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The Throwaway Girl - a new story by Jedakk

  • Thread starter Deleted member jedakk
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Chapter 29 is titled “Tuesday – Nailing Susan.” Susan Logan, the leggy blonde who was convicted of treason along with Jeremy, is crucified. This chapter is long enough that it would be too much to post this and the following chapter together, so this is the only one for today.

Susan and Jeremy are both sentenced to three days on the cross, nudity and a Class 2 sedile. This is not nearly as bad as Ellie’s sentence, but Ellie’s sentence was lighter before she was held in contempt of court. And finally, it’s up to the executioner. As long as he keeps them alive for three days on the cross, he can continue to maintain their IV nutrients, etc. for as long as he wishes.

Chapter 29: Tuesday – Nailing Susan​

“Well, folks, it’s almost time for Susan Logan’s crucifixion to begin! Ken McDonald said. “As you can see, she’s terrified of what they’re about to do to her, but, well, she was convicted of treason and this is the penalty the law prescribes for that, so no surprises! They’re counting down now! The wranglers are about to take her… Let’s watch…”

“Be strong, Susan!” Jeremy shouted, his voice cracking with fear.

Yeah, take that bitch first, Jeremy thought, give me some more time, just a little more…

Ellie hung on her cross, twitching in agony as cramps prodded her, moaning as she watched Susan in fascination, wondering if this was real or another of the many hallucinations she’d been having.

“No, pleeeease!” Susan sobbed, her eyes wide in panic, whipping her head around to see the four big men who surrounded her. “I-I’m not ready! Take him first, not me! Don’t you understand? He was the leader, I was just a member of the cell, it’s not fair! I shouldn’t be first, no please please oh God don’t don’t crucify meee!”

Susan was suddenly speechless, staring. John the executioner was standing behind the crosspiece waiting for her, eyes regarding her through his black mask, the dead blow hammer in his right hand and two big crucifixion nails in his left.

This is it… he’s going to nail me to the cross! This can’t be real! Susan thought.

When the countdown ended, the wranglers next to her took her by her upper arms and half-carried her, staggering on legs gone weak, to her place in front of the crosspiece. They turned her to face forward and remained standing beside her, holding her up.

The one on her right swept her blonde ponytail over her shoulder to hang down her back, out of their way. Susan kept turning her head to stare in horror at the executioner waiting behind her, the hammer and nails in his hands. She was sobbing, visibly trembling.

The reporter stayed out of the way, but the TV cameramen moved around her, looking for the best angles to show off the naked blonde in the iron grip of the big men beside her, the executioner looming behind her. The video screens showed multiple views of her, along with views of Ellie and Jeremy.

Judge Schaefer, who had also presided over the trials of Jeremy and his group, stood in front of the place of execution. The crowd was quiet, everyone watching and listening. Ellie groaned in agony from her cross.

Susan stared at him in panic, her mouth working, wanting to say something but no words coming.

The judge read Susan’s sentence:

“…There to be nailed to a cross where she shall suffer for a time to exceed three days until she is dead.

“She is further sentenced to endure a Class 2 sedile, and to remain nude for her entire sentence. After being pronounced dead, her body shall remain on the cross for a minimum of twelve hours, after which time it shall be cremated and her ashes flushed into the city sewage system without ceremony, monument or memorial of any kind.

Continuing with the ritual, he turned to face Susan and said the words that would set her execution in motion:

“Place the traitor on the cross.”

Susan’s legs failed completely and she almost dropped to her knees before the wranglers caught her.

“No! No! Oh, please, I don’t want to die! Don’t no don’t crucify meeee no no…” She babbled, twisting and fighting for her life. She continued to scream and beg as the wranglers dragged her backwards on the ground toward her crosspiece.

This can’t be happening it can’t be real no I can’t die like this… Susan thought, her mind trying to deny what was happening to her.

The wranglers knelt when they were close enough and Bill, the one on Susan’s left, forced a hand between her thighs, got a solid hold on her ass cheeks and pushed her desperately wriggling body up until her shoulders were on the beam.

Susan felt the rough wood against her raw back and knew what it meant. Her head was spinning, her breaths coming in gasps. Her stomach ached with fear.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHH!! NO! NO! OH NO PLEASE…” She screamed, frantically trying to get herself off the beam. Bill on her left and Jack, the wrangler on Susan’s right, each got a hand on her shoulder on their side and leaned on her, pinning her down on the wood.

Stop it stop it stop it somebody save me don’t let them do this to me oh please God… Susan thought. She was lying on the ground, looking up at the cloudless sky and these men dressed in black, their faces above her, strong hands holding her down. And there was the man with the black mask, the hammer and nails…

Bill swung on top of Susan, forced a knee between her legs. She brought her left knee up as hard as she could into his groin, but he barely took any notice. Like all the other wranglers, Bill wore a protective cup as well as shin guards under his fatigues to protect against kicks.

As was his practice with females, he proceeded to force his other knee between her legs and spread them apart. At the same time, he moved his left hand to her upper chest and leaned on it to keep her pinned. He grasped her left forearm and held it up for another wrangler to wipe with antiseptic. Jack, the wrangler on her right, pinned her right arm down along the beam with both hands and leaned on it.

Susan screamed. She was completely overwhelmed but continued to struggle underneath the weight of the men holding her down. She had experienced the helplessness and humiliation of being strapped down, probed and measured and strapped to a cross during the brief time she spent being fitted for the Class 2 sedile. That was terrifying but it was over quickly, nothing like what Ellie had gone through.

Susan was neither prepared for the horror of helplessness, nor of being physically overpowered and vulnerable like this. Her legs were spread wide apart, exposing her private parts completely. She had only felt the weight of a man on top of her, strong arms enfolding her during the passion of sex. This felt like… rape!

She felt the coolness of the antiseptic on her wrist, smelled the alcohol and whipped her head around to see the wrangler applying it. When he moved out of the way the black-masked executioner knelt in his place, hammer in one hand and nail in the other.

“OHHHHHH!” Susan moaned. “Oh no no…” Time was running out.

There was a hush over the crowd, everyone watching silently, listening to Susan’s babbling, waiting for her screams of agony to begin. Ellie moaned in the background.

“No! No! This… it’s a mistake, no, you don’t understand, I-I’m not a traitor, I’m innocent! Please, please oh God listen to me, I’m not supposed to… you can’t do this, please stop please you have to stop!” Susan sobbed in terror.

Bill bent her forearm down, placed her wrist on the beam, adjusted it to line up the “X” tattooed on her wrist with the measured scribe marks on her crosspiece. Susan strained against him to move her wrist out of the way, but Bill was much too strong for her.

John placed the point of a nail on the “X”, pressed it down hard to hold her hand steady, raised his hammer halfway and quickly brought it down, just enough to drive the nail through and pin her wrist to the wood.

