I worked in a prison. Fear was on the loose.

I did not define myself as an executioner, though this was part of who I was.
First and foremost I would say I was a husband and a father. I have two girls, both grown up and moved out. I had a son as well. He was stillborn. I find it hard to describe the hurt this caused, and the pain and confusion which followed.
The other significant thing that made me who I was, was my job. I was a correctional officer at the maximum security facility located on the outskirts of my home town.
When I was a child my father used to warn me that if I was bad I would be sent to the Big Building and locked in a cell till I was old and grey and my teeth fell out. That, if I was really bad, they would fry me.
He died of a cancer ten years ago. He was a fifty a day man and the darkness which spread through his lungs took its sweet time. Whenever I could over the last few months of his life I used to sit by his bed and read to him. His grasp of what was happening around him was pretty much shot by the end and he was clearly not following the magazine articles or short stories I had been reading. Then I found a bunch of old comic books lying around on a table in the hospital and thought, Why not. I sat and read through the captions and the speech bubbles, making all the sounds. They were about monsters, stupid really, but I noticed that he was responding. It was nothing more than the faintest trace of a smile or a flicker of his eyelid but I believed it was some comfort to him.
Long before he fell ill, it was my father who encouraged to me become a correctional officer. It was, as he said, a job with a future. ?We ain?t never going to run out of criminals,? as he put it. And there was a health care plan and a pension. So I went for the interview and passed all the aptitude tests.
Since I began working at the facility, the job has changed. A lot of this, I would say, was down to the management. The state used to run the facility and there was an emphasis on education and rehabilitation - even for the Lifers.
Then the facility moved into private ownership and a new ethos of just keep them locked away came in.
Blow were flawed, in my opinion. But it was a good job and by the time I reached a certain age it was too late to walk away and start again. My health plan and pension had been joined by a mortgage, car repayments, college funds and credit card debts.
So I stuck at it and did the best I could.
Two years ago I took on the responsibility of co-ordinating the executions which took place intermittently at the facility. This was done via lethal injection.
I believed this was the most humane way of seeing that the rule of law was carried out for those who have been judged guilty of the most heinous crimes and found wanting.
I also received an additional payment for each execution.
Last Friday evening I was working the late shift. This was because an execution was scheduled for shortly after midnight.
As I left the house, I called out to my wife, ?I love you,? as I always did.
She did not reply.
She had not been well since we lost our son. She spent most of her days and nights in the room that had been made into a nursery. Clinging on.
And each year she marked the day he came so small and so still from her womb. ?Martin is three today,? she would say. ?Martin is four.?
It broke my heart, and I tried to get her to change her ways, Believe me, I tried.
But there was no moving on for her.
I called out, ?I'll see you in the morning,? and I drove to work.
It was always humid at this time of year but the conditions that evening were the worst I'd ever known. The humidity felt like it was pressing down on me and a headache was building behind my eyes.
I could tell though that there was a storm brewing and I was praying for it to break, for the rain to fall and clear the air. Even if only for a few hours.
By the time I parked, the wind had got up and I was hopeful my wishes would come true. I signed in and went to work.
For me, this was all about the details. I checked in with the governor's office that he would be on time. I called the doctor to make sure he had everything he needed. I messaged the chaplain to check he was being given access to the condemned man.
Then I gave the room where the execution would take place, and the viewing area next door, a thorough clean. Finally, I briefed the staff who would be on duty with me.
We were all already familiar with the man who would be executed.
He had murdered a woman, who had been the same age as my youngest daughter, in a cold, drawn out ordeal. He had been an inmate for twenty years and had been through appeal after appeal.
I had no sympathy for him now the end game had been reached. I saw no concerns in the eyes of my colleagues.
He was collected from his cell at eleven thirty. Even shackled he had a swagger to him. His head, clean shaven, glistened with sweat. A scar on his forehead was a pale line. The faded colours of the tattoo of a serpent spiralling up his neck, the red and green, looked a little brighter as the heat continued to intensify and the sweat ran down his skin.
He was strapped onto a steel cot and an intravenous tube fixed in place.
