Body Count

"The movie starts at 10:30, so we should be there at about ... 9 o'clock if we want good seats." Dominic pulled on his leather gloves, wiggling his fingers to get the feel for them. "Do these look right?" he asked, shoving his hands in front of Shane's face. Irritated, she pushed him away.

"They're fine, Dom, now leave me alone!" she snapped, turning back to face the mirror. Her hair, normally a light, shining auburn color, had been crudely slicked back with pale green hair dye and gel. It still stuck up in places, becoming a fluorescent tangle of tree-green strands. She smoothed it down in a rather satisfied way.

"No, no, no!" Dominic whispered in her ear. His voice had lowered to an oily pitch, and his gloved and slithered around her waist. "That wasn't right at all, dearie." He backed away, sliding a fine-toothed comb out of an inner pocket with exaggerated relish. He pulled the comb through his own leaf-green hair, which was considerably shorter than her own, and trailed his other hand behind it to pat it down. "You have to be more ... seductive. More precise."

Shane rolled her eyes, facing the full-sized mirror again. Her hands, which were smeared with blood-red paint and powder-white face make up, clapped happily. "I think we're ready."

"No," said Riley, who had been sitting on the bed the entire time, twisting her hands in her lap. Her frizzy blond hair, slopped full of the brightest green dye as was the fashion with all of them, hung limply about her chalk-white face. "Your outfit, Shane."

Behind the three of them stood an old mahogany wardrobe, doors hanging open invitingly, stuffed full of their outfits for the evening. Bright purple overcoats and sparkling green vests spewed forth from it, waiting to be taken and worn.

"I knew that," Shane muttered, stepping toward the clothing. "I just meant-"

At that moment, the door to the bedroom burst open and two people spilled in excitedly. Their make up and hair was also done, and they were already dressed.

"Ready?" the breathed simultaneously. They both wore identical expressions of glee on their faces. Most everything was identical about the two: the short, cropped black hair (soaked with green dye); their shining grey eyes; the slightly hunched way they walked into the room; and, most of all, their faces glowing with mirth.

"Patience, patience!" Dominic muttered, prancing around the room dramatically. "We just need to sort out our garments ..."

Dominic, Shane, and Riley all clambered about the wardrobe, grabbing jackets and throwing ties at each other, hopping out of jeans and tugging on drainpipe black slacks. The other two sat on the bed, waiting, their grins never faltering.

"Okay," gasped Shane, somewhat breathlessly. She'd had a particularly hard time of pulling her white dress-shirt on. "Now we can go. Brent, Brian, stop that!" she shrieked, spotting the twins ripping her sheets around the edges.

"Sorry," they intoned, not sounding the least bit sorry. They sprang up and marched toward the door, humming a funeral dirge.

The other three followed, Shane last of all, switching the lights off and shutting the door with a bang on the way out.

The five of them piled into a dirty yellow taxi cab, babbling the entire time about the movie. By the end of the ride, the driver looked as if he'd like very much to take them all into a back alley and shoot them. He accepted their payment gruffly, roaring away before Dominic even had his door closed.

"Remember," said Shane, walking a pace ahead of the rest over the wet pavement, "We have to act convincing. We don't want to be taken for wannabe fans."

"We know!" The twins whined.

At this, Shane spun around, a grin stretching far across her face. The glint in her eyes silenced the other four. "Then let's ... start!" And she went off running down the hill toward the theatre, leaving the others to gallop after her in a state of high shock and amusement.

The five of them strode into the building, their measured footsteps muffled by the thick black carpeting. They glared around malevolently, sometimes chuckling menacingly at another movie-goer.

The girls reached the counter first. Shane leaned forward purposefully; Riley, somewhat nervous, stood behind her and squinted at the vendor.

Licking her lips with a very audible smack of the lips, Shane raised a gloved hand to the very confused girl behind the desk. "Five for 'The Dark Knight', please." she murmured, her voice believably low and nasally.

The girl nodded. She tapped a few buttons on her computer, ripped the tickets away from the dispenser, and handed them over. "That's fifty five dollars with tax," she stated, visibly trying to look cool and visibly failing.

