Old Newgate Prison

By Kenneth Dube

“I’m not staying in here for very long if I can help it,” said the newly arrived prisoner, his clothes ragged and dirty. He was a man of at least 30 years. He wore loose, black pants with an orange band of similar clothe around its top border. His soiled shirt, once white, lay open towards the top, its borders slightly ruffled. “Are any of you with me?”

Everyone was quiet, except an old ruffian in the corner. The years had aged him quickly, like a wet rag left to dry in the elements over many months. He moved over to him slowly, laughing eerily. Upon stopping at a breath’s distance he said, “You’re in a bit of a hurry for someone who just got here.

“Look around ya. These poor souls had the same idea you did at one point of their miserable lives. They came around eventually to the hellish truth. You will too.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“No one has ever escaped and lived to tell about it,” he said while looking him in the eye with a stare so deep the other had to look away. Noticing this he said, “Don’t mean to scare ya, it’s just a bit of reality here. I’m Jacob, the old man of this place.”

“Jacob. I’m Tanner. What brought you to this paradise to inherit such a prestigious title?” he asked.

“I don’t much like politicians. Especially those that earn their living licking the king’s boots and stealing from the honest folk of the colony, so I took what was mine,” Jacob said. “What’s your sin?”

“You can say I stole more than the possessions of those same people,” Tanner answered with a little humor.

“I miss a little fight in another’s soul,” said Jacob. “The others? They are dead. Their bodies live but their souls died long ago. It will be interesting to converse with ya until yours dies like the rest.”

“Oh. Are you the murderer souls?” Tanner asked sarcastically.

“No. These stone walls around us are the guilty ones,” Jacob answered. “There is no life beyond them for us.”

“Why have these walls spared you?” Tanner asked. “What makes you different from the rest?”

“I do not know,” he answered while staring at the wall in front, his focus somewhere else. “Perhaps I have been mad innkeeper so that one with flesh and soul may watch over the rest and watch for newcomers such as you.”

“How long have you been here?” asked Tanner.

“About twenty years,” he answered.

“How many attempts have there been to escape?” he asked.

“At first there were a few,” Jacob said, “but not anymore. The prisoners quickly learned from others’ mistakes. I make sure any newcomers are warned too, so that history does not repeat itself. I guess that is also why I have been spared.”

“I don’t understand,” said Tanner puzzled. “Why should escapes not be tried because others failed? Their mistakes should be learned from, so that none are made in future attempts. The chances of succeeding should be greater.”

Ya really don’t understand,” said Jacob with a hidden wisdom behind his eyes. “This is not any jail. It was built on sacred ground. A lost Indian tribe used to be buried here. Their name is unknown since the only remains of their culture were the grave markings and the worm food in the ground.

“This spot was chosen for the prison and the graves were dug up and reburied two feet under water in a swamp at the bottom of the slope. The guards have told stories of the swamp being dead now and haunted by the Indian tribe.

“They seek revenge upon the white man. The prison grounds are their world. The guards claim they have lost a few men out there. They will not patrol around the swamp unless there has been an escape. Even then, it must be daytime.

“The only way out of here is past that swamp. Most that have tried were never heard from again. One that made it, about 17 years ago, was found by the guards sitting terrified in the middle of a clump of trees. When they brought him back, it was clear that he had lost all his wits. Apparently he had been spared because he was half Indian. He sat huddled in a corner and never moved. He starved himself until he was dead two weeks later. A horrified expression had molded on his face like stone.

“There are powers out there that no one understands,” he continued. “They are respected, that’s all. It’s an unwritten law here.”

When the old man finished, Tanner moved over to the other side of the cell to think. After a few seconds he shook his head and started to laugh. He turned around and looked at Jacob and laughed. He approached him and grabbed him by the shirt, pulling his face near his own; the laughter replaced by anger.

“Look old man,” Tanner said, “if you want to believe in ghost stories to help pass the time, that’s your business. But don’t expect me to play along with your game. I’m getting out of here, ghosts or no ghosts. Either you can help me to avoid past mistakes or you can join your dead friends over there.”

The trees outside screamed in the wind. The old man stood still and stared. Tanner wasn’t sure whether that was a yes or no.

“Okay,” Jacob finally said. “There is a way.”

2

Two children walked down the entrance of a path where a voice box said, “Old Newgate Prison ecological safari. No littering, loitering, vandalism, or drugs and alcohol permitted. Enjoy your visit.”

