Batman Vs The Creeper
"Master Bruce"?
"Master Bruce the bat signal is shining".
As soon as Alfred the butler said those words Bruce Wayne was out of bed and running across the master bedroom to a grandfather clock on the wall that covered one of the many secret entrances to the Batcave.
Bruce had only been asleep for about three quarters of an hour and his ribs were still in agony from his fight with Clayface the night before, his right hand was injured too and his jaw was nearly broken from being hit in the face with a huge stone sledge hammer that Clayface had transformed one of his hands into. None of that mattered now though, Batman had been victorious and Clayface was in a special inescapable prison cell now, the last one had been "inescapable" as well but he had still freed himself from it, it's not easy to keep a man made of clay who can morph his body into any shape and has almost limitless strength a prisoner.
As he jumped into the batmobile he thought "please don't let this be Clayface again". Little did he know that that it was in fact something much much more dangerous.
Batman got out of the Batmobile, took his batarang launcher from his utility belt and shot a batarang to the top of the police station, he used to throw batarangs by hand but since he invented the launcher which also automatically winds up the wire into the unit pulling him almost instantly to his destination he hasn't looked back.
James Gordon the Gotham city police commissioner was standing on the roof of the police station next to the bat signal, he looked terrible, he seemed grey and tired, he was smoking a cigarette there were also a couple of cigarette butts on the floor. "I thought you had quit Jim," Batman said, it startled Gordon who hadn't seen Batman on the roof yet. "I'm sorry Batman but this is terrible", Gordon said. "What is it Jim?" Batman asked, "You'd better come downstairs" Commissioner Gordon said.
As they walked into the crime lab Batman started to feel concerned, he could tell this was something very bad. "Have a seat", Gordon said as he pulled out a metal folding chair. Batman didn't sit down he just stood there expressionless with his black cape hanging down from his shoulders completely covering the front of his body except for a small vertical gap which exposed the bat symbol on his chest and the bright yellow buckle of his utility belt. Commissioner Gordon sat down and started talking, "Twenty three years ago I was on the force in gotham although I wasn't commissioner yet", he started, "something very bad happened twenty three years ago Batman , a serial killer murdered sixty three people, there was no motive, some bodies were never recovered, others were just left in the street where they had been killed. The ones we did find all had something missing, eyes, lungs, stomachs, heart, even genitals for god's sake but after about three weeks the killings just stopped" . "And?" Batman asked.
"He's back." Gordon said, "Over the past two weeks over twenty people have gone missing and three people have been found dead in the streets of downtown gotham, a young black male early 20s all his tendons pulled from his arms and legs, a white woman probably in her early 30s had her throat and vocal chords ripped out and a little girl had her face torn clean off, a little girl!" Gordon was shouting now. "I've been doing this job a long time but some things still get to me Batman and that little girl's body left in the street like a broken doll with a face like a bloody skull will haunt me forever."
"It must be a copycat" Batman finally said, "It can't be", Gordon replied, "most of this information was never made public. in 1981 this killer tore the top off someone's head with his bare hands, I saw the body back then and I'm 100 percent sure that it's the same man who pulled that little girl's face off, we nick-named him "the Creeper"." "Is there anything else I need to know?" Batman asked, "Well" commissioner Gordon replied, "when he took that woman's throat she was in a moving car, she was driving, there was a hole torn through the roof and there was her blood on it. We think he jumped on the car while she was driving and tore the roof open with an axe or something then grabbed her neck and ripped it out then somehow he escaped unharmed" . Batman's eyes widened under his mask, "the only people I can think of who could do that are Man-bat and me", Batman said, "and Man-bat's been in Arkham asylum for three years, I'll get on to it right away". Gordon was hunched over in his seat looking at the floor, he looked up to say something to Batman but he had already gone out of the open window. About 15 seconds later the phone in the police station rang, Gordon picked it up, it was Batman, "Jim, he said, something's torn the roof off the Batmobile".