I was positioned nearby, close enough to look him in the eye as the chemicals began to enter his bloodstream.
There were no final words, no regret shown.
At twelve o' eight the doctor confirmed that the prisoner was dead.
I covered the body and wheeled it through to the small infirmary which we always set aside as a holding area on these occasions. It would be collected in the morning.
I was trying to decide if I wanted coffee or cold can of soda when I heard the thunder. It was sharp, powerful. Deep inside the prison I had not seen the lightning but when, seconds later, there was a second, louder thunderclap I knew the storm that had been threatening earlier had arrived with a vengeance.
I chose coffee and went to the officer's lounge to see if there was a pot on the go.
The overhead lights flickered on the way as the thunder sounded again and again.
This, I thought, was one mother of a storm.
I had no idea.
I had just reached the officer?s lounge when the power went off.
I stood in the darkness and waited.
Like every organisation under the sun, the facility was a slave to electricity and computers.
If the power goes off in a home, the contents of the freezer might spoil. In a prison, the potential outcome is chaos.
That is why the facility had a back up power system which kicked into operation seconds after the mains failed.
I counted in my head:
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three?
It was taking its time tonight.
But I wasn?t worried. When the power went off all the doors were designed to remain locked. The inmates would be kept secure.
Four Mississippi. Five.
The lights flickered once more, the small fridge in the lounge began to hum.
It was going to be fine.
Then the lights surged, brilliant and blinding for a moment, before darkness returned.
I swore, and the background chatter on the radio affixed to my belt exploded into a torrent of panic:
?The cells are opening.?
?The phone lines are down.?
?Code red. Inmates are at liberty. Repeat??
Dozens of voices talked over each other. The last thing that was needed in a situation like this was panic, but that was all I was hearing.
I tried to keep my breathing regular and made my way to the armoury. There were half a dozen other officers already there when I arrived.
They were putting on riot gear. Kevlar vests, visors, helmets, and head torches until the damn lights came back on. All were armed.
I joined them and got myself kitted up.
The sounds of screaming voices was beginning to echo through the building. And all the while the thunder continued.
And the panicked radio chatter:
?The national guard are saying there are incidents outside that are priority.?
?What the hell.?
?Officers in distress.?
?Help. Help me. Oh God.?
Swallowing down bile, I joined a line of men - our ranks swollen a little but not by enough, not nowhere near ? and we set off towards the central corridor where the main population had been housed.
To get there we had to pass the infirmary. It had been less than thirty minutes since I had left the executed man?s body there, but it felt like a lot longer.
I told myself to focus and hurried forwards? but movement inside the infirmary caught my eye.
It should have been empty. Unless inmates that had escaped from their cells had made their way there. I tapped the officer in front of me on the shoulder, jerked my thumb in the direction of the open door to the infirmary.
My fellow officer understood that I was indicating potential threat and we entered the room together with our weapons raised.
My pulse began to race. The sweat which soaked my skin turned to ice.
He stood in the centre of the room. I could make out the serpent on his neck. The red of its eyes, the green of its scales. His shaven head, his scar.
His skin was darker, mottled.
The doctor had said he was dead. And yet here he was.
I did not understand.
I could not speak.
He saw me and he smiled.
Began to walk towards me.
The other officer pointed his gun. ?Not another step,? he said. He sounded very scared.
But the man, the man who had been pronounced dead, and whose face I had covered and wheeled here, kept going.
Each step was a clumsy, shuffling movement. And his body jerked as if it was being constantly shocked by electricity.
Drool spilled from his open mouth, and the sound of a quiet, guttural moan.
The other officer opened fire. The bullet slammed into the man?s chest and he staggered backwards with the force of the impact. A second shot hit him in the shoulder. He was thrown to the left.
I was aware the other officer was looking at me and even beneath his visor I could make out the confusion clouding his face.
Those two shots should have put the man down.
He should not be standing, not still coming closer.
Closer still.
I had my gun raised and ready to be used. I was no longer in control, though. Terror had robbed me of the ability to do anything but stand and stare - as the man reached out and clamped the officer?s shoulders, then threw him out of the open door, back into the corridor.
