"The Bulwark's Shadow" - A Novel in Progress via Steemit (Part I, Chapter 1)

I'm posting up the chapters of this uncompleted book as I hope the Steemit community might offer up its criticism (which would force me to finish it, honestly). Started in 2008, this was my first foray into novel writing and was my undergraduate thesis required to graduate. The story is about an executioner in the not-too-distant future. Executioners are highly trained individuals with extensive educations built to help them execute their prisoners in the exact same manner that the prisoner's victims died. This is called the law of retaliation or lex talionis; you may know it better as "eye for an eye."

Because I was also getting my degree in philosophy, I wanted to explore the ethics involved. While I feel I'm a better writer now and could certainly expand most of this book, I also really enjoy criticism as I'm usually too close to the work to see what's working and what's not (though in this case, there's plenty that I feel is not working). So please...feel free to criticize the work if you'd like, but be constructive about it. Simply saying "this part isn't good" doesn't tell me much; don't hesitate to tell me why it's not good or offer up possible alternatives to make it better.

Thanks in advance!

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“But there is some deceiver or other, very powerful and very cunning, who ever employs his ingenuity in deceiving me.” - Rene Descartes “Second Meditation”

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The bright sheen of the tools seems to beckon with the soft hum of unseen electricity. It’s a kind of morbid exultation of finally being useful after sitting alone in the dark, achingly clean for so long. If the tools could talk, they’d tell you that a week in the drawer is like an eternity. No amount of lying in the quiet velvety coffin can quench their blood lust. Their desire for torture and blood is vampiric in nature and it’s frightening to see them in action, drinking lustily in the frenzy. Once gleaming, the tools dull with a shade of maroon only seconds into the feeding. This is the moment they live for. This is the time where the tools become part of the man and sometimes, the man becomes part of the tools, losing himself in their gluttonous ventures.

Fury.

At one point or another, we’ve all felt this baser instinct; a wave of red that scrambles the brain while allowing you to remember every sordid detail. Your body trembles and every muscle tenses, ready to react to anything. The adrenaline pumps viciously, souring the back of your throat and trying to take your common sense, if only briefly. A thick white noise fills your ears making you impervious to outside sound. The body flushes, heats up...it’s a wonder anyone can do this job under these conditions. You read over their case files, you know their history, you know almost everything they do about how to torture, maim and kill with as much pain as possible and your first instinct is to take them out immediately. Society as we know it now does not frown upon that, but leave that to the actual killers and murderers. I’m considered an artist at what I do and people fear me, not because of who I am or what I do, but because I do it for a living. It comes easy to people like me. To a point anyway.

There is something cold and unfeeling about the tools. It’s not that they’re made of solid steel or that they’ve been surgically sterilized (in most cases they have). These are not ordinary tools. You can’t pick these up at any hardware store. They serve no purpose other than to cause intense pain and suffering upon a human life. The men and women who have created these torture vessels created out of a need to cause pain. They are the bastardization of the gardening world, the surgical world, and the cutlery world all rolled together to form a hand held monstrosity. They are made only to make men scream at the sound of their own flesh being rolled back and organs toyed with, moved around like we were the Creator unsatisfied with this model in particular. What the tools don’t drink up themselves, the drains beneath the bench lap up gladly, drinking on the screams at the same time. Drainage pipes carry the sound of someone knowing his time has come as the tools explore the soft innards of muscle tissue and dermis. The screams serve as a warning to the rest of the inmates, agonizingly awaiting their time alone with the tools. The pipes (crudely constructed and even more crudely intentioned) reach every cell in one way or another.
Every prisoner below the surface experiences the sound of his or her own death numerous times before it ever actually happens.

There is a strange sense of overwhelming power when my fingers curl around the spine of the tool, palm resting comfortably where it should. I can feel its desire to take over the execution rise up through my arm slowly. It is with hard won resolve that this does not happen. Patience is a hard thing to muster, even after so many years of doing this job.

They tell you during your education that serial killers never look into their victim’s eyes. This prevents a sort of weird connection between the killer and the victim, a dissociation of sorts. When the killer is able to put up that boundary between predator and prey, it becomes easier to get the job done without a moral objection popping up unexpectedly to change their mind. We, as young and budding executioners are told to do the same. One slip, one faulty incision and the execution can go wrong.