The Batmobile's roof had been hacked completely off with a blade of some kind, probably an axe, nothing had been stolen but someone had definitely been inside prodding and poking about but they were long gone now, there were marks where his hands and face had been pressed up against the interior of the car but there were no fingerprints. Back at the Batcave Batman was welding a new roof on the Batmobile, he was still wearing his Batsuit but without the cape and cowl, he was wearing a welder's mask instead. "Oh my!" Alfred exclaimed, "what happened?" Bruce lifted his welder's mask and gave Alfred a condensed version of the events. "I'm going to go out on the motorbike," Batman said, "I'll finish this later." Batman shot out of the Batcave on his bat-bike like a bullet, he didn't know exactly what he was looking for but he did know that he couldn't afford to waste any time,
this creep had killed sixty three people in three weeks after all. Just as Batman was thinking "this killer must be well over forty" he saw a terrifying shape fly past his head about 35 feet up. It looked a lot like man-bat, it had huge batwings and was flying at an incredible speed but it didn't have man-bat's body, it had a human body wearing tatty clothes, it was the Creeper but that was about all he could see in the dark at this distance, he couldn't stop to get his night vision binoculars either because he was having a difficult enough time keeping up with this thing and keeping his motorbike on the road at the same time anyway. In the road ahead there was a tunnel and once Batman had driven through it he looked up again and the thing was gone. He kept driving around then after about two minutes suddenly the creature swept down and grabbed Batman off his bike, it was almost silent except for it's flapping bat like wings, it was so fast that almost instantly it had flown straight up about 30 feet, it was so fast and dark that Batman could barely make it out but it was definitely more human than man-bat was. Batman was fighting with this thing trying to loosen it's grip but it was inhumanly strong, finally Batman shocked it's face with an electric tazer that was much more powerful than the ones the police use, it was as powerful as it could be without killing someone. the creature loosened it's grip only for a second but it was enough for Batman to escape. As he free fell from about 120 feet up Batman opened up his cape and started gliding to the ground, it was an incredible sight, a man sized bat pursuing another man sized bat but for the first time ever Batman was the one who felt like the prey with the real bat rapidly closing in on him.
The creeper swept back down to grab him again but Batman shot a Batarang into a tree below and zipped to the cover of trees and darkness, he ran to his bike and drove as fast as he could to the Batcave making sure the creeper didn't follow him.
"You look as white as a sheet!" Alfred said to Batman when he walked in to Wayne manor. "I just had a fight with a man with bat wings who can fly and lands on top of moving cars" , Batman said, "he sounds familiar" , Alfred replied wryly. Batman went down into the Bat-cave and looked at the damaged batmobile, "Why did he rip the roof off a car with no one in it" ? He thought, "Why did he come back at me after managing to evade me?" he said. "Maybe he's hunting you" , Alfred said out of the blue. "That must be it!" Batman said, "he must have been getting my scent from the car. He takes body parts from the people he kills, maybe he wanted something from me... A trophy".
The phone rang, it was commissioner Gordon, "Batman, he said, I don't know if this is relevant but we got a phone call from a woman who said that her son has been missing for six days, last time the creeper was around he killed people for exactly twenty three days and this time around twenty three years later we have now reached the twenty third day of his killing spree. We need to catch him now in case he goes away again". "Leave it to me Jim, Batman said, I have a feeling I can get him to come to me". Batman hung up the phone, "I do hope you know what you're doing", Alfred said. "I'm going to put on an armored bat suit, then I'm going to sit in the Batmobile and wait for him, hopefully he'll take me back to his hideout and I can free some of the missing people, if any are still alive. Batman said, this may well be the last night he's out and I'm desperate to catch him because if he comes back in twenty three years I might not be here then". "But surely in twenty three years he'll be an old man", Alfred said, "I'm not entirely sure he's human" Batman replied. "Oh, Alfred said, please take care master Bruce".
Batman drove into the night in the Batmobile with the roof only Half fixed, this time he was prepared, he had everything he could possibly need to apprehend the creeper, his armored batsuit had built in night vision and he had souped up his tazer to give a jolt that would kill any human. He drove around the same spot where the creeper had attacked him a couple of hours ago, then his carphone rang, it was Commissioner Gordon, "Batman, he said, two officers just saw the creeper on angel street". "I'll be right there". Batman said, it was only two blocks away.
