cmk418 | Ficlet for spook

Title: Getting to Him
Fandom: OZ
Character: Beecher
Prompt: Creature prompt-ghost

It’s a well-known fact that anybody can be gotten to in prison. And it’s doubly true if that prison is Oz.

Tobias Beecher had been here for the better part of six years. A little time away for good behavior and a little time in Lardner on account of someone else’s bad behavior, but Oz was familiar. He had the routine down, knew the patterns. He was a veteran of these walls, and most days it was better to be a veteran than a victim.

Lately though, things had been odd. Little things, like items that he’d thought he’d put in one place turning up in another, mysterious creaks coming from the lower bunk, and the thing that unsettled him most of all, the feeling that someone was watching him. All of these things he could explain away – the movement of items could be chalked up to either his own forgetfulness or someone deciding to fuck with him, the creaks from the lower bunk were probably just things settling back into position after his own tossing and turning at night, and the eyes, well, hell, it was prison, someone’s always going to be watching.

It definitely wasn’t about this bunk, about the flood of memories that came back every time he set foot in it. It wasn’t about the fact that the man who’d been his cellmate in this particular pod had been dead for nine months.

But if anybody could come back from the dead…

Toby thought about going to McManus and asking for another pod assignment. Maybe he could transfer out of EmCity altogether. Of course, any time he’d ask for a reassignment, it would generally end up in disaster, so maybe it was best to stick it out on his own for the time being.

At least he could be assured that nobody could get to him. Comfortable with that, he lay back on the bunk and closed his eyes.

“Is that what you believe?” chuckled the quiet voice, close to his ear. “Everybody can be gotten to in this place. Pleasant dreams, sweet pea.”