The Court House

Submitted into Contest #215 in response to: Set your story in a haunted house.... view prompt

18 comments

Horror

Almost 8:30 AM, it was just before court would begin when his dead client, Mr. Black showed up to talk.


Benny knew the consequences for being late, so was short with him.

“Why are you here now?” He spoke in a hushed tone to the apparition in front of him, glancing around as the Alameda County Court room began to fill up. It would ruin his reputation as the best Public Defender in the County if people thought he spoke to ghosts. 


 Mr. Black’s gray suit, the one he used to always wear, appeared now to fit him well, his cuffs were no longer frayed, the holes gone. Benny tasted the bitter shame of his failure with Mr. Black’s case as his stomach knotted.


“You owe me more.” Mr. Black’s voice was flat and emotionless, so different from his last day in this courtroom when the coughs racked his body, his handkerchief filled with blood.

Benny’s elbows pressed into the table, the air in the courtroom hung thick and stale. His thin fingers nudged the yellow pad, straightening it imperceptibly. He moved his two pens, one black and one red, so that they were even to the pad.

“I paid my debt.” Benny whispered. “With the last one.”


Mr. Black’s anger roared like a fire, heating up the air around Benny like a blast furnace. The other, past inhabitants of this room raged, their hate overwhelming him.


Even with so many clients, Benny prided himself that he cared about every one, those he had saved from jail time, and those who were put away. Mr. Black was the first one to come back and visit him though, after dying in prison, professing his innocence with his last breath.


For the accused, Benny, ‘King of the Pleas’, was the PD to get in

Alameda County. Most of his clients walked, or at least avoided jail time. Benny averaged 600 cases each year however, so had some losses, and Benny felt the pain of every one.


But innocence and guilt have no place in the Criminal Justice system, and Benny had begun to wonder if his work meant anything. Some of his clients were monsters, and better off behind bars. Benny worked for his client's, but he lived in this City, had to deal with the crime and violence. Should he put his thumb on the scales of justice? 


Today his past clients were weighing in. Screaming in thunderous rage, frustration, and anger at what happened to them in this cursed room.


“I shouldn’t be here, it’s not my fault.” One voice called out.


 “I’m innocent!” Shouted another, then echoed over and over again into a cacophony overwhelming Benny.


Mr. Black’s face leaned in to Benny, his voice roaring. “Pay up, or else.”


 Bang, bang bang! A gavel thundered, echoing off the wood walls around him.

Mr. Black left, fading into the crowd and taking the voices with him.


Benny released his breath, trying to focus on where he was, and why.

"The court is called to order!” The Judge called out. A pale, gray man with red and piercing eyes, his head floated above his black cloak.


Benny blinked, looking around as the colors of the room came into focus. A man in an ill fitting suit slumped next to him, eyes downcast. Fear vibrated in waves off the man. The fingers of his left hand pick at the nails of his right, over and over, the scraping sound like claws on steel bars. He leaned over to Benny.


“Mr. Benny, we’re going to be OK right? You’re going to save me- I mean we have the receipt- it proves I wasn't there for the rape. They can’t put this one on me.”


Benny nodded, but didn't turn. The man's high pitched voice whined like a broken motor, his breath hot. Benny suddenly hated him, loathed him for being here and needing Benny’s help. His life depended on Benny doing his job correctly. Did this man even deserve it?


Benny peered toward him, just a glance out of the corner of his eye. 


Lean as a mop handle, he could not keep still, shoulders moving, fingers picking at imaginary flecks on his borrowed suit, and the skin of his hands.  Benny’s lip curled in disgust. He opened the file, the case notes in perfect order, the receipt on top, stamped with proof of this man’s location across town at the time of the sexual assault.


The man’s arm crossed in front of Benny, his skin red and mottled with sores. He pushed the receipt with a scarred finger.


 “My Monopoly card, Get out of Jail Free.” He laughed. “I need to keep that, there are a few other girls they don’t know about yet-” The man winked.


Benny brushed his fingers on the receipt, manicured fingernails pale over his dark skin, smoothing the wrinkled paper. 


A loud rushing sound filled Benny’s head. They called to him, his clients who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whose lives he could not save, due to a lack of this kind of solid alibi. He heard them screaming, shouting at the unfairness, the inhumanity.

 

At the District Attorney’s table across from him a tall, thin woman stared with shrewd, cold eyes. She turned away to put her head down into a stack of files. 

Voices cried out from her table too, people wronged and insulted in the worst way. Losing property, their self respect, or their family, and then forced to sit in this horrible room and go home with nothing but tears and anger. Their voices were loud. "Punish. Vengeance. An eye for an eye!”


      The screams wracked Benny’s brain and he shut his eyes, his hands flew to his temple, pressing in to quiet their cries.

 

Bang, bang bang!

The gavel thundered again. Benny stood, motioning to his client to stand as well. Benny clenched his jaw, and knew the answer to his dilemma.  

Forget what was best for the client, or society. Benny needed to look out for himself. This man will be sacrificed to Mr. Black, to appease him and the demons chasing Benny. This man was guilty, of course. Maybe not for this crime, but for another Benny was certain.


Benny will change places, go from the defender to the accuser, from the protector, to the judge.


His fingers moved, just a brief sweep, and the paper receipt floated unseen, down out of the file, into the trash can. Gone.


 The trial moved fast, a Police Officer, serious and trustworthy in his pressed blue uniform pointed at the man next to Benny.


“That’s the guy.”


Whispers erupted from the court room, bodies shifted on the wooded seats squeaking with their movements. 


