In a second Jim was standing beside the cop. He recognized his own socks. They were buried in the hole on a pair of feet.
He suddenly felt joy that he’d done it. He could now be like the entities that floated around. He had dug far enough. They allowed him into their world.
He raced over to his brother and tried to take the picture but he couldn’t grasp it. He tried again and again, each time with growing vexation.
“Did you feel that?” his brother said out loud.
“Feel what?” the suit asked.
“A breeze of some kind. Like something ran by me.”
The the suit turned back to his brother. “No. Didn’t feel a thing. Look, if you want, we can do the positive ID thing back at the morgue.”
His brother walked over to the door and leaned on the wall beside it. “I’ll stay here. When I leave this apartment I’m going home to make funeral arrangements. I won’t drag this out.”
“Suit yourself. It’s going to take a while to remove the body properly, but it’s your choice.”
Jim watched everything with growing disdain. He wanted them to leave. This was his apartment. He headed for the kitchen to grab a knife as a warning.
His mother approached from the side.
“Mom?” He couldn’t believe it.
“Yes …”
It was her voice, but he refused to believe it. Where had she come from?
Why
had she come? She looked as radiant and beautiful as the day he shot her.
“It’s time to come home,” she said.
“But I am home. This is my home.”
She shook her head. “No, this was your earthly home. You need to realize that and move on.”
Jim shook his head in answer. “No, you don’t understand. I finally made it. I’m invisible like the entities that have always haunted me. I’m very much alive. You can’t convince me otherwise.”
“Jim, it’s okay. Come with me.”
“No!” he shouted. “I don’t need food and I don’t need to breathe. I’m able to move at a thought, I’m free. I finally did it. So don’t come around here telling me I’m dead. I’m more alive than ever before.” He reached for the knife on the counter but missed. He felt his face turn red as he reached for it again. The knife remained on the counter.
When he turned back his mother was gone. He looked over his shoulder and saw everyone staring in his general direction.
Jim screamed as high as he could.
The men visibly jumped. The landlord slipped out the door. The suit started for the door and Jim’s brother edged along the wall closer to it too.
Jim had made it. He could stay and make noises for others like they did to him.
It was Jim’s turn.
He rallied all the energy he possessed and shouted his favorite two words, “Don’t Shoot!”
The men ran from the apartment leaving Jim alone in his darkness, waiting for others to enter his domain.
He entered the hole in the wall and laid down, knocked on the wall, and whispered to himself.
Thoughts
Jack Singer’s time on death row, for the murders of Mary Edell and her husband Ralph, was soon to come to an end. It’d been four long years with no appeals. Jack remembered that night quite well. He’d cut himself while carving the Thanksgiving turkey. The jury had found him guilty as his DNA, blood, was found at the scene.
The real killer would have worn gloves, no doubt. The real killer would have been careful.
Jack’s wife and son had been out of the country visiting relatives, but Jack had stayed home, and Ralph had invited him over for Thanksgiving dinner.
He was an innocent man. His wife knew it. But the justice system convicted him and sentenced him to death by lethal injection, which was still practiced in the state of Texas. The only thing that could save Jack was a stay-of-execution call from the governor’s office, which didn’t seem likely.
The Huntsville Prison facility had cooked a great filet mignon for his last meal
, he thought, as he wiped his mouth.
The door to his cell clicked into the unlocked position, announcing his hourly check-up. Security performed these checks to count all death-row inmates, making sure that none had escaped or done some harm to themselves.
A guard stepped into his room and shut the door behind him. Jack felt something was wrong right away. The guard’s mannerisms were different; very odd. The guard’s eyes jostled back and forth. He was hunched over as if his back was giving him trouble, and he looked at the cell door repeatedly. The first thought in Jack’s head was drugs: the guy was either high or drunk.
“Jack, you’re goin’ to be okay,” the guard whispered. “I know you didn’t do it. You will be going home to your wife and son very shortly.”
What was this guy doing?
Whatever he was up to, it wasn’t comforting to hear someone feel Jack was innocent. It was too late for that. In order to absolve guilt, a whole new trial would have to take place and that didn’t fall under the category of
short
.
“What I mean is,” the guard continued. “I’m not going to let them hurt you. God resides on the Other Side, but today, God is on our side.”
“What are you talking about?” Jack finally asked.
Maybe he’s a religious freak
?
“I was sent to make things right. I’m here for you.”
The guard turned for the door, stepped out into the corridor, and locked Jack inside.
He wouldn’t allow himself hope. Not at this late hour. Today was his last day. Everything was in place, and had been in place for a long time. One security guard couldn’t do much.
Jack turned away from the door, mentally dismissing the guard as a whack job, and sat down on his bunk to think about his family. He hoped they wouldn’t show. The last thing he wanted was to have them remember him that way.
#
Five correctional officers escorted Jack to an area where there were ten holding cells. He was being ‘received’ in this new area, from the Ellis Unit, prior to execution. One of the five officers was the guard who had visited Jack with his crazy talk about Jack being freed shortly.
The hunched-over guard looked at him and winked. Jack wondered about the guy’s sanity. The guard looked capable, confident, and well put together. He must be at least six foot three, even with his shoulders slouched. It was obvious to Jack that he worked out quite a lot, the uniform stretching around his biceps. He decided he would call the man Mr. Odd, as he found his behavior matched the moniker.