His steps as ungainly as before, the man then followed.
I had to do something. I had to help.
I bit my tongue, felt sharp pain, tasted blood in my mouth, and this snapped me out of it.
I staggered after him.
The officer lay sprawled on the floor. His visor and helmet lay discarded nearby and the man crouched over him.
Biting him, tearing at his skin, the flesh beneath. Blood sprayed, some hit my visor.
I recoiled.
I felt dizzy, distant and a hazy thought came to me.
A memory. Captions in a comic book that I had read to my dying father.
A story about monsters that came back from the dead.
I saw a speech bubble: 'The only way to kill them is to shoot them in the brain.'
I shook my head, my vision cleared.
There was no way I could fire without hitting the other officer. But he was dead already I realised.
Hands shaking, I pressed the barrel of my gun against the back of the man?s head and pulled the trigger.
Blood and brain matter and bone exploded out, and the man went limp, lay unmoving on the body of the officer.
I gasped in breath after breath. I had done it.
I took off my visor to wipe it clean. The officer?s leg twitched.
A spasm I knew. A last reflex of nerves. A corpse?s dance.
The officer?s arm pushed up at the man?s body, rolled it off, and the officer sat up.
His nose had been torn clean off when he had been attacked, and most of one cheek. A strip of skin hung off his forehead, the flesh revealed below shone pink in the light of the torch I still wore.
The officer got to his feet, staggered to one side then found his balance. He looked at me. His eyes were clouded over, unreadable.
Then his mouth twisted, exposing his teeth and I remembered the gruesome spectacle of the man devouring his face.
I knew that would now be my fate.
?Hey! You! Scum!? someone shouted.
Jeers followed.
Obscenities yelled.
I looked past the officer, and saw a group of freed inmates walking down the corridor towards us. They were smiling and I knew why:
They thought they had a couple of correctional officers at their mercy.
The officer who had risen, turned slowly, turned his bloodied face away from me, turned and began to shuffle towards them. The inmates laughed and taunted and seconds later attacked.
Fists rained down and for a moment I lost sight of the officer. And then the screaming began. The first inmate falling away, clutching their blood-soaked mutilated face. Then, another.
Soon, I knew, they too would be dead.
And rise again.
I could not see I had any other choice. I unleashed a stream of bullets into their heads.
The inmates, the officer.
The corridor became a slaughterhouse.
The hours that followed are hard to recall. I learnt, as I encountered new groups of officers, that the prison was slowly being retaken from the rioting inmates. Casualties were horrific on both sides and the carnage I had left had not yet been discovered.
I walked away and found my way outside.
It was close to dawn.
I could take no more.
I started my car and drove.
Sirens rose and fell in the distance. A helicopter clattered overhead.
Power lines were down, smoke drifted from buildings.
I turned on the car radio.
A message urging calm was being broadcast. There was talk about storm damage, natural phenomena. Nothing to be concerned about.
I knew these were necessary lies. A cover up.
I tried phoning my wife on my mobile but there was no signal.
I floored the accelerator.
A man wandered into the road, into my path. I swerved and just missed him.
In the mirror I saw him continue on his way, each step an unsteady shuffle.
When I pulled up at my house I was relieved to see that it appeared to be undamaged.
I ran inside.
My wife stood in the hallway. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks were wet with tears.
?It is a miracle,? she said and took me by the hand.
I loved my wife. I always will.
We have shared so many things over the course of our marriage:
The joy of the day we were joined in a simple service in the chapel, and the passions that consumed us in the nights that followed.
The births of our daughters and watching them grow up
Sharing sunsets and lazy evenings.
Standing in the cemetery as the small coffin was lowered into the ground after the funeral service for our stillborn son.
And we have shared a secret.
One that has been with me every day since, one which was all I could think about as my wife led me through the house and through the open door, and I grew more and more afraid.
The secret we shared:
The coffin we buried that day was empty.
Our son's remains have lain instead, over all these years, in the nursery.
In the cot? which I looked into.
And saw the bones of fingers clawing at the air, saw leg bones kicking, and a toothless jaw open in a silent scream.


Source.