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A/N: If you've read this far, you're probably not deterred by creepiness. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to offer a Warning: I'm slipping back into depravity in this chapter. Extremely disturbing visuals and events are described herein. Heck, maybe they're even the best parts. You decide.
* A STIR OF SEDIMENT *
Chapter 25
. . . . . . .
Look at me. Turn around and see me. I'm right here – please help me.
Lois stood on the rooftop of a familiar building, the wind whipping around her body in cold gusts. The full moon was high in the night sky and the stars were out. Before her stood an impressive figure. She stepped toward him, rubbing her arms for warmth.
His back was to her. Standing on the ledge of the building, he looked down upon the city that he protected. They had a name for his kind: hero. She could tell by the rounded outline of his massive shoulders that his arms were crossed at his chest. His cape blew back in her direction, in an undulating current of red.
His head was turned, and she could see his profile: the strong jaw, the wave in his thick black hair above his forehead, the look of concern etched into his features.
She caught his scent. It was warm and masculine and everything that was good with the world. It embodied him.
He could save her, but he didn't know she was there. If only he would turn around to look over his shoulder.
"Please," she stretched out her arm toward him, almost touching the hem of his cape as it fluttered behind him. "Superman, I'm here. Please help me!"
In slow motion, he turned his head toward her, eyes cast downward. As he brought his chin over his shoulder, he raised his gaze to meet hers. She caught a glimpse – just briefly – of his crystal blue eyes, set deep with sadness.
Then his cape blew toward her face and she was momentarily blinded by a wave of the crimson cloth. When it billowed to the side again…
…he was gone.
Lois closed her eyes to will him to come back to her. When she opened them again, she found herself standing on the rooftop of an unfamiliar building, the wind whipping around her body in icy gusts. It was colder now. Above her in the night sky, the waning moon was low and the stars had disappeared. This time, there was a formidable figure before her. She stepped toward him, her movement stirring the pebbles on the roof.
Lois felt her urgency mount. Look at me. Turn around and see me. I'm right here – please help me. Please!
His back was to her. Standing on the ledge of the building, he looked over the city that he once had protected. They had a name for his kind: outcast. She could tell by the rounded outline of his sizable shoulders that his arms were crossed at his chest. His cape blew back toward her, in an undulating current of black.
His head was turned, and she could see his profile: the strong jaw, the black cowl with the formidable points of the bat-shaped ears, the look of concern etched into his features, visible even behind the mask.
She caught his scent. It was cold and masculine and everything that was unsettled with the world. It embodied him.
He, too, could save her, but he didn't know she was there. If only he would turn around to look over his shoulder.
"Please," she stretched out her arm toward him, almost touching the hem of his cape as it fluttered behind him. "Batman, I'm here. Please help me!"
In slow motion, he turned his head toward her, eyes cast downward. As he brought his chin over his shoulder, he raised his gaze to meet hers. She caught a glimpse – just briefly – of his dark eyes, set deep with uncertainty.
Then his cape blew toward her face and she was momentarily blinded by a wave of onyx cloth. When it billowed to the side again…
…he was still there. But there was something different about him. Something more ominous.
Her pleading only came out in a whisper, which she feared the wind would carry away: "Please, help me!"
He cocked his head to the side and regarded her with curiosity. Lois thought that he hadn't heard her, as her voice seemed to fail. She forced herself to scream. "Help me!"
The Batman hopped off the ledge of the roof and stood square to her with his feet wide, and he lowered his arms to his sides. He answered her in a voice that wasn't his own. It was a voice belonging to someone else: "No."
Lois started to cry, shaking her head in disbelief. "Please help me! Please get me out of here!"
The Batman lowered his head forward and downward, then he advanced on her slowly. He repeated himself, but it was with someone else's voice: "No."
Lois backed up with trepidation, holding her hands entreaty before her, tears streaming down her face. "Pl— please help me!"
The Batman narrowed his eyes at her behind the mask, then licked his lips. "Nooooooo." The wind rustled his cape violently, blowing it in a maelstrom around him, almost reaching her.
She could almost touch its purple hem.
Her voice was just a croaked whisper. "Someone please save me."
A voice garbled at her from off to the side. Lois turned to see a corpse lying prostrate on the rooftop, gurgling its words as its mouth filled with blood that ran down from the three gaping bullet holes in the forehead and left cheek. "Save her! Save the Queen! God save the Queen!"
