Years Later
Mom was murdered when I was 14.
She, unlike my uncle, followed every rule when it came to surviving. She kept her head down. Even when a strand of Joker's strand of coke slowly killed off the remnants of the family we had left. She kept her ears shut, even when our neighbor upstairs had an argument loud and violent enough that it ended up in gunshots.
Mom died for nothing. Some of the Dockyard Dogs spotted her on her way back home from work. They tried to rob her. She explained and reasoned that she had no money to give. Anything on her person wasn't worth anything in particular. Maybe her phone. They grew angry, and agitated at the fact residents of the docks were not making their 'payments'. A lesson needed to get taught. I don't know what they are going to do, I still don't want to know.
Batman showed up. Shots were fired. He tried to protect her. One of the shots hit her lungs. Reports say that he took them out violently after. She lost too much blood to save her. He gave her something to numb the pain and held her as she passed. The little parts of me left are thankful for that.
The whole Dockyard Dogs crew was quickly dismantled after that. Batman wasn't happy. All 13 of them were tried in court for a slew of things. They bribed the judge and almost got off scot-free. But the true bosses of Port Adams heard the news of boys trying to play with adults. Some crime lord out there sent them to Blackgate Penitentiary. Every one of them disappeared.
I've been feeling hollow sense. I didn't cry at her funeral. At the time I didn't even know who paid for it. It's not that I didn't want to cry, I just couldn't. It's as if the shock hit me so hard that it's now my baseline. I didn't even emote when millionaire Bruce Wayne himself came for condolences. He empathized with the loss of his parents. He talked through the pain of living but encouraged me to keep going. I listened to every word but couldn't feel them. He knew my mother and father, they worked for his father once upon a time.
Mr. Wayne paved the way for me to get sent to a lovely foster home. Well, it would be lovely. Nothing has made me happy after. The numbness consumed who I once was. Gotham is a sinkhole and I've been flushed away like all others. I've turned into many of the other undead in the city. Living but empty.
The family sent me to therapy. It didn't help. The happy pills but a temporary dose to make me seem capsules that made my presence less distasteful. Though the lessons of youth have been hammered into me. I kept my head down. Been taking them for a while now.
School after that was both easy and strenuous. Strenuous in the social sense. The bonds built with my friends have been… frayed. You never know whether bonds are string or wound iron until it's stress tested. The test showed, no, no they don't fuck with me that much. Though I understand. I changed. I was no longer interested in the high school buzz. My curiosity for the unknown, minor or major was stomped and discarded. I don't smile, I don't laugh and I no longer care. To most, I'm on autopilot. A bi-pedal automation of flesh and bone. It makes people uncomfortable. The unknown of something not experienced makes the common person uneasy. It is human nature.
The true help that kept me from the dangers of an orphan in Gotham was the sheer clout Bruce held. Everyone in the area knows when one of the Waynes shows their face. Even I do. They all know of my family's death. Batman showed up, it made the news.
Bruce is a prince. And I am a zombie he calls on the phone sometimes.
Since I no longer had distractions or even hobbies, I concentrated on classes to ease my boredom. I started to pass every subject taught. It was easy. Making my brain work and trudge through every assignment made me frustrated. The success of work paid with a smidge of validation. It was almost invigorating. When I got my final report card it showed the efforts of my labor. Straight As a 3.8 GPA. The moment let me have a distant thought. Mom would've been proud. It made me cry. It's a relished moment. A brief break from the sheer void of emotion. Validation not from peers but from the memories of the loved ones.
Today I found out I've been accepted into every school I applied for. A whole ride and additional benefits from Gotham University.
I'm no longer a fool enough to think it's because of my ability. Gotham is filled to the brim with geniuses. It's foolish to think that the big wig educational overlords suddenly respect my efforts. Bruce's fame and power opened doors. Wayne's money paid for everything else. It opened my doors. But it came with a debt. One I'm not sure I can pay. I don't have direction. A goal to even go to college for.
Why would someone not living even get a degree?
My bus ride home turned into a contemplative endeavor. What would I do? The world's my oyster. Everything every other orphan in Gotham would kill to be me for minutes. The worst would literally kill me to be me. Yet my thoughts went blank when asked for an answer. Why would I become a doctor if I cared nothing for life? Why study engineering if I just become another cog? Why study psychology if my mind is broken? Why learn business when you have no use for money?
The bustle of the Kubrick District bus offers an answer. Blend in with the chaos. Become like the ladies in front and argue about whose man is who. Ask advice from the man who smells like piss and alcohol. Break another one of these decrepit windows, it'd make no difference. Pledge to the crips sitting to the left. Offer money to the prostitute and see what happens. Scrape and toil to clean the rusted and stained seats. Remain who I am, a beggar handed gold. Or become another dead black man, a statistic.
