Chapters In a different time, a different place.
The overcast sky didn't detract Twilight Sparkle one bit as she drove up to the looming iron gates that guarded the roads to her new job, it had been six moths since she received her psychology certification and had taken a case at a home for a the insane, the home was located twenty miles outside the city, and his had been eight years since her graduation at Canterlot High. Though she had previously though her en devours were in science, it was some calling that lead her to practice psychology, and she wasn't going to spend that time working on getting certified in that field in some office above the ice cream shop downtown. No she was tackling the big guns, the demons of her past that had ended up here. She drove a white Honda Civic with all her official documents and papers in stacks on the passenger seat, A cup of coffee from a drive thru almost empty in the cup holder as she flipped the wipers on as rain began to pelt the car's windshield. She turned to the folder sitting on her dashboard and then reread the name on the front, Jack Jolly Moore. His name brought back memories...of so long ago...
JUNE 23rd, Eight Years Ago.
Twilight Sparkle shifted the podium, the entire auditorium of her School; parents, teachers, and her fellow students underclassmen and the graduates beside her in their caps and gowns, all eyes were on her. Twilight tapped the built in microphone on the stand and cleared her throat, as the Valedictorian, it was her duty to deliver a speech. "Today we are to graduate, but what does graduation really mean? The dictionary defines it as." She was interrupted by someone's premature clapping, the slow sarcastic kind that feigns any sort of real approval of their actions. All eyes went from Twilight to her, to see who was interrupting the occasion. It was one of the last in the class grads, the one of the few C.H.S alumni not leaving with much in the way of awards or recognition. The one that wasn't very involved with anything, someone who had no grounds to be interrupting.
"Hello?" A tinny electronic voice called from the speaker besides the looming iron gates to the institute, snapping Twilight from her memories. She rolled the windows down and leaned over to the speaker.
"This is Dr. Twilight Sparkle, I'm here to see patient J.J.M." She said, there was a brief silence as the gates slowly rattled and the chain motor slid them open. twilight shifted her sedan from park to drive and proceed along the asphalt road, the institute a modern three story building of white panel walls, not the stony lonesome and crumbling stones of some 'Bedlam" or "Arkham" that she expected the place to be. She drove up into the parking lot and parked her car in the spot reserved for psychiatrists and others meant to speak with the patients. While some at the asylum had been serving prison sentences, the idea was to keep the less violent criminals who showed reformation potential out of the system. Especially those who had been victimized by other inmates in some way, Twilight herself wondering if her patient was one who should be here.
"Today, is a day many of us have looked forward too. A day to move forward; to embrace the future, to look upon the transition to a new stage in life that's just as invigorating if not more so than the last few years....Jesus H Christ who wrote this crap!" He says pulling a flip lighter from the pocket of the tux under his gown. He lit the paper on fire, nobody got up from the seats, the alumni could only gasp in fear. "You know a great man...Tom Bunk once wrote a piece for MAD magazine in 2000. His piece cuts through the Bolshevik of these speeches, and exposes it for the dreck it truly is." He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, a xerox of the very piece. "And I quote the usual gang of idiots; "the future is yours, because the rest of us don't want anything to do with it! Graduation is a time for celebration, like the fact that the numb nuts beside me haven't been mowed down with a tec-9 in the cafeteria this year. whatever you decide its best to hold onto your dreams, because their the little comforts when the world beats you down. You know I have a few I'd like to say as well....The world we got isn't the world we were supposed to get, the world we'd been promised by somebody...Which may owe thanks to Mr. Joe Quesada or J. Michael Stravinsky. But you know...I prefer NOT to think of such things...because quite frankly, this is a happy occasion for us all...so if I may celebrate prematurely."
He said this as he threw his cap into the air, then tore the gown off. Still no one in the audience could move and a few of the other grads had to be held back from confronting him. Under his gown was a bright purple three piece suit, with an orange shirt and green tie. "Do you like it? Classic Timmy boy Mr. J. Yes, one have reservations on adapting said moniker for one bad day or a hundred turned to retribution after...that Colorado poser. But I assure you all, guns are so passe these days. I mean you hear about them so much in the news day after day, that's it just not funny anymore, its staler humor than Tracy Morgan AFTER the car crash!....HAHAHAHAHA!" His laugh rang out across the auditorium and stll the familes and staff didn't move. The first of the grads to spring into action was Twilight herself. She leap from the arms of Aria and Flash who held her back and stepped forth to him.
"Jack! What the hell are ou doing? Why are you making a mockery of graduation...what ever's happened to you...I...I just wanna help you...please let me help you." She said holding a hand out.
"OH Twilight....Poor naive Twilight. Do you really think some rookie can crack the complexities of my mind, find the roots to my issues and desires to be afaribly evil? GET YOUR NAME IN POPULAR MEDICINE BEFORE YOU EVEN FINISHED PRE-MED!" He said his voice now completly off the walls, cackling and mad as a hatter as he placed a finger on a control panel to the lights off to one side of the stage. "Oh and in case your wondering why everyone on the staff and your parents haven't moved from their seats, allow me to shed a little light on the subject." He turned the house lights up and every parent, every Canterlot High Teacher and all the adults; sat in thier seats with wide ear to ear grins and sweat dripping down their faces, the sweating an idication that.
"They are alivve yes, The cyandine doses I slipped into everyone's drinks at the luncheon, coupled with my own strand of nitrous oxide to enduce smiling, is only enough to render the muscles stiff and paralized. It will wear off, but not before I give a little going away present to you all...I shall start." He said taking two big buck knives, their blades razor sharp and glimmering under the hot stage lights as he smiled ear to ear. He ran the thin but strong blades over his mouth, ear to ear. A Glasgow, or in this case...Joker smile.
"Jack...Please don't do this!" Sunset Shimmer pleaded tears in her eyes as the blood from his mouth and knives dripped onto the wooden stage floor.
"Jack?! Jack is dead Sunset...You know the rest."
The halls of the ward where silent, no laughter or raving madness that one would expect from a place like this. Time in the cold, cruel walls of american prisons had robbed most of these men their sense of humor and laughter. Twilight was lead down the hall by the orderly. A large man with a shaved head, the name tag on his blue scrubs read; Barney Jansen. "Thank you again for showing me the way to his room, has the patient been violent in prison?" Twilight asked, as a rule she would keep it confidential that in some way, she knew her new patient. Barney grunted as his muscled arms stuck into the pockets of his scrubs for the door keys.
"Just on one occasion, and he claims it was to show the other inmates not to try anything on him." He said as they continued, Twilight took a pen from her pocket and got ready to jot it down. "An older man attempted to sexually assault him, so he forced his head into the cell toilet and kicked his teeth into the steel bowl, then he tore his eyeball out with his bare hands, popped it into his mouth, and crushed it in his teeth. The other men where cowering in pure terror saying he wasn't human. Patient; then prisoner, was put into isolation, psychologically evaluated, but claimed the act was the by catch of american incarceration. An act necessary to ensure survival in a world of sexually depraved degenerates and blood thirsty savagery. Was sent to isolation, then here when there was no further behavioral problems with authority, and with the evaluation linked to schizophrenia due to history of self injury, addictive personalty to the fictional character The Joker, and he's waiting for you now doc."
