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#2
JAN 06 |
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“When Angels Deserve to Die”
Stryker’s Island Penitentiary
West River
The cell door slid on its track and closed with a loud metal clang. It locked as a series of gears turned, sliding the four metal deadbolts into position. The narrow walkway was flanked by three stories of cells, only making the path seem slimmer to the man that walked alone between them.
His footfalls were quiet, drowned out by the wolf whistles, death threats and various curses about himself and his mother. Arm’s flailed through the bars, swinging at the man, taunting him or flipping him the bird. Others pressed their bare bottoms against the bars, spit on the floor or threw at him crumpled-up balls of paper that barely posed any threat.
The entire cellblock was submerged in a cacophony of sound and anger over the man that was responsible for putting many of them where they were now.
He represented everything they rebelled against.
This only proved to make the otherwise short walk feel twenty times longer, but he swallowed the pity he felt over this example of humanity and focused on his goal. The hail of paper bounced harmlessly off of him, but he was certain that the spit, or so he hoped it was only spit, would force him to not simply wash his uniform, but to burn it in the sun and move on to another suit. He had known all of this was likely to happen, which was part of the reason he denied the warden’s request to send an escort with him – to spare the poor officer the humiliation that the prisoners tried to force upon him.
Finally, seconds later, he reached his destination, outside of the cell of a tragic, twisted man. Everything around the visitor faded away as he focused on the man he had come to see.
He didn’t say anything at first as he took in the surroundings of this man’s cell. Pictures of antique toys, stuffed animals and figurines that stood displayed in a specially designed case on a shelf served as a window into the serial killer’s child-like psyche. He felt partially responsible for the killer, for not handling the fragile personality with better care and attention. Instead he let this man lull him into a sense of comfort; that no matter the threat presented it could never be enough to worry about.
Adam Morgan, this man’s first victim in his fall to the darker side, served as a painful reminder that he should never have let his guard down. To this day Superman had never forgiven himself for the innocent child’s death.
The Toyman lay on his bed, his hands resting, cupped, above his cleanly shaved baldhead, practically oblivious to the Man of Steel scrutinizing him. The thick lenses of his glasses, in their black plastic frame, reflected the bright fluorescent lighting, and Clark could swear he saw his reflection briefly look back at him, offering himself a quick glance into his own tortured soul.
“Where are the other children, Winslow?”
The Toyman rolled his portly body onto its side before swinging his feet onto the floor. Prison life hadn’t been kind to Winslow Schott, and a couple more wrinkles had formed on his forehead. It was said that even in prison there’s a bit of an honor system: they didn’t like child killers. Judging by the bruise that was fading on Winslow’s jaw Superman could see it was true. It disgusted him to almost think, for a second, that Winslow deserved it.
As he calmly sat on the edge of his bed, a simple peace settled over Toyman with a look of innocence and contentment on his round face. Clark controlled himself from pulling the large steel door off the hinges, like a leaf plucked off a tree, and ripping that look off Schott’s face.
“They’re somewhere free from the corruption of technology.” Winslow stood up and walked over to look at the shelf that held his figurines. His back was turned on Superman, but he talked anyway. “Why can’t you see that I’m saving them? Insolent children raised by bad parents to mug and murder people, and incite school violence.”
“You’re twisted, Schott. You lost your way and abandoned your whole cause. You never wanted to kill children. They were more precious to you than your toys. Why did you stray?”
Winslow turned around. “Did you know that most children form their adult personality before their teens? Yet, they’re allowed to play games like ‘Grand Theft Auto’ to learn how to screw and beat up hookers, or ‘Doom’ to learn how to kill things with gigantic guns. Or jump on the Internet and watch garbage pornography that corrupts their minds with visions of rape and promiscuous sex! Their morals are corrupt before they have the chance to live life!” The Toyman’s face flushed red, and spittle hung from his bottom lip before he quickly sucked it back in. “That’s why I adopted the kids. If they aren’t raised properly by their own parents, then who’s going to do it?”