My mind reminds me I won't make it past 21. I'm already 18, I only have three years left.
I'm only reminded of reality when I see my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I never even noticed getting off my stop.
I try to bring myself to cry. It's become an after-school ritual. Just like every day, not a thing happens.
My voice rumbles as I say to myself, " I guess I'll just keep existing. Eventually, I'll live again."
An unfamiliar voice giggles behind me and replies, " Oh, you're perfect."
I whip my head around and only get a glance at the man. Bald and scarred. Two fresh slashes on his neck. A force clocks my jaw and my vision blackens as I fall to the bathroom floor.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Coming to Consciousness was a slow endeavor. My eyes refused to flutter open so for a moment I used my nose. Wherever here it's damp. Loose sense of antiseptics and moldy wood. It's silent for the most part except for the shifting of someone else and the cluttering of rodents and insects. There's a distant sound of lapping waves easing apprehension.
As I become more awake I shift and assess where I am as my eyes open. I'm restrained for now. Handcuffed to a pole and my legs were bound by a cord. I make as little sound as possible as I look around the bathroom I'm in. Not my foster home restroom although it remains familiar.
Cracks and mold litter the decrepit walls. Stains of what once was here were unwelcoming to the two newcomers. The floors are cold, common for April nights. Or what he assumes is night, these are no windows to tell. There's a tub and shower area though like the rest of the downtrodden area it's unkept. A spicket holds where a shower head once was. The tub broke down shards.
What was out of place was the bathroom door. It was new. Gleaming stainless steel with no knob, only a keyhole.
He finally looks at the man prepping equipment. He's bald, most likely in his thirties, only wearing dress pants. To my horror, his body has so many scars. Some fresh, some old and scabbing. I couldn't count how many there were if I tried.
It took no time to know who this was. One of the Gotham crazies, Victor Zsasz. Known for mass murder and torture. And if he's prepping equipment he knows what's coming his way.
He immediately begins to struggle against the pipe. If it's like the rest of the bathroom it would be rusted. With enough force, it breaks.
Victor speaks up, " I love moments like these."
I stop dead in my tracks. Even if I got out what would I do? I can't even get up. The hopelessness puts me in a spiral. I can't breathe, move, or think properly. Cold sweat lathers my face in the worst ways. Something akin to sleep paralysis stops everything dead in the tracks.
" It feels so good to just be honest. The dead tell no secrets and such." He turns around and stands up. The gleaming look in his eyes was more than enough to send a message. " If you don't know me, I'm Victor Zsasz and you're going to die today."
Víctor raises an eyebrow, waiting for a reply that won't come. " Ah… I get it. Let me explain what's happening. You're feeling frozen. Y'know most believe when your adrenaline runs there are only two responses we're built to have. Flight or flight."
Victor stops for a moment, relishing the moment. He breathes in like taking a fresh breath of air. He takes a switchblade from his pocket and it flicks open with a snap. At the sight, Victor giggles like a child caught taking from the cookie jar.
He gleefully continues, " But from what I've experienced there are three responses. Flight, Fright, or Freeze. It even fits the rhetoric!"
He waits as if expecting something. He sighs disappointedly.
" Say something or I have to make this slower."
I try, I do. My lips move but only strangled gasps escape my lips. At the response his lips thin and he frowns.
" Fine." He puts the switchblade back in his pocket and walks over to me. Victor sits on my lap and patiently looks me in the eye. I still find myself unable to shrug him off or respond.
The slap came out of nowhere.
Victor waits and slaps a little harder. He keeps repeating harder and harder until my body responds.
" Agh!"
" There it is! Wait." He slaps his forehead. " Silly me, I have something for this. Just brought it too."
He heads over to his tools and rummages around.
" P-please I don't need it."
" No, no, I insist."
He brandished a palm-sized needle filled with a clear substance. Approached and stabbed his leg. I groaned while he pushed the stopper. A thick peanut butter-like substance fills my thighs as he continues with his triad. A proud expression on his face the whole way through.
" It'll take around a minute for that to work. This is quite embarrassing! Let me start over. I'm Victor. I'm here to save you. In a sense I'm a liberator, once I'm done you'll truly feel free."
Still unable to school my expressions, Victor quirks his face.
" I am! I'll even tell you about myself. The Zsasz family was once as wealthy as the rest of the royalty here. We made a lot of money through market manipulation in the 1920s. Stocks galore to exploit and only the previously rich to take the brunt of our growing fortune. With the room to truly spend my family made major investments in things lasting. Bonds, real estate, and small businesses. Our home of Gotham is the prime target. It was a growing city so it made sense to invest. The thing is you never cant tell how rotten this city is till it's too late."
