Hey guys! I'm ba-aaaack! Sorry it took so long! I got swamped with the end of school and with a bunch of other writing projects, but I managed to kick this out before too long. I hope I didn't lose any readers in the process. It's summer now, but I think I'll finish two more projects before I continue this one. I know I made it sound like this wouldn't be my top priority at the moment in one of the Author's notes of my other story, Safe and Warm, but I was hit with inspiration and the words just kept coming. And they wouldn't be denied. :)
(And don't worry, the other two projects shouldn't take too long. One more chapter of Safe and Warm and one of a brand new story that's on its way to completion. I hope you'll like those, too.)
So, here is the next chapter of Tropical Torment. I must say, I like this one a lot. ^_^ I hope all of my readers like it too, and don't mind waiting a bit for the next one. Thank you for all of your support and your wonderful reviews. You all help make it worth it. :3 It's a pleasure to write for you as well as for myself when you tell me what you think.
Criticism is as welcome as compliments. :D
Disclaimer: I don't own the Joker – though I wish I did – or Batman or anything besides my narrator and my victim rabble. Credit for The Dark Knight's awesomeness goes to DC comics and Christopher Nolan.
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Tropical Torment Chapter 4
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The Final Shot
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My hands felt numb around the gun, my finger slack and unmoving against the trigger. The broken-hearted man, my forcibly-chosen target, was still sobbing into the bloody chest of the woman he loved, after the Joker had shot her because he had failed to kill a little boy only minutes before. The painted man who had caused all of this pain was standing just behind me, his purple-gloved hands still holding my own poised at the pathetic victim he had chosen for me. I could still feel his breath repulsively warm against my throat. His proximity was terrifying, but I fought hard not to let it get to me. I couldn't afford to get distracted when another human life hung so precariously in the balance that I was trying to maintain.
The little boy I'd temporarily "saved" still resided in his mother's warm, tight, panicked embrace as the two of them continued to sob. The rest of the crowd released its occasional sniffles and cries, though the vast majority of them were shivering and silent. They were waiting. Waiting to see what I would do. Waiting to see what I would do with the gun in my hands, pointed at the broken-hearted man who still obliviously clutched his lost love. The sun suddenly seemed to blare down upon me, as if chastising me for the most unspeakable crime, as if I'd already killed the man and it was letting me know how horrible of a person I was. It wasn't a completely misplaced sense of disappointing wrong-doing, seeing as I'd sat by and attempted to disappear while many other people died only a few minutes earlier, so it wasn't like I was a gallant example of flawless integrity and virtue this afternoon.
But still, it was maddening as the drops of sweat began to gather upon my forehead and dribble lazily, with salty, heavy warmth down the pale, clammy skin of my face. My bottom lip trembled feverishly, and I bit it in an attempt to restrain it as well as myself. Flames flickered between the discs of my spine – my body was hideously alive and aware and on fire. It seemed to shock straight to the nucleus of each of my cells to realize that I truly and completely held, in my shaking hands, the potential to end a human life. Now, I knew there were more ways to kill people aside from guns, but guns were often seen as some of the most infallible, especially when your target was actually hit. People survived gunshot wounds quite often, though I suspected they survived fist-beatings much more often than bullet holes.
I'd wondered before, during the more uneventful periods of my life when such an opportunity to test my wonderings had seemed entire universes away, if I'd be capable to kill another human being if my life depended on it. I wondered if I possessed the strength of muscle and mind to actually accomplish such a terrible act. Now, I felt more like the answer was "yes" than I ever had before. I'd never held a gun before. I'd never aimed it at another human being. I'd never thought that this cruise for writing a book would lead to anything aside from rest, relaxation, and worldly rewards. And now, here I stood on a beach, the Joker just behind me, the crushing weight of his black eyes just pressing down upon me, silently daring me to pull the trigger of the gun he'd given me to kill yet another member of his nameless rabble of poor, unfortunate victims.
