Speaking of shoes, Gracie-gal, where did you stash mine?
'I found the fire stairs and I hid them on one of the landings. I'll go back for them once I know where you're going to be. Also, while we're on the topic of shoes, none of the Blackgate prisoners are wearing them. What's up with that? The floors are filthy, too.'
Probably hospital prodecure. It's a lot harder to stomp some guy's spleen and liver into tomato paste when you don't have shoes on.
"Okay, load'em into the elevator." the gravelly voiced guard ordered, and we got in, shedding three of the guards, one of whom was Cash. That left us with Boles, one person to wheel Bozo, another to keep a weapon pointed at him, my guard, and of course Bozo, Gracie and myself, even if Gracie wasn't visible to anyone else. The grate closed, and still more flat screens on the opposite sides of the elevator lit up with yet another message from the warden, who I was getting awfully tired of already. This time he was going on about the temporary Blackgate inmates and how everyone should avoid contact with them.
'He has pictures of himself on practically every wall.' Gracie informed me. 'Big ones. Napoleon complex. Classic overcompensation.'
"Hey," Bozo said, as if it had only just occured to him, "isn't it funny how a fire at Blackgate just happened to result in hundreds of my men being moved here?"
"I thought I told you to shut it, clown," Boles snarled.
"You ought to watch that big fat mouth of yours, Frankie. It'll get you into trouble one of these days," Bozo replied, silkily.
"You mean funny-strange or hah-hah funny--the fire and the move and everything?" I asked. "Funny str-ran-ge, no. I don't think it's funny strange. I can't think of anything less strange, under the, uh, circumstances..."
Right then the power cut out. The elevator stopped, the lights went dead, the flatscreens went silent and dark. The guards started to panic. "Oh, my god, oh, my god, what's he doing?" "Get a light on him, get a flashlight on him quick!"
I stayed calm and silent. I knew that whatever he had planned to happen, was happening. In a moment the power would go back on, and it would seem as if it were no more than a fluctuation, but Bozo would now be in control of everything--except us.
While the guards kept on having hysterics, getting out their flashlights, dropping them and all, Gracie said to me, 'Hospitals are actually one of the classic contemporary Asian horror settings.'
Is that a fact, now?
'Sure is. All the pain, all the suffering, all the dying--hospitals are packed with ghosts.'
Have fun.
One of the guards finally found his flashlight and trained it on Bozo--except that hanging upside down just behind him was a Dead Wet Girl. Gracie, of course, greenish-skinned, looking about a week dead and with her hair hanging down in long slimy ropes and her arms swinging limply from their sockets. "AAAAAAsssssshit! What the hell is that thing?" they cried, approximately.
Bozo couldn't see what was going on. "What are you talking about? What's there?" he snapped, trying to rutch around and see for himself, but then the light came back on and of course nobody was there. The elevator resumed its descent, the videos came back to life, and everything seemed normal once more. I knew better.
"Something dead," said Boles, shifting his gun to under his arm and grabbing his flask. Was he going to--? Yes, he he took a big swig and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"I don't know what it was and I don't want to see it again," said another guard.
"I didn't see anything un-u-sual," I offered. After all, there was nothing unusual about seeing my wife.
"Hmmm," Bozo thought, "could it be that Dr. Crane is starting the festivities early? I must remember to tell him what I think about his jumping the gun. As it were."
"So Scarecrow's here too?" I asked.
"Shut it," Boles put in, but Bozo was not to be stopped.
"Only technically. He's on the premises, but somehow they just can't seem to keep him in his cell. All they get are brief glimpses of him on camera when he raids the kitchens. Heaven only knows what he's getting up to...."
The elevator clanged to a halt. "Level Nine, Security status Red Alpha," chimed the announcement system.
"Our guest has arrived," said a waiting guard with satisfaction as the grill slid aside. Boles led the way into the admissions lobby, past half a dozen guards who glared at Bozo, wanting him to give them an excuse for shooting.
One lashed out, "You killed three of my friends the last time you broke out of here, you freak!"
"Only three?" Bozo retorted, sounding as queeney as the whole cast of La Cage Aux Folles, "What say I go for a hundred next time?" That was not a joke, and no one listening should have thought so.
Then things got complicated for a little while as this world's version of Commissioner Gordon got involved with checking Bozo in, and I got shunted off into a holding cell, where I began to see what Gracie meant by the lower levels looking like the Death Star converted into a crack house. First of all, old patient files littered the floor like leaves on an autumn lawn, rubber stamped 'Insane' in red ink. That had to be illegal--patient confidentiality, you know--and then there was the cell, one of four in the holding area. All of them had those bug zappers instead of doors.
The one I was shown into had ceramic tiles on the wall, but a good third of them were cracked and broken, and there were shards of tile lying around on the floor. Okay, so broken ceramics aren't nearly as sharp as broken glass, but they'll still put an eye out. This wasn't new damage, either. Broken tiles, which nobody bothered to have swept up, decorated with green graffiti, mainly question marks, a single cot with a filthy brown blanket, heavy leather straps with metal buckles, to restrain whoever needed it, a seatless toilet, more old patient files--and a couple of busted up lockers. Yes. Busted up lockers. In a holding cell. One of the doors was already off the hinges completely and leaning against the wall.