“You didn’t adopt those kids. You kidnapped them. Held them against their will, and killed them when they refused to play along with you!” Superman snapped. “There are still more missing, Schott. The SCU and Missing Person’s connected six more children to you and I want to know where they are!”
The Toyman wasn’t listening. “Tell me, Superman. How many children even find you ‘cool’ anymore? Your toy and merchandise sales slip each day. Your old-fashioned standard means nothing today when children have people like Batman to idolize. They’re barbaric brutes that use violence and horrific intimidation to get their way. You just ask politely for the bad guy to lower his gun.”
Superman shook his head. “Violence isn’t an answer to violence, Schott.”
Toyman raised an eyebrow, “Really? Did you tell that to Doomsday after you killed him twice? Did you give mercy to the Cyborg after you shattered him into a million pieces before you learned he could transfer his consciousness? What about Brainiac? Massacre? You’ve shown on plenty occasions that you’re just as capable to smash things with your fists.”
“Those are completely invalid. What I did was absolutely necessary to protect the world.”
“What I did was necessary to teach those defiant brats some manners!”
Clark tightened his jaw and forced out through clenched teeth, “Just tell me where those kids are.”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“Because the mothers of those kids were informed two hours ago, and I think you would like to avoid another confrontation like the one you had with Catherine Grant. The ending would probably be less cynical this time around.” Clark could see tiny beads of sweat form on the top of Schott’s head, giving the bald skin a glossy surface. In the end he knew Schott, when pushed to that limit, was a coward. “Four years of pent-up rage without any outlet to direct it could lead a couple of them down here,” he said, pushing at the portly prisoner. “And this time,” Clark added, “I might be too busy to stop them if they don’t have toy pistols.”
Schott’s jaw clenched, but he delivered the answer in the same manner as Hannibal Lector reciting his menu for liver. “Suicide Slum. It’s been too long for me to remember which warehouse, but I do vaguely remember having a waterfront view.”
“If I don’t find them, Schott…”
“You’ll what? I’m safe from you in here, as long as you continue to care about the law and, as you put it, my own twisted life.”
It wasn’t lost on him; Superman realized that in the long run Schott was not afraid of him anymore. It was mothers like Cat Grant that the Toyman feared because they were ultimately unpredictable.
Daniel Turpin stood in the guardroom just outside the block Superman had entered minutes ago. Turpin declined the offer to sit down, and decided to stand instead with his arms crossed against his chest. The monitor showed Turpin the silent exchange that was taking place between the Man of Steel and the psychotic child killer.
He silently envied Superman’s patience. Turpin was sure that, given the same powers as the man of steel, he would have busted the freak’s jaw right now. It was people like the Toyman that made him wish he had chosen another profession.
How had he put it that night when he saw Cat after learning the news that her son was dead?
“We found something over in the Suicide Slum. Kids…Here, I brought someone you’re better off talkin’ to than me.”
It was total crap then and it was still crap now. Turpin couldn’t help but get angry over how he had chickened out at that moment. He should have been strong for Catherine, supportive, a rock with a sympathetic shoulder for her to cry on. Instead, he stood there like a rookie, his bowler cap firm in his sweaty hands, with a priest to do his work for him.
Daniel knew it wasn’t fair – he had blindsided her. He didn’t even give her a chance to sit down and prepare herself for the terrible fate that had befallen her son. Instead, when Cat lowered the picture of Adam, the sudden sight of the priest was like stepping in front of a speeding freight train with a blindfold on. It had crushed her, just as it had crushed him. Daniel made sure to never forget that feeling. He would never disrespect another person’s dignity that way again.
“Can’t believe he only got life for those eight kids…” Turpin muttered to himself in disgust. Many times the officer wished he could lock up all the lawyers that defended these pigs.
The guard standing near Turpin overheard him and felt it necessary to reply. “Yeah, these frickin’ sympathetic jury’s are really givin’ us a hard time doin’ our job. How’d you pin the other kids on him, anyway?”
