Hi Everyone! I'm back with the second-to-last chapter of this story! I finished the script for the audio book trailer. Next up is finishing the casting process, and then we can start recording! The aim is to have the audio book trailer ready to post by Halloween. If you're interested, I'll be posting more information here as the project develops. So, please stay tuned, and I hope you enjoy this next chapter! :D
13.
Screaming… The waitress was screaming…
The man in the Joker's coat snapped open his eyes and jolted to his feet, mortified to find he'd lost track of himself for so long. That boy…no, that man, Jack…
…Sonny Jack…
He shivered all over, the mask he had taken from the Bat Cave moving loosely on his face. Its familiar, molded contours were an awkward fit on the the Joker's narrow features; the eyes and eye holes not quite aligned. Beneath the mask, the flesh-colored makeup he'd slathered on his chalk-pale neck and chin had become a smudged and streaky mess…
But he had no time to consider his appearance, no time to sift through the memories and separate his dream from reality.
Something was happening in the restaurant across the street. He caught flashes of movement behind the glass…muffled yells…
A chair shattered the window's reflective glass. Inside, he saw a woman dressed as the Queen of Hearts striding past upturned tables with an ax clutched in her hands. Diners were screaming, scrambling over splintered furniture and broken glass, searching for any cover they could find…
He felt woozy, bleary, but he couldn't just stand by. Throwing off his rain-soaked hat and coat, he straightened his mask and made the charge…
The man in Bruce Wayne's suit tilted his head back and laughed out loud.
Crouched low behind the bar, huddled with at least a dozen other terrified diners, Alice shivered and rubbed her arms, chilled - not so much by the surreal scene - but by the way 'Bruce' seemed to expand and brighten as he drank in the chaos, the wanton destruction all around them…
"Wonderful, Hatty! Just wonderful!" he cheered, picking his way past a fallen light fixture to slap the Hatter on the back. "Don't tell me you went to the trouble of brainwashing these storybook stooges just to strike back at me!"
"This isn't about you," the Hatter snarled through his teeth, raising his Taser-gun and pointing it at the taller man's broad chest. "I'm going to give Gotham the reality it deserves! And I will do it on my own! Now stand back, clown, and do as I say, or—"
"Jervis?"
Alice stood hesitantly, dodging with a little shriek as the Walrus hurled an oyster knife at her head.
The Mad Hatter roared in fury.
"No, no, what did I tell you!" he snapped. "Alice is not to be harmed!"
The Walrus lumbered away, rejoining the Duchess and the Tweedles in their pepper and plate-tossing battle. The Queen of Hearts hacked at the wall, chopping posters and framed photographs to fragments with her shining ax.
Alice brought her hands to her face, her wide blue eyes filling with horror as she turned her gaze from the costumed vandals to the snarling man in the green top hat.
"Oh… Oh, it is you…" she gasped. "But… Why, Jervis? Tell me why you're doing this!"
"Dear Alice… How I wish that you could understand," Tetch sighed. "But I'm afraid I can't explain myself. Because I am not myself, you see?"
"No," Alice said, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stared at the destruction all around them. "No, I don't see. All I see here is madness. All of you - you're all crazy!"
"I'm afraid so," the man in Bruce Wayne's suit recited, gleefully taking the opening. "But, let me tell you something, the best people usually are."
The Mad Hatter glared in fury, his face reddening right up to his ears.
"You—! You—!" he sputtered. "How dare you quote Lewis Carroll!"
The taller man's laughter only stoked the Hatter's rising anger.
"Hatty, my dear chapeau. You may have a talent for science. But when it comes to originality—"
A tall figure leaped through the broken window into the restaurant's ruins, his dark cape billowing.
"Batman!" a few of the diners cried from their hiding places.
"Is it really…!"
"He looks different in the papers…"
The Mad Hatter rushed forward, waving his arms.
"Attack!" he shouted to his minions. "Attack him! NOW!"
The costumed henchmen turned as one, armed with knives, an ax, broken bottles, but the Batman moved in swinging.
With a powerful punch to the jaw, he knocked the lumbering Walrus into the Duchess, then spun to take on the Tweedles. The pair slammed against the ax-chewed wall, and a thin white card, about the size of a playing card, fell from the metal band under the Duchess's wig.
