Episode 9: Half A Life

The Unguarded Condemned : Episode 9 : 1/6/2026

Photo by R.D. Smith on Unsplash

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Written by Shawn Brooks

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Brendan ran into the infirmary so fast Jennifer felt her heart freeze in her chest. He stumbled over a chair, and grabbed her by the hand—his was sweaty and shaking—telling her something about how they needed to get out before they sealed the gates.

Jennifer looked at the inmate on duty who had been helping her clean up, just standing there looking at her with confused fear and pleading on his face, wanting to tell him to run, but Brendan was already pulling her down the hall.

“What’s happening?” Jennifer asked, her voice cracking, her feet tripping over themselves as she tried to keep up.

“Don’t know,” Brendan rasped. “But something is loose.”

Loose?

She didn’t know why, but her mind immediately went to Warden Carlisle’s orientation for all new staff when she started six months ago. A gig she only saw as a stepping stone to something better. A hospital or overseas medical outreach maybe.

She had only lived half a life after all, the rest of it was before her.

“Never find yourselves on the lower levels. Never, under any circumstances, go past this door,” the Warden had commanded that day as he gestured towards the door with no label on it at the end of an innocuous hall. A door that was next to the gate Brendan was so concerned about getting to.

“This is where we used to perform executions via the electric chair. But the entire area is condemned and dangerous, so don’t go walking around there,” the Warden said dryly as if bored by the topic.

He led the new staff away and Jennifer gave the door one last look. It hurt to look at it. She tasted pennies in mouth. Thought she smelled burned hair. It all went away the moment she tore her eyes away.

Brendan kicked open a door and banked right into a hall with occupied cells lining the sides.

The lights went out. Jennifer screamed.

Inmates were yelling and banging their fists on their bars.

A man off to her left cried out in terror, cried out for his mother, the shouting becoming gurgled and bubbly until he went silent.

“Come on Jen!” Brendan shouted at her as he pulled.

He had only ever called her that after they hooked up. Like sex somehow made him feel a right to intimacy with her, a right TO her. She didn’t like it then, she didn’t like it now. But he was her only lifeline in the moment so she let him lead the way.

Another man behind them screamed.

“No, no, no, stop it!”

Wet tearing. Snapping of something solid. Like thick tree branches broken by the wind.

Brendan pulled hard to what felt like a hall on her left, maybe the hall that led to the gates he was so worried about being sealed.

“It’s okay, Jen, I’ll get us—”

Silence.

He was no longer pulling her forward. Jennifer fell on her knees since she was counting on Brendan’s momentum to carry her forward, and now there was nothing. But she was still holding his sweaty and calloused hand.

It had no weight behind it.

Jennifer brought the hand towards her face, just the hand, no longer attached to the man.

There was no time to process this.

A dripping sound ahead of her. Like rain breaking through a tarp and pitter-pattering over the cement floor. Followed by something heavier, wetter, meatier, smacking against the floor.

Jennifer scooted back, as silently as she could, still holding onto Brendan’s severed hand as if it were an anchor to reality.

Something chittered in the dark. Like a bullfrog croaking. Scratching on the ceiling.

Whatever it was fell to the floor with barely a sound.

Snap.

Like solid ice breaking.

Bones.

Rip.

Like flesh tearing.

The unmistakable sound of something greedily devouring a meal.

Jennifer’s heart beat so hard it hurt her chest and she feared she’d even have a heart attack. She pressed herself against the wall and tucked her legs into her stomach. Her right shoe scuffed the floor as she did so.

The thing stopped its eating.

Chittering.

A hiss.

Slow wet slaps against the floor.

Getting closer to her.

Jennifer could feel the heat of the thing. Could almost see it in the dark, hunched over, almost human, walking on all fours, a bulbous head, something ridged along the back.

It was right in front of her. She held her breath and tried to will her heartbeat to shut up.

It took a step that landed between her feet.

Jennifer threw Brendan’s hand to her left. Heard it flop against the wall. The thing rushed after it. Jennifer, crying but keeping silent, crawled forward on hands and knees. Slipped on something wet and warm. Could smell the blood and shit of what must have been the remains of her former fling as she waded through intestines and cut her hands on shattered bone. Her right hand grazed what must have been his head and it rolled away.

Jennifer got to the end of the hall. Couldn’t hear where the thing was. She felt the bars of a gate.

The gate that led out of here.

It was locked.

Jennifer rose on shaking legs and tugged at the bars.

Heard the flop of feet sprinting down the hall at her.

Jennifer screamed.

It wasn’t fair, hers was only half a life after all. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

She quickly felt along the side of the hall for the door. The door the Warden had warned her not to go down. Now her only possible escape.

Her hands slipped on the handle. She opened the door. The thing behind her moaned, was mere feet from her. Jennifer rushed forward and fell down a flight of stairs. Smacked the back of her head on the floor. Lighting split her skull.

As her senses came back to her, with horror she realized what she had done.

The abandoned execution wing.

And she wasn’t alone down there.

Crackling of electricity.

Smell of burnt flesh.

Whispering and muttering voices further in the darkness.

The thing that was pursuing her took a wet and heavy step onto the stairs.

It was coming down.

Quickly.