The Prison Read online

  “She's the little girl,” Robin continued. “You know, the one from a hundred years ago?”

  Amanda waited for her to explain.

  “Leonora Blake was born right here in Hardstone in, like, the late 1800s,” Robin replied. “Her mother was pregnant when she was banged up here the first time, died during child-birth, you know, typical Victorian crap. Apparently no-one knew what to do with the kid. She was related to some huge, sprawling well-to-do family but I guess it was a bit of a black sheep situation and no-one wanted anything to do with her, so the prison staff the girl her around and raised her in the prison until she was nine years old, which is when they decided to chuck her out. So one year, on Christmas Day, she was sent out the main gate to meet her uncle, 'cause he'd finally decided to grow a conscience or something, only he never showed up, which is when it all kicked off.”

  “What did?”

  Robin smiled.

  “What happened?” Amanda asked.

  “The kid was scared,” Robin continued, clearly enjoying the telling. “Like, she'd been raised in here all her life, she'd barely been outside and she sure as hell didn't want to leave. They say she sobbed as they dragged her to the door, and once they'd put her in the yard she spent hours banging on the door to get back in. Nuts, huh? Anyway, eventually she got the message and began to walk away. Turns out, though, she'd nicked a knife from the kitchen, and when she got out the gate into the market square, she stabbed the first person she met and then she went and stabbed a bunch of other people too. All in all, eighteen died and the same again were injured before that little girl was stopped. She was tried as an adult but because of her age they didn't hang her, they just sent her right back here to Hardstone, which I reckon is what she wanted all along. She was blatantly terrified of being outside. According to the story, she saw the staff and inmates here as her only real family.”

  “I never heard about any of that,” Amanda told her.

  “There's more,” Robin continued. “Do you seriously not know what happened about a year later?”

  Amanda shook her head.

  “It all got covered up, but you can read about it online.”

  “I don't really go online.”

  “One night, little Leonora stole the same knife. That's what they say, anyway, but I guess there could be some poetic license with this part. From what the police figured out later, she went sneaking through the shadows and one by one she cut the throats of every guard in the entire facility. She knew her way around, since she'd spent all her life here, and apparently she was pretty much trusted by everyone. I mean, who doesn't trust a ten-year-old kid, right? I don't quite know how she got all the doors open, but she managed somehow. So then she locked all the external doors and went to work on the inmates. Seems she didn't like other people very much.”

  “I thought you said she saw them as family?”

  “I guess something changed. Like I said, it's never really been explained, not properly.”

  “How many people did she kill?” Amanda asked hesitantly.

  “How many do you think? All of them. Every bugger in the entire prison.”

  “But that must have been -”

  “More than five hundred women,” Robin replied. “One by one, cell by cell, she killed them all during the night. Must've taken her a hell of a long time, but when the morning shift arrived to take over, they found all the prison's exterior doors locked from the inside. By the time they broke through, there was no-one left alive in the entire place; they'd all had their throats slit, and Leonora Blake was gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Just gone. Poof, up in smoke. No body was ever found, and there was nothing to indicate she'd left. The whole thing was covered up. After all, the victims were all criminals, no-one really cared too much. Hardstone was closed and left to rot until some bright spark decided to open it up this year. There have been stories, though. Over the years, people claim to have seen things at the windows, and heard noises. Some people think Leonora's still here somehow, and you'll never run out of folks in Hardstone who'll swear blind they spotted a little girl -”

  “I saw a -” Amanda began to say, before stopping herself just in time.

  “You saw a what?”

  “Nothing,” she continued, figuring she didn't want to get sucked into the whole thing. “I didn't see anything.”

  “It's okay,” Robin replied. “I said I didn't want to hear ghost stories, but that doesn't mean I don't think there's something to 'em. Maybe I've even seen a few things myself, but the way I figure it, we should all just shut up and hope it passes. Anyway, it's not like we can do anything about it. Every night at ten that door gets locked and we're stuck here, ghost or not ghost. Up until now I've been all alone in this cell, so I figure it might be good to have some company. Just remember, if you do think you see something, for God's sake don't look at her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that's how the story goes,” Robin continued. “I don't know if there's anything to it, but I don't wanna find out either. They say that if you see little Leonora, it'll be out the corner of your eye at first, and if you want to live you need to keep it that way. If you turn and look directly at her, if you make eye contact with this kid for even a moment, then...” She paused for a moment. “Well, let's just say your days are numbered. There have already been a couple of deaths here, and the place has only been open again for a few months. Then again, deaths in prison aren't exactly unusual, so... It could be nothing.”

  “I don't believe in ghosts,” Amanda told her. “I can't afford to.”

  “Worried about those kids coming back, eh?”

  Amanda looked down at her feet, feeling a sudden wave of nausea.

  “I guess that was a bit below the belt,” Robin continued. “Sorry. I'll try to keep my trap shut.”

  “It's fine,” Amanda said quietly. “I deserve it, I just... I've never believed in ghosts. They can't be real.”

