The Ninth Hour / Season 1, Episode 1
Clank of C-Block
The clank of metal on metal ripped through the silence of C-Block, a sound like a hammer striking an anvil, but slower, deliberate. Corrections Officer Diane Kessler froze mid-step, her boots scuffing the polished concrete floor of the new wing at Carver Maximum Security. Her radio crackled on her hip, but she didn’t reach for it. Not yet. Her eyes flicked to the row of cell doors, each one a slab of reinforced steel, locked tight—or supposed to be. The air in here smelled of fresh paint and something older, like damp earth seeping through the cracks of a foundation that hadn’t fully settled. It was 2:47 AM, and the overnight shift was already a grind, the kind of quiet that pressed against your eardrums until you swore you heard whispers that weren’t there.
She adjusted her grip on the flashlight, the beam cutting a hard line down the corridor. Nothing moved. Just shadows stretching long and thin across the walls, cast by the caged fluorescents overhead. The new wing was a marvel of modern incarceration—every surface scrubbed to a clinical gray, every corner angled to kill privacy. But the quiet wasn’t right. Twenty years on the job, Diane could feel a place breathe, could sense when the balance tipped. And tonight, it was tipping.
“Control, this is Kessler,” she muttered into her radio, keeping her voice low, like she was afraid to wake something. “Hearing something in C-Block, new wing. You got eyes on the feeds?”
Static hissed back at her, then a voice, tinny and bored. “Feeds are clear, Kessler. Just you pacing. You good?”
She wasn’t. Her thumb hovered over the transmit button, but she didn’t press it. Instead, she took a step forward, the sole of her boot sticking slightly to the floor, a faint tackiness from the sealant they’d laid down last week. The clank came again, sharper this time, from the far end of the block. Her pulse ticked up, not from fear—Diane didn’t do fear—but from the wrongness of it. This wing wasn’t even fully occupied yet. Half the cells sat empty, waiting for transfers. The ones that weren’t empty held men who knew better than to make noise at this hour. So what the hell was banging?
She moved down the corridor, passing cell C-12, where Marcus Webb was housed. Death row. Quiet guy, intense, the kind who watched more than he spoke. She didn’t stop to check on him, but her flashlight beam swept over his door anyway, the tiny reinforced window showing nothing but dark. Another clank, louder, echoing from C-18. Empty. Supposed to be, at least. Her free hand brushed the baton at her belt, not drawing it, just feeling the weight. The air felt heavier now, colder, like someone had cranked the AC too high, though she knew they hadn’t. Carver didn’t splurge on comfort.
At C-18, she stopped. The door was shut, the lock indicator glowing a steady green—secure. But the sound had come from here, she’d swear to it. She leaned in, ear close to the steel, listening. Nothing. Just the faint hum of the building itself, the distant drip of a pipe somewhere in the walls. Then, a scrape. Like fingernails dragging across metal, slow and deliberate, from inside the cell. Her hand tightened on the flashlight, the beam trembling just enough to notice. She stepped back, breath shallow, and keyed her radio.
“Control, I need a check on C-18. Got a sound, might be a glitch in the system. Door’s showing secure, but I’m hearing—” She cut herself off as the scrape came again, louder, like something was trying to claw its way out. “Just get me a status, now.”
“Copy, Kessler. Checking logs. Stand by.”
Stand by. Easy for them to say, sitting in their climate-controlled box with a wall of monitors. Diane’s eyes stayed on the door, her jaw tight. She’d seen everything in twenty years—riots, shanks made from toothbrush handles, men breaking down in ways that left scars on everyone who witnessed it. But this was different. This wasn’t human. Not in the way she understood. The cold was seeping into her bones now, her breath fogging just faintly in front of her, though the thermometer on the wall read 68 degrees.
The radio crackled. “Kessler, logs show C-18 as empty. No entry, no exit since construction cleared last week. You sure you’re hearing something?”
“I’m sure,” she snapped, her voice harder than she meant it to be. “Send someone down. I’m not opening it solo.”
“Copy. Backup en route. ETA five.”
Five minutes. Might as well be an hour in a place like this. Diane backed up a step, keeping the door in her line of sight. The scraping stopped, sudden as it started, leaving a silence that felt worse. Her gaze darted to the other cells, half-expecting to see movement, but the corridor was still. Too still. The kind of still that made you think something was holding its breath.
