The Red Hood: Chapter 4

Author’s note

     This is a work of fiction inspired by characters created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Robert Kanigher, Sheldon Moldoff, and various other renowned writers published by DC Comics. It is a retelling of the origins of the Batman Universe, which is copyrighted and should not be considered a true part of the mythology. I have created this project purely for the joy of dictating the actions of characters that I have grown to love over the years, and to suggest scenarios that I have often wondered myself would happen if those said actions were to have occurred in the mythos. Basically, its me being a kid and playing with my favorite toys again. That said, this story will never be published, nor distributed as an original idea, for it is not. It began as a writing exercise that at some point, transformed into an exciting unofficial chapter in the Batman series, that which is just far too awesome to keep to myself. Therefore, here it is. Hope you enjoy my interpretation of the origin of one of the most iconic villains in comic book history. 

Chapter 4

     The dawn was met by the presence of a gathering storm on the horizon. The distant thunder sent echoes of gunfire reverberating from his memory. Still he could recall every wrinkle that stretched from the corners of her mouth as she screamed; every bead of sweat that appeared from the perspiration at her brow when she lifted the small gun to seek her vengeance. She had no chance. He had gunned her down before she could even lock on to her target. Martha’s hand was steadier than his in her last moments, but the tides were against her. Jack had never killed anyone in his life, and now he had the blood of a woman on his hands; a mother’s blood…, a widow’s blood. His first kill made without honor. He had robbed the poor woman of her rightful claim to Joe Chill’s life, and so too stole from a child his mother right before his eyes. Jack’s wife had seen everything… the mother of his own unborn child. Now he was under orders to silence her as well.

Scarcely did he shed a tear for any victim whom has lost a great deal by way of his work, but for Bruce, Martha, and Thomas Wayne…, for his wife he wept. She was to pay the ultimate price for his sins, and he was to be her reaper. Jack knew he needed to do something, to get her somewhere safe. But first he had to get close enough to her so that he could explain. If he could only talk her down from doing anything rash, perhaps he would be able to get her out of Gotham before word of any of this should ever reach the Falcones’. He had to hurry, he knew as he raced his sedan back to his apartment in East Burnley.

When he came around the corner to head down the street that led to his home, he saw Harley’s SUV parked precariously off to the side, one of it’s front wheels mounted upon the curb, and the driver side door hanging open. He pulled up next to it, the car squealing to a stop. She heard the sound of the tires from inside her apartment. An open suitcase lay before her on the bed with clothes carelessly jammed inside. With a handful of needed supplies at her chest, she turned her attention toward the window that overlooked the road. She scanned it for a moment in stunned silence, the light reflecting off her tear drenched cheeks. Freeing a hand she carefully peeled back a corner of the curtain. Seeing her husband still in his red jacket as he reached into her open car to collect the keys from the ignition, she gasped with fright, immediately pulling away from the window. She then dropped the things in her hands and ran for the bedside phone. Fumbling for the receiver, she quickly punched in 911, and only a few moments later someone was on the other line taking her information.

“Hello!” She said with terror in her voice. “Please help me… I think I’m in danger…”

When jack turned to head for his apartment a black limo suddenly came tearing its way toward him. Sliding to a stop directly before him, two men with machine guns aimed at his chest poured out from the rear passenger doors, and forced him into the vehicle. Inside he found Joe Chill, and Carmine Falcone. Joe appeared to have been beaten mercilessly, as his face was covered in stark purple bruises, deep bloody gashes, and swelling knots. His left eye was consumed by blackened swollen flesh that appeared hard as bone, and his right could only shoot a brief apologetic glance his way before retreating back to the floor.

“Jack, please make yourself comfortable.” Carmine greeted, feigning exuberance. “Nice jacket.”

The armed men in black suits sat on either side of him, as he took his seat directly across from Carmine.

“Look…” He began pleading his case. “I have no idea what went wrong, but…”

“Your back was turned retrieving the package when an unexpected sound startled Mr. Chill here, thus causing him to pull the trigger upon our hostage’s esteemed father.” Carmine said in a stoic tone. “Then you saw the woman with a weapon at hand and took action. I am well informed of the details, and a trial over who did what and why is not the reason I have donned my best suit at such a miserable hour in the morning. I am here by the call of my father to give you a message.”

“What message?”

Carmine looked to the man across from Joe Chill and nodded his head. The henchmen then reached into his jacket and withdrew a pistol equipped with an elongated silencer. He pointed the silver barrel at Joe’s head, and before the man could utter a word of protest a whistling bullet sent chunks of his liquefied brain spattering against the rear window of the limo. His skull collapsed into the side door, as the killer found his next target. The end of the barrel was still scorching hot as it pressed hard at Jack Quinzel’s groin.

In a panic Jack squirmed away from the man, but the other hired hand wrapped his strong bicep around his throat, seizing him in a fixed position. Sweat was trailing from his scalp to his widened eyes, but Jack dared not to make another hasty move.

The spray of blood that found the side of Carmine’s face was already beginning to run down to his neck as he said, “I understand that you are a man of jokes… Well I have one for you: In a library run by monsters, what would you find in their books?”

Jack said nothing.

Carmine smiled and said, “The devil in the details… I believe you have some unfinished business to attend in that apartment there.” He nodded toward his home.

His head peering out from the mass of muscle around his jaw, Jack shook his head and begged, “Please… She’s my wife… You can’t make me do this. I won’t!”

The pressure had suddenly tightened around his neck, and he could sense that an antsy finger was testing the trigger at the pistol aimed for his manhood.

“Yes we can, and yes you will.” The boss challenged, leaning in closer. “You can either give her a quick and easy death, or we can show you both the true extent of the evil that the media has claimed the likes of our kind to possess.”

