Stan Birch ’22
Staff Editor
As I approached the 30-foot-high stone walls of the world’s first penitentiary, I heard the first scream. There was no narration by Morgan Freeman, no accusations of murder, but I was marched through processing just the same. The guards sorted us into two groups: the ones who were likely to break the first night and those who thought they were tough. Without any input from me, my cellmate dragged me into the latter group, where I was marked with a glowing neck restraint and a splatter of blood on my face. As soon my processing was finished, it became clear what being tagged meant: the inmates and guards could do as they wished, including physical contact, to try to break me.
Ushered off the bus by a guard succumbing to his infection, I was forced into the first cellblock where the inmates had taken over. The guards and inmates had all been infected with the zombie virus and were out for blood. As we ran through the traps and open wings together, the infected tackled each other and fought to escape their restraints and cells. Those who broke their containment trapped us. My cellmate tried to cling to my arm as we tossed down slides that spilled into body parts, pushed through claustrophobic tunnels closing in, and dragged through a colorful 4-D trap where walls grabbed you and dragged you apart. As we entered the Blood Yard, where the few that had avoided the infection had created a recreation yard that cannibals dream of, the inmates sensed our fear and dragged us apart. Chainsawing my cellmate multiple times in front of me, I managed to find what was left of her later in the Infirmary.
After breaking out of the last wing and stumbling into the misting rain, I channeled Andy Dufresne while raising my hands to the sky. Truly, the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site’s event lives up to its name every year. I went twelve years ago and was still fearful of what would happen when I finished inmate processing. Every year, the conservation society manages to create: Terror Behind the Walls.[1]
[1] https://www.easternstate.org/halloween/.
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