Well, it's that time of the year again, and here I am with another Scarecrow-themed Halloween fic. I've been treating Johnny rather badly in another of my fics, so I suppose that's why he gets to be extra naughty in this one. Enjoy.
A herd of zombies, each bloodier and more mangled than the last, limped down the street. A fairy princess and her sister, who was either a professional prostitute or just dressed like one, hurried out of the zombies' path. A pirate and a ninja got into a fight over who was cooler, and fell to blows before a harried doctor pulled them apart. A five-year-old Batman chased down an escaped jailbird easily twice his size, only to be scooped up and placed on the criminal's shoulders. The little Batman giggled, and Jonathan Crane had to resist the urge to break character and douse the neighborhood in fear toxin.
Crane averted his eyes from the miniature Batman and focused them instead on the pair that was climbing the rickety steps toward him. They were twins, the pair, little blonde girls identical down to their missing front teeth and glittery pink tiaras. Crane managed a smile that looked genuine enough not to send the children screaming for their mother.
"Hi, mister, can we have some candy?" the fairy on the left asked.
"You got to say 'happy Halloween' first, Jamie!" her sister said.
"Oops. Happy Halloween! Can we have candy now, please?"
Crane commented on how cute their costumes were before producing a large bowl of candy. The candy was name-brand stuff, not unidentifiable junk parents wouldn't trust and kids wouldn't want to eat, anyway. The girls, who had gotten nothing more glorious than a Tootsie Pop all night, thought they'd found the sugar version of El Dorado. They each grabbed a chocolate bar before running back down the stairs.
Freddy Krueger, resplendent with plastic blades on his fingers and holes in his sweater, approached Crane for some candy. Considering the villain he was pretending to be, the boy in the ratty costume was almost shaking with fear. He reached a tentative arm towards the bowl, as though he was afraid Crane was going to bite his fingers off. Finally seizing a Kit Kat bar, the boy snatched his prize and was gone in a heartbeat. Crane allowed himself a chuckle. If the kid was that scared already…
"Where's Mrs. Henderson?"
A pirate with her hands on her hips and a half-full bucket of candy at her feet stood at the bottom of the steps. Suspicious that something was wrong, the little privateer refused to come any closer. No doubt her parents had taught her well. Crane cursed them for being responsible.
"She's sick, so I'm handing out candy for her," Crane replied.
"Who are you? I never saw you visit before."
"I'm her son."
The pirate took a step back. If anything, she now looked more ill at ease.
"My mom was talking to Mrs. Henderson the other day, and she said her son was gonna put her in a home 'cause he couldn't wait for her to die."
Crane was a quick thinker and an excellent liar, but the conversation had gone places he'd never expected it to go. He could hardly believe the conundrum he'd talked himself into. Unless he wanted the pirate to report on the scumbag son who'd come to stick his mother in a retirement death trap, he needed to defuse the situation.
"That's her other son, my brother. I would never do anything like that to her. I'm here to make sure he doesn't try anything," Crane said.
"Really?"
"Of course. I love my mother." Crane had never before uttered those words. They tasted like dirt.
"And you won't let your brother take her away? 'Cause she gives me ten dollars to feed her cats and I would miss her."
"She won't be going anywhere." Because she was either unconscious or dead, depending on how strong her eighty-year-old heart was.
The pirate was appeased. She hurried up the steps and took her time selecting her candy. Once she was satisfied, she thanked Crane and darted on to the next house.
This was more difficult—and slower—than he'd expected it to be. Yes, the rewards would be spectacular, and Gotham would be abuzz with terror for weeks, but he still had three-quarters of a bowl of candy left and his dignity could only stand being trapped inside a hippie costume for so long. Though it would decrease the number of children exposed to his special treats, Crane contemplated handing out two candy bars to each trick-or-treater. The parents would probably eat the spare, anyway.
Dracula and some kind of yellow rat monster trudged up the steps next. Both of them looked embarrassed to the point of death, and it was obvious why. Their mother, stationed on the sidewalk, was the type of woman who started calling hospitals if her kid was five minutes late coming home. When Dracula reached for his candy, his mother shouted to avoid anything with almonds unless he wanted to break out in hives like last year. Dracula blushed and the rat mutant mimed sticking a gun under his chin and pulling the trigger. It was a good thing his mother missed the gesture; if she'd seen the simulated suicide, she probably would have rushed her boy off to the nearest therapist.
"Next year, we're going out with the neighbors," Dracula whispered to the rat.
As the boys turned, Crane discreetly slipped an almond Hershey's bar into Dracula's bag. If there was any justice, the chocolate would find its way to the mother's mouth.
Giving two candy bars to each little costumed monster emptied the bowl in twenty minutes. After a boy dressed as Harry Potter received the last treat, Crane wasted no time rushing inside. Before the door had closed behind him, he had ripped off his peace-sign necklace and scraggly blond wig and was struggling to get the frilly shirt over his head.
Free of his ridiculous costume—he'd only worn it because it was the antithesis of the terrifying scarecrow mask he was infamous for—Crane breathed a sigh of relief and contentment. It had been grueling, but now the hard work was over and the fun could begin. He glanced around for a clock and found one on the wall. It was just after eight. By the time the ten o'clock news started, his toxic trick would be the lead story.
Having two hours to waste, Crane decided to explore Mrs. Henderson's house. But first, he'd check on the house's owner. Last he'd seen her, she'd been bound with duct tape and stuffed in the broom closet. He didn't expect that to change.
Crane entered the kitchen and found the tenacious old bat trying to dial 911 with her feet. She had apparently recovered from the initial shock of having a wanted maniac burst into her living room while she was preparing a nice cup of tea.
