The Cell

“Hey, watch it!”  Andy heard Chris yell as he fell into Chris as the bus hit a particularly nasty bump.

“Sorry,” Andy said quickly.  The last thing he wanted to do on their one day out of the classroom was make Chris mad and let Chris ruin it.

“You will be if you do that again,” Chris threatened.

Andy knew better than to respond.  He picked himself up from the aisle where he had landed after Chris had pushed him away.  He stared past the person in the seat beside him out the window.  It was early November and the leaves were just starting to change colors.  It was starting to cool down, but once in a while they’d have a really hot day, as if nature were protesting against the change in season.  Today looked like it was going to be one of those days.

The public school bus was taking Andy and the rest of his social studies class to the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.  Andy went to school in one of Philly’s suburbs, so the drive wasn’t that long, but it still wasn’t very fun.  After all, it was a public school bus and Andy was the only sixth grader in the class.  Some of the older kids – mainly Chris and a couple of his friends – had taken to welcoming Andy into middle school by tormenting him at every opportunity.  Andy had been planning on avoiding Chris the entire day, but he’d gotten on the bus and the only seat left was right across the aisle from him.

If Andy could make it through the day without incident, he’d be happy.  Heck, he’d be ecstatic.  He’d wanted to come to this place for a long time – it was supposedly haunted –, and he didn’t want to have to deal with Chris’ antics while he scoped the place out.

The bus abruptly hit another bump just as it flew around a sharp corner, sending Andy once again careening into Chris.

This time Chris didn’t shove Andy off him; in fact quite the opposite.  Grabbing Andy by the front of his shirt, Chris pulled the boy close to his face and said slowly, “Watch it.”  Then he tossed Andy away like an old rag doll.

Andy picked himself up and sighed deeply.  Today was going to be a very long day.

* * *

“…Opened in 1829 as part of a controversial movement to change the behavior of inmates through “confinement in solitude with labor,” Eastern State Penitentiary quickly became one of the most expensive and most copied buildings in the young United States…” 1

Andy was only half listening to the tour guide.  He was too busy looking around and taking pictures.  He’d just gotten this sweet digital camera for his birthday a few weeks ago – 8 megapixels of color and enough memory to store over a thousand pictures or several minutes of video.  And today was the first real opportunity he’d had to test it out.  So far it was pretty amazing.

“Keep moving, Andrew,” a voice behind him said.  “You wouldn’t want to get left behind in a place like this.”

Andy turned around to see his teacher looking down at him, mildly amused.  Mr. Harrison was heading towards his middle-aged years, but was still cool enough that the kids could get away with more than they could in any other class.

“Sorry, Mr. Harrison,” Andy said and turned back to follow the rest of the class, which was already a couple hundred feet ahead down the next corridor.

“That’s quite all right.  Nothing wrong with an inquisitive mind,” the teacher answered.  He looked at Andy with a mock serious look on his face.  “But I’d be careful if I were you.  This place is supposed to be haunted, you know.”

Andy grinned.  “Oh, I know.  That’s why I brought my camera – just in case.”

Mr. Harrison chuckled to himself and shook his head as he himself walked back to the group.  The things kids believed these days.

* * *

Andy caught up with the end of the class that was trailing behind the tour guide and tried to blend in inconspicuously.  The tour guide was just wrapping up.

“So, does anyone have any questions?”

Chris shouted out, “When do we get to see the ghosts?”

There were murmurs of agreement from the rest of the class.  Andy rolled his eyes.

The tour guide smiled.  “Well, obviously, you’ve been hearing all the ghost stories about this place.  A lot of people have had unexplainable experiences of some kind here.  Some people hear voices, some have seen things move when no one is there, and some even claim to have seen fully-bodied apparitions!”  The tour guide paused.  “But most of that is just because of overactive imaginations.  It is true, however, that if any place were to be haunted, this would be the place.  The emotionally charged history of the penitentiary…”

Andy stopped listening to the tour guide after she had basically said that there were no such things as ghosts.  He just knew there were – there just had to be.

Andy was so engrossed in taking pictures that he didn’t hear the footsteps approaching from behind him until they were only a few feet away.  Andy turned around, startled.  He barely had time to register Chris’ leering face before his camera was ripped right out of his hands.

“Hey!” Andy shouted in indignation.  Chris laughed as Andy made a grab for it and began inspecting it.

“Hey, this is kinda cool; can I keep this?” Chris said, laughing.

“Come on, Chris, give it back,” Andy said seriously.  If anything happens to that camera, my folks are gonna kill me, he thought.

