Chapter 4

The final class of the day got out without any disturbances. I head over to the gym for cheerleading, where Tara, Sydney, and the other cheerleaders are all already fully changed. The only thing wrong with the picture is, the gymnasium bleachers have been pulled out, and several guys are sitting on the very front row, cheering and catcalling the girls. Frank is sitting smack in the middle of the guys, paling around with the two guys sitting adjacent to him. I approach Tara, who's leading stretches with the other girls,

"Hey, what're these guys doing here? It's suppose to be closed practice."

Tara gets up from her toe-touch, pulling down her skirt, "Oh, these are just some friends of the girls and I. You don't know them."

I look over at the guys on the bleachers and I notice in the very corner is Martin, turning away from the others, slouching towards his laptop, and refusing to make eye contact with either of boys or the girls. Tara follows my eyes over to him,

"Oh yeah, we invited that guy too. For you, because, you like that guy right? Or is it the short one? I don't know, he seemed like the cuter one, but that's not really saying much, is it?"

I shrug, "Doesn't really matter, I'm gonna go change now."

The minute I close the gymnasium door, my phone buzzes with a text from Martin.

"HELP ME!" it reads.

"How'd they convince you to go along with them?"

"They said I could take pictures. I figured they meant pictures for the school newspaper, then I thought about it…"

"Okay, okay, but you don't have to stay."

"Yeah, I know."

I stretch out my thumbs for a break as a change, but as soon I'm in my cheerleading outfit, I pick up my phone again,

"You know if you want to look at the girls, you can just say so."

"But that's so weird . And I'm not even looking. I'm…recording you guys."

"Go ahead. I honestly don't care."

"Look, its for the website, okay? Nothing more."

I chuckle as I put my phone in my locker and head back up to the gymnasium. I join the squad in my usual place. I feel just a little uneasy, knowing that Martin is recording us through his laptop, and the other guys are blatantly staring at us. I keep calm though, if I can do this in front of the entire school, how should this be any different?

For once practice ends at the correct time and the girls all pair off with a guy and leave, most of them not even bothering to change. Tara scampers over to Frank and kisses him on the check,

"Did you enjoy watching our practice Pudding?"

Frank nods, grabbing her by the waist, "Of course dear. You were great."

I smile and head over to the locker room. Tara notices me and yells out from Frank's arms, "Hey, where's that guy I invited?"

I look around, and see that Martin is no where to be found. He must have left with the others.

"Talk about rude." she comments.

"He's just shy." I tell her.

I'm about to grab the door when Tara calls out to me again, "Oh hey, could you get my stuff from my gym locker and drop it off at Cornerstone?"

"Sure." I tell her.

As I finish up changing I head over to her locker with a small art chisel, a screwdriver, and two booby pins. I turn her lock around to find the master key lock in the back. I learned how to pick locks from the Girl Detective magazines I read as a kid, and of course, the internet. I jimmy the lock until it comes loose and I collect her phone. In the darkness of the locker room, I also notice a slight green glow coming from her backpack. Zipping open the backpack reveals two syringes of normal Joker Venom and a note wrapped around them. I carefully remove the note, and it reads,

"For you, my sweet -Joker".

The Joker? As in the Joker? Everyone knows who the Joker is, the crazed maniac who terrorized the city during the original Batman's reign. Sure, there's been tons of copycats that you hear about on the news, but there's nothing like watching a documentary with the black and white footage of the original news broadcasts during that time. There's something fascinatingly scary about the original one that the others can't seem to replicate, like a horror movie icon. I don't know, maybe it was the crappy quality of the cameras he was filmed on that made him grittier and more monstrous.

I put the note back with the syringes and close the locker. So, along with the distribution of a drug called Joker Venom, there is someone, presumably the head of operations, who calls himself the Joker. God, its already scary enough fighting thugs, fighting an actual Joker would be terrifying.

I exit the building and head up the block to Cornerstone. The snow that's been building up over the past couple of days dragged down my feet in my winter boots and the heavy wind whipped against me. When I finally reach Cornerstone, Brad is right outside the store in his ridiculously bulky winter jacket, sifting through the snow around the shop.

"What are you doing Brad?!" I ask, yelling through the winter wind.

At the sound of my voice, Brad jumps, falling face first into the snow, his head plunging into the deeper snow out in the street. I pull him back up and help him into the store, his meek frame feeling lighter than air,

"I'm so sorry, are you okay?"

His head had hit the concrete street, and there's a decent sized cut on his forehead.

"Where do you keep your medical supplies?" I ask.

He holds his head with one hand and points to behind the counter. I look and there's an emergency medical kit there. I bring it over and clean up his wound, "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"Ugh…I don't think so. But…thanks." he tells me, still lying on the ground of Cornerstone.

