Disclaimer and such: I do not own these characters. They are all property of people much cooler and more powerful than I. And I also don't own the songs in this chapter. Those belong to Neil Cicierega (Lemon Demon.)
I do apologize for the songs. I must admit I included them mainly to up my wordcount, but I do think it's kind of funny, and I can totally see the Joker liking Lemon Demon and forcing his henchmen to learn all the lyrics. (Hey, that's what I would do.) And the first one is important later in the story.
Speaking of things that are funny, I have been asked to put up warnings in my humorous stories, and since rereading this one did result in my computer screen almost getting drenched with a mouthful of tea...here goes.
Warning: Do not consume beverages while reading this story. Readers with asthma should keep their inhalers handy. Please remain seated at all times. If you are unable to remain seated, please attempt to land on something squishy. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not attempt to use this story as a substitute for any of the other things that carry the "pregnant or nursing" disclaimer. If you experience a sudden decrease in laughter, contact your doctor, as this may be a sign of a serious condition.
(-crickets chirp-)
Explanatory note: Near the end of October, I was getting all excited about NaNoWriMo. I had it all planned out; I was going to write "The March Hare," killing two birds with one stone by concluding the story of my OC, Alice Hare, and making my first attempt at a Mad Hatter fic. (I swear, giving her the perfect name for his partner was completely unintentional, but once I saw the connection, I just couldn't resist.) It was going to be so perfect.
And then BiteMeTechie (why, yes, I am assigning blame!) wrote "Night of the Snarky," and I went giggle-giggle-giggle, and the next thing I knew...
Arkham Ate My Brain
The screams woke him up. That was nothing special in Arkham, but this time there was something different about it.
The Scarecrow sat up in bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. It wasn't so bad being woken up every single night in this place—at least it could be interesting to catalogue the differences in the sounds of the other inmates' voices—but this time, he felt there was something wrong.
This was not an inmate. The scream was moving. He fumbled for his glasses just as something wet and red thudded against his glass wall.
"Help me! Sweet Jesus, someone please help me!"
The Scarecrow put on his glasses and noted vaguely that he was going to need a stronger prescription soon. The darkness of his room didn't make it any easier to see the man in the hall. But he didn't need perfect vision to know what it was that he should be seeing.
It was a mangled corpse.
Only it didn't quite know it yet.
"Help me!" the bloody orderly begged as the Scarecrow calmly got out of bed and padded across the floor toward him.
"You know I can't open the door from inside," he said softly. "What's got you so worked up, then?" He leaned over to stare into the other man's eyes, measuring the dilation.
"They're c-coming…" The orderly slumped to the floor, leaving a thick streak of blood down the surface of the glass. How disappointing. He was quite obviously dead.
He would have liked to make a physical examination of the body, but of course he had no way to get at it. Quite frustrating, really. He knelt down to take as close a look as he could through the thick glass.
"Who or what?" he murmured, noticing for the first time that the man's wounds appeared to have been caused by…teeth. How odd.
He looked up when he heard the sound of footsteps in the darkened hall, shuffling and aimless. He recognized the sound of a wounded person's movement, and yet…that wasn't quite right. This person was limping, but there were no gasps and grunts of pain, no pauses for rest…only dogged, single-purposed movement. It could have been a patient, one too far gone into drugs or madness to feel his own pain. Or it could have been something else.
Was it simply paranoia that told him there was something seriously wrong here?
No. It was not simply paranoia, he realized as the other person shuffled into view. Somehow—even he wasn't quite sure how—he recognized Two-Face under the layers of blood and gore that obscured his face, making both sides match for the first time in years.
"Hello there," Scarecrow called, a bit timidly. He and Harvey Dent had never been friendly, but it was precisely in situations like these that people like them could overcome their differences at least long enough for an exchange of information.
Two-Face's two faces slowly turned toward him. And the Scarecrow stumbled back with a thrill of alarm at the utter blankness in both of those eyes.
"Two-Face?" Alerted by the sound of his voice, the blood-soaked villain threw himself against the glass with a wet thwack.
"Ungh…" he said thickly.
Oh, yes. Something was very, very wrong.
