Chapter 8
18 months later
Pam stood upon the gallows dressed in a custom made outfit she had designed for her execution. Kidnapping had become a capital offense which carried the death penalty even without the death of the kidnap victim. Her intent to subvert the law by freeing a man who was being tried for the murder of four people was enough to be charged and found guilty. Today, in her low cut shirt, mini skirt and heels, she waited for the executioner to fulfil his duty.
Specially built for the occasion, the gallows stood on the lawn at the corner of the courthouse facing a huge crowd who came to witness the hanging. Along the edges were protesters and vendors both taking advantage of the publicity. And standing next to Pam was the county clerk who was holding a script to read to the crowd. Once the courthouse bells chimed twice signaling it was two in the afternoon, the crowd hushed and the clerk raised the paper to read aloud into a microphone. “Here ye, Here ye, we are gathered today to witness the execution of one Pam Reed, convicted of the kidnapping of Dr. Brent Dorn and Sheriff’s Deputy Matthew Schultz.”
“She didn’t do it!” a voice yelled out from the crowd. “She was framed!”
“Please be silent,” the clerk replied. “The ruling of the court is final.”
Matthew stood in the crowd off to the side not getting involved in the execution. The sheriff gave him the day off on purpose so he could stay away but decided to come anyway. There was a lot of contention on whether or not Shultz had anything to do with the kidnapping or not. Dr. Dorn wasn’t allowed to testify so it was a he said she said between Pam and Schultz.
“Are there any final words you’d like to say?” the clerk asked Pam.
“Yes, I do,” Pam said.
The clerk picked up the microphone stand and brought it over to where Pam was standing over the trap door. “Say your peace,” the clerk said.
“Ok, first of all, yeah, I kidnapped the doctor. So fucking what? He did the world a favor killing that asshole who botched up my surgery. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a hero, not a murderer. And second, I didn’t do this alone. Deputy Schultz should be right behind me and he got off with no punishment. Do you think I could kidnap a grown man with a gun?”
“Are you finished?” the clerk asked.
“Screw you!” Pam said to the clerk. “I got two minutes to live and you can’t spare me a second of it?”
The clerk backed off.
“I want all of you to know that I was royally screwed over. You will see one day I will be vindicated, but by then I’ll be in the ground!” Pam stopped talking and looked away.
The clerk took the microphone and nodded to the executioner to go ahead with his job. Grabbing a black sack from a satchel, the executioner placed it over Pam’s head and then placed the noose around her neck pulling it snug. Once he was happy with the placement of the rope, he backed away and walked to the lever that controlled the trap door. Checking with the clerk to make sure it was alright to proceed, the executioner pulled the lever sending Pam down through the trap door towards the ground. Then everyone heard a popping sound and watched Pam’s body hit the dirt without her head. Looking up, they saw her head as it dangled from the rope.
The crowd gasped in horror as Pam’s body moved on its own without a head.
“It’s alive!” someone yelled. “Kill it!”
Pam’s body continued to crawl around until it reached one of the upright posts that was part of the gallows structure. The body grabbed the post with both hands and used it to guide itself into a standing position. A bit wobbly, the body managed to right itself and stand facing towards the right side of the crowd trying to keep its balance.
Once the executioner heard the crowd and saw what happened, he pulled up on the rope until the head was back above the trap door and resting on the wood floor. He then leaned down, pulled the rope off the neck and removed the black sack revealing Pam’s living head. Her eyes looked at the executioner and her lips and jaw moved, but no sound came from her. Shocked, the executioner pushed Pam’s head on the walkway and backed away.
“What’s going on?” the clerk asked.
“She’s not dead!” the executioner yelled.
“What do you mean not dead?”
“Look for yourself.”
The clerk stepped over to Pam’s head and moved around until he could see her face. It was then he saw her blink and then her mouth move. “Call the sheriff,” the clerk said.
“I’m already here,” Ed said as he climbed the stairs of the gallows. Once to the top, he ran over to where the clerk was standing and looked down at Pam. “What the fuck?” Ed asked.
“Do something,” the clerk said.
“Do what? This looks more like a medical issue.”
“She’s supposed to be dead.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
“Kill her.”
“You tried that, I think it’s illegal to do it twice,” Ed said.
“Then remove her, we can’t have a scene. The television people will put this on the news.”
“I’m sure it already is, those are live trucks parked around the courthouse.”
The clerk shook her head in disgust. “This is your problem, I’m a clerk, and you’re the sheriff, take care of it.”
“Maybe you should get a judge on the phone, or maybe the mayor,” Ed said.
“I don’t have time for such nonsense. My job is done, good day,” the clerk said and she walked away to the steps and left Ed behind to figure this mess out for himself.
