THROWAWAY CARD
Chapter 13
Disclaimer: Batman and related characters are the property of DC Comics.
Author's Note: I'll now be answering all my reviews through FFnet's funky new reply system! If this chapter reads badly, it's because I finished it in a lack of sleep moment.
Gotham General Hospital, 8.13 a.m. Extract from the diary of Ari Kelly, 32 years old, doctor of this parish:
Maybe it makes me a bad doctor - y'know, not concerned enough about the welfare of others? But my first thought was purely selfish.
Why me, Lord?
I can hear above me now the wailing of the alarms, and I want to run, like the rest, run to help evacuate the relevant wards. But I can't. I can't help it. I'm scared of what I may find when I go out there.
The Joker is back in my hospital, and I can't for a moment imagine he's feeling like making a donation or patting some cancer kids on the head.
He must have come back for me. Angered by my treatment of him, perhaps? He's crazy, it could be as simple as the fact that he didn't like the colour of my tie and he's decided to show me the error of my fashion sense. You cannot predict what will make a madman turn on you. I had a friend once called Jack, back at my old hospital, who specialised in working with mental patients. He was really good at it, too, made friends of them and made real progress with one guy. Guy thought he was Abraham Lincoln reincarnated, amongst other little delusions (unless Mr Lincoln had a habit of running down the corridors with his pecker out that I hadn't heard about). One day I came in to work and heard Jack got knifed by his patient. He never walked again. Turns out Mr Lincoln took exception to Jack's moustache, which the poor guy had worn for years with no problems, and stabbed him during a session with a knife no-one knew he even had.
I make my decision and run from the canteen. I head away from the lobby, where the crisis is obviously concentrated, and down, heading for the most out-of-the-way place I can think of. I figure I can hide out in the vegetable ward until the cops get here and take him down. The sounds of screaming and sirens are fading with every step I take.
The coma ward is almost peaceful as I push open the doors, the lighting subdued with the pale grey dawn light filtering through behind the heavy curtains. There are eight beds: one empty now Mr Sampson has left us, the rest full with their still, silent occupants. The duty nurse is not at her station, and far from being angry at her for leaving her post, I'm glad, I'm actually glad. Good for her. She's better off out of all this.
I head for the bed at the furthest end of the room, the one with the little girl lying in it, and I hunker down against the wall, the reek of disinfectant and fresh linen in my nose.
It's gonna take a long time for my body to calm down. I try to concentrate on the regular bleeping of the monitors to slow my heart rate. My breathing sounds so loud - if anyone walks in they'll hear me long before they see me in the dimness. But why would anyone walk in? The don't evacuate the veg ward unless the fire breaches the fire doors on the two floors above, and that ain't gonna happen, right? Right?
So I sit against the wall and try to work out why I'm more afraid of a single mental patient than I am of being burnt alive.
Streets of Gotham, 8.15am
Police cars screamed past in the neighbouring streets as Batman wrestled his car through an improbably tiny gap between two waiting juggernauts.
"Mmmm," Selina murmured with interest. "Police. We can slow down a little now, can't we? The police will keep him busy until we get there."
"For both our sakes, you'd better hope they don't," came the reply, and the Batmobile shot down the straight alongside the river like a bullet.
"Why in the world not?" Catwoman enquired, bored and flicking the loose restraint straps in her gloved hand. She was favoured with a tiny glance from the shadowed eyes beneath the cowl.
"Because police have guns."
Catwoman made a rude noise. "So? I hope they shoot the bastard. He's as crazy as a rabid mutt, he should be put down."
Batman swung the car into a tiny car park adjoining the back of a video rental store, and shoved open the driver's door, sweeping out into the filthy street without a backward glance. Catwoman narrowly made it out of her side of the car before the formidable locking and armouring mechanisms on the Batmobile engaged with a series of clicks and whirs. "Why are you so concerned about him all of a sudden?"
Batman didn't bother to turn round to answer her, and broke instead into a run. He could smell the tang of smoke, now, and had picked up on a few shrill, distant screams. The answer he hadn't given was pounding hard inside his head: because I prefer the Joker when he doesn't have easy access to guns…
Gotham General Hospital, Emergency Room, 8.17am
"What's that you say, dear?" the Joker asked his silent, staring hostage with a dedicated, serious frown. "You want to see a doctor?" He gripped her head and wobbled it up and down in a parody of agreement. "Well, honey, your ever-lovin' Joker has brought you to just the right place. It's Doctors R Us here. Take your pick. Girl doctors, boy doctors, Doogie Howsers, Dr Phil, Dr Ruth…or Dr Kelly." He turned his dazzling grin upon the huddled triage staff and their patients in front of him. "Doctor Kelly! Paging Doctor Kelly, we have an emergency…"
The kitchen knife abruptly flicked away from Alison Wright's throat to waggle pointedly at a male nurse who had started to creep towards the interior door. "Uh uh uh! Nobody leaves the party!" The grin got wider as the knife was pushed back snugly under the woman's chin. "Or I get to cut the cake."
Outside the hospital, the cacophony of sirens wailed to a halt. The wrecked doors and pick-up illuminated in pulses of blue as two police cars drew up directly behind them. "Oh shucks," said the Joker, pouting, "gatecrashers." He backed up against the interior doors as the first three uniformed officers burst through, followed closely by a pair of firemen.