A loud scream exploded from Susan, her body convulsed, and she was struggling and screaming in agony. That was followed by a roar of cheering and applause from the crowd.

Oh God my wrist, they’re… crucifying me! She thought. I’m going to die!

Her bladder emptied, warm urine spurting and puddling in the grass between wide-spread legs that flailed uselessly on either side of the wrangler on top of her.

The cameramen moved around, putting images of Susan’s agonized face on the screen, full-length views of her writhing, naked body, the shame of her urination in public made even more public.

John brought his hammer down a second time, harder, driving the spike deeper into the beam, the deep wooden “thunk” loud over the sound system, followed by Susan’s strident scream. She barely had time to take a breath for another scream before the next blow of the hammer came. Bill released her forearm as there was no longer any need for him to hold it. Four more blows and the head of the nail was almost down against her wrist.

“Ok, everybody relax for a minute, commercial time!” Bill said, seeing the signal from the TV reporter.

“Hell of a time for a commercial,” John said, “I was just getting into my rhythm, too!”

“Ohhhh! Ohhh God ohhhhh!” Susan moaned in pain.

“You know,” Jack said, “there are worse jobs than rasslin’ naked women for a living!” The three of them laughed at that, but Susan didn’t.

“You doing ok there, Susan?” Bill asked. “You seem a little agitated!”

“OHHHHHH!” Susan turned her head to stare in horror at the head of the nail protruding from her left wrist, gasping for breath, tears running down her cheeks. “OHHHHH GOD! OHHH PLEASE STOP! STOP!”

“Well, gosh, can’t do that, Susan! We don’t get paid unless we finish,” Bill said. “That there is just one nail, and the work order says we have to install three more like it to finish this assembly, you know, ‘you and the cross become one.’ Kind of sounds like an old Madonna song, don’t it?” Bill hummed the tune.

“SHIT! OHHHH please it hurts…”

“Aw Susan, no, that’s not the next line,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Let’s see, what the hell is it? ‘I see you through the smokey air’… yeah, we got smoke from all the weed these folks around us here are smokin’!”

“Ok,” Bill said, “Commercial’s over. Let’s go!”

“NO! NO! AAAAAHHHHH!!” Susan screamed.

Jack handed off Susan’s right arm to Bill, who held it up for the antiseptic wipe. As John positioned himself to nail her wrist, Bill forced her arm down and lined up the tattooed “X” mark on her wrist with the scribe marks on that end of the beam.

Susan’s screams and the sounds of the hammer blows echoed across the park. After a couple of blows, Bill stood up and left Susan to writhe and kick unrestrained as John finished driving the nail down. When he was done, he stood up while the cameramen continued to video her.

“This‘un kicks and fights harder than that red-haired one, Ellie!” One of the men in the crowd said to another.

“She’s got more to kick with! Hell, her legs are about twice as long as Ellie’s!” The other one said.

“Yeah, love that blonde hair and those blue eyes, too, look how scared she is! Those big eyes!” The first man pointed to the big monitor.

“Hell yes! She knows for sure now she’s going to die!” The other man laughed. “I don’t think they generally believe it till the nails go in.”

Susan’s screams died down to groans of agony and sobbing. But her execution was not half-done yet.

There was a pause for another commercial break. Everyone watched the countdown timer on the big screens impatiently. Ellie screamed as she fought to raise herself on her cross, and the cameramen switched to show the crowd there her struggle while the TV audience saw a beer commercial.

When the commercial break ended, Bill and Jack knelt on either side of Susan and took hold of the ends of the beam. She sobbed, knowing what was coming. The only thing she could do, the same thing they all did, was pull her feet up close and prepare to try to use her legs to save the pull of the nails in her throbbing wrists. They were about to drag her to the post.

“Ready?” Bill said, looking at Jack.

“No! Please, I’m not ready! Wait! I need more time…”

“I wasn’t talking to you!” Bill laughed, “You don’t have to be ready, babe, just follow our lead!”

There was laughter from the crowd.

“Yep!” Jack said, adjusting his grip on the beam, “I’m good to go!”

They lifted the beam straight up to about hip level, pulling Susan up into a sitting position. She screamed in agony as the nails pulled at her wounds. She kept on screaming as they hauled her toward the post, writhing and scrabbling for purchase with her feet, her raw welted ass dragging along the ground.

When they stopped, She sat there with her back against the post, long legs spread out in front of her, groaning, watching in horror as the wranglers fitted the lifting brackets over the ends of the beam.

(Continued)
 

Chapter 29: Tuesday – Nailing Susan (Continued)​


“Easier for you if you don’t fight this, now,” Bill warned Susan. “Struggling makes it worse. Just let it happen.”

“OHHHH! Oh God, please don’t please don’t pull me up it hurts so much, just let me rest a minute or two first oh please…” Susan moaned in panic.

“Ok,” Bill said, ignoring her, “Bring her up slowly now. Jack and I will keep it steady when she starts struggling.”

The wrangler on the rope to the block and tackle above began pulling, taking up slack. When the rope went taut, the crosspiece began rising slowly, pulling Susan along with it. She screamed as the nails pulled against her wounds, then with every breath, trying to get her feet under her, trying to stand, take the weight off her wounds. She managed to get her feet on the ground, use her legs, but not for long.

As the crosspiece rose higher, her arms were extended until she was standing on tiptoe. Then her feet left the ground for the last time and she was hanging from the nails, her face deep red from screaming. Her legs were still stretched out stiffly, toes pointed, straining hard to touch the ground that was well out of her reach.

Bill and Jack, standing on either side of the cross, each held onto one of the trailing ropes from the ends of the spreader bar, keeping the crosspiece horizontal and steady as it carried Susan’s naked body, writhing and kicking, slowly higher to the delight of the onlookers. When it reached the upper part of the tenon on top of the post, the wranglers guided it so the open slot in its back slipped onto the narrow part of the tenon, then the wrangler on the lifting rope eased it down until it locked in place.

Susan was hanging on the cross, screaming and writhing in agony, her feet free and struggling for purchase on the face of the post behind her, trying to relieve some of the awful pain in her wounded wrists. Blood slowly trickled down the fronts and backs of her forearms.

One of the wranglers set up the eight-foot folding ladder behind Susan’s cross, ignoring the naked, bleeding woman’s screams of agony and desperate struggling next to him as he went up and slipped the lifting brackets off the ends of the crosspiece, then pulled the lever that released the ratchet strap holding the gin pole to the back of the cross. One of the others had already released the strap holding it at the bottom.

He moved his ladder and they leaned the gin pole back, tackle and all. Two of them gathered it together and moved it to Jeremy’s cross. They tilted it up and used the ladder to fasten the top strap of the gin pole around the top of the post while another knelt to fasten it at the base, and they were ready for Jeremy’s crucifixion.

