"Sierra, he's here, Sierra he's here!" Leah repeated in a terrified whisper into the cell phone. Peeking out from under the bed skirt she peered down the darkened hall, watching his out-of-the-times shoes encroaching on her space. Her eyes softened as they traveled up his body, stopping at his mouth, elongated by scars and painted with blood-red makeup. His twisted, perpetual smile held everything intriguing about him; his demented mind, his cool and collected attitude, the raw danger of his abilities. "He's in my room!"
At these words he stopped, inches away from Leah's bed. Ominous seconds passed and soon his pale, scarred face came level with hers. He smiled.
"Can I…talk to Sierra, for a minute?" he asked casually.
Slowly Leah moved the phone away from her ear, having to think in order to breathe. Her heart thudded as her hand reached nearer to the Joker's purple glove. He grabbed for the phone, fingers grazing hers in the process. Her eyes widened and her heart sped up, and he looked back at her with a sly grin. He placed the phone to his ear and licked his lips, face disappearing as he stood upright.
"Well, hello, Sierra," his twisted voice sang through the phone. "They call me the Joker, perhaps you've heard of me." A scream sounded over the phone.
Leah heard a rustle of fabric.
"That's right, Sierra. You should be scared. Tell me: how does it feel, knowing that the last voice you heard was mine? I, for one, feel honored!" At this, the Joker laughed. It was a sick, warped laugh, one sounding like what little kids would think a witch to sound like. It was uneven, high-pitched, and had a disturbed air about it. As soon as the laughter ceased, the small sound of plastic against plastic seemed louder than it should have. The Joker laughed again. From over the phone there came a bang, then a screech of feedback, and then a dial tone fading into the distance. Glass shattered and Leah squeaked, clapping her hand over her mouth.
The Joker's laughter subsided and his face appeared under the bed again, his sickening smile killing all hope of survival Leah could hang onto.
A gloved hand reached under the bed and she felt warm fingers close around the back of her neck. Goosebumps erupted all over her skin. With one arm he dragged her from her hiding place, causing rug burns to form along her forearms. Pulling her upright he propped her against himself, drawing her up so their faces were level.
"Nice to meet you, Leah. Let's get to know one another, shall we?" he asked rhetorically, throwing her onto her own bed. She scrambled to a sitting position in the middle of the bed and drew her knees up to her chest, shivering with fear and anxiousness. "Well, of course," he said, stepping slowly towards Leah's desk and picking up the black picture frame on it. "I know a lot about you already. You see, I've done my homework. I know that your name is painted in dripping red paint on your bedroom door. I know that your best friend is…was Sierra, and that she lived three blocks away from here. I know that your parents went to have dinner with her parents at her house. And I know that your cell phone is broken into about a hundred pieces on your back porch.
"But it looks like…" he continued, removing the back from the picture frame and letting the frame fall, holding up only the picture and showing it to Leah. It was a newspaper clipping of himself. "You've done your homework, too. Let's see what it says on the back here, shall we?
"'Everything about him is twisted.' Flattered, my dear, really I am. 'He doesn't care about anything or anyone, and no matter how hard anyone tries they can't get through to him with anything. He doesn't let his guard down. He may be out to destroy the world, but honestly, nobody knows what it is he wants. No one knows how he got his scars. He's demented and beyond creepy, and he's fucking psycho. I think I'm in love.'" The Joker placed the paper onto the bedside table and assumed a casual stance, as if he hadn't read the most twisted declaration of someone's love. He began a slow stroll around the perimeter of Leah's bed and she balled herself up tighter, blushing furiously, tears streaming down her face.
Against the wall across from the foot of her bed was a grandfather-style clock with a shelf behind its face. The Joker stopped here and opened the clock's face, smiling roguishly back at Leah as she gasped. She held her breath as he reached blindly in and pulled out a chain, to the end of which was affixed a carved angel's wing.
"What've we here?" he asked with a pretense of wonder as he examined the necklace. His body turned towards Leah and he continued to look at the pendant. Then his eyes landed on Leah with an intensity that made her whimper. Her body tensed. "Precision craftsmanship…oh, wait, what have we got? Made in China? That won't do…"
He flung it carelessly through the broken window. Leah dove for the necklace, stretched along her bed. "No!"
"Ah, ah, ah!" the Joker teased, pushing her backwards by the shoulder. She sprang backwards, stretched on her back, propped up by her elbows. The Joker pulled a pistol out of his jacket pocket and tossed it from hand to hand, pacing to the other side of Leah's bed. "Would ya like to tell me a little more about yourself, maybe? Sometimes I like to get to know my victims before they, you know, decease."