"God save the Queen of Tartsssssss."
She turned back and saw him.
He advanced on her menacingly. He turned his back on the city that he was terrorizing. They had a name for his kind: monster. The wind blew his green-tinted blonde tangles in a flurry around his head, and the red of his lips appeared black in the moonlight. Behind him in the night sky, the waning moon started to wax. It grew from crescent to half, then gibbous to full, its white glow growing larger. A face appeared on the moon. Then, it wasn't a moon. It was a clown's mask, hovering and unattached. Watching.
Lois turned to run, but her feet were stuck in tar under the pebbles. He closed the gap in no time from behind her. Cold hands snaked around her throat, down her arms and around to her front. She caught the scent of him. It was decayed and it was rotten and it was everything that was discarded in the world. It embodied him.
His breath was hot and putrid in her ear: "Did you really think that I was done with you yet?" His mouth was at her neck and his hands grasped her shoulders. He threw her backwards hard.
She landed on the floor of The Room. Her limbs felt like lead, and she couldn't move. Towering over her, the Joker peeled off his gloves, threw his coat to the side, and unfastened his tie. Lois turned her head to look under the door. She saw a face pressed to the floor, watching her. It was Superman's face.
"He just wants to watch." She looked up at the Joker, who had removed his vest and was unbuttoning his shirt. He regarded her with a lustful and angry intent. Fearful of what his expression held, she looked away from him back to the door. A different face was pressed to the floor, watching her from outside in the hall. It was the Batman's face.
"He just wants to watch." She looked up at the Joker again, who had removed his shirt and was now on his knees straddling her, unfastening the front of his pants. He was laughing and his eyes were wild.
Lois swallowed a scream and turned away to look back at the door. The Batman had disappeared, and now Barker was watching her through the gap between the door and doorframe.
"He just wants to watch." Lois turned toward the Joker as he pressed his weight on top of her. He was unfastening her belt and unzipping her pants. He licked his lips and bit the side of his mouth in anticipation.
She turned her head to the door once more. Barker was still there, but the clown mask's mouth opened and a red snake slithered out. Then another. And another. They slithered under the door and over to her head.
"They just want to help." Lois turned to the Joker whose face was inches from hers. "Not help you, of course. Help meeeeeeeee." He slid his hands inside her underwear at her hips and yanked downward with force, leaving her exposed from her waist down to mid-thigh. A low rumble of laughter escaped from his chest.
Two of the red snakes encircled her wrists and pulled them up above her head. The third snake slid up to her ear and whispered to her. "People are dying tonight and it's your fault." The snake slid across her neck and down inside her shirt. It continued its hissed accusation: "All your fault. All your fault." The Joker locked his eyes on Lois' and drew back from her face slowly; torturously so. He lowered his head and placed his mouth down between her legs. He snaked his red tongue outward to touch her, watching her face all the while.
The snake inside her shirt slithered down between her breasts toward the Joker's mouth. Grinning with depravity, he opened his mouth up wide and the snake slithered in, sliding over the point where his tongue had just been on her body. The snake turned around inside his mouth, stuck its head out between his lips to look at her again and split in two. Each half became its own smaller snake. They inched outward and apart over the corners of his mouth, resting themselves on his cheeks. They stopped moving and became his scars.
The Joker never broke his gaze from hers. His tongue came back out and touched her between the legs, and he slowly dragged it upward along her body. Lois looked up to see two figures towering over them at her feet. Both Superman and the Batman stood with crossed arms, watching. Lois had no voice. She could only mouth the words, "Help me."
Ambivalently, the two men looked at each other, then looked down at her as the Joker ripped open her blouse. He drew his tongue up the middle of her body, leaving a glistening red liquid trail of blood on her torso. Superman uncrossed his arms and pulled a white rubber clown mask over his head. The Batman followed suit. They watched.
Lois turned her head toward the door. The face of the corpse was pressed against the floor, watching her. The flat of the Joker's tongue licked the side of her face, leaving her sticky and wet. She turned to look at him as he hissed, "Hello, Queen of Tartssss."