With that taken care of, the wrangler with the ladder brought it back to Susan’s cross, climbed up and stuck her sign in place. It was almost identical with Ellie’s except for the name and QR code. The sign said:

Susan Titulus.jpg

While he was working Susan suddenly went quiet and her head fell forward, chin resting on her chest. She had finally fainted from the pain.

Bill took advantage of Susan’s unconsciousness, automatically standing to the side for safety in case Susan should begin to kick. He pulled her ankles together, wrapped the nylon strap around them both and cinched it tight. The other loose end went around the post. He cinched it up loosely for the moment so he could still slide it up the post into place.

Another wrangler came over and swabbed her feet, tops and soles, with antiseptic, then did the same with the area of the post where her feet would be nailed.

Jack slid the strap up the post, pulling Susan’s feet up with it, bending her knees until the tattooed “X” marks on the tops of her feet were lined up with the measured and scribed mark on the post, and the scribed centerline on the front of the post was between her feet. He cinched the strap down tightly around the post.

He was checking to be sure her lower legs were approximately perpendicular with the post when Susan began moaning and coming back to consciousness. She groaned, blinked her eyes, awareness and agony returning. She stared at Bill, gasping in pain, his face about three feet below hers.

“Welcome back!” He smiled. “Have a good nap?”

“F-fuck you!” She groaned. “OHHHHHHH! Shit!”

Susan lifted her head, stared at the nail protruding from her left wrist, the lazy trickle of blood down her forearm, and screamed.

Jack wrapped the second nylon webbing strap around the post and over the tops of Susan’s feet, making sure the “X” marks tattooed on the tops of her feet were clear and exposed. He cinched the strap around the post, pulling the soles of her feet down tightly so they couldn’t move. He checked to be sure her knees were spread apart correctly, wondered if he should spread her feet a little farther out to each side so the curvature of the post would open her legs more.

Susan knew the purpose of the straps on her feet, knew what they were going to do to her. They were going to drive one of the big crucifixion spikes through each of her feet.

This can’t be happening! Susan thought, this has to be a nightmare! If I could only wake up…

But try as hard as she could, she couldn’t wake up. The agony, blood, sweat, iron piercing her wrists, that was all real. She shook her head, trying to clear the sweat from her forehead.

“Please oh please don’t hurt me any more please I hurt so much don’t do this!” She babbled.

John the executioner was there with the hammer and nails. “I need you to push up with your legs now, get up on your feet. Make your wrists feel better! Easier if you do it on your own and don’t need us to urge you along.” His smile implied a real threat.

“Oh God oh God oh God…” Susan sobbed, hesitated a moment, afraid to move.

“Go on!” John said, the threat unmistakable.

“I-I will, please don’t hurt me, I’m, I’m scared!” Susan whined.

Susan pushed against her feet, trying not to pull on her wrists. Her body arched outward instead of upward and she ended up screaming as she had to pull with her arms to get herself back against the cross and move upward. When she was raised high on the cross, one of the wranglers passed a nylon webbing strap around her knees and the post and cinched it up enough to hold so she would be forced to bear down on her feet while the nails were being driven through them.

John stood on her right, reaching across her legs to place the point of one of the big iron spikes against the tattooed “X” on her left foot.

Susan moaned in horror and anticipation. “Oh please don’t hurt me please…”

John touched his hammer to the nail head, measuring his distance, adjusted his feet and brought the hammer back. He could feel her foot squirming helplessly under the point of the nail, her last effort to escape, avoid it. He swung the hammer and drove the point of the nail through her foot. Susan let out a piercing scream.

Maybe just barely came out the sole, he thought. He saw her legs move, hips shifting to her right to get her weight off her wounded foot.

John brought his hammer down on the nail again, the sound telling him it had gone into the post. Susan kept on screaming, her body writhing with each blow of the hammer. The amplified sounds of her screams and the deep “thunk” of the hammer blows echoed across the park. The crowd cheered and applauded.

When he had driven the nail down until its head was near the top of her foot, he took out the other nail, placed its point against the tattooed “X” on her right foot, brought his hammer back and swiftly brought it forward, hitting the nail’s head squarely and driving it into the post beneath her foot. Once again she unleashed a strident scream and frantically tried to find a way to shift her weight off of her wounds, only to find there were no other options.

“Ok,” John said, “let’s get the straps off and set the sedile in place.”

Bill removed the straps while another wrangler got the sedile, bolt and wrench from the table. The hole was already measured and drilled at the proper location in the post, near Susan’s knee level. Bill quickly ran the bolt through the length of the sedile, lined it up with the hole in the post and pushed it through as he positioned the horn between Susan’s trembling knees.

“Better hurry,” Bill said, “she’s giving out!” He absently watched a dark drop of blood trickle slowly down the top of her right foot, noticed some had trailed just beneath her toes from behind, oozing unseen from the sole of her foot.

The other wrangler put a washer and nut on the bolt which he spun down finger tight, then finished tightening it with the wrench.

Susan sobbed and moaned as she sank lower, her legs exhausted. She felt the point of the sedile’s four-inch horn enter the opening of her vagina and recoiled, sucked in her breath. She pushed her hips forward until she thought she was clear and lowered her ass down in front of it. Her legs gave out and she dropped the last few inches helplessly, screaming when the wounds in her wrists hit the nails. She hung there, groaning and sobbing in agony.

“Well, let’s see…” John said, looking up at her, “I believe she’ll pass inspection! Let’s get that other bastard done.”
 
I went back and re-read the whole thing.. (I may have skipped a bit earlier on) and am riveted.

RIVETED I tell you! :eek:

The slow build-up and back-story is brilliantly done and adds hugely to the already incredible crux scene . The whole courtroom and prison chapters were amazing. What a fantastic work.. the characters are great (especially Ellie, what a perfect cruxette!) and the pacing is excellent, neither rushed nor ponderous. I am really blown away by it. I cannot for the life of me work out how you are going to end it.. but I look forward to finding out. However it ends, this is a story I will want to re-read again in future.

If there were a Pulitzer for crux erotica.. ;)
Believe me, I have thought of all kinds of ways to end this story! I actually got to a point somewhere after Ellie had been on the cross for a couple of days and wondered where the hell this story should go. I ended up going back and writing the parts about the sniper and Alice filing an appeal in earlier chapters to enable it to come to an end that made sense. I felt like the ending I chose was a satisfying conclusion, not totally predictable but not a deus ex machina, either. I hope it's one everyone will enjoy!
 