The Scarecrow backed away from the wall, glancing around for a weapon, just in case. Of course, there were no weapons in his cell, nothing that would offer him even the slightest protection. But…but…
He detested this feeling of helplessness.
Under ordinary circumstances, the Scarecrow was never completely unarmed, not as long as he had his voice and his mind, the ability to cause crippling fear in fifty words or less. (His best record was three: "chicka chicka bang.")
But faced with the utter lack of intelligence in his fellow inmate's faces, the Scarecrow judged that the intellectual type of fear would have no effect in this situation. Though jumping out from a dark corner and screaming "boogidy boogidy" would probably do little more to frighten this unhinged villain.
But frightening him turned out to be unnecessary, as a shining silver crowbar descended from the darkness to bash his skull in.
A high-pitched, hysterical giggle came twisting out of the shadows.
"Joker? Is that you?" He moved a bit closer to the glass, trying to peer out into the darkness.
The laughing clown and his woman banged up against the glass, heedless of the gooey bits.
"Hi!" said Harley. She was as bright and happy as ever, even with a red smudge in the grease paint on her left cheek that was better left unidentified. And the Joker, of course, was always an equal mix of evil and clown. The blood all over his paper-white face, clashing with the slightly more orangey tint of his lips, enhanced his aura of mad darkness, while doing absolutely nothing to erase the smile on his face.
"Hello, child," the Scarecrow said to her. The Joker, he ignored. There had been friction between them in the past. Better not to remind anyone of that just now.
"Did you know there are zombies out here?" The Scarecrow cocked his head to the side, puzzled.
"Zombies?" he repeated. Was there a voodoo priest among the criminals of Gotham?
Had Two-Face been a zombie?
The body of the orderly moved, and Harley squeaked.
"Puddin! Zombie!"
Joyously, the Joker brought the crowbar down on the orderly's skull. Crack. Spurt. Spasm. Death.
"Got him," the Joker said, and cracked him on the head again. He giggled. And poked the exposed brain matter. Squish.
"Professor Crane, do you know anything about all this?" Harley asked, since the Joker was obviously distracted.
"I just woke up. How did you get out of your cells?"
"The zombies are taking over!" Harley said brightly. The Joker stood up, licking the blood and goo from his lips.
"You know, that tastes absolutely nothing like raspberry jam," he said. "Come on, Harl. He doesn't know anything." The Joker turned to go, pulling his girlfriend after him. She waved goodbye to the Scarecrow.
"Wait!" The Joker looked back over his shoulder with an indifferent grin. "Are they voodoo zombies or flesh eaters?" the Scarecrow asked, rather desperately. Don't let them leave me in here…
"Oh, so you do know something about zombies," said the Joker. The Scarecrow put on his knowledgeable face. "All right, Harley, I suppose you were right." He looked almost mournful. "We can use him. Let him out." Harley let out a squee and held out her hand for the Joker's crowbar. "Oh, Harley, Pooh. If I wanted to break through the glass, don't you think I would be doing it myself? In fact, that sounds like a marvelous idea!" He started swinging away at the glass, which was far too thick for him to seriously damage. The Scarecrow took a step back, anyway. If the Joker had gotten it into his head to shatter the glass, then, against all odds, he probably would.
"When did…all this begin?" he asked, not wanting to sound completely ignorant, even though, in truth, he was. They hadn't even answered his question, although from the bite marks and the fact that the orderly had returned from apparent death, he had to assume that the zombies were flesh eaters, rather than voodoo automatons.
"It was like this when I woke up, about an hour ago," Harley said. The Joker took a particularly savage whack at the door, and the Scarecrow was amazed to see a web of fine cracks appear under the crowbar's head. "Pretty much everybody is either dead or undead." She giggled, a little more vacantly than usual, and the Scarecrow realized that she was in a state of something like shock. The horror of the situation would hit her sooner or later, and she would probably have a few minutes of hysterics. The Joker, on the other hand, seemed to be in his element. The cracks spiraled out under his relentless blows.
