The process shifts into high gear at noon on the scheduled execution day when a four-hour-long visit with friends or relatives ends at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston.
"That last visit, that's the only thing that bothers me," he said. "The 12 o'clock-hour hits. A dozen or so guards come to escort you."
By Foster's count, it's 111 steps to the prison gate and an area known as the box cage. That's where he's secured to a chair for electronic scrutiny to detect whether he has any metal objects hidden on his body.
It's the legacy of inmate Ponchai Wilkerson. Wilkerson, asked by the warden if he had a final statement after he was strapped to the death chamber gurney for execution in 2000, defiantly spit out a handcuff key he'd concealed in his mouth.
"You're in handcuffs, you're chained at the ankles, they give you cloth shoes and you have to shuffle to keep them on," he said.
As he waddles the 111 steps, he gets acknowledgement from fellow prisoners who tap on the glass of their cells.
At the prison gate, armed officers stand by as he's put in a van and secured to a seat for the roughly 45-mile trip to Huntsville that he says feels like a "90-mph drive." There are no side windows in the back of the van where Foster, accompanied by four officers, rides to the oldest prison in Texas. Only the back doors have windows.
"It's like stepping back in time, dungeons and dragons," he said of entering through two gates at the back of the Huntsville Unit, more commonly known as the Walls Unit because of its 20-foot-high red brick walls.
Prison officials then hustle him into the cell area adjacent to the death chamber.
"Going inside, it's a little spooky. You can tell it's been there a while," he said. "Everything's polished, but still it's real old. You look down the row. History just screams at you.
"It's almost like `Hotel California,'" he said, referring to the song by The Eagles. "You can check out anytime, but you can't leave."
Both times he's been there, most recently last September, he's been treated "like a human being," Foster said. Officers look at him but don't smile, he said.
At one point, he saw someone walk by with a bulging envelope that he assumed contained the lethal injection drugs.
At 4 p.m., during his first trip to the death house in January 2011, he was served a final meal. He'd asked for several items, including chicken.
"It tasted so good," he said. "It actually had seasoning on it."
Two hours later, at the start of a six-hour window when his execution could be carried out, he received the Supreme Court reprieve.
Since then, inmates no longer get to make a final meal request. Procedures were changed after a state lawmaker complained that condemned inmates were taking advantage of the opportunity and that murder victims never get that chance.
Foster was looking forward to nachos and chicken, the same food served to other inmates the day last year that he made his second trip to the death house, but he never received it. Instead, his attorney tearfully brought him news of another Supreme Court reprieve just before dinner time.
He asked for a doggie bag but was refused. He was put back in the van and returned to death row.
"I've already told the chaplain: Take the phone off the hook before 4 o'clock," he said, anticipating his next trip Tuesday. "I want to get that last meal."
At 1:30pm you will be delivered to the Walls Unit.
You will go to a cell about 10 feet from the execution chamber.
You will get access to a telephone until around 3pm.
3pm ~ If you have a spiritual adviser, they go in an adjacent cell and talk to you. If you choose to opt out of the spiritual adviser ordeal, you can stay on the phone instead (until 5pm)
4pm ~ Final meal.
5pm ~ Prep time. One executed inmate described it like this: You sit, you wait, you try not to hope, and you finally come to terms with what is about to happen to you- you're going to die and there's nothing you can do about it. Once they find out that your last minute appeals have been denied, they ask if you're going to walk. If not, what they'll do is pick you up, strap you to a board and carry you to the gurney. You will be secured by straps and will have a shunt in your vein hooked up to a saline solution IV.
6pm ~ Warden will ask you about your last words. He says that if you become vulgar or spew profanities, he will push the button, this will signal to the executioner that he should start the execution.
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