Zolf J. Kimblee's cell is haunted.
Or so said the prisoners of Central's federal penitentiary, though everyone else insisted on not believing them. And who could blame them, for this lack of belief? The prison was run on efficient timetables and thorough examinations and strict staff, a shining and well-oiled machine, a jewel in the heart of the militant Amestris. The heavy stone walls held- with great success- some of the most dangerous criminals in the country, Kimblee, of course, being one of them. There was no room for superstition there, ghost stories had no place under the modern electric lights that lit its interior so harshly, spectres were brushed aside like cobwebs and dirt by the lesser prisoners on cleaning duty. Or at least, they should have been- somehow, in this one case, the whispers of the supernatural stayed. They clung to the walls and the shadows under people's eyes like tar, persistent, refusing to be dispersed, they bounced on the prisoner's tongues like candy and new variants seemed to spring up everywhere like tiny poison flowers.
Why? Rationally speaking, it was difficult to tell, or at least that was what the staff thought, but not what they said. When discussing it amongst themselves at break they pondered that perhaps it was because the questionable cell was in solitary, which made it more mysterious to the common prisoners, who shared bunks and rarely passed through the high-confinement wards. Perhaps it was Kimblee himself to some extent, after all he was a terrible man who had done terribly violent things and maybe the other prisoners were afraid of him. That must be it, surely, it was just common drivel, after all.
Those who tried to talk of these things didn't bring up the obvious fallacies in their own explanations- after all, Kimblee wasn't the right kind of criminal to warrant horror stories of his own, he wasn't a rapist or serial killer, he hadn't worn his victims' faces or eaten their hearts or any of the other ridiculous things that generated talk amongst prisoners. His crimes were very ordinary, actually, and a good deal of the other prisoners occasionally expressed appreciation for what he had done; 'stuck it to the man, showed those blue-suits who was boss' and such. And yet despite that no one made up ghost stories about the other solitary cells, either. Kimblee had even been moved once, due to ventilation issues, and the rumours had stayed the same- it was Kimblee's cell that was haunted, not any specific cell on the block, wherever he was the ghost seemed to go, too. It didn't make sense.
And so it was easy to say that the prisoners just had the creeps, and that there was nothing serious going on at all, and harder to believe (in the heart of hearts that all humans possess, in varying degrees of strength, the sense that some people called instinct) that it was the truth.
Another thing that was strange was the inconsistencies- a typical ghost story involved one spectre only, one clearly defined image and motive and modus-operandi (anything else made for a disruptive narrative, as even a child could tell you). A man in chains with a broken jaw, a sobbing woman looking for her baby, a bloodied child wearing a crown of thorns carrying his father's severed head, these were the ghosts of verbal fiction that shocked and awed audiences around campfires at night, passed through muffled hands at children's parties, whispered between bars in the cramped lower cells. But there was no one spirit that haunted Kimblee's lonesome little room- each prisoner one asked had a different image to offer, a different horror or night-terror or presence-out-of-place, and yet in solidarity they all seemed to believe it was the same thing.
One man claimed there were snakes in the ventilation pipes that crossed over his cell at night, heading towards the solitary block, their bellies pressed against the steel and their tongues whispering in serpentine languages. Another said a raven had flown by his door, with unnaturally glittering eyes and bloodstained feathers, flitting through the brightly lit corridors like a real bird would the night sky. Another yet said there were huge black rats in the drains, bristling beasts with rotting fangs and red eyes that chattered and clawed at the insides of the walls. Many claimed to see familiar guards passing through the corridors out of time with their schedules, their expressions too cold and their feet making the floor shake with their steps, apparently possessed by the spirit and acting not of their own accord. No one could decide, it seemed, precisely what kind of ghost it was- but there were a few consistencies. The most common theme was this: a good many prisoners swore that from Kimblee's cell at night there came a voice, a voice that was not Kimblee's own, though he seemed to speak with it, conversations perhaps, and eerie high pitched laughter that echoed through the corridors and down flights of stairs so that it could be heard even in the lower levels. What sort of person the voice belonged to seemed to vary depending on the prisoner- no one could collectively decide if the supernatural speaker was a young man, or an old woman, but everyone had concluded that it was malevolent.
And of course, there were many wide-ranging theories as to the origin of the spirit as well, but these things seemed less defined- they rang more like real rumours in the ears than the descriptions of the haunting did, they seemed more naturally formed from human minds than the active disturbances that occurred at night.
