“The Execution of Jean and Catherine”

Posted by tina on November 09, 20010 at 08:18:25:

Hi, everyone! This story was inspired by the Island Girls. Enjoy!

“The Execution of Jean and Catherine”
By Tina

It was all a silly misunderstanding. At least it would have been silly were it not for the shackles binding Catherine’s wrists and ankles. She shuffled the last few feet, the chains clinking quietly with each small step and then she stopped abruptly as her gaze came up away from the dusty floor. That is when she saw the bright white rope dangling down and the short stool sitting in the otherwise bare room. The empty noose hanging in front of her face was anything but silly.

“Please step up, Miss Meyer,” the Pakistani guard commanded in an accent left over from the days of Imperial British rule.

“NO,” Catherine screamed as she tried to pull away, “I’m innocent...WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN?”

She collapsed sobbing, her drooping body held up by the strong hands of the two khaki clad guards.

“Miss Meyer, that will do you no good,” the priest said as he bent over the sobbing woman.

The guards pulled Catherine into a half standing position and literally lifted her onto the stool. As one of the guards continued to hold Catherine upright the other slipped the noose down around her throat, cinched the heavy knot tight and then began to take up the slack. Catherine felt the course rope go tight around her throat, coughed once and went up on tiptoe to avoid strangling.

“Do you wish to repent of your sins my child,” the priest inquired softly as he gazed into the fear filled eyes of the trembling prisoner.

“Father,” Catherine gasped as the rope periodically closed around her neck, “I’m innocent...Jean Kramer is alive...I swear it!”

The priest shook his head sadly, bowed his head and stepped back. Catherine could see his hands folded in prayer as his gaze remained fixed on the concrete floor of the execution chamber.

The warden stepped forward. He was a surprisingly young man. He wore a white turban on his head. His eyebrows were dark and bushy, as was his mustache. He wore a khaki colored uniform with red epaulets on the shoulders. His knee socks had red tassels hanging down from the garter straps holding them in place around his skinny calves. Catherine clearly saw each of these details but heard none of the words he spoke.

“Catherine Valentine Meyer, you have been found guilty of the murder of Jean Mary Kramer. The punishment is death by hanging to be carried out immediately.”

The man folded the death warrant and nodded to the guards. The taller man still held Catherine’s arms as the other guard stepped up behind her. With a swift kick he knocked the stool out from under the condemned woman’s bare feet.

* * * *

Jean heard the cell door clank open. She must have dozed off.

“Its time, Miss Kramer,” the guard said as he advanced toward the woman.

She sat up on the bunk and stared at him. It was obvious she was confused. Then she saw the leather belt in his hand and the black robed minister standing at the cell entrance.

“Oh, so soon?” Jean asked still a bit dazed.

The guard said nothing but gently pulled the belt around Jean’s waist. She could feel him cinch the wide black belt down tight. So tight that she had gasped from the pressure around her waist. She gave no resistance as he enfolded each wrist in a sturdy metal cuff. Jan’s wrists were now pinioned to her waist just above her hips.

“I didn’t kill her, you know,” Jean said to the impassive guard. Her voice was barely audible even in the quiet cell.

She lurched forward and with great effort managed to lay her right hand on the bible being held by the clergyman.

“Pastor, I swear on this good book, I didn’t kill my friend,” Jean said in desperation.

“I’m sorry, my child,” the minister responded softly as he pushed Jean’s fingers from the Holy Bible. He looked briefly into the terror filled eyes that were silently pleading for salvation. Then his gaze fell away. She could hear him mumbling as he led them from the cell. She supposed he was praying for her immortal soul.

“Better pray for all these wicked men, pastor,” Jean said bitterly when they reached the execution chamber, “and for yourself.”

Again their eyes met and locked for a split second before the guard pushed Jean toward the platform. The wooden stand was lower than she expected. She walked up the three steps and for the first time summoned the courage to gaze at the white rope. The noose dangled unmoving at the front middle of the platform. Jean could see the front section of the platform the part directly under the noose was hinged. The guard led her up to the dangling rope and the noose framed her face.

