The Last Execution by Electric Chair

Thunder growled and dark clouds strobed between platinum whips lashing over the beharmed farm house. The powerline between the barn and home moaned and swung side to side. The telephone poles leaned and the wires strained. Leaves and debris smacked the windows of Elysia’s bedroom. The wallpaper wrinkled with sweat. The ceiling fan slowed the fog on the windows. Dozens of spotless lady beetles herded in upper corners. The retired man unbuttoned his shirt and faced a fan towards him. Three ran in the room. He ran others in every room. Still he felt too hot. A knock fell at the front of the house. He reached for his gun, and wiped the condensation away from his window. A man dressed in a yellow neon vest stood by. Elysia opened and shut the bedroom door quick. He walked through his array of fan blades down the hall, passed through and out another door as fast as his muscles carried him, then into the parlor where he kept several more fans spinning. His shirt flared, his sagging flesh drooped like rotting milk from holes in the container. Shrapnel scars and old burn marks decorated his chest. One nipple burned off years before. Ever since his first electric shock as a teenager, no body hair grew below his neck, but his aged skin toughened like ash tree bark, and darkened with benign cancers.

He opened the front door. Warm gusts blew into the house. Elysia pulled the utility man inside. “Get in god damn it, you’re letting the cool out!”

The utility man took his fogging glasses off. Elysia recognized him. “Jasper, what are you doing here? Doubtful the plant wants me back.”

“We’re shutting down power. The storm is coming and it will cause damage.”

“yeah right. When I was in your place I never shut down people’s power- no matter a few sprinkles.”

“There’s record flooding in the South County. Three tornadoes spotted around Milton township. You should be in the basement.”

“I'm not afraid of any tornado. And if you shut my power down I’ll hook my own generator up.”

“You do that, your circuits will blow.”

“Damn it, I was rewiring with the neighborhood power grid before my wisdom teeth came in. I’ll be fine. Fine.”

The utility man shrugged. “Yeah, I remember. But you're out here living by yourself now- What are you going to do when the windmills or solar panels start powering your house?”

“Over my dead body.”

The utility man shook his head told him to be careful. His radio came in and out of static. The voice on the other end battled through the noise to get his message through. Thunder collapsed against the ceiling. Dust and asbestos fell to the hardwood. Elysia held the door open and told him to hurry out. Bits of moisture peppered the dirt. Frothing clouds of black and purple strangled the sky and rolled onward. Pebbles of hail struck the dirt and bounced from the siding to the weed garden. The utility man covered his head as he ran out to his truck. The flood beams illuminated a carpet of fog growing over the muddy field. Elysia slammed the door shut. The storm grasped the property like a crane claw and broke open.

A blinding spearhead of lightning out-burned the lights in the house. Shadows of galloping war steeds rushed across the floor and walls in the brief flash. When the windows dimmed again, the house remained dark. The fans ringed. Pins scraped against plates. The motors whined. The wheels slowed, and the rotating air sunk to the floor. Elysia grumbled, and blindly felt around his home, taking short steps to every drawer in search for flashlight.

As a boy, he was known for two things. Possessing a prodigy level understanding of how electric power worked like most astronomers know the stars- and persisting rumors that he stole small pets, cats, puppies, tied them up in the barn, and attached battery chargers to them and then buried them alive when bored of them. Neighbor’s pets frequently went missing. Strange lights and smells came from the barn late at night until early in the morning. Once he moved away to study electrical engineering, the strange noises and lights stopped. The barn smelled, but the family never let anyone inside. Pets stopped vanishing.

Elysia went through a drawer, but he found no flashlight, instead he found all the missing pet posters. He lifted the grainy photos of cats, rats, little golden retrievers with their eyes still shut to the window light. He made a fist and squeezed hard. His tests never provided results. Elysia put them back, and went back to rummaging. Once he recovered a flashlight, he found the switch did nothing. He grumbled about the heat as he passed through the hall, and the kitchen again. He smelled something in the rain. Metallic- freshly minted dimes. He went through drawers, through old fur and knives made from deer hooves. Shotgun shells and boxes of .22 bullets. Loose wires and cords. Then at last, batteries. But the pack didn't have four he needed. He tossed the flashlight inside and cursed as lightning flashed again. This time he saw phantoms standing outside staring in.

 When the lightning flash subsided and shallow gray resumed, rain drops started to wash down the windows and rail against the ceiling. Fruit sized hail shells sized dented the siding. Among the rushing of storm waters and winds, he heard screaming rise like fog from the dirt. He listened a little, because the screaming did not arise from the bottoms of human lungs. He knew the sound well, so he took out his hearing aid, and when into the pantry. Mice scurried away from the trap he set from them. Old piles of spilled rice squirmed with small worms. He moved through the bottom shelf. Behind the ice cream maker that almost took off his ring finger, and the cotton candy machine jammed with locks of hair, he found a lantern. 

