CHAPTER 10
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She did not want to open the door. She was more than ready to wallow in misery and make plans about quitting her job, and Gotham. After tonight, she could not possibly stay in the city, anywhere near him. She was too mortified, too defeated; left without any honour and will to continue her existence in Gotham. She really believed that if she stayed, she'd have to return to Arkham as a patient, not as a nurse.
But despite her morbid musings, she wiped away her cold tears, walked to the door and opened it, expecting her neighbour from the apartment above hers to come asking her again if she could borrow some sugar, or some coffee, or some other thing. That woman never had any time to go to the store, so she always begged her neighbours for small favours that she never returned. Pearl didn't mind that; at least, she would see a normal, human face who wanted nothing from her but some sugar. She liked that idea.
And so, she opened the door and gasped.
Her mind knew everything before half a second could pass. It couldn't be him, it just couldn't... She had been expecting him, but only in her head. She did not really think he existed, or that he would actually come to her, for her. He was her guilt, but he just could not be real. He could not be real! She had been battling with imaginary fears for years, like Don Quixote; they had been imaginary.
Then why was he here?
She opened her mouth in shock; she spread her lips to scream, but something happened. Something choked the scream in her throat, something that burned like fire, like years ago when she ate too much chili, but this burning sensation was even worse, at least ten times worse. Oh, God, it burned so much!
He closed the door behind him and began to approach her like a sleek, tall predator, his surreal face throbbing before her eyes. She began to cough, her futile attempt at spewing out the fire scalding her throat and travelling down to her lungs. The more she coughed, the more it burned, and she could see nothing, nothing at all, as heavy tears were streaming down her face in perfect, wet ribbons; tears of pain, and tears of fear.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, his voice gruff and strangely preternatural. It felt like the buzzing of a huge bee, but it was still a human voice, stinging her ears through the strange, ethereal buzzing all around her. It felt as if the air had been made of electricity and she could feel the invisible electricity settling on her strangely sensitive skin. It prickled it with sharp teeth; sharp, sharp, sharp teeth.
"It will not hurt for much longer," he spoke again, reassuring her with false notes.
She wiped the tears away fervently, trying to see, her skin cracking apart as she moved her arms. What she saw only made her cry more. There he was, the predator, approaching her in his sinister way. Her greatest nightmare, her very own guilt, had come true. It was real, it was actually real, and it was after her!
"You...c-c-can't be...real!" she whimpered. "I made stories about you, in my head!"
She screamed in her head, Sherry, I'm sorry I never told them about him, that I saw him with you! I am so sorry, Sherry!
She began to crumble to the ground, her knees giving way to the overwhelming pain, but before she could meet the floor, his hands caught her roughly and pulled her up none too gently, shaking her wildly. Her injured shoulder screamed in protest and she whimpered, but dared not scream aloud.
"No, no, not yet," he ordered and she closed her eyes, willing him away with her mind. She was so frightened, so very frightened. Her heart was pounding in her chest crazily, so much so that she was sure she was going to have a heart attack any minute now.
"Look at me," he said.
She shook her head.
Go away. You are not real, you are not real, you are not real...
"It is not a request," he growled. "Open your eyes!"
She was afraid of what might happen if she did not open her eyes, so she did, whimpering as she saw the cloaked face again, the face that had been haunting her even since she was a little girl of eight. She saw his eyes for the first time now; she had imagined them to be black, with a tint of red surrounding their core, but they were blue, insanely blue and very beautiful. They seemed so very familiar, but she was unable to think clearly and connect the ethereal eyes to any other person she knew. One coherent thought formed in her head: Hell was not black after all; hell was turquoise.
"I'm dreaming," she breathed hysterically, "it's one of my nightmares, I know! Wake up, wake up..." she cried, cupping her hot cheeks with sweaty, shivering hands, her eyes darting crazily to the left and to the right.
He chuckled. "You won't wake up from this nightmare anytime soon, Pearl."
His fingers burned marks into her skin and she tried to shake herself away from him, but he was too strong for her swiftly deteriorating body.
"H-h-how do...do you...know...my name?" she choked out, struggling very hard to speak at all. Her throat felt so very constricted.
It was a stupid question. Of course he knew her name; he came for her, to kill her, like he did her sister. Of course he knew her name.
She chuckled crazily, the laughter consisting of hysteria and irony and fear. "Of course you know my name!"
"Who do you see?" he asked, the question spilling from his mouth like a poisonous viper. "Is it...spiders?" he said gleefully. "Or is it something else, someone else?"
She shook her head violently. "Not spiders. Only you."
"I? Who am I, then? Who am I?" he demanded. He shook her shoulders, making her yelp in pain.
He released her from his grip and she fell to the ground like a shot bird, almost completely lifeless. She wanted to scream in pain when her body came into contact with the hard floor, but she could not. She had spent her energy with the one yelp and the burning came back, suffocating her. She could not breathe properly; she knew that she was slowly beginning to choke. She would choke. She had always imagined it as the worst kind of way to die, followed immediately by drowning. To choke...it seemed awful, and it felt awful.
