Chapter 17: The Nailing (Part 3 Continued)
While they were stowing it away, Jack went back up the ladder carrying the neat, white plastic sign for the top of Ellie’s cross. He peeled off the backing on the adhesive strip on the sign’s back and leaned against the top of the cross to steady himself. Using both hands to position the sign and make sure it was level, he pulled it back against the top of the tenon so it would stick tightly.
The sign said:
View attachment 930614
The QR code linked to a website that contained details of Ellie’s background, her crime, sentence, pictures, videos, and updates as Ellie’s crucifixion progressed. There were already short videos and pictures from prison, including the final fitting for her sedile, with the guards strapping her to a cross, and just-uploaded video teasers and pictures from her whipping. There would be high-resolution streaming videos available as pay-per-view and as full downloads for sale through the site.
People in the crowd were pointing their phones at the sign and scanning the QR code, looking to see what was on the site. The QR code was also up on the bottom right corner of the video screens for those not able to get close enough to scan it from Ellie’s sign, and was printed in the program.
Ellie began to stir, tossing her head, her long ponytail swinging side-to-side. She groaned as consciousness and agony began to return, and then panic. Her legs began to move and she realized there was nothing beneath her feet.
I’m hanging! They hoisted me up and now I’m hanging! She thought.
She felt the timber behind her pressing between her shoulders and the center of her buttocks. She turned her head and looked up at her left hand, saw the nail and the little seep of blood trailing down her arm. She threw her head back and screamed, writhing, struggling to try to push up with her feet against the face of the cross.
After a few minutes her struggles grew weaker as she exhausted herself. She hung there, defeated, groaning and sobbing, her naked body twitching as spasms of agony drove it, her head tossing, falling forward then arching back.
“And it looks like Ellie is back with us!” Ken McDonald exclaimed. “Ellie, how do you feel?” He held the mike up toward her face.
“Fuck. You!” Ellie hissed.
“Was being dragged up onto your cross by your nailed wrists as painful as you thought it would be?”
“You son of a bitch! OWWOO! Oh God… W-What do you th-think? Y-you… OWWW! Shit! You can’t imagine h-how m-much - UNH! – this h-hurts… AAHHHHHHH!!” She stammered in agony.
“There you have it folks! Ellie Ruck, halfway through being nailed to the cross, appears to be in quite a bit of pain with her crucifixion not yet officially started!”
“You, sir!” Ken McDonald said to Bill.
“Huh?”
“Could you tell us what it’s like, doing this job?”
“Well, only thing I’ve done I can compare it to is working calves.”
“Huh?” The reporter exclaimed, confused.
“Calves don’t cooperate. Whatever it is they think you want them to do, they ain’t gonna do that. They will kick you, and you’re lucky if you don’t catch one in the balls, they will piss and shit on you. You go to castrate them or brand them and they will struggle and fight back any way they can!”
“So a prisoner you’re executing is like a calf?”
“A whole lot worse. They’re smarter and more dangerous. They don’t appreciate us even though we’re trying to help them.”
“HELP them!”
“Yeah! They
broke the
law. They know damn well they did wrong, and it eats at ‘em. Probably did a lot more than whatever they got caught doing. And now they
owe for that. The court says the price for what they did is to be whipped, crucified, humiliated, and deep down, as bad as it’s gonna be, they’d have to admit that’s only fair. And they couldn’t put themselves through all that, not on their own. So we’re like facilitators, we help them do what they really need to, and their souls are better for it!”
“Uh, ok, well hmm… So when they’re screaming in agony and you’re holding, say, a naked woman like Ellie down while her wrists are being nailed, how do you handle that?”
“Oh, I don’t pay it any mind at all! I do my job and just ignore all that. This is punishment! It’s hard and it’s supposed to hurt. And I know it’s good for their soul!”
“And ok, folks, that’s Bill from the punishment contractor Crucifixion Masters, Inc. who is handling Ellie Ruck’s crucifixion today!”
