This is the first story I've ever premiered on DeviantArt.  It was inspired by the superb series below by the wonderful Jean Bond:
jean-bond.deviantart.com/galle…

I should probably emphasize that, although I would very much like to thank him (and whoever commissioned the pictures) for inspiring me to fantasize about how chilling it would be to have to sit and watch a lethal cocktail of drugs pour into one's veins but be completely unable to do anything about it (the clawing fingers in his pics are a touch of genius), I have not discussed this story with him, and therefore he does not endorse this interpretation of the pictures any more than any other interpretation of the images that you may have.  This is my fantasy inspired by his images - not an instruction about the 'correct' interpretation of his images.  Indeed, in some details, this story actually departs from his images.  OK, enough talk: I hope you enjoy it.

   "Fuck you: I'm not wearing that!" I scream, recoiling instinctively.
   "It's not mandatory: if you don't want to, we won't force you," the warden - a round faced, heavy-set, balding black man - says softly.
This takes me aback: I had been expecting to be wrestled, held by all my limbs, lifted up...it's been a while since anyone told me I actually had a choice about anything. A few seconds of ghastly silence ensues.
   "Is it necessary...I mean...will I?..."
   "It's not normally a problem," he says, "But it can happen - it's nothing to be ashamed of - it's just what happens when your body's muscles relax. This is just to ensure you don't have to worry about it - to try and make it easier for you."
   "To try and make it easier for you, you mean!" I say sharply. "Make me easier to clean up in time for the next one," I can feel the tears flowing now as my voice rises.
   "We have to clean everything thoroughly anyway," he says unperturbed, his voice remaining steady. "I won't pretend it won't make the job slightly more pleasant if...but the bottom line is that nobody watching is going to see it under your pants. But if you choose not to wear it and the worst does happen, well..."

I reach my cuffed hands forward and feel the thick white padding - nobody tries to stop me: everybody's been touching me gently today, as though I might give them an electric shock. After a few seconds of silence - during which I squirm inside at the thought of this not being there, and the stuff it would otherwise have soaked up flooding out in full view of Mom, Dad, the guards and the press - I put my head down, shut my eyes and nod silently to nobody in particular. The warden relays my nod to his team with the sharp definition of a military man, and before I know it they lift me slightly under the arms and slip the diaper around my hips with the practised fluency of people who've done this dozens of times before. How many times? I shudder.

When they are done, they remove my cuffs and hand me a set of pants to put on. I'm a little surprised that they don't just return my jumpsuit, but it's probably some procedural thing. In any case, I doubt that my old jumpsuit would fit over this fucking thing around my hips at the moment. At the moment...fuck...I'll never take this off...somebody will take this off my corpse! The tears well up in my eyes again. I try not to think about it and slip the baggy pants on. When I've finished, the warden hands me a t-shirt. This is tighter than anything I've worn in...well, years, and it's not until after I've put it on that I notice a clear teardrop-shaped hole in the fabric covering the centre of my chest, just below my breasts. Mystified, I try to appear brave: "What's the deal!" I say, "Have you been invaded by supermoths?" As I speak, I can hear tears in my voice. The warden forces a smile at my pathetic joke.
   "It's just procedure," he says. I've come to learn that that usually means there's something they're not willing to tell me.

When everything's done, I stand up - ready for the guards to put the cuffs on and haul me back down the corridor to that hideous cell. Nobody moves. After a few seconds, the warden says in his deep Southern drawl: "Sit down, please". Please...it's when prison guards start saying please that you really know you're fucked.
   "Aren't we...aren't we going back?" I say pathetically.
   "There's only a few minutes left. Just try to relax," he says almost paternalistically. Relax: not much chance of that. It's ironic: I hated pretty much every fucking minute I had to spend in that cell - the bars, the whitewashed walls; now I'd give anything to spend five more minutes there. The place seemed so dehumanizing it felt as though I didn't exist, but, whether I liked it or not, the place became by entire existence; and the thought that I've seen it for the last time hits me like a hammer blow announcing that my existence is effectively over. I wished the time away; now time seems very, very precious indeed. One of the guards absent-mindedly starts drumming his fingers on the desk. I shoot him the fiercest of glances and he instinctively hides his hand under the table like a child caught stealing. The ensuing silence seems no less hideous.

After a few minutes...or at least I think it must be minutes...the warden says, "stand up please". I attempt to get to my feet in as dignified a way as possible, but, dizzy with nerves, I have to steady myself on the arms of my chair. Two guards immediately grab me under the arms. Nobody bothers to clap on the cuffs. I wonder whether we've far to go. Like so often recently, I don't even know what I hope: the thought of a long trudge to...sounds horrific, but it's pretty much the only thing I've got left to look forward to.

