By Jordan Thomas

Chapter 1 – Finding

The name is Philip Carrington, a regular corrections officer (CO) from a small town in Colorado. He used to be a Marine, so he had that “big tough guy” build: broad shoulders, big chest, thick thighs, and a neat crew cut. But for some reason, after a few years on the floor lingering around the cell blocks, one day he was assigned a desk job to handle administration of the prison inventory. You know, the one who handles stockkeeping for the equipment used in the prison, like shackles, cuffs, etc. For some it may be a nice thing to not walk around the facility and just hang around in a room, but for Philip it was torture as he’s an active person and now he’s stuck at his desk providing things that other COs ask for.

After a few days stuck in his mundane fort of solitude, he decided to do routine checks on the inventory. At the back of the room there was a door behind some old shelves. He was intrigued by it and tried to clear up some space by dragging the empty shelf away. To his surprise the door had some stickers that he could not quite read because of the dust sticking to the old peeled sticker. He wiped them off a little, ran his hands over the residue, and got a glimpse of the wording that said: “HIGH RISK SUPPLIES: AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.”

He tried to open the door but sadly it was locked, just like the warning stated: “AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.” He might not be authorized, but he might as well try swiping his key card.

Beep. The old card reader blinked green, indicating it was unlocked.

He tried opening the door again, but it was kinda hard to push through, maybe because it hadn’t been opened in a long time. A gust of wind entered the black void behind the door. A little peek won’t hurt, Philip said in his head. He felt along the walls looking for the light switch with his hands poking through the slightly ajar door.

Click. A glimpse of some shelving and a cabinet flashed through just as the old neon lamp lit up.

“Hmm… not much to see here,” said Philip. But as he was about to turn the lights off, he saw something in the corner: a big black cabinet with a glass pane. There was some stuff he had never seen before.

“Wait, what’s that?” With some strength he pushed the door open wider until it was wide enough for his broad shoulders to go in. Turns out, the room was bigger than he thought it would be.

“Holy shit…” He was surprised by his finding; it was clear from his mouth gaping like his jaw was off the hinge of his skull. There were rows of shelves inside containing the regular stuff used in the facility like handcuffs, shackles, spit masks. But there was more to it — some things he had never seen before in real life. He managed to find a canvas hood, a few coils of rope here and there, even a paddle! His stride stopped upon reaching a few columns of black cabinets with glass panes, clearly showing what was inside. Both of his hands held the knob of one of the cabinets and he decided to open it. A light lit up inside the cabinet showcasing a leather straitjacket. A whiff of leather scent passed through his nostrils, and it captivated him for a while.

“What the fuck…” muttered Philip with his finding. He didn’t stop there, though. His confusion grew bigger each time he opened the next cabinet. The first one was a straitjacket — one made from leather and another made of canvas. The second was some kind of suit but made from rubber. The third one was a collection of hoods and ballgags. The fourth one was a sleepsack. Until the last one — he was ready to pull the knobs revealing what was inside it but then…

DING! DING! The bell on his desk was ringing.

“Oh shoot!” Philip ran back toward his desk, forgetting that he was still on duty. He had been unconsciously drawn into the things he found inside the room.

As soon as he reached his desk, he was greeted by one of his colleagues, a fellow CO named Henry Owens.

“Where the hell have you been?!” said Henry.

“Sorry, I was doing some routine stock counting of the stuff we have in the back.”

“I waited for like 10 minutes outside this little window. Stop playing around, will ya?”

“Oh yeah, sorry, I didn’t notice you were there.”

“Okay, I need 2 sets of prison transport belts. There’s an inmate being scheduled for release. Besides, you scanned and logged all the stuff that went in and out of this room to the computer. You already got your data. —why bother counting it manually?”

“Well, I guess boredom got the best of me,” muttered Philip as he grabbed the restraints and handed them to Henry.

“Cut the crap, man, we all have something to do.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah — said someone who has the freedom to walk around the cell blocks.”

“Okay, man, relax a bit, will ya,” said Henry as he grabbed the restraints from Philip.

“Look alive!” shouted Henry as he walked farther from Philip’s inventory room.

A big sigh escaped Philip’s mouth. He decided to go back inside the extended storage room and clean up the mess he made by opening the cabinets one after another.

A flick of his finger on the light switch turned the lights off and he closed the door that had drawn him into an oblivion of things he had never seen before in real life other than from porn websites under the BDSM category he had watched a few times. He strode back to his desk and started to play around with the handcuff he had picked up when he fetched Henry’s request. Curious? Yes, he was curious about the contents of the last cabinet, but he might have to wait for another time to explore more of it since it was nearing the end of his night shift.

Metal would like to thank Jordan Thomas for this story and welcome him to the Prison Library!