I'm not a fan of 3D art but my guess is that a ponytail makes the job easier
Oh she's talking about me holding out for a ponytail for Ellie when she argued it wouldn't stay together for days on the cross. And that was a compromise, I originally wanted a long braid. She said that really wasn't going to stay together. What the hell do I know, I'm sure not an expert on hair! And now I went and gave Susan a ponytail too, I should be locked up. :-D
 
Imagine saying this on Jeddak’s page. :rolleye: We were poking fun at each other. I asked to have the hair girl put her hair in a ponytail.
As a fellow ponytail fetishist can I please express my profound thanks to you and @jedakk .. you’ve made this weirdo very happy :babeando: :p
53635DD2-20B1-431B-86CD-4076594D6AFB.jpeg
(I don’t have the coloured version of this that you did Em...):oops:
 
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Chapter 30 is titled "Tuesday, Another Crucifixion." This is the description of Jeremy's crucifixion, a little different from those of the two women. Ellie, now bitter with hatred toward Jeremy, watches with satisfaction and taunts him from her cross. He has put her where she is, and now her illusions of her death having a purpose have been shattered. She knows that when she dies, no one will remember her. There will be no trace that she ever lived, her ashes mixed with shit and gone.

This will be the only chapter for today as it is fairly lengthy.

Chapter 30: Tuesday, Another Crucifixion​

“If you need to piss, this is your last chance for a while,” Bill said to Jeremy. “I’m going to put a zip tie around your dick, cinch it up tight so you can’t piss on us while we’re working on you.”

Jeremy considered it for a moment. “Well, why the fuck not?” He responded bitterly. “One last piss before you pieces of shit nail me to the cross like you just did Susan.”

“See, this is me just trying to show a little compassion,” Bill said. “This would be your last piss with your feet on the ground, ever. I can just clamp it off right now and you’ll hold it until we finish crucifying you.”

“Fuck. Ok, I’ll fucking do it, just give me a second.”

Bill and Jack were standing on opposite sides of Jeremy, out of the line of fire. The cameramen videoed Jeremy expectantly for a moment. When nothing happened, they turned to Ellie and Susan struggling on their crosses.

“Well?” Bill said.

“I fucking can’t do it with you watching! And these damned cameras! It’d be a lot easier if you’d just let me hold my cock.”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” Bill said.

“If you can’t do it now, it’s gonna be real tough for you doing it from up on the cross, then!” Jack said.

“Fuck you! You sorry sons of bitches are going to kill me and you think I ought to be able to just piss on demand here in front of you?”

“When you put it that way, I’d have to say it sounds exactly right to me!” Bill said. “Get that thing working now or lose your chance.”

“Oh fuck! Fuck, fuck fuck! Come on, come on!” Jeremy said, bouncing up and down, penis slapping his abdomen, trying to get his urine to flow.

There was the sound of splattering urine as a spurt came out, followed by a constant flow. One of the cameras panned around and got a view of Jeremy emptying his bladder on the ground, then moved elsewhere.

When Jeremy finished, he said “Shake it for me? I figured you bastards would enjoy that!”

“No,” Bill said, “I don’t want to touch that thing any more than I have to and then only when I’ve got these rubber gloves on. Even better with it at the business end of a cattle prod.”

Bill looped a small zip tie around Jeremy’s penis behind the glans and cinched it up tight.

“MMMPH! Fuck! Dammit, that fucking hurts! I know you assholes enjoy inflicting pain, but did you have to get it so fucking tight?”

“Fucking is something you’ll never get to use that for again,” Bill said. “And yes, better safe than sorry. You won’t get a chance to piss on me.”

“I thought you bastards would really like that, probably drink a glass of piss at home while you’re watching kiddie porn on your computer,” Jeremy said bitterly.

“Punishment is our job,” Bill said. “I don’t normally do any more than we have to in order to satisfy justice. Sometimes I really do get the urge, though.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed, “Some of the stuff we’ll do to it over the next few days will hurt a whole lot worse, this pitiful little worm of yours and your balls, too. Make ‘em hurt so bad you’ll beg us to castrate you, but cutting stuff off is not in our contract.”

Ken McDonald drifted over with one of the cameramen. “Five minutes till showtime for the next performance, guys!” He said, then turned to the cameras.

“Ok, folks,” McDonald said brightly, “Here’s Jeremy! He’s about to become the second act on our show today. Jeremy was the leader of a so-called ‘revolutionary cell’ and was convicted of treason. Jeremy is about to be crucified in a few minutes. How do you feel about that, Jeremy?”

“Fuck you!” Jeremy said. “Here I am naked and about to be crucified and you ask me that? How do you think I feel? I don’t deserve this, the cross, it’s not a fair punishment for the crime they say I did!

“Jeremy’s a bit testy about having to die on the cross, it seems. But hey, that’s the way the cookie crumbles, isn’t it? So Jeremy, we hear you were getting it on with both Ellie and Susan there. Now we get a good look at your masculinity revealed and, well, your equipment might be oh, well, maybe a shade above average, but it’s not a really world-class horse cock, is it?”

The cameraman panned down to Jeremy’s crotch and put it up on the big monitor. There was laughter from the crowd.

“You son of a bitch!” Jeremy’s face went red. “I damn well got the job done. My cock doubles its size when it’s erect, gets hard as a rock and stays that way for longer than either of those girls could stand up to it!”

“Ohhh-kaaaay folks!” Ken McDonald said, “Jeremy is the self-professed King Salami and all womanhood will grieve at his passing. Tune in early tomorrow morning to see if he gets a morning erection on the cross! If so, we’ll hold a ruler up to it and you can judge whether he’s telling us the gospel truth or giving us one of those fish stories of sorts!” He stretched his arms out like the fisherman talking about the size of the one that got away. There was gratifying laughter from the crowd.

“Yeah, better bring a yardstick, you useless fuck!” Jeremy said.

“And we’re coming up on one minute till showtime!” McDonald said. “Anything you want to say to the folks before these men take you crying and screaming like a little girl to be nailed to that cross here in front of us?”

“They may kill me,” he spat angrily, “but the revolution will never die!”

“And uh, what was it you were you fighting for, exactly?”

“Change! We were fighting for change! And change WILL come! It WILL!”

“How about an example. What’s one of the changes you were gonna fight for, I mean if your career as a revolutionary hadn’t come to an end all of a sudden?”

“You dumb son of a bitch! So many changes needed and you can’t see them?” Jeremy said indignantly.

Just then the crowd went quiet and the countdown started. Jeremy’s eyes went wide with horror. His execution was about to begin.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!...”

“Ok, guys,” Bill said, “Places everybody.”

One of the wranglers knelt behind the T-post, ready to unlock Jeremy’s shackles. Another one, holding an electric cattle prod, bent down and picked up the rope connected to Jeremy’s testicles.

“Oh no oh no!” Jeremy said, voice quavering with fear, barely able to catch his breath.