Today’s execution tied up the parents and molested their children in front of them. It’s hard to not get emotional knowing these facts. Children are the innocents, the purist parts of our society. What power gives these men and women the right, the mental seed that grows and grows to take away something that hasn’t even had a chance to blossom yet?

He is tied to the metal gurney, back to the ceiling. He is naked and shivering. The gag in his mouth prevents him from saying
anything. His IV of Nobyproxil keeps him awake throughout the entire process and puts his synapses in orbit. He feels everything I do to him, but cannot struggle. The muscles are shut down but the mind is wide-awake, remembering everything. This is one of the few times I don’t want everyone else to hear the dying scream. The silence is deafening in its own right as his eyes open wide as we both experience first blood simultaneously. Flesh gives way to a crimson flow that finds its own path along the metal gurney and down to the drainage pipes. The sweat on his brow tells me he is in intense pain. This is good.

First blood is always the hardest, second blood easier, third being even easier than that, and so on. “Easier” being the nice way to put it. That sounds absurd, I know, but the difference between a good execution and a bad execution is a line that many have trampled across in haste. The knife slips, goes the wrong way, tears the wrong artery or vein and the guilty die a quick death. Not painless, just faster than we want. Faster than what is just and right in the eyes of the law, faster than what they deserve.

This one did not die quickly. My knife did not slip.

Satisfaction.

This particular emotion coincides with the death gasp. The final, ghostly exhalation rings like the soft tones above ground, signaling the end of the workday. The job is done and you can put your tools away. There is a sense of justice that comes with the last breath. Before you lies an arrested, tried, and convicted corpse, the mental madness now seeping into the air, hurting no one any longer. There is a swelling of morbid pride that you’ve done something good, something right, something moral.

Somehow, you’ve given back to the community by making the accused feel every slice, every effect, every nuance of their vicious slaughter of some law-abiding citizen. They call it “eye for an eye” but this is much, much more than that. Everything the accused did to their victim occurs during their own execution. There is a smile at this sometimes, depending on the brutality of the crime. The more heinous the offense, the more satisfaction one typically feels at the end of an execution. But it makes me wonder if society is the true monster? We never used to mete out punishment in this way. It’s sanctioned and even honored to be evil in return now. We are paid well to clean the streets of these child molesters, serial rapists, and what have you, but does it make us any better because the government gives us a paycheck for it?

Calm.

The tools no longer gleam. They are bloodied, appetites sated, waiting now only to be cleaned and put back to sleep in their drawer, the soft velvety lining putting them to slumber until their hunger awakens them again. The cool water is almost a baptism for them, cleansing them of body heat now cooled and the echoes of screams. Unfortunately, a shower does no such thing for me. Bloodstains on skin come out with enough scrubbing, but the memories cement themselves to your psyche. I would imagine that my nightmares will stop the day I die.

I find that the time I spend cleaning the execution room is the best time. It’s not a whistling time or a humming time, but the screams and muffled moans have stopped. The blood has stopped dripping from the table and no longer drops down the drain. It’s quiet again. The tools no longer tempt me to hold them, to wield them, digging them deep into flesh or to rip organs apart slowly. They’ve been cleaned and put away. The body lays in front of me, still and motionless, the last breath long since been gone. The smell of decay permeates the room, but that never really leaves. No amount of scrubbing or cleaning will ever take the angel of death out of the tile in the walls. She is always there keeping watch.

An execution could take less than an hour or more than five, depending on the severity of the offense, but regardless of how long it takes, your body takes a beating. It’s really more of a mental thing, but the adrenaline racing out of your body and thinning out in the blood speeds it along. Your limbs become heavy, matching your eyelids and the fans in the room turn on, buzzing and thunking loudly as they cool the sweat off your skin, now goosebumping itself up to your shoulders. This is not an easy job.

The cleaning helps. It is a weird catharsis to be sure. Sometimes I imagine the adrenaline flowing out of my pores and down the drain along with the deep maroon of spent life. I take a look around the room, check the tools again, check the table, and turn out the lights, locking the pristine room up behind me. The body will lie there until the non-violent offenders come to take the corpse to the catacombs. Upper management says this task psychologically steers them clear of violent offenses once they get out. The studies have shown that it works, so I make sure to keep the body gaping wide open.