“She’s pregnant with my child.” Jack cried.

“Indeed, and if you wish to maintain the tools to try for another, than I suggest you get up there and do your fucking job.”

His demand was met with reluctant silence, until the henchmen with the gun pressed even harder, placing his genitals in an unbearable vice.

Unable to endure the pressure any longer, Jack caved and yelled, “Okay! I’ll do it.”

Before long, he was walking back toward his apartment, gun in hand, and Falcone’s men watching his every move. When he made it to his floor, he headed up the hardwood stairs to his room, where his wife was still standing next to the bed. The phone was lying off the receiver, and she was grasping a baseball bat in hand. Baring her teeth like a feral animal, she glared at him, fire in her eyes.

Holding the bat high she said, “Stay away.

He hid the gun behind his back as he cautiously made his way toward the window, freeing the doorway to the stairs. Glancing out the window he saw the men sill there, waiting outside of the limo.

A heedful eye upon his distraught wife he said, “Harley…”

“Don’t!” She spat, silencing him with guilt. “I saw you… You killed that woman. You’re a murderer.”

“I’m sorry, but I…”

She threw up a hand of warning, closing her eyes to chase the tears away. “How long? How long have you been doing this? How long have you been lying to me?”

“Almost a year.” He answered without hesitation. “We needed the money.”

“Could you not have gotten a real job?!” She snapped. “A bank teller, a gas station clerk? Christ! Even a fucking restroom attendant would be better than being a goddamn murderer caught in a life of crime!”

“You don’t understand. I wanted more for us.” He argued.

“A lot of good that has done us. Now my son will come into this world a bastard, born to a man responsible for the deaths of two of the most important people in Gotham.”

He let out a long grieving sigh. He hardened the features of his face, though a tear found way down his cheek. “No…” he said, raising the gun and pointing it at his wife. “He won’t.”

Aghast, she could only stare at the weapon in grave silence. Her hanging jaw quivered, the handle of the bat escaped her grasp and dropped to the floor. The clatter of the object bouncing off the hardwood was all that was heard for many moments. Then Harley uttered her husband’s name.

“I’m sorry… but this must be done.” He said coldly.

Harley then hurried across the bed trying for the door, but a sudden pain shot to her womb sent her tumbling off the other side of the bed where she collapsed to her hip. A throbbing sting exploded at her side, but still she crawled for the open doorway.

His gun locked on her back, Jack said, “Why?” His voice cracked with emotion. “Why couldn’t you have stayed out of this?”

At her feet again, Harley turned to look back at him, her face white with fear. She continued for the stairs.

“Harley, stop!” He warned.

She ignored him, taking the first step down, her hand protectively at her swollen belly. Even with all that had happened, she could have never dreamt that Jack would have shot her, especially in the back. But he had, the bullet exploding out of her midsection like a shooting star with a tail of crimson. And then he had again, the second only inches across from the last. It was not the pain that had stopped her in her tracks; though severe it was, being the worst she had ever endured in all of her life. It was the feeling of her child dying inside that sent her falling. As the weight of gravity pulled her down a foreign breath escaped her lips, and she knew it was not hers. Somehow she saw it as the soul of her unborn escaping the womb, and in that fleeting moment she wanted nothing more than to go where ever he or she was going, to escape this cruel world, to become one with the wind. Indeed she thought she had when the feel of the steps escaped her reach, when the empty air wrapped around her and the pull of the Earth heaved. She fell, as she had done so long ago over love, she found herself doing yet again by the hand of that very same man. Her everything she lived for turned harbinger of death… Her prince, her king, her push, her fall.  

Outside, Carmine’s henchmen heard the gunfire, but then another sound followed like an ominous lilt on the wind. The police sirens were growing, and they knew they would have to move quickly if they were to escape the scene unnoticed. One of the men knocked on the passenger window, and Carmine rolled it down.

“Police.” He warned.

“Collect the package.” Carmine replied, still with a cool about his voice. He then rolled back up the window, the reflections of his men making way for Jack’s sedan caught upon the glass.

At the trunk of the car, they dismantled the lock with yet another whistling bullet from the weapon with the silencer. It popped open, and they retrieved the ransom. Soon, they were back in the limo with their prize, and the driver spared little time fleeing the scene.

Jack froze a moment, the smoke from his gun still sifting in the air. His eyes hanging low, he moved for the stairs. He descended slowly, taking in the image of his lifeless wife sprawled out upon the floor before him to add to the on-going nightmare of that day. Blood was pooling from a wound at her skull where she had collided with the floor when landing. He knelt down by her side to feel for her pulse. To his disappointment, she was still alive. He stood and aimed the weapon at her head. His hand trembled as his guilt yet again took his conscious by storm. He found that he could not finish it, and when he heard the wail of the approaching sirens, he put the weapon away and fled.

He saw the trunk of his car still hanging open, but he paid little mind as he dove into the driver side and made for his escape.

Looking back at his street in the rearview mirror, he shook his head and said under his breath, “I’m so sorry, Harley.”

In Carmine’s limo, one of his men turned to him and asked, “What if he fails to silence the girl?”

His boss never looked away from the window, admiring the sight of the passing buildings as he answered, “Then we will make him regret it. If her eyes should see the light of another day, we will show them both to the darkness.”

#

     Some weeks later at Gotham General, shortly after a nurse had checked on her unconscious patient, assuring that her visitor had not tampered with any of the equipment while there, the heart monitor began racing. Her dormant hands sprung to life, gripping at the sheets beneath her, balling into white-knuckled fists. She shook her head, her breathing elevating. A word poured from her lips, tainted with desperation, loss, and fear.

     “n…no…”

     Harley Quinzel then threw open her eyes and screamed at the top of her lungs, “NOOOOO!!!!”

TO BE CONTINUED!