"No..." she whispered with difficulty. She did not want to die, but she did not have the strength to fight him. Suddenly, she wanted to hit him so badly, to claw his beautiful eyes out of their sockets and rip his granite heart out of his chest. He killed her sister, and now he was going to kill her, and no one would know who he was, or what he did. No one would know.
What a sad, miserable truth that was. It was all her heart because she never told the detective that she saw this man. She deserved it all; she truly believed she deserved the punishment.
She rolled from her side onto her back with great difficulty, causing the burning in her body to intensify and take more of her breath away. He stepped over her, planting his tall feet on either side of her hurting, fragile body. Then, he slouched forward a little and rested his hands against his knees, arching above her like doom incarnate. She cringed inwardly, but she did not have enough strength to cringe away from him physically.
She swallowed with pain and opened her mouth to speak. She was determined to speak even if it killed her; even if it would be the last thing she ever did.
"I...hate...you...Scare...crow..." she breathed out, then gave in to painful coughing. She wanted to stop coughing, but she could not. Would the coughing finally suffocate her? Was this pathetic death how she would go? She started to think about Dr Crane. If only she had not chased him away; if only he had stayed for a while longer; if only he could have been there to save her from the madman coaxing her own life right out of her. Then, she thought of Sherry, her dear Sherry, waiting on the other side for her with her hands extended and grinning beautifully.
"Sherry..." she mouthed the name. "J..." She wanted to say Jonathan, but she had to cough again.
"What did you call me?" his voice rasped out to her.
"Scare...crow..." she coughed out. "Isn't that...what...you...are...ki...ki...killer..."
She was wheezing now, trying to catch her breath with open mouth, like a fish on dry land, but only little air would come to her. His scary masked face was beginning to dissipate in front of her eyes; only the turquoise eyes remained alive and bright in the darkness that was beginning to envelope her. She was going to die. The turquoise Hell was waiting.
"Sherry...sorry...I ne...never..."
Suddenly, he lifted her in his arms and sat her down on one of her kitchen chairs.
"How do you know me?" he growled, that strange, ethereal voice of a scarecrow, a real scarecrow from her own nightmares.
She smiled feebly, with her eyes closed, her head lolling forward, but his hands kept pushing it upwards with rough movements. Would he stop doing that? It was hurting her, and she felt really sick in the stomach.
"Saw you... with Dorothy...on Hallo...ween..." she explained very silently with the last amount of energy she had left. She was completely spent now.
She was not afraid anymore. She was so weak that she was not afraid anymore. She was going to die. She could not breathe anymore and she was not trying to catch her breath any longer. Her heart was still beating, but she knew it would not be beating for long.
She fell forward, right into her killer's arms, unconscious, ready for death. Her last thought belonged to Sherry.
She called him Scarecrow, a killer, someone she saw on Halloween with Dorothy, by whom she meant her sister Sherry.
She had seen him before? How was that even possible? He had never seen her before the day she came to Arkham for her job interview. Then how had she seen him before, on that night, seventeen years ago, without him knowing it?
This was certainly an unexpected, shocking twist of events that he could never have predicted. And then, when he was about to ask her more, find out the entire truth, she lost her consciousness and fell straight into his arms.
Well, at least you're rid of her now. She'll be dead in two minutes, maybe three.
"Be quiet," he growled his reply to the voice. She could not die now, not yet.
Don't do it, Jonathan. Don't you do it!
No, he had to save her. He had to know exactly how much Pearl knew, what she saw and whom she had told. He absolutely had to know! He could kill her afterwards, once he had obtained the much needed knowledge, but until then, he simply had to keep her alive.
No, Jonathan. This is not good. Not good at all. Trust me! Do not save her! Let her die. She is almost dead.
"I have to know," he rasped.
Damnation! He finally gassed her, and right before she was supposed to die, she divulged her greatest secret to him – he was her greatest fear. The spectacular fact might have been flattering and thrilling in different circumstances, but she knew that he was the one who killed her sister. She knew the Scarecrow; she had seen him once before; or was it really only one time?
Why now? He screamed inwardly.
You do not need to know. Let her die. Once she dies, you will be free. Isn't that what you have wanted?
He shook his head, rage boiling in his blood. Damn her! She really was talented for complicating things, wasn't she? Oh, how he hated her! He had never hated anyone so much in his entire life than he hated Pearl Jones.
The voice, the irrational entity, was saying no. It had always been saying yes, trying to force him into doing things. This time, the situation was different for the first time. His rational part, the part that reigned his consciousness and the greater parts of his unconscious world, was saying yes, and the irrational part was screaming no. But he had to save her, he had to know. Then, he would truly kill her.
Idiot!