The Scarecrow didn't bother to examine his own emotional state. He wasn't likely to break down in front of the others, not unless the Batman showed up, and he knew how unlikely that was. Batman never came to Arkham except to drop off a captured criminal mastermind. He was never there to save them when things went all to hell. Like the situation with Lyle Bolton, which had been indirectly solved by that poncy git, Bruce Wayne. That had been almost as humiliating as a rescue at the hands of the Dark Knight would have been.
He opened his mouth to speak to Harley again, mostly to keep her mind off whatever it was that she has seen, since the last thing he wanted was a panic—and wasn't that ironic? But if Harley were to suddenly lose her ability to function, he would be left alone with the Joker…and that was not anyone's idea of a good time, except for hers, of course. Even now, she looked like she wanted to jump him. He was, after all, a magnificent specimen of manhood, in her eyes. Apparently.
He wound up like a baseball player and drove the crowbar through the glass with the force of Babe Ruth on methamphetamines. The shattering was beautiful. The Scarecrow shielded his face as thick shards of glass went everywhere.
"Yay, Puddin!" Harley cheered, clapping her hands like a delighted child. Maybe she wasn't as close to hysterics as he had thought. Maybe she was just insane. It was getting harder and harder to tell the difference. He reached out to knock away enough of the glass to widen the opening so he could escape, and then jerked back when he realized that the Joker wasn't yet finished beating the door into submission.
"Where did you get that crowbar, anyway?" the Scarecrow asked. The Joker froze, looking down at the bloodstained tool in his hands with every evidence of surprise.
"I…don't know."
"I see. Well, how many zombies are there?"
"That, Raggedy Man, is a very good question." The Scarecrow's eyes narrowed.
"Why don't you ask them?" Harley asked. The followed the direction of her pointing finger to the stairs, where a veritable army of the undead was shambling toward them, groaning hungrily.
"Did you know they were coming?" the Scarecrow demanded. Harley and the Joker both nodded, looking pleased as punch. "And you still thought it was a good idea to make a lot of noise and break my door?" They nodded again. "Lunatics!" He knelt down to quickly rummage through the dead orderly's pockets and came up with absolutely nothing that could have been useful. "Well…shit." He stood up, cursing his own lack of a creative vocabulary as much as anything else.
"What did you say, Professor Crane?" Harley asked. He just glared at her. The Joker cackled—quietly.
"This has the potential to be plenty amusing, fellows, but if we don't want the big, scary zombies to eat our brains, this might be a good time to run."
"Zombies don't eat brains," Crane corrected. "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to bite through a human skull?"
"Actually…"
"Puddin, he doesn't want to hear about Mr. Simon," Harley said. "The zombies…remember?"
"Oh, right, right. It's just…that guy really had it coming. I mean, he couldn't even play a decent game of Simon Says."
"Zombies, Mr. J.!"
"Piffle," said the Joker. He raised his crowbar. "We can take 'em!"
The Scarecrow peered out into the shadowy hallway and quickly counted at least thirty of the walking dead coming right for them. The odds were ten to one, and he was unarmed. In no way did he believe that they could "take 'em."
He considered using the Crime Clown as a distraction…but he didn't think Harley would be too happy with that plan. Besides, in a zombie attack, there was probably safety in numbers, even if those numbers were one hundred percent certified dangerously insane.
"I like your original plan," he said. "This is a good time to run."
"Run where?" Harley asked.
"Anywhere but here." They were wasting time; with every passing second, those things came closer, and the Scarecrow was in no mood to stand around making long-term plans.
"Excuse me? Hello?" came a voice from the next cell over. "Are you listening to me?"
The Scarecrow cringed. He was even less in the mood for Nygma and his constant babbling and superior attitude.
"Let's go," he said, stepping out into the hallway. It was then that it hit him just how slow-moving the zombies were. Huh. Maybe they weren't all that threatening, after all. Then again, they did have superior numbers, and there was always the chance that they could get the living ones cornered or trapped between two groups of the undead.
The three of them walked at a relatively brisk pace toward the opposite end of the hallway. The zombies shuffled after them, moaning and rotting and generally being not-quite-dead.
