One of my short stories from a book of short stories I did. Let me know if you like it.

 

THE GODS MUST Be
Laughing




Frank Eddington sat in an eight by twelve cell in the death row quarters at Pentonville Prison. The year was 1938, and he had been condemned to death for a brutal double murder in London’s Soho District.

The victims in the homicide were a gypsy woman who had run a palmistry, séance type of business, and her ten-year-old daughter. The girl had been killed apparently to make sure there were no witnesses. The business had been popular with the elitist element in London and the suburbs and there had been a real sense of outrage among the people who had been attending the séances, and readings. One well to do old dowager had even offered a reward of ten thousands pounds sterling. The pressure had been put on Scotland Yard to find the person or persons responsible, and detectives and special constables were scouring the underworld to find the perpetrator.

Informers smelling a cut of the reward were also nosing around, passing information back and forth clogging up the wheels of the investigation. But in the end, it had been routine, diligent, detective follow-up that had put the nail in Frank’s casket. Fingerprints, those little friction ridges present on the fingers of all human beings with their readable whorls, tented arches and loops had led the minions of justice to Frank.

The detectives had been easy on him at first, but as they talked and he played cute they began the good cop, bad cop routine. He called them Little Alf, and Big Eddie. There was a reason for that, as Alf was a smaller man of short stature, smiling, affable, and he seemed genuinely interested in saving Frank from the gallows. Big Eddie was a different matter. He introduced himself very directly, and with a certain amount of flair by picking Frank up and bouncing him onto the wall behind him. “I have no use for murderers mate,” said Big Eddie, “And there’s a lot more of that treatment waiting for you if you don’t come across with what I want.”

“What do you want,” cried out Frank? “You guys know I didn’t do anything.”

The routine went on for several hours, with Frank playing dumb, and Alf telling him that the only way to save himself was to confess. Then Big Eddie would abuse him a bit, haranguing, pushing, and once or twice lifting him off the floor. One time Little Alf had to grab Big Eddie by the elbow, and pulled him back slightly. “No marks don’t leave any marks on him.”

Big Eddie sat down, and looked menacingly at Frank who was near the breaking point. Frank really wondered if Little Alf could save him from hanging. All the murderers he had known about in this day and age were hanged if they got convicted. He knew the routine, sixty days after conviction if a person’s automatic appeal had been rejected he would be executed within the next thirty days. If he confessed, he figured that he would have about forty days before coming to court, a week at most standing trial, and then the sixty, thirty-day thing.

When he was just about to confess to Little Alf, Big Eddie pulled Alf’s chair back away from the table. He pulled another chair up directly in front of Frank where Alf had been sitting just a few seconds before. His dark venomous eyes looked directly into Franks, and he seemed to be trying to get into his mind. Then he said, “We don’t need your pitiful confession, we have witnesses.”

Frank’s mind went racing, witnesses, he thought to himself? I didn’t see anyone, I checked the back rooms before I left, and there was only the Gypsy and her little girl. Both of them are dead, how could they have any witnesses?

He managed a slight bit of spunk, and sort of snarled back at Big Eddie, not too much snarl, as he had met the big man’s back hand before.

“Witnesses, what witnesses, you haven’t any witnesses. If you did, you would have given up questioning me some time ago?”

Big Eddie reached into his inside coat pocket. He withdrew a small white sheet with some type of cellophane looking paper. He turned the white shiny part of the paper upwards toward Frank’s face, defensively holding it in case Frank should try to grab it.

“Frank, I want you to meet Mister Whorl, and a couple of his companions, Mister Radial Loop, Mister Accidental and Mister Tented Arch. They are going to tell the judge and jury that you were in the shop the night of the murder. They are going to tell that it was you that held the knife that was found in there.” Frank looked at the fingerprint smudges on the white paper, and knew that he was going to take that trip to the gallows. Before he could say anything, the big man backhanded him across the face, knocking him across the room.

Big Eddie stalked out of the room. Frank looked up at Little Alf and said, “What about an insanity defense?” he asked.

“Screw you, mate” said the short detective, and sauntered out of the room.

Two constables came into the room, and took him to a cell block. He was stripped searched, and issued jail clothing. He looked at the clothing, and saw the broad arrow that signified Crown Property stamped on the fabric. Crown property, he thought, now I am just Crown property.

