Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Scarecrow

A steady tap, tap, tap echoed in Lee's ears, stirring him to consciousness. He opened his eyes and blinked several times. Slowly, his blurred vision came into focus. He looked around. With the exception of a single light overhead, he was surrounded by darkness. He had no idea where he was but he knew it couldn't be good. He was cuffed to the arms of a chair.

This particular predicament was one to which Lee was no stranger, so while he was concerned, he wasn't overly anxious at this point. He pulled at his restraints, but they didn't yield in the least. He tried to stand with the chair but it appeared to be bolted to the floor. Meanwhile, the tapping continued, and Lee now realized from where it was coming.

Just across from him, about ten feet away, was another chair which as best he could tell, was identical to the one to which he was secured. It looked similar to an old electric chair. It was sturdy, made from thick, hard wood, and had a high back. A hand rested on the top of it and a single finger tapped out a monotonous beat.

"Oh my. Awake already. You are a resilient one."

The dark figure moved around to the front of the chair and eased himself down into it. He sat perfectly still, perfectly straight, his pale bony fingers laced in his lap. Lee studied him intently, trying to glean any information that might be useful. He knew that Gotham was famous for costumed characters but the sight before him was not anything he could have or would have expected.

The man's clothes looked old, very old. His shirt and pants weren't dirty, just ragged and worn. He wore a long tattered coat that fell past the top of his boots and had padded shoulders that were freakishly wide, especially on his lanky frame. Strangest of all, around his neck hung what was unmistakably a hangman's noose.

Though Lee couldn't see his face because of the shadow cast by the wide brim of his hat, he could feel his eyes fixed on him unblinkingly.

"Well, Mr. Stetson," the stranger drawled. His voice was raspy and low. "This is...ironic."

"What is?" Lee ventured to ask.

"You."

"What about me?"

"They told me that they call you...Scarecrow."

"Who told you?"

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It matters to me."

"What should matter to you is why you're here." He chuckled slightly. "At least it would...if you only had a brain," he half sang.

"Why am I here?"

"They call you Scarecrow, Mr. Stetson, but you don't really know anything about fear, real fear. That," he jabbed a finger at him, "is the irony. That is why you're here. So I can teach you all about it."

~o~O~o~

Amanda scanned the room, looking for Lee. Again. She had spent the past twenty minutes walking from one end of the room to the other, trying to find him but he was nowhere to be seen. It was getting late and the crowd was starting to thin out. She looked at her watch. He had told her that he didn't know how long he would be, but it was now after midnight, and she was getting more anxious with each passing minute.

Satisfied that Lee wasn't in the hotel or at least that he wasn't on that floor, Amanda thought she would do better to look outside. She made her way to where most of the remaining party goers were assembled, waiting on one of the four express elevators to the ground floor. She had been in line for a few minutes when she noticed a harried-looking man making his way through the throng, moving in her direction.

"Mrs. King! Mrs. King!" he called out. When he finally reached her, he paused long enough to smooth his suit coat, brush back his hair, and take a breath before continuing. "I beg your pardon, but you are Amanda King, aren't you?"

"Uh, yes," she said a little warily.

"Good. Good. I've been looking for you for some time now. I'm Ray Bolger." He moved closer and lowered his voice, "I'm Scarecrow's contact here in Gotham."

"Oh my gosh. Do you know where he is? I've been looking for him for..."

"Yes, yes," he interrupted. "He sent me to find you."

"Is he okay? Did he say anything? I mean, did he give you some kind of message?"

"Yes. He told me to say, you should just go back to your hotel room, wait there, and don't do anything."

"Oh no," Amanda gasped. "He really is in trouble. I should have known this was going to happen. I didn't like the idea of him going off by himself and not telling me where he was going or what he was doing and then there was all those police sirens and the bat signal. I just knew that had something to do with whatever he was up to, and...I have to save Lee."

"Mrs. King, I really should take you back to your hotel," he demurred.

"Oh, but I just know Lee is in real trouble. Please, if you could just take me to where he is..."

