Scary Story #1

“Right, you stinking mutt, into your cell and keep quiet.” The gaoler manhandled Edmond Barker into a cold, damp room then clanged an iron-barred gate behind him and turned a key in the lock. His rancid beer breath rattled in Edmond’s nose. “Now both of you listen up! The man in the cell next to you could be your saviour or your downfall. The secret to your release is somewhere in the cell next to yours, so only your companion can find it. High tide is in one hour and will completely fill both your cells. Be out or be drowned.”

“Hey! You next door!” Edmond grabbed the cell gate. “Come to your bars, let me shake your hand. My name is Edmond Barker. Reach through and shake my hand.” Edmond held his arm out as far as he could to the left, and another man grasped his fingers.

The other man’s hand was greasy and rough, dirt and dust were ingrained in it - the poor sod had been down here a while. They shook for a few moments before the other man released his grip.

“Now hold on just a moment there, gentlemen,” the gaoler said. “There are rules. I said keep quiet, didn’t I?” He tapped his boot on the stone floor. There was faint puddle-splash already. “Since you’re so keen, Edmond Barker, you can go first. You may relay whatever you know to your fellow prisoner, and try to free him first, but he must not communicate anything to you in return until he is free of his cell. So be quick about it. A drowning man will be less likely to stick around and help you.”

“We don’t have much time. Is there anything in your cell that suggests where I should start my search?”

The other man simply moaned.

“Come, friend, what’s your name?” Edmond strained his ears for any response but there was nothing more.

“Perhaps,” said the gaoler, scraping a wooden chair along the floor and taking a seat with a deep sigh, “your companion takes the rules more seriously than you do. And perhaps, that is the best for both of you.”

Edmond started searching for clues. He shuffled to the front, right, bottom corner of his cell wall, against the bars, sweeping his fingers over the rough stonework, moving higher and to the left. He felt for any slight indentation or irregularity in the wall.

“There is nothing here.” He shook his fist into the air, then ran his grazed fingers over the empty sockets where his eyes used to be. “It will take longer than an hour to examine the entire cell."

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before. You might still have your sight if you hadn’t gawped at the King’s daughter in her dressing room.”

“I heard her scream! I ran to her aid! I wasn’t to know her distress was caused by a new corset being fitted.”

“You had no business in that part of the palace. And you have paid the price of being there.”

Edmond ran the tips of his fingers under his tattered shirt and over the branded skin on his chest: PEEPING TOM. King Benson was cruel, and his high court dished out what they considered "fitting penalties".

The blinded man turned his attention to the back wall of his cell. He started in the top left corner, feeling over the stonework as rapidly as he could, there was nothing unusual.

“What am I missing?” Edmond shouted at the guard. “What is there here that I would see if I had eyes to see it with?”

“I’m going to set another rule,” said the gaoler. “You may ask me only three questions. You can expect honest answers, but I will not tell you anything which might lead to your immediate release. There must be some element of wit about you in order to escape.”

“You can’t keep changing the rules!” Edmond fell into a desperate crouch near the ground, quaking on his bare feet.

“I will do whatever I wish. Now choose your questions carefully.”

Edmond reached out a hand to steady himself, placing it firmly on the floor as he rocked forward in despair. His fingers caught a deep groove, as if between two flag stones, but when he followed it to its end, some three inches later, it did not adjoin another stone.

He sat down and felt the groove again, in both directions. At one end was the shape of an arrowhead, carved into the floor. He ran his hands in the direction the arrow pointed and there was another groove carved into the rock, this one at right angles to the first, but again ending in an arrowhead. There was a whole series of them, each pointing to another. He followed the trail.

After a short time, Edmond’s fingers found the unwelcome coldness of rising sea water.

“The cell is flooding! We don’t have long. We must work together.”

The gaoler cleared his throat. “Now be reminded that your cell mate must not communicate anything to you until you free him from his cell.”

“Ah, we will both be drowned!” The water was nearly covering Edmond’s fingers.

The sea continued to rise as Edmond worked. The blood vessels in his feet and hands constricting with the dropping temperature of the water around them. He clenched and flexed his hands as he went, trying to keep them warm, but as the ocean swirled into his cell it brought freezing air with it and soon his whole body quivered.