I guessed that "never's" didn't always stay "never's" for very long.
I blinked my eyes to clear them of the heated, hazy fog brought on by terror and the blaring sun overhead. I practically had a slimy coating of sweat lying with sickening weight against my skin. Every breath seemed to be a laborious effort, but it was worth it to get oxygen to my brain so I could think. For the moment, the Joker seemed content to wait for me to act, sadistically curious of what I would do. I could hear him breathe behind me, occasionally humming some quiet, disjointed, disturbing tune to himself. The weight of his eyes was suffocating, but I still fought to remain clear-headed despite the hideous knowledge of how he was still mere inches away from me. Needless to say, the Clown Prince of Crime was far too close, but perhaps there was something useful in that fact...
What was he thinking about? Was he expecting me to shoot the man, like he'd obviously directed me toward doing? Or was he expecting me to try to rebel against his wishes and try something to escape...? Was there any chance of me being fast enough to run away from him? I had his gun after all... Could I get far enough away from him...to shoot him? To at least prevent him from causing any more damage by putting his life at stake? There was a chance I could save everyone else here with the ludicrous efforts I was contemplating beneath the brain-baking sun... If I couldn't get away from him, could I use the gun right where I was? Could I hit him with the butt of the gun and knock him out? Could I reach back and shoot him accurately? ...Could I shoot myself before he could stop me? I shivered in the tropical warmth, a rush of coldness ripping through me and making my knees tremble. No – Well... If I couldn't kill someone else, could I kill myself? Would I? It didn't seem right – the ultimate cop out... I would leave them all here at his mercy if I ended my own life...
No, I couldn't do that. I hadn't made so many statements of valiance and justice to up and kill myself now and leave them all behind to fend for themselves... My brow lowered in my concentration, my eyes squinting through the blaring light of the airborne fireball high above me. I stared at the broken-hearted man before me, still hunched and crying into the bloody chest of the woman he loved, whom he'd been willing to kill to protect... His sobs seemed to draw back and kick viciously at my frazzled consciousness, each one making my heart break a little more. I didn't want to shoot him. I thought the statement a few more times just to make it sink in. It made me feel a little better for some reason, as if the simple addressing of the fact that I had some tattered remains of a moral backbone was somehow comforting to me.
So, if I didn't shoot him, then what would I do? What could I do? I flexed my fingers carefully around the gun, repositioning my sweat-slick grip. I wasn't sure why I was bothering to hold onto it. Part of me thought that, if someone should have it, it should be me. I didn't know what would happen if I gave it to someone else – maybe they would be stronger and smarter than me, but there was also the chance that they would be weaker. And that was a chance I wasn't sure I was ready to take. Another part wondered how it would feel to just drop the damn thing right there into the hot, blood-stained sand. Yet another part was considering chucking it into the ocean. The options were overwhelming, and my lack of experience with fighting for my life and fighting with a gun certainly hindered my judgment in deciding which one was best to proceed with... I was terrified, exhausted, and frustrated – and the Joker knew it.
"...You know, beautiful...You, uh, could just fire – the – gun and then you can just...go back to your little heap on the sand" – My eyes twitched as I saw his gloved hand wave with absent-minded spasticity in the general direction of where my shapeless imprint in the sand still vaguely remained – "And then, your turn's up... Just. Like. That..." he murmured, his voice like a maniacal disease spreading throughout my body. My teeth clacked together as I gritted them in an attempt not to shudder violently in response to his repulsive proximity. His breath felt hotter than the sun on my neck, making fresh beads of sweat well to sluggish life upon my skin. My fingers twitched around the gun as I fought for control over my fears.
"But then you would win..." I hissed back at him without looking at him, still trying to ignore how close he was to me and how close I was to killing someone...
"...You're so sure that getting you to...kill someone...is my goal..?" he asked in a low, evilly superior murmur that made me question almost every conclusion I'd managed to form about him in the brief time I'd been in contact with him – I wasn't so sure anymore, though my mind didn't doubt that, whatever his goal was, it involved death and me at this point. One way or another...