“Where do you come up with this stuff?” John laughed. “That was the best yet!”
“Hell, I don’t know! It’s a curse! I can’t help it!” Bill chuckled.
“Think she’s ready? John studied Ellie, hanging on her cross.
“Shit, let’s ask her! Ellie! You ready for us to nail your feet?”
Ellie looked down at him through pain-filled eyes.
Oh no oh no they’re going to nail my feet to the cross I can’t bear it oh I don’t want them to nail me any more oh no… she thought.
“Please! P-please don’t hurt me any AHHHHHHH!! Ohhhh God, Ohhhh! Any more please p-please don’t...“ Ellie sobbed.
“I heard her say please!” John grinned.
“Strap her ankles, boys!” Bill said to the other wranglers. “Let’s get her feet nailed.”
Jack already had the webbing strap they used for this purpose in hand. He approached from behind, out of Ellie’s sight and stood to the side of the cross to work for safety’s sake, in case she tried to kick him. Her feet hung about four feet off the ground.
He trapped her ankles in the looped strap and quickly cinched it tight around them before she could react. She immediately panicked and began to struggle, terrified of what was coming.
“NO!! NO!! You can’t… NO!! Please, no more nails! No more nails!” Ellie pleaded, even though she knew it was pointless.
Jack passed the free end of the strap around the post, snapped it into its buckle and pulled it tight enough to draw her heels up against the cross.
Another wrangler wiped the tops and soles of Ellie’s feet with the antiseptic, poured a generous amount of the liquid on the cloth and wiped down the area on the wood where her feet would be nailed.
Jack slid the strap up the post until the soles of Ellies feet were flat against it and the tattooed “X” marks on her feet were in line with the measured and scribed mark on the post. He checked that the centerline scribed on the post was between her heels, so her feet would be centered beneath her body, and cinched the strap up tight enough that it would hold Ellie’s weight.
Bill was ready with the second strap, which he wrapped around the post and over the tops of her feet, making sure to leave space around the “X” marks, then cinched it down to pull the soles of her feet tightly against the timber so she couldn’t move them.
Ellie’s thighs were angled outward, fully exposing her to the onlookers. She pushed down on her feet, screamed and froze at the bolt of pain it sent through her wrists when she lightened the pressure on her wounds there. She groaned, afraid to move, trembling as her wrists continued to throb. She blinked back the tears, looked down on the crowd, all staring at her, naked, on display.
Oh God I can push up on my feet now, let my wrists rest for a few minutes… when I do they’ll drive those big nails through my feet! I can’t bear more pain, I can’t! Ellie thought, shaking her head.
“Come on, Ellie!” Bill said, “Up on your feet now, we haven’t got all day!”
“Oh please don’t!” She pleaded, eyes full of pain. “I’m afraid, I know you’ll nail my feet to the cross! Please please no!”
“Remember what I told you before, girl!” John the executioner said. “Don’t want to give me any trouble. I can make it worse for you. I
am going to nail your feet, the easy way or the hard way, it’s going to happen. You’re just putting it off and making it worse for yourself. Let me see you move, NOW!”
Ellie sobbed, body trembling, she tried to push up with her legs and avoid pulling with her arms, but couldn’t do it that way. She eased herself back down, breathing hard.
John reached between her legs, found the little gold ring and her clit easily.
“Yeah, Ellie! That ring does make it easier to find your clit!” John said.
He pinched it, not hard, but enough for her to feel the threat. There was a commotion from the crowd, watching what he was doing on the big screens.
“OWW!” Ellie gasped, gritted her teeth, pushed down with her legs and pulled against the nails in her wrists, crying out in pain as she struggled her way upward.
“Strap her knees?” Bill asked. “She can’t take the pain, won’t stay up if we don’t.”
“Yeah,” John said, “probably better. She’ll drop as soon as the first nail goes in, otherwise.”