He ignored the angry voice. He laid the lifeless Pearl on the floor and felt for her heartbeat, pressing one thumb against her right wrist. Her heart was still beating, although feebly. The voice was reeling inside of him, screaming profanities at him and threatening him. Crane chuckled. The human mind was truly priceless at times, even his own. His irrational part that had for years manifested itself as the voice inside of him, the unnamed entity that was Crane himself, was threatening him. He was threatening himself. How very bizarre! But Crane knew that he could not listen to the voice this time; not because the voice always wanted things that he rejected; not because the voice was too free and straightforward. This time, his dark passenger made sense, and that alone did not make any sense.
It should! You always felt better when you pretended that we are two separate entities, but we are not. Not only I alone, but you yourself know that what you are about to do is wrong.
Crane pulled the burlap mask off his head, still measuring Pearl's deteriorating pulse with one hand.
The voice was persistent and would not cease to speak this time, no matter how much he tried to keep it out of his thoughts.
Do you...fear to involve me in your life, embed me into yourself and make me intertwine with the rest of you? If you allow that, Jonathan, you know you will not hear a voice talking in your head again. You will be free of it, and you will truly be yourself, without the painful, encumbering restraints you have taken upon yourself. You will be whole, whereas now, you are always on the brink of falling apart. Just as you are at this very moment.
Crane opened his briefcase and took out a syringe with the anti-dote.
Don't.
He cradled Pearl's right arm in one hand, rolled up the sleeve with the other and approached the tender skin with the syringe.
Don't. Do you really like her enough to ruin yourself?
He was not going to listen to the lying voice. Of course he did not like Pearl. He hated her. He pierced her skin with the sharp needle.
He stopped for a while, listened for the voice, but it was gone. Finally!
He injected the anti-dote into Pearl's vein, then removed the needle from her skin, watching as a tiny drop of blood glistened on her skin.
He really hoped he did the right thing by keeping her alive for a while longer. He truly had to know everything she knew about that night, and more. For the first time in his life, he felt that he was going to become insane if he did not know.
He waited for two minutes; then, he checked Pearl's pulse again and felt that her heart was growing stronger again. Her chest began to heave very slowly and her limbs twitched occasionally, a sign that the anti-dote was truly working. She seemed very beautiful in her poisoned slumber, but he shook the thought away swiftly. She would be fine now; he would leave her alone and the very next day, he would finally obtain the truth from her, he was sure.
He put the empty syringe in his briefcase and was about to close it when his eyes caught the sight of another syringe resting in his briefcase. He always kept a syringe containing the anti-dote in his briefcase for his test subjects, but now there were two. And then, he remembered. The other anti-dote, the one that deleted the effects of his toxin permanently, unless he changed the toxin's formula. His jaw grew taut and his fingers curled into white fists.
He had just given Pearl the other anti-dote by mistake! How could this have happened, to him?
If he wanted to kill her, he would have to change the toxin's formula entirely and that would not happen any time soon, certainly not by tomorrow or next week, even!
"No," he growled to himself. "No!"
He raked his fingers through his hair, tugging at the tresses violently. Damnation! He would just have to kill her another way, then. But, he had not done that in years; seventeen years, precisely. He felt very sick all of a sudden. What had he done? He destroyed a simple plan; he had just made things worse and complex for himself. He still had to know, but he felt awful and truly angry with himself.
He screwed up.
He left Pearl's apartment defeated when he should have felt triumphant. No, he would do it tomorrow, no matter what. He would take her life the way he took away her sister's life. He could do it. He had not done it for almost two decades, but he could do it. He did not really have a choice. He imagined snaking his fingers around her thin neck and squeezing the life out of her, but he could not stand that image. Gassing her to death would have felt impersonal and invigorating; strangling her was too personal and too... He did not even want to think about it; he did not want to feel anything, especially not in relation to her. Not ever. He would just have to do whatever he chose to do with her in the end, as long as it ended with her in a coffin.
Until then, he just did not want to think about it, he could not and would not.
Once he was in his car, his cell phone rang. He took the call dispassionately, trying to keep the ripples on the surface of his inner lake far away, as far away as was even possible, given the circumstances.
"Crane," he said.
"She's here," Dr Saint Claire's voice hummed. "Miss Dawes, making trouble, asking questions."
Crane sighed heavily. "At this hour? I'll be there in twenty minutes. Keep her busy. Do not let her leave until I have arrived."
"That's easy. She won't leave until she has spoken to you."
Crane snapped his cell phone shut and smiled. Well, he would get at least some satisfaction tonight.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hope it's gradually coming across that Crane and the voice are not separate, but are one and the same person. The voice doesn't make Crane do things. In the end, Crane does only what Crane wants to do. The voice is a suppressed part of Crane that, as of yet, he refuses to acknowledge.
CREDITS: I mentioned a dark passenger in Crane. The phrase dark passenger is taken from Jeff Lindsay's Dexter Morgan book series.
