Late August - the brightness of the day used to stay long during this time of the year. From afar the time-honoured tower clock which watched over St. Andrew's Place hit ten o' clock in the evening. The sun had just set, dying the cloudless sky in a spectrum of colours that reached from red over deep purple to a dark midnight blue. A gentle breeze whirled up some leaves from the cobbled pathways in Gotham Seaside Park, its coolness being a harbinger of the upcoming night.
A lot of people still occupied the benches, fewer since the attacks had started, though, and enjoyed the beautiful view on the sea as well as on the black silhouette of Gotham's skyline against the horizon that bordered it on the left side.
It was a nicely arranged, rectangle-shaped park - there was a line of flower beds behind the benches, parallel to the paths, small trees were planted in each corner and a big, ancient one grew in the center - everything else was fresh, green grass. In short: It was easy to overlook, which meant there were no places to hide, consequently making it safe.
Or so they thought.
Little did they know of the pair of obscure eyes which had been observing them for hours through the thick branchwood and foliage of the big tree.
Tonight the Scarecrow would run a final test on the new toxin - and it had already spotted the perfect test subject: A young woman who had been sitting on the bench closest to the water for almost as long as the Scarecrow had been hiding in the tree top.
She was bent over a green notebook and had not turned once to look about since her mind was completely focused on her work which seemed to occupy all of her senses. She had obviously forgotten time, which was the reason why the Master of Fear had chosen her.
Its patience was finally rewarded an hour later when she was the only person left in the park.
Surrounded by the pitch-darkness, it silently climbed down the tree within a few seconds, its double-jointed arms and legs enabling skillful, but weird-looking monkey-like moves.
Suddenly, its subject looked up, causing the Scarecrow to stop approaching. It hesitated for a moment, then decided to remain at its place and watch first, using the broad trunk as a cover.
The night had, honestly, taken her by surprise - had she actually been typing her report for more than four hours? To her, it had seemed like one.
Whatever, at least it was finished now. She had to hand it in the next morning, if she wanted to keep her job at 'Laboratorium', Gotham's only serious, gossip-less science magazine.
Currently, she was admittedly a mere secretary there - again - but her employer had offered all of his 'lower employees', as he called them, a chance to write something for the next issue. If her entry was printed, she would finally fulfill her secret, long kept dream of becoming a science journalist.
While she saved her file and shut down her notebook, she noticed that something was strange about her environment, different. Soon she realized it was the thick, disturbing darkness around her. Her eyes, still used to the computer's bright display, saw absolutely nothing. Was there not supposed to be a lantern somewhere? A little too hectically, she tried to spot a light source but the tiny red LED of her mobile phone.
The Scarecrow licked its lips in delightful expectation. It had made sure that the nearby lantern was not lit - an easy operation as it just needed to cut a few cables - to create the perfect, appropriate atmosphere.
Every second the woman's nervousness increased, its desire to scare her rose as well. It could smell the fear, even before the woman knew it was there, and leaned forward to be closer. Its whole yet light weight rested on one foot now. Then a twig on which it was standing gave in with a quiet yet hearable crackle. Immediately it froze and let out a noiseless curse.
"W-Who's there?" it hard the female voice cry insecurely.
Don't move, don't move! The hours of waiting for this opportunity mustn't be wasted!
It hardly dared to breath and, despite its better knowledge, even its quickened heartbeat seemed treasonously loud now. Only the effect of the toxin was what it wanted to study, being discovered would ruin the experiment!
"This isn't funny! Show yourself!" she shouted into the darkness, although she rather preferred not to know whether there really was an invisible enemy. She stood upright, the bag with her notebook pressed against her chest, and pushed a button on her mobile phone. The tine display lit up and she turned it away from her body to use it as a flashlight.
She almost jumped up as a pair of big, emerald green eyes reflected the dim shimmer and curiously stared up to her from her feet.
"Oh, hello, little cutie," she said, visibly relieved, and bent over to stroke its soft, brown fur of the cat in a gentle way. She chuckled when the feline purred in return.
"You know, you really startled me." A smile appeared on her face and she sat down again in order to call her husband. She would definitely not go home on her own at this late time of the day, so he could as well move himself off the couch to pick her up, she thought grimly.
Luckily that cat had passed by, the Scarecrow thought. Nevertheless, it had to hurry and get away before this man, who the woman had called Billy on the phone, arrived. It pulled out a thin wooden tube of the pocket of its burlap trousers which seemed to be a small, self-made blowpipe. It cautiously loaded it with a tiny prepared dart, aimed briefly and fired it by sharply blowing into the slim tube.
