BATMAN: THE HAUNTING
Jonathan Crane was reading. This was hardly new to a seventeen year old who had succeeded in a position of studying philosophy, English and science at Gotham University but this was a very particular book. He in fact knew more than almost every citizen of Gotham and beyond on this particular subject for this subject… was Fear.
Crane poured over the old texts, scrawling notes regularly, though it was likely he knew all he was reading anyway. For Jonathan Crane had an obsession with Fear.
And not just the kind of obsession involving owning all the memorabilia, he was obsessed with Fear in its deepest, darkest essence. An unhealthy, creepy obsession, one that he would do ANYTHING to put into practice, be it inflicting fear upon another or researching fear itself.
There was tapping at the window of the lab… Crane cursed and then, when he saw the flock of tweeting, pathetic birds outside, he smiled… a sickening, insane, twisted smile. Jonathan Crane threw open his window and climbed up, hanging over the birds for a moment. This was why he always worked on the ground floor…
He dropped and charged madly, giggling hysterically… the birds panicked and flew up, up and away! Jonathan Crane smiled contentedly, Fear truly was a Sacred Art and Jonathan Crane was its master!
The tall, thin man with the large, round glasses and top hat shook hands with the principle of Gotham University. It was good to be home… twenty six years, and he was back as if it was only yesterday. He looked up and smiled as he saw birds flapping around the old bell tower. Jonathan Crane had returned.
Of course, not all his memories of Gotham U had been perfect. The jocks and the bullies, the bitching girls and the seniors… everyone had, at one time, insulted him, hit him, bullied him in some way.., what was that most delightful nickname they had given him? Scarecrow… yes, scarecrow… well, it was time that this Scarecrow paid the jocks back. Paid them back for every misery they had caused him and the more Jonathan Crane thought about it, the more he knew that Scarecrow was indeed the perfect name!
Dr Crane pointed at the chalk board with his long, thin walking cane. The formulae he had jotted down on the board may well have bemused Albert Einstein, but Crane understood it with ease.
Then one of those deplorable brats, one of those darned jocks, like the ones who had bullied him in high school, dared whisper to his friend and Jonathan Crane did not accept lack of attention in his class. He hissed icily to the young man:
"Do you wish to share anything with us, Lanson? No? God…" He smiled sickly, it was time he taught them all a little lesson… a lesson in fear, "Tell me, boys, have you ever known true, undiluted, agonising… Fear?"
Mrs Phyllis Dutchley had taken rather a liking to that nice Professor Crane. From the moment he had stepped through that door, three years ago, she had known… he was the man for her. So she had dismissed her class early in the hopes t catch Crane before he left the university for his lunch break, and was understandably startled when she heard a gunshot sound from his room as she walked along the corridor!
She burst in to find Crane holding a smoking gun, a bullet embedded in the wall.
"Aah, hello, Miss… Dutchley, was it?" Smiled Crane, lowering the gun.
"P-p-Professor? What in God's name ARE YOU DOING?" Shrieked Dutchley.
"Just teaching them a little lesson about Fear, Miss Dutchley, a very, very important lesson…"
Crane stood outside the University with his brief case and glared at the birds blocking his path. He'd show them… he'd show those uptight fools… Jonathan Crane would return and he would have his revenge, whatever the cost!