She didn’t hear the footsteps until they were right behind her. A quick turn, flashlight up, and there was Warden Jim Pruitt, his pressed uniform looking out of place in the dim light of the block. His face was all angles, sharp cheekbones and a jaw that looked like it could cut glass, but his eyes were tired, the kind of tired that came from playing politics instead of sleeping. He held up a hand, like he could wave away her tension.
“Easy, Kessler. Control said you got a ghost story down here.” His voice was smooth, too smooth, the kind of tone you used when you were already planning how to spin a problem into nothing.
“Not a story, sir,” she said, lowering the flashlight but not her guard. “Heard something in C-18. Scraping. Like something’s in there. Logs say it’s empty.”
Pruitt’s smile was thin, barely there. “New building, new noises. Pipes settling, maybe. You know how these projects go—rushed job, corners cut. Probably a rat got in during construction.”
“Rats don’t scrape like that,” she said, meeting his eyes. She didn’t add that she’d heard rats before, plenty of times, in the old blocks where the walls practically bled filth. This wasn’t that. But Pruitt wasn’t the type to hear what he didn’t want to.
He stepped past her, closer to C-18, and rapped on the door with his knuckles. The sound was sharp, echoing down the block. “Anyone home?” he called, half-laughing, like it was a joke. No answer, of course. Just the hum of the lights and the faint drip in the walls. He turned back to her, hands on hips. “See? Nothing. You’re jumping at shadows, Diane. I get it—new wing, first night. But we’ve got a ribbon-cutting in two weeks. Governor’s coming. I can’t have my best officer spooking herself over creaky pipes.”
She wanted to argue, to tell him about the cold, the way the air felt wrong, but she knew better. Pruitt wasn’t here to listen. He was here to make sure nothing got reported, nothing delayed his photo op with the state brass. So she nodded, tight-lipped, and said, “Understood, sir. Backup’s on the way. I’ll wait.”
“Good.” He clapped her shoulder, a little too hard, then started back down the corridor, his polished shoes clicking against the concrete. “Keep it tight, Kessler. No stories.”
She watched him go, her jaw working silently. No stories. Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one standing here at damn near 3 AM, feeling the weight of a building that didn’t want to be here. She turned back to C-18, the green light on the lock still steady, mocking. The scraping didn’t come again, but the cold lingered, creeping up her arms, settling in her chest.
A shout broke her focus, muffled but sharp, from the other end of the block. Her head snapped around, flashlight beam slicing through the dark. It came from C-12—Marcus Webb’s cell. She moved fast, boots pounding the floor, her hand already on her radio. “Control, got a situation in C-12. Inmate yelling. I’m on it.”
“Copy, Kessler. Backup still en route.”
She reached the cell in seconds, the tiny window in the door showing a sliver of movement inside. Marcus was pressed against the far wall, shirtless, his skin slick with sweat despite the chill. His eyes were wide, not with fear but with something else—something like recognition. He was muttering, words she couldn’t make out through the steel, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. She banged on the door with the butt of her flashlight.
“Webb! Step back! What’s going on in there?”
He didn’t look at her, not right away. His gaze was fixed on the empty space in the center of his cell, like he saw something she couldn’t. Finally, he turned his head, slow, and his voice came through the door, low and rough. “You hear it too, don’t you, Officer? Ain’t just me.”
“Hear what?” she barked, though her stomach twisted. She didn’t want to know. Not really.
He didn’t answer, just kept staring at that empty space. Then he said, quieter, “They’re walkin’. Been walkin’ since they put us in here. You don’t hear ‘em yet, but you will.”
“Step back, Webb. I’m not playing.” She hit the door again, harder, but her voice wasn’t as steady as she wanted it to be. The cold was worse here, sharp against her skin, and the air smelled different, not just paint now but something sour, like turned earth after rain. She keyed her radio again. “Control, where’s my backup? I need eyes on C-12 now.”
“Two minutes out, Kessler. Hang tight.”
Two minutes. She glanced down the corridor, half-expecting to see Pruitt still lurking, but he was gone, probably back to his office to draft a press release about how Carver was the future of corrections. Her eyes went back to Marcus through the window. He hadn’t moved, still staring at nothing, his lips moving silently now. She couldn’t hear the words, but she didn’t need to. The look on his face said enough—whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t nothing. Not to him.