"Thank you Barney, Do you think what happened was just an episode of his psychological disorder?" She asked, all Barney could was sigh, unsure what makes men tick and go off the deep end. He went over a list of rules Jack Moore was still under; no sharp objects like pens, pencils forks or knives, only pass his softy waxed paper and crayola crayons to write with, and while she would be in the room with him, he was to be watched by two armed guards in the room ready to restrain him the first sign of aggression.
"Are you doing this to see if he has any hope of getting out?" Barney asked as he confiscated all her papers, pens, pencils, jewelry, valuables, clips, and pins. Twilight traded them all in for a box of waxed deli paper, a roll of brown paper towels, and a box of crayons. It felt silly, but safety was a priority when it came to the boy who had...
"As my doctor always said, if you gotta go...go out with a smile on your face!" Jack said as he lunged at Sunset, she shrieked waiting for the buck knife to slash at her and cut her mouth ear to ear until she looked like him, mouth bleeding profusely from the smile carved into his cheeks. Bulk and Flash both tackled him like they often did on the football field, though jack did get a lucky stab in and to this day Bulk has a scar in his stomach when the knife went into him, but he lived. They held him down as he struggled to break free, as the parents and teachers could only watch as it got harder and harder to breathe. As Jack had said, the cyanide dosage wasn't potent enough to cause cardiac or respiratory arrest, but it was a painful and unpleasant experience for them all. Their faces stuck stretched in those hideously ugly smiles ripped right from the Batman comics. Only there was no Caped Crusader around to save them, to sock him square in the jaw and administer an anti toxin to save them. Just a crazed fan who read one too many of those books in the hope of imitating the art.
"Get OFF ME! GET OFF ME!" He shouted as the others held him down by the arms and legs as someone ran to the office to phone the police. They showed up in five minutes when the events were relayed to them and Jack Jolly Moore was arrested and eventually tried and convinced of assault and battery, detaining of hostages, and assault with a deadly toxic substance with intent to harm or kill. The rest, is history. Most of the teachers and the parents would recover and try to put the incident behind them, as would the students, all save for one.
Now Twilight sparkle sat in the chair opposite her old classmate and graduate, she wondered why. Why throw your entire life away in such a stunt? Why imitate something down to the wire in a way that left him the only one of her class to not have any foreseeable future in his life? She wondered this he sat opposite her on the desk. He shuffled a deck of playing cards and set them out in a series of suits. A straight flush; a pair of queens, and a full house, followed by a spades royal flush. "Jack? Can you hear me?" She asked as the dim light of the bedroom shined on his face; it had grown as pale as one can get from not seeing the sun for eight years, and the scars of his self inflicted Joker smile had grown hideous and the flesh ragged from the eight years of healing over the skin. She swore as she looked at his lips as they pursed into a devious smile, the first one he'd made since that fateful day, that the cuts began to bleed fresh all over again.
"Good evening Twilight." He said as his smile only grew wider, it was going to be a long night.
The deck shuffled and made soft FNAP! Sounds as he set them out in his patterns again; A straight flush, a full house, jokers to the sides, and finally an ace of spades royal flush. Twilight jotted this down on her notes, repeating behavioral patterns. He meanwhile kept looking right at her, eyes just focused and equally intent on her as she was him. "Hello Jack, how have the years been to you? He chuckled softly and his scarred lips spread wide.
"Oh you know; making an example out of a forty year old pedophile my first day in the pen, staying quiet and being nice to the guards afterwards to earn their trust, how have you been? Getting a load of degrees and succeeding while others plunge into student debts and failure again and again by the biggest scam since snake oil?" He laughed that haunting choking laughter as he shuffled his cards again, then threw them. The guards raised their guns but Twilight only stopped them. They had done nothing but be a nuisance.
"Jack...tell me about yourself." She started, only for him to chuckle as he picked the deck up.
"Why Twily I'm flattered, I didn't know you cared that way." He said as he held his name sake jokers in his hand, Twilight scoffed and groaned at his remark.
"No Jack, tell me your first memory. Like was your father inattentive? Did you have frequent problems with your social development?" He'd known this was coming, he knew just what Twilight most likely use as a springboard to see if she could get to him. Much like the one who, "inspired" him, he was more than ready.
"My dad was cruel, I never told anyone about this for so long because...well I was afraid he'd beat me with a metal spoon if I did. Twilight noticed how his attitude changed drastically when he started his recollection, he dropped the jester like facade and his lips; even his scars, seemed to droop into a frown. "Not to mention all those times he told children in foster care in america are miserable and have no future because couples in america don't want them. They want trendy African orphans because celebrities are doing that, or they want perfect babies that are practically farm raised like puppies...Sometimes I wonder if he was right."
"That day, The day you....did what got you sent here, You showed everyone a piece from Mad magazine that was a deconstruction of the speeches often held at graduations, did you then or even know believe in what you cited?" She asked as she began "dealing" her a hand.
"every word of it, the older generations feel only contempt for the younger one, they refuse to accept any responsibility for how fucked up everything ended up under their watch, and I only wanted to show that their words can't hurt me.
"by carving smiles into our faces while our parents watched from minor cyanide poisoning?" Twilight said with grimace as she looked at the hand she had been dealt.
"I raise." He said placing a few apple seeds and peach pits on the table in lieu of poker chips.
"Answer the question Jack." She said as she looked at the first few cards he'd dealt her, A pair of black aces; the queen of hearts, and the eight of hearts and clubs, the dead man's hand.
"I had my reasons for what I do, there is no set method to one's madness, all you need to understand is." He was cut off by the egg timer going off, their session as ended. "Oh Darn, sorry Clarice, but it seems your session with me has ended...too bad, so sad...Ah I remember the day sweet Sonata said that, course you hadn't joined our ranks yet at that time...my how time flies. Twilight laid her hand of cards on the table a dead man's hand. "A royal flush." He says with a smug smirk, and an ear to ear grin.
Twilight left and took most of the papers she used with her, they checked her bag to make sure she wasn't taking any messages to the outside. And the guards sat at their positions opposite sides of the door. Jack sat and watched them as he shuffled his deck again, they took sips of coffee, just as they had been doing for the past several months. In those months, they'd had peach and apple seeds added after grinding them up into dust, and a quick stir with a matchstick stolen from the nurses. The seeds of apples and peaches contain trace amounts of cyanide, and after all these months, the fifteen or so milligrams of cyanide had added up to three hundred.
"We're watching you Moore, we used to be the armed uniformed cops that watched your principal at your old school."
