Their eyes stared cold daggers into her as she lay helpless as the execution took an alcohol-soaked cotton swab and cleaned her arm.
“Is that to prevent infection?” she asked. She smiled a bit, but no one else seemed to think it was funny. Gallows humor couldn’t hurt, could it?
“Do you wish to make a statement?” the executioner asked.
“I tried to stop him,” she began. “If only I’d turned the wheel to the left. No that wouldn’t have worked. Or if I fought him before he was going to hit a school…” She stopped talking when she realized she was only babbling.
The executioner took the needle inserted it in her arm.
At the same instant Alison Murphy said, “I wish I could die,” Deborah Addison said, “I wish I could live.” Both of them got their wish.
Deborah almost stumbled. First she was lying horizontally and then she was standing. She looked around. She was in the middle of a bathroom surrounded by high school kids. Was this hell? It had to be and the students must have been what the children her truck had killed would have looked like when they got older. No, the math wasn’t right. Those students would be in their mid thirties now.
“Alison pooped her pants. Alison pooped her pants,” the students chanted.
Deborah’s legs felt warm and wet. She looked down. She had peed herself. She smelled a foul odor, felt a glob of poop rolling down her leg. She had pooped her pants.
If she had pooped her pants, who was this Alison girl that did the same?
A blonde girl walked into the bathroom. She looked at Deborah and her eyes traveled downward toward her crotch. She pushed through the crowd and took Deborah’s hand. “Stop making fun of her. You should be ashamed. Go to class.” She pulled Deborah out into the hall.
The blonde girl was pretty, but just a tad chunky. A size eight or ten, Deborah thought. No, this is high school: a size seven or nine. She wore jeans and a long sleeved shirt. On top of the shirt she wore a T-shirt that said, “I heart dorks.” She wore the yuckiest brown glasses Deborah had ever seen. They had big eighties lenses like Deborah had worn in junior high.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you to the nurse’s office.” She pulled Deborah by the hand.
She was in still shocked by what happened. One minute she was about to be executed and another minute she was standing in the middle of a high school having disgraced herself.
Deborah felt the school nurse’s eyes glare at her. “You’re eighteen?” she asked.
“Miss Grosstree wouldn’t let her go to the bathroom,” the blonde said.
“She is very strict,” the nurse agreed. “We’ll have to call your mother to pick you up.” She turned toward her desk and picked up the phone.
“What is your mom’s number?” the nurse asked.
“Umm,” Deborah said.
“It’s 555-8273,” the blonde said.
The nurse dialed.
“Alison, I got to get to class,” the blonde said. “I’ll call you tonight.” She turned and walked away.
The nurse was already on the phone when Deborah looked away from the blonde. “Mrs Murphy. You daughter had an accident. You need to come to school right away. No, she’s okay. She just soiled herself. I know she’s eighteen. No, it is not usual at that age. Just come and pick her up.”
Deborah was confused. She wondered who Alison and Mrs Murphy were. She had a sneaking suspicion, but she dared not speculate. She stood inside the nurse’s office flushed and embarrassed. She refused to think about how she had gone from the death chamber to a high school.