The lights above flickered, just once, a quick stutter that made her flinch. The hum grew louder for a split second, then settled. Her breath fogged again, thicker this time, and she realized her hands were trembling, not from cold but from the weight of the silence that followed. Then, from behind her, a sound—not a scrape, not a clank, but a low, steady click. Like a lock disengaging. She spun, flashlight up, and saw the door to C-18, the green light now blinking red. Unlocked.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She hadn’t touched it. No one had. Control hadn’t radioed an override. The corridor was empty, just her and the shadows and Marcus Webb staring through his window like he already knew what was happening. The door to C-18 didn’t move, didn’t swing open, but the red light pulsed, steady as a heartbeat, and the cold rolled out from under it, curling around her ankles like fog.
“Control,” she whispered into her radio, her voice barely there. “C-18 just unlocked. On its own. I need backup now.”
Static answered her, longer this time, before the voice came back. “Say again, Kessler? Logs show C-18 secure. No command issued.”
“It’s not secure,” she hissed, stepping back, her boots scuffing the floor. “It’s open. Or about to be. Get someone down here.”
“Copy. Team’s almost there.”
Almost wasn’t good enough. She kept her eyes on the door, the red light mocking her, the cold seeping deeper. Behind her, Marcus’s voice came through his cell door again, low and certain.
“Told you, Officer. They’re walkin’. And they ain’t happy ‘bout bein’ forgot.”
She didn’t turn to look at him. She couldn’t. Her hand found the wall before her eyes found the dark beyond C-18’s frame, and she braced herself, waiting for whatever came next.
Her palm pressed harder against the wall, the concrete rough and cool under her fingers, grounding her as the cold from C-18’s doorframe seemed to crawl up her legs. Diane Kessler’s breath hitched, shallow and quick, her chest tight under the weight of her vest. The red light on the lock blinked like it was daring her to step closer, and the silence in the corridor was worse than any noise—it was the kind of quiet that meant something was holding its breath. She didn’t want to look into the dark beyond the door, didn’t want to see what might be waiting, but her training wouldn’t let her turn away. Twenty years on the job, she’d faced down shivs, riots, men twice her size with nothing to lose. But this—this wasn’t any of that. This was wrong in a way she couldn’t name, a violation of every rule she’d ever learned about how a prison was supposed to work.
“Control, where’s my backup?” she snapped into the radio, her voice sharper now, cutting through the static. Her thumb pressed the button so hard her knuckle whitened. “I’m staring at an open cell in a locked-down wing. Move it.”
“Team’s on the stairwell, Kessler. Thirty seconds.” The voice on the other end sounded distant, like it was coming from underwater, and she didn’t trust it. Thirty seconds was an eternity when you were standing in front of a door that shouldn’t be open, in a wing that shouldn’t even exist yet, built over dirt nobody bothered to check for bones.
Behind her, Marcus Webb tapped on his cell window, a slow, deliberate rhythm—tap, tap, tap—like a clock counting down. She didn’t turn. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. But his voice came again, slipping through the reinforced glass like it didn’t even exist. “You feel it, don’t you? That chill. Ain’t just the AC. They’re close now. Real close.”
“Shut it, Webb,” she barked, her eyes still locked on C-18. But her free hand twitched toward her baton, fingers brushing the grip, not for him but for whatever might come through that door. The cold was thicker now, not just at her ankles but creeping up her spine, a damp weight that made her skin prickle. It smelled like wet earth in here, like rain on old stone, even though they were three stories up and the new wing’s HVAC was supposed to be state-of-the-art. Her nose wrinkled. That smell didn’t belong.
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor, heavy and uneven, the backup team finally hauling ass down the hall. She risked a glance—three guards, vests on, flashlights cutting through the dim orange glow of the overheads. Ramirez was in front, his jaw set, but his eyes darted side to side like he felt it too. Behind him, Carter and Nguyen, both green, both gripping their batons like they were lifelines. Diane didn’t relax. Three more bodies didn’t make this right.
“Door’s unlocked,” she said as they approached, her voice low, clipped. “No command, no override. Logs say it’s secure. It ain’t.”
Ramirez stopped a few feet away, his flashlight beam hitting the red light on C-18’s lock. He squinted, then looked at her. “You sure? Could be a glitch. System’s new. They rushed the install.”
“It’s not a glitch.” Her tone cut him off before he could argue. “I’ve been here since midnight. Watched it happen. And I’m tellin’ you, it’s not just the door. You feel that cold?”
Carter, the youngest, shifted his weight, his boots scuffing the floor. “Feels like a damn freezer in here. Maintenance screw up the vents again?”
