23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale(10)

The three women in the SHU who were not in AdSeg or protective custody were model prisoners who kept mostly to themselves, passing the time as best they could. These three women alone were given the privilege of a “Cadillac” cell, a private room with some small luxuries allowed. They had barred windows that looked out over the exercise yard and were even allowed to keep radios as long as the volume stayed low. No one in the SHU complained about their getting special treatment, however, because those three cells made up Pennsylvania’s only all-female death row.

When Caxton came into the SHU for the first time she was nearly blinded. The walls were scuffed and dinged, but they had been painted a brilliant white, and they caught all the light coming down from above from a ring of powerful klieg lights in the ceiling. The light was merciless and all-revealing. She was brought in through the only door leading into the SHU, where a row of COs in riot gear waited for her just in case she tried to make a run for it or, even stupider, tried to fight her way out.

She could understand why some inmates would try. For a lucky few who had just pulled temporary AdSeg by stabbing someone or bringing drugs into the prison, a stay in the SHU could last only a few days or weeks. For the women on protective custody and death row, the SHU would be their home for years to come.

Just like Caxton.

The CO sitting in the guard post lifted one hand and the COs in riot gear took a step back, letting Caxton come forward.

Her legs were shackled together and her hands were bound behind her with plastic handcuffs. One guard grabbed her wrists and guided her to the left. There was a red line painted on the floor, equally distant from the cell doors and the guard post, and she was made to walk along it with one foot on either side. She was marched up to a cell door marked with a seven. Two transparent plastic brackets were mounted on the door. One was empty, while the other contained a photograph of a woman with bad acne and the name STIMSON, GERTRUDE R. Below this was a list of known allergies (peanuts) and special restrictions (zero stimulants) and the legend PC, which Caxton assumed meant that the woman inside was in protective custody.

Caxton looked up and saw the woman from the picture staring out at her through the window in the door. Her complexion was much clearer in person.

“Wall up,” one of the guards shouted. Caxton didn’t know what that meant, but apparently it wasn’t directed at her. The woman in the cell—Gertrude Stimson—moved away from the window at once.

“Prisoner Caxton,” the CO said, bending down to unshackle her legs. If she felt like kicking him for his trouble she only had to look to the side and see the stun gun another guard was pointing at her neck. “Welcome to the SHU. You will be confined to your cell at all times unless we come for you. When we do, we’ll say ‘wall up.’ That means you move to the back of the cell with your back against the wall. If you don’t wall up, we will perform a forcible extraction. You don’t want that. Mealtimes are at six-thirty, noon, and four-thirty. Your exercise period will be from one in the afternoon until two. You’ll be taken to the showers once per week, at six P.M. every Thursday. You just missed your slot, it looks like. We’ll bring around a deodorant stick for you a little later on. If I remove your hand restraints now, will you behave?”

“Yes,” Caxton said, in the meekest voice she could manage.

He unfastened the plastic handcuffs. Caxton flexed her fingers to try to get the circulation going again. “Here’s a clean blanket and a clean washcloth.” They were both made of the same scratchy nylon that looked like it couldn’t be torn or burned. “Prisoner on the floor,” he shouted, and COs all around the circular housing unit repeated the call. “Door opening!”

An alarm sounded, a high-pitched clanging that went on for ten seconds, and then an electronic lock in the door thunked open. The CO pulled a lever that released a second mechanical lock and then hauled the door back.

Inside, Gertrude Stimson was standing up against the wall, her hands above her head. She didn’t move at all except to blink as Caxton stepped inside the cell.

Before they could close the door on her Caxton turned around to say, “I’d like to make a phone call. An email would be fine as well. Is there a sign-up roster, or—”

“No outgoing calls. No computer time. If you want to write a letter, let us know and you can dictate it to us through the bean slot. Now wall the f*ck up so I can close this door.”

Caxton hurried to the back of the cell and pressed her back against the wall.