Ellie was raised high on her cross, head thrown back, groaning and trembling with the strain of fighting the agony in her feet. Susan was hanging by her wrists, moaning. Both of them turned their heads and looked at Jeremy, Ellie with hatred and Susan only with horror as she desperately sought to escape her own agony.

John the executioner was waiting for Jeremy with his dead blow hammer and nails ready. The judge who would read the sentence watched them, ready to speak when the time came for the execution to begin.

The countdown ended as the crowd shouted, “Zero!” The wranglers on each side, Bill and Jack, each took hold of one of Jeremy’s arms and marched him about three steps to the spot in front of his crosspiece where he was to stand. The one with the lead rope walked ahead and moved to stand to Jeremy’s left and a little in front.

The judge faced the crowd and read Jeremy’s sentence, which was the same as Susan’s:

“…There to be nailed to a cross where he shall suffer for a time to exceed three days until he is dead.

“He is further sentenced to endure a Class 2 sedile, and to remain nude for his entire sentence. After being pronounced dead, his body shall remain on the cross for a minimum of twelve hours before removal, cremation and flushing of his ashes into the city sewage system.”

Then the judge turned toward Jeremy and said,

“Place the traitor on the cross.”

And at that point Jeremy lost it and began struggling, fighting for his life.

“No no you can’t crucify me no not the nails you can’t…” he babbled.

Bill and Jack wrestled with him and could have overpowered him, but instead, Bill nodded to the wrangler holding the lead rope knotted around Jeremy’s testicles.

The wrangler moved in, pulling the lead rope hand over hand, the cattle prod swinging from his belt. When he was a step in front of Jeremy, he held the rope taut in his left hand, took the cattle prod in his right, pressed one electrode against each of Jeremy’s balls and pushed the button.

“NNNNNNNGGGGGG! OWWWWWWWWW!” Jeremy bent at the waist, screaming helplessly and collapsed as if he’d been punched, face red, eyes wide, struggling to get his breath.

Bill and Jack dragged Jeremy gasping to the beam and laid him on his back with his shoulders on it. He moaned and desperately tried to fight off the wranglers, but the shock to his testicles left him nearly paralyzed with pain that radiated up from his abdomen and tied his guts in knots. Jack knelt on Jeremy’s right shoulder, put his weight on it and stretched his right arm out on the beam.

Bill used both hands to bend Jeremy’s left forearm up while one of the other wranglers swabbed the area where the nail would go with antiseptic. While he was forcing Jeremy’s wrist into place, in line with the scribe marks on the beam, John knelt and got into position with a nail ready. When Bill got Jeremy’s wrist steady, John immediately placed the point of the nail against the “X” tattooed on Jeremy’s wrist. He leaned on it to compress the flesh so it would pierce and tear rather than rebound when he struck the nail.

Jeremy watched in panic, unable to move enough to fight. “Oh no no don’t…” he moaned.

John brought his hammer down on the nail’s head, felt the nail’s shank move within his grasp as its point pushed into Jeremy’s wrist, wedging the small bones apart on its way into the timber.

Jeremy screamed in agony and defeat, his legs weakly kicking, heels digging in to lift his hips off the ground. The wrangler with the electric cattle prod watched him closely, ready to apply his electric prod to Jeremy’s testicles if he looked like he had some fight left in him.

John brought his hammer down again, blow after blow, punctuated by Jeremy’s screams of agony. When he had driven the nail deep into the beam and its head was almost against Jeremy’s wrist, he stood and moved to the right wrist.

Jack shifted his position, lifted Jeremy’s right forearm to be swabbed with antiseptic, bent it back down and quickly got it into position for nailing. Jeremy strained against him, frantically jerking his arm as hard as he could to move it out of danger.

Jack heard the onlookers nearby shouting, “Cattle prod! Cattle prod! Come on, give it to him!”

What the hell, Jack thought, looked at the wrangler just behind him who was ready with the cattle prod.

“Give him another shot,” Jack said, “A good one. Make the people happy!”

The wrangler pulled the lead rope, stretched the skin of Jeremy’s scrotum tight over his testicles, clearly outlining them like a pair of eggs within his sack. One of the TV cameramen videoed over his shoulder and the picture appeared on the big monitor overhead.

“NO! NO! OH GOD DON’T!” Jeremy screamed in panic, lifting his hips off the ground, as high as he could to make the strain of the rope off his ball sack, as if that might enable his testicles to escape what was about to be done to them. He lifted one leg, tried to shield his balls.

But the wrangler kept the rope tight and pulled them upward and to the side where Jeremy couldn’t protect them. Jeremy could only watch in horror as he brought the metal points of the cattle prod down toward his testicles. He tried to pull away but couldn’t. He grimaced, gasped as he felt the points of the electrodes press hard into his glands, whimpered, terrified.

Jeremy threw back his head and screamed as a rapid series of ten-thousand-volt pulses flowed through his balls. Each pulse felt like a sharp blow. There were ten pulses per second.

The wrangler held the button on the prod depressed for about three seconds, then released it. Jeremy’s body sagged and the wrangler let off the tension on the lead rope so Jeremy’s hips dropped to the ground.

“OOHHHHHHH! OHHHHHHH! OH MY GOD, OHHHHHH!” Jeremy groaned in agony, clasping his throbbing balls between his thighs, rocking from side to side.

“How’d you like that, J-Jeremy?” Ellie railed at him from her cross where she was hanging by her wrists. “Wish I had that fucking prod and… could do that to you,… you sorry son of a bitch!”

“You know, I really hate to do that!” The wrangler with the cattle prod said to Jack, Bill and John, looking at Jeremy and shaking his head. “Shocking one of these bastards like that really drains these damned batteries!”

The four of them broke out laughing.

(Continued)
 

Chapter 30: Tuesday, Another Crucifixion (Continued)​


Jack met only feeble resistance this time as he moved Jeremy’s right wrist into position for nailing.

John swiftly placed a nail on the “X” on Jeremy’s right wrist and struck it hard with the hammer, driving it through his wrist and into the wood. Jeremy screamed again and kept screaming as John continued to hammer the nail between the bones of his wrist and deep into the wood.

With Jeremy’s wrist fixed permanently to the wood, Jack got up and stood with Bill and the other wranglers, watching John finish up. Some of the women onlookers laughed at the way Jeremy’s penis would slap against his abdomen and fall to one side or the other every time his body jerked, as if the impact of the hammer was traveling through him and coming out there.

John finished and stood up. Ken McDonald signaled a commercial break and the countdown timer showed in the monitors overhead. Jeremy lay there, chest heaving, sweat dripping from his body. There was very little blood around his wounds. He groaned with agony from the nails that impaled his wrists and from his throbbing testicles. Twenty feet away, Susan screamed at some new pain as she struggled.