“No,” Diane said, her eyes flicking back to the door. “It’s comin’ from there.” She nodded toward C-18, the dark beyond the frame swallowing the edge of Ramirez’s light. “And I’m not the only one who’s noticed.” She tilted her head just enough to indicate Marcus’s cell behind her.
Ramirez followed her gaze, his face tightening. “Webb’s talkin’ again?”
“Won’t stop. Says they’re walkin’. Whoever ‘they’ are.” She didn’t believe in ghost stories, didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t cuff or lock down, but Marcus’s certainty gnawed at her. He wasn’t the type to spin tall tales for attention. Death row made men quiet, not chatty. If Marcus was talking, he meant it.
Ramirez muttered something under his breath, probably a curse, and stepped closer to C-18. His flashlight beam shook just enough to notice as it swept the doorframe. “Empty,” he said after a second. “No movement. You want us to secure it?”
Diane didn’t answer right away. Her gut said no, screamed it, but protocol said yes. You didn’t leave a cell door unsecured, not in max, not ever. She nodded once, sharp. “Do it. But keep eyes on the corridor. Somethin’s off.”
Nguyen moved first, too eager, his baton out as he approached the door. Carter hung back, his knuckles pale around his grip. Ramirez stayed between them, his light steady now, but Diane saw the sweat beading at his temple despite the cold. The air was heavy, thick with that wet-earth smell, and the overhead lights flickered once, just a blink, but enough to make her heart kick harder.
Nguyen reached for the manual override on the lock, his gloved hand hesitating an inch from the panel. “It’s… damn, it’s ice cold,” he said, pulling back for a second before forcing himself to touch it. The red light pulsed under his fingers, and the mechanism whirred, a low grind that sounded too loud in the silence. The door didn’t budge, but the light switched to green, then back to red, like it couldn’t decide.
“System’s fightin’ itself,” Ramirez said, stepping closer. “We need tech down here. Now.”
“No time,” Diane cut in. “Force it shut. I’m not standin’ here with an open cell all night.”
Nguyen nodded, too quick, and jammed his shoulder against the door. It didn’t move. He pushed harder, grunting, and Carter joined him, both of them shoving while Ramirez kept the light on the frame. Diane stayed a step back, her hand still on the wall, her eyes scanning the dark inside C-18. She swore she saw something shift in there—a flicker of shadow that wasn’t theirs—but when she blinked, it was gone. Her pulse thudded in her ears, louder than the grunts of the two guards.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Carter muttered, his voice tight, his shoulder digging into the steel. The door gave a little, inching inward, but then stopped, like something was pushing back. Nguyen cursed, his breath fogging in the cold air, and Diane’s stomach twisted. Fogging. In a heated prison wing. That wasn’t right.
“Stop,” she said suddenly, her voice cutting through their effort. They froze, both turning to her, faces slick with sweat despite the chill. “Back off. Now.”
Carter stepped away first, his eyes wide. “What? We almost—”
“Back. Off.” She didn’t raise her voice, but the edge in it was enough. They moved, and she stepped forward, her own flashlight coming up, the beam slicing into the dark of C-18. The cell was empty—bare walls, bare bunk, no sign of anything or anyone. But the cold poured out stronger now, a wave of it, and that smell, that damp rot, hit her like a slap. Her light trembled, just for a second, before she locked her wrist steady.
Behind her, Marcus’s tapping started again—tap, tap, tap—slower now, like a funeral march. “Told you,” he said, his voice a low drawl through the glass. “They don’t want that door shut. They got business.”
“Enough, Webb,” Ramirez snapped, turning toward the cell. “Keep runnin’ your mouth, I’ll put you in the hole ‘til morning.”
Marcus didn’t flinch. Diane could feel his stare on her back, heavy as a hand. “Ain’t me you gotta worry ‘bout, man. It’s them. They been waitin’ a long time. And they know you’re standin’ on their dirt.”
Diane’s jaw tightened. She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t. But her skin crawled anyway, and when she swept her light across C-18 one more time, she froze. There, in the far corner, just at the edge of the beam—a smudge on the wall. Not dirt, not graffiti. It looked like… a handprint. Wet, glistening, too big to be any of theirs. Her throat went dry, and she stepped back without meaning to, her boot scraping the floor.
“You see that?” Her voice was quieter than she wanted, barely above a whisper. Ramirez followed her light, his own beam joining hers. The handprint was gone. Or maybe it had never been there. But her heart didn’t slow down, and the cold didn’t let up.
