A/N: Thanks for the comments Bright Anarchy, Carrie, Batman Dude, Owan and Carl! Sorry about the delay. Last week was the first week of school and things were a little crazy. I'm going to post as many chapters as possible this week so I can be done with this story; I'm tired of it. :)
Blas and Owan - I'm happy to report that I have finally seen the movie. ;-) My six-year-old was extremely upset with Batman for being mean to Robin: "Are you kidding me, Batman?! Really?!"
Chapter 9:
Fifteen minutes earlier:
Batman stopped the Batmobile at the top of the circular driveway, much like the teenager-laden bus had done a little over four weeks ago. He quickly opened his door and exited the vehicle, his first objective to find Mike and get a full report. There had to be some kind of important information that he would receive from one of the adults or kids. However, upon cresting the hill that led to the camp itself, he realized that nobody was around. He ran into the front building, glancing around the entire room on his way to the small office that obviously belonged to the director. There was nobody in the office or the building so he rushed back through the open door and headed to the closest structure – it looked like a cafeteria. Flinging open the door nearest to him, Batman swiftly passed through the kitchen and into the eating area.
The hero stopped in shock: everyone in the room was unconscious on the floor. He strode quickly over to the clump of people and immediately spotted the open two-liter bottle, the inside of which was tainted orange. One sniff told Batman all he needed to know because he and Robin had been victims of Scarecrow's drugs more than once. This one was merely a sleeping gas and everyone would be fine.
Batman crouched down next to Mike and roughly shook the man's shoulders while yelling at him to wake up. The camp director sleepily obeyed and Batman helped him sit up.
"Where is False Face?" the hero asked angrily and Mike looked confused.
"I…I don't know who False Face is but our chef, John, threatened one of our kids with a knife and then did this," Mike swept a shaking arm around the cluster of teenagers and adults.
Batman growled quietly. "Where did he go?" he demanded.
Mike shook his head and shrugged his shoulders – he had been asleep before the man had exited the building. Glancing down, the director noticed that Donovan was asleep right next to him and he scowled. The man might know something and Mike suddenly pulled back a fist and punched him in the face. Donovan yelped groggily and immediately sat up, his arms automatically crossing over his head in defense. Mike started to punch the counselor again but his fist hit the palm of Batman's gloved hand instead.
"He was working with John, he must know something," the director stated furiously.
Batman stood up and grabbed Donovan's arms, hauling the man to his feet and glaring at him. "Tell me where John went," he commanded, his voice deadly quiet.
Donovan, a bruise already forming on the left side of his face, was trembling in the strong grasp and finding it difficult to speak. But the chef had betrayed him, and the memory of being shoved into the group that had been drugged leapt to the forefront of his mind.
"There's an abandoned shack in the forest, somewhere near here. I don't know exactly where it is but I do know that John discovered it a few nights ago. He has gone there twice since then, as far as I know." The counselor's voice was nervous but there was a strong vein of anger laced into the tone.
Batman tossed Donovan to the ground, looked down at Mike and stressed that nobody was to leave the building until he came back with the villain restrained and ready for the police. He didn't even glance at the rest of the group; False Face was his focus. It didn't occur to him to ask Mike if everyone was present.
Stopping just outside the front door, Batman scanned the trees. The forest was dense and it would take a lot of time to search the entire thing. He noticed a shadow moving silently near the northern tree line and he quietly slipped around the southwest corner of the cafeteria, where he could see but not be seen.
Present time:
False Face returned to the shack after leaving Dick in the water. The empty vial was on the table that he had righted before dragging the boy to the lake. He threw it on the ground angrily, watching it shatter. The drug hadn't been strong enough to withstand the mind of a thirteen-year-old kid for more than ten minutes! He crouched down and snatched Scarecrow's "recipe" book off the floor. Straightening up again, he grabbed what was left of the long rope off the table and stalked out the door.
Leaving the kid to drown in the lake was a good idea, False Face decided as he zigzagged through the trees, heading south toward the camp. It ensured that Bruce Wayne would regret sending Batman up into the mountains to save his little ward and all the other bratty rich kids. The villain sighed as he mentally watched money drifting away like smoke in a breeze. He didn't have any more time to perfect his drug and use it on these kids. They, and the adults, would have to be taken care of before he could make his escape.