Jack looked away from the guard to focus on his family with what little time he had left. It saddened him that he would never get to see his son grow to be a man. It broke his heart that two good people were dead and everyone thought he was the one who did it. But most of all, Jack felt destroyed on the inside that he wouldn’t get to grow old with his wife. Even though he had tried to mentally prepare for this, he felt crippled by it. He’d gone through all the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. He was going to die. There was nothing else left except prayer. His last silent prayer, was for a call from the governor. If he’d grant a stay, then Jack might get out of jail one day. It may be a long time, but at least there was hope.
Mr. Odd looked over at Jack and said, “There’s always hope. Have faith, Jack, have faith.”
Was he reading my mind?
Jack saw the other four guards look over at Mr. Odd, confusion on their faces.
The clearances had come through from the governor and the attorney general and it was time to move Jack to the execution chamber. He was placed on a gurney and secured by leather straps around his wrists, biceps, chest, stomach, and legs. A saving grace was they didn’t put a mask or a hood on him.
Intravenous tubes were set in; one in each arm and a regular flow of saline was started. After the speakers and microphones were checked, the witnesses were brought into the execution facility. At times he fought to keep his dinner down. He broke out in a sweat as people were being ushered in to watch him die.
When thoughts of his wife and son raced through his mind, he kept saying to himself,
Don’t be there, don’t be there.
Not two minutes later, he saw his wife with his son at her side.
Why would she bring their child to witness this?
In a crazy move, taking Jack completely by surprise, Mr. Odd reached over his body, obstructing his view of the people outside the windows, and yanked Jack’s IV lines out of both arms.
Since Jack was strapped down, he couldn’t twitch, or move to cover the small wounds. He looked up as the guard pulled out a concealed revolver and told everyone to leave the execution chamber. Even though there was some protest, it all happened so fast. One moment he was looking at the people arriving outside the chamber, and the next, he’s a hostage.
The guard must have strongly believed Jack to be innocent - so much so that he’d just gotten himself into a lot of trouble.
“What are you doing?” Jack asked.
“Everything will be fine. Trust me, just trust me. Tonight it’ll all come clear. Then you can do the work you’re supposed to be doing.”
What? I have no idea what the guard is talking about.
People were shouting at Mr. Odd, telling him to put the gun down. Jack looked around as best he could in his restrained position and saw that the guard still held his gun up, aimed at the door. Jack saw him look at his watch.
“There, that should do it. I only needed to delay this procedure for ten minutes. I’ll see you later, Jack.”
The guard set his gun on the floor and kicked it into a corner. He raised his hands in surrender and stepped from the room.
Moments later, new guards arrived and announced the execution procedure was being put off temporarily. Jack was removed from the gurney, and led back to his holding cell.
An hour went by before a minister entered Jack’s cell and informed him the execution had been stayed.
Jack was flabbergasted. “What do you mean? The guard was right?”
“The governor just called to stay your execution because DNA found at the farmhouse was filed in error
and
they have a confession. It has now been matched to a man who has similar convictions and is at this moment, sitting in a jail cell pending a hearing on a separate murder charge. Apparently, he confessed to the murder of Mary and Ralph, not two hours ago, thinking you had already been executed. But something else is quite weird.”
Jack sat down hard. He didn’t care what was weird and what wasn’t. He knew that he’d be dead, if Mr. Odd hadn’t stepped in. Jack had been told that the entire process of lethal injection takes approximately seventeen minutes from start to finish. Mr. Odd had held the procedure up long enough to save Jack’s life.
“What happened to Mr. Odd?” Jack asked. After seeing the confusion on the minister’s face, he shook his head and said, “I mean, the security guard who stopped the execution.”
“No one knows.”
“What do you mean,
no one knows
?”
“That’s one of the crazy parts of the conclusions they’re attempting to draw.” The minister paused and started pacing the floor. “They’d placed the guard in a holding cell until charges could be filed against him, and when they went back, he was gone. They’d even posted a guard to watch the room. A camera has videotape footage of the door to the cell. No one left the room after they put him in it. They’ve asked around and apparently no one had ever seen the guy before either. He’s a ghost, a myth. He disappeared. It seems like someone was looking out for you, Mr. Singer. It looks like God was on your side today.”
Jack lay back on his cot and began to weep. What really happened? Would he ever find out? The guard had been right; Jack was being released soon. He could go home to his wife, and his son. He could try to resume his life after losing so many years on death row. They’d have to move, relocate. People would still judge him. He couldn’t bear having his family go through that. So many plans, so many things to think about.
The minister had stood and stepped from the cell. He was just shutting the door.
“Wait,” Jack called.
The minister stopped, and poked his head back in. “Yes?”
“You said something else was quite weird. What did you mean by that?”
The minister looked up and down the corridor and then stepped back into Jack’s cell.
“I heard, and mind you, this is unofficial, that the guy they arrested not only confessed, he said he
had
to do it. He had been given instructions. He said the plan was all laid out for him. The goal
was
to have you executed and, convinced as he was that you were already dead, he started talking.”
Jack was taken aback. “Why? I mean, who would do such a thing? Who
could
orchestrate something like that?
Why
would they?”