“This is dumb,” said the 11-year-old boy. “We’re not going to get anything out of this anyway.”

“We have to transmit a report on it, so we have to do it anyway,” the 12-year-old girl said.

“I still say it’s dumb,” he answered back.

The trail took them down a steep decline. As the trail bent to the right, they came upon a large tree with a rusted sign saying “No Hunting” and a plastic sign underneath which Sandy read.

“Animals were once hunted for sport,” she read slowly.

“What animals?” Jason asked sarcastically. “We’re surrounded by city. Unless, they mean cats and dogs.”

“That’s silly<“ said Sandy.

They continued walking the trail. Soon they reached a section of plastic boards that went over mud. Bird songs chirped from above them out of plastic boxes. Jason whistled mockingly along with the recorded sounds.

“Shut up,” said Sandy. “That’s annoying. Ew! There’s mud over here.”

“So! There are boards over it, plastic face,” he said taunting her.

“What if I lose my balance and fall into it,” she said. “Why didn’t they just get rid of the mud or have a little sample off to the side with a voice box. It looks so yucky.”

“Really, like it’s so ugly and smelly,” Jason said making a face.

“I hope they don’t expect us to put up with that stuff all the way through,” Sandy said as she crossed the boards.

Jason picked up a pebble and threw it at a box making the bird noises. It ricocheted off, adding another mark on its surface. The two laughed and continued to walk. Jason made faces behind her periodically.

3

The prisoners were led out into the court yard. Stone walls, twice the size of an average man, surrounded them. The floor was made of sections of slate. Guards walked the tops of the walls and stone buildings. Tanner walked randomly about. Jacob lit tobacco which he had obtained from a guard, next to the corner of the wall that connected to the guards' building. Tanner chose a group of men standing silently and headed for them. Jacob waited and then headed to the same spot.

“Ya saw it,” Jacob said looking at another prisoner.

“Yeah,” responded Tanner doing the same.

“There is a loose slab near the wall,” said Jacob. “It is marked by a border of dirt around its left edge. The dirt under it is soft, since it’s been refilled a few times. Y'all find rocks mixed in to make the going hard, but it penetrable. It shouldn’t take ya more than three hours to make it to the other side of the wall. The stiff ground around it will guide ya.”

“How do I do it without being noticed?” Tanner inquired. “There are too many guards to be able to time myself between them.”

“At night they don’t guard the courtyard,” Jacob said. “I can distract a guard on his rounds. We can take him out and yar on yar own from there.”

“I appreciate this, old man,” Tanner said. “I owe you one.”

“Ya owe me nothing” said Jacob. “I don’t collect on debts from a dead man.”

“Oh, don’t be too sure of yourself,” said Tanner. j “I think you’ve been around the others for too long. You’d be surprised what a little willpower will do.”

“Why are those words so familiar,” said Jacob staring at something not there. Then looking at Tanner deeply he said, “Ya don’t know what ya’r facing. Ya’r willpower will be no match against what awaits ya. It’s just the way things are here.”

Tanner laughed and walked away.

“Just keep up your end of the stick,” he said.

The trees outside the walls creaked in the wind. Jacob looked out at them in fear. “Nightmares reoccur in other’s dreams. When ya wake the dead, ya damn yourself to sleep the ages.”

4

As Sandy and Jason approached a swamp on the left, so did the gnats. They danced about their heads and attacked randomly.

“Ew!” exclaimed Sandy. “I hate bugs!”

“Let’s go back,” said Jason while swatting at them ineffectively.

“We’re already halfway,” said Sandy. “We have to keep going.”

“I knew we should have copied someone else’s report instead of coming here,” said Jason. “Now we’ve got these mutant monsters with wings after us.”

“You would think that they would have killed them all,” Sandy said. “No one’s going to come here if there are bugs. I know I’m not coming back again.”

A voice box activated as they approached it, towards the center edge of the swamp.

“This is a swamp,” it said. “Ecosystems once sprouted from environments like this. It can support a wide variety of wildlife...”

“Like bugs,” Jason added.

“...unfortunately, today it is basically non-supportive and can only serve as a model to learn from. The species it once supported were...”

“Look at all the mud and muck,” said Sandy over the voice. “What would want to live here? It’s gross!”

“Bugs!” said Jason

“They deserve to live in a place like this,” Sandy said. “Maybe they’re after us, because they hate living here.”

