Of course, it helped that Simon looked nothing like the clean-cut, successful businessman he’d been before Tessa had gone insane. He now had long hair and an unkempt, scraggly beard, and wanted to keep it that way until after the execution. He was glad to be flying under the radar, feeling the anger and bloodlust of the people around him. If they knew who he was, they’d tear him apart like a pack of hungry wolves.
His eyes turned to the video screen, seeing Tessa fighting like a wild animal. Her hair was flailing about her shoulders and neck, even though it had been trimmed to network specifications: long enough to make her appealing, but not so long as to obscure her eyes. Eyes were the key, the analysts had determined and reported in the national paper.
Then Tessa’s eyes found a camera in the corner of the chamber and she stopped moving. Her body relaxed, and an eerie calm spread across her face. She licked her lips, cleared her throat, and spoke directly into the camera.
“Simon? Simon? Are you there? It wasn’t me, honey! I didn’t do it! You have to believe me! Why don’t you believe me? I could never do something like this. Never in a million years.”
Simon clenched his jaw, holding back the desperation pounding at his chest. His heart wanted him to sprint through the angry horde and set her free, but his logic couldn’t reconcile the evil she’d unleashed upon the world.
The woman in the chamber isn’t my Tessa, he told himself. Not anymore. The Tessa he knew and loved—the woman he’d been married to for twenty-plus years—the person he trusted above all others—was dead and gone, lost somewhere between the folds of heartache and disgrace. A wickedly dark force had taken control of her soul, forcing him to stand firm in the balcony and let the world’s revenge take center stage.
“Are you ready for sentencing to be carried out?” the MC asked the crowd.
The crowd roared and continued to stomp their feet, each time with a sharp clap of their hands.
Someone near Simon yelled, “Die! Die! Die!”
“Now, before we get started, I have a very special surprise for all of you in attendance and for all of you watching at home today. Our amazing chemists have made some ingenious changes to the process that we think you’ll like. Instead of a calm, quick, mostly-painless death, your government and the governments of the world have given their blessing for a more entertaining process. Our new lethal injection system has been redesigned to provider a longer, more painful kill time. Just as it should be! No mass murderer of innocents should ever get off easy with a quick, painless death. Am I right?”
Cheers and applause rose up, then a unified chant roared around Simon, “Kill! Her! Now! Kill! Her! Now! Kill! Her! Now!”
“Well then, I won’t keep you waiting!” the MC said, touching a hand to his ear. “Citizens of the world, I have word from our technicians in the control room that all systems are ready—let the countdown begin!”
The number “10” appeared over Tessa’s image on the giant screen, then changed to “9”.
The crowd joined in—reminding Simon of the chant on New Year’s Eve in Times Square when the new year’s ball is dropped.
The volume grew as the countdown continued:
8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...
The numbers disappeared from the display and were replaced by giant letters that flashed:
COMMENCE EXECUTION!
The crowd went wild at a sudden close-up of Tessa’s face, just as the injection was pushed into her veins by the automated delivery system.
A digital timer appeared in the upper-right corner of the video feed, showing the seconds tick by now that the process had begun. It was labeled as the OFFICIAL EXECUTION TIME.
USA Today described the injection process as a mix of lethal compounds administered in small, arbitrary increments to lengthen the process and randomize the time of death, all of it geared specifically to maximize both her suffering and the network ratings.
Simon winced when Tessa’s head began to thrash back and forth and her blue eyes went wild with fright. Her full, pink lips contorted in a feral display of anguish as spittle flew from her lips. She moaned and cried out under a torrent of sweat and tears streaming down her face.
“DIE, MURDERER, DIE!” the crowd yelled as a mixed chorus of cheers, whistles and boos echoed off the walls of the arena. The public had been waiting for this event with bated breath, and the execution had been marketed to perfection—StarBright Networks knew what it was doing.
Tessa opened her mouth to speak again, but her body twitched and a gurgling noise rose from her throat. The process was now in full swing, ravaging her body from the inside out. The cheers and jeers from the live audience grew in volume and intensity at the sight of her grimacing and drooling. The spectators around him were all on their feet, waving their arms in the air and shaking their fists.
Simon tore his eyes from the video screen and scanned the crowd below. Behind the families of the victims sat invited government and network VIPs, each with popcorn and beer in their laps, cheering with the rest of the crowd. Everyone in the first level of the stadium seats had a perfect view of the one-way window into the execution chamber.
Emotions were at a fever pitch in all directions, and he assumed the same was occurring all around the world. He imagined scores of drunken spectators in bars, homes and off-site betting houses throwing their money down—in officially sanctioned locations. The wagers were all in virtual currency, of course, except in the seedy, black market betting parlors where old school paper currency passed between the rough, calloused hands of hardened criminals, drug addicts, and down-on-their-luck outcasts.
Everyone was betting on one thing . . . How long would it take until the end?
The end of his wife and the end of his marriage.
Two minutes? Three minutes? Five minutes?
The official timer in the upper corner of the screen kept ticking, tracking every second that scrolled by like some twisted scoreboard of the damned. When Tessa’s life eventually came to an end, fortunes would arrive for those with the precise wager that matched the official execution time—down to a tenth of a second.