Without taking his eyes of the monitor Turpin answered, “Eh, one of our cold case investigators was going through the cases lookin’ to find clues, patterns. She tagged the cases and set them aside based on similarities. When she reviewed the six together she noticed that these kids shared some sort of party with, as eye witnesses noticed, a guy in a green overstuffed dinosaur costume. When she looked up the reports on solved cases, she noticed a dinosaur suit with the things we took from Schott’s place.”
“It took four years to connect six kids to him?”
This time Turpin looked at the guard. “Do you know how many kids in Metropolis alone go missing in a year?” When the guard shook his head, Turpin felt sorrow.
“Too damned many,” he confessed in a sigh.
Lois did not relish moments like these. She often felt tacky, cheap and a little resentful that these moments helped play to the stereotype that reporters thrived on the sorrow of others. The Daily Planet had been in contact with various parents that were connected to the missing children, and this particular family was the only one that had responded with any amount of civility, let alone agreed to be interviewed.
She stood outside of their white aluminum-shingled house, in front of a red wood door. Her throat felt as if it were tightening inside her. It was not the first time she had felt uncomfortable, and as she looked over at Jimmy Olsen, who was shifting his weight between his legs, she took a measure of comfort knowing that she was not alone.
With a clearing of her throat and a straightening of her shoulders, she pushed everything down she felt inside and put on a face of professionalism. Lois Lane had a story to report. A slender, steady finger reached out and pushed the rectangular black button next to the door. She could hear the dull chime of the rings through the wall.
Muffled voices were exchanged then silence stretched on for seconds before the door cracked open to reveal a short pudgy man standing in the threshold. Lois would have compared him to George Costanza if her mind had not been elsewhere.
“Mr. Howard? I’m Lois Lane, from the Daily Planet, you talked to my editor about giving us an interview.” She spoke calmly. Any hint of trepidation that existed in her was visibly gone.
Gerald Howard examined the two through his glasses, and held his gaze a second too long on Lois’s bare smooth legs that extended out of her black skirt. His wife’s voice asking who was at the door snapped Mr. Howard back to reality.
“Yes, yes…Please come in.” He stepped aside and allowed the pair to enter his house. “Would you like something to drink?”
Jimmy smiled and was about to take him up on the offer, but Lois answered for the both of them, “No thanks Mr. Howard. Is there someplace you would feel comfortable to talk?”
“The living room would be fine.” He extended his hand out, “It’s right this way.”
As they walked through the house Jimmy could not help looking around at the plain and dated décor. Outside the photographer noticed the thick, unkempt flower garden that was being overrun with weeds. He wondered if this couple’s lives had stopped the day their daughter disappeared.
Inside the living room waited Sheryl Howard, an attractive thirty-something with cropped brunette hair. She did not stand to greet the reporters, only shuffling over an inch or two on the sofa so Gerald could sit down.
Lois could feel the cold radiate off the woman. “I just want to thank you for sitting down with us,” she said carefully. “I understand it has to be hard right now.”
Sheryl looked at Lois for a quiet couple seconds, “I want to make something clear, Mrs. Lane, that we are not doing this for publicity. We just want people to know who Claire was.” Sheryl spat the last word out.
“That’s fine Mrs. Howard. Do you have a picture of your daughter to use with the article?”
The woman reached out to the coffee table and picked up an 8x10 picture of a smiling blond girl wearing a Barbie t-shirt. Taking the picture from Sheryl, Lois examined the picture.
“Claire loved that t-shirt. She was wearing it the day she disappeared.”
Lois handed it to Jimmy. “Where were you when you noticed that she had gone missing?”
“We were at a neighbors house for a birthday party,” Gerald answered, “Listen, are you sure I can’t get you a drink?”
“Actually, I could use a water,” Jimmy replied.
Suicide Slum
Daniel Turpin stepped out of the supped-up air car, a vehicle that he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to driving, and slammed the car door shut half a second sooner than his passenger. “You think this place could be it?” he asked as he sized up the abandoned warehouse in front of him. The warehouse had an outer appearance that reflected its years of neglect.