"Wait!" the Riddler cried. He looked quite pathetic, pressed up against his cell door like that, looking so forlorn and abandoned. "You can't just leave me here!" The Scarecrow smiled, enjoying the way the other man's voice cracked, revealing his fear. If the zombies had really taken over, then it could be days or more before anyone came along to feed the trapped prisoners. Maybe longer. They could all just starve to death, and wouldn't that be a sight to show the children? Oh, well. No big loss there. Social Darwinism, and all. If they didn't manage to find their own ways out, they didn't deserve to be locked up in Arkham Asylum in the first place.
"Nothing personal, Question Mark," the Joker said as they passed him by. "But you're useless."
"I am not useless," the Riddler shouted, his voice cracking again. "I'll tell you the security code to my door! You can hide in here from the undead! Come on, please!"
The Joker stopped, heaved a long-suffering sigh, and whacked a nearby zombie in the face with his crowbar.
"Oh, all right," he said. "What's the code?"
"91314549731450."
"Say it again—slower," the Scarecrow said, with his hand poised over the keypad.
"Nine one-thirty one-four five-forty-nine-seven-thirty-one, four-hundred-fifty." The door slid open, and the three of them ducked inside. Harley giggled merrily, watching the zombies throw themselves against the glass.
"Well, we're safe for now," the Scarecrow said. A zombie tried to bite the glass and looked comically disturbed when its teeth wouldn't close. "Now what are we supposed to do?" He frowned. "What were you thinking, just smashing down my wall like that?"
"We could have just kept walking," the Joker pointed out.
"I don't suppose any of you have bothered to memorize the layout of this place?" the Riddler asked. He sounded a bit timid, perhaps realizing that he was out of his depth. Hell, when the Joker was involved, anyone would be out of his depth. The Scarecrow freely acknowledged that he was a second-class villain when compared to the Clown Prince of Crime—at least in the minds of anyone who had not yet been exposed to his own particular brand of villainy. No one who had felt the effects of his fear toxin ever underestimated him again.
"I know all the important parts," the Joker said cheerfully.
"That's not good enough. I know my way around the entire building, including the parts you've never even considered."
"Oh, you're just trying to give us a reason not to leave you behind," the Joker said dismissively.
"Exactly," the Riddler replied. "You think I want to stay here? Besides, you're going to have to break down the door to get out of here, and then I'll be free, and don't think you're going to leave me behind after that."
Then, for no explicable reason, the Joker burst into song.
"The king of Mars perfects his commentary skills
On a gold-plated man monkey full of dollar bills
If you're happier dial one now
Don't be fooled by gravity
And don't be like the sun."
"Is there a hidden meaning in that?" the Riddler asked. The Joker just grinned and belted out his song while the zombies aimlessly pounded on the wall.
"And if I could change one thing about the weather
Well then I would tell the world and I'd become famous
And then I wouldn't need to care about the weather
Never ever anymore
'Cause I would be relaxing in Hawaii."
"Um…" The Scarecrow decided to pretend that everything was as it should be. "All right, Nygma. If you can lead us to a more secure spot than this, I suppose you can stay with our group."
"But that is not my fate
I'm trapped inside a cage
It isn't even locked
But I'm an idiot."
"Joker? What are you singing?" the Riddler asked.
"And why?" the Scarecrow added.
"Caesar was a criminal
But his mother was a saint
Some say that it's subliminal
But I say that it ain't."
"We really don't have time for this…"
"Shush," said Harley.
"Science was a masquerade
Meant to sell you lemonade
And it worked
They're laughing in their graves."
"Nyurngh," said one of the zombies. It scratched at the glass, making a delightful nails-on-chalkboard sound. They all winced, except for the Joker, who was paying no attention to the legions of the walking dead. Apparently, he found his song more interesting.
"Once again I'm falling down
A mountain like a metaphor."
"(God damn leprechauns, god damn leprechauns!)" Harley sang, backing up his tenor very nicely.
"Shoot me from a cannon
To the moon without a helmet on my head
Or even oxygen to breathe
On the offhand chance that there's no air."
"Erm…so where are we running to?" the Scarecrow asked the Riddler, who was, by now, well enough distracted by the song to have temporarily abandoned his escape plans.
"Air is like a something something
Air is like an I don't know and
Air is just like fog but it's not gray and
It makes me want to breathe in toxic little fumes
And then I breathe out sugar frosted blood."
