DEATH ROW (Episode 10)
DEATH ROW EPISODE 10
© Aaron A. A
Location: GRAND CASTLE PRISON
At 5:30 in the morning the Observers’ Lounge of the Execution Room is full.
Present are family representatives of the five women who had been brutally murdered.
There are people from high society; politicians, government and the judiciary.
The Member of Parliament, the District Chief Executive and Judge Atinga Awedega are in the front seats.
There are observers from the clergy, and Apostle Kweku Aboah and Prophet Ebow Bio are present.
Also present, far behind the Apostle, is Elder Senanu Setorworfia.
Sitting behind the politicians are reporters from various media stations who are there to observe but not take any pictures.
Outside the prison walls a lot of people are waiting, including a weeping Ama Boatemaa.
At 5:45 a.m. the curtain that covers the glass panel that separates the Observers’ Lounge from the Execution Room slowly rolls apart in two ways, revealing the room where Zac Larbi is going to be executed.
The room is painted white, and the bed is high and white with clasps running along its side.
There is a heart monitor and some other machines around the bed. There is a doctor and two male nurses, all of them wearing white tunics.
The babble in the Observers’ Lounge dies down as the observers stare at the macabre permanency of the execution room.
At 5:50 a.m. a door at the end of the Execution Room opens, and Pastor Zac Larbi comes in accompanied by some top-ranking prison and police officials including the Chaplain.
Zac looks peaceful, and his face seems to be shining.
He is wearing a white overall.
His hands are handcuffed in front of him.
As he stops a prison official steps forward and unlocks the handcuffs.
The doctor speaks, and Zac removes the overall.
He is wearing a white T-shirt and white boxers underneath.
in,side the Observers’ Lounge Elder Senanu and a few others begin to weep silently.
Zac then climbs onto the bed and lies down on his back.
Clasps are fastened around his upper and lower arms, thighs and calves, and finally around his forehead.
The Chaplain is praying now.
Afterwards a high-ranking official reads from an official doc-ment, and then they all step back.
The doctor is seen drawing the deadly drug into a syringe.
Zac’s heartbeats are picked up by the heart monitor and beeps through speakers so that the others in the observance room can hear.
The doctor approaches Zac with the syringe.
Many more are weeping in the Observers’ Lounge now, including two members of the family representatives, and a reporter who turns her head, unable to watch.
The nurses have tied a rubber band around Zac’s upper arm to make the veins stand out.
The doctor ins**ts the syringe and depresses the plunger, and all the deadly drug enters Pastor Zac Larbi’s bloodstream.
Just then a telephone rings in,side the Observers’ Lounge, startling the onlookers.
It is the telephone of the Member of Parliament.
He picks it up and looks at the screen, and his heart gives a painful lurch as he sees that it is from Chief Inspector Kwabena Bediako.
The Member of Parliament looks at the wall clock.
It is 6:00 a.m.
His heart beating with fear, he picks the call and puts it on loudspeaker.
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
(trembling)
Yes, Chief Inspector?
CHIEF INSPECTOR BEDIAKO
(voice strident)
STOP THE EXECUTION, SIR! WE HAVE CAPTURED THE DOPPELGANGER!! JUST LIKE THE STRANGER SAID! WE CAUGHT HIM WITH ANOTHER WOMAN AND HE WAS TRYING TO RAPE HER IN THE SAME BUILDING THE OTHER WOMEN WERE KILLED!!
HE LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THE PASTOR, JUST AS IF THEY’RE TWINS!! A REAL DOPPELGANGER, SIR! DEAR LORD!! THE PASTOR IS INNOCENT!!! PLEASE, STOP THE EXECUTION!! PASTOR ZAC LARBI IS INNOCENT!! THE DOPPELGANGER IS THE CULPRIT!!
The Member of Parliament gets to his feet as his wh0le body is suffused with deep pain. His phone falls as he rushes to the glass partition and pounds hærd on it!
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
(scre-ming)
STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW! HE IS INNOCENT! STOP IT!!
The body of Pastor Larbi is lying still on the bed, unmoving!
The heart monitor is now fluctuating, and now it is flat-lining with a long unbroken beep.
Pastor Zac Larbi is dead!
Location: GRAND CASTLE PRISON
There is pandemonium in the Observers’ Lounge.
People are trying to find out what has happened, and as the truth is passed around, that the real murderer has been captured, people burst into spontaneous weeping.
In the Execution Room the doctor is told of what has happened.
He quickly rushes to the body of Pastor Zac.
They fuss around him, injecting another drug directly into his heart, but to no avail!
Judge Atinga Awedega is trembling, and he is sweating so badly that they clear a space on the floor and put him down so that he would not pass out. He was making gurgling sounds in his throat, and there was real terror on his face.
The Member of Parliament is pressed against the glass, shivering, his face shattered with remorse and haunted pain, shaking his head numbly with the depths of his acute horror.
As the doctors struggle over the body of Zac Larbi, the curtains come back together slowly, blocking the view of the Execution Room from the sight of those in the observation room.
The doors open, and people begin to rush outside, weeping and wailing.
Apostle Aboah and Prophet Bio are sitting rigidly.
APOSTLE ABOAH
(shivering)
We’re dead! Oh, what have we done, Ebow? What have we done? We are ruined! He was innocent all along! Oh, God, forgive us! Oh, my Lord, I have sinned! Dear God, what have I done? Oh, Zac, Zac, my son! Zac, forgive me! Awurade Nyankopon!
PROPHET BIO
(unsteadily)
Let’s calm down, please, Apostle. We don’t know what is happening now. Who did they capture? Is it a twin? I heard the man mentioning some double rangers on the telephone. Let’s just wait, okay?
Elder Senanu has dropped to his knees and he is weeping inconsolably.
To be CONTINUED
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