Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope
Chapter Three

~*~

Michaela’s eyes widened with fear as she stared at the Joker, who licked his scars expectedly as he stared down his three clowns, who were all looking at each other and mumbling. Too bad none of them had thought to put nametags on their hostages; lucky for Michaela, though. Her heart began to drum hard against her chest and she willed herself to stay calm and not do anything rash. A single look or move, she was certain, would tell the Joker exactly who she was.

The Joker was becoming increasingly displeased. The three clowns were fumbling over their words, looking to each other for explanations. Finally the one pulled aside and flipped open a cell phone, dialing a number and speaking into it quickly and hushed, so none of them could hear him clearly.

One of the clowns nodded to the Joker. “We’ll find out, boss, don’t worry.”

The Joker literally sneered at him and began to pace in front of his hostages, a dangerous look on his painted face. As he paced they couldn’t see his face; his greasy curls were dangling in the way, and he didn’t say a word, there was only furious silence in the air. Michaela watched him carefully and didn’t move; she didn’t even want to swallow.

“Len hasn’t got her, boss.” Said the clown with the phone, and they all turned and looked at the Joker, who continued to pace.

“Well keep looking.” The Joker growled dangerously, and the clown on the cell began dialing another number.

Michaela closed her eyes for a brief second. By process of elimination they were sure to figure out that she was there with them, amongst the five hostages at Wayne Enterprises. She knew it was only a matter of time. She folded her hands in her lap, frightened beyond belief, wondering why one of the clowns wasn’t interrogating them at that moment, figuring out the names of the two women in their grasp.

Her eyes drifted back up to the Joker; becoming more and more agitated, he began to skip as he paced, but not in a cheery way. He was getting impatient. He had been challenged and now he needed to answer to the challenge to the best of his ability.

Michaela couldn’t even fathom what he would do when he eventually found out that she was Michaela Nichols, and that it was her stupid boyfriend who had challenged him on Gotham City News.

Then, as the Joker approached his clowns with a mind to give them all a good fierce tongue-lashing, he suddenly seemed distracted by something out of the corner of his eye.

The Joker turned and looked straight into Michaela’s eyes, startling her more than anything, his expression fairly unreadable. But then his eyes drifted lower and settled on something. Michaela was almost too frightened to move, but she did. Curious more than anything, she looked down and let out a silent gasp as she realized she was still wearing her nametag from work. Her coat didn’t quite cover it. There was the little silver nametag that read in block letters Michaela and when hit with the correct light, it reflected light and caught the eye of a madman.

Michaela looked up, eyes wide and brimming with terrified tears, and saw the Joker’s face twist with realization. His heavy dark eyes settled on her and a small, knowing smile stretched over his ruby stained lips.

It was instinct; what do you do when certain death is smiling at you the way the Joker was at that very moment? Michaela got to her feet, faster than she ever imagined possible, and made a mad dash for the elevator.

There was noise all around her, shouting and screaming, and she stumbled over her footing in a desperate attempt to reach the elevator doors, or at least to make her escape down the hallway. Her bag fell to the ground but she paid little mind. She wasn’t even conscious of what was happening; her will to survive had completely taken over.

She didn’t get far before a hand with an iron grip grabbed her arm and jerked her back. Michaela couldn’t help it; she screamed out as she was pulled back against a hard body, the hand twisting her arm painfully. She squeezed her eyes closed as the realization of death was truly becoming a reality.

Michaela was wrenched around to face her attacker and let out a sob as she came face to face with the Joker’s black eyes.

“Where do you think you’re going, hmm?” the Joker snarled as he twisted her arm, trying to get her to keep from struggling. Tears fell down from her eyes but he didn’t seem to notice, and even if he did, would he have cared? She stood inches from him and realized how he towered over her, how he looked down into her eyes, and that scared her even more: the drill of those dark eyes as they bore down into her.

Michaela twisted in a desperate attempt to get away. The Joker licked at his scars.

“Ah tat ta ta ta,” He muttered as he gripped the back of her head with one hand and her face hard in the other, trying to hold her firmly even as she desperately tried to squirm away. Tears continued to fall when his fingers dug painfully into her skin and she was finally resolved to stay still and look up into his glassy black eyes. She was caged in his grip, essentially caught with no hopes of escape.

