The Warden is Watching
By
Donovan Douglas Thiesson
The iron door slams shut. I am lost. The air closes around me, becoming thick. I can feel a presence behind me, something at home in the darkness. Fear rises from my stomach, twisting into new shapes as bile claws for my throat. An acidic scream rises, rushing upwards–
I wake in a sweat, my throat tense with preparation. Even in this petrified state I thank God for not screaming. There must have been some commotion though, maybe only a moan, but enough to peak the Warden’s curiosity. His moon face peers through the bars of my cell, a white smudge in the semi-darkness.
His thin smile betrays insidious intentions.
“Problems?”
Squeezing my eyes closed, I pretend to sleep, and eventually he leaves. Exhaustion salts the corners of my eyes and wraps tendrils around my weary limbs. I will not sleep again. Not tonight. If only there was coffee in prison.
The Warden has been watching me for two weeks now. It seems the more I resign myself to keeping my head down and serving my time, the more he commits to breaking my resolve. From first dawn to twilight, and twilight to first dawn, always there, lurking like a swaying mantis.
As I plop powdered potatoes in my mouth, followed by dried fish sticks dabbed in ketchup, I do my utmost to ignore him. He weaves between the cafeteria tables, and it is all too apparent my fellow inmates feel the same. The Warden is a shambling vermin, intently scrutinizing us all, looking for the weakest of us to separate from the pack.
The rest of the day dreams past like a faded family photo. As I enter the yard, the Warden’s hand brushes mine. He grips my wrist, his breath a blistering sickness as he looms over me.
“Bad dreams?”
More smiles and a hungry gaze I will not meet. He shuffles away, his limbs making strange clicking noises as he does so. Perhaps he has a condition, something in his joints, but I picture only crickets. A shudder grips my shoulders.
I sit on the outside bench, watching as other inmates shuffle past, struggling against their own exhaustion. I begin to doze off–
The iron door slams shut. I am lost. The air closes around me, becoming thick. I can feel a presence behind me, something at home in the darkness. I cannot see the walls, but their proximity is felt, the cold damp mere inches away on every side. Something brushes the back of my neck–
–a scream bubbles up, and a hand on my mouth shoves it back down as I thrash awake in the yard. The hand tastes like the sweat of my nightmares, and at first, I think no, the Warden has me–!
“Shhhh, don’t let ‘im hear or see,” a hoarse voice whispers in my ear. I break free of the hand. A thin, haggard man sits next to me, wearing the same orange jumpsuit as myself. The bruises beneath his weary, red-rimmed eyes reflect my own.
“You’ve ‘ad the dreams,” he whispers. “And he knows.”
“What…?”
“You know what,” he hisses. “I helped you, but you gotta’ help yerself. When your nightmares become too much, he takes you. Don’t sleep ‘til he moves on–”
Our tired eyes catch the Warden, suddenly present at the entrance to the yard. He winks at us both. The man sitting next to me turns pale. He leaves me sitting there, wishing for a shower in a place where showers are avoided.
Others have the same dreams. I hear them in the night, never too many at once, but there are always moans and turnings. When the time comes, the dreams erupt from their throats like screaming fruit, their flopping forms pulled away through dim corridors by the grinning Warden, taken…
But where? Where do they go? I have never seen a screamer return. This is the first time I have spoken with another inmate about the horror of the dreams. I do not need to speak to others. We dream and wait collectively, hoping the next shriek in the night will not be our own.
As the evening descends, and the slotted windows bleed from streaked crimson into magenta, I vow not to sleep.
The Warden vows otherwise.
He sits outside my cell, regarding me through his sheepish mask. His pinprick eyes sparkle like distant stars from the sockets in his face. I wonder when he sleeps, to be there all day, and then again, all night…
When you can’t sleep, it’s best not to think of such things. Cyclical thoughts bring darkness, as surely as recounting the elements of the dream itself. The iron door. The stale air. Progressing slightly further with each reiteration.
I don’t pretend to sleep this time. I meet the Warden’s gaze and hold it as best I can. His face never falters, distorted by his grin, wide as the world… his skin too tight in spots… eyes defined by the size of their pupils–
–and so many cyclical thoughts.
The night crawls forward. I know I will not make it. In the end it is this thought that repeats through my head as I watch the Warden, the key to my cell dangling from the thin cord gripped in his fist, swinging pendulum like–
The iron door slams shut. I am lost. The air closes around me, becoming thick. I can feel a presence behind me, something at home in the darkness. Its fingers… so cold… scrabbling, rigid and wet like a cockroach. I spin around, yet it spins with me, always at my back. The Warden’s pincers clutch my neck, and his true form presses against me. I scream–
–and my screams shatter the brittle silence. The Warden is already in the cell, his flabby arms around me, giddy as he drags me down the corridor. I can see the other prisoners, wide-eyed sentries, exhausted and thankful to have one last night.
I realize I am still shrieking. I can’t stop. From our prophetic dreams I have caught a glimpse of what is waiting. Down the stairs he pulls me, the stairs no one notices, not ever.
Not if it can be helped.
The iron door stands open. The darkness, so thick within, reveals nothing of the room beyond. The Warden, his disguise already slipping off, pulls me inside.
The iron door slams shut.
I am lost.
Donovan Douglas Thiesson resides just outside your bedroom window. In fact, he is watching you read this right now, and is disappointed by how little you know of his other stories, some of which are published through Fiction on the Web, Exquisite Deathzine and the recent Whisper Shadow Press anthologies “Wreckolections”, “Who Let The Gods Out” and “Circus of the Dead”. Donovan’s hobbies include collecting fossils, eating butter chicken, and going through your garbage at night. If you want Donovan to stop hiding in your closet, clean your dirty socks out from under your bed and follow him on facebook and instagram.
