Gerard Fletcher

Disclaimer; This is totally my own work, none of it is true, I make no profit from it.

Gerard Fletcher came to Brookland State Institute on 5th January 1989. I was on duty, sitting in a chair with a cup of coffee, looking out at all the cells with the inmates talking back to me cheerfully when the guards, Dave and Thomas, dragged him.
I didn’t know what to make of him at first. His face was covered with a mask; all I could see were sharp blue eyes and a lock of blond hair over the mask. He was wearing typical prison uniform with chains cuffed around his wrists and ankles. He wasn’t protesting; he was silent as they pulled him roughly to the empty cell at the end and shoved him in. Thomas followed and I heard the clinking of the chains being undone. Then he had rushed out and the door closed. Bang. And he was just another inmate.
Thomas left without a word, a short, podgy man of fifty with greying hair. Dave smiled at me and handed me Gerard’s file. “He’s all yours now, Faith.”
I smiled at Dave, who was a little younger than Thomas and a lot more friendly, and watched him leave. Then I opened Gerard’s file and scanned the contents. The other inmates were already calling names at him, trying to get him to communicate, but he was still silent. I was just wondering if he was a mute, when I came across some disturbing information in Gerard’s file. Some accounts of witnesses who had seen Gerard murder people.

He just pulled out a knife, face blank. He didn’t show any remorse, no emotion, nothing. Just stabbed the guy, right in the head. Blood everywhere. Everywhere, splattered on him, his clothes…and he didn’t stop there…just kept stabbing the man, stabbing and stabbing, even though he was already dead. Blood was soaking out onto the road, the traffic in gridlock looking on in shock. There was this guy just murdering this random person in the middle of a crowded street.

I skipped a couple of pages and looked at the total of people Gerard was known to have murdered. 56. I gazed at the figures. 56? He’d killed 56 people?
I slowly walked down the walkway of cells and stood in front of Gerard’s. His mask had been taken off and I could see a slim man sat on his bunk, a thin intelligent face, although terribly pale, sharp, bright blue eyes and greyish blond hair, which fell in locks over his face. He looked slightly ill, as though he had been kept inside for too long, deprived of sun, which I supposed he had been. Killing 56 people would be a hefty prison sentence for anyone.
“So, hello Gerard,” I said, smiling. His eyes looked up at me, cold, hard. “Welcome. You play nice and I’ll return the favour. No funny business, and we’ll get along fine, got that?”
He was silent, looking at me. Slowly, he nodded.
I was surprised, for I hadn’t surprised an answer at all. I nodded back at him, and walked back to my chair, in which I sunk and took another sip of coffee.
I had not known what to make of Gerard at first, but he wasn’t like any of the other inmates. He frightened me.

I came in early the next morning.
“Hey Faith,” Freddy Marshall smiled, as I got out of my car. He was a guard of Wing Four, he was outgoing, attractive, and could be found most of the time telling jokes.
“Hey Freddy,” I smiled back, and we walked together towards the prison. He opened the door and let me inside first.
“I heard you’ve got a psychopath on your block,” Freddy laughed, as we stepped into the dingy, dark building and into the hallway. I looked out one of the many windows in the hall out to the lazy blue sky outside. I quickened my pace to the lifts.
“What?”
“That Gerard Fletcher guy. He was on the news. You can’t believe what he did, can you?”
We reached the end of the hall. I went to the lift on the right hand side and pressed the lift button, waiting for it to come up. “All I know is that he’s killed 56 people.”
“He killed them in the most horrible ways. Killed one guy by tying him to the back of his car, then drove three blocks slowly with the body dragging behind. Most of the skin had come off the guy when the police got hold of him.”
I winced, not even wanting to think about it.
“So what’s he like?”
The lift came out and we walked in. The doors closed behind us and I pressed one of the buttons.
“I don’t know. Didn’t say a word last night when they bought him in. I think he’s a mute.”
“Oh no, he’s not a mute.”
I turned to Freddy. I felt hot and uncomfortable; the lift always made me feel claustrophobic with its enclosed space and mirrors on every side.
“How do you know?”
“He spoke to me when he came in. I helped bring him in.”
“What did he say?”
The lift stopped and the doors slid open. Freddy walked out and stared back at me. “Not much. You’ll find out soon enough. He likes accessing things, does Gerard. Once he finds out something personal about you, he won’t let it go. You remember that.”

I entered the wing that morning, there was uproar with the inmates. I placed my lunch box and files I had to sort through onto a table at the front of the basement, and walked down the aisles.
“What the fuck is going on here, lads?”
“Gerard,” said Rick, from the cell behind me. I turned to him to hear what he had to say.
“We’ve been trying to get him to speak. Ain’t said a word all night. We reckon he’s a retard.”
Rick, a burly black man who had been arrested for armed robbery, was loud and wise cracking. I liked him a lot, so I sighed and walked down to Gerard’s cell.
My heart was beating in my chest and my hands were sweaty. I don’t know why he scared me so much. I think it was because he was the worst criminal out of the ones down there, and yet the most quiet. It spooked me.
“Gerard.” I stood in front of the bars; hands shoved in pocket, my itchy grey uniform making me feel hot and sweaty.
“You’re disturbing the other inmates. Can you talk?”
He was sat on the floor, his back against the wall, and the mattress to his right. His cold blue eyes were staring at me like hard pebbles. Grey blond hair draped over his pale face.
“Are you deaf as well as mute? Answer me.”
Gerard breathed quietly, then… “I can talk.”
My heart caught in my chest. A soft, clipped voice, sounded as though he rarely used it. I don’t know why, but that voice...
“Good. How are you finding the cell?”
Gerard’s gaze moved away from my face. “Oh, it’s lovely. Very pleasant, thank you.”
I stopped, not sure whether he was being sarcastic, not sure what to say. “Er…good. Good. “
Gerard’s eyes went back to mine, and they stared out, hollow and cold. I went rigid, and quickly walked away.

At lunch I sat next to Freddy so I could talk to him about Gerard. I didn’t know why he interested me so much, but he just did, and I couldn’t help it.
“Hey, Freddy,” I smiled, pulling out the empty, plastic chair to the left of him, resting my tray of steaming potatoes and meat on the steel table and sitting down.
“Hey, Faith,” he grinned broadly back, spooning a mouthful of food into his mouth. “Having fun with the monster?”
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I admitted, placing my elbows on my lap. “He’s kind of quiet for a psychopath.”
Freddy laughed. “Yeah, he is, it’s odd. He’s the most crooked con in the joint and yet the most intelligent.”
I ate a mouthful of potato. Slightly buttery in taste, I took another bite and swallowed it. “You have any idea how old he is?”
“Um…He was born in 1960…so that would make him…thirty.”
He was only one-year-older than me. I tried to swallow another bit of potato I had shoved in my mouth but it stuck there in my throat. I gulped and managed to swallow it.
“Oh…right…and do you know why he is the way he is?”
“Psychologists before have tried to test him, but he’s too intelligent. He’s got an appointment with Annie tomorrow actually…should be interesting how she takes him, and how he takes the test.”
Annie was our psychologist at the prison. She was a nice enough lady, around forty with short black hair and small, crinkly dark eyes.
Freddy turned to face me, abandoning his meal for a few moments. “Why, you got a crush on him?”
Sickened, I shook my head. “No! Just interested, that’s all.”
Freddy picked up his plate and stood up, scraping back his chair. “Yeah, well make sure it’s not like that. Because, believe me, if you fancy him, he’ll know it instantly. And he’ll play with you.”