In the wardrobe annex, fluorescent tubes hummed in their death throes above racks of clothing that looked less like costumes and more like the aftermath of a riot.
Each Joker outfit, lined up in neat succession, wore its own unique ruin: lapels torn, silk shirts clotted with powder, the purple velvet coat reduced from decadence to a piece of living crime scene evidence.
The costume assistant sat on a rolling stool, hunched over the most battered specimen. It lay on her lap, the arms twisted and limp as if the coat itself had been through the emotional grind of the past two months.
Her hands, small and work-stained, pinched the collar between thumb and forefinger, dabbing at a dark bloom near the neckline with a Q-tip and a patch of white muslin.
She had never seen a stain like this one. It looked almost black against the velvet, but in the right angle of light, you could see the edges still shone a vivid arterial red.
She inhaled, and the metallic tang found her first. Sweat, maybe, or makeup, or—
She dabbed again, hands trembling a little, and watched as the red bled out into the white of the cloth.
The Q-tip glistened, almost pretty.
She set the coat on the table, careful not to crush the velvet's pile, and reached for the tiny Tupperware of forensic cleaner the department kept for impossible cases.
She'd used it before, on tomato paste and fake blood, even the time Marcus spilled a full glass of Chianti down the sleeve during the "interrogation" scene. This was different. No amount of citrus solvent seemed to touch the stain.
She glanced up, scanning the racks for anything out of place, but found only more evidence of the Joker's onslaught: four shirts, all with what looked like bite marks at the cuff; a pair of green suspenders, one half-shredded as if cut off in a hurry; gloves, dozens of them, each pair darker around the fingertips than the day before.
She remembered the rehearsal that did it. The scene wasn't supposed to be physical, just a run of lines, but Marcus had gone off-script, launched into a monologue about laughter and the sound it made when you ripped it out of someone's chest.
By the third take, he was grinning so wide his gums started to bleed. She saw it happen: the red pooling at the base of his teeth, the way he licked it away between lines, never once breaking rhythm.
When the director called cut, she'd stepped forward, tissue ready, but he waved her off, swallowed, and reset for the next round.
"Don't fuss, darling," he said, the Joker's voice still raw in his throat.
"It's nothing that won't come out in the wash."
She'd smiled, but her hands shook the whole time she stitched the next button onto his shirt.
Now, two days later, the stain was still there.
The door to the annex swung open with the quiet of someone who didn't want to startle the living. The makeup girl, her apron spattered with color, tiptoed inside, holding a tray of wipes and a roll of surgical tape.
She caught sight of the coat, and her face changed.
"Is that—?" she started.
The costume assistant nodded.
"Yeah. It's his blood."
The makeup girl set her tray on the nearest shelf, eyes wide.
"He doesn't stop, does he?"
"No."
The word landed softer than she'd intended.
The makeup girl hovered, uncertain, then pulled a rolling chair close and sat.
"You know, yesterday he bit through his lip in the mirror scene? Like, all the way."
The assistant blinked.
"He what?"
"Yeah."
The makeup girl ran a finger along her own mouth, tracing the motion.
"First take, it split. Second, it kept bleeding. I had to go in, mid-scene, and powder the blood. But it just… kept coming."
The costume assistant felt the memory of her own hands shaking, how the blood pooled at the seam of Marcus's mouth.
"He never broke character?"
The makeup girl shook her head.
"Not once. He just smiled at me, like it was a joke only I was in on."
They sat together, staring at the coat. The Q-tip in the assistant's hand was still wet, glistening red.
A silence grew between them, fragile and complicated.
Finally, the makeup girl said,
"You know, sometimes I think we're not working on a movie. We're cleaning up after a murder."
The assistant smiled, brief and crooked.
"At least the evidence is pretty."
The makeup girl laughed, a real one, the first in days. Then she stood, gathered her tray, and left the way she came.
The assistant turned back to the coat, ran a finger along the still-wet edge of the collar.
She left the stain there.
If anyone asked, she'd say it was for continuity.
But she knew, and the makeup girl knew, and probably Marcus knew: it was a better story that way.
....
The break room was a mausoleum of old donuts and unopened creamer packs, the kind of place that manufactured fatigue rather than relieved it. Four plastic tables, each ringed with cheap stackable chairs, stood in various orbits around a pair of humming vending machines and an industrial-grade coffee maker that never, ever stopped brewing.
