Ducie by Chris Freeman

  Chapter 51. Some plants will find a way to grow

  The quad of Eduardo’s Estate was an outdoor area in the middle of the building, similar to the hole in a doughnut. High walls surrounded the small, concreted area that housed a handful of hardy, green plants, which somehow seemed to be thriving, despite sunlight only finding its way into the quad for a small timeslot each day.

  Against one wall of the quad was a wooden chair held in place by scaffolding-like stanchions that appeared to have been fashioned by hand out of tree branches and other scraps of wood. Behind the chair were 2 piles of sandbags that stood a foot or so higher than the chair itself. These were in place to absorb the bullets and to stop them ricocheting around the quad should they pass through Lionel’s body or miss their target completely. A single brown sack lay on the seat of the chair, its purpose more focused on dignity than function. The sack would be used to cover Lionel’s head to prevent him having to look his killers in the eye before they pulled the trigger. The shots themselves would be fired from a small, raised platform in the middle of the quad. A horizontal bar ran across the length of this small stage and would serve for the marksmen to rest their guns upon to steady their aim.

  The 4 men carried Lionel to the chair that would be the location of his final living moments; Frank and Eduardo followed a few feet behind this procession, overseeing matters. Each man kept a firm grip on each of Lionel’s limbs, so he was stretched out like an undignified starfish, gyrating his torso in a vein attempt to free himself from the grip of his captors. On the realisation that physically, he was no match for the men, Lionel resorted to using his mouth to fight off the men.

  - You’re sick! The lot of you! Sick, I’m telling you! Fucking sick!

  The men continued their work without pausing to acknowledge Lionel’s summation of them. They lay him down on the floor, each man pressing down on his assigned limb to ensure that Lionel was going nowhere. In reality though, even if he’d been given a window of opportunity, it’s unlikely he would have outrun the men. And if by some miracle he did, where would he hide on this tiny island? As the men restrained Lionel, Frank prepared a number of lengths of rope, laying them out carefully on the floor next to the chair like a mother would lovingly lay out her child’s school clothes for the following day.

  - You’re going to hell, the lot of you? You hear me? People will hear about this. I know people you don’t know. People will know you killed me. I know your faces….I know your names….

  Lionel didn’t know anyone that Eduardo and his men didn’t know. He also didn’t believe in hell, despite claiming that that’s where Eduardo and his men were going to. Desperation brought about by a survival instinct was causing him to clutch at increasingly thin straws on the-off chance that something would resonate with these animals and force them to stop.

  The men hoisted Lionel up in one smooth motion into the sitting position and onto the chair. Frank immediately dived on Lionel, straddling him with both legs wrapped around him to secure him, whilst his hands got busy tying the rope around Lionel, the chair and the supporting stanchions. The other 4 men worked on similar projects at the foot of the chair and before long, Lionel was secured in place without the need for them to hold him down. The men took a step back, dusting their hands off and exchanging looks that ranged from relief, to nervousness, to accomplishment.

  Lionel wriggled, but was moving nowhere. The men retreated to their platform, where Eduardo had positioned four 30-30 calibre rifles, which now leant against the raised podium. Sensing that this episode was now approaching its grim finale and at the conclusion that neither his physical strength nor his words were enough to stop this, Lionel’s survival instinct led him to the next stage of desperation; he simply screamed.

  - Aaaaaaaarrrgggghhhh! Aaaaaaaarrrgggghhhh! Help me! Somebody help me! Pleasee! They are killing me! Aaaaaaaarrrgggghhhh

  Tears streamed freely down his face, as the four men took their positions on the podium. Before picking up their guns, they performed what seemed like a little ritual of solidarity. Each man touched the closed fist of the other men with his own, before they leaned together in a huddle, like a basketball team’s pre-match pep talk. What were they saying? What were they promising to each other? That they would never speak of this atrocity once Lionel was dead? That they would never turn on each other one drunken night in years to come, using their involvement in this killing to drunkenly accuse one another of murder?

  Eduardo walked towards Lionel and his screaming lowered to nervous, shakey sobbing. Punctuated with little flinches, as if he expected the killer shots to be fired at any moment. Whatever Eduardo was approaching him for, he was powerless to stop it, his arms bound behind his back to the chair, to the network of stanchions that held him firmly in place. When Eduardo got close enough, Lionel spat at him. Gooey saliva dribbled down the King’s cheek, which he calmly mopped off with his sleeve. He expected this. In fact, he expected worse than this. Frank and his team had done well to make this as efficient as it had been. And they were nearly there now. Eduardo leant in and kissed Lionel on the forehead, causing him to flinch, part fear and part disgust.

  - Good night Lionel, son. God bless you, my boy.

  Eduardo placed the brown sack over the condemned man’s head and secured the bottom of it around his neck with string tied in a loose, but adequate knot.

  The time had come.

  Eduardo nodded towards Harrison, before retreating towards the far wall and turning his back on the whole scene. The King had fulfilled his supervisory duties; he didn’t need to watch this part. Harrison addressed his team.

  - Men! We do dis ex–hactly how we rehearse. Count of tree. Aim true. Be strong. Jah bless you all.

  Even Lionel’s survival instinct had surrendered now, as he simply sobbed gently beneath the hood. There were a couple of occasions during that agonising wait that he thought he might already be dead. Would he hear the shot? Would he feel the pain? Harrison ploughed on with the count….

  - One………

  Lionel’s body tensed up involuntarily, he was a two and a three count away from his end. He tried to breath through the panic, to re-discover that place of acceptance he’d been in the previous day. He thought of his wife

  - Two…..

  The quad took on a surreal atmosphere as a deadly silence swallowed all sense of reality.

  - Tree….

  The perception of justice as a vehicle for necessity is as unjust as it is unnecessary.