The Prison

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The Prison Page 28

by Amy Cross


  A baby crying.

  No, two babies crying.

  Staring down into the darkness of the stairwell, Amanda felt tears welling up in her eyes. She knew it was crazy, but she felt as if she recognized the cries she was hearing. Her own children were somehow echoing through the empty spaces of the prison, as if they were calling out to her, but she hesitated for a moment, scared to go down. She knew it was impossible, that there was no way Jonathan and Andrea could be in the prison, but at the same time she couldn't ignore the sound.

  “I'm coming,” she whispered, racing down into the stairwell. “Don't be scared, I'm right here!”

  She could barely see at all, but finally she managed to get to the next floor, and she realized the cries were coming from the far end of the corridor. Running toward the door, she pulled on the handle only to find that it was locked. She looked through the small glass panel, and to her shock she saw two babies on the floor just a few meters away, with the ghostly little girl sitting cross-legged next to them.

  “Leave them alone!” Amanda shouted, banging on the door. “Let me through!”

  Looking toward her, the girl stared with the same cold, dead expression she always wore.

  “Let me in!” Amanda screamed, as the babies' cries became louder and louder. “It's me! I'm here, don't be scared, I'm coming for you!”

  Looking back along the corridor, she spotted a fire extinguisher; she ran over and ripped it from the wall, before turning it around and slamming the base against the glass panel, which shattered immediately. Dropping the extinguisher, Amanda reached her arm through and began to feel around on the other side of the door for some kind of latch or handle that might help her to get it open.

  “I'm right here!” she shouted, as the babies continued to cry out for her. “I'm coming!”

  Just as she was starting to feel as if she'd never get the door open, the tips of her fingers brushed against the edge of some kind of metal latch. She desperately tried to get more of her arm through, ignoring the glass that was digging into her flesh until finally she was able to turn the latch. Pulling her arm back out from the broken glass panel, she grabbed the door handle and this time it opened. She raced through, but just as she reached the crying babies they seemed to evaporate into thin air, and she dropped to her knees just as the last of their essences drifted up into a shaft of moonlight.

  “No!” she screamed. “Bring them back! Bring -”

  Spotting movement nearby, she turned and found herself face-to-face with the little girl.

  “What do you want?” Amanda shouted, with tears streaming down her face. “Bring them back to me! I don't care what you want, I'll give you anything, just -”

  Before she could finish, the little girl's face seemed to become darker, and suddenly she was gone, as if she'd melted away into the darkness.

  “No!” Amanda shouted, turning and looking along the corridor, desperate for some sign of the children. Finally, ignoring the pain in her side, she scrambled to her feet and ran toward the next door.

  ***

  With her wheelchair next to the window in the governor's office, Leonora Blake stared out through the rain-spattered glass and saw dozens of ghostly figures standing in the yard, lit only by the pale blue moonlight. Transfixed by the sight, she barely even registered the sound of the door opening and then closing behind her.

  “This is against protocol,” Doctor Bell said a little breathlessly. “Visiting hours are over, Ms. Blake.”

  “I'm not visiting,” the old woman replied, turning to her with tears in her eyes. “This is where I belong, like all the ghosts out there. I'm almost a ghost myself.”

  “Spare me the wistful language,” the doctor continued, making her way over to the desk. “Right now, all I care about is -”

  “You understand why these women are incarcerated here, don't you?” Leonora asked.

  “Of course. They're criminals. Thieves, murderers, the lowest of the low -”

  “No, these women in particular,” she continued, interrupting her. “They're all family.”

  “I know, I know, they're all someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's precious little snowflake -”

  “They're all my family,” Leonora continued. She paused for a moment, aware of the hint of confusion in Doctor Bell's eyes. “I told you that the Blake family is large, and I wasn't lying. There are so many branches, we've lost track. People marry and marry again, surnames get changed, no-one could possibly be expected to maintain any kind of order in that chaos, but... Every woman in this prison is related, to varying degrees, to the core Blake family of London.”

  “That's...” Doctor Bell paused. “That's actually pretty much statistically impossible.”

  “Of course it is, unless some hidden hand had been working behind the scenes to make it this way. Someone who reached out from this very prison and nudged these women onto the paths that would lead them here to Hardstone, someone who was able to manipulate a great many people in order to bring her family together.”

  “You're talking about Elenora?”

  “Perhaps some of the women here would have ended up in prison anyway,” Leonora continued, “but the vast majority, I'm afraid, are here because my sister interfered with their lives and pushed them to commit criminal acts. I've been monitoring the situation, and I have dossiers on more than three quarters of the women at Hardstone. In each case, I can see where Elenora steered them in this direction. I know it sounds impossible, but you must remember that my sister has had a very long time to plan this, to practice and to develop her plans. All she wants is to have the family she never had when she was alive, so she's been gathering as many members of the extended Blake family together as possible.”

  “You're seriously trying to tell me that all those prisoners are related and they don't even know it?”