Jack heard them and already had the strap in hand. He whipped it around Ellie’s knees and cinched it tightly enough behind the post to hold until John finished his work.
John placed the point of one of the big iron spikes against the tattooed “X” on her left foot. He made sure the spike was level, square with the post, then leaned on it to compress the flesh so the point would tear through and not rebound. The point broke her skin; a little trickle of dark blood dribbled down the top of her foot.
Ellie moaned in fear and anticipation. “No no no please don’t please don’t hurt me oh God…”
John touched his hammer to the head of the nail, pulled back for his swing. He could feel her foot squirming under the point of the nail, toes curling and pushing against the wood. He swung the hammer and drove the nail most of the way through.
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” Ellie let out a piercing scream, shifted her weight onto her right foot and pulled up on the left one, trying to get it away from the executioner. John brought his hammer down on the nail again, driving it the rest of the way through her foot and into the post. Ellie continued to scream, her body writhing as he struck the long nail again and again. The amplified sounds of her screams and the deep blows of the hammer 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 last nail, placed its point against the tattooed “X” on her right foot. It was the last relatively painless support Ellie had, and that was being taken away. Ellie tried to shift her weight back onto her throbbing left foot. “AAHHHHHHH!!” She screamed as her weight bore down against the iron spike there, pulled against the nails in her wrists to try to take some of her weight.
In pain everywhere, she struggled desperately to pull her right foot away from the executioner, who was already drawing his hammer back for the first blow. She threw her head back and screamed, her naked body writhing as the executioner drove the nail through her right foot and into the timber. Her legs collapsed. She would have dropped to hang by her wrists, but the strap around her knees wouldn’t allow them to bend. She was forced to bear all of her weight on her feet while the executioner swung his hammer and delivered blow after blow to the nail in her right foot. She screamed with every stroke as the iron spike wedged bones apart.
“Ok,” John said as Ellie sobbed and groaned, “let’s get the strap off her knees and set that sedile in place.”
Bill and another wrangler had the sedile, bolt and wrench ready. The hole was already drilled at the proper location in the post based on the final fitting Wooster had done for the sedile, close to Ellie’s knee level.
Bill ran the big sixteen-inch timber bolt through the length of the sedile and waited. As soon as Jack got the strap around Ellie’s knees out of the way she started slipping down. He had to get a hand up under the front of her crotch, catch her and push her back up. He straightened his arm, bracing her up and pressing her ass against the cross while the sedile was being set in place. The crowd loved it.
Bill quickly lined the bolt up with the hole in the post and pushed it through as he positioned the sedile between Ellie’s trembling knees.
“Hang on, this won’t take long,” he said to Jack.
“Take your time,” Jack laughed, “I’ve had worse jobs than holding a hundred-pound girl up by her pussy!”
The other wrangler behind the cross put the washer and nut on the bolt which he spun down finger tight, then finished tightening it with the wrench.
“Ok, you can let her go, that is, if you want to!” He said to Jack.
“Yeah, ok, I suppose all good things must come to an end, huh?” He eased his hand down and saw Ellie’s eyes go wide as she took all of her weight on the nails and began to slip lower.
As a finishing touch Bill squirted a big tube of KY Jelly over the sedile’s horns and smeared the coating over them. “She’ll appreciate us every time she sits on this!” Bill joked.
Ellie was already sinking lower, screaming as every trembling move sent bolts of agony from her wounds, her legs exhausted. She felt the horn press against her ass cheek and pushed her hips forward to lower herself down in front of it. She dropped the last few inches, screaming when the wounds in her wrists impacted against the nails.
She hung suspended by her wrists, her naked body twitching and trembling, groaning and sobbing in agony, eyes wide in panic. Even though the day was already promising to be a hot one, her body felt cold.
“Well,” John observed, hands on his hips looking up at her critically, “I believe she’s crucified boys!”
(End Chapter 17)