"So. Are you comin' or not?"
I looked over my shoulder at the short blonde woman who was standing in my doorway. She was my roommate, Liz, who I had met a few hours ago upon my arrival. Like me, she was new to this town and campus. So we had connected instantly and considered each other close friends in the span of time we've known the other, which hadn't been that long . Liz was one of those girls who stood out in a crowd; her hair was cut short with bangs and her eyes were round with deep serene blue in them. And whenever she spoke, she had a bit of a southern twang.
I nodded, and lifted the empty box off my bed and placed it in the closet. I had finally finished unpacking, which was good. It was my first day at this school and I didn't want to spend it organizing my room.
"Yeah. Your car or mine?"
I grabbed my keys when she replied 'yours' and we slipped out of the dorm. We passed several other girls who were in the hallway, most were hugging each other and saying that they missed them. Sure, it would've been nice to know someone before transferring to Gotham U, but I had met Liz and it seemed like we were in the same boat. So the feeling of loneliness didn't last long.
Finally getting to the car, after what seemed like miles of walking through the parking garage, I unlocked the brand new Chevy and got inside as Liz did too. I loved my car, it was fresh out of the dealership and I had just got it last week. It was a going away present from my parents. 'So you can drive home and visit us every once and a while.' They had said when handing me the keys. My college was on the other side of the country, but I knew I had to try and make it home as often as I could. Especially on the holidays.
"I hope you know," I said as I pulled out of the garage and eased onto the main road. "I wasn't listening to what you had said earlier about where we were going. Care to tell me again?" I looked over at the small figure beside me, who had taken the liberty to put on large sunglasses and plug her phone in my car charger.
"I just looked this really cool coffee shop up on mapquest, and it's only a few miles away from campus. Every college student should have one regular hang out place, right? I think I've found ours." She replied smugly, to which a gave a nod and a 'uh huh' to. "I read that it has a whole room dedicated to old fashioned movies, the black and white kind. And that the only way to get in that room is to be only be dressed in those colors. Sounds pretty cool, actually. Too bad I decided to wear my pink sundress today, huh?"
We continued our discussion on the coffee place, my attention slightly diverted to the town that I was driving into. Our University was on the edge of town, a while away from the busy streets we were entering now. The buildings grazed the sky and stood marvelous, while a few appeared to have had caved in or been through some sort of explosion. There seemed to be a sort of pattern going on here. Liz noticed too, and stopped babbling about the coffee shops motioned-detected doors and peered curiously out of the windshield.
"What do you think happened here?" I inquired, my eyes trained on a regular looking abandoned warehouse. This one, however, was different from the others, and had a hole blown in the roof big enough for a car. Things like that didn't just happen. Without thinking, I had took a turn towards the abandoned building and ended up on a sketchy looking street in a sketchy looking part of town. How far had I been driving in this direction? And when did I park the car in front of the warehouse?
"I don't know." Liz breathed, and I turned my head to look at her, and saw her expression change from confusion to curiosity in seconds. I immediately shook my head no.
"No way, we are not going in that place. No way Liz. We don't know what's in there!" She gave me a look that said that she was not going to change her mind about it. It was set on going in the building.
"Oh come on! We're studyin' journalism, Sam. If everything goes right, and we pass all our tests and classes, then we're in. Why not get some field training now, so when we start preparin' our job applications, we can tell them we've already got experience and actually mean it?"
She was right, but I still didn't the idea. And the thought of a hooligan or whatever wrecking my precious Chevy Capri didn't sit well in stomach. "Fine. Whatever. I'm gonna park Lola behind the building, though. And then we'll investigate, okay?" I had given in, mostly because I knew already that once Liz set her mind on something there was no going back. And besides, we needed the experience if we wanted good jobs.
I pulled the car around to the back and set it in park, glancing at Liz to already find her looking at me with an eyebrow raised. "You call your car 'Lola'?"
Laughing, I explained, "It's a red car, and red is a very promiscuous color. Hence the name Lola, which reminds me of a streetwalker. Hey, don't look at me like that! What would've you named her then?"
She turned her head and examined the inside of the car for a second, her face scrunched in concentration. "It looks more like a Louise to me. But hey! Quit stallin' for time and let's go in. I wanna be at the 'Coffee Haus' when Frappé Happy Hour hits, which is in two hours."
I wanted to protest that we would not even be here thirty minutes if it was up to me,and that it wasn't my decision to go wander around inside a empty warehouse. But instead, I rolled my eyes and got out of my car, locking the doors when she did the same and started towards the entrance closest to us, which was the back.