He chuckled when I didn't answer, the sound prickling across my back. It felt like the claws of a vulture as it tried again and again to lift my near-dead body up but was repeatedly unsuccessful. I couldn't help but stiffen, though I tried to not let it travel down my arms anywhere near the gun. Tense fingers weren't good around triggers that one didn't want to pull.
"...Goals are overrated...You should know that. I mean...look where yours got you," he announced, his voice rising so that the last phrase was almost a harsh proclamation of the failure of my short life's work and the death of all of my dreams. I had to grit my teeth to control myself. How dare he act as if this was my fault! How dare he waltz like the mentally-unstable clown he was right into my lovely life and say how all of the goals I had planned for myself didn't matter! Perhaps they weren't the top priority at this point, I silently admitted that, but that certainly didn't mean having a goal was worthless or that mine had always been destined to lead me here! My current goal right then was, at its core, to survive, but it also would have been nice to be able to prove him wrong in the process somehow... The sun didn't seem so hot anymore, simply because I wasn't as cold with fear – I was angry with indignation at how he'd made it seem like I messed up, when it was really just him messing me and everyone else up.
"My goal didn't get me here – yours did," I informed him angrily, though I immediately regretted allowing emotion into my voice. That had to be a painfully clear indicator that he was getting to me, and that had not once crossed my mind associated with the phrase "good idea..." The man my weapon was aimed at was falling quiet now, as if his grief just wasn't able to be vocalized. I could see that the dead woman's bloody shirt was also soaked with tears. He sniffled pathetically against her, a ruin of a man. And my gun was still pointed at him as the Joker replied to my snapped statement with a casual and creepy tone.
"...Do I really seem like the kindda guy with a goal..? I mean...just the word sounds wrong in my mouth, wouldn't you agree, beautiful...?"
The entire question made me want to shudder, especially when I unwillingly started thinking of things being in his mouth – his twisted, scarred smile stretching wider, opening with a spurt of blood, yawning as it engulfed all that was good and pure in the world. My mind imagined it laughing in the dark, imagined it chewing, imagined it sliding across sweat-slick flesh... The shudder I'd been attempting to stifle racked my body, refusing to be ignored. My face warmed again, this time with an involuntary blush.
"...There are all kinds of things wrong with this day..." I responded with a harsh but hushed voice, not wanting to reveal to him anything about what I'd just thought of or just how disturbed I was by this entire situation. That would be too much information for him to have concerning me, of that I was certain.
And then he laughed.
Not softly. Not quietly. Not carefully. Not considerately. NO.
He practically exploded with laughter just behind me. The hideously violent sound burst from his mouth with almost enough force for me to feel it on my neck. It was like a mercilessly excruciating slap to my terrified, hyper-active consciousness. And what do you do when you get slapped and you are so far beyond not expecting it that expecting it is nothing but a dot to you? You jump, that's what. And when I jumped a foot in the air and sucked in a painfully fast gasp with my utter shock, my fingers tightened around the gun in a terribly reflex reaction.
And then I felt it.
I felt it before I heard it.
The...push. The gun pushed against my hand. It was a small push – but a push nonetheless. My mind worked slowly, as if I were thinking in slow-motion. The sun blared. The world froze. And the gun pushed. My hands moved back a little to accommodate the movement, though it still seemed to travel throughout my body by knocking each one of my cells together, one after the other...
The gun didn't just push.
It recoiled.
Because I fired it.
Then I heard it.
The loud crack that seemed to scare my soul out of my body. It smashed into my ears and tackled my brain and crushed my lungs. It shook me to my core. I fired it. I fired the gun. I just – fired– the– gun.
Horror draped me like an unbelievably heavy, blood-soaked curtain.
It was soaked with blood because that was what I had just shed.
I'd just shed blood.
I'd just shot someone.
I'd just killed.