"Move that toe and I'll banish you into a nightmare from which you'll never awaken," Crane said.
Mrs. Henderson had been so focused on her foot that she hadn't heard Crane step into the kitchen. At the sound of his voice, she whipped her head toward him. She tried to say something, but the strip of duct tape across her mouth kept her quiet.
Crane walked towards the bound and gagged old woman, intent on removing the phone from her reach. He bent down for the phone and almost caught a foot in the face for his efforts. He recoiled and the woman kicked again, this time coming nowhere close to her target.
Crane bristled. He was not going to be kept at bay by a hag. No matter how feisty she was, she was still well on her way to becoming fossilized.
Having (relative) youth and long limbs on his side, Crane darted forward and grabbed the phone. He ducked the flailing foot and stood up with his prize.
"You won't be needing this." To ensure Mrs. Henderson couldn't call for help, Crane removed the battery from the back of the phone and slipped it into his pocket. The phone now rendered dead, he dropped it on the floor, inches from the old woman's face.
"And because you couldn't behave yourself, I'm afraid it's back in the closet for you. This time I'll be sure to latch it."
Grabbing Mrs. Henderson's foot was like tangling with a snake and waiting for the opportunity to grab it behind the head. Crane danced around the old woman's desperate kicks until he was able to get his hands on her scrawny ankle. She shrieked in indignation, the sound muffled by the duct tape. Crane dragged her across the linoleum, the living fossil fighting him the whole way.
"You're going to break your hip," Crane said.
To prove her bones weren't riddled with osteoporosis, the woman kept thrashing. Crane had wrestled adult men poisoned with fear gas that weren't this tenacious. It took all his strength to put her in the closet. Even once she was inside, she kept kicking. The latch was a simple hook latch, and even once the closet was locked, Crane wasn't sure he'd seen the last of Mrs. Henderson. If she managed to break the latch and crawl out into the kitchen again, he'd be forced to give her the last of his fear toxin.
"Behave yourself."
With Mrs. Henderson disposed of, Crane took himself on a tour of her lovely home. He found her cats in the upstairs bedroom. They were beastly animals, hissing and raising their hackles at Crane when he entered. If he'd had more than a single dose of fear toxin on him, he might have given the felines a little taste. Crane closed the bedroom door, sealing the cats inside.
The rest of the house provided little of even passing interest and failed to keep Crane's mind occupied. He went back downstairs to check the clock again. It was a nudge after nine. He'd managed to spend an hour stuffing an old woman in a closet and meeting her hideous cats. It was not time well spent.
Though it rotted brains and dropped the collective American IQ, Crane decided to watch some television. He sat down in an armchair that was covered in cat hair and found the remote resting on the cushion. He turned on the TV and flicked through Mrs. Henderson's satellite subscription. He was forced to turn up the volume because of the thuds emanating from the kitchen. Mrs. Henderson was still determined to escape the closet.
Halloween, asides from being an easy time to poison children, was also the best time of year to watch horror movies. Every other channel, it seemed, was showing some classic film. Crane settled on Night of the Living Dead.
When the screaming started, Crane thought it was a part of the movie. It was only when he noticed the screams were out of synch with the heroine on the screen opening her mouth that he realized he was hearing the next-door neighbor and not Judith O'Dea.
Crane muted the television and walked to the front door. The screams became louder and clearer. He opened the door and stuck his head out into the chilly October air. Curiosity drew him from his burrow and, despite the risk of someone seeing and recognizing him, he stepped onto the porch.
The little pirate was sprawled out on the sidewalk in front of her home. She was convulsing, her twitching legs batting almost playfully at her fallen candy bucket. It was her mother that was doing the screaming.
"A bit too much toxin," Crane whispered.
The pirate's mother's paralysis finally broke and she did something more useful than standing on the front stoop, shrieking. She ran to her daughter and clutched her to her chest. The child continued to jerk, but her movements were becoming less grand mal.
"Mary, baby, please," the mother begged.
Abruptly, the girl in her arms went still. Crane leaned in for a closer look. He couldn't tell if the pirate was dead, or if she'd recovered from the seizure.
A moment later, the girl proved she was very much alive. She opened her eyes, took one look at her mother, and began to wail. When her mother tried to hug her, instead of being comforted, the girl screamed louder and struggled like she was being held by a ghoul.
"What's wrong? Mary, it's me! It's Mommy!"
"Not to her, it isn't," Crane said. To the little girl, it was probably the monster under her bed or the boogeyman in the cellar.
All the screaming drew the attention of the neighbors. One of them was altruistic enough to call the police. Crane took the approaching sirens as his cue to leave. He slipped back inside and locked the door. To give the illusion no potential witnesses were home, Crane closed the curtains and clicked off all the lights. Asides from the TV's glow, the house was dark.
Crane watched the rest of the zombie movie, but didn't really see any of it. He was too focused on the scene he'd just witnessed. His blood was thrumming with excitement. When ten o'clock came, he could hardly get to the local news fast enough.
As he'd surmised, he was the star of the night. In two hours, over a dozen children had been rushed to the hospital, each one suffering from wild hallucinations. Though the news anchors were careful not to blame the Scarecrow outright—they were probably afraid of inciting mass panic without due evidence—even the dim citizens of Gotham could put two and two together and arrive at their own conclusion.
The news faded to a commercial and Crane closed his eyes and sighed with contentment.
"Happy Halloween, Mrs. Henderson," he said and broke into manic laughter. "And happy Halloween, Gotham!"
The End!
And Happy Halloween!