“This must have been where officials and maybe family members of victims or the criminal would come to watch the inmate’s final moments. They would sit here as the inmate would be led upstairs and watch as he dropped through the trap door to his death,” Liam said, his voice quiet.
Cadence looked into the other room through the window-wall and could see what Liam and his camera couldn’t. A roiling mass of shadows that seemed to mimic water was in there, all over the room. It would try to rise up in some form or another, but it was dripping bits of itself back to the ground like rain. It reminded her of a less cohesive version of the non-human chaos entity she and Snow had dealt with at Lexington Hills when she had first crossed over. That recognition did nothing to lessen her feeling of dread.
Liam panned the camera around the viewing room slowly. “Okay, let’s go check out the gallows,” he said with a sigh, mustering his courage to sound more confident than he was. This place was getting to him, he was getting creeped out, but he couldn’t let the viewers know that.
“You really don’t want to go in there,” Cadence said, knowing her voicing her thoughts on the matter was fruitless. She followed him as he retraced his steps out of the viewing room and back to the small entrance.
The stairs were concrete with iron bars for a railing. Liam’s footsteps on the stairs made a strange sound. They should have echoed at least a little in the emptiness of the room, but they were barely there. It was like he was walking on carpet instead of concrete. As Liam lifted his feet, Cadence could see more of the inky bits of shadow under his foot before they disappeared back into the concrete. Liam reached the top of the stairs and opened the door to the gallows room.
Cadence went in with him, unwilling to leave the breather unprotected but if she had her way they would not have been in there. Sounds enveloped them as they entered, though she couldn’t be sure what Liam could and couldn’t hear. There were growls, screams, sobs, all different voices and intonations coming from the shadows, and from all over the room.
“Jesus,” Liam said in a soft breath. “I know you can’t feel anything through the television, but this room is incredibly daunting. There is so much anger, so much grief, it’s almost suffocating. The feeling in this room is so oppressive and overwhelming.”
A thundering sound like a chorus of voices rising up in an angry, defiant scream resounded through the room. Liam froze, his eyes widening, confirming to Cadence that he had heard that one.
Cadence looked over at one corner of the room where it seemed the majority of the bits and pieces of shadow kept trying to coalesce and form themselves into something solid. “You guys need to cut this shit out right now. Be quiet. As soon as we leave, you can go back to making noise,” she said. She had no idea if the bits of dark souls would have enough sentience to hear and understand her, but she had to try.
“They ain’t gonna listen to you, Missy,” Roy Pruitt’s southern drawl came from the far end of the room, at the ground floor near the window-wall.
“You,” Cadence said. Her voice was hard and almost as full of anger and hate as the bits and pieces of souls in the room. She teleported down to the ground level of the building, leaving Liam up on the gallows floor by himself.
Roy smiled as she materialized in front of him. “Having fun in here, darlin’?”
“You need to pray that Snow gets out of that damned box and that we can get the video away from these guys somehow,” Cadence said.
“Really?” Roy stepped closer to the glass wall as he said this. “That’s the only footage yer worried about?” He smiled and put his arm through the glass. A bluish light shot down his arm from his shoulder to his fingertips, and the glass instantly shattered.
The falling of glass onto concrete was as musical as it was loud in the still room. The suddenness of it made Liam shriek in surprise, and even the shadows backed off as if startled. Liam focused his camera in on where the glass had been and walked closer to the edge of the gallows to get a better view.
“What on earth just happened?” Liam’s voice was hushed as he spoke to himself. “This is insane.” Panning the camera down he recorded the bits and pieces of shattered glass that littered the ground floor. The window had been enormous, two stories tall and probably 12 feet wide. The amount of glass it left on the floor was considerable.
Another phantom scream sounded from the shadows. Cadence looked, and their movements seemed more agitated. Liam stopped when he heard the scream.
“Okay, no bullshit, this place is freaking me out,” Liam admitted.
“Looks like yer boy there is getting a bit more than he thought he would, huh?” Roy had a smug, satisfied smirk on his face that Cadence wanted to punch. “You wanna play with big boys Missy? Well, come on an’ play then. I’m sure we’ll have a great time helpin’ you learn yer place.”
“Look you misogynistic piece of shit―“ Cadence began, but Roy cut her off.
“No, you better look,” Roy chuckled and disappeared.
Cadence let out an emphatic grunt of frustration, knowing that even if Liam or his equipment picked up her sound that it would just blend in or be overpowered by the noise of the agitated shadows. She teleported back up to the gallows floor to keep tabs on Liam.
The ghost hunter was backing up from the edge of the gallows, still filming the broken glass and now vacant window area. “I think I caught a light anomaly down there, on orb or two. We’ll have to go back over the footage though to be sure,” he said, talking to his camera again. “This place is insane.”
Cadence noticed the shadows out of the corner of her eye. They were getting taller, climbing the far wall as if they were reaching for something. That was when she realized there was a lever on the wall, and it was as if the shadows were trying to reach for it. Looking over at Liam, she saw him back up onto the trap door, still immersed in what he saw on his camera’s display.
