Chapter One

Joker

"Jack, baby. Where do you think you're going at this time of night?"

"Where ever I fucking well please, I'm a free man. And for the last time, IT'S JOKER!"

I finish doing up the two buttons on my bright orange waistcoat and I stand up, the bed releasing a quiet creak as I do so. I lean over her to grab my purple suit jacket off the bedroom floor. She grabs my arm as I begin to leave. My blinding white, muscular arm clashing with her dark, slim hand.

"Please stay, Jack. I cannot bear losing you again." She pleads, and I feel her free hand stroke the back of my neck.

My face slowly turns towards her; a wide, sinister smile imprinted on my face. Her eyes grow bigger, which only forces my smile to do the same.

"Oh baby" I say, in a loving, mocking voice. "The trouble is, you never even found me"

I crack up and fall onto the bed. I can sense her moving now, away from me. Why does she continue to do this? Lust for me one moment, and the next, all she wants is to be rid of me. I pick the jacket up and place my arms through the holes. Why is she trying to open the door when she knows it's locked? How pathetic. I adjust the shoulders of my jacket to fit and admire the reflection of myself in the dusty window. She is still attempting to open the door, and her horrible whiny voice keeps shouting. I grab my white gloves from under my pillow. So pure, so white. However, somehow, my skin seems so much whiter.

"Baby, baby, baby, baby. Where do you think you're going at this time of night?"

"Please! Let me go Jack! What about the baby! He will never be born! Please!"

I look towards her stomach. So big. So disgusting. I can't help but laugh. She starts frantically banging on the windows- I presume to escape. I walk calmly up next to her and kneel down to her stomach. She stops banging and instead focuses her attention upon the sharp, shiny object encased in between the white leather of my gloves. Real leather, if I may add.

"You're right, what a dilemma. If I kill you, what will become of this precious little baby?"

She tenses the muscles in her neck and nods, each time she raises her head another gasping sob escapes her lungs.

"You know what; I just had a great idea!"

I can feel all the muscles in her body tense now with fright.

"You know what it is, my dear love?"

She attempts to shake her head but by now she is barely moving. Frozen in that very spot.

"What if I removed it first?"

She screams as loud as she can but nothing can block out the sounds of my laughter. Crazy, some call it. She tries to run but I throw her onto the bed. She begins to apologize although she really has done nothing wrong. She is sacrificing herself for my pleasure; surely I should be thanking her. I lift up her lacy night gown and stroke the bottom of her stomach. She begins to calm down a bit as I kiss her skin. I can feel the baby kicking my red, scarred lips as I do so. I smile, and swing back the hand of which contains the knife. She is now completely unaware of danger.

"Baby, don't worry" I say. "This won't hurt a bit"

She lunges forward at the exact moment of which my knife hits her soft skin.

"Argggggggggggh"

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha"

I reach in through the bloody slit I created, just above where I had first entered her to form the baby. I reach around and grab the foetus and cradle it in my arms. The dark red liquid is seeping onto the off-white bed sheets.

"Oh honey, please, you're making a mess. You're not the one who has to pay for these things!"

I turn my gaze to the small, misshapen red object dying in my arms. I kiss what appears to be a hand, and then I move swiftly to the door. I spend a while looking for my key in my purple trouser pocket.

"Ah no, in the other pocket! Silly daddy!" I say to the bleeding ball of flesh.

I turn the key and open the door to a crowd of people gathered to find out what all the commotion is about. I turn to the screaming woman crawling on the floor towards the people.

"Just going out for a while, make tea for around seven. Okay honey? Oh, and I almost forgot to remind you. My fucking name is JOKER!"

I walk out of the motel room, slamming the door behind me. Other visitors slowly forming around me, probably too scared to stop me. I give each of them a smile, because, as the therapist used to say, a smile is contagious. I stroll to the red van parked just a few feet away from the crowd.

"Hey Ja…Joker. This is where you said to meet, right?"

It is true that I said to meet here. But it is also true I said to send someone attractive. Someone tall, in-shape, and preferably wearing a suit- not purple. However what I was sent seems to be an obese midget with long, brown greasy hair, and spots that had grown to all sorts of body parts. He appeared to be wearing some sort of fast-food restaurant uniform; the red and blue polo shirt covered in grease stains.

"What's y'name son?" I ask with curiosity.

"Craig, what's it to you?" He replied. He had an edge in his voice, a cockiness which I disliked.

"And how old are you, Craig?"

"Nineteen"

"I have an interesting fact for you, Craig"

"Oh really, go on. Please, interest me."

"Well, say if I get a little bit too excited and decide to kill you tonight, you would be my nineteenth victim who is nineteen. Or should I say was?"

I put my lips a centimetre away from his cheeks and began to laugh onto his flesh. Now, that made him shut up.

"I was only kidding, Craig. You're cockiness just annoyed me. I wanted to frighten you, that was all."

"I'm sorry Joker." He said it with such confidence, but his shivering body let him down.

"Never apologise, son. D'you know why"

"No. Why?"

"It shows weakness, fear. Do y'know what a guy like me does when he senses weakness?"

He shook his head in panic. A cold sweat was beginning to form on the top of his brow.

"This. I do this."

I push his hands off of the wheel and he begins to frantically bang on the locked door. The door. They always go for the door. I take the same knife I had used around 20 minutes ago and I place it in my bloodstained gloves.

"I wish I could say it was nice knowing you, but my mother told me never to tell lies. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."

And then, with one last swing of my arm, I plunge the knife into his throat and throw his screeching body behind me, the blood smearing onto my forehead. I slightly turn my head towards Craig, but keep my eyes fixed on the road.

"I hope you don't mind, son, but I was thinking I'd change our agreed destination."

I place my foot onto the accelerator and fiddle around with the gear stick.

"Y'see, I've been meaning to catch up with an old buddy of mine, been a long time since we had a little chat. Hear he's still working in that dreadful Gotham City."