The first thing Ed thought of was to address the crowd so he walked over to the microphone and raised his arms to get everyone’s attention. “Excuse me!” he yelled. “I need your attention. We seem to have a situation here and I need for all of you to please vacate the area. We have a possibility of biological contamination and for your own safety, you need to go.” Ed thought that was a pretty good lie and might actually work until he could figure out what was going on.
Then a reporter ran up to the front of the dispersing crowd with a camera person yelling, “Sheriff! What can you tell us about this botched execution?”
“Botched execution? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Look down here, her body is still alive!”
“Don’t believe everything you see, now get back in your truck before you get sick.”
“What kind of contamination are you talking about?” the reporter asked.
“What kind of stupid are you? I said get back in your truck. You want to die?”
“Does this have something to do with you being a zombie? Did you spread some sort of virus that brings back people from the dead?”
“No comment, now move along.”
“Are you spreading a disease?”
Ed was at the end of his rope and about ready to shoot the reporter for being a pest. “If you don’t leave now, I will have you arrested for unlawful gathering. I told you this area is unsafe and you need to leave!”
Ed looked down and watched as the reporter told his camera person to get a good close up of Pam’s body as she balanced herself against the gallows uprights.
“You got to the count of ten to move or I’ll do what I have to, to make you leave!” Ed yelled.
“We have rights!” the reporter yelled. Then the reporter told the camera person to point the camera up at Ed. “You do anything to us and it will be live on television!”
Ed knew he was fucked and decided to back off. He then reached down and picked up Pam’s head and noticed something he never saw before. With her make up smudged, she looked a lot like him. Like a zombie. “Pam, I hope you can hear me, is there something you want to tell me?” Ed asked.
Pam moved her lips but no sound came out.
“Stop,” Ed said. “I’m going to ask you a question, if the answer is yes, blink once, if it’s no, blink twice.”
Pam blinked once.
“Are you a zombie?”
> Pam stared at Ed and didn’t blink at first, then she blinked once.
“So there were more than three of us that survived the cholera?”
“Pam blinked once again.
“Where have you been living all this time? Never mind, I’ll figure that part out later.”
That night, Ed came to the hospital where a surgeon had attached a hose from where Pam’s trachea tore apart on her body to the same spot on her head so she could talk. Her head rest between two pillows on a bench while her body sat in a chair next to it. Although raspy, she could be heard and understood.
Ed sat down beside her on a hospital bed with a notepad in his hand. “Hi Pam, I see they got you all hooked up.”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Earlier I asked you about where you’ve been all this time, I’d like you to fill me in if you could,” Ed said.
“While you were being held prisoner at the university, I was out living a life,” Pam replied.
“Did you look like me or Matthew? I mean we don’t blend in well.”
“I learned how to use make up fast. At first I played like I was sick, but it wasn’t hard to blend in,” Pam replied.
“How did you support yourself? Where did you live?” Ed asked.
“I did what I did before I got the disease. I found a job doing housework and cooking for families. I got paid under the table and there was no trace of me.”
“Why didn’t you seek help? You could have gone to a hospital.”
“I spent my life living on my own and making my own way. Going for help wasn’t something I was comfortable doing. Plus I wasn’t that hungry most of the time and only required a roof over my head.”
“Then how did you get into law enforcement? Why did you apply for the deputy job?”
“To get close to my own kind. You and Matthew never hid what you were, and I admired that. So in a way I wanted to share what I was going through with people who also were going through it.”
“Why didn’t you come out and tell me right away?”
“I figured you’d find out eventually,” Pam said.
“And what about this boob job? You were asking to be found out.”
“I was found out, but the doctors can’t legally say anything.”
“So Dr. Newman knew all along you were a zombie.”
“Yes. And so did his partner Dr. Dorn.”
“Is that why you kidnapped him?”
“No, I kidnapped him because he killed that fucker Dr. Newman.”
“How did you expect any doctor to do surgery on someone whose body no longer functions like a regular person? You set him up to fail.”
“He could have fixed what he did, he refused,” Pam said. She was pissed.
“We don’t heal at the same rate as normal humans. It would take years for your boob job to look right.”
“I gave him long enough.”
“How long?”
“I said long enough.”
“You’ve never been a patient woman.”
“He got what he deserved, I didn’t kill him,” Pam said.
“You said Dr. Dorn also knew, why didn’t you blame him?”
“I did at first, for not sticking up for me, but when he blew that fucker away, he became my hero.”
“Interesting, so now your head and your body is connected by a tube. That’s going to take years to heal as well.”
“They can put in rods till it’s healed, you won’t be able to tell the difference,” Pam said.
“Yeah, but you’re also supposed to be dead, by court order.”
“No, double jeopardy, I’m a free woman,” Pam replied.
“I don’t think it works that way,” Ed replied.