The Jail officers were firm, but polite, they went through his clothing very thoroughly. They handed him back a pack of Dunhill’s they found, and a lighter. Then one of them pulled out an amulet with a gold chain. “What’s this?” The officer asked.

Frank gasped under his breath as he recognized the charm he had stolen from the dying gypsy woman.

“A religious medallion,” he blurted out to the Jailer, “It’s an old family religious artifact, been in the family for years and my mum gave it to me.”

The jailer handed the amulet to Frank, and said, “Religion huh frankly I can’t see the likes of you having any type of religion. Better hang onto it, that will be the only thing that you will have going on for you in this place.”

It had seemed like so long ago, he was glad that the detectives hadn’t found the amulet on him, as it would have cinched a conviction. But the trial had come and gone, and his insanity defense plea had been rejected out of hand. The fingerprint evidence had been more than enough to get him convicted. He stood transfixed as the judge read the verdict. Then the portly old gentleman took off his white wig. He reached into a drawer beside him, removed a black wig and put it on his head. Then he read out a sentence of death by hanging, and Frank was led away. Now his sixty days had come and gone also, without any appeal being upheld, so now all he had to do was wait for the empire to set a date for the hanging.

One day the warden came, he seemed sort of sad, and talked for a few minutes with Frank. Then in a detached matter of fact tone told him that the execution had been set for the following Wednesday at eleven in the morning.

After the warden left Frank went to his bunk, and lay on the thin mattress. He thought about the guards coming for him, the walk down to the ready room and then he would be taken to the trap, a noose put around his neck and he would be dropped into eternity. He wondered if it would hurt, and about the skill of the hangman. If it was Mister Pierrepoint, it would be fast, he was the best hangman in the United Kingdom. “Now what the hell kind of title is that for a man, the best hangman in the whole of England? Of course what kind of title will I have, robber, murderer, killer of a ten-year-old girl and her mother? It could be worse, they still haven’t found out about the other murder I did.”

The chaplain stopped by later in the evening, and Frank told him that he really had little use for religion. The man looked at the amulet he wore around his neck, and said, “Aye, and little use for you will Jesus have wearing the mark of the false gods of the east.”

“What are you talking about vicar?”

“Now don’t tell me that you don’t know the markings upon the evil talisman that you wear about your neck?”

“No vicar, I never knew what it was, I obtained it in my travels and merely wore it as a decoration.”

“It is a talisman dedicated to the Thracian Gods who it is rumored will spend all of eternity vexing the lives of all humankind. Their master deity is called Nemesis, and there are many who believe that he and his kind really exist. Of course brought up in the teachings of the savior I have no such thoughts. Don’t wear that thing to the gallows, for if you do you will surely go straight to hell.”

Frank lay on his bed that night, his right hand under his head, the left clutching the amulet around his neck. He was having a chuckle to himself about the chaplain’s reaction to the amulet.

“Whooo,” he said out loud. “Whooo, any Thracian Gods out there?”

For a moment, he thought he heard a voice, but then thought perhaps it was a wisp of wind that had somehow managed to slip though the halls. Then he heard it again, a low, deep voice barely audible from somewhere within the room.

“Why do you mock us?”

Frank sat straight up in his bed. He thought he was hallucinating. His mind raced, and his head began to throb. Slowly he asked, “Is there someone there?”

“Of course there is, you called out to us. I am one of the Thracian ones that you were calling out to.”

“Are you Nemesis?”

“No, Nemesis is far too busy to rush to everyone who tries to summon us.”

“What is your name?”

“If you must have a name, call me Zanla.”

“Are you man or woman?”

“Why do you humans always have to have a sex with every being? Some gods are able to be either.”

“I would prefer that you were a woman.”

“So be it,” replied Zanla. As Frank watched dumbfounded, the form of a beautiful woman began to appear before him. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her clothing was strange to him, but it enhanced her body.

Frank told Zanla that he preferred to talk to women as he could interact with them better than men. He was lying to her as he really felt that he could manipulate a woman easier than men. He had done it all his life. He also had a deep-seated hatred for women, and that was one of the reasons he chose to kill the Gypsy woman and her little girl. The other killing had also been a woman.

