AN: This one was, by far, the more vocal of the two. Of course, when you don't have a tarantula crawling around on your mouth…necrophobia, by the way, is fear of corpses, death, et. cetera.

SwordStitcher-Is that so? How horrible. For you, of course, not for me. I may actually have one around here somewhere...she's molting, though, so...


After rescuing his tarantula before it could lose a leg, Jonathan injected the idiot with a mild sedative, flicked off the light, and went upstairs to deal with the other one. Normally, he would have let him sit until his companion was worthless, but he was annoyed at having been woken.

Scarecrow, naturally, was beside himself with joy.

Two! Two in one night! Jonny, Jonny, this is beautiful! Almost like killing your dear old Granny all over again!

He was so easy to please, it was almost pathetic.

His enthusiasm was contagious, however, and he couldn't stop a small smirk from spreading across his face.

He opened the door and went in. His subject was safely restrained in the chair, gagged and blindfolded.

Muahahaha!

He removed the blindfold-ugh, this one was a drooler-and was greeted by a stream of profanities and pleas for help. Idiot. There was no one to help him.

He considered getting a sign for his lab that said, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

"How are we?"

"You bastard, my dad's a cop, he'll be on you so fast…"

All the better! Police irritated him. They always broke his glasses. Gordon was one of the few he could tolerate-he didn't like the man, obviously, but he could tolerate him. For small amounts of time only.

"And does your father know where you are at this very moment?"

That shut the little punk up. Good. Now he could get down to business.

"I thought not. Are you comfortable? You haven't lost too much circulation in your hands yet?"

He didn't get an answer. Fine. He wouldn't waste his energy being nice, then.

My turn!

Have at him.

Scarecrow dropped Jonathan's glasses on the table, inwardly complained about his sudden lack of vision, and yanked the mask on over his face.

Bet you're wishing you'd made this big enough for my glasses now.

NEVER!

"I hope your throat isn't too dry. I expect you to scream."

Canister, canister…ah. There was the canister. It was time to play.

HISSSSSSSSS.

Subject 235 began coughing and trying not to inhale. Scarecrow cackled and flicked the lights off.

"What are you afraid of?" he mocked, making his way around the table to stand behind his new toy. "Is it spiders? The dark? Death?"

A low whimper came from the boy in front of him. Good, good. Another minute and he would know if this one was a screamer or not.

He rubbed his hands together and got an idea. He stooped, held his palms against the cold cement for a minute, and stood up.

Where was the little brat…right there, still whimpering.

Perfect.

He wrapped his now-freezing hands around his neck and relished in the sudden shriek. The throat under his hands vibrated and he squeezed a little to see what would happen. The shrieking continued.

Necrophobia.

This was beautiful. They hadn't had one this loud in a while.

"Get away!"

Scarecrow grinned and reached around to grasp the boy's wrists. That induced a whole new volume of screaming.

"GOD NO!"

God, yes.

He released the wrists and made his way to the light switch and flicked it on.

There was one more sudden, "EEEEEEEE!"

Then there was silence.

Jonathan removed the mask, replaced his glasses on his face, and went over to the subject. The face was still in a horrified grimace, the eyes staring at something in the corner.

That was a job well done.

He turned off the light again and went upstairs. It was time to go to bed.

THE END