The freshwater scent of Hob’s River washed over the two from the thick vein that looped around the city toward the Atlantic. The large concrete dock once served over a dozen boats, but when the newer docks and upgraded facilities were built only a couple miles up the river, the older places suddenly became unnecessary.
“After spending two hours searching every dark corner of Suicide Slum, I hope so,” Maggie Sawyer said, stretching her arms. “This is getting very old, very fast.”
“Let me go in first. There are probably booby traps all over the place,” Superman said as he descended from the sky and hovered inches above the ground. He fell silent and the skin around his eyes tightened as he focused them to see through the walls and floors, scanning the entire building. When he saw the outline of a plastic toy house he pushed through that and saw five skeletons inside. He also noted over a dozen potential traps, but he didn’t care.
With a clenched jaw, Superman was gone in a blur. The sudden speed created a small vacuum and the rush of air pulled Turpin’s bowler cap off his head. The two officers saw a small cloud of dust explode from the front of the building as Superman smashed his way inside and a few chunks of debris fell to the ground. They looked at each other and, with a silent nod of understanding, ran towards the building.
A loud steel clang resonated off of the concrete floor and echoed in the cavernous area. Wires sparked violently out of the open section of the robot nutcracker soldier’s neck. The metal head was crumpled in Superman’s hand like tin foil, his fingers leaving deep grooves in the shell. He let the useless debris fall to the ground. Around him was a messy trail of scrap metal and concrete chunks from the various traps Schott had left in place when he abandoned this warehouse.
Naturally, nothing Schott could do, physically, would affect the Man of Steel, but any flesh and blood cop would have been mowed down only a minute or so slower than it took for Superman to disable every trap.
Clark slowed his actions; he was only a couple feet away from the plastic house. He could not hear any activity from inside.
He wrapped his fingers around the plastic door handle and, with barely a fraction of his might, pulled the door from its plastic hinges and flung it behind him, not caring where it came to rest. The cheer of children, as they rushed to their freedom, did not greet Superman as he had hoped. Instead, he got what he had dreaded and realistically expected -- white skeletons still dressed in their clothing of ‘Barbie’ and ‘Power Rangers’ t-shirts, or other non-descript dresses and shirts.
Superman fell to his knees, his soul drained. A burst of anger quickly filled him and he slammed an angry fist on the floor, leaving a spider web of cracks on the concrete.
Turpin and Sawyer slowly made their way over to Superman. When they came up behind him, Daniel was clipping his radio back onto his belt. Superman could already hear the ambulances tearing down the streets half a city away.
“There’s only five…” Turpin muttered to Maggie.
Clark raised his head and did a silent count. He, too, only came up with five sets of remains. “There were six missing… Where’s the other child?”
“That son of a bitch, Schott! There has to be another dumping ground!” Maggie said outraged.
With a jaw clenched so tight that it could chew steel like bubble gum, Superman exited the warehouse in a blur, leaving the two SCU officers alone. “Where do you think he went?” asked Turpin as he began to look around the building.
“I think he’s going to put an end to this senseless bullshit.” Maggie said as she sighed, looking at the remains of the children whose futures had ended far too early.
Jimmy Olsen’s legs were pressed together, and his hands rested on his knees. He tried desperately not to fidget as he remained alone in the room with the Howard’s. Lois could be heard in the Kitchen talking on her cell phone.
Jimmy did have aspirations of becoming a reporter someday, but right now he was glad that all he had to do was keep his mouth shut and take a couple pictures. Jimmy’s eyes wavered on the Howard’s, who sat shoulder to shoulder and held each other’s hands.
Then he heard the clack of the cell phone being folded shut, and Lois stepped into the room. “We’ve got to go, Jimmy.”
Jimmy raised a sandy red eyebrow, “Did they find…?” he let the question trail off.
The answer came in a nod.
Gerald interrupted their walk to the door, and they turned to see the couple standing behind them. “Let us come with you.”