The Joker brought himself down heavily on top of her, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth. Then it wasn't a tongue, but another snake, tickling the back of her throat as it hissed. At her stomach she could feel how hard he had grown from the foreplay, and she tried to turn her face from his so she wouldn't choke from the smothering kiss and the snake in her mouth. He raised his mouth from hers, and drew the snake out. Lois watched as the snake became a tongue again. He looked down on her face while his hands went to the middle of their bodies. Biting his lower lip, he put one hand on the side of her waist for purchase, and the other around his erection. Lois watched his hand as he guided himself to her body, poised to violate her.
"Would you like to rape me, Lois?"
She shook her head weakly.
"Well, then… how about if I rape you?"
Searing pain tore through her core as he thrust into her forcefully. It felt sharp, like a knife. She couldn't cry out in pain, even her own voice betraying her. He raised a hand to stroke the side of her face. "Don't look at it as rape." His grin was lascivious. "Look at it as getting nailed."
He thrust into her again and a loud bang seemed to explode up by her ears. He smiled at her, the scars pulling back his mouth to garish proportions. "That's right… you're getting nailed." Another deep thrust of his hips, and another loud bang rang through her head. The sound was so loud as to be blinding, fading his face to white, blending in with the white clown masks behind him that Superman and the Batman wore as they watched passively. The white shapes bled together and obscured her vision.
Soon, everything was white.
There was another loud bang up by her head.
Then Lois stirred and opened her eyes.
The Joker's face was suspended over hers, a broad smile playing on his lips, his tongue flicking outward. White light encircled him. "Well good morning, sunshine-ah! Did you have a good nap?"
Он умер вчера вечером . Я сожалею. (He died last night. I am sorry.)
Sergei Kruzynski shut off his cell phone, seething with rage. He started to pace in the backroom of the pawnshop, while the two other men in the room held their breath. They had seen their boss in this state before, and good things seldom came of it. Whatever the news was that had come through the line, it wasn't what the imposing Belarussian wanted to hear.
He stopped his pacing abruptly near a wall. With a broad swipe of his arm, Kruzynski knocked a stock shelf full of lamps to the floor, sending glass shattering in a myriad of shards at his men's feet. He grabbed a heavy ornate candlestick and threw it with all his might at an antique mirror on the other side of the store. There came a deafening crash, and the sound of more broken glass.
The scene was a metaphor for the self-restraint Kruzynski had finally lost in this street war against the Mob.
Fists balled at his sides, he let out a roar. The chords in his neck strained against leathery skin. With a heaving chest, he looked at his henchmen from underneath knotted black eyebrows. "Nikolai is dead."
The older man succinctly nodded his condolences to Kruzynski, and cast his eyes downward in deference. The younger henchman, still a bit too green to know when to keep his mouth shut, tried to offer a sympathetic apology and sincere condolences for Kruzynski's youngest brother. His judgment ran short where his words ran long.
Before the extemporaneous outpouring of empathy concluded, Kruzynski had backhanded the younger man across the face, sending him sprawling into a jewelry counter, where he cracked his forehead against the edge of the display case. Blood ran freely into his eyes. Stifling a yelp of pain, he wiped at it with the back of his sleeve, and turned around to stand at attention once again in front of his boss.
Kruzynski's youngest brother had been killed outside of Minsk, by an ambush of government soldiers. Nikolai had been a member of the insurgents who had risen up in Belarus against the state's corrupt political system. The weapons that Kruzynski had tried to purchase clandestinely from the Mob would have been invaluable to the rebel group.
Of course, the guns and ammunition never made it to Minsk. Many men had died needlessly because they didn't have the necessary artillery to fight the government's soldiers with equal force.
This was the second brother that Kruzynski had lost because of this weapons deal going south.
Yugevny died the very night the deal fell apart with Maroni and his crew. He had been Sergei's second in command, and the Mob had brought in a fucking sniper to take him down.
Kruzynski took inventory of his standing: two dead brothers, no weapons for his countrymen back in the motherland, loyal employees dead and buried because of the ongoing feud; and yet a considerable sum of money from their pockets lined the wallets of Vinnie Maroni and his men.
He had tried to avoid making it personal against Maroni for as long as he could. It was common knowledge that the Mob greatly outnumbered the Belarussians in Gotham, and their resources were certainly more extensive. Arranging a personal hit on Maroni or on his family, though desired by every rival street gang, was considered suicide. Still, it was smart to have a strategy, if the time ever came to cross that line.