"What were you looking for anyway?" I ask, putting the medical kit back behind the counter.

He slowly pushes himself up, "The bell on the front door's missing, I figured it must have blown off due to the winds, and I was looking for it."

I nod, but at the same time I clench my fists. I remember knocking off that bell last night when I was here. I feel my heart pang in guilt, I caused this. Should I confront him about the Joker Venom? Is he selling it? Or is it his parents? It had to be his parents, unless he does it for them.

"Hey, where are your parents?"

He shrugs, "Probably out shopping. This is the only time they have off, so they usually take this time to get supplies, food, whatever we need."

"Okay. Hey, Tara wanted me to drop off her phone here." I tell him, placing her phone on the counter.

He jumps up, nearly bumping his head on one of the shelves, "Tara is, entrusting me with her cellular device?"

I arch my eyebrow, "Yeah, she went to hang out with Frank. I guess she'll come to pick it up later."

He gingerly picks up the phone and turns it on, "How long do you think it'll be until she picks it up?"

I shrug, "She didn't say."

"So I better start now."

He swipes at the phone until a loud alarm sound came from it. He waits for the alarm to settle before tapping at it again.

"Are you trying to…guess her combination?"

He nods, his eyes not straying from her phone, "Yeah, it'll be a test of my intelligence."

"Or your guessing ability."

"…that too."

I chuckle, "Alright, well, I gotta go. Don't do anything too crazy, okay?"

He nods again, still not looking up from the phone.

I close the door, the wind returning to whip my face. I turn to walk home when I remember, I left my clothes from last night on the roof across the street. I turn to the building where I had been staking out Cornerstone last night. There's nobody around, maybe I could quickly go up and get it, if its still there. I cross the street, checking the frosty streets for cars, although I haven't seen a car pass by all day. With the snow and wind creating a dense fog-like atmosphere, I barely know it's the correct building when I arrive at it. The drainpipe is now covered with a frosty layer of ice, and upon touching it, my bare hand gets stuck onto the frost. I try to grip the pipe with my gloves, but the gloves give me half of my usual grip. With my gloves on, I slowly inch up the drainpipe. As I climb higher up, the tough winds threaten to throw me into the adjacent building. I clench my teeth and continue up, using my feet to buckle into the small space separating the building and the pipe. My hands hit the top of the building and I scoop myself up to the top. I slump onto the concrete roof, my heart racing. In the blurry billowing winds, I can just barely make out the outlines of my backpack. I push myself up, feeling a slight ache in my legs from supporting my body while climbing the drainpipe. I slowly creep over to the backpack, which is in a somewhat different position then what I remember. Somehow the backpack is mostly free of snow, and its actually fairly warm upon touch compared. I pick it up and check my watch. Its getting late, if I want to investigate Cornerstone tonight, I need to get going. I open the backpack to check if everything's still there. When I open it, I see everything's there, plus a folded sheet of paper. I grasp the piece of paper in my frostbitten hand. Common sense tells me to just read it at home, but my curiosity is killing me. I shuffle my hands to unfold it:

Awfully cold weather we've been having, no? And don't think I don't see you coming, so I thought to give your clothes a wash. See you tonight?

-Joker

I swallow nervously, so the Joker is real. I feel my heart face as I look down and see that the clothes in my backpack have been dyed a combination of white, green, and purple. I shove the note in the backpack and swing it over my shoulder, and take a deep breath. Now, I have to worry about the thugs, the Joker and I have to climb down this drainpipe.

I'm typing away at my keyboard in the freezing snow with one hand and tossing my can of tomatoes in the other. I've wrapped my winter coat around my laptop to protect it from the snow. As soon as I hear a beeping sound coming from my can of tomatoes I'm up, closing my laptop into my satchel and coming up from my hiding place in the Cornerstone alleyway. When I open the door to Cornerstone, I don't hear the familiar tinkling of the bell.

"Hey Brad." I greet, hands in my jacket pockets.

Brad looks up from the counter, "Oh, hey Martin. What can I get you?"

"Some Watermelon Hubba Bubba and some Junior Mints please." I tell him.

"Sure." he replies, going over to the candy rack behind the counter.

I place the can of tomatoes with the others, making sure it faces the front. Brad looks back up, and sees me playing with the tomato cans.

"Didn't you just buy one of those a couple of days ago?" he asks.

I nod, "Uh, yeah, for chem class."

He nods in return, "Well, your stuff's ready."

I pay him and leave quickly, avoiding eye contact with his smiley face. He's a good kid, and even though he's just a year under me, his face looks of someone even younger. Hopefully he'll be asleep when those thugs come around, he doesn't deserve to be mixed up with this.