"I...I...Mrs. King, it's..." he said falteringly.

Amanda didn't say anything else. She simply placed a hand on Mr. Bolger's arm and looked at him imploringly.

"Oh...very well. But I'm sure whatever has him tied up can't be that terrible."

~o~O~o~

"Who are you working for?" Lee thought it was a stupid question himself, more like something a gumshoe or a private eye in a corny old black and white movie would ask in this situation, not a trained government agent. But his head was still spinning a little bit, and it was the only thing that came to mind.

"I suppose I should be offended," the stranger said, a slight hint of irritation in his voice, "but that is what you do, isn't it? I mean people like you. You ask questions, some subtle, some direct, but all in the desperate hope that I might betray some tidbit of information you can use." He paused for a moment before continuing, "I do not work for anyone. That, of course, is not to say that my...services can't be contracted."

"And what exactly are your services?"

"I'm a...motivator," came the thoughtful answer. "Have you ever thought about why people do the things they do? They get up early, go to jobs they hate, pay their bills, buy things they don't need, belong to social clubs, see their doctor every year, and on and on and on. Why do they do it? Do you think it's honor? Duty? Nobility? A highly developed sense of responsibility?" He let the words hang between them for a moment. "No. It's fear. Fear of being poor, of not having the same things as their so-called friends, fear of what other people think, fear of getting sick, of dying. Fear is the most powerful motivator...the only one really."

"So you're trying to scare me?"

The figure lunged from the chair, stopping just a few inches from Lee's face. Reflexively, Lee flinched and when he opened his eyes he was face-to-face with...what, he didn't know. The features were mostly recognizable but instead of skin, it looked like burlap that had been crudely stitched together. Where there should have been eyes, there were black holes and a hideously wide, jagged smile stretched nearly the entire width of his head.

"Scare you? Scare you?!" He put his hands over Lee's wrists. His thin build belied the strength of his grip. "Oh...nothing so infantile. I don't scare people. I help them see what's lurking inside them. I help them experience fear in its truest, purest form."

"You...you...look like a...a..."

"Go on. Say the word. You can do it. It's right there, just on the tip of your tongue, waiting."

"A scarecrow."

"No no no no no no no no," he said, punctuating each syllable with a tap of his finger on Lee's forehead. "I," he stood to his full height, "am the Scarecrow. You might be a scarecrow, but I am the definite article you might say."

"You...you're...are you telling me that's your name?" Lee asked incredulously.

"My name? No. Not my name. It is," he moved back and sat down again, "what I am."

"Yeah." He looked around the room again now that his eyes had become more adjusted to the bright light over head and the surrounding darkness. What he could see of the walls were lined with soundproof insulation. To his left was a large mirror, undoubtedly two-way, and to his right was a door. The floor was simple tile and apart from the chairs, the only other thing he could see was a small, wheeled, cloth covered table. "Something tells me this isn't about you being burned up over a code name."

"Indeed not."

"Then what?"

"You are my proof of concept."

Lee didn't answer. He just furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Would it surprise you to know that in your world of spy versus spy, intelligence and counterintelligence, you are among the most coveted human intelligence targets?" He waved a hand dismissively. "No need to be modest Mr. Stetson. While I personally find it difficult to imagine anything of value lurking in that so-called mind of yours, there are people who are willing to pay dearly for the information in your head. Of course, your reputation precedes you. You are regarded by many as impossible to break. It seems that you could be tortured for weeks, and it would come to nothing."

"So...where do you come in?"

"Perhaps I flatter myself, but my reputation precedes me as well. A few days ago, a couple of charming gentlemen paid me a visit. It seems that a certain Yuri Dimitrov..."

"The Russian crime lord who operates out of Gotham?" Lee interjected.

"So...you've heard of him. Impressive. You're better informed than I thought. Well, he told some old friends of his about my...skill set. They believe I can succeed where others have failed."

"Russians," Lee said through clenched teeth. "That would explain them." He nodded at the two enormous men who flanked both sides of the door.