“Mr. Howard, I don’t think that would…”
The look in his eyes spoke more than he could ever articulate verbally. Lois paused for a moment, then nodded.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Two blue uniformed officers escorted the portly man through the door. The ankle cuffs impaired his walk, cutting his full stride by almost half. It had been a long time since he had been out of his cell after he escaped into Gotham. He couldn’t even leave for lunch or dinner, since all of his meals were delivered to him. That is if he could even eat them. Sometimes certain guards would ‘accidentally’ spill his food on the floor leaving him to scrape for scraps not soiled on the filth.
Schott wondered who could possibly want to speak to him for his entire walk to the interview room. The Toyman wasn’t stupid; he knew what the world thought of him despite knowing deep down in his soul, or what dark mass he called a soul, that his actions were just.
When he entered the room, he instantly began to turn around, but the rough hands of his escorts held him in place and forced him to sit down. The visitor waited for the guards to attach Schott’s hand and feet chains to the ground before talking. Toyman didn’t wish to hear anything that his visitor had to say anymore.
“You lied to us, Schott. We only found five remains. There’s one more, and you know where he is. Now stop with the games and tell me where he is!”
Schott shrugged innocently. “I don’t know where he is.”
Superman stood across the room with his arms folded across his chest. He wanted to stay as far away from Scott as possible, but even from where he was he could still pick up the telltale signs that Schott was telling the truth. He pushed anyway. “They’re talking about giving you the death penalty, Schott. I can hear them talking now. You’re a child killer, everybody knows it, and they’re going to use the remains we just found to throw new charges at you. This time, they just might stick.”
“Then why should I tell you anything? A lethal injection or rot in here for the rest of my life separated from the toys that are my life--I’m dead anyway.” Schott’s skin was flushed; he had never thought it was possible for him to stand up against the strongest man on the planet. The warmth he felt was invigorating.
No matter how often Clark tried, he just couldn’t figure out Batman’s trick of intimidating thugs. He knocked twice on the one-way mirror behind him and minutes later the two guards walked back into the room, carrying a big green chest between them. After they dropped it next to Superman they left the room, leaving the two alone again.
With a flick of his wrist, Superman opened the chest lid to reveal the inside full of classic toys. “Is this what you fight for?” he asked, pulling out a wooden toy plane that was painted red and blue. It reminded Winslow a lot about a similar toy he made in his childhood…one that was stolen by a bully.
The Toyman remained quiet.
Superman looked at the toy plane and seconds later it burst into flames. He casually brushed the ash off of his hands.
“What about these?” A bag of green plastic army men was produced and subsequently melted with a burst of heat vision, morphing them all into a giant ball. The stench of burning plastic permeated the air and burned like hell in Schott’s nose.
Still he remained quiet, sweat again beading on his baldhead.
Plastic cars shattered on the wall behind Schott, spraying pieces around the room. A tiny black wheel rolled at Schott’s feet in a complete circle before falling to its side, mocking the Toyman from between his legs.
His neck flared, raising the temperature at his collar like a furnace. Tears pooled at the bottoms of his eyes and he squeezed them shut, trying to block the carnage out.
Then a sickening tear grated on his nerves and sent a cold chill down his spine. Schott’s eyes flung open to see white cotton stuffing floated down to the floor where the two halves of the brown teddy bear had already fallen.
“STOP!”
Superman relaxed his grip on a classic yo-yo before he could crush it into a diamond.
“He’s not dead!”
Clark listened to Schott’s heart and it didn’t skip a beat. He was telling the truth.
“Where can I find him?”
The Toyman had broken into a sobbing mess with tears and snot streaming down his face, unable to wipe the tears from his face with his hands restrained to the chair. “I don’t know where he is. I didn’t kill him!” he blubbered in between sobs.
Again the signs told Superman that the Toyman was being truthful. Either Schott was honest or he believed very strongly that he was true. With a man as unstable as the Toyman, it was hard to tell which.