I’ve seen hundreds of NV’s (non-violents) go pale while carting these bodies away. It’s not unusual. Most of the times, the executions are so brutal, I’m surprised I don’t retch when I’m done. Regardless, most NV’s don’t ever come back when they’ve been released, and I would assume this small task is a good part of the reason why.

I recall one NV asked me after a particularly messy execution whether or not the guy felt it. “Yes. He didn’t die until I let him,” I answered. The NV promptly excused himself and I could hear him retch halfway down the hall. I should be able to chuckle at that, but like I said, I’m slowly losing the humor in all this. You do this job for long enough and eventually you stop being so hard-nosed about it and your human nature starts seeping back in slowly.

Disbelief.

We older guys don’t have anything to prove anymore so we’re used to the job, but some of the new guys don’t make it long. I’ve seen them be completely normal in the morning and by End of Day, they’ve completely lost it; throwing chairs around the office, pounding on walls, cowering in dark corners of the hallways to avoid any and all contact with another living soul. They don’t always clock back in the next day. It’s one thing to see the videos in class of what we do, it’s another entirely to actually deliver the sentence on another human. You either believe that what you’re doing is right or you get the fuck out. There’s no middle ground down here. I keep forgetting that this isn’t a normal job until I realize I don’t have anyone to talk to about it at the bar I frequent. How does one start that conversation, exactly?

This job is difficult and we are the only employees throughout any city that are forced to take our work home with us. It’s not paperwork or physical labor, but the mental fortitude needed for this job is high. I feel like I could break after every execution. I’m not weak but it’s getting harder and harder to walk home and feel like I’ve done something good sometimes. I kill people for a living. I should be given a straight jacket and a prison sentence for doing the things I’ve done beneath the surface of the prison, behind the thick walls of the execution rooms. The straight jacket would be a “personal affect.” I’d ask for it just so I wouldn’t lash out at someone.

The job wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have to go to the surface to get home every day. The prison is a mile deep underground. It’s cool only because of an elaborate ventilation system constantly pushing new, cool air throughout. It’s a constant 76 degrees and there’s a breeze that rides the walls smoothly, bumping into us from time to time as if on cue exactly when we need it.

There are no windows or pictures allowed. The current administration says posters or depictions of “beautiful scenery” would distract us, keep us from staying focused on the task at hand. They ban the pictures of family because of the NV’s that don’t stay on the straight and narrow once they get out. If they know enough about an executioner or another member of the prison staff’s family, it’s easy to commit a more grievous crime. Especially since we don’t treat the NV’s with any more respect than (what we half jokingly call) the Deathwatch Crew. These are the violent offenders down in the Catacombs waiting for their day in my execution room to come.

Melancholy.

The night after an execution is probably the worst, far worse than the night preceding an execution. You have an idea of what’s to come the night before, but the night after, the scene replays itself in your mind; the mental needle on a traumatic record, over and over showing you the brutality that lies not only in the mind of a murderer, but the executioner as well. During the execution you will yourself to just do the job, the blood on your hands akin to motor oil on a mechanic’s hands and uniform. The blood is just another extension of the current project you’re working on. It has no life even though in some cases it flows freely, pumping quickly out of veins and arteries as if scared to be in the host body and looking for sanctuary in the drain below.

You go home at night knowing you just did your job. You know that what you do is benefiting society as a whole. We are the ultimate refuse collectors taking care of the trash that decides to make itself a burden to those who wish to be unburdened. Nightmares come easily and don’t go away for awhile. As such, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I started this job. I sit up most nights, whisky in hand, staring out my window trying to enjoy the night since I rarely get to experience the day. The sun is a thing I remember from my youth. I see it only on the weekends when I decide to get out of bed before three in the afternoon.

The cases that are the toughest to deal with are the ones where music is played. Serial killers as of late have become fans of classical music. Perhaps this is some way to calm them down while they do their deeds; when I expedite them to their deaths, I have to play the same music in the background. It’s almost Pavlovian in nature; the vision of a scalpel slicing open thigh tissue while Beethoven’s 2nd Movement plays in the background. I’ve had to rid myself of my music collection just in case someone decides they have the same taste as I do. I can’t listen to music anymore simply because there are too many sounds, too many instruments that bring up the mental images you try to forget at the end of the day. It’s becoming increasingly harder to deal with as I love music, but this was the path I chose, although everyday puts me closer to leaving and not coming back regardless of the good I’m doing here.