I gaped, silently screaming. My eyes burned, as if they were on fire. I couldn't even think of why they burned. All I could do was watch the blood droplets rapidly expelled from the wound I'd just created glint like repulsive jewels in the sunlight. All I could do was watch the grieving man lurch slowly downward as a bullet – my bullet – tore through his abdomen, making his entire body jerk toward the body of the woman he loved and toward the ground beneath him. All I could do was watch him fall. Because of me.
Somehow, tears were streaming like liquid flames down my petrified face. Somehow, my lips were trembling. Somehow, every part of my body was shivering and swaying. Somehow, my shallow breathing became repeated examples of horrible, broken sobbing. Somehow, I shattered.
Every pair of eyes in the vicinity was on me. All of the people I'd failed were staring at me, gaping at me, their eyes wide and disbelieving.
She was the good one, the brave one. She prevented him from killing that man, and then...she killed him herself.
Pieces of me clattered against the sand, glinting like jagged knives of a broken human in the hellish sun's light.
She just killed someone. She is no better than him. We were wrong.
The pieces fell faster now, chinking and splintering on top of each other as they piled up in a glistening pile of ruin.
She can't save us. She's a murderer.
The pieces were glistening shards of deadly rain now, pouring and pouring relentlessly down to the unforgiving earth.
We were wrong...
I was shattered.
I heard what the gathered crowd of my fellow-castaways thought of me now, what judgment-calls they were making. I'd let them down. I'd let each and every one of them down... They had been looking to me for help and guidance. They'd been looking at me for hope. AND NOW LOOK AT ME!
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the man. He was silent now, completely. He was utterly still, only his hair and clothing swaying occasionally in the weak tropical breeze. He was lying thoughtlessly upon the body of the woman he had loved, the two of them still and silent and bleeding together.
He was dead.
I had taken his life – me.
Whatever the hell the Joker's "non-existent" goal had been, I was pretty sure he'd achieved it.
I was pretty sure he had won – and I had lost...
I lost so much right then...
I dropped to my knees in the sand in front of the Joker, unable to control myself or restrain my crushing grief. I couldn't hold myself up anymore. I didn't deserve to stand up strong and tall after what I'd done... My hands shook without any conscious direction from my brain, as if my body were trying to reject the weapon I held. My shuddering escalated until the gun slipped from my limp, unfeeling fingers and puffed quietly into the sand before me. I didn't look at it. I didn't look anywhere else but at the dead man before me. He was dead because of me. I was the one who had made him a body, a simple hunk of meat, no longer a thinking and feeling and loving human being...
Good God, what have I done...?
My tears darkened the sand upon impact after plummeting from my pale face, splattering the tiny grains and clumping them together with the moisture. Every breath was an effort, my chest seeming to constrict itself as time dragged on and as the image of the man I'd killed was further burned into my brain. I knew that, if I closed my eyes, I would probably still be able to see him, see how he'd once been, – and hear the Joker's maniacal laugh...
I stared with glazed, searing eyes before me, not really seeing anything anymore. My thundering heartbeat and jagged breathing blocked out most sounds, the murmurs and whimpers of the crowd around me. The world became a little distorted, seeing as I was beginning to rock back and forth repeatedly. The sun set me on fire, but I didn't feel it. I was aware of the heat beating down upon my sweat-slick skin, but I didn't care like I had before. I didn't care about anything right then. I was attempting to slither back into my happy place like I'd been in before, attempt to forget this hell that I was now undeniably a part of and curl up into my little heap on the sand.
Just like he said I could – Just like he knew I would.
He hadn't gasped or started when I'd shot the man. He'd almost seemed to expect it – I couldn't be entirely certain, seeing as I knew that my world exploded right then and I wasn't able t accurately monitor his face or body for reactions, seeing as he was behind me at the time. But still, it hardly seemed relevant... He'd given me that choice from the beginning, as soon as he'd shoved the gun into my hands, and I'd accepted it just like he always expected me to, one way or another. He knew that, if I didn't cave myself, he could probably crush me into submission by playing with my fears or by scratching at my moral spine until it bled and broke. He knew... He always knew.