Naturally, some said, the ghost belonged to a wrathful Ishvalan, or perhaps a full tribe of vengeful sand-lurkers that had been killed by him in the war, seeking to take his punishment into their own hands. Others made up family histories, saying his bloodline was cursed, that he had brought bad magic upon them all in his imprisonment and that the voice at night was that of some long-dead witch, seeking to exact supernatural horrors upon the ward. Others still (and these ones, though they knew it not, touched something closest to the truth) said that Kimblee had sold his soul to a demon for power in the Ishvalan war, and now the price for that power was being paid. There were many other variations, of course, that rose and fell in popularity as weeks came and went between the cold grey walls of the penitentiary, but the fact that they kept cropping up- with no other gossip or tall tale coming to life in their place- was disturbing in and of itself-
No, not disturbing, it was just silly, because there was no such thing as ghosts or spirits or demons and there was nothing going on in Kimblee's cell. And if some of the long-time staff had shifty eyes when people spoke of it, if the warden himself demanded with uncharacteristic force that the staff ignore all such ridiculous talk, it was just because the story was so stupidly popular, and not because it had any root in truth.
And one time the administrator in her little office next to the warden's was working after hours on some forms for visitation that had gotten back-logged, and it was a warm summer night so she had left the window open for some air, and in one particular gust of wind she may have seen a tremendous black bat fly in through that opening and whip past her to the corridor beyond, or maybe she hadn't. It had been a very brief instance, after all, and no one had found any such animal inside the next morning. And if she had observed (which, again, maybe she hadn't) that the bat had turned left when flying through her door, a path that turned towards the solitary cells rather than the general ones, then such a thing was of no importance at all. And she probably hadn't seen it, anyway, there were no bats of such a size that were native to Central. She had been tired and stressed, of course, nothing else.
And one time the head of security had been preparing the night shift for duty, getting ready to clock out for his day, and as he had been doing a final check on all the washrooms he had heard a strange sound from one of the shower stalls- a wet pop, like something had been unplugged from the drain- and as he had taken the first few steps to check on it perhaps he had seen one of those rats people had been talking about, a fat black monster with a naked tail and glowing red eyes that had crawled up from underground, but it had skittered off quite fast, and so he very well might not have. The lighting in that bathroom wasn't the best, after all, and he knew better than most that the penitentiary had no problem with rodents.
And there was one young guard who had a rather curious agreement with the warden, not that he would tell anyone about it. He was a rather unpopular person amongst the staff and as such he was assigned many night shifts on the solitary block, usually guarding cell 33, which was Kimblee's, but that was an irrelevant detail really. Such shifts were the hardest and longest of all, a real drag, and so he hadn't minded one bit when the warden had come by one night and said he was relieved- that he could go home, but that he needn't worry, his shift would be paid in full as long as he told no one he had left early. He had done it and for almost every such shift since the warden had come to let him go a few hours into the night. He didn't know why- he didn't want the privilege revoked, he hated night shifts, and so he never asked the warden what he was doing, why he wanted to spend time alone with one of the most dangerous criminals in the prison, and never broke silence on their agreement during the day. He never let himself think too deeply on the way the warden looked at night, because he looked like himself but also almost didn't, the way he smiled was was a little wrong, the guard thought. A little too sharp, he almost didn't seem like a man when he came to the guard during those times. But to dwell on that was ridiculous, it meant nothing, and so he banished the cold feeling in the pit of stomach and always left the block in a rush, pretending he didn't hear the sound of the great metal door on Kimblee's cell being opened.
One of the other prisoners in solitary was a madman who had butchered young girls in East City, cutting them into pieces and leaving them around in decorative positions, he had been caught after his tenth victim and once in prison had been too violent and too disturbed to leave in the general cells. Despite his horrifying past no one made up any ghost stories about him. His cell was located down the hall from Kimblee's, and perhaps if both prisoners had pressed their faces to the edge of their windows and looked down the corridor they could have seen each other's noses, but they never did. And he was insane, he spoke to himself, and the guards often joked about what he said but not one of them took any of it seriously. What reason had they to think deeply on it, after all?
"Why do you keep letting that thing in," he demanded one day, and his guard in good humour had asked him what he meant.