“I can’t wait to watch them… hoist you up by your wrists… you sorry fuck!” Ellie said, hanging by her wrists now and looking down at Jeremy. He stared up at her through pain-filled eyes but didn’t reply.

The EMT brought the water bucket and sponge on a stick out and offered it to Ellie. She drank greedily. He refilled the sponge three times before she had enough. He moved on to Susan, who was unfamiliar with drinking from a sponge but quickly learned to get her lips on it and suck. Like Ellie, Susan and Jeremy both had PICC lines inserted through a vein in their lower legs to feed them nutrients, fluids and drugs, keeping them active and aware constantly during their sentences.

“Welcome back folks!” Ken McDonald said to the camera. “We’re coming to you from Jones Park, where Jeremy Garrison is being crucified for treason! So far, the executioner has nailed his wrists to his crosspiece, and in a moment the crew will hoist him up and hang him on his cross. We’ve got Jeremy right here!”

The camera moved to Jeremy, moaning in agony, his throbbing testicles clasped between his thighs.

“Jeremy had his testicles shocked with a cattle prod not once, but twice! The second time the wrangler held it on about three times longer than normal. Jeremy’s experience so far has been a bit difficult as these things go!

“So Jeremy, do you have anything you’d like to tell folks about that?” McDonald stuck the microphone down near Jeremy’s face.

“Uhhhnnnnnn… Ohhhh God… Whhh? Ohhh please d-don’t hurt me again!” Jeremy moaned.

“Seems like Jeremy is out of it right now. Maybe we can catch up with him a little later!”

Bill and Jack knelt at either end of Jeremy’s crosspiece, ready to drag it, and him, to the post for hoisting. Jeremy looked at them in alarm and began begging and pleading as they got their grips on the beam.

“Oh no, oh no, please don’t pull! My balls, it’s like my-my guts… twisted inside! Please! It hurts oh God, just a few more minutes! Please!”

“Ready?” Bill said, ignoring Jeremy.

“Yes!” Jack replied.

“Go!”

They lifted the beam up to hip level together, pulling Jeremy up by the wrists. He screamed in pain, tried to keep his legs drawn up toward his body. They began pulling him toward the post, one step at a time. Jeremy kept screaming, his body writhing. He gradually unfolded his legs and let them trail stiffly behind as the two wranglers continued to drag him. The wrangler with the electric prod dropped the lead rope attached to his testicles, having no further need for it at the moment.

With Jeremy’s back against the post, the two wranglers had the man on the hoisting rope bring the spreader bar down a little and slipped the lifting brackets over the ends of the crosspiece. The square brackets would not allow the crosspiece to twist as it was lifted and risk breaking the victim’s wrists.

“Folks,” the reporter said, “they are just about to hoist Jeremy Garrison up and hang him on his cross. This is the most painful part of the process so far! Jeremy will be hanging only by the nails driven through his wrists. I don’t think any of us can imagine how painful that will be. You might get an idea of it from the expressions on Jeremy’s face as they hoist him up. Let’s watch!”

Bill gave the man on the hoisting rope a thumbs-up and he began pulling the rope, taking up slack. Bill and Jack took up positions a bit off to the side and held the trailing ropes connected to each end of the spreader bar above the crosspiece.

Feeling the nails pulling against the wounds in his wrists, Jeremy threw his head back and groaned “Oh no! No!”

His groans became more frantic when he felt his ass come off the ground. He began scrambling to try to get his legs under him for support. He managed to stand for a few seconds as the beam went higher, but then he was on tiptoe, barely touching the ground, screaming and flailing his feet, trying to find anything for support.

Bill and Jack carefully countered the pulling from Jeremy’s struggles, keeping the crosspiece level, not allowing it to swing. When it reached the top of the post, they got it centered and engaged it with the tenon, then lowered it and locked it in place.

The wrangler who had been handling the electric prod set up the folding ladder behind the cross and disengaged the lifting rig. In minutes they had it broken down and put away in their truck. He went back up the ladder and set Jeremy’s sign in place. The sign said:

Jeremy Titulus.jpg

They allowed Jeremy to kick and scream for a few minutes before continuing. The cameramen videoed him from various angles, showing the views on the big screens and sending them out around the world.

The first wrangler Jeremy saw was the one with the electric prod. He picked up the end of the lead rope now dangling below and stood in front of the cross looking up. He held the electric prod threateningly in his right hand.

“You want to be good now, Jeremy! You don’t want me to have to use this, do you?”

“Oh no!” Jeremy moaned, “No more no more please don’t please!”

Bill strapped Jeremy’s ankles together, swabbed his feet with antiseptic, pushed them up into position and strapped them to the cross. They cinched another strap across his feet to hold them flat, then ordered Jeremy to lift himself up “or else.” Jeremy understood and complied, groaning and struggling to get himself up high on the cross. They strapped his knees in place so he couldn’t lower himself, then it was John’s turn.

While Jeremy stared down in horror, John placed the point of one of the nails against the “X” tattooed on Jeremy’s right foot. He watched as John touched the hammer to the nail’s head, adjusted his stance a little, and drew the hammer back.

“Oh no oh no please don’t…” Jeremy babbled.

John swung his hammer and drove the nail almost all the way through Jeremy’s foot. Jeremy screamed in agony and kept on screaming as John pinned his foot to the post and kept hammering the big nail down. When he was done, he took the final nail out and placed its point against the “X” on Jeremy’s left foot.

The TV cameramen videoed all of it and broadcast Jeremy’s screams to televisions everywhere. By the time they were done, Jeremy was sobbing and begging them for mercy. When they removed all of the straps so he was supported only by the nails, he slowly slid down to hang by his wrists, groaning in agony.

They were almost done crucifying him. Only one thing remained.

The wrangler with the lead rope moved directly in front of the cross, jerked Jeremy’s aching testicles and said, “Come toward me, Jeremy! Move your ass! We need some working room behind you.”

Someone in the crowd yelled, “Yeah, squeeze his balls! Come on, make the bastard suffer!”

He continued to pull on the lead rope, keeping tension on Jeremy’s testicles. Jeremy pushed his hips forward, frantically trying to relieve the pressure, gasping for breath and moaning in agony.

“OHHHHHH!” Jeremy groaned, “Please don’t pull please don’t oh God they hurt!”

Bill reached up behind Jeremy and set the sedile in place, running the bolt through the hole in the post. Jack threaded the nut on the end of the bolt, ran it down finger tight and finished tightening it with a wrench.

Having finished with the lead rope, the wrangler who held it loosened the noose around Jeremy’s scrotum and slipped it over his testicles. The zip tie around his scrotum, placed there at the prison this morning before he left, remained in place. It was loose enough to maintain circulation and feeling, but tight enough to prevent Jeremy’s testicles from escaping upward in his sack when they were squeezed, struck, when electrodes were attached, or they were otherwise abused in the coming days.

