Batman: The Chill of Old Ghosts

Epilogue

“We’re ready to go now, Commissioner.” Announces the coroner.

“Huh, good, good. Okay, let me know if you dig up anything interesting.” Gordon replies.

“Anything interesting?”

“Yeah, scars, wounds, tattoos, birthmarks. I wanna know more about where this guy came from. I’ve got a feeling he has some secret up his sleeve for us yet.”

The coroner gives the signal and a pair of assistants, male and female lift the body of Vincent Chill, zipped in the black body bag, onto the gurney and load into the back of the coroner’s ambulance. Gordon watches the car pull away and brings a welcome smoke to his lips.

The ambulance travels on down the road heading towards the city. After a few minutes the vehicle turns into an off road path and pulls over. Shortly, another vehicle pulls up beside the ambulance, a white van with a logo for a painter and decorator’s service colourfully emblazoned on the side. A figure dressed in overalls steps from the van and walks around to the back doors, pulling them open and waiting beside. The pair with black jackets, marked with CORONER’S OFFICE on the reverse step out also and open their rear vehicle doors.

They pull out the gurney carrying the black bag. The man in overalls pulls a similar bag from the rear off his van, hoisting it over his shoulder. The pair lift the body of Vincent Chill and place it into the back of the ‘painter’s’ van, and the second body bag is placed into the coroner’s. The three exchange nods of approval and retreat to their vehicles. The painter’s van drives away, back in the opposite direction from the ambulance.

Jim Gordon enjoys a glass of auburn coloured whiskey in the comfort and peace of his home, content with the result of the evening. He glances down at that morning’s newspaper and the wholesome image of Vincent Chill, Gotham’s man of the people, and it’s glowing article.

“Hmpf” he huffs, flinging the paper onto the glass coffee table in front before retreating back into his sofa. Until his phone rings with interruption.

He groans and tilts his head back against the seat before grabbing the call against his every will. “Jim Gordon, and before you say anything, keep in mind I’m in my home with a glass.” He answers. “... wait, what? What do you mean it never got there?”

“It never got there, Jimmy” detective Harvey Bullock replies, tilting his fedora to wipe away a sweat from his brow. “Coroner’s office waited an hour and still nothing.”

“What in the hell happened?” Gordon jumps from his chair.

“We tracked the serial number of the van, and it never made it anywhere close to the Hospital.” Explains Bullock.

“So, where is it? Have you tracked it down?”

“Yeah, Jimmy... I’m erm... I’m looking at it right now.” Bullock looks into the massive gulf of flames reaching to the skies from the torched ambulance.  

“And Chill? Is the body there?” Gordon panics.

“There’s nothin’ here but ash, Commish. Whatever was a body here is gone now.”

“Then, what the hell is going on here?!” Gordon rages.

A navy blue Bowrider boat cuts through the black waves of the night time sea. It bounces to a slow as it nears a tall cliff edge that swallows the boat in the mouth of its shadow under the moon. The boat creeps underneath a sky of stalagmites deep inside the heart of the hidden passage underneath the remote cliff. It pulls to a stop at the foot of a winding stone path and an army of men and women, similarly clad in black robes of Asian make.