  “As I said, it's a very large family.” Leonora paused. “It's not just the prisoners, either. My great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Blake married a gentleman named Thomas Wyndham, and one of their children, a girl named Eliza, eventually married into the Chauncer family of St. Martin's, and then one of -”

  “Stop,” Doctor Bell said suddenly.

  “One of -”

  “Stop!” she shouted.

  They stood in silence for a moment, as a wave of horror began to grip Doctor Bell's chest.

  “One of their daughters,” Leonora said finally, “Claire Chauncer, married a man by the name of Edward Bell.” She paused for a moment. “Edward Bell was your grandfather.”

  Doctor Bell shook her head.

  “Are you trying to tell me that you didn't have a grandfather named Edward?” Leonora asked.

  “I did, but... You're lying. You're making all of this up.”

  “People lose track of their family history these days,” Leonora continued. “Most of us know little or nothing about our heritage beyond a couple of generations. How are we supposed to know who we are, if we don't know where we come from?”

  “There's no way I'm related to those... criminals,” Doctor Bell spat. “They're vermin, they're the dregs of society!”

  “And what are you?”

  “I'm a doctor!”

  “What kind of doctor? Someone who cares for the sick?”

  “I...” Again, Doctor Bell seemed lost for words.

  “And what have you done in your life?” Leonora waited for an answer, but she could see that Doctor Bell was too shocked to say anything. “My sister pushed these prisoners into a life of crime,” she continued finally, “and she did the same thing to you. The only difference, the only reason why you're here in this office whereas the others are in their cells, is that you, my dear Ms. Bell, turned out to be exceptionally good at getting away with your crimes. In some ways, it's something to be admired.”

  “No,” Doctor Bell replied, shaking her head. “You're wrong.”

  “You've always felt that urge, I imagine. The urge to hurt people. You probably wonder where it comes from. It come
s from Leonora, from her attempts to steer you to Hardstone.”

  “I... You don't know me!”

  “I've researched your history. I know enough. Tell me about the poor girl who died in that fire. Julie Bond, I believe. Why did you kill her?”

  “I didn't -”

  “You killed her, of that I have no doubt. Why did you do it, though?”

  “She...” Doctor Bell paused. “I can't help it. I just feel physically sick sometimes, as if my mind is going to fall apart, and the only thing that makes it better -”

  “Is to cause pain to others.”

  “I murdered my brother when I was nine years old,” she replied, with tears in her eyes. “I didn't want to do it, I don't know why it happened, I just... No-one believed it was me, and I was a convincing liar. There's something wrong with me.”

  “I'm afraid Elenora is to blame. She tried to steer you toward Hardstone in the same way that she steered all the others, except that in your case things turned out rather differently. She still managed to get you here in the end, but in a rather unfortunate manner.”

  “You're telling me that my whole life has been controlled by a ghost?”

  “You saw her, didn't you? From time to time, before you came to Hardstone?”

  “I thought I was losing my mind.”

  “Your mind was still yours, it was just being pushed in certain directions.”

  Doctor Bell stared at her for a moment. “I always knew something was wrong,” she said finally. “I felt this urge to hurt people, to make them suffer... I fought it at first, but it was too strong. I felt physical pain sometimes, and the only way to relieve that pain was to make others suffer instead. I even began to carry out research to try to understand how good and evil functioned in the human brain.”

  “I've read some of your papers. You've been searching for an off switch for your bad thoughts, for a way to make yourself a good person”

  “My whole... My whole life has been about this,” she continued, as tears rolled freely down her face and she broke down sobbing. “I don't want to be a bad person! I tried so hard to be good, but those voices in my head were always pushing me to be cruel! I even thought about ending my life, to spare other people, but I couldn't find the strength.”

  “Elenora will have been preventing you from doing such a thing. She needed you alive.”

  “Are you... are you telling me that the cause of it all was that little girl? That she was in my head, making me like this?”

  “You mustn't blame Elenora too much,” the old woman replied. “She simply didn't understand that what she was doing was wrong.”

  “But...” Doctor Bell paused. “You knew all of this was happening?”

  Leonora nodded.

  “Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you step in and try to stop it before it got to this point?”

  “I thought I had more time. I was waiting for Elenora to come to me, but... Don't blame my sister, blame me, I'm the one who should have acted sooner.”

  “No kidding,” Doctor Bell replied. Pausing for a moment, she realized she could hear screams in the distance, rising up through the prison.

  “Elenora's plan has changed,” the old woman explained. “She knows that when morning comes, the situation here at Hardstone will be noted. If she can't have everyone here alive to keep her company, she'll kill them and keep their ghosts for company.”

  Doctor Bell took a step back, as if she could barely comprehend what was happening.

  “Emergency release,” she said finally, before turning to Leonora. “This is an old prison. There's an old emergency release system still in place for the doors, it was never replaced due to funding issues. It's in the basement with the generator, but if someone could activate it, all the doors would be overridden and they'd open.”

  “That might be the only way to save everyone in this prison,” Leonora told her.

  “The basement's flooded, but it still might work. Someone has to...” She paused. “I can do it. I can save them all.”