"Oh my! Forgive me! Where are my manners? Yuri was gracious enough to provide some manual labor for this enterprise. Allow me to introduce Boris and his friend Boris. For all my genius, I had to finally give up on their actual names.

"Now, getting back to the matter at hand." Scarecrow rose from the chair and wheeled the table over, positioning it between Lee and himself. "This," he pointed to the table, "is where I come in."

"Like you said, I've been tortured before. What makes you think you can do any better?"

Instead of answering, Scarecrow pulled the cloth aside. On the table was a stainless steel tray. In the center of it was a rubber tourniquet and a syringe filled with a bright gold liquid.

Lee's mind began running through a list of every psychoactive drug he knew, but this wasn't like anything he'd ever seen, and that made him more than a little nervous. "Truth serum?" he asked.

Scarecrow picked up the syringe and removed the cap. "No...nothing so banal." He leaned down over Lee and held the needle in front of his face. "This...this is the stuff dreams are made of...bad dreams. It's your worst fears...distilled...purified." The needle now hovered precariously close to Lee's eye, and a drop of the fluid oozed out of the tip. "Why...it's almost like the touch of God." Suddenly, Scarecrow pulled back. "But we aren't there yet. There still something missing."

At that moment, the door swung open and in stepped Amanda with Mr. Bolger right behind her.

"Lee Stetson. As promised," Mr. Bolger drawled.

"Yes. Yes you did," Amanda said quietly without looking back at him.

"Amanda!" Lee exclaimed.

"Uh...hi Lee," she said with a half-hearted smile, clearly aware that they were both in serious trouble.

"What is she doing here?" Lee asked Scarecrow.

He put the syringe back on the table and crossed the room to where Amanda stood. "Amanda King," he said, sounding like a scientist simply identifying a random specimen that had been placed before him.

"What is she doing here? She doesn't have anything to do with any of this!"

"Oh...but she has everything to do with this. After all, every drug requires an active ingredient."

~o~O~o~

Lee's body tensed. His back arched and he clenched his teeth. He opened and closed his hands several times, gripping the arm rests of the chair, the whole time scowling defiantly at Scarecrow.

"There, there...don't fight it. It's so much less painful if you don't fight," Scarecrow whispered just loudly enough that Amanda could hear.

"What have you done to Lee?!" she yelled.

"I haven't done anything...at least not yet," he replied without looking back.

"What...what are you going to do?" Amanda choked out.

Scarecrow let out a sigh that sounded more like a growl. "I'm going to start by letting him spend a little time with the things that have made him the man he his today...his fears...all his fears." He half-looked over his shoulder. "That...that is what makes you so important."

"I don't understand."

"Oh...don't feel bad about that. Mr. Stetson doesn't either."

"Ama... Amanda," Lee said groggily.

"Ah, this is it, this is it" Scarecrow said as he turned back to Lee.

"Amanda?" Lee's eyes lolled about as if looking for her.

"Yes, Mr. Stetson. She's right here. She's...waiting for you," Scarecrow said tauntingly. He crossed to the door but stopped short just before closing it behind him. "Whether or not you can hold onto her...well..." With that, he left them alone.

"Lee? Lee?"

"Amanda?"

"Yes, do you hear me, Lee?"

He was still looking all about the room, seemingly oblivious to her being only a few feet away.

"Amanda?"

"Lee...I'm right here...please..."

He blinked rapidly several times, drew a few deep breaths, and suddenly seemed very lucid. "Amanda?" he asked very deliberately, looking right at her.

"Oh my gosh. You're okay. I was so worried that man had..."

"Amanda?" he said again as if he hadn't heard her. His eyes narrowed, and his mouth dropped slightly. "What's wrong? Are you...why are you looking at me like that? Amanda...please...just say something..."

"Lee, try to focus. I..."

He began shaking his head from side to side. "No no no no no no no, please...please..." Without warning, his eyes went wild and he screamed, "AMANDA!"

To be continued...