Dead Men Tell No Tales

Red Capped

He sat there in the arms of a cold metal chair, playing with the silver metal cuffs that squeezed his dark brown wrists tightly. His brown eyes wandered the small square grey room he sat in, already tired of the simple scene presented to him. He glanced at the interrogators busy fingers, tapping away on the grey metal table. Glancing up, he met the interrogators icy, unforgiving gaze that chilled the tense silence growing between them. The scar below his left eye twitched in distraught.

"I see no reason for you to uphold this pretence about not remembering anything Alec" the interrogator finally spoke, his tone thinly laced with exhaustion." Your sociopathic killing ends with that guard. We are placing you on death row" the interrogator shut his abruptly and turned to leave. 'Death row?' the man thought in a rising panic.

"Believe me, I did not kill that guard man, nor have I ever killed no one in my life!" Alec protested "you're imprisoning the innocent while the guilty is running free!" he shouted, while banging his hand against the table.

"Whatever," the interrogator breathed out in relief. He quickly opened the door and left. Moments later, officers came busting through the door, heavily armed, and grabbed at Alec. Alec fought back, refusing to accept his judgement. His fight chanced him for the win until a prison guard wearing a red cap hit him harshly with the back of his gun, knocking him out.

Hours later, Alec's eyes slowly fanned open. His vision came to witness his surroundings now contained two bunk beds and a urinal so dirty and stained the mere lingering scent was enough to make Alec want to puke on the spot. Realizing that they had put him in a cell, he sat up slowly, staggering on his feet.

"Awake now are ya?" a high pitched male voice perked up from the darkness in the corner. Surprised, Alec spun around so swiftly that his legs collided, sending him flying back to the floor with a loud thud. The voice in the corner let out a loud hyena's laugh. It rolled out of the corner to reveal a tall, bony prisoner with wild red hair.

"Ah! You a funny one aren ya Sir. Innocent?" he chuckled, gripping his sides and briefly slapping his knee.

"I am innocent hobo," Alec retaliated.

"My names Josh and I know that you are, lad. Seen the thing ma 'self to know what you naht to be 'er" Josh effortlessly threw himself on the lower bunk bed, his smile resembled a monkey with a golden key. Before Alec could ask Josh what he meant, correctional officer 13 banged on the metal bars.

"Lights out!" his familiar voice boomed into the everyone's ears. He stared at Josh for a moment before he tugged on his red baseball cap and creeped away. Alec, at first, ignored the guard's command and pleaded for Josh to elaborate on his statement, but after seeing Josh's unusually stiff stature, wide eyes and blood drained face something told him to obey the guard. Disappointed, Alec climbed into his bunk and went to sleep. That night, he had a weird premonition in which he saw Joshin his cell, looking at him in complete fear, just like he looked at the officer. He pointed at something and kept mumbling" Murderer"

The next day, Alec woke up to a cell without a Josh. He went through his day searching for the mad man until his dilemma was cleared up in the prison court yard. Lain on the monkey bars, surrounded by a huge crowd of prisoners and guards alike, was Josh, sprawled out in a puddle of blood with his face wearing death's mark. The familiarity of the scene frightened him. The more he blinked the more the scene seemed to change until all he no longer saw Josh, but a dead prison guard lain at his feet.

"Was that too much to ask? It's not that hard to kill a prison guard," a cold voice lectured above him. A figure wearing a prison uniform and red cap came into play.

"Come on let's go," the figure's large hand stretched out towards Alec. "What are you doing? Let's go!"

' "Let's go Alec Ryder. Everyone has left already," the voice said again. Alec looked up to find the prison guard wearing the red cap. Wait, a red cap... Alec suddenly remembered.

"I didn't kill the guard..." he muttered slowly, unsure of his words." I was visiting my brother in jail!" Alec suddenly shouted. " I didn't kill him, another prisoner did! He was wearing a baseball cap..... A red one!...

One ...kinda ...like ....yours"

The prison guard momentarily froze and gripped his gun.

"Oh, Hide," the guard sighed. A sadistically wide smile tore across his cheeks. Slowly, his peeled his cap off his head, letting down long brown locks and revealing a mirror of Alec's face. Tilting his head to the side, the prison guard's face became unreadable. Only his eyes, his wild brown eyes darkened, glaring at him. "A sheep shouldn't go blabbering to a wolf. Haven't you and Josh learnt anything?"

Back at the police station, the interrogator sat at his desk, flipping through Alec Ryder's file feeling uncertain. The way Alec acted back then troubled him. As he read through his information, he saw that on the day Alec broke out, his twin brother visited him. A thought sent worry throughout his body. There is no way, right? He wondered. He looked at a picture of the twins standing in their home. Hide, the brother, bore a scar below his eye and Alec wore a red baseball cap. A troubled feeling came over him.

 "Sir! Sir!" a police officer ran in frantically. "Prisoner Alec Ryder was found dead next to prisoner Josh Parker in the courtyard at the prisoner today. The only evidence we have, is a red baseball cap and a prison guard 13 uniformed that was found laying beside them beside them".