“There we go…Mi-kay-lah,” the Joker growled out her name syllable by syllable, as if to intensify her fear; it was working beautifully, she screwed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to look into his eyes. “You’re-ah, boyfriend tells me you’re young and vibrant!”

The Joker sounded livid, with every word he spoke, and Michaela trembled so badly in his grasp. His fingers bit into her face, and when she looked up into his eyes, fresh tears poured down over the apples of her cheeks. His eyes were black and deep; they stood out like black pearls on a bed of black sand. If she weren’t so frightened for her life, she might have taken a moment to appreciate their subtle beauty.

Slowly, Michaela shook her head back and forth. “Please…” she whispered. “Please…don’t hurt me.”

The Joker flashed a toothy yellow grin and giggled a little in his throat, making her shake even worse than before. For a single second he removed his left hand from her face and fished around in his pocket until he found what he was looking for. He produced a switchblade, and Michaela’s eyes widened in fear as he showed her the silver glint of the fine little blade.

“Let’s-ah, give your boyfriend…” he licked his scars thoughtfully. “Something to see.”

His menacing laugh rang in her ears which drowned out Michaela’s scream of fear; before she was even aware of what was happening, he turned her around and wrapped his forearm about her neck, bringing her flush against his body. Michaela’s arms instantly went to his and tried to pry it away from her, but her feeble attempts paused as she realized one of the clowns was pulling out the camcorder from the duffel bag. The three of them were chuckling behind their masks, just as the Joker was laughing in her ear.

Michaela stared at the camcorder in terror; the Joker was going to kill her, or maim her, or horribly disfigure her, and they would film the entire process. No doubt they would send it to Gotham City News, where Roger, and the rest of the city, would see the footage.

She knew it was now or never, do or die. So Michaela fought with a newfound strength, pulled at the Joker’s arm, let out a strangled cry and wrenched her head back so forcefully that it collided hard with what she presumed was the Joker’s nose.

The Joker let out a grunt of pain and released her immediately. Michaela fell forward onto the carpet, coughing against her bruised windpipe, not even registering the pain on the back of her head. She came to realize, only briefly, that she was kneeling on the carpet, out of the Joker’s grasp…for a little while at least.

But then one of the clowns gripped her hair and wrenched her up to her feet. She gasped aloud and got to her feet as quick as she could to endure the pain. The clown stuck his masked face in hers. “Stupid little bitch!” and he rose his gun so she could see it.

Michaela’s eyes widened and she was about to plead for mercy when all of a sudden a strange noise began to fill the room. It was laughter.

Everyone in the room paused. The clown that held her looked off to the side, and Michaela followed suit, looking at where the Joker was standing, hunched over, his hands at his face, laughing. But it wasn’t a dangerous laugh; it wasn’t a mocking sort of laugh. It was simply…genuine laughter, the impulsive product of amusement.

Finally, after a moment, the Joker raised his face. Michaela saw the blood from his nose and how he smeared it with the wipe of his glove. His eyes were literally glitzy with amusement. Once he wiped away the rest of the blood, and smearing a little of his white clown makeup, the Joker made his playful way towards Michaela, a little smile dawned on his lips, his eyes never left her for a moment.

“You want me to finish her off, boss?” asked the clown who was still gripping Michaela’s hair.

The Joker waved his hand at the clown. “No, no…go on, let her go.”

Hesitantly, the clown released her hair but kept his gun on at her all times. Michaela tensed and didn’t dare try to move, staring at the Joker as he approached her like a jungle cat.

Laughing a little, the Joker came right up to her, towering over her as he had done before, but he smiled down at her. Once again, she didn’t dare move; she found herself locked again under those eyes.

“You’ve got…a little fight in ya, Mi-kay-lah.” He said in an amused voice. “I like that.”

His serpentine tongue lashed out against his scars once again, and she let out a startled cry as he placed a hand on her arm and literally shoved her back towards the line of hostages, where she had been sitting before. Michaela stumbled over her feet but regained her footing, looking at him as if to ask “are you serious”? Was he completely turning his back on the fact that Roger has practically insulted him when he pleaded for Michaela’s safety?

But the Joker had lost all interest in her. He turned his back to her and was talking to his clowns, who all stared at her, just as confused as she was. But the Joker snapped his fingers and got their attention, and commenced into what looked like a meeting, and so Michaela very slowly eased herself down into a sitting position, leaning up against the leather chair, and closed her eyes as tears continued to fall down over the apples of her cheeks. She didn’t even register the anxious looks that the other hostages were giving her.