The executioner walked up and held out a black hood. Jean shook her head.

“I want them all to see what they’ve done,” she said as her head flicked toward the one-way mirror in the execution chamber.

“Suite yourself,” the man said as he moved the rope around Jean’s face.

The rope was surprisingly course as Jean felt the executioner push it down around her head. Then he gave the knot a jerk and Jean made a strangled gasp as the noose was cinched into place around her throat. She could feel the heavy knot at her right ear. Then she felt the slack go out of the rope, her head was forced over slightly and she had to go up on tiptoe to avoid choking.

“Jean Mary Kramer you have been found guilty of the murder of Catherine Valentine Meyer. Your sentence is death by hanging to be carried out immediately,” the executioner read the warrant of death.

Jean tried to turn to look at the man as he stepped away. Just as he was coming into her peripheral vision she heard a noise. The sound was an almost inaudible scraping noise. Then the floor went out from under her feet.

* * * *

Catherine had expected her life to flash before her eyes. Oddly enough the only images that crystallized in her brain were the pictures of Jean supposedly strangled. Her friend with the curly dark brown hair certainly did appear dead. The dark, straight line of the ligature was plainly visible around her strangled neck. Catherine had thought it was some of her best work both from the use of makeup and the photographic effects as well. The irony was certainly not lost on the condemned woman that the photographs had appeared so real as to put her own neck in the noose.

“Why hadn’t Jean returned her calls for help,” Catherine wondered in the split second when she was floating free.

* * * *

Jean felt herself drop. She heard a horrible scream and realized it was the final sound she would make.

“Damn, Catherine,” Jean thought during the split second drop, “Its all her fault.”

Of course Jean had taken the pictures. Catherine certainly appeared to be dead. Then there was the “murder” weapon the police had found in her lingerie drawer. The nosey neighbor had called the police because she hadn’t seen Catherine in months. At first the police pooh poohed the neighbor’s alarms. But the more they investigated the more unanswered questions surfaced.

“If Miss Meyer is house sitting, why can’t we find her at the mansion?”

Then Jean had received news that the couple who owned the house had been killed in a skiing accident in Europe. The only people who could corroborate her story were stone cold dead. As dead as the police thought Catherine was. Then the search of the house and grounds had turned up some very incriminating evidence. In the house the police found photographs of a strangled Catherine and that had been followed up with discovery of the rope garrote used in the murder. Unearthing a body in one of the remote gardens had been the final nail in Jean’s coffin. Although the body could not be positively identified it was that of a Caucasian woman, approximately 5’8” tall and weighing 110 to 125 pounds. Jean was promptly charged with murder, tried and convicted. The jury had taken all of thirty minutes to mull over the mostly circumstantial evidence and the judge for some reason had a hard on for Jean. He sentenced her to hang for the heinous crime of snuffing her best friend.

These thoughts flitted through Jan’s brain just before she came to an abrupt stop.

* * * *

The rope tightened with a swift pain that transformed her. She had never felt anything so excruciating before. She could feel her mouth opening as she tried to breathe. She could feel her throat work against the horrible rope. Her lungs screamed for the cool air that was never to come again.

“Don’t struggle and the rope won’t tighten,” a small voice said calmly.

A chorus of panic drowned that wee tiny sound out. Her legs kicked wildly and her feet worked up and down in a vain attempt to relieve the hideous pressure. She wanted so desperately to push herself back up. The rope was biting hard into her throat. The poor woman was slowly strangling at the end of the rough white rope. Her hands fought to break free so she could reach up and release her neck from the terrible pain of the hangman‘s noose.

“Why can’t I relieve this horrible pressure,” another voice asked as the feet futilely fanned the air.

Her feet were no more than a foot from the floor. She could see her feet quite clearly and the floor below seemed so close. Her toes pointed down toward the floor and salvation. Still agonizing inches separated her from the solid foundation.

“Why am I still strangling?” she wondered, “haven’t they realized their mistake by now?”

In the euphoria of rising asphyxiation she just knew her friend must have been coming to save her.

“She will surely appear at the last instant and set everything right,” the dying woman reasoned.

