The Ninth Hour / Season 1, Episode 2
Midnight in C-Block
The flashlight beam jittered across the concrete floor of C-Block, catching the edge of a rusted bolt, a scuff of boot polish, a smear of something that could’ve been oil or worse. Diane Kessler’s grip on the Maglite tightened, her knuckles pale under the weight of the thing, not just its heft but the way it felt like her only tether to sanity down here at 2:47 AM. Her boots echoed too loud in the silence, each step a small betrayal of her position to whatever—whomever—might be listening. The air in the new wing hung heavy, damp with the tang of fresh cement and something older, sour, like sweat left to rot in a forgotten gym locker. She stopped at the intersection of corridors, the beam slicing left, then right, illuminating nothing but empty cells, bars gleaming under a thin layer of dust.
“You hear that?” she muttered into the radio clipped at her shoulder, voice low, barely a breath. Static crackled back, then a garbled grunt from Ramirez on the other end, probably half-asleep in the control booth.
“Hear what, Kessler? You jumpin’ at shadows again?” His tone carried that lazy smirk she could picture without seeing him, the kind of dismissal that made her jaw clench.
“Somethin’ moved. Down by C-18. Same spot as last night.” She didn’t wait for his reply, thumbing the radio off with a click that felt final. No point arguing with a man who’d rather clock out than check. Her free hand hovered near the baton at her hip, not drawing it, not yet, but the weight of it grounded her. Twenty years on the job, she’d faced down riots, shanks, men who’d kill you for a pack of smokes, but this—this was different. Last night’s clank, that grinding scrape of metal on stone, had wormed into her sleep, replayed itself in the dark behind her eyelids. And now, not even three hours into her shift, it was back. Fainter this time, but real. Too real.
She edged forward, the corridor stretching ahead like a throat waiting to swallow her. The overhead fluorescents were off to save power, leaving only the emergency reds blinking at intervals, casting her shadow in jagged bursts against the walls. The cold down here wasn’t just the late October chill seeping through uninsulated concrete; it was deeper, the kind that prickled the back of her neck, made her breath fog in short, sharp bursts. C-18 loomed ten paces ahead, door shut tight, just like she’d left it after last night’s sweep. But the air around it felt wrong, thicker, like wading through molasses. She stopped a foot away, flashlight trained on the lock, steady now, though her pulse wasn’t. The mechanism looked untouched, no scratches, no jimmying, but she’d swear on her badge something had rattled it. Something not human.
A sound—low, a groan of steel—crawled out of the cell, so faint she might’ve imagined it if her gut hadn’t twisted at the same instant. Her hand snapped to the radio again, then dropped. Ramirez wouldn’t believe her. Pruitt sure as hell wouldn’t. The warden had made that clear yesterday, his office reeking of cheap aftershave and cheaper coffee, his smile all teeth and no warmth. “New builds settle, Diane. Pipes, foundations. Don’t make a ghost story outta maintenance.” She’d nodded, kept her mouth shut, but the way his eyes lingered on her, sizing up whether she’d push, told her he’d bury any report she filed faster than she could write it. Ribbon-cutting for the new wing was next month. Bad press wasn’t an option.
Her thumb flicked the flashlight off, plunging the corridor into near-black, save for the red emergency glow. If something was here, she’d hear it better without the hum of the beam distracting her. Silence pressed in, heavy as a hand on her chest, broken only by the distant drip of a leak somewhere in the plumbing. Then—there. A scrape, like nails on concrete, slow and deliberate, coming from inside C-18. Her breath caught, held, as she leaned closer, ear an inch from the bars. Nothing. Just the echo of her own heartbeat hammering in her skull. She exhaled, shaky, and stepped back, hand brushing the wall for balance, the rough texture of unpainted concrete scraping her palm.
“Get a grip, Di,” she hissed to herself, barely audible. Twenty years, and she was spooking herself over creaks. But as she turned to head back toward the guard station, a new sound stopped her cold—a voice, muffled, low, coming not from C-18 but further down, near the death row cells. C-12. Marcus Webb’s cell.