  “You'd be risking your life.”

  “I know it can't make up for everything I've done,” the doctor replied, “but maybe... For the first time in my life, I can do the right thing. I can help people instead of hurting them.”

  “And is that what you really want to do?”

  She nodded.

  “I imagine that Elenora's hold on your mind is weakening now,” the old woman continued. “You've had her pushing you to do awful things all this time, and now you can make your own decisions again.”

  “I have to hurry,” Doctor Bell replied, heading to the door. “I'll get someone to come and help you out of the building!”

  Leonora wheeled herself toward the door and watched as the doctor raced out of the room and along the corridor.

  “God speed,” the old woman said quietly, “but I think perhaps I'm the one person who should stay here.”

  Six months ago

  She blinked.

  Again.

  Time seemed to ripple in front of her eyes, flexing and twisting.

  A memory slipped away, something traumatic.

  A little girl's face, or...

  No.

  The little girl's face fell from her mind, forgotten.

  Silence.

  Something was wrong, but she couldn't quite... Her hands were wet and warm, and something seemed to be soaking through her clothes. She blinked again, and this time she realized she could hear her husband coming through the door. More time had passed, maybe.

  “Hey!” he called out. “Where are you guys?”

  Hearing a burst of static for a moment, Amanda looked down and saw the bloody mess in her arms. At first she couldn't work out what had happened, but finally she saw the truth: her two babies were dead, their blood having flowed out all over her arms and down onto the floor.

  She opened her mouth to scream.

  Today

  “Hello?” Amanda called out as she made her way along the dark corridor. “Is anyone here? Hello?”

  Stopping at the next corner, she looked both ways. So far, she'd found no-one at all in the prison, as if all the guards and other staff-members had vanished. In the distance, she could hear screams coming from the prison's four main wings, but she had no idea where to go next. Spotting a sign for the governor's office, she figured her best hope was to see if someone was still in charge, so she hurried along the corridor until, finally, she saw an elderly woman wheeling herself toward her.

  “Who are you?” Amanda asked.

  “I'm someone who has made a terrible mistake,” Leonora said as she came to a halt. “My name is Leonora Blake and I'm the sister of the girl who has caused all of this trouble.”

  “You're...” Amanda paused.

  “And you,” Leonora continued, “are Amanda Weir, I believe. You're one of the women I kept a file on. I know what happened to your two beautiful little babies, and I'm so sorry. Of all the women in this prison, your story might be the most heartbreaking.”

  “I... What do you mean, a file?”

  “I wanted to get in touch with you sooner,” Leonora explained, “but I kept delaying the moment when I made my move. I know you went through all that trauma, believing that you'd killed your children, but the truth is that you didn't. You absolutely did nothing to those babies except try to protect them, even though my sister was pushing you to hurt them.” She reached up and took Amanda's hands in her own. “You felt an impulse to kill them, didn't you? You fought the urge.”

  “How do you know?” Amanda asked, her voice trembling with fear.

  “So many of the women in this prison surrendered to Elenora,” she continued. “They let her push them to do awful things, but you... You held firm, you refused to hurt your children. You were the strongest of all. Eventually, enraged, Elenora hurt them herself, and I imagine that the trauma of that incident prevented you from remembering.”

  “I killed them,” Amanda stammered. “No-one else was in the room.”
/>
  “My sister was in that room. Either she killed them while they were in your arms, or she killed them while you were in another part of the house and you returned to find their bodies. I suspect the latter, but we'll never know for certain.” She squeezed Amanda's hands tight. “I know you've come to accept what you think you did, but over time I hope you'll be able to accept the truth.”

  “I killed them,” Amanda said again, pulling her hands away. “I don't need anyone making excuses for me.”

  “She -” Before she could finish, Leonora seemed to spot something a little further along the corridor. Seconds later, the sound of babies crying began to fill the air again.

  Turning, Amanda saw the same sight as before: the ghostly child was sitting on the floor, but this time she was trying to calm the babies, as if she wanted them to stop crying.

  “No,” Amanda whispered, “this can't be happening.”

  “I see them too,” Leonora replied, with tears in her eyes. “I think she... I think she understands that what she did was wrong.”

  Amanda watched in horror as the child began to get the babies to fall silent.

  “She's not an evil girl,” Leonora continued. “She's done some wicked, wicked things, but it was all because she wanted a family. It took a long time, but maybe she finally knows that she did the wrong thing.” Reaching down, she took hold of her wheels and began to make her way along the corridor. After a moment, Amanda grabbed the handles of the chair and began to push her, until they were just a few feet from the trio of ghosts.

  “It's them,” Amanda whispered, looking down at her babies' smiling faces. “It's really them!”

  “Elenora,” Leonora said, leaning forward in her chair, “do you recognize me? I've come back for you after all these years.” She reached out a trembling hand, marked and wrinkled by the passage of time. “I'm so sorry it took me so long, but I was scared.”

  Still sitting on the floor, Elenora seemed not to have noticed her sister. Instead, she was playing with the two babies, who in turn were smiling up at her.

 

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