"And now your babysitting an overgrown man child that's too big a fan of the jolly Joker. HA HA HA HA HA HA!" He let out his signature laugh, like a dark and twisted amalgamation of every Joker laugh under the sun and they both shook their heads in shame, before their lips pursed back into grins of their own and the color began to flush from their faces. It began to get harder to breathe for them and eventually they could feel the pulse in their veins slow and it got cold and dark, leaving only those big grins on their faces. "I'm sorry both of you had to go this way, but if you gotta go, go out smiling." He said as he fished for their keys, their guns and even their uniforms. "Look out Canterlot City, the high school is having a reunion!"
Getting The Old Gang Back Together.
Getting The Old Gang Back Together.
Lyra heartstrings looked at the photo that HAD been taken after graduation. After Jolly Jack was hauled away in handcuffs and a squad car, his parents disappeared and weren't even there the day it happened. Rumors circulated even to this very day that he killed them, but no evidence of it had ever been found. Everyone's smiles in their caps and gowns were forced, faked. The trauma of a classmate going off the walls insane and attempting to become an icon from the printed funny papers will do that. Her older and wiser eyes gazed back into the Polaroid ones of the smile she forced herself to make, the only other person not pictured was Bulk Biceps. Owned no doubt to the fact that he was having his stomach sutured back up. He made to the after party at Houlihan's' though, and was constantly showing off the stitches, claimed it was the kind he always dreamed of getting.
"Lyra? You okay?" It was her roommate Bon Bon, together since eight grade, they were insuperable. She walked in from the apartment kitchen a pitcher of country time and a glass of ice in hand. Lyra looked up from her scrapbook and smiled.
"Fine, just doing a little scrap booking." She flipped the year book page and since they had been printed before Jack went off the rails, his pictures were still there.
"Ugh you think they'd have edited...HIM, out of these." Bon Bon said slightly disgusted with seeing his greasy even in print looking puke green hair, and his pasty white complexion, sans the make up, Jack could pass for a Joker look alike.
"There was no time, if he had done this before the publishing they would have whited him out, but nobody suspected Jack of going crazy ON graduation day. You know it doesn't add up, look at these pics he was in." She pointed to an image of a brown haired boy with glasses and a bunch of superhero pins on his jacket, Peter Page Turner. Along with a few others like Bright Idea and Whiz Kiddo, The Canterlot High comic book club, suddenly a few things made sense. Lyra and Bon Bon took note of the books Jack was posing with, all Joker comics.
"Hey was a very social and seemed quite happy, what grounds did he have? What was his motivation?" Bon Bon asked as they looked for more pictures.
"Jack wasn't the brightest of us Bonnie, remember how on the test scores for state exams? Jack was in the bottom hundred."
"Only the One hundredth though, and it's not like the school wasn't offering students like him help. History; personal issues, or just stubbing you toe on a glass coffee table, nothing excuses him for what he did and tried to do to us." She said in a very absolute and blunt tone.
"I wan't trying to justify him I was just..." But she was interrupted by a knock at the apartment door. "Who could that be?" She said flipping the page to the prom pictures. "Remember how Rainbow Dash took over the DJ system from Vinyl and made it play Sesame Street songs for ten minutes?" Lyra said as she began to reminisce.
"Yeah...she was a prankster who knew where to draw the..." She paused when she opened the door, an old ghost from the past looking right back at her. Jack Moore still had those deep scars where he cut his own cheeks into a Joker smile; though he had no white as snow skin or the signature discoloration of that character, he still had his cackling mad laugh and sick grin. He wore a swat or some kind of riot control officer's gear, and Bon Bon found herself staring into the barrel of a Heckler & Koch FABARM FP6 shot gun. "Line?" She clucked with a gulp.
*BOOM!* The shotgun's ear shattering noise ran out in the apparentment, and Lyra was sure Bon Bon was instantly killed. She flew across the room and landed so hard on the couch that she sent it toppling over. She help her hands up to her cheeks and was certian she was blasted in half by a buckshot load.
"Well...now that the...awkwardness of Rainbow's little jest is past, how bout we kick it!" a younger Vinyl Scratch said as she finally got 'Sunny Days' to stop looping on her sound system. It was the Graduates last night at the Canterlot High gym, and though it had only been four years for some of them it felt like it had been forever. Most of them had Colleges to look forward too come the following Fall, but one was not so joyous on the occasion. A younger more world weary Jack Moore stood nursing some not at all spiked punch while everyone else took the dance floor, that strange almost horse like way a few people on the floor danced didn't amuse him.
"Jack?" A voice whispered shaking him from his sulking, he turned to see Lyra holding a hand out to him, offering a dance. "Dud you okay? you don't look so good." She said as he sipped. True, jack's face looked like it was recovering from bad sunburn; blotches of very red skin with a few bit of dead flakes peeling off in a few places, and his hair looked like a whole bottle of peroxide and bleach and nearly burned it a platinum blonde but had done a botched job at it.
"I'm fine Lyra...just...a little...misuse of Tiger Balm and an allergic reaction to hair care." He said further sulking away from her. Lyra only shrugged and helped herself to a handful of chips and some onion dip.
"If you say so..so...so...so"
She wasn't dead. Bon Bon cluthced at her lower abdomen and moaned in pain, the skin was very bruised and bleeding a bit even, but it wasn't like a wound a weapon like that would cause if it had been using live ammo. Jack cakled softly and loaded another round in his weapon. "Heh..you'd be surprised what toys you can get your hands on when you break into the security cabinet of the funny farm!" He shouted as he fired another round at the mantle. The rubber rounds the riot shot guns' chamber was loaded with where replaced with a shower of quarters, they shattered the vases and knocked over the picture frames as they bounced with a few jangles. "Heh Heh..Money shot."
Lyra stood over Bon Bon Trying to keep her calm, though the pain was intense, she was thankful the rounds weren't lethal. "Jack...after all these years...why?...why then and why now are you doing this?" She pleads looking up at him with tears in her eyes as he pulls the revolver he stole of his armed guard in her face, no chance of THAT being less lethal. She cried ready for the hands of death to claim her.
"Why does anyone do anything? what makes my path in life any different from a couple of le bows who took to each other the min nobody would say what they are hmm?'' She could hardly believe what he was saying, Jack was a grade A psycho alright, Lyra would've quick to point out their friendship wasn't like that..had she not been fearing for her life. His finger tightened around the trigger as the hammer clicked into place...and then...*HONK!* The revolver made a party noise sound as Lyra's hair was showered in confetti and mini streamers, a tiny flag with BANG! written on it popped from the barrel. "Damn...trick ammo...oh well I brought a...spare."
"What are you...AHHH!" She screamed looking down at her knee, as it make a sicking crunch and cracking sound. The pain almost blinded her but she remained conscious enough to see that...he had hit her knee with a hammer. She thought he'd shot her...but his shot gun round had gone off into the window and shattered it, glass raining down onto the street below, that round had been live. It would have blown her leg off if he had used it, though her knee may still have been broken.