  “Then you've got nothing to worry about. Still, if I were you, I'd play things safe. If you see something out the corner of your eye, and you think it might be that little girl... Whatever you do, don't look directly at her. Wait until she goes to someone else. That's the most important thing. Never, ever look Leonora Blake in the eye.”

  A few minutes later, once she was on her side in bed, turned to face the wall, Amanda finally allowed herself to cry. Remembering Chris's advice, she forced herself to stay completely quiet, even as she broke down into a series of sobs.

  Six months ago

  “Just try to be nice,” David whispered as he handed a box of salad to Chris, “and wash this. Show some effort, for your mother's sake if not your own.”

  “Dad, I really don't -”

  “Jesus,” he replied, “are you okay? You look pale.”

  “I just didn't sleep too well this afternoon,” she replied, as she heard the front door opening and then closing. “Great, the bitch is back.”

  “Don't talk about your mother like that,” he told her. “Wash the salad. Go!”

  “How's the vegetable garden doing?”

  He shrugged. “I keep planting seeds, but nothing comes up. Must be the soil. Now cut the small-talk and wash the salad. Make her see that you're actually contributing!”

  Sighing, Chris took the salad to the sink and began to run it under the tap, as Mary entered the room and set her bags down.

  “You wouldn't believe the day I've had,” she said wearily. “I swear to God, I didn't get to sit down once from the moment I walked through the door until the moment I signed off the shift sheet and went back out to my car.”

  “Sounds like you worked hard,” Chris said tersely.

  “The world can't all be -” Ruth paused. “Never mind. What are you two doing?”

  “Making dinner,” David told her, forcing a smile. “We figured you'd be exhausted and we wanted to do something for you.”

  “And whose idea was that?”

  “Can you just cu
t it out?” Chris replied, turning to her with dripping salad leaves in her hands.

  Mary raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Everything you say,” Chris continued, “just has these snide little barbs. I don't know if you think you're being smart or clever or funny or what, but it's really fucking annoying. I know your opinion, you don't need to constantly restate it.”

  “What's wrong?” Mary asked. “Withdrawal getting you down?”

  “Why don't you withdraw from being such a bitch some time?”

  “That's enough!” David said firmly.

  “See?” Mary asked him. “How am I supposed to work with this? She's constantly against me! I swear to God, I'm going to end up scratching my own eyes out with frustration.”

  “Don't bother on my account,” Chris replied, dropping the salad onto the counter and pushing past her, heading into the hallway.

  “Oh look,” Mary continued, “you were given a simple job to do and you're quitting halfway, how surprising.”

  “Fuck you!” Chris shouted from the hallway.

  “Do you see?” Mary asked David. “Every time she comes back, you think that maybe she's changed, that something's going to be different, but the truth of the matter is that she hates me.”

  “She doesn't hate you.”

  “She hates what I represent. Stability. Hard work. Knuckling down and doing what needs to be done. She knows I won't listen to her -”

  Before she could finish, they heard the front door slamming.

  “She's running away again,” Mary continued, as David rushed through to the hallway. “There's no point going after her! This is what she always does!”

  Opening the front door, David hurried out and looked both ways along the street, but there was no sign of anyone. A moment later, Mary came out to join him, holding her coat in her arms.

  “Guess what?” she said with barely-concealed anger. “On the way out, she still had time to dip her fingers into my pocket and take my purse. Not that there was much cash in there, but I'll have to report my cards as stolen.”

  “She might come back,” David replied, still looking for any sign of Chris. “She might just -”

  “Twelve hours,” Mary said firmly. “That's how long she lasted this time before she stole from us and ran away. Face it, that girl isn't our daughter, not anymore. She's just a junkie. From this moment on, I refuse to dignify her with any attention. As far as I'm concerned, she's out of our lives.”

  “Mary -”

  Turning, he watched as she marched back into the house.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Chris?” he whispered, glancing along the street one more time. “Why can't you just stay still for five seconds?”

  ***

  Five hours later, with her foot pushing down hard on the pedal, Chris watched as the road ahead raced toward her, with the off-license at the far end of the dark street just a couple of hundred meters away and getting closer fast.

  “Funky lights,” she muttered, squinting a little in an attempt to correct her drug-induced double vision. After a moment, she realized that the shop's windows were filled with brightly colored flashing lights. “I didn't think the -”

  Suddenly she realized.

  The car mounted the pavement and was launched a couple of feet into the air.

  “Oh shit,” Chris said with a grin, as sweat poured down her face, “I forgot. It's nearly Christmas!”

  With that, the car smashed through the window, sending glass and bright holiday light fittings exploding across the store as the vehicle flew over several aisles and finally came crashing down.

  Today

  “Hey!” Chris shouted as the door to her cell was swung shut. “Get the fuck back here!”

  She waited, listening to the sound of the two guards walking away.

  “Hey!” she screamed. “Get back here right now! You can't just leave me here, you fucking Nazi psychopaths!”