It was the beginning of August, and the summer heat hadn't fully left yet, but was now accompanied by gusts of wind every now and then. The feeling making goosebumps form on the bare skin of my legs and my exposed arms. I was, after all, only wearing jean shorts and an old volleyball t-shirt from highschool with black Doc Martens, hardly dressed for windy conditions. The good thing about Gotham, though, was that it was not Chicago, and it's wind was much more bearable than the latter state.
The door to the warehouse looked rugged and beat up, yet the lock looked new, which was odd. Liz saw it too, and reached for the doorknob cautiously and gave it a quick turn. Nothing. It didn't even budge. "Why would someone put a brand new lock on a place like this? Let's go around to the front... How weird.." The blonde girl had mumbled, making her way to the front of the building. I gave the doorknob another rough turn for safe keeping, but no dice.
Shaking my head and muttering under my breath 'This is crazy' I joined my friend at the front. She was kneeling down in front of the doorknob, twisting what looked like a bobby pin in the key hole of yet another padlock. This one, however, looked older than its brother on the back door.
"Back up," I said, quickly stretching my legs. She gave me a weird look then did what I had told her. I delivered three powerful kicks to the lock, and watched it clatter to the ground.
"Nice," she mused, looking over her shoulder to see if another was looking before picking up the padlock and dropping it into her knapsack. "It's evidence. But hey, where did you learn to kick like that?"
I shrugged while firmly gripping the doorknob and pushing the door open. "Played a lot of sports as a kid, I found the ones I loved and they carried to my older years. Karate is the biggest one, as is volleyball. I don't know," I sighed, entering the warehouse with Liz joining in beside me. "I need distractions sometimes, and I know it's cliche, but they help me out a lot."
We ventured into the building. The inside was cold and even though most of the windows were busted, it felt stuffy. Liz took spoke into the recorder on her phone every time we came across something interesting. But mostly it was just an empty, abandoned building.
And then we heard a sound.
It was a door being kicked open and then followed by footsteps, hurried, heavy footsteps.
The next thing I heard sent shivers down my spine and made my blood run cold.
"Find them. Whoever's ah, crappy little car out back wasn't there when we stopped by this morning-uh. Find them, and bring them to me."
I looked over at Liz and saw the color had drained from her face. Her hand was clutching her phone so tightly I was scared it was going to bust and alert whoever was in the warehouse where we were.
"Liz," I whispered, gaining my voice back. Every second we stood frozen in the room meant that they were getting closer. Closer to us. "We gotta run."
More doors were being kicked open, and I knew they were getting closer. I grabbed Liz's hand and sprinted us through the long hallway. There were doors on each side, and a door at the end. Pushing it open, it revealed another hallway. This one was much shorter. We continued to run, until my roommates legs gave out from under her and she laid on the floor crying loudly.
"Sam! Sam! Did you not recognize that voice? Oh, this is not good. We're gonna die, Sam! We're... Gonna die... Dead... At nineteen..." Sobs racked her small body. The sound was too loud, and I was sure they could hear her.
I squatted down and shook her by her shoulders, panic washing over me. But obviously, I couldn't lose it too. She was doing that enough for the both of us. Right now, I had to be the strong one, and that meant making her ass get up.
"Liz," I whispered slowly, calmly. Though my insides were rushing like crazy. She peered at me through bloodshot eyes. "If we don't run, and run right now, then we will be dead. You have to be quiet. You have to be strong. You-"
The door at the end of the hallway we just entered through was kicked open roughly, and it hit against the wall with such force I heard a crack. Figures with clown masks rushed into the small hallway, their guns pointed at me and the blonde girl on the ground.
Liz's eyes rolled back into her head and she fell limp at the sight, laying passed out beside me. I grabbed her arms and stood up, hunched over as I tugged her unconscious body slowly across the floor, wanting to put as much distance I could between us and the thugs. Where had I seen those masks before?
Clown masks meant something.. God dammit, why didn't I pay attention at orientation? My thoughts were interrupted, however, when my backside collided into something.
I hesitantly, slowly, and fearfully peered over my shoulder, and the last thing I saw and heard was a white painted face with black holes where the eyes were supposed to be. And the scars, the scars were the scariest part..
I remember screaming, maybe even crying. I remember seeing a wide toothy grin, and hearing loud, obnoxious cackling.
That was it, though, and I'm sorry that I can't remember it all to tell you. I can tell you, though, that the darkness was relaxing, and that I needed the sleep. Even though I had slept ten hours the previous night.
And I knew I was going to die, because I finally recognized the makeup and scars. The laughing was just another hint I was given, even though the answer was obvious.
I was going to die, because I was in the hands of the Joker (literally).
And he valued human life almost as much as someone walking valued the life of an ant.
I was the ant, and he was the shoe.
And I knew I was going to die.