She had stared death in the clown face; right into his black eyes…wouldn’t this be a story to tell Roger.

~*~

By 11 o’clock, every channel on the TV was broadcasting the Joker’s footage. The Joker seemed to tire of Jack Ryder’s prickish approach to the story and instead focused his attention on other news networks discussing the story. People were being interviewed, one news anchor was beyond furious that Gotham City hadn’t even been alerted that the Joker had escaped Arkham Asylum. One news anchor was trying to get Commissioner Gordon to comment on the story, but it seemed as though they were having difficulty getting anyone from GCPD to comment.

The Joker flipped through the channels with much amusement, chuckling to himself as he saw with his own eyes the terror he was already inflicting; the fact that every channel was dedicated to his new scheme was like achieving the highest honour ever. Just wait until hostages started to die, and then the city would really explode.

Michaela sat perfectly still, ever since the Joker threatened her life, staring down at the carpet while tears fell steadily from her eyes. Her heart was so exhausted from thumping so hard that it was now dull and slow. She wanted to fall asleep right there, just collapse and wake up a few hours later, when maybe she’d be a little closer to death.

What exactly was the Joker planning on doing with the hostages in 24 hours? Was he really going to make them all wait there until the Batman showed up? What if the Batman didn’t show up at all? Would they continue to sit there, watching hostages get picked off hour by hour, as it would no doubt be broadcast on the news?

What an incredibly bitchy way to die, Michaela thought. Sit around for 24 hours terrified enough to piss your pants only to end up dying somewhere along the line. She so much preferred when the Joker was interested in blowing things up. She figured she could have gone home, eaten pizza, and been in bed with Roger when the Joker blew up their apartment building, something to that effect. Anything but this perpetual and unbearable waiting to die…

At the same time she was angry; she was angrier with Roger than anything. While she wanted to believe more anything that he had made the plea for her safety out of love and concern, did he not take the time to consider who her captor was? Roger had been in Gotham City when the Joker was terrorizing the city, did he not make the connection between madman and holds my lover’s life in his hands? Regrettably she used to tease him for not always using his head, but this time she was just downright furious about it. Seriously, how could he have done such a thing?

But she didn’t want to be angry with him. She loved him and wanted more than anything to escape this nightmare and go running back to his arms. She tried to convince herself that it was all Jack Ryder’s idea (which it was probably was, now that she thought about it) for Roger to make the plea for her safety. That way she couldn’t stay angry with him.

Michaela promised herself that if she ever got out of this alive, she would go running to Roger and convince him to move to a little town on the beach that no one had ever heard of; somewhere the Joker would never even touch.

Speaking of the Joker, he hadn’t even seemed to give her a second thought since she bashed his nose in. When she had seen the blood on his face, she was sure that she would die right then and there. But he promptly ignored her. Although relieved, she didn’t take this to be the best sign either; maybe he was plotting the more gruesome way to kill her and put it all over the news.

She shuddered hard, and tried not to think about it.

Towards midnight, the Joker was becoming increasingly agitated, flipping through the channels and seeing nothing but news anchors talking and pleading for Batman’s help. But it appeared as though Batman wasn’t coming.

Finally, five minutes to midnight, the Joker took a phone from one of his goons and made a series of phone calls. “Has anyone seen the Bat?” he asked over and over again, and then hung up furiously when he heard the answer. Finally, after pacing the floor anxiously, he made another phone call.

“It’s midnight, and there’s no sign of the Bat-ah.” He said somewhat gleefully into the phone, and then he licked his scars. “Take someone out.”

Michaela closed her eyes and more tears began to fall. Someone was going to die in the next five minutes.

But then Michaela thought of something; where were the other hostages? Were they in the Wayne Enterprises building too, just maybe on different floors? Or were they back in the previous building?

More importantly, how long would it take GCPD to find them?

~*~

At 12:30 the Joker turned to a newscast that featured a slightly more bearable news anchor who was looking choked up, as if he had been crying. He looked into the camera very seriously. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received new footage of the Joker’s tirade; one of the hostages has been killed. I repeat, one of the hostages has been killed.”

“I think they heard you the first time-ah!” The Joker snapped at the television in annoyance, looking giddy, probably wanting to see the footage.

Michaela already knew she didn’t want to see the footage, but for whatever reason she simply couldn’t look away when the news anchor said, ever so seriously, that the footage they were about to witness was disturbing.