"Ouch!" These damn mosquitoes! With her hand she reached for the skin at her neck where she believed the insect had bitten her. To her surprise, she felt something hard at this place.
A tick perhaps? She probably should not have put her hair in a ponytail.
She pulled it out without hesitation, not knowing that the sudden pressure destroyed the thin sheet that separated two tiny chambers in the dart.
Both liquids mixed, creating the Essence of Terror, as it liked to call the toxin. It worked again, just as calculated! The sinister straw man could already spot the first symptoms of intoxication at its test subject.
She felt strange, dizzy, not to say really ill. Her vision blurred and she began to sweat. Additionally, the sudden idea of being watched just would not leave her mind! Did she suffer from paranoia now?
"Oh kitty, what's happening to me?" she sighed weakly, her voice a mere whisper, while her heart beat at increasing speed. Oddly enough, the cat resting on her lap seemed to grow.
It… grinned broadly, familiarly in an absurd way, displaying two shiny rows of sharp saber-teeth.
Was that even possible? The big, emerald eyes stared squarely into hers, knowing, judging, threatening.
"I don't know," it purred softly, then with a much louder and more intimidating growl, "Maybe you are going mad. But we are all mad here, aren't we?" Its reboant laughing was a horrible, insane sound.
"Oh my-" She was not able to finish her sentence since the monstrous cat, now as big as a rhinoceros, pounced on her, its jaws wide opened and about to devour her.
She screamed and pushed the monster off of her body, but suddenly a second one appeared out of nothing, and a third one, and a fourth one, and they attacked her all at once.
Interesting, the Scarecrow thought - apparently, the woman had either had a phobia of cats in her youth, or the feline had reminded her of a past traumatic experience.
The straw man watched her curl up into a ball, slightly rocking back and forth, the hands pressed on her ears. Again she screamed uncontrolledly, though it was a weak sound which changed into a whimper from one moment to another.
The Master of Fear smiled in satisfaction. The experiment had been a success.
Noiselessly it approached her, aware that she would not notice it anyway, and collected the evidence in form of the tiny dart. Its gaze fell upon the notebook on the ground - she had dropped it earlier – or, more precisely, upon the name tag which stuck on its bottom right corner.
"Alice Pleasance" it said, which caused a strong reaction from the other presence in its head. Immediately the straw man read the woman's identity in its alter ego's thoughts, and raised an eyebrow in surprise. This indeed attributed a new meaning to the situation!
Her relation to the Carroll freak might prove quite useful against him, but there was no time to think about it now. Little Alice's screams were already grabbing some attention, so the villain was forced to escape as long as it was still possible.
It ran, its long legs carrying it quickly across the park, in direction of the docks, were its hideout was located. The way was still far and it had just begun heading there, but nonetheless its steps already lacked precision. When it even stumbled, it only barely managed to catch itself to prevent falling. Eventually, the heavy breathing forced it to stop.
"C'mon, what's wrong with you?" it asked itself aloud, panting. Was it actually a side-effect of its own toxin it had come in contact with so often recently, like the Hat freak had said? No, never! But it might be something else it needed which every sensible person would have seen coming: rest. As much as it hated to admit it, this was a very real possibility. It had not slept for three entire days, which was not exactly what one would call a healthy style of living.
"A lack of sleep weakens your body and your mind, let alone the terrible headache it causes," its alter ego used to say, it remembered. Sleeping - what a waste of time! And it was dangerous as well, considering for how many hours you stayed unconscious. It let out a resigned sigh and looked for a safe place.
The only object around that lived up to its definition of such at the moment was a nearby group of trees slightly off the street. It was big enough to be nicknamed "Little Forest" by the local residents, yet it was ridiculously small enough not to deserve the name.
However, it would do. The Scarecrow chose the highest tree to climb it up to the top much like a monkey and it cautiously lay down on a broad branch, trying to keep its balance. The brown burlap that covered its whole body made it nearly invisible on the moss-grown bark. Here, well protected from curious glances, it pondered the day again.
There was still so much to do, so much to prepare! Besides, spending hours among plants for the second time within a day sounded more like Poison Ivy's thing.
Reluctantly it closed its eyes. The straw man doubted it was going to be a pleasant night, for it already knew who would be expecting it.
A/N: This is the first time in my story you get to see the Scarecrow in action (besides attacking Jervis, I mean). Perhaps you noticed that I alternated POVs in increasingly shorter text parts up to the intoxication. I got this idea from a German short story which used a similar method to prepare the climax.
As always, the illustration link is on my profile page & thanks for reading.