Almost as soon as I've completed this meditation, a concealed set of double doors slides open in the far wall, and there it is: a large, white, sterile room, like an operating theatre - except, instead of a bed in the centre, there's...that thing! I don't have the words to describe the jumble of straps and buckles and armrests and legrests - I can't even bear to look at it. I scream and instinctively try to turn away - not in any rational escape attempt, but just out of a desire to avert my gaze from the thing and block its terrifying presence out. Not that it makes much difference: hands grip me like steel pincers and sweep me across the smooth floor. I resolve to try to get up and walk with dignity, but I'm already there - being lifted onto the gurney. That's it: my legs are still perfectly functional but I'll never walk again. All the otherwise ordinary things I do have suddenly been invested with momentous significance by the realization that it's probably the last time I'll ever do them. My life is basically over.

Except, of course, it's not over. So many guards are swarming all around me strapping down this arm or that leg or that bit of my torso that I don't know where to look - or where not to look. The warden appears on my right and holds my forearm. I've barely slept in days, and whenever I have I've woken up sweating at the thought of the needle going in. Amid the hustle and bustle, however, it takes me a moment to register what he's doing. I turn my head, panicked, just as the needle slides in almost imperceptibly, and the first thing I see the warden is taping it in place. I'm bizarrely disappointed: something deep inside me screams: "It shouldn't be this easy!" I look at the thin plastic tube running down my forearm and across the floor to a large console I haven't previously noticed, containing a perspex case and, inside it, six huge syringes.

There's a sudden, cold touch of metal on my chest, and I look down to see Dr Waters, a medic from the prison hospital, carefully moving the diaphragm of a stethoscope around on the cut-out patch of my t-shirt - so that's what it was for! We liked Dr Waters - she always seemed to care more than some of the other doctors when you weren't feeling well: I never imagined she might help to kill us. Well, technically, I believe they're not helping to kill us - just to check when we're dead. Big fucking difference! When she's satistied she's found my heart, she lifts another, larger diphragm connected via a thick cable to a machine against the wall and tapes it in place. As she does so, our gazes meet briefly. Neither of us can bring ourselves to speak as I stare into her pretty blue eyes: why did it have to be Dr Waters?

And then they're done: I'm connected up, strapped down, immobilized: like a living, conscious corpse - with that last detail to be taken care of imminently. I haven't noticed the large, curtained windows on the walls, but the curtains are now drawn back with the humming sounds of electric motors to reveal two viewing rooms - one containing Mom, Sis and almost nobody else (not even Dad), the other packed with the families of "my" victims. How could Dad leave Mum to go through this on her own? Then again, I wouldn't want Dad to see me like this - I don't want Mum or Sis to see me like this either - although I couldn't bear to go through it without them. I hope they don't notice the diaper - hopefully they'll just be fooled into thinking I managed to eat well these last few weeks.

The governor steps forward and lifts a sheet. I already know what he's about to say, and I screw up my eyes, subconsciously trying to block it out. "Mandy Fried", he begins. I stare straight at Mom, with Sis - in her twenties now - wrapped around her shoulders like an infant. God, I wish I could be like that too! Tears are streaming down both their cheeks. God, I hope Mom doesn't blame herself for the way I turned out. I can't bear to look any more and stare at the white suspended ceiling, my own unwiped tears blurring my vision and tickling my cheeks. The phrase "execution by lethal injection", though anticipated, breaks through the governor's drone into my consciousness like a slap in the face, and I physically flinch. "Mandy Fried," the governor continues, "Do you have anything to say before lawful sentence of death is passed upon you?" A microphone on a long, electronically controlled arm is positioned in front of my face.

I've thought about what I should say ever since that devastating day when I first heard my sentence, changing my mind again and again. Now it seems so meaningless - and yet it's probably the last thing in my life I'll have any control over. "I'm sorry," is all I can manage - before adding, moments later, a pathetic croak of "I don't deserve this." So there we go: two near-meaningless, almost contradictory statements. The last chance I'll ever have to control anything in my life and I fucked it up - just like I fucked everything else up.

"Very well, proceed," says the governor to the warden. Almost reflexively, I look up at Mom: she puts her head into her hands as Sis cuddles tighter into her neck. The glass is soundproof, but I nevertheless sense her deep scream of pain. Dr Waters takes a step to her left and flicks a switch on the heart rate monitor, and immediately a trace appears on it, accompanied by a pulsed beep. With my mind's eye I see the flat line that will instead soon accompany a continuous electronic squeal. The warden steps over and, without much thought, pushes a large red button on the bottom of the console with the syringes, ignoring my involuntary cry of "wait".  It's really happening now.

