Batman 1 - Batman

by CRAIG SHAW GARDNER

  He lifted the nose as quickly as he dared. The Batwing responded quickly, but the cathedral was still coming up too fast. One of the wings would catch the crumbling tower. The engine screamed as he banked the plane sharply right. Somehow, he missed the cathedral tower by inches.

  But the maneuver was not without its cost. The Batwing was climbing full-out, G-forces pushing Batman back into his seat. He fought against the pressure, pushing against air that suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds per square inch. He let out a groan as he reached the control panel and moved his hand, slowly, carefully, down to the release switch. He pressed it at last, and the balloons were free.

  Once his cargo was gone, it was easy to level the plane out and turn it back toward the city. The balloons were still rising as they drifted out over the ocean. They wouldn’t be a threat to anyone for a while. He radioed the coast guard to alert them of any potential danger. That done, he headed to Broad Avenue.

  He wished, absently, that he might have a moment to catch his breath. But every moment he spent meant more innocent lives would be taken by the Joker.

  It was time to finish this.

  Boom shakalakalaka. Boom shakalakalaka.

  The blaring rock music echoed hollowly down Broad Avenue. Everyone was gone. They had all run away.

  The Joker ripped off his gas mask and threw it down on the float.

  “He stole my balloons!” he screamed.

  Nobody had an answer for that. He shook his fists up at the sky.

  “Why didn’t somebody tell me he had one of those things?”

  Still, nobody spoke. The Joker found this immensely unsatisfying.

  He asked for Bob’s gun and shot him. Good old Bob.

  That made him feel a little better.

  Bob pitched from the float to the money-littered street below. He was quite dead. Good old Bob.

  He stuck the gun back in his coat. It was good to make sure your aim was there every now and then. The other boys paused and watched him. It was time for orders.

  “Wage war, you bastards!” he screamed.

  He turned off the rock music.

  Broad Avenue was suddenly silent, except for the sound of a distant jet.

  He flew down the end of Broad Avenue. A few seconds from now, he’d be directly over the Joker and the rest of the human scum.

  Batman flipped the proper switches to arm the Batwing. A computer voice softly announced when each of the devices was properly deployed.

  “Searchlight.

  “Laser gun.

  “Gatling gun.

  “Heat-seeking missiles.”

  That should be enough, at least for the first ran. A few more switches and he had cleared the safety mechanisms and armed the rockets.

  It was time for a little eradication.

  Batman’s plane was coming for them, low and slow. But this time it looked different, less sleek than before. It had things hanging from its lower fuselage, things that looked like guns and missiles.

  The boys ran away.

  “It’s just cookin’ good, you schmoes!” the Joker yelled at his retreating troops. “What’s going on?”

  The boys didn’t even bother looking back. What kind of loyalty was that? And after he had made such a good example of Bob. The Joker hated to waste a good example.

  A spotlight flashed on as the plane swooped overhead.

  The Joker laughed, and danced out into the path of the onrushing light.

  “Come to me,” he screamed, “you gruesome son of a bitch!”

  He was coming up to the parade.

  Or what was left of the parade. The searchlights were stationary, the floats and trucks abandoned. Everyone was gone.

  He placed the mobile missile sights over his eyes.

  Not everyone was gone. In the magnified sights he saw a single figure standing in the middle of the street, jumping up and down and waving at the approaching plane.

  It was the Joker. He had his arms outstretched, as if in greeting.

  Well, Batman thought, if that’s the way he wants it.

  “Engage,” he whispered softly. The computer did the rest.

  Bullets, lasers, and missiles screamed down on Broad Avenue, all taking out their assigned targets. Batman wanted to make sure the Joker didn’t have any more surprises hiding in any of his floats or other equipment. So the equipment had to be obliterated.

  In the middle of all the destruction, he saw the Joker doing the waltz. Everything had missed him. So far.

  All right! He was having fun now.

  Things were exploding all over the place. There went a float, here a truck—oops! a building got it that time—bad shot.

  Once in a while, a bullet came for him. But the Joker was faster.

  A searchlight shattered, producing a magnificent rain of glass. The Joker had never seen such wonderful destruction. You had to hand it to Batman. This was what life was all about.

  Unfortunately, all good things had to come to an end.

  The Joker pulled out his other gun—the one with the real, real long muzzle. He took careful aim as the plane turned around for another pass.

  He pulled the trigger.

  Bang.

  The Joker looked up from where the recoil had pushed him to the ground. It was a great gun, but it kicked like a mule.

  Bingo!

  Did he have the best aim anywhere, or what?

  The left wing of Batman’s plane had sprouted fire and a very satisfying thick, black smoke. The plane was wobbling badly before it swooped down overhead. The Joker ducked as it passed a dozen feet above the street. It was aimed straight for the steps of the Gotham Cathedral.

  And that’s exactly where it smashed.

  There was a moment of silence before the Joker started to laugh.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Commissioner Gordon pulled his car over at the edge of the destruction. He could hardly recognize this stretch of Broad Avenue anymore. Windows and streetlights were smashed, twisted bits of metal littered the avenue and the sidewalks on either side—that is, where the road still existed. Up ahead, he could see the avenue abruptly stop at the lip of a crater. What had these guys been fighting with out here—heat-seeking missiles?

