Sam Mulligan sits on an olden wooden chair. The normally clean-shaven man is scruffy. It’s his day off.
The room around him is dark except for a desk lamp in front of him. Sam Mulligan is a prison guard.
Standing in the shadows of that same room is Warden Geoff Price.
Warden Price pulls a chair out of the shadows and sits down at the desk. His face still in shadows but his massive hands now lay in the light. They are placed calmly on the desk in front of Sam. Price pulls a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket, draws a smoke and lights it. The ember now casting a touch of light on the Warden’s face and Sam can see the wrinkles that have aged this strong man. Warden Price is set to retire next year. He’s probably seen it all working in places like these. Maybe he can’t forget a lot of it, but not having to work with convicts day in and out seems to suit him just fine.
The Warden pulls another puff of his smoke and leans forward into the light of the desk lamp.
“Go on son. I’m not here to give you any shit.” The words come out firmly but with a hint of softness to them. Like a father when talking to his son.
“Your record speaks for itself.”
“I just want to hear it straight….”
Sam leans in closer.
“I’m not sure where exactly to start sir.”
Warden Price tosses his smoke on the floor and crushes it with his shoe. He leans back into the dark, folding his arms.
“From the beginning,son. From the start. When you figure this…this story started.”
“They come from all over.” Sam said in a low tone, “the stories I mean. A man works in a place like this his whole life he’s bound to hear just about everything. But I guess, to go back to the beginning, you’d have to know a thing or two about this place, wouldn’t you? A story always needs a beginning. I’m just not sure it has an end.” Sam wiggles around in his chair to get more comfortable but the look on his face says anything but.
“Sir, do you know the history of this place? I mean what it was before the prisoners were put here?”
The Warden shifts and leans forward into the light again. One of his wrinkly eyebrows raises, pondering Sam’s question.
“This place as far as I know was built in 1904…was some sort of school at first, built by a man named Michael Author.”
Sam looks up at the Warden briefly and then down again.
“Yes sir it was a school at one time. In fact where cell blocks 148-202 are now, used to be a school. Hard to believe anyone learned in a place like this.”
“Well it was a much smaller building then.” Warden Price says matter-of-factly. “Was a school for Doctors. A lot of learning went on here.”
Sam shoots Warden Price a hard look, staring him straight in the eyes this time.
“Was more than that sir.”
“Pardon?” Warden Price seems caught off guard.
“Sir you weren’t around when we were updating the old sections. We found…books. Whole other rooms that hadn’t seen light for some years.”
“Yes I read the reports when I started here.” Warden Price says while pulling out another smoke and lighting it, “Seem to recall finding stretchers and bedding.”
“And restraints sir. There were restraints.” Sam whispers calmly.
The Warden stands up and walks the room slowly for a moment. Finally resting his side against the desk while puffing away at his smoke.
“Yes I seem to recall reading something about that, but I don’t see what this has to do with a man missing from my cell block Sam. I don’t need a history of this building. I want to know what you’ve heard about our missing man.”
Sam speaks up. “You asked me to start from the beginning sir!”
“Well, right Sam,I did,but…”
“But then you have to know what’s been going on.” Sam says with his head cocked looking somewhat distant now.
“They built that section under the pretense of some school, but there’s been talk that something else was going on.”
Warden Price nods in agreement.
“Yes, I remember some of the conversations I overheard from previous Wardens at the State Run Dinners that I like to attend.”
The Warden slides off of the desk, walks back to his chair and stops with his back to Sam.
“I recall overhearing that it used to be a school for medical doctors; some sort of new patient program…to study inner workings of the human soul or something.”
Sam–still looking like he’s elsewhere–pipes in.” It wasn’t no patient program sir. The guards and I…we found papers during the renos. We believe that they were trying to capture souls taken from convicts.”
Price starts shaking his head.
“That’s just nonsense son.” Price sits down again.
“It was a school for doctors but they tested on cadavers; you know…the dead.”
“I know what it is they say,sir” Sam says with disbelief. “I know they’d have the town thinking that this was some nice place where doctors could cut up the dead to study the soul, but that just ain’t true.”
The Warden takes a step back resting in his chair again only this time leaning heavily into the light placing his hands firmly on the desk in front of him.
“Even if that were true Sam, you can’t be suggesting that this has something to do with our missing man? It’s not like he’s found some room that we didn’t know about.”
“Sir you ever walk the old wing at night?”
“You know I’m only there daylight hours, but I read the reports from all shifts. That is where you are going with this aren’t you?”
Sam relaxes a little bit. “Yes sir it is.”
“Well my report says that while you were on duty Sam, a man went missing from his cell. And if you are about to tell me that he somehow up’d and vanished it could cost you your job.”
Sam quickly shoots the Warden a look of warning and disgust laced with fear.
Price puts both hands up in the air as if to say,“I’m backing off now.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that I’d fire you Sam, it’s just…I need to know what the hell is going on here! A man on your watch is missing, and from the reports of the guards there was quite a commotion from the prisoners that night.”
Taking a deep breath Sam leans forward looking Price right in the eyes.
“Ask any of the guards and they’ll deny it.”
“Deny what?” Price asks hurriedly.
