Burnington Gaol

T W O | Frank

The sirens screeched all around him, the sound filling his ears and ripping through his skull.

Frank's feet pounded against the solid stone pathway as he sprinted along the outskirts of the prison, the shouts and footsteps of the guards closing in from behind. And yet, in the chaos of it all, in the threat of being captured and beaten and hanged, he found one, tiny sliver of comfort.

Jimmy made it over the wall, and no matter what they did to him, they couldn't take that away.

Frank burst through into the heart of the prison, the Turning Circle. A handful of doors clustered together in the shape of a crescent moon, each one leading to a different part of the prison. He tried them all, but only one was unlocked.

The door slammed him as he ran into the courtyard, where the caged prisoners stood eagerly in the cells, awoken by the commotion. The cells stood at the back of the courtyard against the left and right wall, with an asphalt ground between them and an ominous, red brick wall looming over it all at the end. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide – save for one empty, low-ceilinged building.

The chapel.

Frank slipped silently into the building and closed the door behind him. He'd been in there maybe once or twice, and he struggled to remember the layout as he stood in the blackness. He walked slowly up the aisle, feeling the pews on either side, until he reached what he thought might be the middle. Quickly, he slid under a long wooden pew and looked up at the bottom of the seat. He figured that if he could stay hidden long enough to devise a plan B, then perhaps he still stood a chance of escaping this hellhole.

Frank closed my eyes and listened to the roar of the sirens outside, the beaming yellow lights trickling under the door and into the stagnant darkness. He was never a religious man, but he prayed that they wouldn't find him. He knew what would become of him if they did.

Not five minutes later, the door to the chapel creaked open and light flooded the room.

"Come on, Frank," a voice said. "Give it up. We're going to find you, one way or another."

Frank tucked himself further under the pew, hoping his blood red jumpsuit wouldn't stand out against the polished wood. The guard came walking slowly up the aisle, pointing his flashlight into all the quiet, dark corners of the room. Frank's heart hammered in his chest, pulsing in his ears and making his ribcage rattle. He squeezed his eyes shut, sucked in a breath and held it there in his lungs.

The guard's slow, deliberate footsteps came closer, louder with every step, and his sharp, intrusive flashlight swept along the chapel's floorboards, getting brighter and brighter. Then he came to Frank's pew, and Frank held his body so still that his heart seemed to stop beating.

The footsteps paused for a long, terrible moment, before two strong hands grasped his ankle and ripped him from his hiding place. The bright light of the torch blinded Frank as the guard leered forward, a twisted grin on his face.

"There you are."

© A.G. Travers 2018