It wasn’t a shout, not the usual late-night rant of a con itching for attention. It was a murmur, steady, like a man talking himself through something. Diane’s boots moved before her brain caught up, quiet as she could manage, the flashlight still off, her eyes adjusting to the dim red haze. Marcus wasn’t supposed to be awake, not with the sedatives they’d pumped into him after last night’s episode—screaming, thrashing, claiming he’d seen “them” walking the halls. She’d written it off as stress, death row doing what it always did to a man’s head, but now, with that voice drifting through the block, she wasn’t so sure.
She stopped outside C-12, keeping to the shadow of the bars, her silhouette hidden from the narrow slit of reinforced glass in the door. Marcus sat on the edge of his cot, back to her, shoulders hunched, hands clasped between his knees. The cell smelled of disinfectant and despair, the same as every other hole in this place, but there was something else under it—a metallic tang, like old blood, though the floor was spotless. His voice came clearer now, a rhythmic mutter, not to himself but to someone.
“…didn’t do it, man. Told ‘em a hundred times. You know I didn’t. You see it, don’t you? You see what they did…”
Diane’s fingers twitched toward her baton, then stopped. He wasn’t armed, wasn’t pacing, wasn’t even looking at the door. But the way he spoke, head tilted slightly like he was listening for a reply, made her skin crawl. She shifted, peering through the glass at an angle, trying to catch his reflection in the polished steel sink bolted to the wall. His face was half-lit by the red emergency light filtering through the window, eyes wide, not blinking, staring at the empty corner of the cell.
“Marcus,” she said, voice sharp but low, testing. His head snapped up, body going rigid, but he didn’t turn. For a long moment, the only sound was the hum of her own blood in her ears. Then he spoke, quieter than before, barely a whisper.
“They’re listenin’, Officer Kessler. They hear me. They know.”
Her hand found the doorframe, steadying herself before she realized she’d moved. “Who’s listening, Webb? Ain’t nobody here but me.” She kept her tone flat, the way you talk down a jumper on a ledge, but inside, her chest was a drumline. She’d seen inmates crack, seen ‘em talk to walls, to God, to dead mothers, but this wasn’t that. This was too calm, too certain.
He turned then, slow, his face catching the light fully now—gaunt, unshaved, eyes like pits under the harsh shadows. “Not you,” he said, lips barely moving. “Them. The ones who shouldn’t be here. Walkin’ at night. Lookin’ for somethin’ they lost.”
A chill slithered down her spine, not from the words but the way he said them, like he was reading off a script he didn’t write. She forced a nod, stepping back from the door, her boot scraping louder than she meant it to. “Get some rest, Marcus. Shift’s almost over. Don’t need you stirrin’ up trouble.”
But as she turned to walk away, his voice followed her, soft and slicing. “They ain’t restin’, Officer. Why should I?”
She didn’t look back, couldn’t, her legs carrying her down the corridor faster than she intended, the weight of his stare boring into her back even through the steel door. The air felt tighter now, the cold sharper, biting at her exposed neck above the collar of her uniform. She passed C-18 again, refusing to glance at it, though every instinct screamed to check, to make sure that groan of metal hadn’t returned. Her radio stayed silent at her shoulder—Ramirez hadn’t checked in, hadn’t even noticed she’d gone quiet. Typical.
At the guard station, a small alcove of monitors and a dented metal desk, she sank into the chair, the springs creaking under her weight. The monitors flickered, grainy black-and-white feeds of empty corridors, empty cells, nothing out of place. But her eyes kept darting to the screen for C-Block, to the tiny square labeled C-18, half-expecting to see… what? A shadow? A face? She rubbed her palms over her face, the grit of exhaustion stinging her eyes, and reached for the lukewarm coffee in a Styrofoam cup, the bitter dregs doing little to steady her.
The clock on the desk ticked over to 2:55 AM. Five minutes until the hour. She didn’t know why that mattered, why her gut clenched at the thought of 3:00, but it did. Last night, the noise in C-18 had peaked right at the stroke of three, a detail she hadn’t written in her report because it sounded insane even in her own head. But now, with Marcus’s words looping in her mind—“they’re listenin’”—she couldn’t shake the feeling that the hour meant something. Something she didn’t want to face.