“See what?” Ramirez asked, his tone sharp, like he was daring her to say something crazy.
“Nothin’,” she lied, shaking her head. “Just… tired. Let’s get this door secured and call it in. I want tech and maintenance down here before shift change.”
Ramirez didn’t argue, but she caught the look he gave her—half concern, half doubt. She ignored it, ignored the way Carter and Nguyen kept glancing at the door like it might bite, ignored Marcus’s steady tapping behind her. She had to. Twenty years taught her to bury the shakes, to lock down anything that looked like weakness. But as she turned to radio Control again, her fingers fumbled on the button, and she hated herself for it.
“Control, this is Kessler. C-18 is still unsecured. Need tech ASAP. And I want a full log review of the system. Something’s wrong with the new wing.” Her voice was steady now, or close enough. The static crackled back, longer this time, before the reply came.
“Copy, Kessler. Tech’s en route. Logs are being pulled. Hang tight.”
Hang tight. Like that meant anything when the air felt like a grave and the door wouldn’t shut. She clipped the radio back to her belt, her hand lingering there, close to her baton again. The corridor stretched out in both directions, the dim orange light casting long shadows from every cell window. The other inmates were quiet, too quiet, like they knew. Or felt it. She didn’t want to think about that.
Ramirez broke the silence. “We’re not leavin’ this door open. I’m callin’ in more bodies if I have to. We’ll chain it shut ‘til tech gets here.”
“Do it,” Diane said, her eyes still on C-18. “But I’m stayin’. I don’t trust this wing tonight.”
Carter muttered something about overtime, but Nguyen just nodded, his face pale under the fluorescents. Ramirez gave her a long look, then started barking orders, sending Carter to grab chains from the supply closet two floors down. Diane didn’t move. She couldn’t. Not until she knew that door was locked, really locked, and not just pretending.
The cold hadn’t gone away. If anything, it was worse, settling into her bones like she’d been standing in a freezer for hours. Her breath caught again, a small puff of white in the air, and she clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. Marcus’s tapping had stopped, but his voice came again, softer this time, almost a whisper.
“You keep standin’ there, Officer, you’re gonna see ‘em too. They ain’t just walkin’. They’re lookin’. And they remember.”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t turn. But her hand stayed on her baton, and her eyes stayed on the dark beyond C-18, waiting. Because deep down, under the layers of training and grit and denial, she felt it. Something was coming. Something that didn’t care about locks or rules or twenty years of knowing better. And as the minutes ticked by, the red light on the lock pulsed faster, like it knew she was watching, like it was counting down to something she couldn’t stop.
Diane’s fingers tightened on the baton, the rubber grip biting into her palm, rough and cold as the air around her. The red light on the lock flickered again, a silent heartbeat, and she forced herself to blink, to break the stare she’d locked on that damn door. Her breath still puffed out in little clouds, vanishing into the dim of the corridor. The smell of industrial cleaner and old sweat clung to the walls, sharper now, like the cold was pulling every stale odor out of the concrete. She shifted her weight, her boots scuffing against the floor, the sound too loud in the stillness. Marcus’s whisper hung in her head, looping like a bad radio signal. They’re lookin’. And they remember. She didn’t want to know who “they” were. Didn’t want to think about why her skin was crawling like she was being watched from a blind spot she couldn’t turn to see.
“Carter!” she snapped, her voice cracking the quiet, rougher than she meant it to be. “Where the hell are those chains?”
From somewhere down the hall, his muffled curse echoed back, followed by the clatter of metal on metal. “Comin’, Kessler! Gimme a sec—damn shelf’s a mess!” His tone had that edge, the kind that said he was spooked too but wouldn’t admit it. Not yet. Not until they all had to.
She didn’t take her eyes off C-18. The door hadn’t moved, hadn’t so much as creaked, but the air felt heavier now, pressing down on her shoulders like a physical weight. Her left hand, the one not on the baton, brushed against the wall, the concrete gritty and damp under her fingertips. It shouldn’t be damp. Not in a brand-new wing. Not with the HVAC cranked to keep the Texas humidity out. But there it was, a slick sheen she couldn’t explain, cold as a corpse’s skin. She jerked her hand back, wiping it on her uniform pants, the rough polyester scraping her knuckles.
Behind her, Marcus’s cell was silent again, but she could feel him there, pressed to the bars maybe, watching her watch the dark. She didn’t turn. Couldn’t. Not when every instinct she’d honed over twenty years told her that if she looked away from that door, even for a second, it’d be the last mistake she made tonight.