A sea of red and blue lights flashed outside of the warehouse. Dozens of officers held back the curious crowd of reporters that had picked up leaked information from their police taps. Light bulbs flashed from the cameras, hoping to capture an image that would break the story. Turpin walked behind the line of uniformed cops and shook his head in pity. He hated the press and was glad it was those guys who had to deal with them and not him.
Maggie Sawyer slapped on the back of the last of the ambulances that pulled away with the final set of remains found inside, then turned to face her approaching partner. “That’s the last of them.”
“We should see about getting this place demo’d. It doesn’t serve a purpose anymore,” Turpin said.
Maggie was going to reply, but she stopped when a whistling noise in the distance got louder by the second. Turning to look in the sky, everybody saw a red and blue streak flying overhead like a missile, leaving a tail of turbulence behind him. When it hit the warehouse, time paused for a fraction of a second before restarting with a thunderous boom that knocked out every window in a five-mile radius.
Everybody covered their ears and fought to remain standing as the ground up heaved under their feet. Turpin uncovered his ears as a series of smaller, more tolerable booms thundered in succession to each other along with what he thought sounded like a scream of fury. Then, in answer to Inspector Turpin’s concerns, the building imploded under the constant bombardment that stretched the steel and concrete past its limits.
The crowd of shocked and awed people covered their faces as a cloud of dust expanded from the demolition site and engulfed them like a hungry whale. When the dust settled, and light from the setting sun shone on them again, they all saw a pile of debris and a lone blue clad man in the middle on his knees, breathing slowly, trying to curb the planet-crushing frustration that, despite his outlet, had still not abated.
Behind the police barricade, the multitude of reporters snapped their cameras up and started shooting, hundreds of angles on a kneeling Superman amidst the rubble. Among them, Jimmy Olsen’s heart sank. His exposure to the parents over the course of the day had left him a little raw, and his friendship with The Man of Steel left him feeling sympathetic. He could feel the emotion pour off of Superman in waves, shaking his very core. But still Jimmy pressed his finger on the camera, hoping that the one picture chosen for the front page could capture what they both felt.
Lois stood next to Jimmy, her heart hurting with every beat as she resisted the urge to cut her way through the press crowd, climb over the rubble to wrap her arms around her husband. She knew him too well, knowing that the wound from his dealings with the Church of Superman was still fresh. She knew this would hurt him even more deeply.
Adam Morgan died when Clark decided to take her to France for dinner. It was a coincidence that he could not shake, but Lois felt a little responsible also. Maybe she could have resisted, offered to have made dinner at home. She knew it was a futile feeling. Superman could just as easily have been up on the moon, or punching some weird demon thing in the face, or anywhere else. The feelings of guilt would have been the same.
As she watched her husband slowly stand in the murky cloud of dust, she knew that Clark was a man destined to never be truly happy. Satisfied, maybe, but his happiness would lay rooted in a world that does not exist, in a world that does not need him to save it.
“Did you get the pictures, Jimmy?” Lois asked without looking at him as Superman lifted into the air.
Olsen looked down at the digital picture count, “Yeah, almost a whole stick.”
Her eyes hovered over to the Howards, who were drawn between Superman, and the Ambulance that held their daughter. Something in Superman made the Howards stand a little straighter. Maybe it was the knowledge that they were not alone in their sorrow, or that somebody could actually care that much about the life of a stranger. Whatever it was, they seemed to carry it with them as they approached the Ambulance.
Losing sight of her husband in the darkening sky, Lois flipped her notebook closed and turned to Jimmy with a tired, half-hearted smile. “Let’s go home.”
The moonlight barely penetrated the deep shadows of the Suicide Slum, leaving it cold and empty, blanketed in a cloak of darkness that the rest of Metropolis shed with the bright lights and the hustle of men and women that paid time little attention.
From one of the thick shadows that were cast over the ground, a single man emerged and walked towards the yellow tape that surrounded a large pile of rubble. He stopped and titled his head as he examined the broken steel and concrete. With a shrug and a smirk, the man turned away and entered back into the shadows, whistling a tune from ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood’.
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The End...
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