Jason found a good-sized rock and lifted it awkwardly. He tottered over to the edge of the water and ran away as he flung it in. Water and mud splashed up and caught him on his white socks. Sandy screamed and then laughed and teased him about his socks.

“Ew, stay away from me,” she said. “You’ve got shit on you. You stink! You stink!”

Jason chased her down the path, threatening to smear it on her face. The clearing of the woods to the right revealed a large shopping plaza. The afternoon sun sparkled off the bubbled car windows.

5

Tanner waited impatiently in the cell, listening for footsteps that he began to think might never come. Jacob sat and stared blankly, like all the rest. A fly buzzed through the barred window and rested on Jacob’s cheek. He did not twitch.

Tanner’s head jerked as footsteps approached from the hall. He looked at Jacob who still did not stir. As the guard made his way to the front of the cell, Jacob called up to him.

“Corporal, ya have any tobaccy,” he said.

“Old man, you’ve got to slow down and appreciate the taste of it,” he responded. “It’s not like drinking morning tea.”

“Heh, heh. Oh I appreciate the stuff alright,” Jacob said. “It’s the only pleasure granted me here. I just have more time to smoke than ya. Spare the old man some tobaccy, huh. I’ll whistle ya a song yar grandmother would be proud of.”

“Alright old man,” the corporal said as he pulled out a small cloth pouch and stood next to the bars. “This was imported from the old country, so savor it.”

Jacob got up and walked over to the bars. As the corporal handed him the tobacco through the bars, Jacob went to grab it, but instead pulled the corporal’s arm into the cell and twisted his neck. Tanner went over to him while he took the ring of keys from the corporal’s belt, and the bag of tobacco. Tanner unlocked the door and walked out. Jacob handed him the partially empty pouch.

“I took as much tobaccy as I need. Ya keep the rest. Whoever gets caught with it is marked for murder. Seeing as we won’t see ya again, ya don’t have to worry about it.”

Tanner accepted it.

“It ain’t really the good stuff, anyhow,” he continued. “When ya dig clear past the wall, head for the woods. Y'all find a path a ways in. It will take ya to yar destination.”

“Thanks for everything,” Tanner said, patting him on the shoulder.

“There’s no need to thank me,” Jacob said. “Now get out, before they realize he’s missing.”

Tanner nodded and headed down the hall. He came upon a locked gate. He tried each key until one worked. He heard voices coming from a hall to the right and knew to go out the wooden door on his left. He cracked it slightly at first, just in case a guard happened to be in the courtyard. The coast was clear. He ran through the darkness and upon reaching the corner of the courtyard, groped for the loose slab of rock.

With all of his might, he lifted one end of it and slid it to the side. Out of his shirt, he pulled a metal bowl that he had stolen from supper. As he dug with it, he found the dirt was loose, just as the old man had said. Any rocks he encountered, he pulled out by hand.

Within a few hours, he broke through to the other side of the wall. He knelt at the end of the tunnel, breathing hard. Sweat had converted to mud over his whole body. His arms and hands felt like they had been worked clean off.

All was silent except for a steady breeze blowing through the newly leaved branches in the trees all around him. After resting for about a half-hour, he got up and walked to where the trail was said to be. Further down to the right he noticed a hole in some thicket. Upon reaching it, he found that dried-out bushes and thicket had meshed together, leaving a perfectly round, man-sized hole in the middle. Through it he could only see a few feet of dirt path in the darkness. He proceeded through it and followed the path as it bent downwards and to the left.

A sudden sound caused him to look up into the branch-filled sky. A large group of birds swarmed on a tree above him and flew away. When he looked back down the path, he saw a figure in the distance. It disappeared as he focused. A tree took it place.

“Shadows,” he said in disgust.

The path eventually winded right as it continued downhill. Again the figure appeared. It looked as if trees and shadows had merged to create the image of an Indian. As he moved towards it, the angles of the trees shifted and again the Indian disappeared. A chill ran through him and he shook it off.

Soon he approached the edge of a swamp. The path simply disappeared into a black pool and continued again past it. Tanner looked around and then lugged a small fallen birch and threw it across the black wasteland. Tanner tested it with his foot and then walked across.

As he regained the path, he heard a sucking sound behind him. He turned and saw the tree disappear into the muck. It was something else that really startled him, however. The path he had just come from had vanished. Trees stood where he once walked. His mind raced, as all he could do was go forward.