She leaned forward, elbows on the desk, staring at the monitor for C-12. Marcus was still on his cot, motionless now, head bowed. The feed was silent, no audio on these cheap systems, but she could almost hear that murmur again, that impossible conversation with no one. Her finger hovered over the intercom button, itching to call him out, to demand he cut the act, but she held back. What if he answered in that same dead tone? What if he wasn’t alone in there, not in a way she could see?
A flicker on the C-18 feed yanked her attention. The screen glitched, static rolling across it for a split second before clearing. The cell door was still shut, bars solid, but the shadow in the corner of the frame—had it moved? She squinted, heart kicking up again, telling herself it was just the camera angle, just the lousy wiring in this half-finished wing. But her hand was already on the mouse, zooming the feed, grainy pixels enlarging until the shadow took shape. Not a person, not even close, just a trick of the light on the uneven wall. Still, she didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, waiting for it to shift again.
The clock ticked to 2:58. Two minutes. The air in the guard station felt thinner, like the walls were pressing in, the hum of the monitors louder in her ears. Somewhere down the hall, a pipe groaned, a normal sound in a new build, but it hit her like a gunshot. She stood, chair scraping back, flashlight in hand again, though she didn’t remember grabbing it. Whatever was happening, whatever Marcus thought he heard, she wasn’t going to sit here and wait for 3:00 to prove her wrong. She had to check C-18 one more time, had to see for herself that it was nothing, that twenty years of steel nerves hadn’t rusted overnight.
Her boots hit the corridor again, the echo sharper now, the red emergency lights painting her shadow long and warped against the floor. C-Block stretched ahead, a tunnel of steel and silence, and as she neared C-18, the cold came back, heavier, wrapping around her like a wet blanket. Her flashlight beam cut through it, steady despite the tremor in her chest, landing on the cell door. Locked. Empty. Just like before. But as she turned to head back, a sound—sharp, metallic, unmistakable—rang out behind her. Not a groan, not a scrape, but a click. The sound of a lock disengaging.
She froze, breath fogging in the air, the beam snapping back to the door of C-18. It hadn’t moved, not an inch, but the sound hadn’t come from there. It was further down, past Marcus’s cell, near the end of the block where the corridor turned out of sight. Another click, softer, then a third, a chorus of them now, rippling through the wing like a wave. Her radio crackled to life before she could move, Ramirez’s voice cutting through, panicked in a way she’d never heard.
“Kessler! You hearin’ this? Doors—somethin’s wrong with the doors—” Static swallowed the rest, but she didn’t need to hear it. Her eyes were already on the monitor feeds in her mind, knowing what she’d see if she ran back to the station. Cell doors, unlocking, one by one, at the stroke of 3:00 AM. The ninth hour.
Her hand tightened on the flashlight, the cold metal biting into her palm, as the first faint creak of a hinge echoed down the corridor.
Diane’s boots planted hard against the concrete, the echo of that creaking hinge slicing through the frigid air of C-Block. Her flashlight beam jittered, betraying the steady grip she forced on it, as it swept down the corridor past Marcus’s cell. The row of steel doors stared back, unyielding, but the sound—those clicks, that wave of unseen mechanisms giving way—kept rolling, a slow march of dread she couldn’t outrun. Her pulse thrummed in her ears, louder than Ramirez’s static-choked voice still hissing through the radio clipped to her shoulder. “Kessler, you copy? Kessler—” She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her throat was a vise, her breath shallow puffs of mist in the dim, bluish haze of the overheads.
She took a step, then another, toward the bend in the corridor where the sound seemed to pool, each footfall deliberate, the rubber soles sticking slightly to the polished floor, still smelling of fresh wax and industrial cleaner. The new wing. Too new. Too quiet, except for this. Her free hand brushed the wall for balance, the cinderblock rough and icy under her fingertips, as if the building itself was leaching heat from her body. Twenty years on the job, she’d walked these halls through riots, lockdowns, shanks pulled from mattresses, men screaming for their mothers or their next fix. She’d never felt this—a wrongness that wasn’t just in the air but under her skin, like a splinter she couldn’t see to pull.