“No!” she shouted, teleporting over to the wall with the lever, but it was too late. In the blink of an eye, the shadows surged and solidified enough to yank the lever down. The floor dropped out from under Liam, and he screamed as he fell to the floor below, landing with an audible crunch.
The shadows moved, trying to lunge towards Cadence now that she was close. They covered her hand, moving up her forearm. It felt like a million spiders had been let loose to crawl on her flesh, but other than tugging on her they were able to do little before dripping away back to the floor as they had expended most of their coherence and energy to pull the gallows trap. Cadence teleported down to where Liam had fallen beneath the trap door as she shook off the remnants of the dark souls.
His right leg was broken, Cadence could tell that immediately. It made a U shape out to the side. Blood was beginning to soak through into fabric of his jeans in a couple of places. The other leg looked more intact, but she had no way of knowing. All she knew is that it wasn’t at the grotesque angle his right leg was. The broken glass of the viewing window had scattered all over the floor, and he had some cuts from landing on pieces that she could see. He was breathing, and Cadence was thankful for the cold weather making his breath physically apparent.
The shadowy bits of souls, pieces of anger, hate, loss, all began trying to get closer to Liam’s body. Cadence moved to stand by the man’s head and pulled her knife. The leftovers of criminal souls once more tried to coalesce, to become a shape. Cadence didn’t hesitate in moving forward and cutting into the shadowy shape. More howls of anger and pain erupted through the room.
“You don’t get to have him,” Cadence said, her voice forceful. The shadows dripped, formed, and ebbed around her, seeming to almost seethe, until they backed off, slinking their way back to the walls.
Cadence looked down once more at the unconscious ghost hunter. The screen of his handheld camera had shattered. She had no idea if the device was still recording or not, but it was pointed towards the seats and the viewing area. The camera he had strapped to his chest was probably still working just fine, as the p
lastic case it was in seemed undamaged. She decided to stay where she was, by his head, and hoped she was well enough out of the camera’s view because she was going to have to use some energy.
She sat down on the floor, unbothered by the bits of broken glass. She laid down, curving her body towards the handheld camera. Grabbing it, she did her best to pull energy from the battery, trying to kill the camera as well as give herself a boost. She didn’t have Snow’s adeptness with electronics, but she was able to find the energy and pull a great deal of it into her.
She sheathed her knife for the moment and closed her eyes as she sat back up. Mental image, she reminded herself. She felt the weight of what she wanted at her belt, and as Cade reached for it, she only hoped it would actually work. There was no way she was going to leave Liam alone and at the mercy of souls that had been so evil in life they had received a death sentence, even if it was to get help for him. There was also no way she could magically get him back to Aiden and Teeny, at least not that she knew about.
The feel of the radio in her hand was achingly familiar and her hand wrapped around it, pressing the button as if it hadn’t been months since she had used one. “Andy,” she said, and released the button, holding her breath.
Andy Halleran sat in his car, keeping watch on the approach to the prison, making sure no one came into the area to interfere with the TV show filming. He had heard some weird noises coming from the prison but hadn’t really paid it much mind. Everyone knew the stories about the place, and sounds were a usual occurrence here.
He jumped when his radio flared to life, the static loud in the quiet car. He picked up the radio, and faintly heard his name being spoken by a familiar female voice. He blinked, looking at the receiver, feeling a little numb. He knew Cadence was a ghost, and with Aiden here he thought there was a chance she could be here as well, but he hadn’t expected this.
He picked up the radio and pressed the button. “Cade?”
Relief flooded Cadence as she heard his voice, sounding far away and tinny on her radio. She had no idea how much she would be able to get through the radio before the extra energy she had stolen from the camera would give out. “Andy, trouble. Help. Gallows.” She could feel the drain on her strength with each word she spoke, so she knew she had to be short. Silence filled the room as she waited to see if there would be a reply.
It felt like an eternity, but she knew it was only a few seconds before she heard his voice, full of static and sounding very far away as he said, “10-4.”
Chapter 25
Snow couldn’t believe that the young woman was still trying to communicate with him, even though he had made it abundantly clear that he was not willing to talk. He was still captive in the box, his head bowed, unmoving and unresponsive to the continued nattering of Teeny. He did have to admit that she had just as strong, a stubborn streak in her as Cadence did.
Aiden sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair. “Teeny, if this is the real deal, why isn’t he responding?”
“What do you mean by that?” Teeny was indignant that Aiden could suggest the person in the box was a fake.
“Well,” Aiden said, lowering his voice, “you guys did say you had tricks up your sleeves if things were boring here.” He shrugged, leaving the suggestion at that. It almost physically hurt to accuse the young woman of trying to fake evidence, especially when he knew how real what they had was, but he had to try anything to discredit what they were seeing.
“Seriously?” Teeny rose to her feet, advancing on Aiden which was somewhat comical given their height difference. “Jesus, Aiden, I thought you of all people would be happy with this. This box works, we trapped a spirit.”
“Yes, a spirit that doesn’t look like it belongs here, and who isn’t talking,” Aiden countered. His conscious hurt at the fact that he was trying to throw shade on something that had worked and that he knew she had to have spent hours on. He had no other choice, however. There was no way he was going to be able to convince them to bury the footage, so all he could do is try to frame it as a setup.