"My neighbour's visitor, I don't know why you let him have it, it seems rather dangerous to me," he had replied, and the guard hadn't known what to say to that. Later, around coffee, his work friends had concluded that he must have gotten wind of the ghost story somehow, and had been trying to get a rise out of the guard, and he had reluctantly agreed. He decided not to mention that last part of the conversation- when he had asked the madman what Kimblee's 'visitor' was, he had said this:
"I don't really know, you tell me...but if I were to guess, I would say it's a mandrake."
And of course a mandrake was a plant, a rare one the guard (who had been well-educated in his youth) thought he had heard was used in alchemy, for making human-like dolls with no souls-
-homunculi-
-but it was all nonsense, the prisoner was insane and his talk was nothing but the ravings of an insane man.
And there was one person working at the penitentiary who had a secret he kept, a story he held only in his heart, and tried often to forget- for he had seen the ghost, or at least he thought he had, and though the rational part of his mind tried often to convince him he hadn't in his gut he knew that something had happened, and because he knew he told no one. Telling, after all, could make it real, and he didn't want that.
The man was, actually, a plumber, and he did jobs at the penitentiary but he worked in other places, too. He had been running late into the evening after a project in the Central finance office that had been more complicated than he had expected, and though he had called ahead to see if he could move his appointment the prison had insisted he come anyway, and dusk had been touching the horizon when he had gone in to check on their stupid drain, which they claimed was smelling bad and may have contained rats- as though he could do anything about that.
And the drain had been completely fine and he had been leaving the washroom to go and tell someone that when he had heard laughter from down the corridor- strange, wild, high laughter, bouncing off the bars of the cell doors and glittering in the air. If goosebumps had risen on his flesh, who could blame him? But what had bothered his rational mind at the time was that to him, the voice had sounded like an old woman, and as far as he knew there shouldn't be any of those in the federal penitentiary, unless perhaps they were staff. And there were no guards around- most of the cells here were empty, and down the corridor to the left was the solitary block, which unfortunately was where the laugh was coming from. And perhaps it was concern for the old woman, or fear of being alone in a nasty place like this, or maybe it was just basic morbid curiosity that made his feet start moving towards the sound of that voice, down and around the corner to the place where Amestris' worst were kept, and upon entering there he was even more shocked and disturbed to find that there were no guards in the block at all.
He should have turned around then and he knew it, he had no place amongst people like these, but now he could hear that high voice speaking- the words were muffled, he knew not what was said- and almost against his will he ventured in, his stomach tight beyond belief and his mouth dry, feeling like he was to be caught in some illicit act he did not understand and yet unable to stop himself from following the sound, down through an otherwise dark and quiet place, a place where people went to rot. Soon he could pinpoint the speaker, the voice was coming from cell 33, unguarded like all the rest, and now he could make out words though they had no meaning to him.
"It was this big tub of lava that did it, even one of us can't deal with something like that for very long. Had him chained up over the thing. Shithead totally deserved it though, you know, he called me a freak…"
Was the voice really that of a woman? Up close the plumber couldn't tell anymore, and another, more distinctively male tongue said something softly in reply and unable to help himself he took the last step forward and peered in through the little window on the cell door, into the moonlit room beyond.
(Moonlit? Something in the back of his brain was a little shocked, was it really so late already?)
Inside the cell the plumber first saw a man seated in the shadows, his posture was slumped and his hands held in a way that suggested they were bound, he must be the prisoner. Then another figure stepped into view, and this one- who was, as was abundantly clear, the speaker- was inexplicably bizarre. Short and stocky and strong-looking, with skin the colour of printer paper, and long dark hair that hung in unnatural spikes (later, he would think to himself, that the thing had seemed very solid for a ghost). It was pacing the floor of the cell with white fists clenched, wearing what looked almost like lingerie,and speaking spitefully to the prisoner in a high, burning voice, of- now that he listened- what seemed like some very terrible event…
"He was trying not to scream, of course, thinking he was being so clever with his taunts, but I know he felt it, he had to have been in so much pain-"
Halfway through that sentence the creature (because for some reason the plumber's brain couldn't categorize the thing as a person, there was something fundamentally wrong with it, but he couldn't pinpoint what) turned and looked at him directly, suddenly freezing him where he stood with huge violet cat's eyes, eyes that seemed to glow with a fire of their own, and the prisoner sat up a little straighter on his bench to peer through the window, saying something in a soft voice that the plumber couldn't hear over the sound of his own strongly beating heart.