The streets are empty when the truck pulls up to Cornerstone. Today I've decided to stake out directly above Cornerstone on their roof. Since I didn't want to scale another icy drainpipe, I hopped onto the fire escape, and climbed onto the roof from there. Now I'm sitting on the roof, dangling my feet down, as they come with their usual boxes. I take a deep breath, today is the day I get these guys, I tell myself. I slowly creep down the fire escape to the open window near it. Trying to not let the rusty metal fire escape creak so much, I swing myself into the well lit room. When I drop in, I see that it's a simple bedroom with a bed and a standup mirror. The olden paint is peeling right off of the walls, not uncommon for most of the apartments in Gotham City. As I walk into the hallway, I begin to smell the rusty scent of old blood, but I see no blood until I look down and see the almost indistinguishable spots on the floor leading to a closed door at the end of the small, narrow corridor. I follow the blood and grasp the handle and twist, but the door is locked. I take up my lock picking ensemble and easily jimmy the old door open. The door slides opens with a *click*. I push it open gently, but then freeze in place, accidentally allowing it to slam against a dresser. I swipe around to see if anyone heard, but nobody came pounding up the tiny staircase leading to the store. I clench my fists, and bite my tongue, preparing to confirm what I just saw. I turn around slowly, trying to mentally prepare myself for what I'm about to confirm. Right in front of my feet, a pool of blood begins, trailing up to the double bed, where the source appears to be a lump covered with a couple of thin sheets which have all been soaked in blood. There's blood scattered around the walls too, most in the form of smears and splatters. The smell is overwhelming, coming in sharply and stinging my nose. I fumble for my phone and quickly snap a picture, securing the evidence without disturbing it. I feel myself coming close to gagging, and not needing to see anymore, I close the door. From downstairs, I hear a crashing sound, and suddenly there's shouting from two low voices. My first instinct is to go downstairs and investigate, but I hang back, slowly creeping down the hallway, as to not be noticed.

One of the thugs has dropped a box of Joker Venom and ruined the entire shipment. The other thug is yelling at him fiercely, but the first thug is convinced it wasn't his fault. From my hiding place, I can clearly see the small bell he'd tripped on rolling into the snow. Where's Batman? Shouldn't he be here by now, stopping these guys? I mean, they've already unloaded half of the truck, by the time Batman gets here, they'll be finished. But maybe that means I'll get to see a chase scene with Batman and the thugs. Does this Batman have a Batmobile? Or a Batwing? Maybe at least a Batbike? A Batchopper? Suddenly, I hear a crash, and the breaking of glass. Yes, Batman's here! I take out my laptop and bring up the live footage of the camera in the tomato can. The camera shows the store, and the smashed syringes that caused the noise, but the culprit is no where to be found. The two thugs come around to check. Although their facial features are obscured by clown masks, these are clearly not the same two thugs from last night. Otherwise they'd immediately know what was going on. This organization is bigger than I originally thought. Or maybe these are the same guys, and they're just incredibly stupid. On the camera, I see a shadow move suddenly, followed by one of the thugs tripping and falling on his face. Then, Batman jumps out from behind a shelf and tackles the other thug head-on. He pins the thug to the ground and punches him out. The first thug has gotten up from his fall, but Batman is already up and ready to face him. The thug takes out a small pocketknife and begins to swing it at Batman. Batman jumps back, avoiding the thug's swipes. Batman looks to his side and sees me, or rather, my can of tomatoes. I take a deep breath, and bite my lip, anticipating what's about to come next, and cursing myself for putting the can in such a vulnerable place. Batman grabs my hidden camera and throws it at the thug. I watch from the can's perspective as it sails through the air and hits the thug in the jaw. I cringe as the HD camera shows me in disgusting detail the thug's blood sail off with the camera as it lands on the ground and rolls to the middle of the aisle, facing the shop's back door, which appears to have a bright light behind it. That must have been how Batman got in the shop without being noticed. And why doesn't this Batman have any kind of gadgets? I mean, you could get a simple grappling hook at a toy store, you know…before they outlawed those things. Yeah, maybe it makes sense that this Batman doesn't have any cool weapons.

That can I threw at this guy only seems to have fazed him. I leap in for the finishing blow, but suddenly, I feel a heavy force on my back, pressing me to the cold tile floor.

"Well, look who finally decided to show up." a distinct, maniacally whimsical voice whispers.

I'm suddenly aware that the force upon my back is a foot, and the cold, sharpened point of a knife. This person's uncomfortably warm breath is heaving onto me as he whispers in my ear,

"Very unoriginal, coming in through the bedroom. I was hoping for something a bit more, theatrical."

He presses down on me harder with his foot. I reach behind and grab his ankle, throwing him off of me. I throw myself up, ready for a fight. But I jump back in horror when I see in full view, the person who'd been stomping on me seconds ago. He has the unearthly white skin, and the trademark smile that stretched ear to ear. Everything about him seems so exaggerated but it somehow all makes sense in a sick, twisted way. I've seen people dress up as him my whole life, but never has it seemed so, real. And yet, here we are.