“I thought we had already agreed that he must have been a detective that got caught here during one of the riots and killed.” Teeny wasn’t about to let the challenge to the validity of her work go.
“I mean it’s possible, yeah,” Aiden said with a sigh. He wondered why Cadence hadn’t come up with a way to free Snow. “Maybe there’s something wrong with the audio components of the box? Maybe we should take a look?”
“We heard him talk. Granted, only one word, but still,” Teeny said, arguing that nothing was wrong with her box trap.
“True. I’m sorry for saying something might be hinky about it,” Aiden said, relenting. “I’m just frustrated that we can’t get anything out of him. Maybe we should let him go and try to get one that’s a little more responsive.”
The tension in Teeny’s shoulders seemed to ease a bit as Aiden backed off of the assertion that the box was a fake or some kind of trick. “Maybe,” she said. She checked her watch and frowned. “Where the hell is Liam?”
“Maybe he is having better luck out there than we are in here,” Aiden said with a chuckle.
“I hope so. I hope Liam doesn’t run into something like I did back in solitary,” Teeny said.
“You want to go check on him? I haven’t heard any of those demon train sounds coming from that way in a while,” Aiden said.
“Nah, it’s fine. If Liam is having luck, he will kill me for interrupting him. But if we haven’t heard from him in another half an hour, I’m going to buzz him on the radio. Luck be damned,” she said.
Snow was glad that at the very least they couldn’t hear what he was hearing. Even over the buzzing of the electrical field, he was caught in, he could hear the screams and howls coming from the gallows and whatever inhabited that area. To Snow, it seemed that the cries were growing louder.
A loud thudding from the entrance grabbed the attention of the ghost and two breathers alike. Squeaking hinges echoed loudly in the building, and that sound was followed by thudding footsteps that were running right towards them. Teeny rose to her feet as she and Aiden shone their flashlights in the direction the sounds were coming from, watching a light bounce its way towards them.
Andy ran into the room and stopped, taking only a moment to process the set up in front of him before looking over at Aiden. “The gallows, have you been there yet?”
“No, but Liam is out there,” Aiden answered.
“Why?” Teeny asked, moving closer to the detective. Concern was clear on her face.
“Where is it?” Andy asked, looking to Teeny. “Point the direction.”
“I’ll do better than that, this way,” Teeny said. She took off running, knowing that the detective would have absolutely no issue keeping up with her short stride.
As their footsteps receded, Aiden looked at the box, and at Snow. He ran a hand through his hair and turned, walking behind the camera he had been doing his best to block earlier. He then stopped the recording and quickly did the same for the camera strapped to his chest. “No more recording for now,” he said. He then took a step towards the box but stopped, his eyes going wide.
Roy Pruitt stood in front of Aiden, his arm outstretched, his hand disappearing just under Aiden’s coat. Aiden couldn’t see the ghost, but he could feel the burning of the touch on and in his chest. He also saw Snow stir in the box.
“Let him go,” Snow said, having heard Aiden’s promise of no cameras recording.
“Now, why on earth should I do a thing like that?” Roy asked. “Way I figure it, you and that filly of yers didn’t really come here cause of the two in the gallows. You came tied to this guy an’ his friends. I didn’t miss yer girl touching this one, tryin’ to talk to him.”
“Not…tied…” Aiden tried to gasp out the words. He couldn’t really hear the conversation, but because Roy was touching him, he was getting the gist of it. He was also aware that the spirit impaling him was full of anger, hate, and
bitterness at pretty much everyone. And that he was desperately trying to protect a secret here.
“This prison is our jurisdiction, we would have been here regardless if this young man was or not. Because we have jobs to do, Mr. Pruitt. You have a job to do as well if you haven’t forgotten. One that includes protecting breathers from the spirits in your charge.” Snow wished he could be making these arguments on his feet instead of cooped up in a box. He was aware that his authority was taking a bit of a beating by being captive.
Roy turned his head to one side and spat. “Job,” he said, and the bitterness in his voice was evident. “The dead shouldn’t have jobs. We put in our time on that hamster wheel. Should be sun, sand, women, and beer from now on. And that’s what we’re gonna get.”
“What do you mean by that?” Snow just wanted to distract Roy and get him to let go of Aiden.
“Doesn’t matter,” Cadence said, materializing beside Roy and not hesitating. She moved like lightning, her fist, and every ounce of power she could muster connecting with Roy’s cheek. The force of the blow sent Roy reeling, and he lost his grip on Aiden. Roy glared at Cadence and disappeared, teleporting off to somewhere else in the prison.
Aiden gasped and staggered back a few steps as he was released, though his chest still burned where Roy had touched him. He was shaky, feeling a little weak and light headed. Aiden didn’t know if Snow had managed to get the guy to let him go or if something else had happened, he was just glad to be released. He got his equilibrium and hurried to the control panel of the box. He flipped a couple of switches, and the box turned off, releasing Snow.
The Dead Show Page 17
