Burlap Effigies Chapter 22: The Screaming Skull, a batman fanfic

So, uh...I have a lot of apologizing to do. But the truth is, I was abducted by aliens. (I actually wrote two original novels.) But here is my peace offering. A new chapter! If anyone is still reading this story, of course. If not, then no harm.

Look, I couldn't remember who lived and who died in this story, and like it's so long I can't go back and read it all for that. So forgive anyone who I may have mentioned as being dead, being alive. Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Screaming Skull

**Crane**

They were both silent as Red Hood drove the van, neither knowing what to say to the other. They didn't have much in common really, having never travelled in the same underworld circles. And, well, he wasn't even certain what the man was. Was he a hero or a villain? A common pest like Batman or a criminal type.

It was the same problem he had with Catwoman in the long run.

Poking idly at the bullethole in Deadshot's costume (uniform?), Crane watched the city pass by.

"Are we merely wasting time or do you have a plan, because I'm beginning to think you may not be the best one for me to hitch my – so called – wagon to." He finally said.

Red Hood was quiet.

"While I appreciate that I may not be the sort you would deign offer any olive branch to, I-"

"I have a plan, Crane," the other man finally rasped.

Crane waited, what he felt was, an appropriate amount of time before he cleared his throat. "Well? I admit I can analyze a being better than the common man, but I cannot yet read minds."

"Just go with whatever I do or say," Red Hood replied.

Crane scowled a little. "I rather miss the Riddler, at least he didn't have the proverbial stick up his ass."

"Crane," Red Hood began firmly, inhaling deeply, "we are in the middle of something you have only touched the tip of. While Anarky had you all running around in circles, he was waist deep in a pile of mayhem he is just eager to unleash. If I can keep him occupied with the whereabouts of the remaining criminals, then he won't be tempted to let fly the furies he's holding back."

"Why is he waiting for all the criminal types to die? I suppose that is what I cannot grasp. Why is he killing us?"

"Anarky knows he isn't strong enough to run the city in the wake of what he unleashes, he doesn't want the competition."

"He's just a child," Crane murmured. "A tiny little pipsqueak who needs to be crushed under the boot heels of a few choice criminals."

"More or less," the other man said.

"Then what's his step three? What can be so devastating that he expects to emerge the victor?"

"Biological warfare."

Crane was quiet for a moment, soaking it all in. He certainly was known for his own brand of toxins and potions and balms and pills, but his were always for a scientific purpose. He sought to study and root out fear in the human brain.

But biological warfare?

Now that was treading in very real, very world ending waters.

Ultimately, it meant that even if Crane survived the death squads after him, if the pipsqueak unleashed his biological threat, Crane could potentially be wiped out with the rest of Gotham.

"I'm assuming," Crane went on, shoving the realization deep, deep down for the moment, "that Anarky is hoping to cleanse Gotham, potentially the planet, but he must have a cure for a few choice people he's hoping to lead if he plans on being in charge?"

"He's already selected those he wants to survive, Pyg hasn't formulated a cure, only an preventative inoculation."

"If I were a man of substance and not science, it would be here that I'd utter a 'God help us all'. Do you know who's been inoculated?"

"No, that's something Anarky keeps between himself and Pyg."

"Why is Pyg helping him?"

"Pyg is Pyg, he just likes the idea of a perfect Gotham, cleansing the impure and raising up the perfect from the ashes."

"Ah, his little doll fetish," Crane purred. "So very typical."

"You know he has one, right?" Red Hood asked.

"Has one?"

"A doll, lifesized, he sleeps with it."

Crane glanced over at the man driving and smiled ever so. "Careful. Dirty gossip may endear you to me."

"Deadshot thought maybe he was...you know?"

"Fornicating with it?" Crane's smile widened viciously. "How perfectly predictable a slide into his own madness he has gone."

"There's others," Red Hood supplied. "Small factions of criminals who haven't succumbed. Joker and Harley are holing up fine, Killer Moth, Black Mask, other splintered and broken up into tiny pockets around Gotham."

"Fighting or fleeing?" Crane inquired, eyes staring up at the tall Wayne Enterprises building as they passed by it in the night.

"Both, I've heard even Batman and his lot have stepped into the mess."

"With no help, I'm certain, from us unsavoury types." Sighing, Crane turned from his window to look over at the man driving. "So? Where are we off to now?"

