“I think we should go back upstairs,” Nolan tells me as I run my palm over the cool stone wall, feeling for the doorknob. “I don’t think we should open that door. Something doesn’t feel right about this.”
He’s probably correct. Nothing good can come from opening this door, but I can’t stop. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment forever and I can’t turn back. The truth is right in front of me, screaming at me to keep moving, to open the door, and remember. Just remember.
“Do you remember? Do you know? T means death, death means T. Remember T. REMEMBER!”
My hand bumps into the handle, and I smile to myself as I wrap my palm around it, but pause before turning it.
“There’s a story that’s been passed down between the guards for years,” I speak softly, letting the anticipation build before I pull the door open. The anticipating is the best part. I remember being in this room the last time. The excitement of finally coming to the end of my plan and realizing I only had one step left before it was finished.
“Behind this door is another room. There isn’t much of a floor, maybe around four feet all the way around the outer edge by the wall. It drops right down into a sub-basement. I don’t even know why they call it the sub-basement. It’s no bigger than any other cell in the prison, but it’s not a cell. It’s a hole. Back in the 1800’s, they didn’t have solitary confinement and cages; they had ‘The Hole.’ Dirt floors, dirt walls, and shackles attached to those dirt walls to hold the men down there. The shackles were overkill since the hole goes down about ten feet and once you were in, there was no getting out unless the guards lowered a rope ladder.”
The door creaks as I pull it open the tiniest bit.
“Something tells me this story is not going to end well,” Nolan comments with a nervous chuckle, trying to lighten the moment that has clearly descended into darkness.
I ignore him and continue.
“There were four men shackled down in the hole one night when it started to rain. It came down in buckets and before they knew it, the guards noticed the hole was starting to fill up with water. Someone needed to get the ladder and go down to remove the men, but it was late. They had families and needed to make the long ride home to check on them, make sure they were safe in the storm as it pounded down all around the prison. They argued. No one wanted to go down in the hole that was filling up faster and faster with rain bubbling up from the ground. The men were screaming, begging for someone to get them out. The guards turned, made their way upstairs, and eventually the screaming stopped. The next day when the storm had passed, they went downstairs and found the hole completely filled with water, but slowly starting to drain. Still, no one wanted to go down in the hole so they left the bodies down there and closed the door.”
Pulling open the door the rest of the way, I hold my breath in anticipation. There’s something in this room I need to see. Something I have to see. It pulls me forward, moves my feet without my help and calls to me.
“So they just left four dead bodies down here. Like, forever? No wonder people think this place is haunted. This has got to be everyone’s favorite part of the tour.”
I shake my head, moving the beam of the flashlight along the floor at my feet, toward the room.
“This isn’t part of the tour. No one is allowed in this room because my father thinks it’s too dangerous. He’s been wanting to have the hole filled in, but he hasn’t had the time.”
I finally aim the flashlight beam into the room and all the air leaves my lungs in a whoosh when I see what’s in front of me as I continue moving inside the room until my feet are right at the edge.
A loud thunk sounds behind me and I jump, turning to see Nolan’s body fall to the side, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. I cringe as his head smacks against the hard floor, my eyes slowly moving away from his unmoving form to the doorway.
With the dim light from the single bulb at the other end of the basement, I can only see a shadowed outline of the person standing in the doorway with a long, heavy piece of wood held in the air that I’m guessing is the cause of Nolan’s crumpled, unconscious body lying by my feet.
I don’t need a bright light to tell me who it is.
“My name is Ravenna Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, I live in a prison, and I’m going to make you see the truth.”
Chapter 21
“What did you do? Why would you hurt him like that?” I shout, quickly glancing down at Nolan to make sure he’s still alive.
Even after all the things I’ve learned about myself and how utterly insane I feel right at this moment as words and memories and pain and all the things I’ve blocked come rushing back, I still don’t want Nolan to actually die, no matter how many times I’ve fantasized about it.