And the ghost (or whatever it was) peeled back bloodless lips to bear its teeth at him, the canines of which were inhumanly sharp, and said in that cutting voice- "Get lost, scum," and so he did, turning back the way he came and walking, and then running, his feet picking up the pace almost without his realizing it, going as fast as his fat little legs could take him because he didn't want to feel those eyes on him anymore, didn't want to see what the ghost would do to him if he stayed (and though he was not entirely sure that it was a ghost, he was very certain that it was something dead, whatever it had been).
("Who was that?" said Kimblee, smiling a little in humour, and the ghost- who was Jealousy- just flicked its hair in dismissal, wanting to get back to the story being told, of the death of Avarice. "Who cares?" it replied. "He doesn't matter. None of them do.")
The next day, once the adventure had settled a little in his mind, the plumber had been tempted to tell someone what he had seen, but when he had thought about how he would say it he hadn't been able to find the words. It seemed that his knowledge of the world was not enough to describe the experience- after all, how would he start? He had seen a 'person' in Kimblee's cell, but he didn't think it actually was a person, and it hadn't been a woman but it hadn't been a man, either. It hadn't been old, or young, or maybe it had been both and already he couldn't remember what it had been speaking of, though he had a vague idea that it had been something cruel, and as the day went on the shape of the thing faded in his memory as well because it had been so strange, too strange for those brief few seconds wherein he had seen it to stick. And eventually all that remained in his mind was the notion of that cruelty, and an image of violet eyes that burned in the dark. So he told no one and buried his thoughts of it, thinking that if he tried to unearth those few scattered memories he might make what he had seen entirely real, and that it may somehow come back and hurt him (this showed that the plumber was surprisingly perceptive, as some ordinary people are, for what he thought was entirely true).
So the ghost stories continued in the penitentiary unimpeded, with no one allowing them to come fully to light and no one letting them die, either. After all, secrets can be kept in even the most well-regulated institutions, muddy waters and halfway-things can be made to grow even under eyes that claim to see everything. Amestris was a country full of such little secrets, blind spots, such pockets where reality became hazy and knowledge went unrecorded, allowing it to pass from the world of truth into the world of rumour. How else could it be that the general populace knew nothing of the tremendous labyrinth that passed mere metres beneath the paved roads of Central city, filled with skeletons and shrieking monsters and leftovers of experiments gone wrong? How could so few people, even ones versed in the field of science that brought forth such horrors, know of the red ichor that pulsed like blood in the heart of the country, and of how it was made, when in fact work done using it was performed almost every day? Of course, people did know, but no one said anything, and no one who tried to say anything made it very far, and as such these things faded into darkness and obscurity, unbelieved in even by those who had seen them, as all ghost stories eventually were.
It was a quiet affair when Kimblee was released. The forms detailing his freedom were laid on the warden's desk without ceremony, and the man knew as well as anyone else who reaches high tiers (but not the highest) of government in Amestris that he had no business asking questions of it, or being curious about the sharp-eyed youth with hands like ice when he shook them who delivered new belongings for the prisoner, or trying to claim that the release was unjust. Had Kimblee not been sentenced to life in prison? That didn't matter, the records of it would be obscured, and even those who knew would only be able to think of it, and nothing they thought would obstruct him in any way. That was how such things went in this country.
So he left, and the prisoners were told nothing of it and neither were most of the staff, but within a month or so everyone had figured it out, because the ghost was gone. No one saw any more mysterious animals flitting through the dark corridors at dusk, no longer did cold doppelgängers replace guards on the night shift, no supernatural voices wound their way through the air during the witching hour. And there were other, subtler changes, too- work schedules became cleaner and more organized, paperwork no longer went missing as it sometimes had, never was the solitary block left unguarded, as it may have been occasionally before. The prison became a very ordinary place once again, and time passed, and as it did the stories started to disperse as smoke did in the absence of a flame. Things were always less interesting when put out of sight, that was just the way the world worked.
But the tales were not completely forgotten. Some of the older prisoners still told them- only in the years afterward, their subject matter somewhat changed, as it had to given the evidence that came to light after Kimblee's release.
Zolf J. Kimblee's cell was not haunted.
He was.
And now, some said that the spirit that had troubled his imprisonment for all those years had not done it for vengeance, or hate, or some other natural demonic reason- they said now that the ghost had been in love with him, and he had entertained it for lack of anything else to do, in the dark and lonely world of his cell. Strange, how close to the truth some rumours could be, while still missing critical pieces of information. No one, after all, guessed that the spirit's love had been reciprocated.
But that didn't matter. It all made for a very good ghost story.