"We?" Red Hood inquired. "You are going to pay a visit to someone who has a very valuable mouth spinning very valuable tales."

"Mystery and magic?" Crane grumbled. "Sounds obnoxious."

"Nothing like that. Killer Moth caught himself someone who he's gotten Rag Doll to hypnotize into talking."

"Ugh," Crane grumbled. "Rag Doll? Pitiful little fool."

"Would have thought two like minds would get along better."

"Like minds?" Crane demanded. "He's a walking elastic band who can hypnotize the weak minded, how would we ever be like minded?"

Red Hood was stubbornly quiet, which irritated Crane. He ached everywhere, he was hopelessly in over his head and more importantly he was wearing a dead man's suit. The mere mention of that goofus Killer Moth and Rag Doll combined flared a migraine behind his eyes instantaneously.

He eyed the door handle by his knee and contemplated throwing himself from the vehicle if only to escape. Maybe he would just run off into the night, keep running all the way down the coast, get on a boat and sail off into the expansive ocean.

"I'm so tired," he murmured, fingers raising to jab at his temples.

"We have to do a little artful dodging," Red Hood said after a moment. "Don't want to be followed to the meeting point."

"How did Moth even get in touch with you?"

"I got in touch with him when I heard about his captive."

Killer Moth and his little hopeless clutch of criminals had holed up deep in the Gotham sewers, which somehow seemed fitting since upon their arrival.

Rag Doll, Great White Shark, Dollhouse, her father Dollmaker, basically all the lowly and the feeble of the underworld, with one great exception - Killer Croc - who lorded over them all in the small space of the pipe intersection, watching with yellow, dangerous eyes as Crane approached with Red Hood at his side.

"Where's Killer Moth?" Red Hood demanded.

"I'm here," he said, peering out from behind Croc, his mask glanced up at the man-beast. "Can you...move? You take up the entire goddamn room."

Croc growled low.

"You look good though," Moth added quickly, patting Croc's arm as he slipped past him to approach Crane and Red Hood. "Well, good evening, gentlemen. Welcome to our...rat hole."

Croc growled.

"I said 'our'." Moth argued.

"I like your doll collection, Moth, still have that impotent cocoon gun?" Crane inquired darkly.

Killer Moth halted, mask cocking to one side, before he took a short step forward. "Is...is that Jonathan Crane?"

"Do I look like Scarecrow, idiot?" Crane demanded, retaining a very Deadshot stance, legs apart, hands on his thigh holsters.

"Well, you certainly look like you've missed at least ten solid meals, Floyd," Moth replied archly.

"And you still look like a little pipsqueak that needs squashing beneath my boot," Crane returned, getting into his role like a true thespian.

"Sounds like you've had a rough night, pal," Moth said sincerely. "I'd offer you a drink, but the only liquid we have down here, you don't want to drink."

"Yes, so how long do I have to stand in this squalor?"

Croc growled. "Be careful what you say about my home."

Moth, listening to Croc patiently, turned back to Crane and said, "I've seen him rip a man's arms off, so...I'd be careful there."

"Noted," Crane said with a small grin beneath Deadshot's mask.

"Well, you wanted to see what we bring to the table?" Moth asked. "And," he paused slightly and Crane could practically hear the smarmy grin in his voice when he continued, "I say we, because while I was the one who managed a live capture of one of those...ninja thugs, it was our triple jointed friend who hypnotized him into explaining a few choice things to us."

Red Hood cleared his throat, before saying, "sounds like a man I'd love to meet."

Moth nodded, mask still facing Crane. "Okie doke, come with me."

As Crane took a step forward, Moth placed his hand on his shoulder, stopping him, the other pulling out his cocoon gun from where it rested on his back. He shoved it into Crane's hands. "You stay here, play with this. I know you've been dying to try it out. The adults won't be long."

Inhaling, about to dredge up the very putrid, bile of hell upon Killer Moth, Crane was stopped by Red Hood, who said, "we won't be long."

Watching Red Hood and Killer Moth as they disappeared around Killer Croc, Crane sighed and tossed the cocoon gun into the sewage at his feet. Folding his arms, he settled against a nearby wall and stared steadily at the audience of lesser criminals who all gawped at him like a convention of missing chromosomes.

Rag Doll stretched his form unnaturally and Crane winced. "Disgusting," he muttered to himself.

