14

He stood on the edge of the concrete channel, studying his dark-eyed reflection in the slow-moving filthy water. A light rain creating ripples that distorted his appearance. He was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and bowtie—the suit Jeannie had taken in for him last week—and looked ready for the stage.

His companions wore trench coats. How come he hadn’t?

The narrow waterway ran along the side of the Ace Chemical Processing Company. Streams of oily fluid dribbled out of round, three-foot-wide drainage pipes that snaked from the plant. Up a slight embankment stood a chain-link fence topped with loops of concertina wire.

“Hey, c’mon! Quit daydreamin’. Are we doing this thing or ain’t we?”

The comic hardly heard. Didn’t even know which of the men had spoken.

“Uh, yes, yes, of course,” the comic said. “I was, I was just remembering… I used to walk along here on the way to work each morning…”

“Yeah, yeah,” the skinny one said. His hat was pulled low against the weather, and he was struggling to pull the red tube mask out of the carpet bag. “Now put this sucker on, man. An’ shut up.”

“What, right now?” he said as the guy lowered the thing over his head. “I mean… I mean, are you sure it’s okay? Will I be able to breathe?”

“Hey, man, everything’s cool,” the guy said. “Jeez, y’know, you got a funny-shaped head.” After a moment it was resting on his shoulders. “There… you still see okay, man?”

“Wuh, well, yeah. I guess,” he said. “Except everything’s red… It’s kinda stuffy too, and it smells funny.” Like old sweat and desperation. “Does my voice sound echoey to you?” Seen through the bizarre red lenses, the skinny thug looked strange, with dark eyes and a grotesque grin.

“You sound great,” Bowler Hat said impatiently, leading him over to a crumbling set of steep concrete steps. “Now… how about guidin’ us through this stinkin’ factory to the joint next door?”

The skinny guy went ahead of them, backing up the stairs and steadying the comedian to keep him from falling.

“Watch out, man. Steps.”

“Sure. Sure thing.” The red-hooded comic had his hands out to balance himself. “Y’know… this feels kinda weird. Like a dream. I keep remembering Jeannie…”

They cut through the fencing and made their way into a huge open area—a labyrinth of concrete walkways between pools of stagnating liquids from which vapors rose. There were towering steel vats, rows of pipes and gauges, and steel catwalks. Just as it had been in the day, security was concentrated at the entrances. The plant’s owners were cheap-shit, so there weren’t any patrols until after darkness fell. Or so the comedian had informed the two.

“Okay, we go through here,” he said, leading the way unsteadily. “Past the filter tanks and then Monarch Playing Cards is just beyond a partition.” Though he heard the throb of machinery and churn of pumps, it was after hours, so there weren’t any personnel. “Y’know, this place… it looks even worse in red. It looks like—”

“Hey, you! Freeze!”

The shout seemed to come from above.

“C’mon, c’mon, get ’em up!”

Twisting to the right, he had to shift his entire upper body to see the uniformed security guard on the catwalk. The man had his legs spread wide, his feet planted, and a pistol leveled at them.

“You asshole!” the skinny thief screeched. “You said there was no security!”

“They… they must have altered things since I left…”

“Altered things? I’m gonna alter your stupid horse face, man.” The thug pulled out a pistol and opened fire upward. The sound was deafening.

“That noise!” He desperately wanted to cover his ears, but could only grip the curved surface of the red hood. “It’s so loud in here!”

Someone shoved him. It was the guy with the bowler.

“For God’s sake, run!” he shouted. “This is all screwed up!” As they took off between the open-air vats, they heard the guard again.

“Murph, get some men over to the rear bays. We got the Red Hood mob in here.”

Oh, shit, he’s calling for backup, the comic thought frantically. Then it sunk in. Red Hood mob. Oh crap! He means me!

“Oh, Jesus!” Joe hollered, wheezing with the effort. “Which way is it? How do we get out?” With no place else to go, they ran past parallel rows of tall domed holding tanks. Chemicals could be heard sloshing through a convolution of pipes. The rain continued to fall.

“I… I don’t know! This mask… can’t see where I’m going.”

“I’m gonna kill you, you useless son of a bitch,” his skinny cohort gritted. “When we get outta here, I’m gonna—”

Thunder overwhelmed his every sense.