"I'm throwing a class reunion Lyra...and you and your...BLECH!...Girlfriend are the first quests...you should consider it an honor....AHAHAHAH!" He said letting out a wicked Joker laugh. He then snapped a pair of riot cuff on the girls and attached them with bungee cords. He dragged them across the floor of the wreck apartment, a hijacked ambulance waiting in an alley outside, the wail of sirens closing in..."And not the hot ones either!" He said, though to Lyra and the semi unconscious Bon Bon this made no sense.
They danced together, he watched them from across the room at the snack table. A few other guys looked as well, a slow dance had sarted and here they were, Lyra Heartsrings and Bon Bon Sweetie Drops holding each other close with lovey eyes as they slow danced together. Another boy beside him snacked on some Cheetos, smiling at watching them, The only male the two had accepted into their circle, Eric Inkpots. "I tapped them...both at once." He said with a grin, "I usually don't brag about that, but it's a party and we've got so much to look forward too." Eric said as Jack only slipped a little plastic tube from his pocket and tried not to seem suspicious about it. Thw clear liquid sliding down into the cup.
He didn't know it than, but his actions didn't go unnoticed. The chaperoning Vice Principal had seen him pour, and she closed in like a shark to a wounded seal. "Maybe you do...but I.." he started but got cut off by a familiar midnight blue figure approaching.
"MR. Moore! Is that alcohol!?" Vice Principal Luna said snatching his hand from his pocket with the incriminating tube still clutching it. She inspected the tube closely as if she could scan and see what it was with her eyes. "MY office...NOW!" She took him by the ear, not caring that such actions were not condoned anymore. He was dragged off, the two of them cuddling the sides of the guy he'd been talking with the last thing he ever saw of his senior prom.
"Alright get em outta here." The CSI forensic anthropologist said sighing as he covered up the face of the guard that had died, a toxicology report would later reveal the cyanide extracted from the crushed up peach pits, elder berries plucked through the grates of the window. and apple seeds, but their current deaths baffled the investigators. There wasn't much of a crime scene, the bodies had been marked and gone over with the forensics and were on their way to the coroner for an autopsy and aforementioned toxicology, but barring all that there was just that all to fear educing thought of a crazed psycho on the loose and possibly, no likely armed. Not only where the guard's service revolvers and spare bullets missing, but so were; a shotgun with riot and live rounds, several canisters of tear gas, shock batons and cuffs. As well as an armored uniform and an ambulance.
"When was he last seen?" Dr. Twilight Sparkle said to the officer as she went over the details.
"Dr. Sparkle you're not an officer of the law, I don't want you messing around in things you have no business tampering with."
"He was my patient...and I knew him...from many years ago...ago...ago...
"So the formula that says may look intimading...but if you look at it like this 23 X 2 + 23 X 2=138, 138 is the total of the the remaining side or C, really it's amateur hour once you get used to it, hey are you paying attention jack?" A younger Twilight said as her tutoring partner was dreamily scribbling on his homework. The bad day is still several months into his future and the graduation incident is still roughly a year away.
"Hmmm? oh yeah Twilight I am." He says his voice not yet the twisted Mark Hamill, Jack Nicholson, and Heath Ledger assorted varieties he'll flip flop back and forth with, occasionally digging up Caesar Romero for kicks. It's more meek and shy, almost like Fluttershy's voice if a boy had it. "It's just...oh why should I trouble you with it.?" He says hastily solving his geometry problem.
"What is it? You can tell me Jack it's okay." She says patting his shoulder and rubbing his back gently and reassuringly, echoing her future as a psychologist determined to help others feeling depression or anxiety in life. "You can tell me."
"My grandmother...She's in the hospital for diabetic shock, Dr. Quinn says if she'd only take her insulin; watch her diet, and take her vitamins she wouldn't need to be see for the condition. says she's on the verge of losing her foot, possibly feet or legs. My grandpa too." He sniffles softly a tear stains the cover of the Mcgraw-Hill geometry book. "In the cancer ward for his lung, said they'll HAVE to perform a total pneumonectomy and he'll have maybe six months to live. If it hasn't spread to anything." He breaks down and buries his hands in his face, she nudges his cheek, like her pony self would a good friend. The future known to them both, she never knew than that she was patronizing a crazie.
"Don't you think you should be there for them before...they...you know pass on?" She asks as she hugs him tenderly. The first signs that he's not what he seems to be as he stares blankly at her and his facade of sadness fades.
“A living man and a dead man have the same number of particles that muck the systems. Structurally, there's no discernible difference, sans the decay and breaking down of the organic mass as they rot away. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts that are no different that the past and future Twilight. Why should I even care?” He pulls his phone out, She's a bit concerned with the blank emotionless tone. Then it changes to one highly inappropriate. "Hey twilight look! This guy...made a video of his dog a few days before it died. Wanna know what's funny?"
"What?! How someone losing their pet days before its birthday possibly be funny?!" She asks disgusted by the way he laughs at the old fox like shiatsu dog laying on a bed, the owner strokes the old dog lovingly, foreshadowing it's fate.
"Well...he says to it, you're birthday on the sixteenth is coming up, this dog died on the sixth, the day this video was filmed. To some that's only harsh in hindsight. I find it...funny....funny..funny"
"Really I should have seen that as the first sign that Jack wasn't right in the head, At first I chalked it up to him trying in his own special way to cope with the impending death of his grandma and grandpa...but really it was hard to tell. Also I've long abandoned that train of thought, thinking of someone "In their own special way" and, "because that's who they are." Really such ideologies are the plights of dreamers detached from reality."
"Hah, sounds more like you're the exact opposite of everything your patient was...is Doc, He's so detached from reality that he'll hurt and kill and see it as nothing but a game, yet you're so grounded IN reality it's making you abandon most of the tenements of psychology."
"Only the one's hacks treating five year olds with ADD To condescendingly talk down to them officer." She says as she stands over the black bags holding the bodies. There is no chalk or tape outline, truth be told it's almost never really used.
The thunderheads rumble and clatter over the old gates of the original Canterlot High, The building he had been at was abandoned and next Fall a New modern building several block a way would replace it, there was a real estate developer who was trying to sell; it either as a conversion into a private residence or a new public building. He stood at the gates along side Jack as they talked shop. The real estate agent sipped a travel mug of berry punch as his 'client' in a weird purple trench coat and hat stood clutching a cane, the old haunt of Canterlot High looming ominously over them both. "So...I just got ownership from the city, cost me a bundle too, but with the new High School almost ready, I think it was worth it. What do you think?"
"Well, it's garish; ugly and bums have had to be hosed and tear gassed out, when I would have preferred using Zyklon B. The place is crumbling to dust, and the whole building brings back painful memories of outdated schoolyard bullying and test anxiety." He said tapping his cane on the gates.
"So...you're not interested in it than?" He said as he sat in a swing set they had set up the next to last semester there.
"Are you NUTS?! I love it?" He said happily as she looked up the still there horse statute, though it lay surrounded by the bolts where the foundation once stood, the gateway to Equestria all but gone, but moved to it's new home.