Shane jerked her head towards the girl, staring at her, never looking away. She flinched in her polyester blue uniform. Brian stepped forward, sliding up in his polished black boots, and slid the bills over to her with prominent slowness. She took them and fumbled with the cash register, looking for the right coins.

"Keep the change," Brian cooed, winking at the poor girl. She nodded mutely as they walked quickly away, toward the red velvet ropes, where a line-up was already forming.

They all looked discreetly at the walls along the hallway, lined with different posters, all for the same movie. Most of them depicted a very muscular Batman, sometimes standing in front of an artistically burning building, other times kneeling broodingly in front of a cave of bats. It took them a few moments to spot the one they wanted, but finally, Riley saw it through the forest of people.

"There," She pointed ahead of them, behind a particularly large group of people. They craned their necks, letting themselves act out of character for a split second. And then they caught it in their sights, too.

"Excuse me," Shane said quietly, standing behind a large man with an equally large bucket of popcorn. "I'd like to get through, if you please."

"Eh?" spat the man, turning to face them. Butter dripped unpleasantly from his lips. He sneered down at them. "Bunch o' dressy teenagers? You're not cutting in front of me, kiddies. Sorry." And he turned away.

Dominic stepped forward, his brow furrowed, his shoulders dropped low and his smile pulled up high. "Sir," he said, in that same slick, oily voice, "My friend here just wants a peek at that poster. If you'd be so kind as to move, we'd greatly appreciate it."

The man turned awkwardly, trying not to bump the people around him, which was made difficult by his ample stomach. "And why would I care if she wants to see the poster? She'll see it in ten minutes, when the line's moved up enough." He laughed at his joke, already making to turn away again.

"Get out of the way," Dominic said quietly, annoyance plain in his voice.

"No!" said the man defiantly, not facing him this time.

Dominic didn't move. His posture remained the same, bent, vulnerable. His hands were still at his sides. His purple coat hung limply off of his shoulders, blowing in the slight breeze of movement around him. People in the vicinity had stopped their conversations, listening interestedly. No, Dominic didn't change his position at all. He was still a teenager, still a full head shorter than the man, still a third of the mans' width. But his voice changed.

"Get out of the way!" he shouted. His voice, previously so comical and quiet, had gained a controlling air. It was deep, deeper even than the man's voice, and gritty as a dirt road. It sounded as though his vocal chords had been thrown in a blender with shards of broken glass, a rusty saw, and some gravel, with the blender set on 'pulverize'. It was much louder than before, echoing around the movie hall, bouncing back off of the walls and ringing in the ears of those nearby. Several small children burst into tears.

The man, taken aback and shivering slightly, stepped backwards onto another mans' foot. The man didn't mind, though. He simply watched as the group walked through the parting crowd, his mouth agape, his fist clutching a box of popcorn so tightly that it ripped and spilled its' contents all over the already littered floor.

Shane was inwardly ecstatic at this horrified reaction of the audience. It meant their impersonations were, so far, accurately frightening.

The friends made their leisurely way toward the poster of interest, occasionally darting their eyes this way and that, making the movie theaters patrons jump whenever they glanced at them.

Finally, after what seemed a delightful eternity to Shane, they reached the poster. It was right outside the doors to the theater, larger than the others, protected by a layer of glass. The grinning face of the man they all aspired to look like tonight gazed down upon them. Shane felt a chill run down her spine, and she relished it.

His hair, sticking up in unruly spikes, was slicked back, just as theirs was. They could only just see the blond underneath the sick green of it, falling down over his eyes in a wave. The skin all around his eyes had been painted deepest black, just as theirs. The black dripped a bit down from the right eye, right down over the scars along his cheek. They were painted bright red, down toward his lips, over his mouth, out the other side in a permanent and disgustingly happy smile. The scars that protruded from the corners of his mouth curved up, up, ending just below the cheek bones. The flesh surrounding them puffed out and over, giving his face an eternally gleeful expression. It looked as though his lips went right up to end below his eyes, instead of ending down above his chin, where they should.

A bead of sweat trailed down Shane's neck, down her back and absorbing into her jacket. She stared raptly at the poster, willing it to come to life, willing the man inside to step out and welcome them all.

Beneath the poster, in letters carved out with a knife, it seemed, glowed two crimson red words: The Joker.