The shadow emerged from the trees, softly but quickly heading toward the front door of the cafeteria and carrying something long and brown. Batman recognized the villain's normal mask immediately and waited for him to approach the building. A fleeting thought of irritation sliced through his mind: Dick had an excellent facial recognition memory. Why hadn't the boy figured this out four weeks ago? A glint of silver caught Batman's eye and he watched False Face pull a knife out of his back pocket. The hero instantly flew around the corner of the building and tackled the man, ignoring the small prick of pain when the knife brushed against the underside of his left arm. Both the knife and a long rope fell to the ground as False Face was quickly knocked out.
Everyone in the cafeteria was now awake and could hear the commotion coming from outside. The kids began running toward the windows to see what was happening. Mike and Donovan raced to block the front entrance while the seven other adults attempted to corral the teens back toward the middle of the room. The kids, however, had other ideas and suddenly the largest window was broken and seventeen bodies were all trying to get out at the same time.
Batman heard the crash as he was crouching on the ground securing False Face. He whipped his head around in surprise and, when he saw what was happening, frustration. What didn't Mike and the other man understand about his instructions to "keep everyone inside until the villain was secure"? He frowned and quickly finished tightening the Bat-cuffs on the man's wrists then stood up to a cacophony of young voices.
"That was so cool! Do you have any more Bat-cuffs? Where is Robin? Did you come in the Batmobile? Can I see it? Who is this guy? Robin's soooo dreamy!"
The last comment came from a group of three giggling girls who had circled around behind Batman to see if the Boy Wonder was there. He heard their sighs of disappointment and nearly rolled his eyes. Shaking his head, he held up his hands for silence, annoyed with the constant noise now encircling him. The kids kept tossing loud questions at him, though, and he was relieved when Mike finally blew the whistle and the teens stopped talking.
Mike walked quickly through the cluster of kids, stopping next to Batman. "What do you want me to do?" he whispered.
"Head count," Batman replied, upset that he hadn't thought to do that earlier. False Face had threatened to punish Dick and Batman had allowed that fact to slip to the back of his mind in order to concentrate on finding the villain. He carefully sifted through the faces of the teens but saw no sign of his ward's distinctive blue eyes.
"Roll call," Mike yelled and everybody lined up. He quickly went through the list and Batman heard seventeen "here" responses when there should have been twenty.
Growling, he turned back to the bleary-eyed villain and pulled him up to standing. "There are three kids missing, False Face," Batman had memorized the roster and knew exactly who they were, "Randy Shuftler, Walter Jackson and Dick Grayson. Where are they?" he demanded, his rising tone threatening and laced with a tinge of concern.
False Face glared at the circle of kids and then at the ground, refusing to give Batman any information.
"Randy is sick, Walter is d…dead," Bronte volunteered softly, "and Dick is missing."
"What did you do with Dick Grayson?!" Batman shouted, two inches away from the idiotic-looking mask of the villain with his hands clenched into fists on the man's shirt. False Face remained silent and Batman threw him back to the ground. He was furious but then he saw the faces of seventeen scared young teenagers and tried to calm his emotions. It was nearly impossible; Dick was missing and he had no idea where his ward could be.
Batman snatched the rope off of the ground and grabbed the back of the villain's shirt, manhandling him to the nearest flagpole. Quickly shoving the villain into a sitting position, he tightly wrapped the entire length of the rope around both the man's body and the flagpole. He looked at the two biggest counselors and instructed them to keep a strict eye on the prisoner then glanced at the kids again.
"Take them into the cafeteria and keep them there this time!" he whispered angrily to Mike, who nodded and began calling to the teens and directing them inside. The rest of the counselors took the hint and started assisting the director.
"Keep that man with you, too," Batman glared at Donovan. "Do not let him out of your sight. Understand?" Satisfied with Mike's nod of agreement, Batman strode toward the forest in search of his ward.
Dick's left arm was still on fire, his vision was going from blurry to non-existent to blurry again, his muscles were wearing out and his hands were slippery with blood. The wood from the pole was shredding his skin and shoving splinters deep into his fingers. The water was at his shoulders and Dick knew he wouldn't be able to hold his head above the surface for much longer.
