The Haunted House Tour 6: Electric Chair

We all followed, not wanting to be left behind. I was the last to exit the room and shut the door behind me.

We had followed Barnes into a stone corridor. Everyone was staring through a thick glass window into the room beyond. The room had three features; a timber-build chair, with assorted straps and wires hanging from it. Against the wall there was a control panel covered in large switches and dials, reminiscent of the control panel in the mad scientist's lab. Finally, there was a round thing on a narrow metal pillar that appeared to be a clock marked from zero to thirty.

It did not take long for a member of the party to ask what this was about. The butler-guide, still looking a little nauseous, told us that this had been an experiment by a former occupant of the house to design, according to the notebooks they found, a humane electric chair. It seems the idea was that prisoner was strapped into the chair and it was switched on and they could electrocute themselves in their own time by pressing a foot switch, thus relieving prison staff of any responsibility for the death. If the prisoner had the physical resources and the 'help of God' to resist the pressures to press the switch, they would be offered a retrial or, if they were in the chair for a second time, given life imprisonment.

Someone asked, "Does it still work?"

"We can't be totally sure, but the notebooks indicate that while that big knife switch stays in the up position no electricity can get to the chair. Would anybody like to re-enact an execution?"

We were all surprised when Bella stepped forward to volunteer for the role of victim. She said, "Why not? If the worst happens I get to join my friends in whatever afterlife there is and if I survive I'll be the only one to survive."

I decided against pointing out that Bernice had survived, even if her head was on a table facing her seated body and Tiffany was still about, unless they had called a SWAT team with a ton of DDT.

I was a little perturbed to be recruited into the role of prisoner guard/executioner. Barnes led Bella and me through a metal door into the room. The room looked exactly as it had through the thick glass of the window. Barnes set me to the task of getting Bella strapped into the chair, while he 'double-checked' that the control board was set up to not really electrocute Bella.

Getting Bella into the chair was quite simple; she sat down and did up a strap across her chest while I strapped in her right shin and then her forearms to the arms of the chair. Each of these straps was lined with metal on the inside and had a cable leading away to the base of the chair. The last item was something like a metal colander the bristled with electrodes, which lowered onto her head.

Bella seemed nervous as I checked that the straps on her were secure, but not too tight. Barnes thanked me and I left the room, while the butler, assured Bella that all she had to do was not press the switch under her left foot and that the main power knife switch was in the 'safe' up position.

Barnes then followed me out, telling Bella that he would be back soon. As he slammed the metal door, we were all shocked to see the power switch fall into the down position. Many of the group clamoured for Barnes to go back in to rescue Bella from the fate, the seemed about to befall her. He told us that once the chair had been switched on the door would be locked until the prisoner died or survived.

Bella held her foot above the switch that now would electrocute her if she pressed it. The fuss the other side of the glass alerted her to the possibility that something was wrong. She glanced sideways at the control board and went rigid having noticed the position of the power switch. She then turned her attention to the clock thing between her and the glass. As we watched the hand was sweeping slowly around the dial.

At about the fifteen seconds mark she was beginning to show signs of fatigue and having to make a conscious effort to keep her foot from touching the switch on the floor.

At the five second mark, her face cleared and then smiled and stamped her foot down on the switch. The lights in the room and the corridor dimmed briefly. Bella's body began to go into spasms and the areas around the straps began to emit smoke. Suddenly, it was over and Bella's body slumped forward against the straps, which now supported the body instead of restraining it.

We were all too shocked to do anything and just stared at the result of the young woman's bravado or grief.

As we stared something happened. For a moment we thought we saw movement on the chair in the centre of the room. We shook our heads to clear them and our vision. It seemed there were two Bella's in the chair superimposed on each other. One of the figures in the double image leant forward and stood from the chair. This image was not quite transparent, but as it stood from the chair we could see the solid body still slumped in the chair. Bella's spirit turned to look at her body and appeared to wipe away a tear before slowly walking to the damp stonework of the far wall and walking through it as a ghost might.

Most of us were stunned. Barnes opened a door at the far end of the corridor and we drifted into the room beyond.