This went beyond dumb on the asylum's part. It headed into death wish territory and flirted with suicidal ideation. These people were asking for it. And loudly too. So many things in there that could deliver some serious agony, not to mention mutilation.
My cell also already had an occupant, obviously a Blackgate transfer, because although the light of rationality did not burn in his eyes, he was muscled like Hercules (most long term to lifers are. The prison system takes healthy 18 to 24 year old men, puts them in a place where they have nothing to do and simultaneously relieves them of the burden of earning a living, and they then spend eight hours a day, every day, working out in the prison gym.) He was white, if it matters, and wore only a pair of dirty canvas pants with leather reinforcements here and there and patches at the knees, where there were rings to thread manacle chains through.
His shaved head had these little yellow cones running front to back like a mohawk, and I wondered what they were as I stepped up to the toilet and took a piss. That was not so much out of necessity as to send the message, if my scars weren't enough, that I was at least as much of a hardcase as he was. Solid citizens can't relax enough to relieve themselves under those circumstances. Were those cones on his head his hair, stiffened and shaped? Were they some kind of implant? A weird bone growth, maybe?
I shook it off and tucked it away, then looked around. Ah. No sink, no hand cleanser. Call me crazy, but I'm fussy about things like that. I flushed away my by-product. Well, if the sink would have had the same water as was refilling the toilet, I was better off not washing. My dick was cleaner than that murky brew. The other three cells were in more or less the same shape as mine, and each had two Blackgaters in them, also muscled like Hercules and wearing more or less the same thing as my cellmate, but varying in skin color and hair. Just a bunch of expendables, that's all.
Speaking of someone who was anything but expendable, not to mention impossible, where was Gracie with my shoes? She had left to go get them after I was shown into my current palatial accommodations. How long would it take--ah. There she was. The holding cell area was separated from the lobby on one side and whatever else was on this level on the other by still more bug zappers, industrial strength this time. Grace was behind an observation window in one of the small offices overlooking the area on the lobby side--with Commissioner Gordon, no less. She was pretending to do things in the background while he talked to a doctor. So far her little masquerade was holding, then.
The doctor left the office, and shortly after that, the bug zapper on that side fizzled off. Bozo, now walking, his hands cuffed in front of him, came down the short ramp to the holding cells, escorted by a single guard without any weapon other than a shockstick/nightstick kind of thing, and by the doctor. The zapper went back on right after they came in.
"I've got to say, it's good to be back!", Bozo roared with laughter. He pretended to stumble, going down on one knee and the guard bent over to pull him up. Then Bozo whipped his head back, smacking the guard in the face while simultaneously elbowing him in the gut. The guy doubled over, and in a flash, Bozo had his arms around his neck from behind and was strangling him with the handcuff chain.
While the doctor pried at Bozo's hands ineffectively, he chortled, "Hurry up, Doc! I think we're losing him!"
Meanwhile, up in the offices overlooking this little comedy, the guards were going berserk, stabbing away at buttons, gesturing and shouting at each other. It seemed their security system wasn't obeying them any more--surprise, surprise! Just as I predicted, Bozo and his people were in control now. A loud thump--Gracie had a metal stool in both hands and was bashing away at the window. Cracks appeared but it was that super tough glass and wouldn't give up the fight that easily. She tried again--more cracks.,
Bozo let the dead guard drop, seized the doctor's head in both hands and twisted. I heard his neck break. Dropping the doctor, he went back to frisk the guard. "The choke's on you." he punned, to the fresh corpse. A moment later, he had his hands free, straightened up and did a little ass-shaking victory dance while he sang out, "Hee-hee, Hah-hah-hah! Honey, I'm home!"
A screechy female voice came over the loudspeaker system. "But Puddin', where's the Bat?"
"There's been a slight change of plans, Kiddo. I'll tell you all about it--once I get in." he hinted sternly.
"Sorry, sweetie. I was just confused, that's all." The bug zappers on the asylum side fizzled off, and he leaped through them.
"Let's get this party started, shall we? With a bang!" He flung his hands in the air, and tore off down the hall way.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen," his voice came out over the speaker system, "after Batman went and stood me up, I was so frustrated that I was just going to flood the asylum with poison gas and then watch cartoons. But you know how I love a captive audience, and we have a couple of other contestants on hand for our little game show, so why don't we give them a big round of applause? There's Gracie, who's an Asian girl in a fancy green dress who doesn't know how to use a hairbrush, current whereabouts unknown, and her lucky husband, uh---."
"Call me Jay," I suggested.
"--Jay, who's currently in the holding cells. You'll know him by the beautiful Chelsea grin he wears--that is, a smile cut right into his face--and his deplorable taste in suits. Gracie and Jay, to win the game, all you have to do is--survive till dawn. Have fun now, kiddies--and don't play nice."
My cellmate was looking at me with simian eyes, and now he grunted, smacking one fist into the palm of his other hand. Then the bug zapper on our door and the door of the cell directly across from us fizzled off, releasing both us and two others.
"Round one!" cried Bozo gleefully. "Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding."