by Susan Lee
Mickey didn't consider it stalking when she parked outside of her old office building, waiting for a glimpse of Rick. She had to see him. She had to put his face in her mind one more time. Reconnaissance. Scouting. Part of the plan.
Instead, she saw Patty.
Her heart stopped.
Patty. Patty, who had been there for her in the darkest times. Patty, who had practically broken her door down to save her life. Patty, without whom she wouldn't be here. Without Patty... So many things.
Now, she was without Patty.
She hadn't thought about that because it was simply too painful to admit that she had shut Patty out. She had found a million excuses as to why Patty shouldn't be around her.
She pushed away her love for this woman just so she could continue to play the this part. So she could hurt. So she could kill. Without Patty, she had truly become the villain.
Once the tears began, Mickey couldn't stop them. She watched Patty through a river of water streaming from her eyes. She had parked well enough that she could see her friend but her friend would never see her.
Long after Patty had left and well after the sun had set, Mickey still sat in her car. Still as a statue, watching life move around her. The tears had long since dried but deep inside, they still flowed strong and hard. Tears for things she couldn't define, for things she didn't want to define, and for things she was afraid to define. Tears for allowing herself to be battered emotionally by THAT MAN and never having the balls to stop it. Tears for the hours of tears throughout her relationship with him. Tears for... just tears.
Mostly, tears because she knew there was nothing left.
Finally, as her old friend darkness began to creep in, Mickey was able to turn the key in the ignition and aim for home. Well, not home. Lair. The word didn't sound so sexy now. Lair. She had looked it up at some point. "A wild animal's resting place, especially one that is well hidden." Somewhere to hide dark things.
Her car pulled in through the loading doors in her building. She turned off the ignition, listening to the engine click and tick.
She let the silence fill her, for the first time in a long time. There were no voices, no words, nothing tickling her ear. Just empty quiet.
Choices. Vicki had said that we all make our own choices and we live with them. Choices.
Had she been making her own choices? Or had she again left her destiny in the hands of the crazy in her head? Sometimes, it was so hard for her to tell what was real and what was the crazy.
And if she were, indeed, fueled by the crazy, could she get off for what she had done? Or would she live with her choices in a jail cell or padded room forever? After all, they had been her choices, no matter where they came from.
She got out of the car and moved slowly through the crumbling decor into the one room she had deigned as her own. Instead of embracing her, the darkness now felt suffocating.
She climbed on to the bare mattress on the floor, dropping her messenger bag and keys along the way. She pulled her knees into her chest, as though to protect her from what was out there in the darkness. Right now, she longed for the voices to return, to have something break this terrible, awful, pressing silence. But the voices refused to surface.
Mickey curled up as tight as she could, her back pressing into the rough concrete wall. The cold permeated through her clothing and into her skin. But she didn't move. She knew this was it. Whatever she decided to do next, there was no turning back. She wanted to weigh her options, all of which were horrible and unbearable.
One, confess. Go to the police. Tell them everything. Help them find Vicki. Her eyes traveled up to her Batman figure, poised on a rough shelf that had been left behind. Two nametags bookended him - Vicki and V cki. That would be enough to convince them that she was the one. She was responsible. That she was making the move to live with her choices.
Two, call Patty. Pretty much ended up the same as choice number one, but at least Patty would be there for her and help her through it. Maybe. Maybe not. She knew Patty had every right to abandon her, yet somehow she knew that her friend would be by her side the entire way, whether it was jail or a hospital or execution. Her mind briefly wondered if there was a death penalty anymore and how long it would take.
That led to option three. Take the choice into her own hands and end it here. Once and for all. Do it right. No phone. No friend. Nothing to save her. Only the darkness to hold her as her life ran out. No one and nothing to rescue her.
She swore that her Batman moved at that moment. Maybe if he hadn't, things would have turned out differently. Maybe she would have been able to live with her choices. Maybe she would have had a chance to do the right thing.
Instead, Batman moved and all hope was lost.
EIGHT
It took a lot longer to put together a diabolical plan than Mickey thought it would take. There was a lot of planning and organizing and charts and maps and lists of things to buy. She actually had several diabolical plans - one or two large ones as well as one or two smaller ones. Being the organizer and the production manager she was, she decided to plan out all the scenarios and figure out which one would force her superhero into showing his batty face. By now, her conviction that Rick was her hero was wavering, but she knew she had to make sure.
The room she designated as her office became cluttered with her plans as she wrote and typed and drew her ideas and stuck them to the wall. She refused to acknowledge the frenetic energy with which she attacked this process. She decided it was the desire to get things done, not panic. After a few days, she felt that she was circling in on what she wanted to do.
She didn't want to do anything that involved too many strangers. Collateral damage had to be kept to a minimum so that he could see her humanity. Besides, too many variables if she walked into somewhere she wasn't familiar with and tried to execute a plan. She didn't have a lot of time because an unknown sense of urgency filled her so she didn't want to have to do weeks of preparation and research. She needed something she could attempt quickly and efficiently.