“Things they hear. Things the prisoners tell them. Things a man doesn’t want to include in his report for fear of being fired.”
“For fear of having to explain it to The Warden.” Price says in return.
“Yea, something like that.” Sam says with a slight smirk.
“Look son, the truth shall set you free. What ever nonsense is going on here, you can tell me. And take some comfort in the fact that you’re not losing your job over this. Sam, I’ve known you for a number of years now. I put in a good word for you with the Governor; made it look like our missing man died in his cell. Had to come up with a body and everything, so you can see I too had to play magician. So the least you can do for me, is tell me just what the fuck is going on here and how Houdini just disappears from his locked cell?”
Sam starts to shiver and moves his head as if someone were rubbing his neck.
“Wheels sir.”
“Wheels?” Price says with a confused look.
“Cart wheels sir. Like the ones found in them rooms.”
“Yes, what about them?” Price says ever more anxiously.
“Sometimes, you can go through a whole shift and not hear a thing. Those are my favorite nights. Then there are the nights the prisoners and us staff alike call cart wheels. You can hear them. Baaaack and forth, baaaack and forth. The high squeak of the wheels on the floor reverberating off the walls. The squeaks from just being rusty–who knows–but the cart wheels; up and down the halls of that block.”
Sam stares down at the ground for a moment remembering the vivid sounds of some evils past.
Price just sits there listening intently as though he can almost hear the squeaking noise in his head as Sam continues.
“It’s been going on for some years, ever since they renovated this place; like the walls didn’t want to be disturbed. When I first arrived here some years ago I heard the rumors; doubted every minute of it. Six years I never heard a sound; would tell prisoners to shut up and stop talking such bullshit. Bad enough that not a man here can admit he’s guilty. It’s like they all watched Shawshank Redemption or something saying that their ‘lawyer fucked them.’ Then one night it all changed. I heard a commotion from some of the prisoners. They were complaining of hearing voices from within their cells. I was in front of cell 158 when I heard it and paused.
Sqeeaaak, squeak, squeak. Squeeeeaaak, squeak, squeak. Squeeeeeaaaakkk….. cart wheels!
Then just went deeead quiet. You could have heard a rat fart on the wing on that night. Everyone including the other two guards with me shut up. Went the rest of the night without any problems or complaints from the men. From then on, almost every other night was like that, up until recently.”
Not surprising that no one would want to tell me this, but I should of heard it from you Sam!” Price was sounding a little more upset.
“Well I wanted to tell you sir, but I just didn’t think it was something worth mentioning. At least, not until a few weeks ago.”
Price looks around the room as if he were being watched. He focuses his attention back on Sam.
“Go on son.”
“A few weeks before the prisoner went missing, inmates started complaining a whole lot more. They were asking to be moved to another block. Some even went as far as stabbing themselves with whatever they could get their hands on so they’d spend a night in the hospital ward at the other end of the building. At first it was just one or two, but next thing you know we got six guys in our care facility all with self inflicted wounds.”
“Yes and I spoke to you about that then; asked you to keep a better watch on the men didn’t I?” Price says with a forceful tone.
“Yes sir you did, and I, we did, sir. But things started getting weirder as the week went on. Into the second week our missing man started to talk about the history of this place. Shouting at the guards ‘this place ain’t holy’, asking us if we’d like our souls removed to join them.”
“Them?” Price said with much interest.
Price gets up from his chair and starts to walk around the room finally standing behind Sam.
“Said that our souls now belonged to them now; that their work ain’t finished yet.”
Price places his hands on Sam’s shoulders, squeezing them gently.
Sam begins to think he can hear the cart wheels again, very faint though.
“And then what happened?” Price mutters.
“Then the Friday of the second week, we locked prisoner 458462 into cell number 158. The next day and on my first rounds, I notice that he’s missing. Prisoners and guards all say the night was quiet.”
“And what do you think happened to our missing fellow, Sam?”
Sam, sweating more and more,hears the cart wheels again. Looking around the room he sees nothing except shadows and darkness.
Squeak, Squeaaaaakkkk, Squeak.
Sam tenses up in his shoulders under Price’s strong hands.
“I think it’s time for cart wheels.” Sam says with a calming clarity,”It’s time to take your soul.”
Sam jumps up off his chair and spins around catching Warden Price off guard, and plunges a scalpel he was concealing in his pocket, deep into the chest of Warden Geoff Price. He quickly fillets his chest open spilling blood onto the desk and to the floor below. Sam soaked in blood, whispers while cutting quick and deep.
Warden Price cries out in agony falling backward but onto what? He stares at the ceiling of the interview room trying to call out for help but chokes on the blood forced up through his stomach instead. He can feel the hardness of cold steel around him. His hands now at his side he thinks that he’s paralyzed, or is he? Looking down towards his arms then his feet he realizes that he’s being restrained and has been put on a stretcher. But from where? Price starts to hear voices coming from all around him now… Then.. Cart wheels. He can hear them squeaking as he’s pushed down an unfamiliar corridor.
Just before he passes out from the loss of blood Geoff opens his eyes one more time to see Sam, the missing prisoner and others that he doesn’t recognize whispering over top of him. He can feel the life within him slipping away… He can feel his soul empty out of him.
