I saw my body as I lifted up from the chair. It was a strange feeling, like watching myself in the creek when I would go fishing with Ol’ Randy, but this picture was easier to see than my dark reflection in water. I was dead. Dead as a mosquito under a boot. From what they told me about the chair I was just in, the electricity had killed me.

So why was I still here? Shouldn’t I be in heaven like Reverend Ambrose said I would?

I kept watching as the men in the room turned off the generator when the idea struck me that maybe I was a ghost. I remembered the ghost tales me and my friends told each other when we were kids. To change into a ghost, somebody that died had to have unfinished business. I guess I have some unfinished business then. I thought back on all the things that I done did and that been done to me. I can’t think of anything beyond the past couple months. I did steal from Mr. Gropé. Did I have to return the money to the store? And I did say some mean things to Mr. Wiggins. Should I apologize? My thoughts got all mixed up in one another, but then it hit me hard in the face—I didn’t kill Mr. Gropé, but they sure did kill me for it. They shocked me like I was planning his death all along. I wasn’t supposed to die and now I’m stuck here til I fix the mistake that Jury made by saying I had to be killed.

I suddenly got real tired. I didn’t want to have to make those men lives hard because they made mine miserable, but I didn’t wanna be stuck on this earth no more.

I heaved myself up and floated out the window, preparing myself for what I needed to do. I left searching for the 12 men who made the end of my short life seem like hell on earth.