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#Writever 10.9 — (A Very Special) Prison CW: Horror elements.

Micheal Crow

I looked at the email again, looked at the city night outside the office window, and looked at the email. Not spam. Legit looking, on the face of it, but disturbing. Not axing the redevelopment package, which was ridiculous, but axing... me?

A hand on the back of my neck came back sweaty. I shook my head. No reason to feel spooked. Kim said I was doing a great job on getting the contractors, architects, and the city all on the same page, and keeping the protestors (who frankly protested any development) at bay. I shut the laptop, disconnected the wires, and shut down the office. Everyone had gone home, hours ago.

Outside, the damp city streets downtown presented their own special gloom; the lights off in all the shops and the restaurants. "Glad I had that Cup of Noodles," I muttered, lifting the collar of my macintosh against the cold breeze. I waited 45 minutes for my subway, which it being Monday night downtown, with the theaters all dark, really annoyed me—especially since my laptop battery had died in the first fifteen. Looking down the tracks into darkness, shadows from an odd number of broken fluorescents, smelling the overturned trash can, and the tick-tick-bang made occasionally by pipes, threatened to spook me. It made me think of the email. Nobody else waited.

When I hopped on the train, I did see a man in black rush down the stairs and catch the last car. I'd stepped into the first. I clutched my laptop bag to my chest, getting a strange sense of /deja vu./ It was like I /expected/ to see the old woman with a green scarf tied above her head—a housekeeper—and the guy with a boombox, oddly wearing pods in his ears that glowed blue. And the man on the stairs.

I sat up front, shuddering, really wanting to be home badly. But no. I was housesitting for Maple. The last stop, naturally.

By the end of the line, I'd calmed considerably. It was in Pottsham, where suburban met rural. I saw the trees passing the train slow quickly, then the terminus building came into view, and a parking lot. People exited up and down the train, but none followed me before I turned the corner. Maple's house was a short walk from the station. I looked up. Moths circled the light post and my breath steamed. Pine scent filled the air, and I heard car engines start.

I followed the well-lit paved path by the woods that curved away toward the main street, maybe a half-mile away. Trees rustled in a breeze, bringing on another /deja vu./ I remembered having been previously freaked out and running, but that had never happened. It was autumn and, reassuringly, smelt like it. I smiled as I looked around, noting normal shadows, the red and yellow leaves, and shrugged.

A stick snapped.

As I whirled around, a rock struck the side of my head.

"Ow, ow, ow!" I cried dropping the laptop case, a hand to my bloody scalp, stumbling because I felt suddenly dizzy. More /deja vu/ interfered with me staying upright and I fell. I remembered a fireman's axe and...

I saw a man wearing black, pulling down a black ski mask and failing. He asked, voice gravelly, "Mr. Ranger? Mr. Ronald Ranger?"

Strangely, I recognized his face: /He was me!/ I screamed and tried scrambling back to my feet.

He ran at me, waving an axe. I didn't get far.

Dr. Coven

Marge Ranger looked through the glass at the hospital bed, taking in the beeping monitor and all the leads inserted into Micheal Crow's shaved skull. She didn't look at the sleeping pale man with the scruffy beard, or at his disconcerting relaxed expression. She had objected to the judge about the former fireman's sentence.

"Crow murdered my husband."

"And a few dozen others."

"He looks so peaceful—"

She'd stopped because the man had started twitching, eyes moving rapidly, gasping as if he was screaming but couldn't move due to sleep paralysis. I took her shaking hand, which she flinched away. I said, "He's in prison, the prison of his mind. We are teaching him empathy. We did MRIs on him as we described how his victims died, so we can trigger dreams based on that. He keeps reliving their death, from their point of view, getting killed over and over again, recognizing his killer is actually /himself/.

"How horrible." She sounded convinced, though. I didn't say that we'd announced Mr. Ranger's name before her arrival so he might relive her husband's death for her. Over time, he'd remember all the details, anticipating what was about to happen. When he woke, he'd remember those details.

That might be too much for the woman.

Instead, I added, "It's a nightmare from which we won't let him wake."

[1hr 45m composition and revision. Author retains copyright]

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