"Hello?" the Scarecrow said, forlornly. "This is not the time…"
"All I ever did to make you laugh is breathe out sugar frosted blood."
Harley giggled.
"Hello?" the Scarecrow repeated.
"I'd like to make a toast to all the little garden gnomes
Who bravely sacrificed their lives for me
I'd like to make a toast
But no one seems to have a cup
I wonder where my cup has gone
I think that it was taken by…"
"Yurgh!" the zombie insisted, clawing at the glass.
"The king of Mars
Perfects his commentary skills
On a gold-plated man monkey full of dollar bills.
You're just standing there, blocking my view!"
"We don't have time for this!" said the Scarecrow. The Joker grinned at him.
"Don't be scared by me
Or me
And don't be like the sun."
The Scarecrow actually waited for him to continue this time. But, no. Apparently, that was the end of the song. The Joker took a bow. Harley applauded wildly. The Riddler clapped once or twice, uncertainly.
"What the hell was that all about?" the Scarecrow exploded. "There are zombies trying to get into this room! There should be no such thing as zombies, you know! Zombies do not exist! There are no bloody flesh-eating zombies! This isn't right! It shouldn't be real! I know I haven't released my fear toxin in the asylum—this isn't my doing. Is it some other kind of hallucination? Are we all just fantastically drunk? Because, I swear, I have never been that drunk in all my life!" Whoops, this was the breakdown he had not meant to have in front of the others.
"Calm down, Professor Crane. They're just zombies," said Harley.
"You have half of Harvey Dent's brain stuck to your shoes!"
"Which half?" asked the Riddler, as if that were the most important question in the world.
"No, that belongs to Lizard Man," Harley said.
"Who, Killer Croc? Well, that's a shame," said the Riddler. "He would have been useful in a fight, assuming we could have kept him from eating us."
"Zombies," the Scarecrow said to the empty air.
"A-hem," said the Joker. Everyone turned to look at him. "What did you think of the song?"
"Aside from it being completely insane? It was…chipper," the Scarecrow said. "But why are we not focusing on the fact that the dead have risen and are hungering for our flesh?"
"I like the way you say 'flesh,'" Harley said. The Joker glared at her.
"Harley! Until he's willing to let you drive nails into his face, I don't want to hear you say that to him again."
"Yes, Puddin," she said, properly chastised.
"Zombies!" the Scarecrow bellowed.
"What? They're out there. We're in here. For now, it's safe to say things, like, oh, say, enemy lasagna. Robust below wax."
"Oh, God," said the Riddler.
"Semiautomatic aqua, accompany slacks. Why coffee gymnastic motorcycle unibrow. Existential plastic extra nightly cow."
"This is pointless…" Too bad. The Joker showed no signs of stopping.
"Damn! Jettison, goodbye, through! Everything center, who! Spidery concubine! Pale, lickety-split remorse, vitamin after force, already nested human wine!" (Gasp!) "Flight! Luminary uprise. Entanglement broke. Unsophisticated clockwise, holiday way smoke. Abundant various, metaphorically applause. Underneath hilarious oxymoron claws. Rectangular awkward hurt, million controvert, never undressing sneer. Blue therapy, fall inside. Father dethrone, applied. Guillotine apprehensive engineer."
"Word disassociation," said Harley.
"Word disassociation," the Joker sang back.
"Word disassociation," she chirped.
"Word disassociation. Prance, omelette, stalking, chimney sweep."
"Eleven, hatred, earmuff, okay, rathskeller," Harley replied.
"My elusive hula yellow sketching creamy helium."
"Gentlemanly communiqué."
"Flouncy! Panicky redundant, psychedelic while," sang the Joker, oblivious to everything, and especially oblivious to the zombies. "Raisin, terrible abundant polyurethane smile." (Oh, that was him all right.) "Scrumptious, mechanical, jungle uncle wish. Paleobotanical backwards licorice. Truth, medical entertain, cleverly porridge brain, jellyfish fingernail! Agnostic oppressive wall, platypus parasol, sauntering sawdust opera monorail playing word disassociation!"