The rope tightened with each new jerk. Her legs would bend slightly and then kick down with all the force she could muster from her oxygen starved muscles. A kick of the leg, followed by the ever so slight tightening of the loop of course rope and the closing of her throat another centimeter.

The spectators could see her fingers clenching and unclenching as her muscles strained against the restraints. Those in attendance could clearly hear each gasp and gurgle as the woman swung. Every muscle in the dangling woman’s body was fighting to free her of the tortuous bondage. She especially needed to be free of the noose. She had been without air for four minutes now and her lungs burned as though she had swallowed fire.

Her eyes bulged out of a dark face. As she had hanged her face had slowly run through a range of colors from red to violet. Like Pinocchio’s nose when he told a lie, the struggling woman’s tongue slid further and further out of her wide open mouth. Viscous drool could clearly be seen coating the bulbous appendage.

Toward the end only the executioner was near enough to the hanging woman to be able to hear the terrible gurgles erupting from deep inside her throat.

After six minutes her body was undulating like a fish swimming slowly through the water. Her legs were shaking a little but no longer able to bend. Her feet wiggled up and down but the furious pumping action was over. Her fingers had closed into loose fists. Her chest shuddered periodically as her lungs continued to make half-hearted attempts to fill themselves. There were visible red smears around the rope where the noose had cut into her tender flesh. The rope covered the worst of the raw skin.

Her tongue now filled her gaping mouth and hung lewdly out of the corner of her mouth in the direction of her tilted head.

The medical examiner impatiently looked at his watch. It had been ten minutes and the woman still was fighting for her life. He new the game was over but the woman continued to display slight movement and would do so for almost ten minutes more.

Toward the end her eyes had lost coordination. One bulging eye stared down at the floor while the other turned to look at the crowd of ghouls watching her tortuous death. She wanted to curse them all but had no voice or even coherent thought.

There seemed to be a sighing noise in the death chamber and she succumbed.

* * * *
The doctor carefully unbuttoned Jean’s blouse. He put the stethoscope against the lower side of the left breast. He gently pushed the cup of her bra aside as he explored her chest. He could smell the odor of death and could see the back of Jean’s prison dress was stained brown inside a spreading wet spot.

“Time of death is 12:22,” the doctor stated loudly, “may God have mercy on the soul of Jean Mary Kramer.”

* * * *

Catherine Valentine Meyer’s body dangled from the white noose. Her head was cocked to the point her chin was almost touching her chest. She had choked and strangled for almost twenty minutes before she had finally died. She had been given no panties to wear so her voided excrement lay moldering on the concrete floor as her urine dripped slowly from her pointed toes.

The doctor was careful to keep his distance as he put the stethoscope to the dangling woman’s chest. He moved the stethoscope around for a couple of minutes to make sure the woman had expired.

“Death is officially at 6:22,” the Pakistani doctor stated.

The prison officials left the woman to hang for the mandated hour. The janitor sent to clean up the mess had no problem with Catherine’s corpse. In fact he found the American female so delectable that he had made an unscheduled stop on the way to the pauper’s field. He pulled the old station wagon used as a hearse into a side street along his route. He had failed in his attempt to get his erection past the bloated tongue so instead he had fucked Catherine’s luscious ass. He seemed unconcerned with this violation as he satisfied himself with the dead American. The well-strangled woman made no protest as he viciously squeezed her tits and reamed her butt.

The unmarked grave full of lye would wipe clean this final desecration.

* * * *

Jean Kramer was buried in a grave next to the grave of the woman identified as her friend Catherine Meyer. Harry was one of the few mourners at Jean’s interment. He was a stranger to the woman but he wanted to see her burial with his own eyes.

Harry had followed the investigation and subsequent trial with great interest. He was very relieved to read of Jean’s execution. When he had buried his girl friend he had no thought that anyone would ever find the body. Then the authorities had unearthed her body and mistakenly identified her as a different murder victim. Jean’s execution was the end of it and Harry was free. Harry Kramer thought life was extremely good. He just hoped the real Catherine Meyer never showed up again.