twenty. text. backdated to monday.

[goryteller]

In the 1940s, rumor has it that a prisoner on the island of Alcatraz was killed by a ghost.

Back in those days (unlike these days), they had isolation chambers called hole cells where the prisoners were kept in near darkness for weeks on end. "Bang bang bang," one prisoner cried and pounded. "Someone's trying to murder me in here." But the guards thought he was hallucinating, as those being tortured with solitude tended to, and so they did nothing. When the prisoner stopped screaming, they were quite content until they opened the cell and found that he was dead. He had markings on his neck. Strangulation. No one else was in the cell.

Ghost stories have a sort of charm, don't they? Whether or not you believe them, I mean. I don't generally because we didn't have imports back then and because the living can be fucking horrible enough. I'm certain one of the guards killed him and thought they had a clever way of covering it up. Which they did.

I wonder what the prisoner's crime was. But I don't even have a name.

I know I would take death as a legacy if nothing else.

Comments

[goryteller]

Don't-- worry about it. How have you been, Dr. Stein?

[screwmeister]

Okay.

I've been keeping very busy. I have a lot to keep track of now that my partner is here, he's very bad with money.

[goryteller]

I heard you were both in Nevada.

On my answering machine.

[screwmeister]

Oh! Did you get that message? Sometimes I worry that they don't go through, isn't that funny?

[goryteller]

They-- don't always go through. My machine, it does this funny thing where it eats the messages and, um, for instance, sometimes I'm supposed to pick up calls from the hospital and they just don't go through, they don't go through, and then we have a nice laugh about it once I realize.

[screwmeister]

Wow, that sounds like a real hoot.

[that monotone....]

[goryteller]

H-Have you taken time off from the hospital?

[screwmeister]

I took a few weeks off for our little road trip. I actually had quite a few vacation days saved up. We got back last week.

[goryteller]

Did you find anything? Any hints of your old world?

[screwmeister]

No. Just a lot of empty desert.

[surprise, he actually sounds disappointed.]

Death City doesn't even exist here.