She needed to do something with enough bang to get his attention and to make a splash. How big of a splash, that's what she was trying to solidify.
Mickey spent her time splitting her purchases amongst several big box stores so as to not raise any red flags. She was buying supplies that shouldn't create a problem - duct tape, rope, chain, you know, the usual. But she was a good Girl Scout, she believed in being prepared and was buying more than she thought she needed.
One clerk noted the purchase.
"Home repairs?" Jennie, the clerk, commented cheerily as she ran up several rolls of plastic, duct tape and a variety of other tools.
"Yup," Mickey replied simply, having learned through her last ordeal that brevity often meant not having to answer too many more questions.
"We just bought a fixer-upper," Jennie, the clerk, continued as she bagged Mickey's purchases. "They just never told us how much up was needin' to be fixed." Jennie, the clerk, laughed at her own little joke and Mickey told herself to smile and chuckle as well.
After that, Mickey used the self-serve check-out lines whenever possible.
She carefully laid everything out as she bought it to make sure she didn't miss anything. She was finding it harder and harder to keep track of things lately, sometimes losing just a bit of time here and there. Not exactly a blackout. Just... missing time. That's why so many lists. That's why things had to be organized. She couldn't risk missing something important.
She stood over the several jugs of chemicals. That was the only thing she was afraid of. She failed chemistry in high school so the idea of trying to mix something to knock people out, but not kill them, terrified her. Being the research junkie that she was, she had read everything and watched all the YouTube videos she could find to make sure she didn’t fuck this up.
Finally, though, she was ready. Everything was done, everything was prepared. She stood in her“office”, surveying her master plan. Everything e
lse was burning in a metal drum nearby.
Not that it mattered. She knew that burning evidence wasn't going to save her. She calmly knew deep inside that she wasn't going to come out of this. Yet being efficient, she burned anything she didn't need. Simpler that way. Also, it helped keep the room warm. The nights were getting chilly as autumn began to give way to winter wings and the empty warehouse only had the power created by the couple of small generators she had purchased. She didn't want to waste them on something as frivolous as heat.
Once she had pared down everything to just the essentials, Mickey allowed herself a few moments to relax. She poured a shot of whiskey, a habit she seemed to have developed over the past few weeks. Another thing she didn't remember doing, although the line of empty bottles along the wall seemed to be an indicator that it was something she had begun doing fairly regularly.
She sank into a battered leather chair she had found, pulling it closer to the fire, her tumbler of amber balanced precariously until she settled.
She watched the flames lick the top of the drum, peeking out at her as though teasing her with their deadly tendrils. A siren song almost. She was drawn to them, thinking how warm it would be to just climb in and join them. Let them take away her pain and her fears. Wrap her up in the brilliant yellows and oranges and reds. Let the heat take away her thoughts. Just let everything go.
She pulled back quickly, just before her face brushed the edge of the drum. One more inch and she would have been out of commission for her plan. Just one more inch.
Her heart pounded loudly, causing her hand to tremble as she hefted the glass to her lips and swallowed long and hard. She had to be careful, she reminded herself. These little events, too, were getting more and more frequent.
There had been that day in the superstore parking lot where she had stood right in front of a large truck going too fast and stepped aside at the very last second.
She had decided to only drive during the day because at night, she was finding herself drawn to the center divider far too often, once actually scraping it before she managed to pull the car back on to the road. Maybe that's why the whiskey had become so important. It was something that helped keep her calm and even.
Mickey sat back, her breath finally slowing down, closing her eyes against the fire. Still, the flames danced and glimmered against her eyelids, causing a beautiful light show. The time was now, she knew, because there wasn't much time left. She knew she was almost lost. She knew she had to do this now.
She scanned the wall one more time, double and triple checking to make sure she had everything ready. Noticing her empty tumbler, she refilled it before she went to check on the visitor's room.
That's what she had taken to calling it. Visitor's room. Or visitors' room, all depending on how things went. She ran her hands over the pieces of furniture she had collected from all over the warehouse. She double checked the locks and chains. She hefted and tugged and pulled and shook everything. She checked the plastic sheeting on the beds. She decided that all was as secure as she could make it. She may be new at the villain thing but she sure as shit knew how to organize and execute a plan.
Finally, she ran out of things to check and check and check, and she was left sitting in her chair, the fire only embers now, barely warming the area around her. She poured the last of the whiskey into her glass, startled to find the bottle empty. She set it on the floor, figuring she'd add it to the line up later. She stared into the bottom of the glass, finally confessing to the liquid what she didn't dare confess even to herself.
"I'm scared."
• • • • • • • • • • •
No one knew that today was the day. Everyone went about their work as if it were an ordinary Tuesday. After all, nothing exciting happens on a Tuesday. It's not quite the beginning of the week. It's not hump day. It's not almost Friday, or Friday or the weekend. It's just Tuesday.