Almost immediately, a deep, electronic hum emanates from the machine as the first two syringes are steadily depressed. My arm feels cold as liquid begins to empty into my veins. I look at the tube trailed across the floor. There's a noticeable change in colour as the clear saline solution is gradually replaced by the weird orange colour of whatever they're giving me first. I gasp as this colour change edges closer and closer to my veins and instinctively try to pull my arm away...but I can't - all I can do is pathetically wiggle my fingers and scream as the colour change disappears inside me. It feels no different, but death is now quite literally flooding into my arm and travelling all around my body! I look away, but just as quickly look back. It's still flooding in: where inside me is it now? How soon will I feel it take effect? What will it feel like?

My breathing feels shallow. I can see a halo of lights around my eyes. Is this just nerves or is this what the drugs feel like? My skin feels warm and wet all over - like I'm floating in warm water. Is this the drugs or am I wetting myself? Is the bleeping becoming irregular or am I just getting dizzy? Good God what's going to happen next? I look up at the console to see the second set of syringes discharging a pinkish chemical into my veins. Once again I try to pull away my arm, and once again I can only claw pathetically at the air with my fingers. Those fingers feel like lead weights. That bleep is definitely becoming irregular. Those lights around my eyes are becoming brighter and brighter. Where am I? I can't breathe...I can't breathe...I can't...


* * * * * * * * * * * *


Mandy's otherwise lifeless body squirms slightly, before emitting a horrific sound - like a deep, guttural snore - as the final two syringes are pushed down. The whole setup looks like something from ER; except instead of running around like crazy trying to prevent what's happening, everyone stays focused on their specific task or looks solemnly at Sis or at the floor - satisfied that, in the fact that Sis is steadily dying in front of them, everything is going to plan. I look over at the heart rate monitor and see the trace on it become increasingly irregular. I want to scream at the doctor in a white coat, with a stethoscope around her neck: "It's not supposed to fucking be like this. My sister's dying in front of you: do something!". But she wouldn't hear me through this thick soundproof glass anyway. I think I'm going to be sick: I put my head down and cover my mouth. I hope Mom hasn't noticed the heart rate monitor. I swallow hard and look up just in time to see the last traces of Sis's heartbeat vanish into one, continuous flat line.

Mandy lies there - her head crooked at a slight angle, her open, unblinking, unfocused blue eyes pointing at the ceiling. Unwiped tears run down the sides of her face and a streak of saliva wends its way down her cheek and dribbles onto the gurney. A lock of blonde hair lies draped across her face. The warden nods to the doctor, who steps forward, leans over Sis and removes the diaphragm of the electronic heart rate monitor. She removes her stethoscope from around her neck and places the buds in her ears, before placing the diaphragm against Sis's chest and listening intently. After moving the diaphragm around a couple of times, she nods to the governor, who pushes a button on the wall behind him. Immediately the curtain swishes back across and a disembodied female voice from a loudspeaker says: "Ladies and gentleman: the prisoner is deceased."

Mom lets out a deep, primal scream. I just reach over and hold her tightly: there is nothing comforting I can say. I don't know whether to be glad it's finally over or sickened at the thought that...well, it's finally over - I'll never see Mandy again: Mandy's beautiful young body, sure; but Mandy, no. It seems so unreal: how could they have done this to her?


I feel a gentle tap on my left shoulder and look up to see a young Afro-Caribbean woman standing close behind us in the uniform of the prison guards:
   "Whenever you're ready, Ma'am, please follow me," she says gently, almost nervously: "We'll take you out the back so you don't get bothered by the media." It seems like I should want to thump this woman - this member of the team that just killed poor Mandy; but instinctively I'm just comforted to know that somebody in this whole fucking nightmare cares about our feelings. I just nod. Mom and I force ourselves to our feet and are led, still in tears, through a maze of corridors. I try not to imagine where Mandy is now, but the thoughts of her being wheeled on a gurney into the morgue, stripped, washed, cut open...just won't be held back.

Eventually, we reach the external extrance. The guard swipes her card and we're allowed out. After we pass through the door, she says: "Goodbye, Ma'am. If you need the bus there's a stop just at the end of that road."
   "Thank you," I mouth through my sobs.
   "My plea...You're welcome, Ma'am", she replies, before turning back into the prison.

As soon as we're alone, the urge to vomit returns without warning and I hurl my guts out onto the grass verge. When I've finished, I straighten up and look around me: it's a beautiful, warm day.