Kruzynski was a smart man. As the veins throbbed in his temples, he decided that the time had come to cross that line.
He had little left to lose. Family members of his had died because of the Mob's double-cross. It seemed due justice that Maroni be paid back in kind. Since the night of the failed deal, Kruzynski had mapped out a plan for retribution. He knew exactly whom and where to strike, to hit Maroni hard. The variables in the equation were the 'when' and the 'how'.
Looking over at the small TV near the store's register, the 'when' and the 'how' finally fell into place.
One of Gotham's local news channels had posted a list on the television screen of the confirmed locales around Gotham where explosions had been reported, attributed to the Joker's threats against the city. An epiphany came to the Belarussian: clearly the Gotham Police Department was focusing all their resources on locating the clown and minimizing casualties. Another explosion in Gotham, given the events that were unfolding, would just be attributed to this wave of terror and probably wouldn't raise undue suspicion right away.
Blood coursed through his veins faster, his excitement growing as he saw how the plan would come together: the Joker had set the stage for a hit on Maroni's family that wouldn't raise suspicion immediately, assuming explosives were used. By the time the police investigated and learned that it was the work of the Belarussians, Kruzynski could have not only his revenge, but perhaps the weapons from the original arrangement as well.
Moreover, if things went even better than expected, perhaps he could get their pilfered funds back. Time to give Maroni a taste of his own medicine.
Kruzynski stepped forward and grabbed both his henchmen roughly by their collars, and smiled at them venomously. "How would you like to help me pay that mother fucking Italian back for Nikolai and Yugevny?"
The henchmen didn't answer. It was a rhetorical question, after all. There could be no other answer but 'yes'.
Lois stared at the Joker, completely disoriented. She became conscious of her own body lying on the floor, and a realization hit her that she had been awakened from a dream.
More to the point, a horrific nightmare. One she had been glad to break free of. Thank God. Oh, thank God that was only a dream!
"I had to, ah" (smack) "turn the lights on to see what I was doing. See, it's difficult to find the holes of a belt in the dark. Hold on, would ya, Sweet Tart?" He leaned over her, and a loud bang rang through the room again.
He sat back on his heels straddling her, holding a hammer up for her to see. He bent down to her face, and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Bet you didn't think you were going to get nailed tonight." He winked salaciously at her. "But maybe you did. You were supposed to meet with Bruce Wayne, weren't you? Word around Gotham is that the boy…" the Joker looked at her with a smirk. "…really gets around."
Rocking back on his heels, he stood up. Lois tried to roll to her side, but she felt her arms restrained above her head. She craned her neck awkwardly to try to see what was restricting her movement. Both wrists had belts looped tightly around them, and he had nailed both belts to the floor.
She turned her face up to his. "What's this for?"
He brought a video camera up to his shoulder. "We've got more footage to shoot, and I needed to…" he licked his lips. "… set the stage. See, this video is going to be a bit more personal."
He leaned over her to elucidate: "This video is going to be for the Batman."
. . . . . . .
Author's Notes for "A Stir of Sediment"
. . . . . . .
The title for this chapter refers to all the images that have stirred in Lois' mind while she's out cold, planted by the Joker. Fractured remnants of her encounter with him have been unsettled to form this horrific nightmare. Dreams have a bizarre way of repeating inside themselves, hence the similar pattern of events when she saw first Superman then the Batman. The mind also seems to have a way of incorporating actual events into the dream's images. As the Joker was unfastening her belt and looping it around her wrist, these physical sensations appeared in her dream, though her mind attributed different contextual interpretations to them. When the Joker was nailing the belt to the floor, this sound ended up in her dream. I picture him actually saying out loud that he was "nailing her", so this crude expression ended up in her dream as well. As awful as the events were in her nightmare, I wanted to incorporate the elements of nightmares that we've all probably had: trying to scream without a voice, trying to run when you're stuck, pleading for help when none comes.
So for anyone who may be concerned with how I've been portraying the Joker, I just wanted to make it clear that the rape came only in the dream. Given all the sexual advances the Joker put on Lois before she blacked out, a fear of rape is exactly what he wants her to be saddled with. Fear is the root of chaos, and that's what he's all about.
-4oC 2008.12.08