As Tanner continued on, cautiously, a black cloud emerged from the left side. It moved and changed form as it floated closer to him. When it came upon him, he started swatting as he realized it was a group of mosquitoes. He ran in an effort to escape their thirst for blood, but was unsuccessful. When he came upon a deep portion of the swamp, the swarm disappeared. There weren’t any insects anywhere, not even on the water. A strong, nauseating smell of decay entered his nostrils. He covered his bite-marked face with his hands to filter the smell. As he gagged, he noticed the swamp starting to bubble. Its velocity increased, so that it looked as if the black water was at a high boil. Skeletons rose out of the bubbly surface until they stood on the shallow bottom. One stood before him with a tomahawk. Tanner ducked as it swung at him. He answered with an elbow to its spine. As it fell into the water, some of its ribs ricocheted. Other skeletons began to pull spears and axes out of the water. Tanner ran away, down the path.

Upon looking back, he saw that some were running after him. He picked up his pace with no intention of allowing them to catch up. A rattling of bones seemed to be getting closer. He turned around again and saw a group of skeletons holing spears, while riding on the skeletons of horses. He had to think quickly. They were gaining on him and would overtake him soon. On going around another bend, he jumped into some thick brush. He held his breath as the skeletons made their way through the turn. They sped past him and continued down the trail. When the sound of their hoofs faded away, he reentered the path and started walking.

‘I don’t like this,’ he thought. ‘The trail seems to be heading back towards the prison. How can this be? Jacob said others had escaped and never returned. If he lied, I will kill him!’

He looked to the sides of the trail to see where he could break off and go in the direction he saw fit. The forest was too thick with young trees. There were some small breaks, but they led nowhere. They stopped within a few yards by more trees.

Tanner halted and walked back to where the bend was. Upon rounding it and coming out the other end, the trail stopped. Trees and swamp filled-in where he had once walked. As he realized with fright that something unnatural was occurring, the wind started up and chilled his sweat. The trees rustled and howled around him in the wind.

‘This cant’ be,’ he thought.

He ran back up the trail, stumbling off of it here and there. The brush that he fell into cut him like razors, shredding his clothes and dampening them with watered-down blood.

A terrifying sound echoed back into his brain. he didn’t recognize what it was at first, and then knew. The skeletons were coming back down the path. He stopped before a large tree, his mind reeling. Running had become futile. The path seemed to go nowhere and death, or whatever it was, was closing in on him.

He looked up at the disfigured branches above him. They were long, extensions of many swollen sections growing end on end. He thought about climbing into the branches. He would have a better advantage up there. He studied the trunk and to his horror found it to be too wide and tall to climb, as it produced no foot-holds. It was wider than 10 men bunched together. Abandoning this one, Tanner searched the other parts of the path for a climbable tree. Further back, on the opposite side, was a smaller tree. It had a bulge out of its trunk, as if something was inside.

A rattling came from all parts of the forest. The skeletons became visible just down the path, but there was something else. He looked around him and saw all of the branches shaking. The smaller tree he had been studying earlier shook in its entirety and then began to move towards him. Other large trees did the same.

“No! This can’t be!”

The shaking noise became loud behind him. He turned around and gave himself to the stalking nightmare.

“Aaaah!” His voice echoed through the forest in harmony with the howling wind.

Jacob lowered himself from the barred window overlooking the forest and sat down in a clump, his eyes revealing both fright and delight.

6

Sandy and Jason crossed over another board that covered an area of swamp and stopped at another ecological site.

“This is an example of wild dogwood,” came a voice from the a box on a stand. “Notice the...”

They just walked past it, giving it little notice.

“This is boring,” said Jason. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Sandy had begun to lose interest and quietly agreed. They passed two other sites and rounded a bend which brought them in the direction of the beginning of the path. They came upon a big tree to their right.

“Iiih, that’s ugly,” said Jason. “It looks like something out of ‘Mutation Man’ cartoons.”

“It’s deformed,” said Sandy.

A voice box activated as they walked by it, “Notice the man-like shape protruding on the trunk. The chances of nature producing such a flaw are astronomical. It’s just one of many...”

Sandy and Jason hurried towards the reunification of the path, uninterested in any of the other sites on the way.

“Who cares about a bunch of trees,” Jason said as they walked back up towards the parking lot.

A light breeze stirred the branches of the large tree. A butterfly fluttered around its trunk and landed on the part of the deformity that looked like an arm crossed over another above a head. After collecting enough sunlight in its solar cells, it fluttered off.