But as he talked to the goddess she seemed to take pity on him and, he still found a strange strength in her that he did not understand. As they sat together in the cell, he told her that he had been convicted for a crime another person had committed. She took pity on him, and held him close as he sobbed uncontrollably. Then she made love to him. It was the most intense session of lovemaking he had ever known. She drained him of all his strength. Zanla kissed him, and told him that she would return to him later.

The next evening Zanla returned she held him closely, and then they began making love again. He was beside himself with joy, and his hatred of women was fading like the early morning mist. Then they lay together on the small bed in the death cell, and he told her that he was in love with her. She blushed, and held him very close, “I love you too,” she replied. Then she told him she had to go, and faded away into the darkness of the cell.

She returned the next night, and without saying a word, threw him on the bed and made love to him again. He lay by her side later that evening, and then he asked her, “Can you get me out of here? I mean, you’re a goddess and all, you should have the power.”

She looked into his eyes, and said that it would be very difficult to move him elsewhere, and that to do so she would have to find another soul to move into his place. Then he would have to stay in the place the other had occupied.

“Suits me fine, I have no place to go here except through the gallows floor.”

She looked sadly into his eyes, and said that she would return that evening, and that he should not be afraid. She was going to get him out somehow.

That evening she returned and again launched straight into a session of lovemaking so intense that Frank thought he was going to lose his mind. Then as they lay side by side again she said. “I have found another soul that I think can be moved into your place in this world. He is of little use to those of his world. He is a beast and a usurper of power. There was one like him in your world, a man they called Attila. I have made contact with him, and he is willing to take your place as I told him that your world is ripe for conquest. His name is Frolock, a barbarian king he is unsatisfied with conquering his world and wants to come here and do the same in this place.

“That is fine with me,” said Frank. Too bad he will get hanged, but its survival of the fittest”.

Zanla took Frank to the cell window. She explained that on Tuesday evening there would be a full moon. That he should stand in the cell window with the moon bathing on his face. When the full moon illuminated his face, he should call out a special chant while holding the amulet in his left hand. When he completed the chant, he should kiss the amulet and bow his head. Then his soul would leave the death cell, and go to the other world which was in another dimension. His soul would enter the body of Frolock, and the barbarian’s soul would enter his body.

“I have done all I can do for you my love. If the fog comes in, or the skies cloud over then you will be forced to remain here and meet your fate. I hope that the sky is clear. I love you, and I will wait for you on the other side”

Frank became very frightened, he thought, what are the chances of the moon not showing up in London? Great, bloody great, it’s always foggy this time of year.

Tuesday afternoon was sort of grim for Frank. Mister Pierrepoint came to his cell; he took Frank out in the hallway, and weighed him and measured his height. Frank knew the reason for this procedure. Pierrepoint was trying to determine how long to adjust the rope for the fall through the gallows trap. Too short a drop, and Frank would strangle, too long and his head would snap off. The crown always opted to drop a person too far, rather than too short.

The evening came, and Frank was terrified, he thought about the clouds, the fog and any other thing that could have gone wrong. After a few hours of apprehension Frank went to the window, and saw that the full moon was shining in all its glory. He stood at the window, holding the bars letting the moon shine on his face. Then he realized that he was supposed to be holding the amulet in his left hand. He took it in his left hand, while clutching a bar with his right he began to say the chant that Zanla had told him to use. He felt a fantastic tugging at his body, and it got stronger as the moon shined brighter. He chanted louder, and felt more tugging, he kissed the amulet and then he bowed his head. Then he felt that he was rushing across a great void, and observed a ball of light passing him heading the other way. Frolock he muttered to himself, he tried to look where he was going, but his speed was too great, and the colors too intense.

“Zanla, what mischief have you done?

Looking up from a small crystal she was holding Zanla replied, “Mischief, mischief? I have done nothing more than mischief such as you have done Nemesis.”

“But you have moved two souls through time and space into another dimension. They might change the pattern of things that will pass.”

“I don’t think that we should worry about the movement of two such creatures my dear Nemesis. Their souls have moved from one death cell to another. They will just die in the other’s place.”

“Very good my dear Zanla, I couldn’t have done better myself. For a moment I was fearing that you were falling for the charms of the one called Frank.”

“No, he should be meeting his end about now, and the people of Frolock’s world are very cruel and have a terrible form of punishment. Oh, and another thing, my dear God of The Avenging Fates, the executioner in Frolock’s world is a woman who looks just like me.”

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