but we planned it very well and everything was going as planned up to a point. But we got stuck.
There we were: masked, armed, and dripping with money. Sheila and I were holding twenty-three people hostage, and there were cops all around the building. But they wouldn't take our threats seriously. The vehicles we demanded were not brought, and we couldn't decide how to get out of this mess. I certainly didn't want to have to kill any innocent people before the cops'd listen.
That's when Sheila kinda snapped. I couldn't believe it! I heard gunfire and at first thought that the cops were moving in, but the people in front of me were scattering and dropping to the ground in bloody heaps. Sheila's gun was blazing, and she was laughing maniacally. I couldn't think of anything to do for a moment and then started gunning down the few stragglers she missed. It seemed rational at the time, but I couldn't give you a reason for my behaviour now. A long time later, we both stopped firing and watched the smoke clear.
And there, the most horrible sight of my life, were the bodies...housewives, businessmen, bank tellers, children, women in business suits, and a couple of elderly security guards. A moment earlier they had been a nervous bundle of hostages, and now they were a bloody mess on the floor. All told Sheila and I killed eleven women, eight men, and four children.
Strangely enough, I had kept a sort of emotionless detachment throughout the slaughter and kept it afterwards. In contrast, Sheila had laughed like a maniac while she did the terrible deed, and now she was sobbing hysterically in the aftermath. Then the police moved in and captured us with ease.
The trial was nasty, brutish, and short. We'd been caught with smoking guns amongst our victims' still-warm corpses. The verdict was never in doubt. We were convicted and given the big choice of life or death. I resolved to go along with whatever Sheila chose. She chose to die, which was not at all surprising considering the alternatives. On my own part, I would have taken life in prison, but it would have been a living hell for Sheila. Ever since they made all the prisons mixed gender, very few women have selected life in prison over death. The number of people executed in the last few years has been roughly equally divided between men and women, despite the fact that far fewer women than men are forced to make that dreadful choice. I think that's why they integrated the prisons. Rape is of course prohibited in prison, but everyone knows that the guards don't take many pains to enforce this rule. Sheila probably wouldn't have lived long there anyway, and I couldn't live without her.
So we were scheduled to die, and here I am, as my beloved was a day ago. Actually, they made me watch her die yesterday. I was seated in the corner in chains as I watched them bring Sheila in on her silver platter. She was strapped down as I am now, and her nude body trembled as the strong guards dropped her down on the table around which the predominately male crowd of dignitaries was seated. Several important people said some apparently important things that I-and probably Sheila-failed to hear and understand clearly. Then they started to poke and prod her shapely body.
As I mentioned, the crowd was predominately male, and mine will be too, so I will presumably have a better time of it. But they really tormented her for several minutes while I shouted at them across the room. Finally, they tired of their sport, and the warden signed the order for Sheila's termination. My throat was dry as they slid her platter under the wooden tower at the end of the table that supported the blade. She was still on her back and stared up in terror at the gleaming knife of the guillotine above her as the guards clamped down her neck.
They were just getting ready to pull the lever and lop off my darling's head when someone had an idea. He'd noticed me bellowing from the corner and remembered my relationship to the condemned. He whispered with the warden for a few minutes before the latter broke out into a wide grin and halted the execution. Then they unstrapped Sheila and rolled the beautiful confused woman over onto her stomach and strapped her down again. Then they came and got me.
I was forced to kneel in front of her and hold her head with one hand on each side. I was told to kiss her while they did their dirty deed. She seemed a bit reassured by my presence, and I enjoyed having one last kiss, but there was something I knew I wouldn't like.
So we were locked in a ferocious French kiss for several minutes. Sheila seemed to be emptying all of her thoughts into probing around my mouth with her tongue. Then, just when I had relaxed a bit, I heard a "FWOOSH" sound and saw a flash of light reflected by the falling blade. Sheila gasped, and her teeth clamped down on my tongue. I fell over backwards without letting go of her head. A warm liquid drenched my chest, and Sheila's eyes stared blankly into my own an inch in front of hers. Our kiss was now very painful for me, and some of the guards helped to pry Sheila's teeth from my tongue.
In a moment, Sheila and I had both died. But I had another day yet to live. My organs felt heavy within me, and a sudden tiredness encompassed my blood-drenched body. Since that moment, I've feared my imminent death much less. I've no reason to live.
Of course, everyone knows what they did with poor Sheila's corpse. Some men in white coats hurriedly carried the platter out of the room, and the guests began a lengthy ceremony that involved mounting Sheila's head on one of the stakes that line the far wall of the death chamber in a gruesome row. About half of the stakes are empty, but they other half support male and female human heads.
I can see most of them from here, and I can see Sheila's head, and I can see the empty stake to her left on which my head will be enshrined before long. But I don't want to think about that now. I also don't want to think about the growing number of people in the death room. I recognize many of the attendees from yesterday, but there are a few new faces. When everyone arrives, they'll begin the fatal ritual again. They'll be coming for me soon.
Anyway, after Sheila's head had been duly mounted, and many drinks had been drunk, and many people had asked me my opinion (along with a sneering laugh) of Sheila's new home, Sheila's body returned on her platter. The men in white coats had been in possession of it for quite a while and had had time to roast it to a fine medium well. Everyone in the room but me applauded loudly as Sheila, now with a rather darker tan than before, arrived as a steaming headless corpse.
Things went very fast. Someone brought out a carving knife and distributed lovely Sheila's abused flesh to all the guests. Some jobs had perks of this kind. Everyone insisted on telling me how delicious my wife was, and more than a few tried to feed me bits of her, but I was able to abstain. I can think of nothing worse than watching a band of petty officials and newspaper journalists reeling half-drunk around a room each with a plateful of the woman I love more than life.
I closed my eyes and slumped in the chair to which I had been rechained. An hour or so later it was over, and the guests dispersed as my guards led me back to my cell. I caught a glimpse of Sheila's ravaged corpse. It was mostly bones with a few bits and pieces of unidentifiable parts strewn about. The public loves this horrible practice. It feeds their need to revenge themselves on criminals. It is effective.
So I spent a sleepless night and was cleaned thoroughly all morning before being deposited in this waiting room to await the arrival of my executioners. I see almost everyone is here. My final moment is very near. I think I'll stop talking now and do a bit of moaning before I have to be introduced to the ladies and gentlemen who will dine on my corpse and the gleaming blade that will make my body a corpse.
But first I just want to make it clear that I don't blame Sheila for any of this. I've said a few things about her here, which are true but perhaps misleading. I deserve this fate as much as she did, and my doom is not her fault. Dead or alive, I'll love her forever.