  Pulling on the leather restraints that were holding her wrists to the side of the bed, she tried with all her strength to get loose but soon she realized that she needed a better plan. The restraints were thick and wide, and no matter how hard she tugged she could tell that there was no way they were ever going to budge; instead, the edges were already digging into her skin, threatening to cut her. Letting out a grunt of frustration, she laid her head back down on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Fucking assholes,” she whispered, feeling the anger starting to rise through her body. She began to picture Doctor Bell, which only made her feel even worse. “Arrogant bitch,” she muttered. “I swear to God, when I get out of here I'm gonna do her one.”

  Pausing for a moment, she was suddenly struck by the thought that she might be being watched.

  “Hey, bitch!” she shouted. “You think you're gonna break me? Fuck you!”

  Unable to hold herself back any longer, she began tugging on the restraints again, desperately trying to get loose. As her desperation grew, she felt the skin around her wrists starting to rub raw against the leather, but she kept struggling nonetheless, driven not only by her anger but also, increasingly, by the sense of urgency in her gut. She'd gone cold turkey like this before, and she knew that over the next few hours she was going to become increasingly restless and sweaty, until finally the pain would kick in, and that would be when the detox process would really start to hurt.

  It was going to hurt more than anything in the world.

  “I'll do anything you want!” she shouted, as tears began to run from her eyes. “If you're listening, I swear I'll do whatever you tell me, I won't swear, but please, you can't leave me down here like this! It's torture! Don't you understand? It's like you're literally torturing me! That can't be legal! Come on, you're treating me like some kind of fucking dog!”

  She waited, hoping against hope that Doctor Bell might be listening and might have a change of mind.

  “Please,” she whimpered, “this is inhuman. I'm not an animal, I'm -”

  Suddenly she spotted something moving nearby, and when she turned to look across the gloomy cell she saw to her shock that there was a little girl standing in the far corner, staring straight at her.

  “What...” Chris began to say, blinking a couple of times.

  The girl was wearing a tattered white dress and her stare was intense, as if she was peering directly into Chris's soul.

  “This is... Who the hell are you?”

  She waited, but the girl simply continued to stare at her without a flicker of emotion.

  “Shit, I know what this is,” Chris continued. “I'm hallucinating. I've heard about this happening to people when they're detoxing, but I never thought it'd happen to me. Fuck, my subconscious mind is dredging up some freaky shit, huh?” Turning and looking up at the ceiling, she concentrated on the fluorescent light above, while hoping that if she stayed focused the hallucination would simply dissipate.

  She waited, forcing herself to breathe slowly and steadily.

  “You're not really there,” she whispered, keeping her gaze on the light. “No offense, kid, but I'm gonna just ignore you, you're not exactly cheery. Fuck, of all the things to fucking hallucinate and -”

  Suddenly she spotted movement again, and the girl came into view, standing right next to the bed and staring down at her.

  “Jesus,” Chris muttered, instinctively pulling on the restraints as she looked up into the girl's dark-ringed eyes. “You've got a face on you, kid, you know that? Intense as a motherfucker. Kinda hard to believe my subconscious has decided to bring you up. I mean, if I'm gonna start hallucinating, why couldn't it be fucking rainbows and unicorns and -” Pausing, she realized she was shivering, as if suddenly the temperature in the room was staring to plunge. She took a deep breath, bracing herself for worse. “I've been through withdrawal before,” she continued, maintaining uneasy eye contact with the girl. “I can deal with it, I... It's fucking... Shit, I don't know if I can do it again. Still, I've got you to talk to, right?” />
  Slowly, the little girl leaned closer, until their faces were just a couple of inches apart.

  Chris swallowed hard.

  “Great,” she whispered, starting to tremble as she felt colder and colder. “I've got a creepy little kid for company. What's next? You gonna just stand there or are you actually gonna do anything? You could at least keep me entertained, for God's sake.”

  ***

  In the corridor outside Chris's isolation unit, there were no guards, no nurses or attendants. The door had simply been locked, and there weren't even any cameras. Just an empty corridor stretching away toward the stairs at the far end.

  So there was no-one to hear Chris as she started to scream, and no-one to go and check on her as her scream became more and more frantic, and no-one to help as the sound of ripping flesh began to be heard from her cell.

  Part Two

  Today

  “I saw Leonora Blake once,” said the woman sitting next to Amanda at their table in the dining hall. “Not directly, obviously, 'cause then I wouldn't be here, would I? I'd be a goner, like... But anyway, I saw her out the corner of my eye, and I knew damn well that it was her. And fuck me, but I was scared. I'm not someone who gets spooked easily, but this was like something straight out of a horror movie.”

  Amanda forced a polite smile as she focused on the tray of rice and chicken in front of her, but she knew her dinner companion was watching her, probably hoping to get a reaction.

  “Go easy,” Robin said from the other side of the table. “Amanda's new.”

  “So?”

  “So you don't want to terrify her, do you?”

  “I'm just giving her a cautionary tale,” the woman replied. “She needs to know. I mean, hell, you see a little girl in a place like this, it's human instinct to look at her. You really have to train yourself to ignore that kid.”