Leah stared on in horror, tears streaming down to her chin.
"No?" He brought his face within inches of hers. "Nothing at all?"
Finally Leah resolved to say something so as not to seem cowardly. She prepared herself mentally and looked straight into the Joker's eyes…and the concrete confidence behind her words melted. "My…my grandma gave me that necklace."
He smiled and slowly tilted his head to the side. "Now we're getting somewhere. Anymore keepsakes, perhaps? As you can tell, I do love playing the cat." Leah slid her left hand towards her pillow. "Of course, not in a Tom-And-Jerry situation." Her hand slipped under her pillow. "Did'ja ever watch that show as a kid? Maybe not, it's before your time." Her fingers enclosed around something flat, round and small. "I prefer more to step into Jerry's shoes with that one. Because he always…gets the last laugh." He through his head back and began his dark, shrill cackle, then stopped short and looked right down at Leah with a determined smile, tossing the pistol aside.
Slowly he made his steps to her side. His gloved fingers pushed down on the edge of the mattress as he eased himself up to a sit. His back was to her but his face was turned to face her, the same smile never leaving his lips as he slowly rotated his body to slide his legs onto the bed. On hands and knees now he crawled forward a few inches, arms drawing level with her waist. This was closer than Leah had ever dreamed of coming to his face, and her torture. He planted one hand on the mattress just to the right of her waist. She could feel the heat of his arm. Placed his other hand by the elbow of her outstretched arm, sliding it slowly under the pillow. As he slid his body came down lower and lower until his torso fully met hers. Leah drew a sharp breath, fully aware of how fast her hart was beating. His fingers closed on hers and she closed her eyes, powerless to do anything as he pried her fingers open and removed the peso from her hand. His lips were at her ear and he chuckled softly, darkly. As slowly as he had come he rose, and icy coldness now rested where the Joker had been. He stood upright, holding the peso up to his eye. From Leah's angle, she could only see the other eye, and it was looking right at her.
"Get up, Love. Ya don't look well. Ya look…anxious."
When she didn't move he stepped toward the window, tauntingly extending his arm towards it. Overcome by the fear of just what he was about to do, Leah bolted from her bed and lunged at the coin, only to be caught in the Joker's vice like hold. His arms were both wrapped around her and he again took hold of the back of her neck, forcing her face to look upwards. She heard the sound of metal on thin carpet and his other arm released her, reaching behind him. Then there came the sound like a snap of glass.
The Joker bent his head down and brought his lips again level with her ear, whispering, "You wanna know how I got these scars?
"You see…" He brought his face back to just an inch away and licked his painted lips. "You and your little…ah, friend…aren't the first to…to try to take my side. There was this one girl, you see…beautiful think, like yourself. In fact, she had lovely raven-black hair, like yourself." At this he brought his other hand slowly up towards her face, revealing a broken shard of glass between his thumb and forefinger. With the back of his hand he brushed her bangs aside. "You see, when I was growing up, I was…different from the other kids. Shunned by all, in fact…
"Except this one girl, with raven-black hair and stunning green eyes, like you. She was the new kid in class now. And for some reason, she took interest in me. We never really talked, but I saw her watching me. She stayed around when everyone else left. And one day, I decided to take a stroll out to the nearest so-called 'haunted house', the windows of which were all…broken to pieces from kids who had thrown rocks at them. And when I went inside, there she was.
"I was…confused, at first, as you can imagine. Had she been expecting me? She stood across from me, holding up a piece of bloody glass. When she came into the light of the window I gasped in horror, for she had given herself the same scars you see on me. 'You always keep me smiling,' she told me."
The Joker brought his forehead to Leah's and their noses met. She froze when she felt something hard and threatening to be sharp at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes widened.
"Then, she corners me, see. And she holds up this piece of glass, and she says to me, 'Why so serious?' And she says, 'I just wanna play.' And then she puts the glass to the corner of my mouth, and she says, 'You're fucking psycho. And I think I'm in love.'"
Leah felt about to faint. The Joker's face blurred momentarily. His eyes stayed in hers and she felt his lips between her cheek and her mouth. Her eyes closed as she tried to savor his kiss. She felt the piece of glass stabbing into the skin where her heart pounded wildly.
"Farewell, Love." The last thing she heard was his cold, twisted laugh.