Straying out of Sanity

"I mean seriously that's just bullshit, people can't fucking just go and-" I stopped ranting at the Gotham news channel on our TV out of sheer boredom as there was a sudden round of gunshots downstairs, followed by the previous silence the house held.

"Emma, what was that?" my sister asked, sounding scared shitless.

"Someone just got fuckin' shot didn't they?" I asked bluntly and no one answered.

We sat in silence for a few minutes until I heard the door to our room being unlocked. I exchanged a quick worried glance with Jay, who was laying on one of the beds next to me, before the door opened, revealing The Joker.

He stood there a moment before saying, "Jill, come here."

"Here name is Emmalee," Laurel said and I wanted to smack her but she was too far away to reach so instead I settled for swallowing really hard and clenching the bed's comforter in my fists.

He only smiled one of his creepier than fuck smiles at my baby sister and then looked back at me. I glanced over at her and Mitch on their bed before standing up and walking out of the room.

He quietly shut the door behind me, keeping the handle turned all the way until the door was in place then hurriedly letting it spin back into place, but didn't lock it like his clown did. All the while he was doing this he was staring at me. The same unease washed over me from before. It sort of felt like being a pre-teen and having some middle aged pedophile, that didn't have enough balls to do anything about it, staring at you.

So we stood there staring at each other for a couple moments before he started to slowly walk away backwards.

'What, am I supposed to follow you? Why the fuck don't you say something instead of just staring at me? Take a fucking picture it'll last longer,' I started thinking and I had to try desperately to keep from saying any of it to him. I'd be damned if I started ranting again, especially to him.

I started walking off after him and he finally turned around, walking down the hall at a more reasonable pace. He silently led me back down to the library type room and into the elevator. I hesitated a second before entering it with him. Being alone in a confined space with a psychopath didn't seem too favorable for me.

In the elevator he kept his eyes off of me but I still got goose bumps from being as close to him as I was, but I was afraid to move away from him. I'd hate to offend him and have him kill me just for moving an inch or two away from him. I was starting to be afraid of moving at all. Even my breathing seemed like I was moving too much.

Unexpectedly the elevator doors opened and I jumped from shock.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck...' I was thinking, hoping it didn't offend him but instead I heard him laughing, eerily laughing. Like something you'd hear in a mental hospital. I cautiously looked over at him and he put a hand out in front of him, signaling for me to exit first, like a gentleman would.

I did and followed him through a few more rooms and halls before entering a beautiful formal dining room with a whole wall that was just floor to ceiling windows with a different view of the giant lawn, ferns, and pines. That was the first thing that caught my eye but it couldn't advert my attention away from one of The Joker's clowns that was lying on the floor, bleeding from a bullet wound to his head and a few more in his chest. I clamped a hand to my mouth as my eyes widened at the sight. I started to feel nauseous and even more frightened than before upon seeing the corpse.

"Don't worry about him, he'll be gone within the next five minutes and you can forget about him," The Joker said, as if it was just a squished cockroach on the rug, and led me through a door to the side in the room that led to a kitchen, like something you'd find in a high class restaurant or hotel. It reminded me of the kitchen in that movie The Shining with Jack Nicholson in it.

"So...'Emmalee'," he said, over pronouncing the syllables in my name and using air quotes, "would you mind cooking? You can cook?" he asked turning to me after surveying the room.

I raised my eyebrow and said, "You want m-me to cook?"

"Yeah..." he said, waiting for me to agree.

"W-what do you want me to cook?" I asked, feeling intimidated by the huge kitchen.

He shrugged and was absolutely no help when he said, "You have an hour. Go," and waved his arms around as if shooing me. He turned around and started for the door.

"W-wait, how many people?" I asked. Goddamn my stuttering.

He stopped and turned back to me. "Nine- no! Eight... twelve, including you," he said and left.
Well that was a big help. I could only hope there was actually twelve people and not twenty or twenty nine or some other odd combination of the numbers he just said. Then there was the fact that I had no idea where anything was in the kitchen.

I started wandering around and opened a door that lead to the pantry and it was huge, probably as big as a large walk in closet or a bathroom. On one of the shelves was a huge, thick book. I opened it and found that it held a bunch of different recipes.

I quickly flipped through the book to find something I could make in an hour. I found a recipe for Chicken Alfredo that didn't look hard to make and sounded like it tasted alright so I grabbed the book and some of the stuff, like fettuccini and olive oil, out of the pantry and went back to the center of the kitchen and set it all down before going to get some chicken breast from what had to be the (giant) fridge.

Ten minutes later I ran into a snag. "What the hell is… sah-uo-tee?" I asked myself. I couldn't even pronounce the stupid word. I knew you cooked the cut up chicken in the skillet with the olive oil but what the hell was sauté? 'Well you've eaten it before, go off that,' I told myself and decided to watch the chicken closely until it looked how it was supposed to, poking and prodding it every few minutes.

The fettuccini was the thing that took forever and made me impatient so I decided to make some weird baby red potato thing since I saw a sack in the pantry and got bored enough.

I ended up making the Chicken Alfredo, the red potato thing, and some mixed carrots, peas, corn and chopped green beans since I still had about ten minutes and veggies weren't slow or hard to cook. Afterwards I went looking for twelve plates, forks, spoons, and knives, to dish out all the food onto.

"Did you cook enough?" I heard The Joker's voice ask and I jumped, almost dropping the pot I used to make the vegetables in.

"I-is it too much?" I asked and cursed at myself silently for stuttering again.

He looked away from the food and up to my face. "It's better than what the last guy did..." I glanced at the plates of food and then slowly looked over to him, carefully setting the pot on the counter with the others.

He licked the corner of his bottom lip and picked up a few plates and their silverware as he looked away from me. "Grab the glasses," he said and left the kitchen with the plates. I glared at the door and grabbed as many as I could, four, and followed him into the dining room. He was placing the plates down on the table and setting the silverware.

I set the glasses down where he had set the plates as he went back into the kitchen. I finished placing them as he came back with a few more plus my sister's milk drink I had made from chocolate ice cream and milk since there was no chocolate syrup. I stared at him as he set it in front of the first seat on the right and I had a very bad feeling that he was sitting at the end.

I sighed to myself and went to get the rest of the glasses to set on the table. There were about two seats left over so I decided to wait for The Joker to place the last two plates so I knew where to put the glasses.

When he did the table was set and suddenly a lighter was flying towards my face. I dodged its path and barley caught it. I looked over at The Joker, who threw it at me, and he said, "Light the candles and sit to my left across from your sister," before leaving me alone in the room. I did as I was told since he didn't stay long enough for me to protest.

By the time I finished lighting the four candles, they were worn down and the wicks were tiny, he was back with my sister, Mitch and Jay in a wheelchair. Behind them came the two clowns that took us to our room earlier.

Laurel went straight for her seat, either because she was already told or it was the only seat with 'chocolate milk' at it. I was hoping it was the second because I didn't want that psycho freak talking to my baby sister.

We sat down at the same time and almost immediately her elbows were on the table. "Laurel elbows," I said to her. She looked up at me and removed her elbows. The Joker paused while in the process of sitting down. It took him a second to continue to sit down but looked like he was struggling with his table manners.

I smiled to myself, realizing I had made him uncomfortable somehow and then picked up my fork and stared at the food I really had no desire to eat.