Immediately, when she saw the crude camera work of the taped footage, she knew that wherever this group was, they were not in the Wayne Enterprises tower. Strangely, the walls and the ground were the same peachy colour. It was brightly lit and with very little furniture. During the shaking of the camera, the line of hostages was in plain sight, seated up against a wall, and a man was wrenched from the line, screaming with horror. The camera got a shot of his terrified face, all red from tears, and then Michaela had to hide her face and not watch any more. There was a rattling sound of bullets, and then more screaming, and Michaela shook and covered her ears with her hands.

However, when she looked up, she was face to face with the man’s bloodied corpse, lying motionless on the ground, riddled with profusely bleeding bullet wounds. Michaela saw it for only a moment, and then the footage was cut off and the screen returned to the news anchor; all the blood had drained from his face.

The Joker let out a loud amused cackle, high-pitched, making them all jump where they were sitting. He stared to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet, giggling. The clowns were watching and trying to laugh to concur with the Joker, but they looked pretty out of it. The news anchor, who looked like his spirit had been completely broken, made a desperate attempt for the Batman to do the honourable thing and come forward.

Michaela thought about that too; surely the Batman, whoever he was, would have seen the news. He would have known that the Joker was back, and that his threats were real, and that people were dying and more people were going to die as the night wore on, so long as he didn’t come forward and show his face. Michaela wondered what she would do in such a situation; would she offer herself up to the Joker?

What was the Joker going to do if the Batman did unveil himself? Would he let everyone go free? Would his attention turn from them to Batman?

Ten minutes went by, and the woman in the leopard print suit and the two uniformed Wayne Enterprises employees had fallen asleep, either leaning up against the leather chairs or bowing their heads in sleep. Michaela wasn’t surprised; she was exhausted from the day and from being terrified and from crying so much; she would have fallen asleep easily if she thought her body would have let her. As the news continued on, without changing much, the clowns did a strange thing after awhile: they turned off the lights and left the room.

Michaela realized they were all alone in the room with the Joker. Suddenly she felt her heart stop in her chest. Without looking at the Joker, who was sitting down on the desk and watching the TV, she wondered if the clowns were leaving them alone so Joker could finally exact his revenge on Michaela for the mistake that Roger had made.

She hugged herself nervously, fighting the urge to cry. She had cried enough, and crying wasn’t going to help the situation any more. If she was going to be brutally murdered by the Joker, and if the final moments of her life were documented by a crude camcorder and broadcast all over the news, she wouldn’t want to be seen crying.

The bright glare from the TV was starting to hurt her tired eyes. She looked up for a moment, wondering if the Joker had his back turned to her so that maybe, just maybe, she could close her eyes and he wouldn’t notice.

But as she looked up her eyes locked with the Joker’s black eyes. He was staring at her quietly, his clown face barely visible as he was silhouetted from the light of the TV.

Michaela swallowed tightly and pulled her knees into her chest protectively. Here it comes, she thought disdainfully, and again fought hard not to cry.

The Joker stared at her steadily for what seemed to be hours. His gaze wasn’t angry or scheming, it was simply…curious. But was that right? Could that be curiosity in his dark, murderous eyes?

Turning over his shoulder, the Joker touched something at the base of the TV and the volume began to quiet. Michaela tensed, clutching at her knees nervously. Here it comes, here is comes, do not cry, do not cry…

After the volume was quiet, but not completely mute, the Joker swiveled around in his seat on the desk until he was facing her completely. For a moment she thought she saw him smiling, but then she realized it was just an illusion with thanks to his clown makeup. She sucked in her breath and waited for him to do whatever he was gonna do.

He licked his scars, and the first words out of his mouth surprised her. “Wanna know how I got them?”

Michaela sat there and blinked at him. What? She wanted to say it aloud but her lips wouldn’t move.

“The scars,” the Joker said, pointing to his mouth with a gloved finger. She could hear him sucking at them on the inside of his cheeks. “You wanna know how I got them?”

Michaela could do nothing but stare and blink at him. Was he actually about to offer information to her? Or was he doing it purposely to calm her down before he brutally murdered her?

When she didn’t answer him, the Joker jumped down off the desk and came sauntering towards her. She would have hid her face from him but she was completely frozen in fear; he was advancing on her quick, what was he going to do? The clowns were off doing who knew what, they were all alone. Whatever he was about to do, she was sure it wasn’t going to be good.