"Word disassociation," Harley repeated dutifully.
"Word disassociation!"
"Word disassociation!"
"Letter?"
"No."
"Sly."
"Violin."
"Dust bunny."
"Explode."
"Serenade."
"Why?"
"Spoil."
"Play."
"Drip."
"Skullduggery."
"Freezer."
"Monocle."
"Pelican."
"Cool."
"Milk."
"Freak."
"Tongue."
"Television."
"Staple-gun."
"Mellow."
"Face."
"Bubblegum."
"Periscope."
"Fight."
"Silly."
"Elephant."
"Akimbo."
"Paranoia."
"Sever."
"Maybe."
"Crush."
"Toy."
"Spoon."
"Melt."
"Feather."
"Clear."
"King."
"Weird."
"Space."
"Love."
"Domino, reality, apostrophe," the Joker said triumphantly. "Dollar jade velocity, meringue assuming gentle mister, advertisement suitcase pining lobsters over murderous distraction flames imposter a cappella, crouch about bionic ruby quickly antidisestablishmentarianism!" (Gasp!) Harley shimmied her hips. "Word disassociation!"
"Word disassociation," said Harley.
"Word disassociation," the Riddler echoed.
"Word disassociation," the Scarecrow said reluctantly.
"Word disassociation!"
"Word disassociation!"
"Word disassociation."
"Word dis—there are zombies at the door. Could we please try to be serious?" said the Scarecrow.
"You really don't have any sense of humor at all, do you?" the Joker asked. The Scarecrow frowned, seriously weighing his options. The Joker was quite obviously insane—even more so than usual—but he had the only weapon. The Riddler, on the other hand, still had his mental faculties, but he was going to be no use in a fight.
It was times like these that he wished he had henchmen.
Henchmen…
Henchmen?
"Do you suppose those things have been through the other wards yet?" he wondered.
"Oh, yeah," said Harley. "They have. All the henchmen are dead. Only us master criminals are left." The Joker glared at her. She chuckled nervously. "Um…that didn't come out quite like I meant it…boss."
Well, that cancelled out that theory. So would it be better to stick with the group, strike out on his own, or what? As much as he ever hated to admit it, this was a completely new situation for him. Zombies?
"Where did these things come from?" the Scarecrow asked, leaning forward to tap on the glass. One of the undead gleefully attempted to bite his finger. Its face bounced back, disturbing those around it.
"You mean you don't know?" Harley asked.
"How would I know?"
"Why do you think we pulled you out of your cell?" asked the Joker. "You're supposed to know things! You're Arkham's resident evil bookworm."
"When's the last time you read a book about flesh-eating zombies?" the Scarecrow snapped irritably. He traced his finger across the glass, watching to see if the zombies would follow the movement. They did.
"I am legend," the Riddler said, so softly it was almost inaudible. They ignored his random babblings completely.
"You couldn't have mentioned this before?"
"There wasn't time, and you didn't ask." He moved slowly; the zombies watched him, occasionally trying to snap at his hand. He made a sudden movement to one side, and they all surged forward, rebounding off the glass.
"'Professor Crane, do you know anything about all this?'" the Joker said, mimicking Harley's voice almost perfectly.
"All right…so you did ask. But I never said I knew anything." He pressed his ear to the glass, trying to make out any actual words within the garbled moans of the dead. Just how much intelligence were these creatures capable of?
"You implied it."
"And you know what happens when you assume—you make an ass out of you and me." But especially you, clown face.
"I don't think bickering is going to help us," said the Riddler.
"Oh, really? And what do you suggest we do, you two-bit crossword puzzle bandit?" The Riddler glared at him, but his voice remained just barely civil.
"The most important thing we have to do is get out of Arkham. We're sitting ducks in here, if the place has been overrun. Once we get out, we can go our own separate ways—although there will probably be zombies in the city, as well."
"And how do you propose we get past this mass?" the Scarecrow asked.
"Urh!" said a zombie as its teeth broke against the glass. The Scarecrow stepped backwards in alarm.
"Determined little buggers, aren't they?" the Joker said with every evidence of pride, as if he had created them himself. "They probably have taken over the city by now."