  A dozen squad cars pulled up behind him. Gordon waved for them to stop. With the condition of Broad Avenue, they’d have to go the rest of the way on foot.

  Mercifully, there were very few dead bodies in the rubble ahead. Maybe, Gordon thought, they could stop it before any more died.

  This latest incident had broken Mayor Borg completely. He wouldn’t talk to anyone anymore, except to mutter darkly, over and over, about “the death of Gotham City.” With the mayor gone, Harvey Dent was running police headquarters, if not the entire city, virtually single-handedly. Gordon had volunteered to see what he could do on-the streets.

  There was no way they could have stopped the Joker’s plan. His doctored coffee had affected over ninety percent of the force. So far, no one had died, but there were close to two thousand police officers hospitalized all over the city. And every crook and lowlife in town realized the cops had been decimated. Robbery and looting were everywhere—what few police were left could respond only to the most extreme of the calls. Dent had gotten the governor to call out the National Guard, but they couldn’t be fully mobilized until the following morning.,

  A couple of the men had come to the parade on theif own initiative, but the mob had been way beyond any sort of ordinary crowd control. Gordon had ordered his men to hold back until backup could arrive.

  Now the reserves were here.

  Gordon surveyed his troops. Fourteen cars in all—twenty-six men and women—virtually all that was left of the Gotham City Police Force. Gordon knew a few of them by name; others he probably hadn’t seen again after their graduation from the police academy. They would all do whatever they could to keep Gotham City alive.

  He had the twenty-six spread out across the street, weapons at the ready. He put a couple of the guy
s who’d brought their high-powered rifles at either end of the line to act as point guards, with the others following in a ragged V.

  He led the way as they moved into the war zone.

  “Thomas. I think someone is following us.”

  His mother’s voice. They had just come from the theater. Why couldn’t he remember the play?

  The sound of running feet. His mother and father, so tall to either side, hustling him down the street, away from something.

  But they couldn’t get away. Not by running. He knew that now. How could he tell his mother and father not to run? Why didn’t they know it?

  They ran toward a man with a gun. A boy, really, only a few years older than he was. But the gun made him a big man.

  The boy with the gun turned to look at them. Bruce remembered the smile. He had seen it so many times before. But the rest of the boy’s face was different—made up like a clown; greasepaint white with bloodred lips and wild green hair. The clown was new. Bruce knew it didn’t make any difference. They still couldn’t run.

  Why didn’t his parents see? The gun went off twice before he could tell them, twin blossoms of flame that touched both his mother and father, turning them to ash.

  The clown started to laugh, but Bruce knew he couldn’t be afraid.

  “Did you ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?” the clown asked.

  But Bruce didn’t cower. He didn’t run. Instead, he walked toward the clown.

  The dance was about to begin.

  Then all was blackness.

  What was it with these good citizens?

  Here was the Joker, busy having a good laugh. And all these people started showing up from the side streets and bombed-out buildings. Worse than that, they had the temerity to be angry! Didn’t they know this was the Joker’s party? Heck, they should be happy just to be alive!

  Why, the very thought of it made him want to laugh.

  They didn’t take kindly to that, either. They actually started throwing things at him. Imagine those ingrates! This was the last time he’d ever try to entertain citizens before he killed them.

  A loose brick hit his shoulder. He looked beyond the crowd and saw even more people approaching, except these newcomers seemed to be wearing police uniforms. Perhaps, he considered, it was time for a change of scene. He should see what had happened to the Batman, after all. He was sure Batman would do no less for him.

  The Joker pulled one of his smaller guns from his coat and fired a round into the air. The crowd of brick throwers hesitated in a most satisfying way, even backing away a bit. Much better. He turned and trotted toward Batman’s plane.

  Batman’s plane exploded.

  The Joker picked himself back up and dusted himself off. He certainly seemed to be getting tossed around tonight. Ah, well. You couldn’t make an omelet without breaking a few heads.

  Batman’s plane had been a twisted wreck before. Now it was a flaming, twisted wreck. He guessed that meant a final showdown with Batman was out of the question. He’d have to have his final showdown with someone else.

  He cha-chaed around the flames as he climbed the cathedral stairs, pausing at last to look at the burning wreckage. He was forgetting something. What was it? Who was it? Oh, yes, indeedy. It was a girl named Vicki.

  Vicki came out of hiding when she heard the explosion.

  It had taken her only a moment to examine Knox’s wounds. The reporter had been incredibly lucky. A bullet had creased his shoulder, glass had cut his forehead, besides that he was unharmed. The two wounds had looked messy at first, but the bleeding had already stopped. He wouldn’t die from either of them. He had probably passed out from shock more than anything else. She would have to get him to a hospital soon to get him cleaned up. But there was something else she had to do first.

  She had seen the plane crash into the steps of the cathedral. The Batman’s plane.

  She had to find out what had happened to Bruce.

