Chapter 9: Where is Clarissa?

"Feeling better, Stella?" asked Megan as they worked at the rock-breaking, three days after their release. They had been taken in the new truck which had just arrived to replace the one Clarissa had stolen. By now they had lost hope that the escapee had survived.

"A bit, Megan. I'm not as strong as you three. I wonder how Miranda and the others are. The poor girl in the cage looked close to dying when I left this morning. It must be terrible to be cooped up like that all the time, but you survived!"

"Yes. I survived. But I did get out to stretch myself every few days, thanks to Wanda. Without that I thinkI would have gone mad. That poor thing will be permanently bent double when they let her out. I heard one of the guards say they'll keep her there for a year and then throw her in the solitary cells."

"Poor girl! She'd be better of if she did die!"

"Get on with your work, you two! No talking!!"

This injunction from Twisted Grin was accompanied by a vicious cut from her whip which whistled angrily through the air, with all of that malevolent woman's considerable strength behind it. It cut Megan's back open across the shoulders. She uttered an agonised squeal and got on with her useless and exhausting toil, not anxious to be lashed again. She tried to ignore the severe pain and the anger. How much more of this was she going to have to endure?

Even at her most downcast and pessimistic, she hardly imagined this nightmare, which had taken her friend's life, was going to last for all of thirty years. The bunch of lunatics running this remote neck of the woods would be found out one day, although when she took on board the fact that the prison had been operating for fifteen years already, she realised she might be here for a year or two.

When the truck deposited the tired and dust-covered women back at the prison, Megan and Stella were about to relax in one of the few bits of available shade before going inside to eat when the Warden saw Megan's back, which still hurt badly and had barely stopped bleeding.

"How did this inmate get that cut on her back?" she shouted at the guard.

"She was talking, Madam and I gave her a good hard lash to shut her up!"

"Talking, was she? Well! I hardly think one silly little flick across the shoulder is enough for that. Let's see a lot more red lines on that hide! - I'm getting really tired of the girls in that cell! One escapee who disobeyed my orders and another who had to be put in the cage on her first day and STILL hasn't learned the virtues of obedience and hard work! Give her a good long taste of the whip and have all the others made to watch!"

Megan knew it was useless to plead for mercy and allowed herself to be led towards the whipping station. Then the Warden had an idea!

"Bring her over to the cage! We may not have room inside it for her, but she can stand underneath to be punished!"

So Megan's hands were tied and she was secured to a rope which was run through one of the bars at the base of the cage, which was raised enough to bring Megan up on to the tips of her toes.

"Now whip the bitch!" shouted the Warden, whose behaviour seemed to be growing more insane by the day. "Give it her on her front as well as her back. Cut her up all over from top to bottom! Then we'll think what more to do with her!"

The Warden then walked off, presumably to find refreshment - she was reputed to be drinking heavily since Clarissa's escape. The grinning guard was also tired after a long day in the sun and the task of punishing Megan was given to the one who had been left behind at the prison all day. This woman was much less thorough than the Warden would have liked to see if she had been there. When she had finished, Megan bled from twelve cuts to her back, half a dozen to her stomach and six to her thighs and buttocks. The guard had rounded off her work by bringing the whip down across both breasts. Long before this had reached the half way stage Megan had ceased resisting the impulse to scream and her tortured shrieks rang around the compound. How Clarissa had endued her much more severe whipping in silence, Megan would never understand. Stella swore she could hear the screams echoing all night!

Megan was cut down and taken to be fed on bread and water and brought back to the cage, once the occupant had been lowered and raised for feeding. She was told she would be left underneath the cage all night.

"She'll be peeing and crapping right on your head!" sneered the guard before leaving her.

"How is it up there?" Megan asked the poor captive, as soon as they would not be overheard.

"I'm going mad up here! I can't take much more. I want to die!"

"I know the feeling! I was up there like you for months! It's no picnic, I know!"

"I'll try to hold out until they take you away. It's not as if I get that much to eat and drink and it's so infernally hot up here, I hardly pee at all most days!"

"Don't worry! Being crapped on from a great height is something I'm used to by this time, figuratively at least! Get some sleep if you can! It helps, as I had plenty of chances to find out!"

"I know I should get some sleep. But it's such a wonderful change to have a friendly person to talk to, after all this time. I wonder if your friend might still get help? I hope so, because I can't last much longer!"

Then the caged prisoner did fall asleep. Megan hurt too much to sleep and her semi-suspended position made her even more uncomfortable. By the time morning came she was in agony both from the continuing pain from her wounds and from her shoulders which felt as though they had been dislocated. An hour before the prisoners were due to be taken off to work the Warden came over to her, accompanied by two guards.