Like HELL he didn't have a goal!
I closed my eyes and lowered my head. The guards to my happy place were back, cracking their enormous, bloated knuckles threateningly. They slammed punch after punch into my face, into my body, mind, and soul. They beat me down into a bloody pulp, a sniveling, shivering mass on the harsh, cracked, merciless ground. They wouldn't let me in. I could find no solace and no relief. There was nowhere for me to hide, seeing as I was what I was trying to hide from. I couldn't run from myself and I couldn't defeat myself. I was my own worst enemy in this tropical torment.
I was just like the Joker now – a murderer.
"...Look at me..."
The voice whispered, flowing like burning oil into my ears and washing against my baking brain.
I didn't move, didn't open my eyes, didn't look up, didn't even breathe...
"LOOK – AT – ME!"
My flesh trembled as if it would fall of my bones at the sudden fury in his voice. I was unable to refuse or resist him. Terrified, I started upon the sand and whipped my head up to look at him.
My hair, tangled and wet with sweat, stuck to my face in vision-obscuring streams.
My pale, clammy skin shone sickeningly in the blaring sunlight.
My chapped white lips were parted, shallow breath dashing chaotically in and out of my mouth.
My brown eyes, heavily-glazed with the inescapable terror of a child that was beyond consolation, were wide and glistening with tears as I met his gaze.
His black, vile, gaze, filled with a chaotic darkness that could consume the light, all of it...
He knew evil. He could see, hear, speak, smell, taste, and touch evil. He was evil.
And then he smiled at me.
That hideous, loathsome, painted nightmare smiled at me.
It was the most horrible smile I had ever seen. It was more horrible then all of the others.
His scars twisted and writhed, the marred flesh stretching upward, climbing endlessly upward... The redness smeared into the white, the black dripping into all of it and making it a montage of repulsively sodden color. It was blood and shadow tarnishing purity. It was the ruin of all of the goodness in humanity's heart. His long yellow teeth were bared in a truly horrifying grin, the sadistic smile of Beelzebub, of Lucifer, of Satan, of every earthly embodiment of evil. His gums glistened like blood in the sun, as if his mouth were full of it, full of the life essence of the innocent that he'd chewed and swallowed. His entire face became a ghastly portrait that deserved to be shredded and burned and buried and nuked.
And it was all for me.
He smiled...because he liked what he saw.
He liked my frazzled hair and parted lips and terrified eyes.
He liked what I had become – what I had been so hideously reduced to.
I'd killed someone – He'd made me kill someone – and he loved what it was doing to me, if the Joker was even remotely capable of something that could be called love.
He loved what was left of me, because it was probably cruelly beautiful to him, like a master of pain and suffering and destruction admiring his unwilling apprentice's unfortunate accomplishments.
He smiled.
And it violently overcame me like no other inner, snapping impulse had done before.
In an instant, I was ravaged and beaten and hurled into oblivion.
A jagged gasp burst from my lips, as if he'd thrown a fist into my chest with all of the strength he could muster. His smile hit me like a wrecking ball. It was the final push over the edge. He approved of me, of what I'd done and what it had done to me, and that was it. That was all I could bear.
I lurched to my feet, wheezing for air and melting beneath the sun, the sand kicking upward beneath my rapidly scrambling movements, my heart throbbing, my blood pulsing in my ears and behind my stinging eyes, my hair whipping heavily around my face as I ran.
I ran away from the Joker.
I ran away from the crowd I had let down.
I ran away from the man I'd killed, and from the gun I'd dropped.
I ran, because it was all I could do.
I ran, a cowardly, shattered, pathetic murderer, into the surrounding emerald foliage and out of sight.
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Well, there's that one!
Hope you all liked it!
Read and Review!
And
THANK YOU!
Love from me - and the Joker...in his sick, sadistic way. :)
~SD