The Joker stood there, looking down at her, before collapsing and sitting down right next to her. She jumped, wanting to scream and get up and run away from him. He was damn near shoulder to shoulder with her; the last thing she wanted was to be closer to the Joker than she absolutely had to be. She shifted to the side very slightly; she didn’t want to risk stirring up any bad emotions in him.

The Joker raised his knees up to his chest, just like she was, and stretched his arms out over his kneecaps. He started to tap his feet, almost as if he was trying to remember something.

“So when I was in high school, I had this teacher.” The Joker began, his voice calm and quiet, like he was going to genuinely tell her the story and not just lead her into a false sense of security. “She was beautiful. She taught drama. I didn’t have many friends in high school, nooo, I was pretty much a loner.”

Michaela swallowed. Wonder why she thought to herself. She figured the Joker didn’t become as eccentric as he was over the course of a few years. He was probably a real weirdo in high school, all quiet and standing around by himself, not talking to anyone, not making many friends, completely within his own world.

“Soo she would be my partner in all our drama games-ah.” He licked his scars, and he made an amused noise in his throat. “And one day she invites me over for tea and cookies…” he chuckled deep in his throat and started to shake his head from side to side. “But that’s not what she was in the mood for, noooo, not at all.”

For the first time since he started his story, Michaela looked at him over her shoulder. She noticed that, even when sitting down, he still seemed to tower over her. Or perhaps that was just his haunting presence. She observed how the glow of the TV made his makeup look more uneven and shoddily applied. Nonetheless, she listened and focused on his profile.

She wondered what his face looked like under all that crap.

“So then her husband comes home.” The Joker started to giggle in his throat. “He finds us together, and goes off crazier then anything I’ve ever seen. He chases me down into the kitchen and I trip over the cat. I know, the cat!”

Michaela jumped as he raised his voice. He raised his hands and shook them in frustration, but he was also laughing, as though it hadn’t happened to him at all, as if it had happened to his dumb ass friend and it was the funniest story he’d ever heard.

“So then he picks up a kitchen knife and sticks it in my mouth, and he says ‘you won’t be stealing any more wives’ now, pretty-boy’.” His tone had suddenly changed from sounding delighted and turned to murderous. “And she…she just watched from the stairs.”

Michaela stared at him in horror; what a horrible thing to have happened to a teenager. She couldn’t even imagine what it would have been like for him to go back to school with those scars…if he even did go back to school. She figured he would have been especially angry with the teacher who didn’t even do anything to stop her husband from mutilating him.

As she stared at him, the Joker suddenly turned and looked at her, and she gasped a little. His presence was still so eerie, and to be this close to him was positively frightening. The glint in his black eyes was deadly.

“I don’t hold it against them.” The Joker growled, only loud enough for her to hear, and she started to tremble. Unable to look away from his eyes, she was scared how they bore into her and so easily alarmed her. But it was what he said next that really scared her. “Not anymore-ah.”

Michaela let out a little whimper as she understood his motive behind telling her this story. No one ever did wrong by the Joker without paying for it sooner or later. His little story was his way of letting her know that sooner or later, she was going to die; he had spared her earlier for whatever reason, but sometime in the night, he was going to kill her just as brutally and horribly as he could. It would send a message throughout Gotham that no one challenged the Joker and got away with it.

The Joker stared at her for another few minutes, his gaze hard and dangerous, before he stood up and wandered back towards the television. Michaela watched him go, staring at his back, and once she was sure he was more fixated on the TV then her, she closed her eyes and tears slipped from her eyes yet again.

Next to her, ever so suddenly in the quiet darkness, came a whispering voice. “He deserved it, if you ask me.”

Michaela looked over to her right and was irked to discover that the hostage – the man that had been captured on the bus with them – was sitting next to her, and she was instantly met with his pleasant face and warm brown eyes. She looked him over for only a moment; he looked like a classic businessman, although his hair was a little long in the back. He looked like a decent enough guy.

And he offered her a smile. It was more than anyone had done all night. Whether he did it to calm her or try and make her feel better about things, she didn’t know, but she was more grateful for his smile than anything.

He extended his hand. “I’m Dorian.” He whispered.

Michaela looked at his hand and slowly took it in hers. She knew this was where she was supposed to introduce herself, but truthfully…she couldn’t even say her own name.

~*~