Steubenville
Penitentiary was about as average as a prison could possibly get. It
had murderers, rapists, and robbers from all across the county. The
routine was the same every day. Prison fights were seldom –
probably the only difference between Steubenville and most prisons,
but much that happened within its walls simply stood unheard or
unseen by most of the faculty there. It was here evil stayed, and it
was here evil died.
So
then was the day where the masked man came. At least, that's what all
the former prisoners call it. It started off as a normal day, that
same average, dull routine. It was at around lunch when the first
prisoners out in the yard saw the bus coming forward. At first, they
expected what was normal – the bus contained some “fresh meat”
and then left. However, today was not a normal day.
Out
of the car only came 5 people, four being guards. Some prisoners
recognized these guards from maximum security: full bulletproof
armor, and riot shield helmets. The guards held carbines, something
that most guards were not even able to touch, and all circled a
single man.
Despite
the bag over his head and his chained arms, the man looked normal. He
was white, taller than most, but with an average build. It was
obvious though that this prisoner in particular was special. No one
who went to the prison was ever escorted and seen in a manner like
that, and it caused widespread confusion throughout.
A
few of the veteran prisoners in one group decided to spy on the
masked man to see exactly why he was there and why him being there
was so important. He was hard to get to – guards surrounded him day
by day as he was mostly kept into solitary confinement. However
things eventually came loose, and one prisoner started a rumor caused
by an apparent “man on the outside”.
According
to this man, a recent tragic event happened at the nearby hospital.
An older woman, no more than 70 but not younger than 50, walked in
saying she was having a hard time breathing. The nurses immediately
rushed her to the E.R, setting up a room and doing some tests to see
what was causing her problem. The peculiar thing was that the
specific symptoms and tests she had did not exactly match anything on
record. Though it appeared odd, the doctors threw it off and decided
it was just because of her age. Another slightly strange thing about
the woman is that she had no relatives – and when given the
question if she had a son or daughter or someone to care for her, she
seemed to give an quizzical odd look as if she had never heard of the
words before, shortly after saying “No, I don't have any of
those.”. Despite these two factors she appeared to be fine and
perhaps out of the hospital by the next morning, that is until
midnight.
In
each of the rooms connected to the beds there is a buzzer. That
buzzer sends a signal to a room which then a nurse is sent for
assistance. By twelve o-clock at dark, the manager of the signals was
already half asleep, but woken by the sound of a constant beeping.
The manager checked the signal and noted it as the old woman's room,
to which he sent a dispatch.
By
the time the nurse got there, the woman appeared to be completely in
shock and fright. When asked what was wrong, she repeated “There's
a man watching me, there's a man right there.” pointing to the
hallway and repeating those words: “There's a man watching me,
there's a man right there.”
The
nurse quickly spun around, only to find the hallway both empty and
silent. Realizing the woman must have been having delusions, the
nurse tried to calm her, and when that failed, she put her asleep
using a simple injection and left.
No
one exactly knows what happened between that time at 12 and the next
morning when the police arrived. No one except the authorities, and a
vague idea from the signal manager.
The
old woman was found dead the following morning. Cause of death,
unknown. Police were called after the nurse told the story, while
sobbing and continually apologizing about dismissing her story as
false, despite little proof that the death of the woman was murder.
After the nurse had left the room that night, she had told the signal
manager of the woman's delusions and to ignore any of the buzzes.
More buzzes did come from the room around 4 AM, but the peculiar part
about that is that the autopsy confirmed she had died about 2 hours
before.
The
nurse was the only one questioned as a suspect, but was released due
to lack of evidence. That was two days after the death of that woman.
The
day the truck pulled in and revealed the new prisoner of Steubenville
Penitentiary was the morning of her death.
So,
how do these two stories connect? Really, they don't. They shouldn't.
Yet the prisoners of the penitentiary could not help but wrap their
minds around this coincidence. To this day no one truly knows why the
masked man came, perhaps not even the police or the guards who
watched him night and day. But still, on this very day, the masked
man remains at that prison.