"Really? Great! I mean, this place ain't that dilapidated and it's still pretty sturdy. That's eighteenth century construction for you. I think It'd make a pretty nifty and even eccentric private home for you."
"Actually with my ties to this place's past, I was thinking of holding a class reunion here, for old time's sake's...but enough about that, shall we shake on it?" He says holding his hand out to him smiling. As the Broker swung back and forth on the swing.
"ugh sure okay I can...uggghh!" He says feeling the pin prick of a long puncturing pin enter the palm of his hand. before he felt his airway close up and his face go red and swell up. The tell tale signs of Anaphylaxis.
"Bee and extracted wasps' venom, I don't have any idea if you're allergic to it or not, but even the most resilient of men would die allergic or not to the equivalent of swarm or two of the stinging insects entering the blood stream. Now naturally I won't be paying you for this...You've already signed the deal to transfer ownership to me as a partner in your LLC, that's what those papers really were about you signed earlier. You were ignorant enough of this gobbledygook to truly comprehend the documents, but as the French say...Say la vee!" He said happily as he left the broker dead in the swing set, his face bloated and red, and that was before the post mortem methane would build up in the body.
The clerk at the counter placed the black revolver on the glass counter. the clerk looked to the woman in the lab coat and skirt and wondered what a lab technician would need a Smith & Wesson Model 15, commonly used for law enforcement. "now...there's a nationally law of a waiting period of three days, but you're doctorate and M.D credentials do check out...and you mentioned emergency circumstances?" The clerk said handing her the box of ammo. Twilight held the gun in her hands and checked the chamber, empty of course but the new loading mechanisms held up nicely.
"Patient of mine...as much as I don't want to admit it, has been declared criminally insane, and he escaped from custody recently, I"m not officially deputized to pursue, but I"m going to see....some old friends in town that are involved with law enforcement, hopefully they can understand and deputize me to follow up on the search." She said handing the clerk bundles of good old fashioned cash. "Then of course...I think we can wave a few of the regulations due to extenuating circumstances. The clerk wasn't some hick man in a shaggy beard and trucker cap, it was actually another woman like her. She wore a humorous NRA hat and a black tee that read 'You're about to see my other pair of 38's.'
"If you're pals in the force ask, you didn't get this piece from me sug." She said winking as she looked up at the brainy young scientist. "ya know, ah could throw in a shoulder rig free of charge if you'd just...come on back fer a...fitting of one." She said with half lidded eyes, her true intent not lost on Twilight, who was NOT intrested.
"I think I'll pay for it, thank you."
"You're loss cutie, I'd have given you a good deal on it."
"Just wrap it all up before I try the gun club around the corner." She said pissed off as she loaded her new piece, hoping to an extent that she wouldn't have to shoot to kill Jack Jolly Moore...somewhat.
"So, it's all set for sometime before Christmas right?" He asked looking to the other two guys at the burger joint. It smelled of unwashed homeless people and awful food, the greasy burgers and fries, it wasn't hard to imagine rats not too far away. Younger Jack Moore looked to the two trouble makers. They were beyond the type of making trouble in school. They stole, picked fights and held dog fights. The kids you're warned about and he was with them.
"Yeah yeah...we'll take good care of you pal, don't you worry." The one on his left in the Lakers shirt and cap said as he friend in the ratty clothes chuckled along with him.
"Yeah, real good care of, personally we never finished school so we don't know just why you want to spend your cut on the senior dues." He said helping himself to Jack's own fries. Jack and the two of them where planning a simple job, break into the real estate office and hold it up for the Christmas bonuses on the last day before the Holidays, then lose the fuzz by running through the DOW chemical plant, then the sewage treatment plant until they made a break for the river. A motor boat on the derelict docks near the treatment tanks their break to freedom.
"It's not just that to be honest, my grandparents are in the hospital and well...I think the money can help them more than the meager restitution of Medicare." He said as the one on the left of him sticks a hot apple pie in his mouth.
"Don't worry bro, me and Jonesy here are gonna make sure you're taken care of real good, not just your gran-mama and granddad, but you'll be sitting by the Hurricane Harbor wave pool with Sunset on the senior trip."
"you do gotta mask for this job right?...right?...right?
"Excuse me? I'd like to speak with the sheriff." Twilight said to the officer on duty. The Canterlot City Police Department was bustling with activity; suspects being lead into custody, reports and case files being filled and filed, and Twilight was on the trail of her old "friend" turned patient. "Is sheriff Spitfire in today?" Spitfire initially wanted to be a women's soccer champ, but her first year in college lead her change her mind and join the police academy, six months then eight years and she was one of the first female sheriffs on the force.
"I'm afraid you missed her by a bout a week. I'm in charge until we find her." A familiar lime green girl in a uniform said, she wore the uniform with a deputy sheriff's badge on her chest.
"Lighting!? woo the years have been good to you girl." she said hugging her old friend tight. Even after that time Lighting Dusk's reckless behavior as a school team archer the last time they held the friendship games nearly got her and her friends hurt.
"Thanks Twi." She said as they made their way along the station to the office. "Like I said, Spitz went awol a while back, no one's seen her for like three days and well, the departments worried.
"I know this might be a difficult time...but there something I need to ask you...I need your help."
"Jack?...Is that you snook ums?" An elderly lady in a hospital bed asked as her heart monitor beeped with a steady and a telltale rhtym. He entered his hospital room, a sugar free granola bar in his hand for her, because of the diabetes.
"Yes grandma it's me. " The young Jack Jolly Moore said to the eldery woman, she smiled a toothless smile at him as he handed her the treat."
"Why Jacky boy this is sweet of you...but you know grandma doesn't care anymore...I"ll see your great grand pappy sargassi soon, and I'll be in the arms of the Virgin Mary." He stiffled a soft cry and placed her snack on the side table before leaning in for a hug.
"Now don't say that Grandma, you'll get better soon, and then you can make that macaroni sauce again, and grandpa can take me fishing on the Canterlot bay. I promise you...I know it."
"Oh Jack...it's our time, why can't you just accept that?"
The older Jack stands in what had once been Principal Celestia's office, the floor still cleaner where the desk had stood blocking the dust build up and grime. He held a picture in his hands, it was the last know photo of his grandma before she was declared dead from diabetic complications. "This is how I"ll always remember you...oh maybe I'll remember another way? I really don't know anymore." He slipped the photo into the paper shredder and started it up, the print out rendered into strips as it was fed to the blades. "Anyway...Time to start the first day of summer school!"
Pain, the was the first thing she felt in her abdomen where the rubber rounds had socked her in the gut. Her body was sore then it felt like her intestines were on fire. Bon Bon gripped at her stomach and did her best to make the soreness and burning pass, when it finally did she took a loot around. She was back in her hold Classroom; Mr. Fitzgerald's math class, only it was different. The room was desheveled and very dirty; dirt and dust had accumulated on the old desks and grim had mucked up the windows, though on the outside one could see that purple and green paint had been covered up the windows.