The woman went stock-still, her eyes glazed and blank. The Walrus groaned and pulled off the heavy, tusked head of his costume - only to yelp and duck to avoid a flying Tweedledee. His metal band rolled out of the Walrus's head and twirled to a stop on the floor.
"What—where am I?" he cried. "What the hell is going on!"
Alice crawled out to guide the baffled lab tech behind the bar with the rest of the frightened diners, keeping one eye on the Batman as he knocked Tweedledum into a broken table, then landed a round house kick that sank the Queen's upraised ax deep into the wall behind her.
The Queen pulled and yanked, using all her strength to get it out, but the Batman lifted her wig and plucked the white card out of the metal head band.
Freed of the mind controlling device, the disoriented lab tech lowered her arms and stared in bewilderment at the ruins all around her.
Far in the distance, the wail of police sirens pierced the rainy night, growing gradually louder.
"No, no!" the Mad Hatter howled. "Who did this! Who dared call the police!"
"I did," Alice said, holding up her phone. "I don't know what's happened, Jervis, but this has to stop. Our technology was never meant to hurt people!"
The Hatter gaped at her, his expression torn between pining frustration and explosive rage. He raised his hands, his fingers like claws as he reached toward her—
And was slammed to the floor in a rolling tackle.
"Ow! What! No - get off me!" he shrieked, kicking and squirming away from the Batman's grip. "What gives you the right to interfere with my plans! Why, you're not even the real Batman!"
"Looks real enough to me," 'Bruce' commented, tiptoeing toward them around the splintered wood and shattered glass to avoid scuffing his expensive shoes. "Oh, hoo! This is better than I could have planned! The big bad Batman, swooping in just in time to snatch the day from the mad, Mad Hatter! Let's hear it for 'im kids! Hip hip!"
He cupped a dramatic hand to his ear, waiting for a response.
"Hooray…?" a few of the rattled diners managed.
The Batman swayed on his feet, looking at least as unfocused and disoriented as the lab techs he'd been fighting.
The man in Bruce Wayne's shoes snickered wickedly, and raised his hands to the Batman's ill-fitting mask.
"Now…" he said. "Let's all see what he's got under the hood…"
"Hood," the masked man muttered, as if speaking through a dream. "Red Hood… Sonny Jack…"
Wayne's grin faded, and he stared through the mask, seeking out the man's jade green eyes.
"What did you say?" he demanded, grabbing him by the shoulders.
"Hands up, clown," the Mad Hatter said, his Taser-gun clutched in both hands. The police sirens were getting louder, intensifying the madness in his eyes.
"You think you used my microchips to imprint your twisted thoughts on Gotham's wealthiest playboy, but it's only an illusion," he said. "The program I gave you equates to a full immersion video game - a false reality designed to temporarily overwrite the thoughts and memories of each player! Your little game was never meant to last. And now, I will end it - once and for all!"
"Wait," 'Wayne' said, "what do you—"
The Mad Hatter pulled the trigger, enfolding both Wayne and the Joker in a blinding web of crackling energy.
Alice, the techs and the diners all screamed and shielded their eyes, but the Mad Hatter kept his aim steady, his grin cruelly twisted as he watched the two men writhe within his sparking web.
He only released the trigger when a team of cops swarmed the building. A pair of them took the Hatter by the arms, three more ran to the aid of the terrified diners behind the bar.
Upon hearing the sirens, the cop voices and radios, shaken diners and restaurant staff began shuffling into the main dining room from every direction - the restrooms, the kitchen, the manager's office…even the fenced-in alley where the staffers went to text or smoke.
"Batman was here," they told the cops, the paramedics, anyone who would listen. "Batman and Bruce Wayne. That madman in the hat shot them both with some kind of laser gun!"
The cops searched the wreckage top to bottom, moving broken tables and fallen debris…
But, if the Batman had been there, the cops never found a trace. Both he and Wayne had vanished…
To Be Concluded...
Next Time: THE CONCLUSION! Stay Tuned to find out how all this madness gets resolved! :)
References Include - Batman: The Killing Joke; Batman The Animated Series: Mad As A Hatter and Perchance To Dream; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass.
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