Another creak, sharper, from somewhere ahead. Her light caught the edge of a cell door—number C-22, empty like most in this block—its frame just visible around the corner. The door wasn’t open, not yet, but the lock indicator light above it blinked red, then green, then red again, erratic as a dying heartbeat. Her stomach twisted. Those systems were hardwired, triple-secured, checked by techs not three days ago for the ribbon-cutting. They didn’t just glitch. Not like this. Not all at once.
“Ramirez,” she finally rasped into the radio, her voice lower than she meant, like she didn’t want to be heard by whatever was listening. “Talk to me. What’re you seein’ on the feeds?”
Static again, then his voice, tight and fast. “It’s—hell, Kessler, it’s all of ‘em. C-Block doors, unlockin’ one by one. No override, no code input, nothin’. I’m tryin’ to lock ‘em back, but the system’s not respondin’. You gotta—” A burst of noise cut him off, sharp enough to make her wince, and then silence. Dead air. Her thumb pressed the button again, harder, as if that’d force him through. “Ramirez. Ramirez, you there?”
Nothing. Just the hum of the fluorescent tubes above, flickering now, casting long, twitching shadows across the floor. Her light darted to Marcus’s cell as she passed it, C-12, the reinforced glass panel in the door showing him still inside, sitting on the edge of his bunk. His head was down, hands clasped between his knees, but his shoulders were rigid, like he was holding himself together by sheer will. He didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge her, but she felt his awareness, heavy as the air itself. She wanted to stop, to ask if he’d heard it too, if he knew something she didn’t. But the next click—louder, closer—pulled her forward, past his cell, toward the end of the block.
The corridor bent right, opening into a shorter stretch of cells, C-20 through C-28, all unoccupied, all waiting for the next batch of transfers. Her flashlight swept across each door, the locks still clicking in a rhythm that felt almost deliberate, like a countdown. C-22’s door shuddered, just a fraction, the hinges groaning under some invisible strain. Then C-24. Then C-26. Her chest tightened, each breath shallower, the cold air stinging her lungs. It smelled wrong here, not just the sterile tang of new paint and concrete dust, but something underneath—damp, earthy, like turned soil after a rain. Impossible. They were three stories up, no dirt for miles except the scrubland outside the razor wire.
She stopped at C-26, the door trembling now, the lock light steady green. Unlocked. Her hand hovered over her baton, then dropped to her keys instead, the weight of them a small comfort even if they wouldn’t do a damn thing against this. She pressed her back to the wall, the cinderblock scraping her uniform, and edged closer, peering through the narrow glass slit in the door. Empty. Just the bare bunk, the stainless steel toilet, the blank walls. But the air coming through the frame—it hit her face like a slap, colder than the corridor, carrying that same wet, heavy scent. Her skin prickled, every hair on her neck standing up as if something had brushed past her, though she was alone.
“Diane.” A voice, low and rough, behind her. She spun, flashlight slashing through the dark, her heart slamming against her ribs. Marcus stood at the threshold of his cell, door still shut, his face half-lit through the glass. His eyes were wide, not with fear but with something else—recognition, maybe, or resignation. His knuckles pressed against the frame, pale from the pressure. “You feel it, don’t you?” he said, voice muffled but clear enough. “They’re here. Been here. Ain’t just the doors.”
Her mouth went dry. She wanted to snap at him, tell him to shut up, to get back on his bunk before she wrote him up. But the weight in his words matched the weight in her gut. Twenty years, she’d learned to read men like him—death row, hardened, some broken, some still fighting. Marcus was a fighter, always had been, swearing up and down he didn’t do what they pinned on him. She’d never bought it, not fully. Innocent men didn’t last long in Carver Max; the place ground that out of you. But right now, staring into his eyes, she saw something she couldn’t dismiss. Truth, maybe. Or madness close enough to pass for it.
“Who’s here, Webb?” she asked, stepping closer to his cell, her voice steady even if her hands weren’t. “What’re you talkin’ about?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. “You know. You felt it last night, too. Cold that don’t belong. Sounds that ain’t right. They’re walkin’, Diane. Lookin’ for somethin’. And they ain’t gonna stop ‘til they get it.”