"Jesus," gulped the first cop to spot the problem. "Oh Jesus…"
"So kind of you," smiled the Joker generously, "but I've decided not to be God this year, the tax is just murder."
"Stay calm, lady," called out the older officer of the three, "everything's gonna be fine. Sir, if you'd like to put the knife down and step away from the woman…"
"Certainly," came the amused response, "if you'll put your gun down and step away from that flower arrangement. Hydrangeas," he added in an aside to the nearest fireman, "they make me nervous."
"You want me to put my gun down? Sure." The cop nodded to his two associates. "But Benny and Tom here get to keep their guns, right?"
Benny and Tom exchanged a glance that said plainly they weren't sure who was more nuts, their boss or the loony in the purple suit.
"Of course," said the Joker agreeably. "Big strapping lads like that, it'd be a shame to part them from their guns. And I'm sure you want them to keep a good line of sight on lil' ol' me, yes?"
"That's right, fella," said the lead cop, bending slowly to lay his gun down in front of his feet. "See? I'm puttin' it down. Now you move away from the lady…"
"Watch me shimmy, watch me shake," grinned the Joker, extending his grip on Alison to arm's length and shuffling to the side. "Don't make any sudden moves now! I get very edgy at sudden moves."
"I'm moving real slow, I promise," said the cop, doing exactly that. The two junior marksmen kept their guns levelled very carefully at the madman as he sidestepped, away from Alison and closer to the huddled group of patients.
"I wasn't talking to you," huffed the Joker, "I was talking to the hydrangeas, they bother me." He let go his grip on Alison's shoulder at the exact moment that the butt of the cop's handgun slid a few inches forward across the floor. The woman, as if the removal of his grip acted as a catalyst, turned and bolted through the inner doors, fleeing deeper into the building despite the frenzied shouts of the firemen and the cops for her to do otherwise.
"Round and round she goes," mused the Joker, delighted. "Where she stops, nobody knows. Hey, this is fun." His good arm whipped out and snagged the shoulder of the nearest patient, an elderly man with a crutch, and the knife came back up with a gleam.
"Drop the knife!" yelled the cops, somewhat redundantly.
"Oh, I don't think so. How would I open the parcel without a knife? Here. Pass the parcel!" He gave the elderly patient a shove so that he stumbled towards the police and grabbed a teenage girl with a burn mark on her arm instead. "Maybe this is the one I get to unwrap, whaddya think, boys?"
"I think they should have shot you when they had the chance."
Batman stood, arms folded, in the ruined doorway. His shadowed eyes were fixed on the Joker, who grinned even wider in delight. The teenager, crushed against the smoke-stained purple jacket, began to cry in great hiccupping gulps.
"But then they don't know you like I do…"
The cowled figure stepped forward, boots crushing shards of glass from the pick-up's windscreen. The Joker's shoulders tensed, just slightly. "They don't know you, and why should they? Their world shouldn't contain creatures like you."
"There you are," purred the Joker, " and I thought you didn't love me anymore. I've been waiting for you, you know."
"I know you have," said Batman, softly. "I'm here now. Let's get this over with."
The madman snorted. "Killjoy."
He backed again towards the inner doors, which were still swinging gently from Alison's escape through them, and leant for one moment against them lightly, his green eyes gleaming brightly and a little blood beginning to seep from under the strapping on his broken arm. For that moment, the rictus grin wavered: the pain registered, and the white brow sprang out in sweat along furrows of expressed, very human exhaustion.
Batman took another small step forward, this time with his hand held out. "Joker…"
The Joker backed away. Slowly, very slowly, he switched hands so that he held the terrified girl and the knife in the same long white hand. Then he bent his sharp head, deliberately, and licked along the back of his filthy, bandaged hand with his tongue, cleaning away the rivulet of blood. Red stained his big teeth as he looked up again, grinning.
"I was gonna say," he whispered, just loud enough for Batman to hear, then as the cowled head tipped forward to catch the quiet words, he tipped his head back and crowed with laughter. "Let's play!"
The teenager, her face red and blotched with tears, was pushed forward hard into Batman's arms, and the doors clattered as the Joker turned and bolted through them.
Batman handed the sobbing girl to the closest fireman and turned his gaze on the lead cop, who was looking like a scolded schoolkid.
"Batman, I'm sorry, we -"
"You didn't know what to do. Don't be sorry."
The black cape flared out like wings as Batman strode past them all.
"That's my job."
A stunned moment passed as Gotham's defender vanished into the hospital corridors, broken only by the lead cop's startled exclamation as he realised his gun was no longer on the floor.
Gotham General Hospital, 8.24 a.m. Extract from the diary of Ari Kelly, 32 years old, doctor of this parish:
I know it's the beginning of the end when I hear the running footsteps again in the corridor: not running away from me this time but toward me, woman's footsteps in heels that sound broken. The sound rings in the halls above the distant sound of sirens, the irregular beat of someone running desperately, but not haphazardly.
And then the voice, calling out from the floor above by the sounds of it. So close, he sounds, he could be standing right above my head.
"Yoo-hoooo!" the Joker sings out, and all the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. "Run, rabbit, run rabbit, run run run…"
Then the door of the coma ward is thrown open, and any hope I might have had left rushes away like floodwater down a storm drain.