Later, when the police asked them about this day, they all said the same thing - it was just a Tuesday.
No one knew that someone lurked in the shadows, mask firmly in place, something beginning to resemble a costume in place, though it was more Halloween than Marvel. Still, it would have startled anyone who stumbled across the woman hiding in the darkness.
Rick, especially, only knew he was at work, just another day, putting together a hierarchy for a new client. His mind was on working out the details of the programming, not wondering if he was going to survive to see next Tuesday. That changed the moment the lights went out.
NINE
Mickey stood over him, watching him breathe. That wasn't creepy, she told herself, it was just making sure he was okay. She wasn't sure if she used too much or too little when she released the gas into the office. She actually barely remembered doing any of it. She just found herself with some sort of chemical mixture, standing at the ventilation system, her own gas mask in place. It crossed her mind to wonder where she got the gas mask. But it didn't seem that important.
His chest was moving up and down, that was the important thing. She hadn't used too much. She hadn't stuck around to check on anyone else. As long as he was breathing, everything was okay.
She adjusted the pillow under his head. She wanted him to be comfortable when he woke up. He would be disoriented enough. She had gotten a bed from somewhere, something that was sturdy and wasn't easily dismantled. Wouldn't do if he could fashion a weapon or some means of escape because she had bought a DIY bed from Ikea. However, she would watch him closely, hoping that he would release his inner superhero and prove her right.
He moaned as he tried to turn over and the shackles impeded his progress.
"Shhhhh," she whispered softly, tendering moving the chains around so he could shift into the position he wanted to be in. She thought he smiled slightly as she brushed his hair from his face, ignoring the sweat that had gathered there. "It's all right, Rick. It'll be all right."
"All right," he echoed back from his twilight zone. That made her heart leap with joy. He heard her. He was responding to her. She did the right thing. This would turn out exactly how she wanted it to turn out. She didn't hear the pain in his voice and chose to not see the frown creasing his brow. She decided he was happy to be there, so therefore, he had to be happy to be there.
When his movements started to become more and more constant, Mickey realized she had been standing over him way too long. Once again, she had lost track of minutes and possibly hours.
She pulled herself away from him, closing and locking the door behind her. She had somehow created a panic room of sorts - a room that sealed completely, no windows, no real way to see anything except a small hinged opening just big enough to put a tray through. She had gotten the idea from a comic book somewhere and had made it happen. She didn’t quite remember intentionally creating it this way but somehow, this was what it had apparently evolved into.
Mickey jiggled the door, making sure the lock was solid. She jiggled it again. And again. And again. She couldn't stop. She didn't know why. But she had to keep doing it.
What if he got loose? What if the lock didn't hold? What if he jimmied the lock? What if he had something concealed somewhere that would let him slip something out the little opening and pry the lock open and push the door open and find her and confront her and tell her how awful she was and what a terrible thing she had done and then he goes to the police and they arrest her and she ends up with the death penalty and then she never really knows if he is Batman or not?
"Take a breath," she whispered to herself. "It's okay. Take a breath." In. Out. In. Out. Her hand wouldn't stop shaking but she stopped jiggling the door. She knew she had a camera in the room so she could keep an eye on him. At least, she thought she had put one in there.
She moved into her main room, where her command center was now set up. Yup. Definitely a camera in there. A couple of monitors she had found now showed a couple of angles on the room. No matter where he moved, she could see him.
She filled a tu
mbler, put the bottle within reach, then settled down to watch Rick TV.
Nothing changed over the next few hours except the level of the whiskey in the bottle. As the amber liquid slowly disappeared and Rick began to regain consciousness, Mickey felt her anxiety begin to grow. Had she thought this through enough? What would she say to him? Should she let him know it was her? Or let him figure it out? Should she wear the mask? Should she talk to him? What the hell was she doing?
The glass shattered against the wall before she realized she had thrown it. Her sanity had sneaked in for a brief second and tried to get her attention. It screamed for her to stop, to think, to just let him go before any more damage was done. But even her sanity knew she was past the point of no return.
Tears poured down her cheeks and she didn't realize she was sobbing out of control until she sank to the floor in the midst of the glass. She reached out to gather and get rid of the evidence but her hands were shaking so hard, she cut herself badly on the first piece she picked up.
"Goddammit!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, releasing all of the fear and terror and feelings she had been sitting on. "God-fucking-damn-it-to-goddamned-hell-fuck!"
She began throwing the pieces against the wall, shattering the larger pieces even further, tearing her hands to shreds. Still, she threw, blood creating Pollack-like spatters on the wall. Finally, the pain reached through the emotion and her bloodied fingers would no longer function. Then, she just sat. Quiet. Emotionless. Empty. Hollow.
"Help," she barely whispered. "Help me."
• • • • • • • • • • •
He stopped yelling and screaming after about an hour. Mickey sat on the floor next to the room, listening until he was hoarse and exhausted. Now all she could hear was his heavy breathing, colored by panic, and the sound of the bed as he shifted around on it.