Her jaw tightened. She didn’t have time for riddles, not with every door in the block acting like it had a mind of its own. But before she could press him, another sound—deeper, heavier—rumbled through the floor, not a click but a thud, like something massive shifting under the concrete. The lights flickered harder, dimming to a sickly yellow, and the temperature dropped again, sharp enough to make her teeth ache. Marcus’s gaze snapped past her, down the corridor, his face draining of what little color it had.
“You hear that?” he whispered, barely audible now. “That’s them. Movin’.”
She turned, following his stare, her flashlight cutting through the gloom. Nothing. Just the empty stretch of cells, doors still trembling, locks still blinking. But the thud came again, closer, vibrating through her boots, and with it a new sound—low, rhythmic, like footsteps, heavy and uneven, dragging something behind. Her mind raced, cataloging threats: an inmate loose, a guard playing a sick joke, a structural failure in the new wing. But none of it fit. The footsteps weren’t right—too slow, too deliberate, like they belonged to something that didn’t walk so much as lurch.
“Stay put,” she barked at Marcus, not waiting for a reply as she moved down the corridor, her light shaking now, the beam catching on every shadow, every scuff mark on the floor. The footsteps grew louder, echoing off the walls, accompanied by a faint rasp, like fabric or chain dragging across concrete. Her hand found her radio again, thumb mashing the button. “Ramirez, I need backup, now. Somethin’s in the block with me. I’m at the end of C, near 28. Move your ass.”
Static. No answer. Just the footsteps, closer still, rounding the far corner now, out of sight but not out of reach. She stopped, planting herself in the middle of the corridor, flashlight aimed like a weapon. The air was thick, heavy with that damp-earth smell, and her uniform clung to her skin, damp with sweat despite the cold. Every instinct screamed to run, to lock herself in the guard station and wait for dawn. But she didn’t move. Couldn’t. Not after twenty years. You didn’t run in Carver Max. You faced it, whatever it was, or you didn’t last.
The shadow came first, long and distorted, stretching across the wall at the bend. Too tall, too thin, the edges uneven, like it wasn’t cast by a person but by something pieced together wrong. The footsteps stopped, but the dragging didn’t, a slow, grating slide that clawed at her nerves. Then a voice—not Ramirez, not Marcus, not anyone she knew—cut through the silence, low and formal, each word precise as a courtroom gavel.
“We seek what was taken,” it said, the accent strange, old, vowels rolling in a way she hadn’t heard outside history documentaries. “What was buried with us. Render it, or be rendered in turn.”
Her blood turned to ice. The flashlight dropped an inch, her grip faltering, as the shadow shifted, growing, the edges sharpening into something almost human. Almost. She couldn’t see it yet, couldn’t make out a face or a form, but she felt it—watching, waiting, the weight of its attention heavier than any inmate’s stare. Her mind scrambled for logic, for procedure. Call it in. Secure the block. Get to the station. But her body wouldn’t move, rooted by a fear she hadn’t felt since her first night on the job, when she’d walked into a riot blind and barely walked out.
Behind her, Marcus’s voice, faint but urgent. “Diane, don’t look. Don’t give it nothin’. Just go.”
She wanted to. God, she wanted to. But the shadow moved again, stepping into the light—or what little light remained as the overheads dimmed to near darkness. A shape emerged, vague at first, then clearer: broad shoulders, a long coat or robe, head tilted at an angle that wasn’t right, like the neck didn’t fit the body. No face, not yet, just a void where one should be, and the dragging sound—she saw it now, a length of something trailing behind, metal or rope, scraping the floor with every step.
Her hand snapped to her baton, yanking it free, the weight of it grounding her even as her knees trembled. “Identify yourself,” she shouted, voice cracking on the last word, protocol the only thing keeping her from breaking. “Now. Or I will use force.”
The shape stopped, ten feet away, the void of its face tilting toward her. The voice came again, colder, cutting through the air like a blade. “Force is known to us. We endured it in life. We endure it still. Return what was stolen, keeper of this place, or we shall take what remains.”
Her breath hitched, the baton useless in her grip as the shape took another step, the dragging sound louder, the cold so sharp now it burned. She didn’t know what it wanted, didn’t know what she could give, but she knew one thing—whatever this was, it wasn’t leaving. Not without something. And as the lights flickered out completely, plunging the corridor into black, her scream caught in her throat, the only sound the slow, relentless drag of whatever was coming for her.
