Deliverance

Fletcher stared into his pale reflection as he scrubbed his hands vigorously. This wasn't his first time but that familiar, unpleasant feeling was back in his stomach. He noticed beads of perspiration form on his forehead and he splashed cold sterile water to steady himself. "It's not going to take long, 20 minutes tops and I'm out", he muttered to himself. And this time, the condemned wasn't someone he already knew. Anonymity made the task easier, as small mercies went.

Changing into his uniform and reaching the chamber, Fletcher found some orderlies topping off bottles of saline solutions and laying out IV needles on a stainless steel tray. A large heavyset man was strapped to a gurney.The veins on his arm were popping out from the pressure but strangely, he had a placid look on his face. His eyes reflected a composure Fletcher struggled to own himself. They locked into Fletcher's and followed his every move.

"You doin' ok?", Fletcher asked as he scanned some stats on a clipboard.
"How am I supposed to answer that?", grunted the man as his eyes narrowed.
"This won't take long. You probably won't even feel it."
"Probably? Gee that's great, isn't it? Except I won't be able to 'thank you' later. Maybe I should do it now..."

Fletcher felt strangely uncomfortable as the man's eyes followed heart monitors being placed on his chest. Typically he masked his anxiety by avoiding small talk but this man was able to read his face.
"Tell me, you like doing what you do here? That make your ol'man proud?", prodded the prisoner.
Fletcher's fingers clenched when he heard the man mention his dad. Nothing would have ever made his dad proud of him, not that it mattered anyway. When he was 7, Fletcher's dad had killed his mother in a fit of drunk rage. Then he had turned the gun on Fletcher and reached for the trigger just as Fletcher's brother swung a baseball bat to his head. As his father collapsed in a pool of blood, his brother had run away when police sirens screamed in the night after frantic neighbours made calls. Through the course of a single,dark night, Fletcher had lost his family. Since then, he had been trying to lose their memories for 23 years.

As much as he hated to admit it, the terror he witnessed had goaded him to eventually fight back in a way he had never managed to do that night. The tens of thousands of children living in fear every day, never sure if their own parents could one day kill them in rage....the people who had given their everything only to be treated like slaves...the women mutilated beyond recognition after they had been ravaged without mercy...he wanted to fight back for them all. The fury he felt each day was never appeased by the degenerate he put away doing what he did. And deep inside, he knew that he still lived in fear himself; a fear he had tried to suppress by donning the garbs of an executioner.

"It's really none of your business", he muttered back.
"Oh no? It's your business to put me to sleep but not my business to question it? Kinda unfair there,wot? Who decides you can do that anyway?"
Fletcher gritted his teeth as his palms started to sweat inside their gloves.
I wouldn't be here if assholes like you didn't have to be put away,he said to himself.
"Feel like a hero,huh? Throw the bad guys in the doghouse .. kill 'em if you can! You feel like a hero strappin' me to this table,you wimp?"
You probably aren't gettin' half of what you deserve, so why dont you just shut your fuckin' mouth before I seal it tight?
"You figure I deserve this huh? I do a favour and wipe off a bunch of perverts and you think I deserve this? I kill those sick rat bastards and you kill me instead. What makes you the bigger guy?"
Who the heck do you think you are ? Friggin Batman? Fletcher was seething.
"The doc figures I got a screw loose upstairs. What excuse you got?", spat out the giant.
"Just shut the fuck up!" yelled Fletcher as he picked up a needle and felt the man's right arm strapped to the gurney. He didn't wince as the needle punctured a thick vein.

Breathing heavily,Fletcher walked to the other side of the gurney and tried to repeat the procedure with another needle.

"Ya wake up every mornin an' kill people like yer God? That make you feel good? You ain't no different...yer just as sick as the rest of us. How do ya sleep at night? How do ya?", the man muttered as his gaze grew intense.

Rage and guilt swept through Fletcher. The man had asked him the same questions which had tortured him over the past year. He thought he had made his peace with it but he knew he'd been lying to himself all along. The syringe in his hand twitched as his hand trembled. If looks could kill, he knew that he should have dropped dead by now.

It took some pressure to puncture. One iota too much. Fletcher felt the needle go in deeper than it typically should. His toes curled and he tried not to reveal his horror.

Turning around to make sure that the tubes were securely connected to the IV drips behind the wall, Fletcher signaled an orderly to start the flow of saline solution. The screens surrounding the chamber lifted at the warden's signal and Fletcher sighed in relief when he noticed there was no family to witness the procedure.

He walked behind the wall and turned a small plastic valve on a bottle of sodium thiopental connected to the IV. The anesthetic was meant to induce unconsciousness so that the individual felt no pain during the process. Fletcher hoped and prayed his tiny mistake would get washed away, thanking his good luck that doctors weren't allowed until after the procedure. But the jab had gone too far,puncturing a sheath of muscle. And the cool liquid flowed freely into the man's bloodstream, failing to render him unconscious. He must have sensed this as his eyes arched back to question a strange sensation.

Screw it, the bastard deserves it anyway.Fletcher started the flow of pavulon to paralyse his muscles. The pancuronium bromide however wasn't a sedative really and the man suffocated as he felt his veins being set on fire. The agony was invisible to Fletcher and the warden since his body was completely paralyzed to the point where his breathing stopped. Finally, Fletcher started the flow of potassium chloride and a few seconds later the man's heart stopped beating.


The procedure hadn't taken over 30 minutes. To Fletcher, it seemed to be a lifetime. While the orderlies removed needles and unfastened straps on the gurney, he quickly filled out some information for the coroner's examination. The last thing he wanted to do was stick around any longer than needed. After draining out the bottles of solutions he had just used, he deposited paraphernalia into a tray filled with warm saline solution and proceeded to change out of his gown.

As he stepped outside into the hallway to sign out, Dr.Sterns brushed past him into the changing room.

"Evening, doctor"
"How did it go?"
"Quick and smooth. 4 minutes 30 to cardiac arrest."
"You're new here. Where's Jim?"
"Broke his leg yesterday. Had to sub for him at the last minute."
"Yikes,hope he's doin ok. What's your name?"
"Travis sir."Fletcher replied
"Good to meet you,Travis. Have a good night now."

Sterns changed into his gown and proceeded into the chamber to examine the man on the gurney. Things seemed to look fine. He examined the man's arms where the IVs had been inserted. A nasty feeling gnawed his mind as his eyes swept across the man's arms. He withdrew with a feeling of unease as he jotted some notes for the post-mortem examination.

Turning in his certificate to the warden, Sterns drove home lost in thought. His wife had fallen asleep on the kitchen table as he stepped in. The noise awakened her and she went over to fetch his case.

"How did it go?"
"Ok,I guess. Something didn't seem right."
"What do you mean?"
"A young tyke put the needle in tonight. Jim broke his leg. I'm not sure if the rookie did a good job. I'll have to wait for the PM report."
"Don't lose your sleep over it.Let's go to bed."
"There was one other thing. When I examined him, I found an old picture in his suit.Two young boys."
"His kids? Was there any family present to witness?"
"Don't think so.."
"Anyways, I'm going to bed..."
Sterns reached for the picture from his coat pocket. The edges were frayed and the base had begun to peel off. The boys in the picture looked cheerful, one chubby and one thin. He turned the picture over to read something scribbled in black ink.
"Fletcher boys.Summer of 74"