  The wreck was a mess, all twisted metal and small fires. Nobody could have survived something like this, could they? She stood there on the steps, numb from the battle she had just survived. If there was any way she could find out if Bruce was still alive . . . somehow put out those fires, pull what was left of the plane apart. Vicki stared at the wreck and felt helpless.

  The wreckage moved. A crumpled metal plate cluttered down the steps.

  Batman stood in the remains of the plane.

  For a moment, Vicki was dumbfounded. Then she started toward the wreckage—

  She felt something hard and cold press her left temple. A gun barrel. The Joker’s gun barrel. “Looks like I’ll have to get you to the church on time,” the Joker said in her ear.

  He shoved her up the steps when they reached the entrance to the cathedral.

  “Got to arrange for our ride,” he told Vicki.

  He took a walkie-talkie from his jacket pocket and thumbed the transmitter button. “Gotham City Cathedral, transportation for two,” he said into the microphone. “Five minutes.” He glanced up at the tower of the cathedral. Wow. That was one sucker of a tower. A lot of funny statues—gargoyles, they were called—near the top.

  “Better make that ten,” he said into his walkie-talkie.

  Batman hauled himself from the smouldering ruins of the plane. He knew he was badly hurt. Pain stabbed his chest and he felt blood trickling down his cheek, under his mask, from a gash in his head. He looked down at his body and saw torn and bruised flesh under the shredded costume. But, he was still alive. He could still move. And his task was not yet finished.

  He looked around. At the top of the steps, visible through the smoke from the plane, the Joker was entering the cathedral. He had someone with him, someone he was prodding with a revolver, a woman. Vicki. Batman stifled an urge to cry out, and began to run.

  Thomas. There’s someone following us.

  He wrenched open the door to Gotham Cathedral.

  Where were the Joker and Vicki? They must be somewhere inside the ruined building. Or maybe in the tower.

  Thomas. There’s someone.

  He shut the door behind him. There was a bar next to the door, a thick piece of oak, still firm. He placed the bar in the metal brackets on the inner part of the door so that no one else could come in to disturb them.

  Someone following us. But they couldn’t run.

  He listened. There was no sound. The Joker was hiding.

  He took a step forward into the rubble. There was a step down that he didn’t see. He lost his footing, fell heavily into an old wooden pew. The bench fell forward, knocking over the next pew before it, and that the next pew before it, all the way to the front of the church. Like his own private game of dominoes.

  The pews made a lot of noise. So much for surprise.

  As the first pew fell, the Joker darted out from behind the altar, holding Vicki in front of him. They paused at a door at the rear of the church. The Joker waved and called, “Missed me!”

  Then he pushed Vicki through the door.

  Batman started forward. It was hard to walk, difficult to breathe. He’d done something to his side in the plane crash, then he made it worse when he knocked against the pews. Broken some ribs, most likely. He’d just have to hope there wasn’t any internal bleeding. It couldn’t be helped.

  Couldn’t be helped. Couldn’t run anymore. There was someone up ahead. A man with a gun.

  Batman found himself at the foot of a long, steep flight of steps leading to the tower, eight hundred feet above.

  He began to climb.

  Gordon and the police climbed the stairs to the cathedral. They had met no resistance on the way. The Joker, apparently, was on his own. As was the Batman.

  The commissioner had seen the whole drama spread out before him. The Batman’s plane, smashed on the steps of Gotham Cathedral; the Joker, firing his gun in the air to stun the crowd and make his escape; the explosion, and Batman rising from the wreckage.

  Both Batman and the Joker had gon
e into the cathedral. Commissioner Gordon wondered what was going on inside that ruin right now. Part of him wanted to hold his men back and let the Batman take the Joker apart, piece by piece. Part of him, Gordon realized, wished that he could be the Batman.

  But that wasn’t Commissioner Gordon’s job. Even if his instincts were right, the Batman was still working outside the law. And that sort of thing couldn’t work, especially in a city the size of Gotham.

  Maybe the city had lost law and order for a few hours. But law and order started again, here and now.

  The door to the cathedral wouldn’t open. It was bolted from the inside.

  Gordon ordered his men to beat it down.

  You couldn’t keep a good crimefighter down.

  It had surprised the Joker for a moment to see that costumed nut up and stumbling. But, once you had survived a dunking in toxic waste, nothing surprised you for long. Maybe the two of them would have their showdown after all. They would, that is, if the Joker couldn’t get out of here fast enough.

  But he had a date with a helicopter in another five minutes, and a whole slew of stairs to climb.

  He heard Batman, grunting far below him. On the steps above him, Vicki was panting. The Joker himself wasn’t breathing hard at all.

  He couldn’t run. There was a man with a gun.

  There was more wrong with him than a few broken ribs. As the adrenaline drained from his body, he could feel where he had wrenched his right knee. He had to be careful to stand on it just the right way or his leg would give out on him. He must have torn something in his left hand as well. When he tried to straighten the last two fingers, he wanted to scream.

  There was a man with a gun. He knew the man’s smile.

  He wanted to scream, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t give the Joker the pleasure of knowing his problems or his location.

  He knew the man’s smile.

  The broken ribs dug into his side when he lifted his right leg. But he couldn’t stop. The Joker was up there, somewhere, waiting for him. The Joker and Vicki.