“You want it?” Chris said tauntingly.  “Then go get it!”  And he promptly turned and tossed it through an open door into one of the cells.

Andy cringed and cursed under his breath, running in after it.  He picked it up and was just starting to check to see if it was broken when he heard a loud creaking sound from behind him.  He looked back just in time to see the door swing shut with a resounding BOOM!

Oh, crap, was Andy’s only thought as he raced over to the door.  There was enough light coming in from the small window high on the wall for him to find his way to the door without tripping over anything, but not enough to calm his nerves.

“Hey, lemme out!” Andy yelled.  He heard laughter from the other side of the door.  “Come on!” he said, pounding on the door.  “Let me out!”

Eventually the laughter died down and he heard Chris’ voice through the metal door.  “Only if I get the camera.”

“I can’t give you my camera,” Andy said, exasperated.  “My parents would kill me!”

“Oh, well, then,” Chris said.  “I guess you’re gonna be stuck in there forever.”

But Andy wasn’t listening.  He’d heard a grating sound behind him and had turned around, the hair on the back of his neck suddenly standing up on end.  Instantly his whole attention was focused on the room around him, searching for the source of the sound.  Then he heard it again – and saw it, too.

It looked like someone was dragging the table across the floor, but there was no one doing the dragging.  “What the…”  Andy almost dropped his camera, but quickly recovered and aimed it at the slowly moving table.  He fumbled to hit the “Record” button for the video function and cursed his shaking hands.

Suddenly he heard a creaking noise behind him and light flooded in.  “Hey, what are you– what the hell?”  Chris’ voice changed from indignation to fear in a split second when he saw the table.

“I think it’s a ghost,” Andy whispered, half to Chris, half to himself.  Then he added satisfactorily, “And I’ve got it on tape.”

“I’m gettin’ outta here!” Chris yelled hysterically and ran out of the room and down the hall.

Andy’s eyes never left the table as he watched it move across the room until finally stopping a few seconds after Chris left.  Andy lowered the camera dejectedly.

Suddenly a voice came from the spot where the table now stood.  It was eerie in the otherwise silent room, but it wasn’t a threatening or intimidating sound, so Andy wasn’t too frightened (not that he’d admit it if he were).  He couldn’t tell what it was saying, but it was definitely a man’s voice.

He wasn’t given time to think about what it might have been saying, either, because at that very moment Chris and the rest of the class, including Mr. Harrison, showed up at the door of the cell.  As soon as they showed up, the voice faded away.

“I’m telling you, I saw it move!”  Chris’ petulant voice came in through the open door and echoed through the small room.

“All right, Chris, let’s have a look at this,” Mr. Harrison said.  Then he saw Andy and said somewhat sternly, “Andrew, you’re not supposed to be in there.  Get out of there right now!”

Andy did as he was told, gripping his camera tightly and staring at the screen, which held the first frame of the video he’d just recorded.

“Now what’s all this about a table moving on its own?” Mr. Harrison asked skeptically.

“I saw it!” Chris said.  “It was right in there; that table thing was moving!”  He pointed enthusiastically to the now motionless piece of furniture.

“Now, Chris…” Mr. Harrison began, but Chris interrupted him.

“Look, I can prove it!”  Chris snatched the camera out of Andy’s hands and showed Mr. Harrison the screen.  “Watch,” he said and pressed the “Play” button.

Nothing happened.

Chris pressed it again.

Again, nothing.

“What did you do to it, you little twerp!” Chris yelled at Andy.  “It’s not working!”

“I didn’t do anything,” Andy said honestly.  “Maybe you shouldn’t have thrown it.”

Chris looked like he wanted to punch Andy, but didn’t, but probably only because Mr. Harrison was standing right there.

“Why don’t you give Andy back his camera now, Chris?” Mr. Harrison said evenly.

Chris threw Andy a dirty look, but handed the abused camera back to the boy.

Andy put it safely back in his backpack and stole away as quietly as he could.

* * *

Later, when Andy was at home, he got his camera back out and found the video.  He pressed “Play,” but he wasn’t surprised when nothing happened.

He sat there and thought about it for a few moments.  Maybe it was better this way.  He didn’t know if he could handle being a celebrity, which is what he was sure would happen if anyone ever got a hold of the video.  Plus, he’d gotten to make a fool out of Chris.

Andy sat back and smiled.

Footnotes
1  Taken from http://www.easternstate.org/history .  Accessed on Sunday, December 2, 2007.