Just in front of him, the two criminals burst out from the narrow rows of pipes, then twisted grotesquely as bullets ripped into them. Through the red filter of the hood, the blood looked black as it spurted wherever the bullets penetrated. A thick mist sprayed everywhere. He couldn’t tell if it came from the pipes or the bodies, but it seeped into the cloth of his suit, made him itch, and he felt as if his skin was bubbling from underneath. He stumbled against a fifty-gallon barrel stenciled with the black ace of spades.

The skinny one got off a last shot, but a bullet went straight through his skull, knocking off his hat.

The two crumpled to the concrete.

But pudgy Joe wasn’t dead. “Aw hell… aw hell…” he said, groaning in pain. “You guys… you guys don’t want me.” His voice rose. “You want him. He’s the ringleader. He’s the Red Hood!”

“What?” the comic said, and then he realized he was covered in something sticky. “What is it? What is it?” He lifted his hands. “It’s all over me…”

Above them, someone shouted, “Watch out! He’s pulling a gun!” A shot rang out, just missing him. Another hit the pudgy guy in the chest, and blood spurted out of his back.

“Oh no,” the hooded man screeched. “No no no no…” Desperate to get away, he scrambled up a metal ladder.

*   *   *

“Up on the catwalk!” A guard sighted down his barrel. “I’ve got his ass good and dead.”

“No more shooting.”

The sibilant voice came from behind the security personnel. As one they turned—and gaped.

“The human bat,” one of them gasped.

“I’m here now,” the Bat Man said. “I’ll take care of it my way.” The ears on his mask were as long as his head, and his black cape draped over his shoulders like wings. His spiked gloves made it look as if he had claws for hands.

From a standing position, he effortlessly leapt over the men, balanced for an instant on the rail of the catwalk, then ran along it like a tightrope walker. Leaping into the air he did a perfect somersault over vats of chemicals, moving gracefully and fluidly, his cape flapping behind him as if it had a life of its own.

*   *   *

Hearing the sound of close pursuit, the helmeted man looked back over his shoulder, then stopped. He held his hands out to ward off the newcomer.

“So, Red Hood, we meet again,” the Bat Man said. His cape settled around him like a shroud, and his eyes were slits in the mask. Through the hood, everything was blood red. Perhaps it was the chemicals, absorbed through his skin, affecting the hooded comedian’s perceptions. What he faced was a stygian beast, come to drag him down to the pits. To pay for the sin of failing his wife and unborn child.

“No, no no no,” he cried out. “This isn’t happening. Oh dear God, what have you sent to punish me?” If his pursuer heard, he gave no indication. “Don’t come closer! Don’t come any closer, or I’ll…”

The bat figure reached out with a claw.

“… I’ll jump!”

Spinning, he went up and over the rail, plunging down into the sickly green pool of unknown chemicals. The current moved quickly here, and for a moment he considered letting it envelop him as his clothes became saturated, dragging him along. The burning intensified, then eased as a carousel of colors and shapes swam before his eyes.

Reflex took over and he swam upward, gasping inside the hood as he broke the surface of the toxic brew. The stream had carried him outside, not far from the plant, to a drainage channel like the one in which he had seen his reflection. He coughed violently and vomited inside the helmet. With frantic strokes he moved to the crumbling moss-covered cement edge of the canal.

Suddenly the burning was back.

“I’m stinging,” he cried out, the sound echoing in the hood. “Itching, my face, my hands… Something in the water? Oh, Jesus, it burns…” He clutched at the damned thing covering his head. “Get this stupid hood off. Get it off so I can…”

Finally he wrenched it off and peered down into a puddle of rainwater.

“…see.”

What looked back was unrecognizable.

He dropped to his knees and covered his face in his hands. When he looked again, though, nothing had changed. His eyes were pools of darkness in an impossibly white face. And his hair…

I need to get out of here.

Lurching to his feet, he stumbled away from the Ace Chemical Processing plant, leaving the hood behind. His mind whirled, the burning abated, and one syllable escaped his lips.

“Ha.”

Suddenly it was clear.

“Ha ha ha.”

It was all a joke.

Once he started laughing, it became impossible to stop, to hold it in. He had found what he had always sought… laughter.

Unrestrained, inescapable laughter!

The joke was on him, for now—but soon he’d be the one dispensing the laughs.

His jokes would be killer.