Standing to the side, Bill used a small pair of nippers to clip the zip tie around Jeremy’s penis and loosen it so it could be removed.

“There you go, Jeremy!” Bill laughed, “See if that horn fits your asshole! I’ll be seeing you later this evening, I understand you’re gonna be one of the stars of the program tonight. I believe I’m supposed to wire you up for an electrical show!”

They left Jeremy to suffer as the crowd pressing around the execution site taunted him.

John turned Susan and Jeremy over to the guarding and maintenance contractor and the federal crucifixion inspector looked them over and signed off they were both “Fairly Crucified.” The process of slowly dying on the cross was officially under way for Jeremy and Susan.

Ellie, between them, continued her slow, agonizing journey towards death. Things were different for her now. Before, she believed her suffering and death had a noble purpose, it meant something and she had value. Now, she realized it had never existed. All she could hope for was for this horror to be all over, maybe in two days, the sooner the better.

She would be gone and completely forgotten.

Oh God, please let me die, let me die soon! Ellie thought.

************************​

“Well, that was our last hope,” Alice said. “I’m just out of ideas.”

“Defeated by the bureaucracy,” the Judge said. I really thought the order I signed this morning would work. Well, unless Execution Services saw through it, which they didn’t.”

“So let me be sure I understand this,” Alice said. “Execution Services has a panel of general services contractors who, let’s see, were among the ones who were ‘technically pre-qualified’ as being able to provide services like crucifixion, whipping, guarding and maintenance, cleanup, and removal of bodies when executions were completed. That pretty much cover it?”

“Yeah, pretty much. There are others,” the judge said. “Every two years, Execution Services accepts bids from the technically qualified contractors under each discipline and they take the top five low bidders and award contracts to them. Then they rotate through them all assigning work when it comes up. They issue what’s called a ‘service order’ to one of the crucifixion contractors to perform a crucifixion, another service order to a whipping contractor to do the whipping, and so on.”

“And none of these contractors,” Alice said, “had ‘remove living victim from cross’ as one of the services they could provide? They couldn’t even do it as some kind of special service?”

“Not just no, but hell no!” The judge said. “It’s not in anyone’s contract! Not only that, the unions get into it too. They won’t allow anyone other than specially-qualified union members to do that kind of work.”

“And the contractors who remove dead bodies…”

“They aren’t allowed to remove live ones under union rules. Execution Services doesn’t have anyone contracted who can remove a living person from a cross, none at all.”

“Why don’t they do an emergency contract with a company who can do it, then?” Alice asked.

“Are you ready for this? It’s not in the budget! They’re part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, so they’d have to convince their director to try to find the money, take it from somewhere else where maybe there’s a surplus. They’re not even going to try. The paperwork alone would take much longer than Ellie Ruck has left.”

“So Ellie is just shit out of luck!” Alice said.

“Yes, counselor, she is.” The judge agreed. “More scotch?” He held out the bottle.

“Absolutely.”

They sat and sipped their scotch grimly, in silence, coming to grips with defeat. It wasn’t the first time for either one of them. Lawyers who said they never lost were lawyers who only took cases they couldn’t lose.

Alice closed her eyes and went over the whole thing in her mind, what she had done, how she could have done better, but kept coming back to the dumb girl out there, hanging on a cross in unrelenting agony, no rest, dying slowly.
 
Specifications, contracts, T&Cs, demarcations, budgets.
Make America Great Again?
Mmmhh?
I actually got all that from my years in project management in Saudi Arabia, although it's the same all over the world. Big companies and governments do just as described when they need general services - issue contracts to companies that are "technically qualified" and maybe financially qualified, too. i.e. Solid, will be there tomorrow and not likely to just disappear. They then issue service orders under those contracts for specific services as required, such as whipping or crucifying someone.
 
I'm going to post a comment to every chapter you upload jedakk, because honestly I don't know for sure when you will be posting another story to the forum
I appreciate that. A story like this IS a labor of love, no doubt about it, but you're right, I don't know when the next one might come. This kind of story takes a lot of thought and quite a bit of research to make things seem plausible, which all takes time, but I feel is worth it.
 
A story like this IS a labor of love, no doubt about it, but you're right, I don't know when the next one might come. This kind of story takes a lot of thought and quite a bit of research to make things seem plausible, which all takes time, but I feel is worth it.
you're absolutely right. sometimes I was really fascinated about the conclusive details, for example especially this fucking bureaucratism and annoying reporter you describe in your story. could be so in every country of this world. that shows me that you may have done meticulous researches. if you do a new story i'd really appreciate this. but it would be nice if you consider about my proposals we discussed during the last days/weeks. "Ellie" is a very gripping story that was casting a spell on me with (nearly) every sentence you wrote. with exeption of the "copy+paste"-ones you did in some chapters. ;) so all in all: a new story someday, please! :)

BTW: the german translation was very hard work and labour of love, too. 217 sites containing 80590 words...
 
for example especially this fucking bureaucratism and annoying reporter you describe in your story. could be so in every country of this world
Yes, it's like that all over the world, ponderous, mostly useless bureaucracy that drives us all crazy a one time or another. And then there are the labor unions and their rules. I just took that and applied it to this crucifixion scenario, so now we have an Execution Services Department, a crucifixion inspector, the custody form that each contractor has to sign when they turn Ellie over to the next one, etc. It's the way things are often done.

And the reporter, well I have to admit that's been done to death in movies and TV, but watching them on TV I keep getting reminded how ignorant a lot of them are. And automatically asking someone how they're feeling today, even though they are hanging on a cross! I loved being able to write that reporter's character, it was a lot of fun to imagine.

And the story is now 80,942 words. I always make a few changes just before I post these chapters, so it could still grow a little.
 
Chapter 31 is titled "Tuesday Night Program Preparation." The Ken McDonald interviews Jeremy on the cross, asks him how he's feeling after seven hours on the cross. Meanwhile, the wranglers are setting up the equipment to give him electrical torture. They take a few minutes to discuss with Jeremy what they are about to do to him. All the while, the sniper is watching from his sniper's nest at the top of the cliff on the other side of the river, waiting for the moment to take his shot.

Chapter 31: Crucifixion, Tuesday Night Program Preparation​

“Folks, we’re talking with Jeremy Garrison now!” Ken McDonald said brightly. “Jeremy is dying on the cross for treason. He was actually the ringleader of a group of revolutionaries, most of whom it seems were pretty young women! We have two of those on crosses here tonight, Susan Logan, crucified earlier today, and Ellie Ruck, crucified last Saturday.”

