The Executioners in Eclectica

See an excerpt from Kirie Pedersen’s new story “The Executioners,” nominated for Million Writers Award, in Eclectica:

“I almost didn’t work on the Exxon Valdez clean-up because I don’t like being trapped on boats. Or anywhere. I like gardens and trails and places where I’m able to run if I need to. Plus, I was busy. My plan was to drop Paul at his ship, where he was sailing as chief engineer, then return to my life bordered by Douglas fir and cedar on the salt shoreline of WaWa Bay. There I’d do what I’d been doing for the past few months. I’d wake early, make a cup of coffee, sit down at my writing desk, and continue to grapple with a book about Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer who had exhausted his last appeal and was soon to be executed. I wanted to compile the hierophany, an ode to my sisters’ lost lives and my own—the parts of my own life I lost to fear and to tending the injured—but the task was proving to be more difficult than I’d imagined it would be. Over the years, despite the horror he inflicted on hundreds of lives, I’d become ambivalent about the man. I wavered between prosecution and defense.

See the full story: The Executioners by Kirie Pedersen in Eclectica.