When he got there the creeper was gone. "He grabbed a teenage boy and flew east", the cop said. The Batmobile was speeding east when suddenly the roof came off the car, Batman looked up and with the aid of his night vision goggles saw the most fearsome thing he had ever seen, it looked like a hideous dark grey man with wrinkles and folds all over his skin, he had long sharp teeth, a shock of long white hair sticking out from under a filthy brown fedora hat, in one of his arms he was holding a screaming teenage boy with the same powerful grip he had held Batman three hours before. In the other hand he was holding the Batmobile's roof, his wings were flapping powerfully as he effortlessly managed to keep up with the Batmobile's speed. The Creeper then dropped the roof of the Batmobile on the road and grabbed Batman under his armpit and pulled him from the car, the first thing Batman wanted to do before they got too high in the air was free the poor kid that the creeper was holding in his other arm, he stuck a razor sharp batarang into the Creeper's hand and he dropped the boy into a tree, the Creeper looked at Batman and snarled, then he grabbed Batman with his other arm so now he had both his arms wrapped around Batman's midsection, he started flying very high and fast through the smog of the night sky of Gotham City, this time Batman didn't put up a fight, he wanted to be taken back to the Creeper's lair. They flew just out of Gotham into the suburbs, there was a boarded up abandoned house and as soon as Batman saw it he knew that was where they were going, it was that creepy. The Creeper flew with amazing grace through a smashed window, Batman's plan had worked, they were in the Creeper's lair.
It was a million times more terrible than he could have imagined, the Creeper threw Batman into a dark corner and he couldn't believe his eyes, the walls and ceiling were covered with preserved dead bodies, all damaged in some way, most had internal organs pulled out but some had arms, legs or heads missing. the Creeper retracted his wings back into his body and walked towards Batman, he was naked now and he had a body like boiled leather, he had no visible sex organs but he had amazing muscle definition, he suddenly swept at Batman with his claws but Batman dodged. For the Creeper the easy part was over, now Batman was going to fight back. Batman lunged at the Creeper with kicks and punches that had little effect, then the Creeper swatted Batman in the face with the back of his hand, the jaw that Clayface had hit the night before was definitely broken now. The Creeper grabbed the top of Batman's head and started tearing his mask off, He managed to tear it off above the eyes so now Batman's jet black hair and forehead were exposed, the Creeper grabbed at his head again this time digging his claws in to Batman's flesh drawing blood, he wants my brain, Batman thought, Batman kicked the Creeper in the chin with his heel as hard as he could knocking the beast back about three feet, the creeper looked bored and angry that Batman was putting up a fight, Batman had never been treated like just a minor annoyance before and he didn't like it, normally he was the powerful one swooping in and saving the day but now he was just another faceless victim to this inhuman creature. Batman backed into the corner and pressed a button on his utility belt that flew the bat-plane automatically to where he was as he knew he'd need it sooner or later bring the Creeper back. as Batman was wondering what to do next the creeper picked up a double headed battle-axe and charged forward Batman ducked and the axe stuck in the wall then Batman kicked the Creeper in the back of the head as hard as he could, for the first time the creeper looked like he was in pain, Batman then stuck a batarang into the Creeper's neck and picked up a hard wooden club off the floor and started whacking the Creeper in the face and body with it, the Creeper was putting up less of a fight now and he pushed Batman away and walked out of the door into the next room, Batman followed him as he went down the stairs into the basement, Batman took out his tazer and hit the Creeper with it, the Creeper let out a blood curdling scream, The Creeper then limped slowly into the corner and wrapped his wings around himself.
"He's starting to hibernate, Batman thought, if this is where he intends to spend the next twenty three years, I've got a rude awakening for him". Batman went out to the Bat-plane and grabbed a net then he went back into the house and put the net around the Creeper and dragged him to the bat-plane, he used a winch to pull the Creeper into the back of the plane and started flying towards the batcave. Suddenly he heard the noise of the creepers wings extending to their full size and he looked back just in time to see the Creeper tear out of his net and rip through the top of the Bat-plane and fly off into the night.
Commissioner Gordon called Batman the next day, "Batman, he said, we checked the house and all the missing bodies were there but no sign of the Creeper, he must have hidden somewhere else" . "We'll get him next time Jim" , Batman said. "Well", Commissioner Gordon replied "we've got twenty three years to prepare".
This is the first story I've written, please let me know what you think of it!
_Blank Frack