"OH...Oh God...hello? is anyone else here? She said getting up and looking around. Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light as the bright florescent lights clicked on blinding her. She shielded her eyes from the harsh light as the room came into focus. It was filthy, the whole room hadn't been properly cleaned in what must have been ages; the teacher's old stacks of National Geographic and Time had been thrown around and the the books were all knocked from the shelves. A TV set had been mounted into the wall just above the blackboard, it clicked on.
He slowly came into focus, his Glasgow smile still scarred up, though he didn't have the real Joker's green hair or red lips. He still wore a purple button up like a suit jacket over a purple long sleeve shirt, and a green tee shirt under that. He had a dead rose pinned to chest of his shirt, and purple pants to truly bring his joker motif to full circle. "Hello Bon Bon, long time no see is it? How long has it been since we last had the class together? Like what I've done with the place?"
"You freaking pschyopath...What are you going to do to us?" She asked not knowing if he could hear her, though as if in awnser he got up from his chair and laughed.
"I'm, throwing a class reunion my dear friends, As soon as everyone's been assembled, it'll be just like old times. In the meantime feel free to mingle with the rest of the class...but don't bother leaving, this place is sealed up tight, bathrooms are...oh wait you should now where they are and lunch will be in an hour...fish fillets...and tartar sauce today, Ciao." The screen flickered off and she was alone, no Lyra; no Celestia, no one but herself, as far as she could tell she was all alone in this madhouse...a serious house on earth.
"Look! You want me to go along with this...we're gonna have to make some changes in plans." The younger jack said to Bud and Louis as they sat in the fast food resturant and got the final plans in place. It was the last few days before the holiday break from school, and everything was set in motion for the heist. "Look,the places like real estate agencies, they keep their payroll in checks at the offices, we steal a bunch a checks, what are we go with them? The Vine Street Medical Office will have the office petty cash and the cash co pays on hand, twenty five or ten buck plush the charges the pateints in a Dr's office a day...that office has to keep their daily intake in safe! I know, I saw it when I was an extern there as part of the school's senior program before I dropped out of it."
He said this as Bud fed his grease spattered face more chicken nuggets, thinking the situation over. "Well...If you're so sure, I guess we could go for the Dr's instead of the real estate office." He said as he let a drop of ketchup on the yellow smiley tee shirt he wore that day.
"Good second condition, no one get's hurt...I'm half temped to asked we use unloaded guns, but we may need to fire warning shots, but nobody gets hurt on this, got it?" Jack said sipping vanilla shake from his cup. Lou chuckled softly then began to laugh at the suggestion. "I mean it! Do you idiots have any idea what assault with a deadly weapon gets you? As a felony, we're looking at ten years for just pointing guns at them armed robbery with anyone getting wounded? That's five more years, and if they die?...Thirty years to life! We get busted and the worst we get is fifteen years for armed robbery and assault, but if no one's hurt...they might go easy on us...more so given our ages...over legal but under twenty one.
"What are you our lawyer all a sudden?" Lou said as he stuffed a burger in his mouth.
"I may as well be, A court appointed lawyer is useless in this country, and I can't afford to pay my senior dues, let alone pay for some Gargamel to spring us." He said as he finished his shake. " No body gets hurt...we don't even fire the guns if we don't have too either...got that?" He said as they finished what would be the last meal in this resturant.
"Yeah sure, whatever man...you got your disguise for the job right?" Bud asked as he looked at the purple back back under the table. Jack picked it up; unzipped it, and placed a purple button up shirt, purple pinstriped pants, and a green soccer shirt on the table. Then he placed....
"Holly shit dude! I didn't think it was possible but the boys at DC somehow made The Joker even scarier! I'll bet those secretaries at the front desk are gonna shit themselves seeing you in this thing." He says as he tugs on the rubber.
"I also got green contact lenses to match, they'll make my eyes bulge behind the holes...and listen to my impression...okay...You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? I say that to all my prey...YOU KILLED CAPTAIN CLOWN!" He said trying to capture the feel of them both..."Okay uh why don't you check back in with me when you're ready to take this seriously fellas? Because quite frankly...You're not contractually tied to reality. There is no Sanity Clause! Any more than there's no Sandy Claws."
"Santa Claus isn't real? Lou asks with a dumb founded almost disappointed expression."
"Idiots..."If you weren't hiding in the shadows like a couple of little girls, this would be over so much faster."
"The hell you say to us?!" Bud said as he reached for the knife in his pocket. Jack softly held his hands and patted his shoulders calming him down.
"No..no guys...that was...more impressions...see I"m really trying to get...in cognitus for this little...gig you know? If you're good at something never do it for free...So I opted to do as many of these uh ugh voices for ugh Mr. J as possible." He sat back down and opened his copy of death of the family up and began to read it. "Every panel he appears in, this guy is scary...I wont't let you down sir, I'll live yup to your legacy as the street punks of the future did."
"Dude? Is this kid talking to The Joker like's he's real listening to him through the comic book? Bud asked Lou behind his back.
"The crazy one Bud...why do we always get the crazy ones?"
The dank air smelled of mold and still water, the harsh lights forced her eyes open when they shinned in her face. Fluttershy snapped her head up and looked around, the twenty something veterinarian was in dismay and couldn't remember what had happened. She was back in the cafeteria of Canterlot High, only it certainly had changed since she last saw it. The once shiny clean wooden floors were covered in splotches of various stains and grimes. The plastic tables all had faded and discolored plastic, and the lights above had grimy dust build up on them.
She could Identify a few others down in the cafeteria with her; Lyra heartstrings, Big Macintosh, Carrot top and Rose-Luck. There where others...but they were nameless people...and dead. She had no idea who they where once, but the sicko had somehow dyed their skin white and hair green. Fluttershy could see cans of spray paint all over the cafeteria floor, not too far from their bodies, so that cleared that mystery up. He had also sliced chunks of their cheeks off exposing the rotting sinews of muscle under it. Twisted smiles as the eyes rolled around in the decaying sockets, a few even fell out onto the floor.
"Oh...my...God! Lyra?! Big Mac?!...What's going on?!" Fluttershy asked trying to get up from her seat only to feel heavy iron chains on her wrists, holding her down. She looked up to the cafeteria table, a silver covered platter lay in front of her. A few seats down, Lyra stirred and looked up at the other living guests, she could hardly believe he'd taken them back here.
"Flutershy?...He kidnapped you too?"
"Yup...Looks like it...i think he's bout to finish what that loony started eight years ago, I'm...plum actually scared he's gonna kill us guys." Big mac said with noticeable fear in his voice.
"When I get my hands on Jack, I'll stuff his head so far up his own ass he'll have to fart to breathe!" Some one shouted rattling their chains, before a voice like glass cut through the air.
"No no stupid, Don't be crude now!" They looked over to the door the Dazzlings once had burst through to spread animosity among them, and before that the mane six had gone through them to inspire the school into unity. He stood in his signature purple Joker get up...and a cane tapping on the tables as he walked down the rows to her. He occasionally stopped to lift the head of one of the dead and make the mouth flap like a macabre puppet.
