Monsters

Ok I don't know where I'm going with this after a certain point so feedback is much loved. Don't worry, the Joker will turn up veeeeeeerrry soon. Because I can't resist :D. Anyway, enjoy!

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I know animals when I see one, because I see them every day. Grrr bark. I don’t mean your neighbour’s cat. I mean your neighbour. It’s this place, this, this TOWN. I’ve heard there are decent human beings out there somewhere – I think I’ve seen a few of them on t.v. – but here? No, nothing of the kind. Decent. Human. Beings. Don’t exist here, the three words don’t hang out together. .. I wouldn’t know what to do with a decent person if I met one.
And I sit and I watch this world that makes me sick and have no right to feel sickened because I am a true daughter of Gotham, and I bleed black and lies. It’s not so bad, this cancerous little place.

Just. Like. Any. Other. Night. Then.
This pit is predictable. If you sink in deep enough to Gotham, the black is easy to navigate, even to negotiate. I’ve lived deep enough I’ve never seen the light.

I hear it’s pretty.

But I will never, shall never, have no wish to know better. Better the devil – let alone the devil you know.
You can’t be rejected by the devil. I heard he was pretty too. What can I say?
You come from The Narrows, and scars are beautiful...

If you’re me... scars, are beautiful....

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‘Get up! Sally, Jesus, Sally, we need to go!’

The mad haze of red hair stirred. ‘I’m not Jesus.’

‘What the fuck??’ Sam yelled at the mumble from beneath the bed sheet.
‘Fucking move! Tenants! The real ones! Go!’


Sam abandoned his attempts to stir his illegitimate flatmate as he flew around shoving cutlery, clothing and bits and pieces en masse into a suitcase. The slamming on the door became increasingly frantic, and Sam’s motions met the pace as he threw open the kitchen window.
Ponderously, the sheet on the floor was flung back, and Sally sat upright with grave reluctance, cracking her neck with a wince as she rose. Squinting, she peered round at the pulsing front door and the yells that came through it. ‘Ssssshhhh.....’ she murmured, flailing her arms dismissively at the door as she wobbled upright before picking up her necessities. Unlike her companion, she didn’t need much.
‘One, two, three four five. Yay.’ She said as Sam span past her, the noise at the door rising to fever pitch, the hinges vibrating madly.

‘We’re absolutely fucked Sal, I mean, oh shit!’ Sam hissed in a loud whisper, tossing his suitcase out of the kitchen window. Sally meanwhile was experimentally tugging a rope that was connected to the front door. ‘Get away from there, we need to go!’ Sam said, his whisper bordering on a squeak.
‘Hush hush now Sam the man. Think like a bird.’ She replied blithely before kneeling and boosting Sam up over the sink and out of the window. She had no illusions that he would wait for her once he was out, and the string of expletives disappearing down the murky trash-filled alleyway confirmed this for her. He was probably halfway to his corner by now.
Police sirens and slamming car doors, the accompaniment to any day this end of Gotham, filled her ears. The flat was a tiny dump; it would take them seconds to cross the flat once they had broken the door down.
Sally sat on the window ledge, and waited. By about the third ram on the door, she found herself grinning excitedly, adrenaline pumping through her so that she jiggled her legs against the wall, scratching the peeling wallpaper with her boots. Her hand drummed impatiently on the tap as she inched the window wider.
When the door finally slammed back on splintered hinges the first policemen to enter vaguely heard a subtle thrumming noise before they were blinded by a cloud of white. Coughing and wheezing, they stumbled around in the haze that enveloped the entire room.

‘What the fuck Lieutenant..’
‘It’s talcum powder Myas, goddamn talcum powder!’

Grinning delightedly in the swiftly descending powder cloud, Sally rolled backwards out of the window on to the fire escape with her bag, smothered in white like a worn-out ghost as she ran down the alleyway and into the labyrinthine backstreets.
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It was sensible to keep your head down and talk to no one in the Narrows. But Sally wasn’t sensible, which is why she was perversely famous in the areas she frequented. Strange how a person can be famous when no one knows anything about them, or want anything to do with them. Because Sally didn’t have friends. She sleepwalked through gunfire and blood, and worse. Women saw her as competition in business and men.... well, men were the business.

‘Christ Sal, you look Antique. Have fun with your powder-puff fest? Shame you don’t know how to make a real bomb.’ Sam called jokingly from his corner when Sally was still ten yards off. The bum in the doorway didn’t look up – otherwise the short stretch of street was abandoned. Clearly Sam had regained his composure from earlier. Sally reached him and tussled her messy hair, powder coming off her in a cloud. ‘Loved it loved it loved it. Business alright?’. Sam pulled a face as he took a smoke of his cigarette. ‘Shit. Boys who like boys are staying in today. Didn’t you think you cut your run in with the police a bit close?’

‘I cut nothing. I’m distinctly anti-cutting.’ She responded sharply, widening her eyes in mock earnest. Sam looked at her warily before avoiding her gaze, saying nothing. She did not look away. ‘Or are you worried about me getting arrested and saying something about youuuu, Sammy boy?’ she sang with deadpan cheeriness. He scratched his head irritably as his eyes shifted nervously.

‘If you fucking dare...’ he spat, with no real conviction behind it. What was the point in threatening Sally? Sam had no idea how far she would go, but he was pretty sure that wherever her limits were, they far exceeded his. She smirked and laughed before slapping him on the back.

‘Don’t worry Sam. I don’t think a drug-addled manwhore is much of a useful bartering tool. You’re a little low on the police’s list of priorities.’

‘Leastways not when they’re chasing the Bat.’

Sally sneered in dismissal, her eyes roving the street restlessly. There was a limit to the amount she had to say to Sam, even after living with him for five months. Besides that the hunger that often gnawed at her insides was getting particularly painful, and it was cold as Hell out here. Glancing at the old homeless guy, she noted that the tips of his fingers were turning blue. She didn’t even want to know what colour her bare legs were. Times were difficult – men didn’t come out at night anymore, when business used to be best. Even if the cops were after Batman, it hadn’t stopped his vigilante bullshit.

‘So.... what are you going to do now?’ Sam asked finally, finishing his cigarette and jumping up and down to keep warm. They had wound up squatting together after they both got evicted – much as Sam was one of the few people Sally willingly associated with, she would not have wished to do so otherwise. She shrugged ‘Find somewhere new. I need to get some johns in. A regular might give me a bed for a night.’ Sam smirked a catty sideways grin

‘Good luck getting punters looking like a sidekick of the Joker. He’s out, y’know? That storm last week set off a powercut at the asylum, and when they got the power back twelve nutcases were gone.’
Sally frowned , ‘It’s just one more killer on the streets. Big deal.’

‘He’s a little more worrying than that; don’t you watch the news?’

‘The news can’t tell me anything I don’t see for myself every day here.’ She interrupted.

‘You seen a clown set fire to someone around here recently?’

The look Sally shot him made it clear she was done with this conversation.

‘Right, I need food. Going to find a sucker.’

‘That’s my job!’ Sam shot back as she walked away. She waved behind her by way of reply, scuffing her boots through the rubbish on the grimy street.