Though he had to admit, he had a fleeting thought about teaming up with the contortionist for a few toxin induced nightmares. He imagined he could harmonize a wondrous symphony with a genuine freak.

"You smell different," Waylon growled to him, shifting his massive, scaly form towards Crane.

"New cologne," Crane replied.

"New Deadshot," the man-beast returned.

Crane touched a gloved finger to where his mouth would be on the mouthless mask.

"So?" Crane demanded. "What good am I, then, if I'm not important enough to be included in your little meeting?"

They were heading back to the vehicle and Crane was ready for a fight.

Red Hood said nothing, just eased into the driver's seat.

Sullenly Crane did likewise, he knew an answer wasn't forthcoming. He didn't expect anything more from the man. There were men like Edward who couldn't shut up about theories and ideas, and then there were men like Red Hood who lived so within themselves they were like rocks.

With no safe way to duck out of Red Hood's company and not wanting to be around as a hired dummy-Deadshot, Crane waited until they were slowing down to take a corner, before he grabbed the door handle and let himself out of the moving vehicle, tucking and rolling on impact with the asphalt.

At the first jarring twist in the roll, he felt his tentatively recovering broken leg crack.

Leaping up onto his good leg, he hobbled off quickly down the street they had just turned off of, ducking into the first alley he could find.

He wasn't afraid, fear didn't affect him, but even if it did, he knew he had temporary immunity dressed as Deadshot.

Waiting ten, fifteen, twenty minutes behind a dumpster, he stooped over and inspected his leg, feeling the fracture where his break had barely healed. He really shouldn't have even been on the leg without a splint.

Glancing around, he realized he was a long, long way from anywhere and briefly he considered just heading out into the wilds and living with the squirrels.

He didn't think this far ahead in his plan to jump ship with Red Hood. But if he could hobble his way back to where he wanted to be, he could at least splint his leg there, before moving on.

Dropping his head, he grunted and pushed off from the dumpster, heading towards the pipeline that would take him back to Killer Moth and the mystery man who could provide a few answers.

When he arrived at the place where the sewer pipes met, he found darkness and nothing.

Crane heaved a sigh, hand moving to snatch his mask off as it stifled him that deep underground.

Holding his leg where the fracture seemed to blaze fire, he sought to control his pain intake, fighting not to pass out.

Concentrate, Jonathan.

Somewhere nearby was the sound of a watery plink, plink as droplets hit metal.

Focus, breathe.

Somewhere further he heard a faint sound, like call to prayer in a Muslim country.

Crane lifted his head.

It was singing.

But how far? And from which direction?

Go to sleep little baby

Crane took a limping step towards the pipe at his right side, but faltered, stopped.

Your mama's gone away and your daddy's gonna stay

Didn't leave nobody but the baby

Spinning, Crane weighed his options. Three directions not including the one he came down, but the singing was bouncing off of the intersection making it seem as though it were coming from any or all of them.

Go to sleep little baby

Four pipes...he had at least a 25% chance of being right. Which one did it seem like Waylon was standing in front of? Which one had Red Hood gone down with Killer Moth to speak with the prisoner?

Everybody's gone in the cotton and the corn

Didn't leave nobody but the baby

Which one did Crane come down? Suddenly he didn't know where he started.

"Shit," he murmured.

You're a sweet little baby

He didn't want to shout, shouting was so undignified. Just pick one, Crane.

Honey in the rock and the sugar don't stop

Gonna bring a bottle to the baby

Raising his head, Crane tugged the mask back on, the pain driving him into a bit of an adrenaline rage.

Don't you weep pretty baby

Forward. He decided on the pipe directly in front of him.

She's long gone with her red shoes on

Gonna need another loving baby

Marching down the pipe, Crane slowed. It seemed like the singing was growing fainter.

Go to sleep little baby

Was the singer getting further away or was he down the wrong pipe?

You and me and the devil makes three

Don't need no other loving baby

Crane picked up his pace the best he could, hoping the singing would get louder.

Go to sleep little baby

Slipping on something slimy under the thin layer of filth at his feet, Crane fell hard on his fractured leg, growling, before moaning in pain.

Come lay your bones on the alabaster stones

And be my everloving baby

His vision greyed at the edges and Crane fell back against the pipe, holding his leg. Blackness crept up fast and he slipped away into unconsciousness.

Go to sleep little baby