Footsteps thudded closer—Carter, finally, his boots heavy and uneven on the polished floor. The rattle of chains dragged behind him, a grating, metallic scrape that set her teeth on edge. He stopped a few feet away, his breathing loud, ragged, like he’d run the two floors instead of walked. “Got ‘em,” he muttered, dropping the bundle with a clank that echoed too far, too long, down the empty corridor. “Heavy bastards. What’re we even doin’ with these? Locks are back on, right?”
Diane didn’t answer right away. Her eyes flicked to the red light on C-18—still pulsing, still wrong—then back to the dark beyond the doorframe. “You see that light?” she asked, her voice low, steady, even though her chest was tight.
Carter stepped closer, the chains dragging as he adjusted his grip. She heard the creak of his utility belt, smelled the faint tang of coffee on his breath as he leaned in to squint at the lock. “Yeah,” he said after a beat, quieter now. “Yeah, I see it. What the hell’s it doin’ that for? System glitch?”
“Glitch don’t open doors at 3 a.m.,” she said, her jaw tight. “Glitch don’t turn the air to ice.” She nodded at the chains. “Wrap it ‘round the handle. Tie it off to the bar on the wall. We ain’t trustin’ electronics tonight.”
Carter hesitated—she felt it more than saw it, the way his weight shifted, the way his silence stretched a second too long. Then he grunted, bending down to scoop up the chains, the links clinking like loose change in a tin can. “You thinkin’ someone’s messin’ with the system? Hack or somethin’?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to. Because the truth was, she didn’t think it was a hack. Didn’t think it was anything she could explain to Carter or herself. Not with Marcus’s words still clawing at the back of her mind. Not with the way the cold kept sinking deeper, past her uniform, past her skin, into places she didn’t have names for. She watched Carter loop the chain around the door handle, his hands quick but not steady, the metal scraping against metal with a sound like a scream cut short. He pulled it tight, tied it off to the steel bar bolted into the wall, and stepped back, wiping his hands on his pants like he could shake off whatever was in the air.
“That ain’t gonna hold if someone wants in,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “Or out.”
“It’s somethin’,” Diane said, her voice clipped. “Better than nothin’.” She forced herself to step back too, to put a foot of space between her and C-18, though every muscle in her body screamed to stay put, to keep watching. The red light pulsed again, faster now, like it was mocking the chain, like it knew something they didn’t.
From Marcus’s cell, a low chuckle rolled out, soft and bitter, cutting through the quiet like a blade. “Y’all think chains gonna stop what’s already here? That’s cute, Officer. Real cute.”
“Shut it, Webb,” Carter barked, his voice sharp, but there was a tremor under it, a crack Diane hadn’t heard before. She shot him a look—don’t engage, not now—but Carter was already turning, his hand on his own baton, his shoulders squared like he could fight whatever was making his voice shake. “You got somethin’ to say, say it straight. What’s ‘already here’?”
Marcus didn’t answer right away. Diane could picture him, leaning against the bars, his eyes sharp in the dark, that half-smile he wore when he knew he’d gotten under someone’s skin. When he spoke again, his voice was slow, deliberate, like he was savoring every word. “You’ll see. Or you won’t. Depends how long you stand there playin’ with chains instead of listenin’. They don’t like bein’ ignored, man. Never did.”
Diane’s hand twitched on her baton, her knuckles white. She wanted to turn, to snap at him, to tell him to cut the cryptic bullshit before she wrote him up for insubordination. But she didn’t. Because under the irritation, under the exhaustion of a twenty-hour shift, there was something else. A prickle at the base of her neck, a weight in her gut, telling her Marcus wasn’t just messing with them. Telling her he’d seen something she hadn’t. Yet.
“Enough,” she said finally, her voice low, cutting through Carter’s half-formed retort. “Carter, check the other doors on this block. Make sure they’re secure. I’ll handle Webb.”
Carter hesitated again, his eyes flicking from her to Marcus’s cell and back. Then he nodded, short and jerky, and turned to stomp down the corridor, his flashlight beam bouncing off the walls, throwing long, jagged shadows that moved when they shouldn’t. Diane waited until his footsteps faded, until the only sound was the faint hum of the overhead lights and the steady drip of something—water, she hoped—somewhere in the distance. Then she turned, slow, deliberate, her boots scuffing the floor again as she faced Marcus’s cell.