The effects of whatever he stabbed me with kicked in. My body starts to numb and I'm hit with a wave of calm. All of the fear and blood-thumping adrenaline I felt before was muted.
" My family has settled here for generations since. The vultures picked at us for years and years! At some point, the family started trickling off. I don't know where they went, they just disappeared sometimes. Some came back, supporting rivals. Wanting to be their own brand of Zsasz. Some never appear again. I still miss my aunt. It took till adulthood to figure it out. We were enemies of the Arkhams."
" The vultures picked and plucked. Suddenly we were no longer wealthy. My family trickled down to three members, me and my parents. Banks and Gothamites allowed Tony Arkham to take all of what he had from us. Other groups took the scraps. They couldn't do worse till they could."
A look of surprise crossed his face, " You have something to say?"
Desperation guides my voice and asks, " Why? Why me? Why do all of this, I'm nothing. I've never done anything to deserve this."
" Well that's kind of rude, there's a point to this story. And you never introduced yourself, who taught you manners?" Victor giggles, " Hi I'm Victor Zsasz."
" I'm Jonathan Pest."
" Nice to meet you." He offers a malicious smile. It wasn't nice to meet Victor but I'm not going to say that.
" Gotham is vicious but our family stayed strong." Vítor reminisced,
" My father got sick of being stomped on. Sick of being miserable. Mother suggested getting away from it all for a day, sailing the seas, just the three of us. Though I was spoiled and complained about something inane."
He chuckles sadly, " Silly me, the last conversation I had with my dad was an argument I can't even remember. I stuck to my guns and stayed home while they got on their getaway. Out from Gotham and into the Atlantic!"
Victor's throat bobs as he swallows. A haunted look to contrast his prior insane excitement.
" It took till after my cocaine nap to hear news of my parent's death. The news called it a ' boating accident '. Magically, they had their throats slit and the boat exploded. A brand new Sea Ray, just exploding."
He scoffs, "The Arkhams took advantage of the assassination. Took all the business properly And stocks my family had left. They took my home."
He looks Jonathan in the eye, the pain clear as day. It was a familiar one, one he saw in the mirror under a mask of apathy.
Victor continues, " The only thing I had left was in my bank account. I was 25 and in shock. In my idiocy I blew it all, drowning my numbness in extravagance. Every friend I thought I had, left. No one to call and check I'm okay. No one to lean on."
His eyes give Jonathan a resentful look through his grief.
" I was hoping that enough alcohol would drown the fact that the only people who cared were dead. If I blew a thousand at the casino I might earn back our splendor. If I bought every hooker possible, I might make a connection. I 'lived' it up till I lost it all to Penguin." He quotes with his fingers.
" There was nothing that I could do about it, their deaths or my life. The police covered every shred of evidence. No help in sight. I lived a sad life for the months following. Working a job paying just enough for necessities and alcohol. Doing nothing. Feeling nothing. Every bit of what was once Victor tore from me. I had nothing left to feel. Love wasn't necessary. Goals were unthinkable. The shallow life I had was gone. I died the day my family did. I was just an automaton of flesh and bone. A drone amongst the others of Gotham. I was…"
The words sent a shiver down Jonathan's spine. He knew the feeling. He knew what living like that felt like that.
It must've been the drugs talking when the words fell out of his mouth, " Empty, a zombie."
" Yes."
A mutual silence cloaked the room. Victor avoids eye contact as if ashamed. He shouldn't be this… comfortable with his killer. Victor at the moment was raw. And honest.
" At some point one of the other drones at work killed themselves. He was replaced by a plucky high schooler. Janice. She's nice. Enjoyed every second of life. I could feel her radiance, and that brought a pang to my chest. I only know now what it was. Envy. I got the idea that zombies should stay dead. The following day I went to the New Trigate Bridge to jump to my death."
Victor grimaces at the memory. Though, his face brightens as he keeps telling the story.
" A homeless man tried to rob me when I was saying private goodbyes. I kept telling him I had nothing. I was nothing. I tossed everything he'd wanted from me. My wallet, shoes, my bottle of cheap liquor, phone, and keys. But he insisted I must've had more, and he was going to take it off my dead body. Just like you, I froze."
Victor couldn't contain his excitement now, " I stood there blankly as he slit my neck open!" He points at the rather large scar on his neck.
" My fight response kicked in and with my remaining breaths, I took the knife and killed him back. I bled out! And when I did in my last moment I was LIVING!" He giggles. " The world was back in color. The zombie died! So did Victor. Only when choking in your blood can you finally remember everything good about life. I was FINALLY able to recognize how and why my friends left me. The hookers who did enjoy me. The perfume my mother wore. The T.V shows I once loved. And then I had a mission, enough life in me to have a passion. I swore to liberate others and make the dead in Gotham LIVE. Jonathan you're not going to be able to recognize the current you! Life will have meaning like no other! All you have to do is die."