The air was dense with the confluence of chemical sweetener, burnt grounds, and the recirculated breath of people who'd spent too much time indoors.
A grip in a camo hoodie and cargo shorts sat at the nearest table, stirring his coffee in endless circles. He did not look up when the script supervisor walked in, but his eyes tracked her in the reflection of the vending machine's glass.
She moved with the precision of a person who'd spent her life around boiling liquids and unstable personalities, and she made a show of avoiding the single loose tile near the microwave that, for reasons unknown, always squelched underfoot.
They were joined by a set of younger PAs, slouched over their phones, thumbs moving in frantic relay, and by a camera loader in a grease-stained tee who seemed intent on memorizing the nutritional panel on a bag of SunChips.
Conversation was sporadic, full of holes. Even the coffee machine's percolation seemed to have more conviction than the words that filtered between the crew.
The grip spoke first, voice low, aimed at the bottom of his cup.
"You hear about the take yesterday?"
The script supervisor raised her eyebrow.
"Which one?"
"Joker. The kitchen scene." He tapped the table, one, two, three times.
"Guy didn't blink. Not once. Whole take."
The PAs looked up, one muttering, "No way," before returning to his phone.
The loader grunted, then offered:
"Heard he broke a glass on purpose. Didn't even flinch when it shattered."
The supervisor sniffed, then poured herself a coffee, black.
"Maybe he was always like this. Nobody knows where Nolan found him."
The grip laughed, humorless.
"He's a ghost, that's what he is."
The supervisor sipped, then said,
"My cousin's at CAA. Checked the lists—no record of him, anywhere. No agency, no union. Just showed up at the audition and walked out with the part."
"Urban legend," the loader said.
"Like that Russian gymnast who defected and ended up on American Ninja Warrior."
"Nah, this is worse," the grip replied.
"He gives me the creeps."
They let the silence build, as if collectively afraid that saying more might bring the man himself into the room.
The door opened with the reluctance of a poorly written apology. In stepped the production coordinator, phone in hand, face flushed from the sprint across the back lot.
"Anyone seen this?" she asked, holding the phone aloft.
"It's going around the studio heads."
The grip gestured, and she set the phone on the table, screen angled so the whole group could see.
It was a rehearsal clip, rough, the timecode stamped in white at the bottom. The image showed Marcus, in partial makeup, sitting in the center of the Barbara set. He was motionless, so much so that for the first ten seconds, the loader assumed the video was frozen.
But then the eye twitched, just barely, and the viewer realized: he was waiting.
For nearly two minutes, he sat there, hands folded, chin tilted. Not a blink, not a breath, not a single sign of life except for the relentless, devouring stare. The PA watching closest shuddered.
"That's not right," he whispered.
At the 1:52 mark, Marcus spoke. One word—"Smile." The word snapped out, sharp as a bone breaking. The cameraman, visible in the edge of the frame, jolted so hard the shot swung off axis.
The group watched in silence as the video looped, then looped again.
"Studio's freaking out," the coordinator said.
"Execs want to know if Nolan's lost control. Or if this is some kind of—" she shrugged, "—viral marketing thing."
The supervisor studied the screen, then shook her head.
"He's not method. I've seen method. This is—" She trailed off, as if the right word might conjure a lawsuit.
The loader summed it up for them all:
"He's not acting. He's haunting the set."
The coordinator pocketed her phone, offered a shaky smile.
"Anyway. They're pulling the next week's schedule. Says here we're moving up all the Joker scenes. Studio wants them wrapped before anyone cracks up."
The grip whistled, long and low.
"Good luck with that."
Conversation dried up. The coffee machine dripped, slow and uneven. Outside, a golf cart zipped by, someone cackling with the brittle joy of the overcaffeinated. Inside, the break room seemed to grow colder, as if the shadow of the man on the screen had bled out into the world.
On the top floor of the admin building, Nolan sat alone in a room as dark as the projection booths of his childhood. Only the blue light of the laptop illuminated his face. He watched the rehearsal footage, finger hovering above the pause button, eyes locked to the image of Marcus—still, silent, eternal.
He played it again.
And again.
Finally, he closed the laptop, the sound soft and final.
To the empty room, he whispered:
"He's not acting. He's remembering."
And in that moment, the difference felt like the punchline to a joke no one would ever laugh at.
.....
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