Body Count

A cold wind rushed in through the cracked and broken window, sending unpleasant chills down Shane's spine. She reached out for the thin and flimsy sheet they'd provided for her, snatching it up and throwing it around her shoulders in one fluid motion. Her teeth were clenched together painfully. Her hands were balled into fists, which twitched convulsively. The water dripping down the wall had frozen and dropped to the slick stone floor, splintering tiny shards of ice all around the wall.

It was damn cold in that cell.

Despite the bone-chilling cold, though, Shane was in high spirits. Her blood must be half its' natural temperature, her bones were frozen in place, and the cold metal of the bed against her legs was agony, but she was happy. Truly happy.

The guard had gone.

Three days must have passed since Shane had been put in the slammer, and he had never once gotten off his chair to get food or use the toilet. Not when she was awake, anyway. She guessed he must do these things during her five-minute cat naps throughout the day. How he knew she slept, though, she couldn't fathom. Her posture never changed: she simply closed her eyes and fell asleep. She was usually woken up by some obscure thought, such as, "this is stupid," or, "did I turn the oven off before I left home?" and she'd wake up exactly as she'd fallen asleep - that is to say, sitting down.

But this morning - very early, Shane thought - the buffoon had simply gotten up, stretched laboriously, and waltzed out of the room. Simple as that.

Of course, Shane knew something was going to happen today. There was no other reason for the guard to suddenly shirk his duties and leave. She'd been put under heavy guard. A chuckle rumbled in her throat at this thought - she'd spotted the armed policemen outside the holding cell in the hallway when the other two cops had burst in. Their guns had been very large and menacing. Heavily guarded.

A muscle twitched near her lip. She'd peered out into the hallway when Officer Important had left earlier, and the other two were absent, as well. Something was going on, and either it was much more important than worrying about Shane - a mass murderer and clearly an unbalanced teenager - escaping, or it had everything to do with her.

Thoughts chased each other around Shane's boggled mind: they'd discovered another survivor; a larger-scale murder had taken place; her parents had finally arrived. Each idea was more impossible than the last.

What then?

Something big. Huge. Pivotal to her survival, possibly.

Or nothing.

Her body fell to the side suddenly, slumping over onto the thin wired mattress. She was exhausted. Her muscles ached from staying in that hunched position for three days straight. Her bones practically creaked in protest. Tears leaked from her eyes simply because they found that they could. She let her body do what it wanted, twitching now and then, hiccups bursting forth from her lips involuntarily. Sleep. She needed sleep.

Or food. Her eyes snapped open at the prospect. She hadn't had food since that movie theater popcorn. Her stomach grumbled feebly. Her nerves tingled, her joints creaked when they moved, and her throat felt as though it had been sandpapered dry, but what dug at her most was the hunger.

She blinked. Something had moved against her leg. Glancing down, she spotted a candy wrapper. It had drifted into her cell from the guards' desk, and stopped near her foot, glittering innocently in the flickering light.

She dived for it, grabbed it, and put it up to her face. It still smelled of chocolate ... and peanut butter ... she looked closely at it. Crumbs. Smudged fudge. Ha ha, smudge and fudge sound the same, she thought. And she stuffed it into her mouth.

She collapsed backwards onto the bed once again, sucking the candy foil and moaning in delight. She could taste the chocolate clearly on the wrapping; so clearly in fact, that her mouth watered all over it. Her taste buds were not yet used to real food yet. She let the sharp, bitter taste overtake her, drinking it down, her eyelids fluttering uselessly. Her body was quickly giving up the battle against sleep.

Everything was moving in slow motion. Her body slipped sideways along the wall, falling with a soft flump against the pillow. Her mouth lolled open, and the candy wrapper, soaked in her saliva, drooped out drunkenly. It felt unpleasant against her chin, but she didn't reach up to move it. She couldn't. Her whole body was shutting down for blissful, mending sleep.

At the precise second when her subconscious realized she was falling asleep, her eyes snapped open and her body jerked up in surprise. Somebody had shut the lights off.

She sat up slowly, excruciating pain radiating from wounds she hadn't known she'd had. A cut across her left hand throbbed as she used it to push herself upright; a bruise on her shoulder sent steady waves of pain down her arm. Dry blood, caked onto most of her clothes and body, flaked and drifted noiselessly to the floor with every move she made. She couldn't tell if it was hers or theirs.

It was pitch dark in the holding cell now. The noise of the light swinging on its' chain still sang quietly through the room ... the lights had been flicked off not five seconds ago, then. Which meant that they'd still be in the room.

Try as she might, though, Shane couldn't see anything past her own nose. She screwed up her eyes, gritted her teeth, craned her neck forward, all for a reward of now having a pain in her face, gums, and neck.

Movement. Her head whipped to the left slightly. Beyond the bars of her prison, she'd heard a definite scuffle of some sort. A dragging footstep, perhaps? A shift of the hand across paper?

Heart pounding, blood rushing, nerves on fire, Shane spoke.

"Who are you?" Silently, she gave herself kudos. Her voice had sounded much less shaky than she'd thought it would.

"Oh, you know who I am," a voice said. It sent strange signals to her brain, set off alarm bells in her head. "You know, and you'll do what I say. Understand, Princess?"

A disconcerting image came to mind at the word - Shane and Dominic, sitting on the playground as tots. Shane had skinned her knee and was sobbing pathetically. Dominic's voice came to her gritty and far away, as though from an old radio: "Suck it up, princess." he'd teased.

"Understand?" the voice repeated, harder this time.

Shane would not consort with a faceless voice. "Who are you?" she retorted, trembling gently.

A low cackle, quiet and amused. "All right, if you say so." And the light flicked on.

If Shane had had enough saliva to scream, she would have. Instead, she backed up right against the wall, shaking her head in disbelief. This was the final proof, wasn't it? The rock hard evidence that she'd gone insane.

He stood hunched behind the guard desk, dressed in everything she thought he'd be: a flowing purple jacket, a pressed purple dress shirt, a green vest. Simple black pants. But his face! she thought hysterically. Look at it! It was covered in pale white makeup, from forehead to neck, hiding his true self. His eyes were blackened by the same make up, shaded dark in large circles. A grin stretched across his face. The grin that went too far, following the scars that stretched up from the corners of his mouth to his cheekbones. The grin that was painted red. She managed a stifled sob.

The Joker.