The Dead Don't Speak | Open Novella Contest 2020 | ✔

Chapter 3: Doctor Frankenclaus

We're friends, aren't we? Friends can be honest with each other. They can tell each other they might want to consider taking a shower, given that it's phrased right, or they can point out that there's food stuck between the other's teeth, or give… hugs and all that mess. But the most important thing is that friends can confide in each other. They can speak sincere words in truthful conversations, without fearing they'll be made to listen to lovely lies. And because we're friends, you and I, I'll give you a brutally honest rundown of what happened after I found myself staring at a message written in blood.

I screamed my fucking lungs out.

Dane, up on the top bunk, shot up so fast she could've hit her head on Lonewood's smudgy low ceiling, and received what I would like to call 'the unpleasant surprise of a lifetime'. Or at least, I deduced that was the case; despite her normal loudness, I'd still never known she could produce this much volume when screaming. If you asked me if there'd been anything even remotely enjoyable about that night, I'd have to admit it was learning a whole bunch of interesting Spanish swear words my cellmate would never have dared to utter in any other situation.

That fun time didn't last forever, though. Within thirty seconds, we had a striking total of three correctional officers who'd been working the graveyard shift in our cell with us, frantically looking around to see what had led to us flipping our shit. The strong stench of blood alarmed them, as expected, and one of them dropped his plastic cup of water to the floor upon laying eyes on the gruesome message on the wall. Which, in all fairness, did not serve to make our cell look like any less of a disastrous warzone.

Not even Dane, normally so brash, put up a fight when the officers rushed us to the infirmary, everyone too shocked by the bloody mess in our cell. Who could blame them? I knew I couldn't. I just remained quiet while our underpaid babysitters escorted us through the old prison's halls beneath the white glare of fluorescent lamps.

It was better to keep my mouth shut and only speak when asked a question. And even then, I feared I wouldn't have any answers.

Deep inside of me, a faint glimmer of hope still lived. It told me soothingly that maybe none of this was real. That my bathroom illness still lingered, that the mashed potatoes I'd had for dinner had landed wrong, that I was sick and feverish and it was all a hallucination. Nothing to worry about, nothing but a fever dream I'd wake up from if I gave it time. But the stinging pain in my slashed palms felt real, hurt real, and our screaming still echoed in my mind, so loud it couldn't be my imagination, and the sheer panic and confusion on the correctional officers' faces couldn't be an act.

I couldn't pretend the whole ordeal was fake and meaningless. I wasn't that adept at fooling myself.

When we reached the infirmary, its nauseating antiseptic smell hit me hard. Dane was taken away to god-knows-where, and I was left with an officer and a young nurse who set me down on an examination table and began to treat my wounds. While the nurse applied pressure, cleaned and bandaged with soft hands and the skill of a professional, the officer bombarded me with questions. The nurse snapped at him to let me rest, and he said no, he said she doesn't need to rest, she needs to answer, and he kept interrogating me until my new guardian angel reached a breaking point and almost physically removed him from the infirmary.

As you do in prison, I stayed silent. I didn't answer. I couldn't even explain to myself what had happened, let alone to a tired officer still processing the night's shocking events. I'd rather have choked on the damned stench of disinfectants than tell him what I thought was going on, be it the truth or a lie I could feed him. It was as if my pathetic mind hoped that by keeping quiet, what had transpired would sink away and be forgotten, and no one would talk about it ever again.