“That man is just evil, I could tell right off.” Some one said.


 “The monster should hang for what he did to that girl.” Another voice added. 


 Bang, bang bang!

Justice thundered down from on high.

“The verdict is guilty!” The Judge shouted, a sneer on his face. "Next!"


Benny squeezed his eyes shut as the voices in his head roared out, echoing, “Guilty, guilty!” 


 The Bailiff pulled on the man next to him.  


 “No, I’m innocent!” He screamed. “Mr. Benny- what happened!” 


Mr. Black appeared in front of Benny, nodding before he left with the man to his future hell.


Then the voices were gone, the sudden silence deafening.  


Benny picked up his red pen to carefully put a small ‘x’ to the end of the line of thousands of black and red marks, then lifted the next file off the foot high stack next to him. 


Justice will be done.



September 15, 2023 21:18

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18 comments

Michelle Oliver
14:48 Sep 18, 2023

A haunted courtroom. What a great concept, there would be so many different ghosts hanging about. I like the way Benny is now having to pay for doing his job well. He has to do his job poorly to atone for his crime of being known as “Benny, ‘King of the Pleas’, … the PD to get in Alameda County.”

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Marty B
05:00 Sep 19, 2023

Benny might have been a good lawyer once, but those days are long past. Thanks!

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Amanda Lieser
04:38 Oct 15, 2023

Hi Marty! Ah Justice! She is blind, but always a challenge to understand. I think you do well at pulling on some of the tropes that we know of the courtroom drama. For example, you described each of the characters so beautifully, and I particularly enjoyed the description of the judge because it fit in my mind of what a judge must really look like. It added to the ambience that you created so beautifully for this piece. I thought the twist of having ghosts in the room was particularly clever, it gave homage to the saying, “If these walls cou...

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Marty B
23:01 Oct 15, 2023

'If these walls could talk-' is right on- Some true horror stories! Thanks!

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Peter Gaskin
02:59 Sep 21, 2023

Great pacing, strong style. Characterization is your strong suit. Our justice system needs more Mr. Blacks to guilt public defenders into doing the right thing :D Benny just got Christmas Caroled. I really enjoyed this :)

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Marty B
03:35 Sep 21, 2023

The Legal system needs something, maybe ghosts would do the trick!

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Rebecca Miles
18:56 Sep 18, 2023

There's a great courtroom setting here; I could picture it well and the cautionary tale of the failings of the Justice system probably works well in many lands. Thanks!

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Marty B
04:58 Sep 19, 2023

Anytime there is a arbiter of justice, there will be those who fool with the scale for their own interest. Thanks!

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Lily Finch
01:38 Sep 18, 2023

A tricky gamble indeed. This was a track of a different kind. The ghosts that haunt him now are in the courtroom. Being guilty, "This man was guilty of course, Maybe not for this crime, but for another. Benny was certain." Michał Przywara said it best. LF6

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Marty B
04:47 Sep 18, 2023

Thanks LF6!

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Michał Przywara
19:45 Sep 17, 2023

A lawyer haunted by ghosts in the courtroom - an excellent idea! Is there another job so adversarial, where one side must lose for another to win? Especially when the stakes are as high freedom, or even life. And even moreso, when justice is little more than an afterthought. Benny compromises himself. We have laws against vigilante justice, because we don't believe it's actually justice at all. But who prevents the "real" agents of justice from going vigilante? "This man was guilty, of course. Maybe not for this crime, but for another Benny...

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Marty B
22:41 Sep 17, 2023

Benny is just another 'x' mark in the long line of lawyers to put their hand on the scales of justice for their own interest. Those affected ghosts haunt the halls of every court room. Thanks!

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Delbert Griffith
11:14 Sep 17, 2023

Man, this really hits the justice system in the gut. The ghosts of cases past coming back to haunt a present case feels like a perfect way to describe the fear most of us have of being in a courtroom. I personally think the justice system is so tied up in procedural knots that the unvarnished truth is often obscured by it. Nice tale, Marty. The ghosts want their pound of flesh. So does everyone else. Who gets to feed today? Cheers!

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Marty B
15:38 Sep 17, 2023

Tied in procedural knots- now that is scary! Thanks !

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Kevin Logue
13:38 Sep 16, 2023

Ghastly courtroom! Can only imagine the type of spirits that would cling to such a place of injustice. At times I thought this was leaning towards the judge being the devil and the lawyers were somehow being punished for, well, being lawyers. In a sense it was, but I think at its heart it is a commentary on the social injustices of law, hammered home with this excellent line >>>But innocence and guilt have no place in the Criminal Justice system. A creative take Marty, good work here. I noticed this line, it may just need a comma but it se...

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Marty B
18:02 Sep 16, 2023

Court is just scary- The people who have all the power generally could care less, and the outcome will be life changing. Truly a horror! Thanks for edit!

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AnneMarie Miles
01:13 Sep 16, 2023

Oooh an eerie tale you have here. And eerie truly is the state of our justice system, huh? So it's really cool that you used this prompt to explore the injustices in the system. Perhaps lawyers aren't making deals with Mr. Black but oh yeah I have no doubt they are marking red Xs on clients for someone else. That's the real scary story! And although there was conflict in Benny, as he decides to help his client, in the end, he looks out for himself and protects himself from Mr. Black, though we don't know exactly what would happen to him if ...

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Marty B
02:16 Sep 16, 2023

Some say ghosts are people who can not move on because of something unresolved in their in life. If so then the courthouses must be full of ghosts! Thanks for the edit- fixed!

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