Tears filled his eyes as he began to accept that this was really the end, that he would never see Bruce or Batman or Alfred again. He realized that all of this was his fault: he should have called Batman sooner, he should have been more aware of his surroundings when he was on the phone, he should have fought back…but he wasn't Robin. Bruce would have been disappointed if Dick had resisted like Robin would have, but now both Dick and Robin were going to die.
An idea suddenly popped into Dick's mind and his eyes widened with hope. The gag was tight but the wood on the pole was sharp and maybe his idea would work. He didn't have much time, though, so he turned his head to the right and started to rub the cloth vigorously against the wood. He felt skin being sanded off his left cheek but he was also already able to move his mouth a little bit.
Dick continued to slide down the pole and the rapid movement of his head wasn't helping his arms stay strong. The chilly water was numbing the ache in his shoulder, though, so he squeezed his arms harder around the pole, effectively slowing his descent. His neck was in the water now but he was finally able to spit out the dirty cloth of the gag and lift his head so that he was looking up at the dock.
"Help!" he tried to yell, but it was difficult to be loud with his neck stretched so far back. It was more like a semi-loud rasping sound and Dick hoped Batman was at least in the vicinity of the lake. He shouted again but there was nothing except the sound of the wind.
Batman was becoming frantic with worry. It had taken him four and a half long minutes to search the entire forest around the perimeter of the camp and he had found nothing! Had False Face really killed Dick like he had threatened over the phone?
"Mike!" he shouted as he strode into the cafeteria. Mike came running over and Batman grabbed his arm, pulling him as far away from the kids as possible.
"I can't find Dick Grayson anywhere around here. Do you have any idea of the location of that old shack your man was talking about?"
Mike frowned in concentration and Batman waited impatiently for almost two minutes. The director's face suddenly lit up, "There's an ice fishing shack by Mountain Lake just north of here. It's right inside the camp's boundary but it hasn't been used in years."
"That sounds like a good place for a villain to hide a captive, then," Batman replied as his eyes narrowed in anger. "Thank you," he threw over his shoulder as he turned and raced out the door. He glared at False Face as he ran by on his way north, hoping that Dick was in the shack and alive.
Different scenarios scampered around in Batman's mind as he sprinted through the forest: Dick had died from hypothermia, Dick was dead by the hand of False Face, Dick had tried to swim to safety and was drowning, Dick was tied up in the shack and perfectly safe. He hoped for the last one but False Face was a villain and Batman doubted that his ward was safe.
A small shack came into view as Batman burst out of a clump of trees, almost running straight into what he hoped was Mountain Lake. The water lapped against his boots and he swept his hand across it to test the temperature. It was cold through his glove, which meant dangerously cold to a small body with absolutely no fat attached to any part of it. Dick was probably in the shack, though, and Batman stepped away from the edge of the lake and ran ten yards north to the crumbling pile of wood, passing the dock shortly before arriving at the entrance. He flung the door open and sunlight filled every corner of the little shack. There were several cobweb-covered fishing poles, a small pile of shattered glass, an upside down pot, a metal table and a bat with a thin streak of blood on one side. Touching his finger to the bloody mark and studying it carefully, Batman decided that False Face and Dick had been in the shack fairly recently. The short length and shallow depth of the red stripe told him that it would have dried within an hour, even with the chilly temperature. It was still slightly sticky – Dick had to be somewhere close, hopefully alive.
He turned around and walked onto the nearby dock, facing east and searching the water for a small body floating on the miniature waves. He heard a quiet sound, like someone gasping for air, and slowly turned in a complete circle. The only things he saw were the trees and the tiny building that was now collapsing in on itself. He folded his arms across his chest, dropped his head and stared at the cracks in the planks of the dock. Where is he?!
Dick, his chin now covered in the freezing water, heard the clomping sound of boots on the wood above him and saw a large shadow fall across the water. A small smile graced his lips; Batman was here. At least, he hoped it was Batman. False Face wouldn't come back…would he? Dick would just have to take the risk because he was about to drown.
"Help!" he rasped one more time as loud as he could, still attempting to tighten his grip on the slippery pole. His strength was virtually non-existent, though, and his time was nearly up. The only thing he could do was take one last gulp of air before losing the fight with the rock and sliding silently under the surface of the lake.