“The next tour of the facility is in thirty minutes and Ike hasn’t shown up yet. How many times have you told me to fire him and get a new tour guide?”
My father chuckles as he pulls down a heavy steel lever and the entire row of rusty cell doors slowly creaks open. I wish I could laugh and share the joke with him but the truth is that I have no idea how many times I might have had this conversation with him in the past. My hand unconsciously reaches up to my forehead and the tips of my fingers graze the small bandage held there with medical tape. According to my parents and the doctor, the bump hidden beneath the white gauze is to blame for the confusion and overall uneasy feeling I’ve had since I woke up two days ago.
Sitting alone in my room for the last few days with nothing to occupy my time while I healed, I tried to force the memories that were buried deep in my subconscious. Scenes from my life flashed behind my eyes at random times, each one of them so fleeting and confusing that as soon as I attempted to reach out and grab one, it disappeared faster than I could take my next breath.
Stepping into the vast five-story-tall room, I walk past my father and look inside each cell as I go, wondering about all of the criminals who spent time here long ago and why my father was so intent on making us live here after the prison shut down. Having no other family to help us and no other job prospects when the prison was closed, my father convinced the state to turn the facility into a historical site and tourist attraction. We could continue to reside in the living quarters attached to the prison as long as my father agreed to manage the upkeep and run all tourist activities. With people around the world fascinated by the prison’s history, as well as those who believe the tales of it being haunted, our tours are always sold out. It makes the state happy because the money this place brings in is a nice chunk for them, and it makes my father happy because we’ll always have a roof over our heads, regardless of how strange the contents under the roof are.
The sound of my footsteps on the cement floor echoes around the giant room. Glancing up as I walk, the setting sun streaming in from the tall windows illuminates with an orange glow each of the five open levels that mirror the first floor. Row after row of paint-chipped cell doors stretches out in front of me as far as the eye can see. The only difference on the upper floors is the addition of metal railings to protect people from falling to their death when they walk along the narrow three-foot ledge in front of the cells. Not that it helped much back in the day, since there were plenty of reports of accidents that probably weren’t accidents at all, considering why the Gallow’s is no longer a working prison today. Still, the railings provide some comfort to tourists as they precariously walk the ledges of each floor and stare into the rooms where murderers and rapists spent the remainder of their days.
Stopping in front of one of the cells, I stare inside the shadowed six by eight room. Everything in the Gallow’s was kept exactly as is when it was closed to add to the eeriness factor and keep tourists coming back. Some cells are in worse condition than others—everything from crumbling stone walls to holes in the floor from an attempt at fixing the plumbing—but for the most part, each cell contains a toilet, sink, and the metal frame of a bunk bed. A few even contain crude drawings, etched words of help, or slash marks indicating how many years the prior inhabitant spent inside that room. On the stone wall right above the toilet of the cell I’m standing in front of, a satanic face stares back at me, complete with horns and a forked tongue sticking out of its mouth. The words “You will pay for your sins” directly above the face makes my heart beat faster, but not in fear. Laughter bubbles up in my throat and I have to cough to hold back my abnormal reaction to the nightmarish drawing that I feel like I’ve stared at a hundred times before. It’s etched into my brain and I can almost feel my fingers tracing over the words on the cold stone.
My father’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “Are you okay, Ravenna? I can’t even remember the last time you were in one of the cell blocks.”
It seems odd to hear my father say he can’t remember me ever being in this area. I knew that drawing was in that particular cell and I walked right up to it, knowing it would be there. There’s a feeling of familiarity in here, like I’ve walked up and down the rows of cells thousands of times, memorizing each and every one. I drag my gaze away from the words that inspire in me an unnatural urge to laugh to watch my father walk toward me.