The light in the execution chamber faded and a red glow surrounded the gleaming steel table. A single, soft white spotlight illuminated Tessa’s face. Her skin began to grow pink as small purple sores appeared on her cheeks and neck. The image on the screen panned back to reveal her entire body.
She was clad in a tight white athletic bra and matching tight white shorts, both chosen to maximize the bloodbath that was about to begin. Two more chamber lights ignited and then panned up to show her body more clearly. The blanket of purple sores began to erupt, first on her arms, then her legs and torso.
Simon gulped with hands shaking, hating himself for turning his back on her. But she’d left him no choice. All that was left to do now was to stand with the others and watch the criminal die. Then his torment would finally be over.
Tessa rolled her head to the side and found her voice again, though it was thready and uneven.
“Simon,” she pleaded through the obvious pain, “Simon . . . help . . . me. I love . . . you, darling with . . . all my heart.”
His heart stung, but his feet never moved while the crowd screamed despicable insults at her.
More sores appeared and spread across her face and chest, getting larger as her skin changed color from pink to dark red. Then her body began to shake uncontrollably. Her eyes went bloodshot and her arms and legs began to swell like inflating balloons. The swelling filled her torso, then her face and head. The skin of her face stretched tight, distorting her features into a sickening, clown-like grimace.
The theater shook as the audience in the balconies stomped their feet and chanted in unison, “DIE! DIE! DIE!”
The boils across her body had grown and merged together, making her skin purple from head to toe. A moment later, they began to split and crack—first on her chest as blood seeped through the clean white top she wore. Then her forehead began to break apart, turning
her face into something less than human, her body expanding around the straps holding her in place.
Then it happened.
She exploded from the inside out, sending a shower of blood and gore outward, covering the inside of the one-way glass and all of the cameras in the execution chamber with a viscous pink and red film.
“Official execution time: four minutes, thirty-two point zero four seconds,” the MC announced at the same moment 4:32:04 flashed in bright red letters across the video screen.
Streaks of blood and bits of flesh dripped down the chamber window, giving the families of the victims and the rest of the witnesses around the world what they needed most—closure. Simon never looked away, wanting the ghastly image to burn into his soul as a reminder. A reminder of what can happen when your focus wanders and you lose situational awareness. Yes, even in a loving marriage, diligence is needed on multiple levels. Not just with focusing your love and dedication, but watching for changes in behavior and motivation.
Simon stared at Tessa’s family huddled together in the protected chamber down in front as he made his way past the other people in his row. The murderer’s sister, mother, father and cousins each had their heads down, buried inside an emotional family hug. His former in-laws were obviously grief-stricken and dumbfounded, unable to process the horrifying spectacle they’d just witnessed.
He took a moment to send a stream of compassionate thoughts to them from his elevated position in the balcony. What had happened wasn’t their fault, it was his. He should have noticed the changes in his wife. He should have stopped her from killing all those innocents. After all, he was the world’s most famous intelligence expert, and yet he never realized that a swell of evil had taken root in the marital bed next to him.
The path out of the theater was slow going as he worked through the cheering and applauding band of spectators milling about and congratulating each other. Simon was careful to avoid making eye contact with anyone, just needing to find the exit and let his nightmare end.
The rest of his plan was simple: slip away into the nothingness that was his future.
CHAPTER TWO
Tally Wickie sat with her mouth agape as the execution of Tessa Redfall concluded, her eyes fixated on the flat-screen computer monitor in front of her. A faint reflection of her own short hair stared back at her, sticking up in a random pattern of red spikes swirling about her head.
She was on the other side of twenty-two-years-old, but had been told by one of her reserved Amish neighbors that her face had the serious, worldly look of a person ten years her senior. She squinted her piercing blue eyes at the image on the screen and frowned as a man stood up in the crowd.
“Is that him?” she asked G—short for “Genius”, which was his nickname—the seventeen-year-old computer whiz sitting next to her in the back of a white cargo van parked in an alley four blocks from the NEC. Soft green light from a bank of instrument panels gave G’s pale skin a sickly hue. His face was covered in large, dark freckles and his hair was red, like Tally’s, but it clung close to his head in tight curls.
“Yup. That’s him,” G replied, having hacked into the internal video feeds of the NEC.
“You sure? He doesn’t look anything like his picture. Granted, it was from ten years ago, but still,” Tally said, staring at the left edge of the computer screen where Simon’s corporate headshot was frozen in comparison.
“My software doesn’t miss,” G assured her. “I spent months perfecting the aging algorithms, so I know they’re dead nuts accurate. Plus, I built my own fractal sampling code using color pair sequencing and linear regression analysis so my imager could identify him regardless of the expected amount of facial hair.”
“And stress lines.”
“Exactly.”
Tally studied the newly-captured still image of Simon Redfall—a man well into his middle years, with a shaggy beard and long matted hair, both streaked with gray. He looked nothing like the man she’d expected to see.
She swiped her hand in front of the screen, making the image change to a healthy and happy man with short brown hair, bright green eyes, a suntanned face and a vibrant, welcoming smile. Below the corporate mug shot were the words “Simon Redfall. Founder and CEO. Ghost Works, LLC.”