"Watch out Jack! These guys look pretty mad at getting invited to the reunion!" He said in one voice as the dead eyes of some guy in a black suit flapped. "Really, what's the matter? You fellas don't like the party arrangements I made?" He asked before cackling madly.
"You're insane Jack! " Lyra shouted at him struggling in the tight ropes he'd tied her up in.
"Reallly? I thought I was a cancer?...No wait my grandpa died OF cancer...so let's fight a man WITH cancer...hahahahahhaha!" He made his way over to Fluttershy, she softly cried as he ran a wormy white hand through her pink hair, his hands smelled of spray paint. "Awwww don't cry Flutters, I'm not going to hurt YOU guys...at least no the way these poor saps got it." He said pinching the cheek of some dead woman in a secretary uniform beside her. "You know I only want everyone to have the most fun tonight here at good old C.H.S. I mean, what's it been? Eight years since we said goodbye? A bit short most reunions wait a full ten years to catch up...but you never know."
"Please...let us go Jack...what did we ever do to you?" Fluttershy said as she softly felt the hot tears running down her cheeks whir he wiped away.
"Nothing Flutters...I just...brought us all her to reflect on life...and all its...injustices...now come on...you haven't even touched you...DINER!" He said this lifting the cover of his tray, there laying squirming tied up with turkey strings, was Flutershy's rabbit Angel Bunny. He was a little long in the tooth after eight years, but rabbits live longer than most pets like him. Jack had tied him down to the tray and covered him in pig blood (available at most major Asian markets..no seriously!) and arraigned a few florets of iceberg lettuce and sliced carrots around him, the poor rabbit's binding so tight he couldn't even eat them. Fluttershy fainted in horror seeing him squirm, covered in blood and hungry.
At least he had some decency and didn't kill him...
The sun went down on a quiet summer's day. Bird's chirped their last songs as kids went into their houses for dinner. Lawn sprinklers clicked off across the little town houses of an old neighborhood, and the tiny town feel asleep. A police squad car rolled up to a boarded up town house when the sun went down. The power was still intact but only because the house was for sale though there was hardly anyone willing to buy it. Twilight Sparkle stepped out of the passenger car and shinned the industrial strenght flashlight on the upper window.
"Anyone live here?" She asked Lighting Dusk as she turned the engine off and got out of the car. The key on loan from the realtor looking to sell it.
"Not for the last eight years when he...went crazy." Lightning said as she and Twilight slowly approached the house Jack Jolly Moore had lived in. "Say he killed his mom and dad the night before, but it was never proven. They just...up and left and haven't been seen since it happened." She took the key from the envelope from the office...Jay Sherman Realtors...
"Hey Jack you coming or not?" Bud asked as the neon lights of Jay Sherman Realtors flashed across his face...
"Hmmm? Oh yes...yes of course...I was just...thinking of Grandma and Grandpa...they...they died last night. My parents haven't been since the hospital called the house and told me." Jack said looking from the light and then down the nearly empty street. It was the later afternoon on a cold winter day. Though the hour was only one to five the sun was getting low, Sunset...He longed to think in five moths he'd be at the Six Flags water park with the girl named sunset. The only motivation to go with the heist of the Doctor's office. to pay his dues and enjoy some happiness in the final days of his adolescence.
"I'm sorry for your loss...but we gotta do this now or never so come on!" They said as they made their way. Though dead winter, there was only icy cold and incoming freezing rain. The dark purple clouds and thunder a testament to the rain. It was just too warm to snow. Still too cold to be just wearing a thin soccer shirt and a button up purple dress shirt.
"They say their last words were...'where's Jack?' Then they died just minuets apart from each other, alone and broken hearted without each other or their grandson to condole them...I think we should have done this sooner." He said as the Doctors office came into view. The black 38. revolver in his belt felt like it weighed a tn, or was it the weight on his heart crushing him with guilt? The last time he'd ever feel any.
"Come one...get the mask on and remember...scary Joker." Lou said as he got his own mask, an Obama mask while Bud got a Clinton mask on...a bit cliche, but they had "The Joker" in tow. the icy winds chilled him to the bone as they approached the glass doors, the office just upstairs...and ahead.
"It's so errie...this was his bedroom?" Twilight said as she and Lighting stood in a small room no bigger than a guest room with a little folding bed in the clossed position against one wall. The tv was a small set at least thirty years old and sitting on a dresser. A child's toybox sat empty in one corner and dusty books lined one shelf near the back wall.
"The Moore's where always just above the poverty line. Father was a Disabled war vet living on disability, mother was a stay at home work from home tailor and seamstress but it was a slow buissiness. Lighting said as she lifted the toy box's lid. "Damn...they let these things stay here?" She asked as her light shone on an assortment of second hand toys brought from Goodwill and Salvation
"They couldn't link it to evidence of the crime, and the owner stops by with this stuff still here offering the place, "fully furnished." Twilight said as she read the titles on the books. Mostly kid's books, Harry Potter, Daring Do, Indiana Jones and Star Wars expanded universe, and some Diary of a wimpy kind and middle school worst years books. "He was Eighteen and graduating from High School when he lived like this?" She asked.
"Some people just don't want to let go...It's a time we often think we move on and grow out of...our childhood. We're so quick to grow out of it when we do...we only want nothing more than to go back, not realizing what we lost..."
"Welcome to the Vine Street Doctor's office...the reception are is just on the second floor past this hallway up here." Jack said as he and the others made their way to the office. Bud and Lou drew their guns. What are they?...They weren't supposed to be doing it like this! No shooting, no one gets hurt? His grandparents wouldn't have wanted it this way!
"Why are we here again?' Lighting said flipping through an old copy of Daring Do. Twilight Didn't specify anyhting about going to Jack's old house, just that they had too.
"Thought he might go here first...He's been here." Twilight said aiming her light up a hatch to the attic above them.
"how can you tell? The house is regulary kept up by the owner who drops in to clean it."
"The attic hatch, it's been opened recently from the inside. Can tell by the dust and the fact that it's not fully closed from the inside." Twilight said and look here on the bookshelf. These spots of dust are where books were removed. He tried to throw anyone who'd come back off the trail by rustling the books in place and propping them up with the book ends, but the dusts been too distirbed to hide the fact that the books were taken. I can tell." Twilight said as Lighting chuckled.
"You sure you shouldn't be the detective here?"
"Alright nobody Move! This is a hold up! Give us all your cash and the cash co-pays and the office petty cash and don't lie to me and say you don't have any!" Jack said as Bud and Lou fired their guns at the windows. The panicked patients and the the staff started hitting the floor. The receptionist was crying and Jack could see why. He leaned over the desk and saw her with her soft red hair and big glasses...with a fit handsome man and a little girl in a family picture on the desk...She was a mother!
"Please...oh God..oh God please don't hurt us." She said reaching into her purse...