He held his breath as he opened the oil pan. A shiny layer floated at the bottom. Triumph filled his lungs. When he turned the pin, oil reeked, but no flame ignited. He tossed it into the trash, and opened the doors to let light move. He kicked the fans out of his way. His white hair strands fuzzed into plumes of pillow stuffing. Thunder cracked over the house. Nova light emitted through the windows once more. A shadow stood in the middle of the window light, but faded back into the dimness like smoke. The beetles dropped from the ceiling one by one- and crunched under Elysia’s feet. 

His steps fell gentle in the dark. He left the tiny shells pop beneath him, until one bug bit him- he barked, and inspected the bottom of his foot. A bulb of blood swelled by the head of a loose nail sticking from his heel. Blood stayed in until he pulled the nail out. Warm drips flooded the peeling layers of white, dead skin on his soles. He held the wound, but felt no pain. He only felt wet. 

He dragged his bleeding foot to the cellar door. The knob felt like ice against his sweating palm. He turned the handle, and the door fell open. Cold air rose up his pant legs. Then he felt the snare of the nail, and pain throbbed his foot. He fell back to the kitchen sink, where he wrapped a dishrag around the wound to suffocate the bleeding, but he saw by the window light that he held only half the nail in his hand. The end broke off in his foot. He scowled, and swallowed the nail head. Limping, he took his way down the stairs, one by one, descended down steps nailed to narrow support beams screwed into cracked cinder-blocks. They creaked and bent under his weight. The dark floor smiled at him. It held its arms out to catch him. He held onto the railing, the bleating of animals grew louder with each step. He heard the blood in their necks, the vessels straining, the suffocation in their lungs, the tearing of voice boxes and the constriction of neck muscles- until his foot touched the basement floor. All the sounds of upstairs muffled. Chills rode up his ankles.

He tried the lights out of habit, but nothing turned on. He went through boxes under the stairs, tossing aside old clothes and pictures of people he didn’t remember, until he found wax sticks. He took them to his work table, where he used his OA torch to cast a light he used to ignite the wick. He shut the torch off, and covered the candle in a tag to keep the wax of burning his hand. He followed the aura to where he kept the generator- inside of the old bathtub. He hooked it to the house, and when he snapped the lights on again the basement lit up. He blew out the candle, and felt accomplished, but exhausted. He looked beyond his work bench to his antique. It warmed his heart, he went and sat inside of it. The heavy chair felt like a throne of carpenter’s wood. Peels of leather wore from the arm straps. The burn marks from previous inmates remained strained in the seat and back rest. He carved every name executed in the chair on the arm rests. He bought the chair from the prison once the state outlawed use of the chair. He kept it in working condition, though he kept nothing connected to a source of power. He patted it like a trophy, and cleaned the dust from the headcap. Distant memories came back of the brief year he spent as the state’s secretary of energy. More people fell into the electric chair than ever before in that year. The best day, he recalled fondly, when he got to pull the switch on John Joubert. 

His generator roared. He went upstairs- took pliers from a drawer and stuck the needle head into his wound, picked away clumps of red clots. Blood poured out as he dug the pliers into his heel. He bit until a tooth cracked, and out he pulled the point of the nail- one inch long. He limped to the bathroom where he put two fat, pink band-aides on his heel. The pain idled, but the animals screamed to out perform the wind. The storm passed over head. He saw it flash across the county. They kept screaming. He smelled melting copper.

Elysia buttoned up his shirt, repossessed his gun, and went out into he trickles of rain. The fog began to rise as he walked to the barn, and covered the entire farm before he made it to the door.

The fog didn’t clear until the next morning. The utility man came because the power lines from the house to the barn fell, and when he stepped into the yard he saw bare feet sticking from the mud, and pale cheek bones gawking, steam drifted from his mouth, and his eye sockets burned to blistering scabs. The utility man called for the coroner, but only after they bagged Elysia's body up did he notice that no power ran through the downed wires. He went into the house, and found no power inside. He found the fuse box in the cold of the basement and saw them all burned out. The generator ran, but its power went nowhere. But a source of heat radiated in the basement, along with the smell of cooked bacon. He turned and followed the heat. Warmer, warmer through drying sheets hanging from the ceiling- until he found the antique. Fresh ashes rested on the seat. Melted flesh dripped down the backrest. The headcap simmered. When the utility an touched it, a shock caught his finger tips, and he yanked his hand away as the sensation tingled his hand. He never grew hair on that hand again.