Fear Itself

The Tommyknocker Man

SSA Paul Gordon, the FBI agent who had fought for the fifteen year old boys' admittance, had tried to prepare the teenagers for what they were about to see. But when the door behind the glass opened, Lonny knew right then that Gordon's words were just that – words. Meaningless syllables. Only personal experience could relay the reality of something like this.

Lonny stared – not at the shackled man shuffling into the little room – but at the object that had held his attention from the moment he'd dropped into the hard seat next to Johnny. Old Sparky they called it in Florida and Texas. But most people just knew it as The Chair.

Lonny glanced at his friend. The other boy's eyes widened as he watched the shackled man being ushered to the center of the small room behind the glass. Fear bulged Johnny's eyes and slackened his face. Lonny could see Willie's words ricocheting through Johnny's mind. Or was it Lonny's own head that was bouncing them around?

The prison guards removed Tom Narker's shackles. Lonny stared wide-eyed at the Tommyknocker Man; his black hair had been shaved down to his scalp. His face was clean, void of whiskers. Smooth as a baby's butt. But that was the only difference about him. After six years, that was the only difference.

His head bowed, Narker's eyes lifted slowly and rested on the two boys. Rested comfortably, Lonny thought with no amount of comfort himself. As comfortably as if he could spend the rest of eternity just looking at them.

Lonny shuddered. Johnny whimpered and Lonny could feel the fear that had trapped and tormented them for the last six years pressing in around them.

The Tommyknocker Man's restful gaze didn't waver from the two fifteen year olds as the guards sat him down in the heavy oak chair. Lonny had read or heard somewhere that the reality of a condemned man's fate came to him from the ankles up, or something to that effect. But as Tom Narker's ankles were cinched tight to Sparky's oak legs, Lonny didn't see even a shadow cross the man's face.

He's not afraid, Lonny thought uneasily. Shouldn't he be shittin' bricks right about now?

Johnny's fear and tension hit Lonny like a heatwave. He wondered if his friend would make it through this, and prayed Johnny didn't leave him here to face this alone.

A hand squeezed Lonny's shoulder and he jumped hard, the rubber soles of his shoes screeching against the hard floor. Paul Gordon had dropped into the seat next to him without Lonny even noticing. A look of uncertainty darkened the agent's face. Was he rethinking his decision to get the boys admitted? Lonny was sure as hell having his doubts. In fact, he kind of wished they had been turned away.

“If you want to change your mind about this.” Gordon said quietly. “Now is the time.” Something in the agent's voice told Lonny the agent was wishing they would change their minds and leave, before they had to witness something so ugly and disturbing at such a young age. But hadn't they already witnessed the ugly and disturbing? And at a much younger age? At nine years old, the Butcher of Black Moon County had shown them Hell in its purest form.

Still, Lonny was tempted; no one would blame them if they left now. He could feel Johnny urging him to take the escape route. But as he watched the condemned man, he knew this was something he had to see. He had to face his fear and prove Willie wrong. He had to watch the Tommyknocker Man die right before his eyes.

“I'm staying.” Lonny said thickly. “I have to.”

Paul Gordon nodded in resignation. “I understand.” He squeezed Lonny's shoulder again. “It takes a lot of courage to face up to something like this.”

Not everyone in the room agreed with Gordon's belief that he and Johnny had a right to be there. They could only see that two minors were about to witness an execution. They didn't consider what he and Johnny had been through, what they had already seen. What the Tommyknocker Man had put them through in forcing them to watch him kill their best friend in the worst possible way.