Through the haze of never-ending pain that occupied her senses, Ellie was aware of Jeremy and Susan on their crosses, their screams and groans of agony. Their suffering was the only thing she had left to hang on to. She desperately wanted them to be punished for what they had done to her, especially Jeremy.

“So Jeremy, you’ve been crucified for almost seven hours now! What’s your impression so far of death on the cross?”

“F-f-f-fu… AHHHHHHHHHH! SHIT!”

“Didn’t get all that, Jeremy, were you trying to say ‘fuck you!’? Because I think you told me that earlier, and I gotta say, looks like you’re pretty fucked yourself! And speaking of being fucked, we all saw you fuck yourself in the ass on the horn there between your legs. And not once, but several times! The question on everyone’s mind is, does it get easier the more you do it?”

“Oh please this is hell just kill me UNNNNH! OHHHHHH! And-and get it over with ohhhh God my shoulders… feels like… pulling out of their sockets!”

“It’s supposed to hurt, Jeremy! No more than what you deserve! Well, looks like the guys from the execution crew are here for tonight’s program. I’ll just leave you to share a few minutes of quality time with them!”

The execution crew wranglers were setting up the folding table, the console and car battery. John came over to get ready, got his headset from the sound people. Bill and Jack began removing Jeremy’s sedile.

“So Jeremy, your girl Ellie is off for tonight, and you and Susan are on the program!” Bill said cheerfully from the back of the cross while he spun the nut off the sedile’s bolt. “Ellie’s probably overjoyed!”

“We flipped a coin and decided Susan’ll get a boob job, which means you get electricity tonight! Hey Ellie! Jeremy here is gonna get his cock and balls fried tonight. What do you think about that?”

“Uh… shit!” Ellie tried to reply. “I wish I could… do it to you Jeremy! AAHHHHHH! UNNHH! Ohhh dammit! You bastard! I’d run so many volts through your balls they’d UNHHH! Ohhh… They’d light up like Christmas lights!”

“You remember what it felt like when we shocked your balls earlier today, right? Well, that was just a tickle! This is gonna be a whole lot worse!”

“Oh God no, p-please no, not that! Not that!!” Jeremy moaned, hanging by his wrists, body trembling.

“Oh yes, yes! Gonna hurt your pee-pee, balls, asshole, all of it! You’re gonna scream, beg and probably faint several times. Yes, it’s gonna be real bad, Jeremy!” Bill said, shaking his head in mock sympathy. “Oughta get some pretty good ratings, prime time, too. People are gonna watch you on TV, nod their heads and say ‘Hell yeah! Give it to him, bastard deserves it!’ ”

Ken McDonald hurried over just then and positioned himself with Jeremy’s cross in the background. One of the cameramen was focused on him while the other was giving him a countdown. And then they went live.

“Folks, it’s showtime here in Jones Park! For those just joining us, we have Jeremy Garrison and Susan Logan, both convicted of treason and condemned to death by crucifixion. Both of these criminals were nailed to their crosses about seven hours ago. Here’s Jeremeee Garrison!

The camera switched to sweaty, bloody Jeremy, hanging on his cross, looking terrified.

“UNHHH! OHHHHHHHH! Shit!” Jeremy screamed in response to some muscle spasm that twisted his body mercilessly.

The crowd roared with laughter.

************************​

The sniper had been watching and waiting since morning.

His sniper’s nest was up in a dense yaupon thicket on the distant clifftop that rose forty feet above the other side of the river west of the hill where the three bodies hung on crosses. He blended into the bushes so well in his ghillie suit, even if a person passed close by he’d likely go undetected. Of course, if anyone could pass close to him, they’d have to be crawling, because walking was impossible in the thicket.

The only problem was the damned suit was hot as hell. But he was used to waiting hours or even days in discomfort when necessary just to take a single shot. He uncapped a water bottle and drank a few swallows, screwed the cap back on and resumed watching.

The man and woman on either end of the row of crosses had moved in an agonized frenzy for the first couple of hours after they were hoisted up and the last two nails driven in, one through each of their feet.

The sniper had watched with interest through his spotter scope as the crucifixions were carried out, particularly the blonde. He didn’t think he had a fetish, but the sight of her naked, struggling body, long legs kicking, tits bouncing, blonde ponytail swinging; it had an effect on him. He could clearly hear her wild, piercing screams, delayed by the distance between them. He almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

His feelings as he watched the man being crucified and listened to his shrieks of agony were completely different.

So this is the bastard who got Ellie into this. Hurt that son of a bitch, he thought. Make him scream like a little girl!

Whatever they did to him wasn’t enough. When they labeled the worst pain as “excruciating,” meaning it was as bad as the pain of crucifixion, that meant something.

The blonde and the man had been in panic mode. The agony of the cross was new to them and they still had plenty of strength to struggle and scream. I bet it doesn’t seem so important that you’re naked, now, does it? The sniper thought, zooming in on the blonde. Would’ve loved to’ve had those legs wrapped around me just once before they nailed you to that cross. I’d have given you a sendoff to remember!

They weakened as the afternoon wore on, sun beating down, sweating, strength running out. He knew the executioners would prolong their suffering for days with their IV nutrients, stimulants and God knows what drugs.

The little one in the middle, now, with her sweaty, stringy dark red hair and green eyes, she only lifted herself up once in a while. Otherwise she would hang, her body writhing and straining as the unrelenting agony drove her. It was hard for him to bear seeing her like that, so once he’d seen her face, read the sign over her head and verified she was Ellie, he tried not to look at her again. Not through the scope, anyway. Without it, the distance made her anonymous.

If only all those bastards behind the crosses would clear out! He refused to take the shot until he had some assurance there wouldn’t be innocent lives lost. A human body and six inches of pine might stop a high-velocity round at this distance, or it might not. If not, it would still have lethal velocity when it splintered its way out the back of the cross.

His laser rangefinder showed the shot was 672 yards, well within the range of his Barrett MRAD sniper rifle. The distance was just enough that his high-velocity Winchester .308 rounds he’d loaded himself would be sub-sonic when they got there, so no crack for anyone to hear. Although if there was anyone close enough to the bullet’s flight path, they might hear something. The silencer would eliminate the rifle’s muzzle flash and almost all of its bang. There’d be nothing to alert the guards except maybe the impact of the round on the wood.

His plan was to make the shot and bug out before they had time to put together any kind of a search. With any luck it would be ten minutes before someone noticed she was too quiet and then spotted the bullet hole among all those whip marks on her chest.

it would take time for anyone to guess even a general direction from whence it came, much less the distance. They’d waste time looking in the woods before they crossed the river and started looking at the cliff. He’d be far away by that time.

The only problem would be if they learned Thomas Ruck had been a US Army sniper. Even then, he was confident his alibi would hold up.
 
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