The Moonstruck

“Shame about our little Quinzel, hmm?”

I didn’t respond. My glare was reserved for the linoleum table. Dinner time had swung around. The possibilities of escape looked like an empty promise, dead shells of pretty words. I didn’t want to look at him. I refused to entertain his stupid chatter.

“She was my favorite recreational activity,” he drawled after an obscenely loud slurp of his soda, “Just when she was starting to crack…”

I was quiet, fingers drumming along the side of my unopened milk carton. My scowling eyes flickered to his face. He smiled and I could’ve screamed.

“Very sour, this evening I see,” he sighed, pushing the poor, gray excuse for a pork chop around his plate. He bottom lip swelled in a pout. “You won’t talk to me?”

A slow shake of my head. “You lied.”

His jaw slackened, his eyes growing very wide with feigned disbelief. “Lied? Me? To you? No…no, no, no, no I did not.” He shook his head fervently, seriously. “No, I did not. I told the absolute truth. I made you a promise.”

“Then why the fuck are we still here?” I snapped, slamming my palms onto the table. “Five days you said. Five!”

“To my knowledge, this day hasn’t ended,” he stated simply, staring down his nose as he raised his hands in a submissive shrug.

I grew quiet, staring at him, waiting. For something. For a few clowns to burst through the door behind him. For the walls to give in. Anything. But there was only him. Him and his dirty hands.

A weary sigh rolled from my lips. Something of a reassuring smile split his face. He pointed a lazy finger at my milk carton. “Drink your milk. Kittens are always snarky when they haven’t had their milk.”

I could’ve glared but as he folded his arms to himself, as he nodded, I was resigned. I popped open the carton with one easy motion and brought it to my lips, closing my eyes to take a deep long gulp.

I blinked them open to find him smiling. But…there was something off about his grin. It was twisted and wrong and perverse. I realized: he was smiling at his own joke.

Then I began to feel strange. The sensation began in my stomach, acidic and sticky and wet, splashing across my insides. It ran up into my throat, neither vomit nor sulfur. I felt my skin grow tight, my eyes shriveled in my skull, and the quiet sound of the room waned to white noise. The foam snuck up into my throat and I was suffocating on the froth. It spilt from lips, into my lap, onto the table. The tremors began; lights going off, burning out, cables being cut, wires soaking in sick.

I looked at the Joker, squinting to see him through the sour tears. He was still smiling.

And I got the joke: he’d killed me.

Joker

I watched her fall lamely to the floor, the froth on her lips splattering after her. I watched her flail violently. I watched her die.

Perfect.

I could hear the rush of the guards; they’d have seen her on the cameras. I untapped the knife from the underside of the table, gripping the handle with unbridled pleasure.

There was no doubt: this would feel good.

They swept into the room and I began my dance. I still remembered all the steps, learned little runt I was. Strike here, side-step there, plunge it in reaaaallll deep. Reverse. I quickly bowed out, leaving the pair to bleed out on the floor. Ripping one of the guns from its holster, I shot out the cameras and set to undressing the smaller of the guards. His uniform would do.

When I was suited and the little remaining makeup was wiped from my face, I skipped over to Bijou’s body, nudging it a few times to be sure she was indeed inanimate. And with that, I plucked her up, tossing her over my shoulder. She was impossible light. Like hollow glass.

Note to self: fatten the calf.

I cackled heinously as I pulled the guard’s hat low over my eyes, strolling casually out into the hall.

First stop, the power grid. Easy enough to find and easier to access with the keys now jangling on my hip. I happened upon a rickety iron wheel chair and plopped Bijou into the worn leather seat. The wheels squeaked as I pushed her down the halls, whistling contentedly. There was no one about at this time. All the patients at supper. All the guards attending. A wonderful occasion for chaos.

The lock on the power grid clicked open with the third key on the ring, a wee brass thing. I threw the whole lot of them into Bijou’s lap as I surveyed the rusty network. My fingers skimmed over the board and a slow grin spread over my face as I found the keeey-rect switch.

“Bijou,” I murmured, peering over my shoulder at her. “It’s the motherload.” She drooled a bit of froth in response. I giggled manically and flipped the switch.

Everything went very black and very silent. Quiet enough to hear a bit of foam splatter onto the floor. I couldn’t believe she was still seeping. I scowled in the dark, blinking my eyes wildly, trying to evolve into something close to cat-like.

“No high beams for us now, kitten,” I sighed, carting her down the corridor, “And none of that see-in-the-dark shit. You’re no good to me dead, you know…”

It was then I discovered the flashlight on my belt. Feeling a little foolish, I clicked it on. Soon after, a pair of matching yellow beams appeared farther down the hall. They bobbed closer and I could hear the click of patent shoes.

“Spooky, eh boys?” I grumbled, throwing my voice low. They grunted in response. In the weak glow of my own flashlight, I caught their confused faces as their eyes passed over the wheelchair and its passenger. But they said nothing more, clicking past me.

Shrugging, I trundled on down the hall. I pursed my lips, counting in my head. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three steps east…through the door…a left….sixteen, seventeen paces…another left…voila.

I smiled standing at the mouth of yet another corridor, this one illuminated with sinister red light. A beacon for the lost: the emergency exit sign. I raced down the hall, leaning over the wheelchair to get more speed, the door steadily approaching, the scarlet glow horrifying and beautiful and grand. Cackling, I stopped short. Bijou’s neck gave a violent crack and I winced. Pausing only briefly to peck her on the forehead, I moved from behind the chair and kicked the door in.

It swung into the brick behind it with a violent slam as I wheeled us out into the night. The air was sweaty and smelt like man-made wilderness and manure. I opened my mouth and took a deep gulp, swallowing it down hungrily for both of us, tasting the air that Bijou could not.

The back lot was nearly as murky as the building, lit with only a few sparse orange lights. I abandoned the wheelchair, draping Bijou in my arms and sliding the ring of keys onto my finger before crossing the tidy patch of lawn into the near-vacant parking lot.

Laying the keys across my palm, I raised them to the light and smiled at the little black device dangling from the ring. I gave it a squeeze and was pleased to hear the plain black car a few feet away give a pithy chirp. The locks popped up with an audible click and after a couple minutes of awkward struggling, I managed to open the passenger door.

I settled Bijou into the seat, pressing my cheek to hers. I could feel the deathly chill of her skin and felt something close to guilt tighten my chest. Pushing the frizzy mess of hair from her eyes, I dried the lingering froth with my sleeve and tried gently to close her eyes.

Seeing her at peace like this only made me want to rile her up. I wondered when she’d…zap back awake. I’d only used cyanide. Brutal yes, but she’d survive. Could I wait till then?

“I am not a patient man,” I stated, nodding at her. She did not respond and I pated her cheek roughly before slamming the passenger door and moving to the driver’s side.

The keys slid into the ignition with a satisfying click and I smiled, feeling the engine’s roar deep in my belly. The radio blinked on, flooding the front seat with blue and red lights; the defiant chords of “Highway to Hell” came blaring through the stereo, loud enough to wake the dead. I glanced over at Bijou.

Okay, not quite.

“Looks like we found the party wagon,” I cackled, slamming the gear into reverse. “We’re getting out of here, babe.”

As we peeled from the parking lot, the base bleeding and the air humming with escape, I only turned back once. To give the dark, miserable, and hideous face of Arkham Asylum the Trudeau salute.

And into the night we went.