The darkness swallowed everything, a heavy, suffocating blanket that pressed against Diane Kessler’s skin. The dragging sound grew louder, closer, each scrape against the concrete floor a nail driven into her nerves. Her baton hung limp in her hand, the rubber grip slick with sweat despite the biting cold that clawed at her exposed neck. She couldn’t see the shape anymore, couldn’t see anything, but she felt it—felt the weight of its presence, like a storm rolling in, the air thick with something she couldn’t name. Her back hit the wall, the rough cinderblock scraping through her uniform shirt, grounding her for a split second. She fumbled for her radio with her free hand, fingers trembling as they brushed the clip on her belt. Static hissed through the speaker before she even pressed the button, a garbled mess of noise that sounded almost like words, low and guttural, before it cut out.
“Control, this is Kessler, C-Block, I need—damn it, I need backup now!” Her voice broke, high and raw, echoing down the empty corridor. No response. Just the drag, scrape, drag, closer now, maybe five feet, maybe less. Her chest heaved, lungs burning as she fought the urge to bolt. Running meant turning her back on it, whatever it was, and twenty years on the job told her that was a death sentence. You don’t turn away from a threat. You face it, even if your guts are screaming to get out.
“Return what was stolen,” the voice rasped again, so close now she swore she felt the air shift, a frigid gust against her cheek. It wasn’t human, not really—too hollow, too old, like it came from a throat that hadn’t drawn breath in a century. Her mind scrambled, clawing for meaning. Stolen? What stolen? She didn’t have anything, didn’t know anything. She was just a guard, a cog in this machine of concrete and steel, not a keeper of secrets or relics or whatever this thing thought she was.
“I don’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered, hating the shake in her voice, the way it betrayed her. “I’m just doing my job. Tell me what you want, and I’ll—” She cut herself off, not sure what she’d promise, not sure she could deliver. The dragging stopped. Silence slammed down, heavier than the dark, and for a moment she thought it was gone. Then she felt it—a brush of something against her arm, not a hand, not flesh, but a pressure, cold as a winter grave, lingering just long enough to make her skin crawl.
“We were stripped of justice,” it said, the words precise, formal, like a judge reading a sentence. “Buried without name. Denied our truth. You walk above our bones, keeper. You guard our shame. Return it, or we claim what stands in its place.”
Her mind spun, fragments of the past few nights crashing together—the clanking in C-18, the cold that didn’t belong, Marcus Webb’s wild eyes when he’d screamed about seeing “them.” The new wing. The dirt they’d turned over to build it. An unmarked cemetery, someone had said in the break room, half a joke, half a whisper. Old rumors about the land Carver sat on, executions from way back, bodies tossed in shallow pits. She hadn’t believed it, hadn’t wanted to. But now, with that cold pressure still lingering on her arm, with the dark so thick she couldn’t see her own hand, she felt the weight of it. The truth of it.
“I’m not—I can’t—” She swallowed hard, throat dry as sandpaper. “I don’t know how to fix this. Tell me what to do. Please.” The last word slipped out, a plea she hadn’t meant to make, raw and desperate. Twenty years, she’d never begged. Not for anything. But this wasn’t a con with a shiv or a riot in the yard. This was something else, something older, and she didn’t have the tools for it.
The pressure on her arm lifted, and for a heartbeat, she thought she’d gotten through. Then the lights flickered back on, weak and yellow, casting long, jagged shadows down the corridor. The shape was gone. No figure, no dragging sound, just the empty stretch of C-Block, the cell doors still shut tight, the air still cold enough to sting her lungs. Her baton clattered to the floor, her grip giving out as her knees buckled. She caught herself against the wall, breath coming in short, ragged gasps, her free hand clawing at the rough concrete just to feel something solid.
“Kessler, you copy?” The radio crackled, sharp and sudden, making her flinch. It was Hargrove, second shift, his voice tinny but real. “We lost you for a minute. What’s your status?”
She fumbled the radio off her belt, thumb shaking as she pressed the button. “I’m… I’m here. C-Block. All clear.” The lie tasted bitter, but what was she supposed to say? That she’d just had a conversation with something that wasn’t there? That she’d felt it touch her? Hargrove would think she’d cracked, and Pruitt would have her on psych eval before the sun came up. No. She had to keep this in, had to figure it out herself.
“Copy that. Stay sharp. We’re still down two for the overnight. You good to hold?”
“Yeah,” she muttered, wiping sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. “I’m good.” Another lie. She wasn’t good. She wasn’t anything close to good. But she clipped the radio back to her belt, picked up her baton, and forced her legs to move, one step, then another, down the corridor. Her boots echoed, too loud in the silence, each sound making her twitch, expecting that dragging noise to start again. It didn’t. Not yet.
She passed C-12, Marcus Webb’s cell, and slowed without meaning to. Through the narrow window, she could see him sitting on the edge of his bunk, elbows on knees, head in his hands. Not asleep, not pacing like most death row guys at this hour. Just… still. Too still. She tapped the glass with the end of her baton, not hard, just enough to get his attention. His head snapped up, eyes wide, bloodshot, catching the dim light. For a second, she thought he looked right through her, like he saw something else entirely.
“You alright in there, Webb?” Her voice was steadier now, the job taking over, pushing the fear down where she could ignore it.
He didn’t answer right away, just stared, lips moving like he was chewing on words he didn’t want to spit out. Finally, he muttered, “They talk to you yet?”
Her stomach dropped, a cold sweat breaking out on her neck. “Who?”
“You know who.” His voice was low, rough, like he’d been yelling for hours. “The ones that don’t belong. The ones that come at three. They’re lookin’ for somethin’. Ain’t gonna stop ‘til they get it.”
She tightened her grip on the baton, the rubber biting into her palm. “You seein’ things, inmate. Lack of sleep’ll do that. Get some rest.” She turned to go, needing to get away from those eyes, from the way they pinned her, like he knew exactly what she’d just been through.
“I ain’t crazy, Kessler,” he called after her, voice rising just enough to carry. “They showed me. Old clothes, old talk. They ain’t from now. And they ain’t happy. You felt it, didn’t you? That cold?”
She froze, one foot half-raised, her breath catching. She wanted to snap back, to tell him to shut it, to lock down whatever he was trying to drag out of her. But the cold was still there, lingering under her skin, and his words hit too close. She didn’t turn around. Didn’t give him the satisfaction. Just kept walking, her boots heavier with every step, until she was out of C-Block and back in the main hub, where the lights were brighter and the air didn’t feel like death.
The rest of the shift dragged, each minute a small eternity. She didn’t go back to C-Block, didn’t trust herself to. Hargrove clocked in at five, his boots scuffing the floor as he tossed her a nod. “Rough one?”
She grunted, not meeting his eyes as she logged out at the desk, her pen scratching too hard against the clipboard. “Same old.” Another lie. She could feel the weight of it piling up, each one a brick in a wall she wasn’t sure she could hold up much longer.
Outside, the pre-dawn air bit at her face as she crossed the lot to her truck, the sky a bruised purple over the flat Texas horizon. The prison loomed behind her, a hulking beast of concrete and barbed wire, its new wing jutting out like a broken limb. She could still feel the cold, even out here, even with the smell of dust and exhaust in her nose instead of that dank, sour prison air. Her keys jangled as she unlocked the door, her hand pausing on the handle. She didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to close her eyes and see that shape again, hear that voice. Return what was stolen. The words looped in her head, relentless, like the dragging sound she couldn’t shake.
She slid into the driver’s seat, the worn leather creaking under her weight, and slammed the door harder than she meant to. The dashboard clock blinked 5:47 AM, the green digits too bright in the dim cab. Her hands gripped the wheel, knuckles white, as she stared out at the empty road leading away from Carver. She’d seen a lot in twenty years—blood, betrayal, men broken down to nothing. She’d thought she could handle anything. But this… this wasn’t something she could cuff or write up or shove into a cell. This was bigger, older, and it wasn’t going away.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, a sharp jolt against her thigh. She fished it out, the screen lighting up with a text from an unknown number. Meet me. Admin lot. 6 AM. Got answers. No name, no context. Her thumb hovered over the reply button, suspicion prickling at the back of her neck. Could be a con’s buddy, someone fishing for a favor. Could be Pruitt testing her, seeing if she’d crack under whatever he thought she knew. But her gut, the same gut that had kept her alive on the job all these years, told her it wasn’t either. It told her this was tied to C-Block, to the cold, to the voice.
She glanced at the clock again. 5:51. Nine minutes to decide. Her jaw tightened, teeth grinding as she tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. She didn’t trust easy, never had. But she couldn’t ignore this, not after tonight. Not after feeling that touch, hearing that demand. Something had to give—either the truth, or her sanity.
The engine growled to life as she turned the key, the truck vibrating under her. She pulled out of her spot, tires crunching over gravel, and swung toward the admin lot on the far side of the compound. The sky lightened just enough to outline the prison’s silhouette, a black scar against the dawn. Her pulse thudded in her ears, louder than the engine, as she parked near the chain-link fence, headlights cutting through the thin morning mist. No one there yet. Just her, the quiet hum of the truck, and the weight of a decision she wasn’t sure she was ready to make.
6:00 AM ticked over. A shadow moved near the gate, a figure stepping into view, hands in pockets, face half-hidden by a hoodie. Too far to make out details, but close enough to know it wasn’t a guard. Close enough to know this wasn’t random. Diane cut the engine, the sudden silence pressing in, and opened the door, one foot on the ground, her baton still clipped to her belt. Whatever this was, whoever this was, she wasn’t walking in blind. Not again.
“You Kessler?” The voice was low, cautious, carrying just over the still air. A man’s voice, rough around the edges, like someone who’d smoked too long or talked too little.
“Who’s asking?” she shot back, staying by the truck, one hand resting near her belt. Her eyes scanned him, taking in the slouch, the worn jeans, the way he kept his distance. Not a threat, not yet. But she’d been wrong before.
He stepped closer, just enough for the weak dawn light to catch his face—lined, tired, maybe sixty, with a graying beard and eyes that didn’t waver. “Name’s Dominguez. Luis. I’m the chaplain here. Heard about C-Block. Heard what’s happening at three. And I think I know why.”
Her breath caught, a sharp, involuntary hitch. The cold from earlier crept back, not in the air, but in her bones, a memory of that corridor, that voice. She didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stared at him, waiting for the punchline, the catch. But his face stayed steady, no flinch, no smirk. Just a man who looked like he’d seen too much, same as her.
“Talk,” she said finally, voice flat, giving nothing away. But her heart was hammering, and her fingers twitched near the baton, ready for whatever came next.
He nodded, slow, like he’d expected the pushback. “Not here. Not now. Too many ears. But I’ll tell you this much—those voices, the ones you’re hearing? They’re real. They’re old. And they’re tied to this place in ways the warden don’t want anyone digging into. Meet me tomorrow, off-site. I got records, old ones. From before Carver was even built. You want answers, I got ‘em. But you gotta be willing to look.”
She studied him, the weight of his words settling like concrete in her gut. Records. Old voices. A chaplain who knew more than he should. It could be a trap, a game. But the cold on her arm, the drag of that unseen thing, the way Marcus had looked at her—they weren’t games. They were real. And if this guy had even a piece of the puzzle, she couldn’t walk away. Not now.
“Where and when?” she asked, her voice quieter now, but no less hard.
“Tomorrow. Noon. Diner on Route 17, just past the county line. Come alone. And Kessler—don’t tell Pruitt. He’s got his own reasons to keep this buried. You get me?”
She nodded, just once, her jaw tight. “I get you.”
He turned without another word, disappearing back into the gray dawn, leaving her standing by the truck, the mist curling around her boots. The prison loomed in the distance, silent now, but she knew it wasn’t sleeping. It was waiting. For her, for Marcus, for whatever was still under that new wing, demanding to be returned. She climbed back into the cab, the door slamming with a hollow thud, and sat there, hands on the wheel, staring at nothing. Twenty years, she’d thought she knew Carver, thought she knew every corner of its ugliness. But she didn’t know this. Didn’t know how deep it went. And as the first real light of morning broke over the horizon, casting long shadows across the lot, she felt it—the weight of a truth she wasn’t sure she could carry, but couldn’t turn away from. Not anymore.