"Hey! Don't you dare pull a taser or pepper spray on ME LADY! You do that and your little girl's out one mommy! You hear me! You hear me!" He said but he didn't mean it. He couldn't be a bleeding heart now...He'd gotten this far and wimping out would only lead to getting busted. The woman cried louder and dumped it out the cash onto her desk. She handed it too him on the desk and cowered under the desk crying loud as more gun shoots rang out. "Oh what now...what...AH! You Idiots! What have you done!?"
"Hey he came out of nowhere and pulled a piece on me! What was I supposed to do?" Lou said as he stood over a man with a doctor's coat; he was bleeding from the skull, head shot dead instantly., he was the receptionist's husband.
"Look just grab the bag of cash and let's get out of..."
"Hey! You! You're making a call to the cops!" Bud said as he looked under the desk at the cowering receptionist. Bud fired four of his rounds into her. She made gasps and soft eeks of pain and then fell to the floor crumpled in a dead heap. Her Daughter was an orphan, and she couldn't have been older than eight in that very recent desk picture. Jack could have sworn he heard her last gasping words before dying..."Barbara?"
"We're too late, he's long gone." Twilight said in almost defeat. The Moore house was dead silent in the downstairs living room, the house in total darkness now. Lighting and Twilight would have to try to follow a cold trial to maybe find him.
"Any idea where he'd be?" Lighting asked making her way to the back kitchen. "let's go out the back and check the yard on the way out. Maybe we...OH MY GOD!" Lighting said trying her gun from it's holster, Twilight did the same with her gun and rushed to her side, only for Lightning to lower it.
"What'd you draw that for?" She asked as they entered the kitchen she could see why. In the kitchen stood a vacum propped up against the fridge with a purple suit jacket on it and a Joker mask on the handle. In the darkness of the house, one could see that the suit and mask could look like a human in the room. "Heh I guess we're both Kinda jumpy..." Twilight said as she holstered her revolver. "Oh...and...I do have a permit." She said pulling a gun carrier's card from her pocket and showing it to Lighting. She only chuckled softly as she read it.
"Twi? I wouldn't care of you didn't, we got bigger fish to fry."
"Oh God oh God! It wasn't supposed to be like this!" Jack though as he saw Them both dead. Bud an Lou were dead too. The cops had come to the front of the building and shot Bud and Lou on the spot. They managed to get a lucky shot at the cops before they bled out. Those cops where on the office floor. He could see them lying on the floor clutching their stomachs as they made officer down calls for backup. Jack threw his gun away in a trash can after making his way down the fire escape into an alley way. He was in sight of the sewage treatment and DOW chemical plant. The gates rolling open for a delivery truck. He ran with the carpet bag of ill gotten cash in his hands. A worker in a yellow helmet and blue jumpsuit flagged him down.
"HEY! YOU! This is private property of the city and the DOW corporation! Stay out or we'll be forced to...HEY! Take that mask off!" The worker ordered seeing it on him, he drew his own gun and began shooting at him. God more shooting! Will it ever stop? Jack pumped his legs taking off across the upper walkways over the tanks of chlorine as it was processed into bleach. A little girl orphaned; he was being shot at, two guys his age dead, and now chased over the bleach processing plant. Was any of this worth the five hundred to cover senior dues?
"Gotta..find a way out...gotta...jump into the bay and..swim for it." He said softly under his breath. "Oh God...oh Jesuits...I...I can't see the eye holes are misaligned...I can't stop and adjust it and can't just pull it off! They'll know who I am if I do." He said as he could see workers coming up to the metal stairs to him...they where closing in! He could barley see a body of water near by but there was no way to tell with the green contacts and the eye holes. He was thankful that the money was packed in Zip-lock bags, keep the cash dry.
"There he is! Take him down!" A worker said.
"No! We just unmasked the DOA's at the office, they were just kids for God's sake! I want him alive!" A cop said as he forced the worker to lower his piece. He couldn't be taken alive or dead! Jack took a deep breath and dived over the railing. The wind rushing as his stomach shifted out of place. When you swim in a pool with too much chlorine, it burns and stings your eyes, your skin feel like it's on fire and you can't stand the water. Imagine the pain of an over chlorinated pool and multiply that by a hundred or so. He dived into one of the tanks of unprocessed chlorine! The world became a swirling mass of icy winter cold and the burning and stinging of the chemicals. The pumps sucked him up a thankfully large pipe and the synthesis process turned the chlorine diluted into bleach.
Remember that bleach on your skin in large quantities is no better if not worse. It still burned and worse, he was starting to drown! He never understood why, but he was being swept away from chemicals into the water to salvation. Maybe some worker above saw pity and engaged an emergency protocol in case a man falls into the tank, or maybe it was the norm for the corrupt Dow to dump chemicals when a batch goes bad, but he felt his body being spat out along a final pipe. He felt One last rush of water as the pipe dumped him into the Canterlot Bay.
The workers or cops never found his body, assumed he was swept away in oceanic currents and he was never identified. Jack Jolly Moore never fired a shingle shot that night, nor did he hurt anyone. He was still guilty of a lot. he had lost his grandparents to death; his birth parents abandoned him. He was shot at; nearly drowned, and chemically burned. The colors of his costume began to run and fade as he swam ashore to the other side of the bay. He pulled himself ashore to a muddy beach that smelled of rancid low tide.
Muck covered shopping carts from a nearby plaza lay as homes for sand crabs as he coughed crawling ashore. His hands clawing his way up the rocks just off the walkway, the street lights shining down on him as he emerged from the rocky shore. The terrible stench, like sewage and seafood good bad lingering over him. "UGH! Blarg! Oh God..Oh hell..I can't feel my face; eyes burning...my skin itches like crazy...Got to get this stupid mask off before someone sees me. Gugh!" HE crawled ashore onto the cobblestone walkway and over the ground as the freezing winter rain started coming down.
"I'm stinging; itchy...My face...oh my face burns..Get this stupid mask off! So I can..." He ripped the squelching rubber off his face and gasped as it slipped off him with a wet sucking noise. He set the mask down on a bench and looked down into a puddle. He recoiled away from the face staring back at him. For he saw that grinning smile of the sadist clown. Then he looked at the mask and saw the same thing. Reflection; to mask, reflection to mask, there was no difference. Though the bleach had only caused a tempory redness of his skin, and a mismatched platinum blonde tone in his hair. Jack Jolly Moore forever saw only the face of a clown when he looked in a mirror.
"see...HA....HA HA HA AHOO AHOO HOO HA HA HA." He started Giggling and chuckling softly as if the realzation of everything that had been leading up to this...was nothing but one big...joke. "tttt...Twilight; Sunset?....Remind me to ask you for a swim when we get to Hurricane Harbor...I think the wave pool would be nice first... " He said to no one as he made his way with the bag of cash in hand. Before he began to laugh again...louder this time...much much louder.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH.....Ah...what a day!"
Author's Note
End Part One...To Be Concluded.