She toggled back and forth between the two images several times and grunted in disbelief. She wouldn’t have been able to pick the man out of a crowd based on the ancient photo—not a chance, so she had no choice but to take G’s word on it. If his new facial recognition software said the bearded man was Simon Redfall, then that’s who he was. End of story. She had no reason to doubt the kid, who was never wrong and never short on confidence.
None of the people at her compound in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania understood why she’d picked G as her only companion on this mission to the city, but she didn’t care. He was the most loyal person she’d ever met—that’s why she’d chosen him. Well that, and the fact he was a master tech wizard. Exactly what this operation needed—technology, not more bodies.
“He looks terrible,” she said, wondering what he’d been doing since the massacre.
“Well, you probably would too. He’s been off the grid for two years—sold his company and disappeared after what happened. It looks like he’s been living in the woods. Under a rock. Plus, he just watched his wife die. What’d you expect?”
“I don’t know. Not that.” She gestured toward the ragged man on the screen.
“Okay, he’s up and moving toward the exit . . . if those crazies would just get out of his way. Come on, people, let him by!” G said, yelling at the screen. He swung his eyes to Tally. “Orders, boss?”
“We’re a go. Time to make contact. Is the link to DC surveillance stable?”
G danced his fingers in front of the computer’s virtual interface and nodded. “Yup. Stable. I got the whole area covered. Like God, I can see everything.”
“What about us?”
“We’re hidden in one of only three blind spots in the entire District. They’d have a better chance of spotting a ghost in a closet than us.”
“Excellent.”
“Once you’re ten feet past the front bumper, I’ll have you in my sights, all the way to the NEC. You’re good to go.”
“Keep a lock on me. There are a lot of hungry, desperate people out there,” Tally said, tucking a small black piece of plastic into her right ear.
“Won’t be a problem. My techno-voodoo is unstoppable.”
Tally pulled a sleek black phone out of her pocket, then put two fingers together and made a circle motion in front of it to power it on. The main screen appeared, which then took her to the only app installed on the device. The screen filled with signal strength indicators, sending a smile to her lips. “Looks like Coms are up. Nice job, G. Efficient as usual.”
G took out an identical piece of plastic and slid it into his right ear. “I aim to please,” he said, using crisp words. “We’ll test as soon as you’re en route for an intercept.”
“Gotcha,” she confirmed, hesitating to give G a serious look. “You ready for this, G? We’ll only get one shot, so let’s follow the plan by the numbers.”
“I’m ready, Wicks. Don’t forget, I helped you write the protocols.
She smiled, but didn’t respond.
G focused his gaze, looking at the computer screen and then back at her. “You sure he’s the one?”
She nodded. “If anyone can help us, it’s Simon Redfall.”
* * *
Simon hunched his shoulders and kept his head down as he made his way out the grand entrance of the National Execution Center. The NEC was designed to make its audience feel important—like they were attending the opening of a star-studded musical. The marquee was trimmed in red with ornate gold flourishes.
On his way in, Simon had stopped and stared at the words written in bright, bold letters:
LIVE TODAY
3:00 pm
THE EXECUTION OF
Tessa Jane
Redfall
The Butcher of Bay Street
Police stopped traffic in front of the theater to keep the exiting crowds from clogging up the sidewalk. The execution audience spilled across the street, filled with the adrenaline rush that came from watching a human being die in a spectacularly painful fashion.
Simon slipped into the flow and let himself be pulled along with the herd, hoping to blend in and maintain a low profile. It worked, taking him swiftly across the street and onto the sidewalk in front of a bicycle store.
To his right, a gaggle of reporters waited like vultures, scanning the exiting crowd for interviews and comments. Probably looking for families of the victims—anything to boost ratings, he figured.
Just beyond the indulging news crews, a mob of well-dressed protesters had gathered and were chanting rhythmically behind a daunting line of policeman in full riot gear:
EXECUTIONS ARE MURDER!
STOP THE KILLING!
REPEAL THE LAW!
He ignored the band of righteous and continued along for another block, drifting downstream like a wayward guppy. When he made it to the next intersection, a stiff breeze smacked him across the cheek. It felt amazing, tickling the hairs on his face and neck. He changed course and moved to the courthouse steps, sending the rush of humanity on without him.
The sky above him was a crystal clear blue. Its stunning simplicity reminded him of how beautiful life truly is, especially when you’ve been buried alive under a mountain of shame. Sure, one side of his heart was still awash in grief, but the other side felt invigorated and full of life for the first time in two years.
He craned his neck to enjoy the newfound freedom, feeling the wind gush across his face. It caressed the mop of hair covering his head and chin, ridding his brow of the sweat. He took a deep breath and stood on his toes at full height—six feet, four inches—with his arms out in relief. Deep down, he knew his love for Tessa would always be strong, but it was time to move on. He’d spent enough time trying to make amends for her public rampage. Eventually you have to let the past go, especially when you’ve been consumed with finding meaning in something unfathomable.
Redfall: Fight for Survival (American Prepper Series Book 1) Page 2