Victor looks expectantly at Jonathan. He's giddy with murderous happiness radiating off him in waves.
Damn those drugs must be strong. Because I fell back to the nothingness from before. I was expecting… more. I knew I was going to die. He made that clear. But the answer to finally living again must be more than that.
" I have a couple of questions ."
" You can call me Vic, you've been so patient. This usually involves so much more screaming and begging. When you start living, I and you are going to be such good friends."
Victor pauses. He voices his thoughts, "Though It seems a little one-sided. A question for a question." He nods to himself.
Fair, I guess. It's not like I have an actual choice. " Why do you torture people if all they have to do is die?"
His excitement deflates, " I came out living but twisted. I can admit that. It's my mission to help zombies. But some people just aren't honest. So I have to make them. The rare few start to live after you rip off fingernails," He shrugs. " Also, I enjoy it," He says the last part quickly.
Before Jonathan can say anything he asks, " Have you ever initiated a call with Bruce?"
" No."
" Explain."
" Relationships are give and take, be it emotionally or physically. And I have nothing left."
" See I did my research. I do most of the time-"
" Most?" What's he mean by that?
" -And I find it frustrating that you refuse to not be a zombie. You've had what I didn't, yet you still go about life not doing anything."
" I get good grades."
Victor only stares, " Jonathan. Honesty. Do you get good grades because of boredom or drive?"
" Boredom, then habit. What have you done about the Arkhams? They must still want you dead."
The life in Victor's eyes comes back as he brags, " Oh they did! They sent assassins but they ended up much like a certain homeless man. Money couldn't help them from me killing them all."
" What about Jeremiah Arkham?"
" I kept him alive to taunt him every time Batman sends me to the asylum. The torture he puts me through is worth it." His brown eyes gleam, " It makes living so worth it. What were your mom's last words with you?"
Jonathan feels the deeply hidden grief coming back, " Take out the trash cunt, gotta go, love you, bye."
" She sounded like a good woman. What happened?" Victor empathizes.
" She was great." He grins. " Murdered by the Dockyard Dogs."
" I'll kill them all."
Of course, he would, " The gestures appreciated, but they're all dead."
Victor clicks his tongue, " I'll kill their mothers."
" No need. I'd bring me no solace. Where are we?"
" We're at an abandoned house by the docks. The house you used to live in. Thought you'd appreciate the gesture."
" Thanks."
" What happened to your father?"
" My mom never had the chance to tell me. All she wanted to tell me was that they both used to work with Martha Wayne."
" Ah."
" What's with the scars?"
" They are memories. Of everyone I've introduced life to and those I've murdered."
" Vic, that makes you sound pretty disturbed. It's not uncommon for serial killers to keep trophies. It opens the opportunity to compare you to others."
" Jonny- can I call you that?"
" Sure."
" It's all about intent. I am a serial killer. I can't deny that. It's not like I can revive you after death, But every one of my successful failures is on me. To be remembered forever. What was your dream growing up?"
I ruminate on his question for a moment to brush off the mental cobwebs. A gathering storm outside peltering the abandoned home." I think I wanted power. Power in money."
" Why?"
I give Vic a blank stare.
" What? It's a valid question? The money wouldn't bring your dad back. I'd only encourage the Gotham dregs to not take your every penny."
" What 12-year-old do you know that thinks that through?"
" Fair."
" Why is it that you always... liberate with a knife?"
" Oh, this?" He reaches into his pocket to admire the switchblade. " Much like my scars, it's a momento. I was killed with this blade, it's a reminder of the good I can bring people. Here's a good question for you Jonny, how did your family afford a home at the docks? From what I gathered your family was new to Gotham. You lived in squalor but could afford pretty good property on the docks."
" I don't know."
" I think there's more to what your mother never told you."
The waves crash harder against the shores. The pattering of rain vibrates the abandoned home. The rats are now unable to be heard. As if to shield themselves from the fury of the storm, the centipedes crawl over the bathroom surfaces.
" Did you kill my foster parents? They didn't deserve it."
" No." He points to the two fresh tallies on his neck. " These are from two of the homeless in Crime Alley."
Centipedes scuttle across my body. Ready for the meal that's about to come.
" Thank you for the talk, Jonny. I think it's about time you live."
Vic walks over to where I'm restrained and sits next to me. Throwing a reassuring arm around my shoulders. It does nothing to ease my apprehension.
He holds the knife across my throat.
The bathroom door has an audible click. It's kicked out violently. The haunting appearance of Batman almost stops Vic's insanity.
A searing pain cuts my throat open. The knife scraping bone.
" NO!"