He was there, just like she’d pictured, leaning against the bars, his forearms resting on the crossbar, his face half-lit by the weak glow from the hallway. His eyes caught hers, dark and unreadable, but there was no smirk now, no game. Just a stillness that made her stomach twist.
“What’d you see, Marcus?” she asked, her voice quieter than she meant it to be. “And don’t play me. I ain’t got the patience tonight.”
He tilted his head, just enough to shift the light across his face, and for a second, she thought she saw something flicker in his expression—something like pity. Then it was gone, replaced by that same hard edge he always wore. “I seen shadows, Officer. Not the kind from lights. The kind that move when nothin’ else does. Out there.” He nodded past her, toward C-18, toward the chain-wrapped door. “They walkin’. Slow. Like they got all the time in the world. And they lookin’ at me like they know me. Like they been waitin’.”
Her throat tightened, but she didn’t let it show, didn’t let her face shift even a fraction. “You’re sayin’ you saw people? In the hall?”
“Didn’t say people,” he corrected, his voice dropping lower, rougher. “Said shadows. Ain’t the same. You’ll get it when you see ‘em. If you see ‘em. Might be they don’t want you yet.”
She wanted to push, to demand he explain, to tear apart whatever game he was playing. But the cold was still there, seeping into her joints, making her fingers stiff around the baton. And the red light on C-18—she could see it in her peripheral, still pulsing, still counting down to something. She swallowed, the taste of copper on her tongue, and stepped closer to the bars, close enough to smell the faint salt of Marcus’s sweat, the stale air of his cell.
“You keep talkin’ like you know what’s happenin’,” she said, her voice a near-whisper now, meant for just the two of them. “If you do, you tell me. Right now. ‘Cause I ain’t lettin’ this wing turn into a circus on my watch.”
Marcus studied her for a long moment, his eyes searching hers, and for the first time in years, she felt exposed, like he could see the doubt she’d buried under layers of routine and authority. Then he straightened, pulling back from the bars just enough to break the tension, and his voice came softer, almost regretful. “I don’t know nothin’ for sure, Officer. Just what I seen. Just what I feel. But I’ll tell you this—they ain’t here for me. Not yet. They here for somethin’ else. Somethin’ old. And they gonna keep comin’ ‘til they get it.”
Her breath caught, a sharp hitch she couldn’t hide, and she stepped back, her boot scraping again, louder this time. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to process the weight of his words, the way they settled into her chest like stones. Behind her, the red light pulsed faster, a silent drumbeat, and she felt it more than saw it, felt the rhythm matching the thud of her own pulse.
Before she could respond, Carter’s voice crackled over the radio at her hip, static-laced and urgent. “Kessler, you copy? Got a problem down on B-block. Doors are fine, but—shit, you gotta see this. Now.”
She grabbed the radio, her thumb pressing the button hard enough to hurt. “What kind of problem, Carter? Spit it out.”
There was a pause, a long one, filled with static and the faint sound of his breathing, too fast, too shallow. Then he spoke, his voice lower, shakier than before. “There’s… marks. On the wall down here. Like scratches. Deep ones. Ain’t no way a man did this with his hands. And Kessler… they’re fresh. Still got dust fallin’ off ‘em.”
Her stomach dropped, a cold, hard plummet, and she glanced at Marcus, who hadn’t moved, hadn’t blinked, just watched her with that same unreadable look. She pressed the radio button again, forcing her voice to stay level. “Hold position. I’m comin’.”
She clipped the radio back to her belt, her fingers fumbling for a second, the cold making them clumsy. Then she turned to Marcus, her jaw tight, her eyes hard. “You stay put. You hear me? Don’t test me tonight.”
He didn’t answer, just nodded, slow and deliberate, and as she turned to head down the corridor, his voice followed her, soft but clear, cutting through the hum of the lights. “They ain’t done, Officer. Not by a long shot. And they gonna make sure you know it.”
She didn’t stop, didn’t look back, but his words clung to her, heavy as the cold air, as she moved toward B-block, her boots echoing in the empty hall. The red light on C-18 pulsed behind her, faster now, relentless, and as she rounded the corner, the faint sound of scratching—metal on stone, slow and deliberate—drifted up from somewhere below. It wasn’t Carter. Wasn’t anything she could name. But it was there, waiting, just like Marcus said. And as she descended the stairs, the cold followed, wrapping tighter around her, until every breath felt like swallowing ice, until every step felt like walking toward something she couldn’t turn back from.
