Another Look at the Penitentiary

I know that I've already talked about the West Virginia Penitentiary, but that place was so massive that it deserves another look. There is much more that I can say about this dark prison.

The Hole

We went down into the area called The Hole. This is where the boilers were kept. It was here that R.D. Wall was murdered in 1929. Wall was an inmate at the prison, and he spent a lot of time in The Hole tending to the boilers. Several inmates believed that Wall was a snitch, so one day they went down there and murdered him. 
 

The Hole

Our guide told us the story of a group of people that went down there one night. They sat in a circle on metal chairs, trying to contact Wall. A loud crash startled them, and they ran upstairs, knocking all of the chairs over in the process. When they went back down, the chairs were all upright, back in their neat circle. 

Being down there made me nervous. You could feel the room's dark past pressing in around you. In the corner of the room, there was a short, narrow hall that led to a tiny, round area. There was a single metal folding chair here. Others told us that when they went back there, they heard noises around them, even voices. I agreed to go back there, but only if my friend Nicole came with me. 

The Hole

We sat there, squished together on that single chair, with me on the left and her on the right. We were back there for about ten minutes, sitting in the pitch black cubby. We asked questions to the dead air to see if we could get a response. I don't know if I imagined it, but I thought that I heard breathing near my left ear. 

The Gift

We decided to leave around five in the morning. We checked out, they unlocked the door, and we made our out to freedom. We got in the car, and right before we left my sister said, “I have something for you."

She handed me a small, white piece of rubble. She had taken it from inside the prison. My first thought was "Take it back!" I didn't want anything from that place to follow me home, and taking something from there was an easy way to make that happen.

I kept that piece, though. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like any spirits followed me home through that tiny piece of rubble. I now keep it on my dresser, as a reminder of that night. 

The Piece of Rubble