By
Donovan Douglas Thiesson
The iron door slams shut. I am lost. The air closes around me, becoming thick. I can feel a presence behind me, something at home in the darkness. Fear rises from my stomach, twisting into new shapes as bile claws for my throat. An acidic scream rises, rushing upwards–
I wake in a sweat, my throat tense with preparation. Even in this petrified state I thank God for not screaming. There must have been some commotion though, maybe only a moan, but enough to peak the Warden’s curiosity. His moon face peers through the bars of my cell, a white smudge in the semi-darkness.
His thin smile betrays insidious intentions.
“Problems?”
Squeezing my eyes closed, I pretend to sleep, and eventually he leaves. Exhaustion salts the corners of my eyes and wraps tendrils around my weary limbs. I will not sleep again. Not tonight. If only there was coffee in prison.
The Warden has been watching me for two weeks now. It seems the more I resign myself to keeping my head down and serving my time, the more he commits to breaking my resolve. From first dawn to twilight, and twilight to first dawn, always there, lurking like a swaying mantis.
As I plop powdered potatoes in my mouth, followed by dried fish sticks dabbed in ketchup, I do my utmost to ignore him. He weaves between the cafeteria tables, and it is all too apparent my fellow inmates feel the same. The Warden is a shambling vermin, intently scrutinizing us all, looking for the weakest of us to separate from the pack.
The rest of the day dreams past like a faded family photo. As I enter the yard, the Warden’s hand brushes mine. He grips my wrist, his breath a blistering sickness as he looms over me.
“Bad dreams?”
More smiles and a hungry gaze I will not meet. He shuffles away, his limbs making strange clicking noises as he does so. Perhaps he has a condition, something in his joints, but I picture only crickets. A shudder grips my shoulders.
I sit on the outside bench, watching as other inmates shuffle past, struggling against their own exhaustion. I begin to doze off–
The iron door slams shut. I am lost. The air closes around me, becoming thick. I can feel a presence behind me, something at home in the darkness. I cannot see the walls, but their proximity is felt, the cold damp mere inches away on every side. Something brushes the back of my neck–
–a scream bubbles up, and a hand on my mouth shoves it back down as I thrash awake in the yard. The hand tastes like the sweat of my nightmares, and at first, I think no, the Warden has me–!
“Shhhh, don’t let ‘im hear or see,” a hoarse voice whispers in my ear. I break free of the hand. A thin, haggard man sits next to me, wearing the same orange jumpsuit as myself. The bruises beneath his weary, red-rimmed eyes reflect my own.
“You’ve ‘ad the dreams,” he whispers. “And he knows.”
“What…?”
“You know what,” he hisses. “I helped you, but you gotta’ help yerself. When your nightmares become too much, he takes you. Don’t sleep ‘til he moves on–”
Our tired eyes catch the Warden, suddenly present at the entrance to the yard. He winks at us both. The man sitting next to me turns pale. He leaves me sitting there, wishing for a shower in a place where showers are avoided.
Others have the same dreams. I hear them in the night, never too many at once, but there are always moans and turnings. When the time comes, the dreams erupt from their throats like screaming fruit, their flopping forms pulled away through dim corridors by the grinning Warden, taken…
But where? Where do they go? I have never seen a screamer return. This is the first time I have spoken with another inmate about the horror of the dreams. I do not need to speak to others. We dream and wait collectively, hoping the next shriek in the night will not be our own.
As the evening descends, and the slotted windows bleed from streaked crimson into magenta, I vow not to sleep.
The Warden vows otherwise.
He sits outside my cell, regarding me through his sheepish mask. His pinprick eyes sparkle like distant stars from the sockets in his face. I wonder when he sleeps, to be there all day, and then again, all night…
When you can’t sleep, it’s best not to think of such things. Cyclical thoughts bring darkness, as surely as recounting the elements of the dream itself. The iron door. The stale air. Progressing slightly further with each reiteration.
I don’t pretend to sleep this time. I meet the Warden’s gaze and hold it as best I can. His face never falters, distorted by his grin, wide as the world… his skin too tight in spots… eyes defined by the size of their pupils–
–and so many cyclical thoughts.
The night crawls forward. I know I will not make it. In the end it is this thought that repeats through my head as I watch the Warden, the key to my cell dangling from the thin cord gripped in his fist, swinging pendulum like–
The iron door slams shut. I am lost. The air closes around me, becoming thick. I can feel a presence behind me, something at home in the darkness. Its fingers… so cold… scrabbling, rigid and wet like a cockroach. I spin around, yet it spins with me, always at my back. The Warden’s pincers clutch my neck, and his true form presses against me. I scream–
–and my screams shatter the brittle silence. The Warden is already in the cell, his flabby arms around me, giddy as he drags me down the corridor. I can see the other prisoners, wide-eyed sentries, exhausted and thankful to have one last night.
I realize I am still shrieking. I can’t stop. From our prophetic dreams I have caught a glimpse of what is waiting. Down the stairs he pulls me, the stairs no one notices, not ever.
Not if it can be helped.
The iron door stands open. The darkness, so thick within, reveals nothing of the room beyond. The Warden, his disguise already slipping off, pulls me inside.
The iron door slams shut.
I am lost.
Donovan Douglas Thiesson resides just outside your bedroom window. In fact, he is watching you read this right now, and is disappointed by how little you know of his other stories, some of which are published through Fiction on the Web, Exquisite Deathzine and the recent Whisper Shadow Press anthologies “Wreckolections”, “Who Let The Gods Out” and “Circus of the Dead”. Donovan’s hobbies include collecting fossils, eating butter chicken, and going through your garbage at night. If you want Donovan to stop hiding in your closet, clean your dirty socks out from under your bed and follow him on facebook and instagram.