"Like what you see?" he asks calmly, coupled with a presenting hand gesture.

I try to collect myself, just focus, don't let some thug intimidate you like this. He strides over to me confidently, grinning,

"You're a little smaller than what I envisioned. Makes it more embarrassing that my last two let you get away."

It's fine I tell myself, you destroyed the steroid version of Joker Venom, this jerk or his thugs can't enhance themselves. You can take them, just relax…

"Hmm…not much of a talker are you, Batboy?" he asks, sticking the knife into the wall next to my left cheek, and getting right up in my face.

"Hmm, I was expecting a cape as well, and maybe a few of those fancy toys. Oh well, can't win 'em all."

I whip around and punch him in the face, sending him stumbling back and dropping his knife. He regains his balance, and blood begins to drip from out of his mouth. He looks up, and as the blood drools onto his cheek, his grotesque smile is still intact. I stomp over and slam him onto the ground, my fear of him now disappeared. His two thugs run over to stop me. I pick up his knife and brandish it. The first thug grabs the knife in my hand, leaning in and pushing his weight into it, trying to get it out. With his lowered stance, I knee him in the head, and extend out to kick him in the stomach. The other thug comes around with a syringe as a weapon. I quickly slash at the syringe with the knife and the liquid comes oozing out and splashes onto the floor. The first thug, still on his knees, grabs my leg and trips me to the ground. The other thug comes at me with the broken syringe, slashing me in the arm as I kick free of the hold of the one on the ground.

There's a loud smashing of glass, and a loud *thunk*. I look up, and see that someone threw a brick through the window and it hit the second thug on the head. I swing myself up and stomp on the first thug, leaving the last one. He's gone. Shoot. I scan the dark store for him, but then I hear that maniacal laugh coming from upstairs and I know exactly where I need to go. I bolt up the stairs and see a shadow silhouette flash against the hallway lights leading towards the bedroom. As I chase the shadow, I pull out my cell phone and quickly dial 911. I follow him up the fire escape as I tell the operator the address and report the thugs and the murder in the lowest voice I can muster. I put my phone away just as I reach the roof to confront him. He's standing on the other side of the roof, the cold wind blowing his trench coat and sharp green hair.

"Took you long enough." he smirks, hands in his pockets.

What does he want? He could be out for money, fame, or infamy in his case. My heavy breathing could be seen in steamed puffs as I lunge for him. He quickly sidesteps me and I pull myself to a grinding halt, narrowly avoiding the other end of the roof. He throws a pair of false teeth connected to a chain at me which chomps down hard on my right arm. I yell out in pain, and grab at it with my other arm, trying desperately to pry it off. He yanks the chain and pulls me towards him,

"Oh c'mon Bats, I just wanna chat. Why not say something? Anything?"

I notice a small lump in the distance. Its my backpack of stuff I left up here! I scramble for it, but he pulls me back,

"Where do you think you're going? Don't you know, its me, your Clown Prince of Crime, Joker!" he shouts, posing accordingly.

I take a deep breath, and grab at the pair of teeth again, but then I get an idea. Instead of pulling at the teeth, I pull the chain, yanking the Joker towards me. As he stumbles toward me, I fling the chain up, sending him above me and slamming onto the rooftop concrete. With him fazed, I scutter to my backpack, zipping it open. I take out of it some of my extra lock-picking tools and with the ones I already have, begin prying my arm free of the fake teeth. I'm finally able to wrench off the pair of chompers when he comes lunging towards me, pushing me to the edge of the roof. He pins me down and forces me to stare up at his repulsive smile,

"You know, all of you Bats are all the same. So focused on delivering justice! But, I think there's something different about you, I like you. I think I'm going to enjoy this."

He reaches into his purple jacket and flips out a small switchblade and dangles it in front of my face, hovering over my mask and cowl. I kick him and push him over, grabbing the teeth and chain. Using the teeth, I have it bite down on his leg before wrapping the chain around an air ventilation.

"Aw, c'mon Bats. You're no fun." he pleads, completely ignoring the fact that a large pair of teeth are gorging into his boney upper thigh.

I begin to hear the sirens and see the lights of police cars through the snowy haze. I collect my stuff and am ready to leave when I look back at Joker. His face paint and dyed hair have been mostly weathered away by the snow and wind. His hair is brown and his skin, while not white, is still rather pale…

"Brad?" I whisper to myself, before hearing the police running up the fire escape. I quickly dash off, boldly leaping over to the next rooftop.

"Stop!" I can hear one of the officers shout in my direction, but I just keep on running.