A midnight meeting
The rest of the afternoon was peaceful: the nooses were taken down, the mess cleaned up, and most girls shifted their attention back to their plans for vacation. Alison and Julia went out to dinner that night, and returned home to find the house surprisingly quiet. Some girls had already left for vacation, and the rest were lounging in their rooms or in the great room watching a movie. Alison felt her phone buzz with a text from Katie, “Meet @ BoD ASAP, bring J.”.
Campus was calm on the chilly fall night as Alison and Julia walked towards the building that housed the Board of Discipline, a large two story stone building called Standow Hall. The street lamps did little to illuminate the main way of the campus, but the pair could make out the vertical posts used for crucifixions that were permanent fixtures on campus. Crucifixions rarely occurred over the breaks between academic terms since many University staff took that time off too, and many of the execution crews were composed of student workers. Still, Alison could make out the shape of a condemned student at the opposite end of the promenade.
Katie stood at the front door of Standow Hall keeping the door propped open with her foot, and beckoned Alison and Julia inside with a hurried gesture. Once inside, the trio took the stairs to the second floor, a large lobby sign read, “Board of Discipline”. The floor was largely empty, but Katie led them past the reception area through a maze of cubicles to a corner office. Katie knocked on the door, and a voice replied, “Come in”. The sign on the door read “Dr. Sandra Browning, Director of Discipline”.
Dr. Browning was a slim woman of about 45 that had run the Board of Discipline at W!U for 5 years; previously she had served in similar positions in both the private sectors and other universities. Her short grey hair belied the confidence beneath, and the true character of the woman who had been orchestrating corporal and capital punishments for most of her career.
“Ladies, let’s get down to brass tax. We know that this afternoon you conducted an extrajudicial execution of Rosie Standow and Becca McClaren. This is not just unusual, but strictly prohibited by the conduct of the university.”, Dr. Browning began.
“But Rosie had broken the sorority’s sacraments…”, Julia interjected, pleading her case. Dr. Browning held up her hand, and Julia stopped short. Dr. Browning continued in the same calm demeanor as she had started.
“None the less, Ms. French, the proper course of action would have been to recommend her to us at the Board of Discipline. You should know this of all people; you’ve submitted these same types of reports to us before.” Dr. Browning placed emphasis on this by looking intently at Julia. “Now you have put us in a precarious position here”, she continued, “Ms. Standow’s uncle is obviously a very important donor to university, and did not appreciate seeing sorority girls post pictures of themselves with the body of his niece on social media.” With this, Dr. Browning produced a manila envelope from her desk drawer and opened it to reveal dozens of photos taken earlier that day. “All of these photos were found on the social media accounts of your sisters.” She said matter of factually. Alison looked at Julia out of the corner of her eye; she had felt uneasy with the whole plan and knew that allowing girls to take photos would only be trouble. Now those bitches were going to be responsible for her own demise! Alison’s train of thought was broken as Dr. Browning continued, “Now if you’ll notice, neither of you are present in these photos. When Mr. Standow asked who had done this to his niece, we didn’t have an answer so we were playing with the idea of executing the whole sorority. Thankfully Katie came forward and identified you two as the primary instigators.” Alison and Julia turned to Katie.
“Katie, you bitch!”, Julia hissed
“Silence!”, Dr. Browning’s harsh voice resonated throughout the empty office. “Mr. Standow made it very clear that he will continue his annual donations so long as the primary instigators are executed. I have pushed through a motion, much as you did this afternoon, to have the two of you, Ms. French and Ms. Rugger, crucified tomorrow morning until death. Your families were notified 15 minutes ago. Katie, you will hang crucified for four hours tomorrow morning as well for your failure to prevent this from happening in the first place. Guards, you can take them away now.”
At that moment, 6 burly university peace officers came into the room and restrained the girls. The scene was pandemonium as the girls desperately tried to resist being bent over as their hands were cuffed behind their back. Alison and Julia pleaded with the guards and Dr. Browning to show mercy. Katie pleaded for herself too, “You said I wouldn’t be punished if I turned them over!” she cried at Dr. Browning.
“You had ought to be thankful that you’ll just be up there for 4 hours with only ropes. These two whores are going to suffer for hours from the nails that are driven into them!” Dr. Browning shot back. Alison burst out in tears.
The girls were taken to the Kreiger Holding cells located behind Standow Hall and just adjacent to the university quad. With most of the staff gone for vacation and few executions taking place over the break, there were plenty of cells available in the two story concrete prison. Each girl was taken to a separate wing to spent the night anguishing over what was to come with the morning. No one got any sleep that night.