The corridor to B-block stretched out, dim and endless, the overheads flickering just enough to make the shadows jump. Her flashlight beam cut through the haze, catching on the walls, on the fresh-painted gray that hadn’t had time to scuff or fade. Carter was halfway down, standing rigid, his own light trained on a section of wall near the last cell. He didn’t turn as she approached, didn’t move at all, and that stillness sent a fresh jolt through her, sharper than the cold.
“Carter,” she said, her voice low, controlled, as she stopped a few feet behind him. “Talk to me.”
He twitched then, just a jerk of his shoulder, and pointed with his flashlight, the beam trembling slightly. “There. Look.”
She followed the light, and her breath stopped. The wall was gouged, deep, ragged lines carved into the concrete like something had clawed at it with more than human strength. The scratches weren’t random—there was a pattern, crude but deliberate, like letters half-formed, a message cut off before it could finish. Dust still hung in the air, fine and gray, catching in the beam of her flashlight, and the edges of the marks glistened, wet with something she didn’t want to name. The smell hit her then, sharp and metallic, undercutting the usual stink of disinfectant. Like blood, but older, sourer, like it had been sitting for days.
Her hand found the wall before her eyes could pull away, fingers brushing the edge of a gouge, the concrete jagged and cold under her touch. Too cold. Like the damp on C-18. Like the air that hadn’t let up since 3 a.m. She yanked her hand back, her pulse hammering in her ears, louder than the hum of the lights, louder than Carter’s shallow breathing beside her.
“What the hell did this?” she muttered, more to herself than to him, but Carter answered anyway, his voice tight, barely above a whisper.
“Dunno. Ain’t no tool I know. Ain’t no inmate got hands like that. Kessler, I been here eight years. Seen fights, shanks, all of it. This ain’t… this ain’t right.”
She didn’t argue. Couldn’t. Because he was right. This wasn’t a prank, wasn’t vandalism, wasn’t anything she could write up in a report and call it a night. Her eyes traced the scratches again, the half-formed shapes, and a chill ran through her, deeper than the cold, when she realized one of the marks looked like a word. Not complete, not clear, but close enough. Wrong. Or maybe Wron— cut off before the rest could form. Her stomach twisted, and she stepped back, her boot scuffing louder than it should have, the sound bouncing off the walls like a gunshot.
“Get a camera,” she said finally, her voice harder now, forcing the tremor out. “Document this. Every inch. Then we seal this block off ‘til day shift. No one comes down here. Not without me.”
Carter nodded, too fast, like he was glad for an order, any order, to pull him out of whatever was spinning in his head. He turned to head back up, his flashlight beam jerking across the floor, and Diane stayed where she was, staring at the wall, at the marks that shouldn’t be there. The cold pressed in again, tighter, and for a split second, she thought she heard it—the scratching, faint but real, coming from somewhere deeper in the block, somewhere beyond the last cell. She froze, her hand on her baton, her breath shallow, waiting. It stopped as quick as it started, leaving only the hum of the lights, the drip of something in the distance, and the weight of her own heartbeat.
She didn’t move for a long moment, couldn’t, not until she was sure the sound wasn’t coming back. Then she turned, slow, her flashlight sweeping the corridor behind her, catching nothing but empty concrete and flickering shadows. But as she started back toward the stairs, something caught her eye, just at the edge of her beam—a faint smear on the floor near the wall, dark and uneven, like a footprint in mud. Except it wasn’t mud. And it wasn’t fresh. It was dry, flaking at the edges, like it had been there for years, like it had been waiting for her to notice.
She crouched, her knees creaking from the cold, and tilted the light closer. The smear was long, narrow, the shape of a bare foot, the toes splayed in a way that didn’t look right, didn’t look human. And around it, fainter but there, were more—marks, scuffs, trailing off toward the dark at the end of the block. Her chest tightened, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts now, and she stood, fast, too fast, her head spinning as the cold bit deeper.
She didn’t follow the trail. Didn’t dare. Not yet. But as she backed away, her light still on that first mark, Marcus’s words came back, clear as if he were standing beside her. They gonna keep comin’ ‘til they get it. And in that moment, staring at the impossible footprint on a floor that had been poured just weeks ago, Diane felt it—the shift, the certainty, the weight of something older than the prison, older than her, waking up under her feet. Something that had been buried, forgotten, but not gone. Something that remembered, just like he said.
And as she turned to climb the stairs, the scratching started again, softer this time, almost patient, like it knew she’d be back. Like it knew she had no choice.