"Shadows of the Mind" (Dr. Crane backstory)

[azina]

Thank you. I really try to make the scene visually real and in many ways I can see it very concretely when I write it. It's a great compliment that you can experience the scene as it's unfolding.

[§ilvercell]

"spoon feeding!"lol open wide,here comes the train!lol

[azina]

Yeah, funny image there.

[Dr. J Crane]

Azina, at the risk of saying it for the millionth time, on this forum...

More, preddy please???

[azina]

Okay, this is literally hot off the presses folks. I just wrote this and proofed it barely. So if there are typos are wrong words please be forgiving. I seriously haven't have time to go over it before going off to bed for work tomorrow. I hope this isn't disappointing. This is where the pressure cooker blows, so to speak.

Machiano felt like he was slowly being driven mad with the endless tedium, the relentless “therapy sessions,” and the long, torturous hours of captivity in the chair that felt worse than any prison imaginable. The wood began to bite into his back and buttocks and his muscles grew sore and began to scream from never being allowed to move and stretch. Many times Machiano fought himself from begging and screaming with that sadistic lunatic to just let him out, however briefly, to at least let him stretch his legs. Often times, when his torturer was busy with other tasks and was looking at him with those piercing cold eyes, he’d bang his head against the back of the chair in frustration and anger. He could feel the ends of the arm rests getting rough and raw from his persistent scratching; it was his only outlet from his constant rage against this madman.

At first his thoughts were just a litany of profanity interspersed with bloody visions of murder toward his captor. But as the daylight faded and the restraint chair held fast to his persistent struggling, Machiano knew he had to be much more clever if he was to get out of this place alive, sane … and his captor dead. Machiano always had prided himself on being the predator, slowly stalking, cornering and taking down his prey. Now, as much as he hated to admit, he was the prey and this lunatic reminded him of the spiral web in the garden he remembered as a child.

A hornet once was caught in a web and the spider would every now and then creep close, just to make it thrash, then back away. It did this to tire out the hornet and each time the spider crept closer and closer to its prey. This lunatic was doing the same, creeping deeper and deeper into his mind, trying to drive him insane, then eventually kill him.

You’ll just have to be smarter than him. Quit lashing out with your stinger. Save your strength. You know he lets you out only with that damn shot. You’re going to have to time it. See how long you have.

As soon as Machiano felt the jab of the needle and the cool injection of the fluid enter his veins, he began to count from the moment the restraint straps fell loose to the moment he came from the washroom and obediently returned to the chair. There were no escape attempts this time. He was purely timing how long he had before the shot made him dizzy and started to make him black out. His vision began to fade at 3 minutes and 24 seconds and at that point – once Crane had the restraints securely fastened again – he injected a second drug into him and his mind cleared well enough and they continue his “therapy.”

So I have 3 minutes at least to try and inject myself with the antidote – or kill that monster, thought Machiano.

Machiano far preferred the latter as he gazed at him, meticulously writing down notes, asking in great detail his sexual history.

Yes, the bastard must die before I leave here.

Machiano gazed at the filthy surroundings, the fly buzzing around the bare bulb of the lamp, the c0ckroaches every now and then scuttling toward a Cheerio that had fallen on the floor.

“How did you mother feel about you turning to a life of crime, Mr. Machiano?”

“I don’t know … How do you think she felt?”

“You are to answer the questions, not me,” said Crane, his eyes gazing at him hungrily.

If I’m to answer anymore questions I’m going to scream!

“She never knew, okay? She never knew I worked for the seedy underworld of Falcone. Is that the answer you want?”

“That is sufficient.”

“Good! Because I’m sick of this! I’m sick of this place! I’m sick of you!”

“I’m going to give you a mild sedative,” Crane said.

SH-T NO!!

“Wait! I just need sleep! I’ve been doing this for eight hours straight. Eight hours! Don’t you get tired?”

Crane gave him a blank stare, his lips pursed.

“Not often,” he finally said.

“Well, I’m tired,” Machiano grumbled.

“Still a mild sedative will do you good,” said Crane. “You suddenly seem quite agitated. I can’t have a patient of mine become agitated – not good for therapy.”

“Ah! Wait!”

Crane stopped, the hypodermic needle poised above Machiano’s exposed arm, which recently had become quite bruised from all the injections. As he stared at Machiano, a slow grin spread across his lips.

“Is there something else you wish to tell me before this session is at an end,” Crane asked.

“I – um – yes. I’d like to continue one more thing about how my mom felt about me going into – into crime.”

Machiano desperately stared into Crane’s eyes, praying he was buying it.

“But first, could I have a little break?”

“Washroom I’m assuming,” Crane said.

“Yes, I want to be comfortable. I want to tell you everything.”

“You’re surprisingly talkative all of a sudden.”

“I just – I just want to talk to you about this. Something just came into my mind and it’s bothering me. I could never tell her about it. I probably never will. As my doctor, you must understand.”

“Yes, I think I do,” he said.

Crane withdrew the hypodermic needle and slipped from his jacket pocket a much smaller, more slender hypodermic and plunged it into Machiano’s arm. Machiano watched as the clear fluid disappeared and he felt it enter his vein. He looked up at Crane who still was intent on removing the needle and sterilizing the area.

Three minutes.

Crane removed from his jacket the burlap mask and slipped it over his head.

“Remember, anything can happen while I wear this!”

Roughly he removed the restraint the straps and Machiano felt his heart pounding wildly. He was free, completely free for the moment. Machiano’s eyes turned cold and hard as stone.

Now it’s time for you to DIE!

In an instant he lunged at Crane and ripped off the mask.

“I want to see your face as you die you bastard,” Machiano spat, clenching fiercely at his throat.

Both his hands dug deep into Crane’s throat. As a killer, he could have easily snapped his neck and be done with it, make it clean and quick, but he wanted it to be slow and to let him feel the pain, feel the oxygen leaving his brain, to know he was dying and who his killer would be. Crane’s face turned red as blood congested, his piercing blue eyes began to fade. His look wasn’t of fear; it was hatred.

Odd thoughts swirled through Machiano’s mind, thoughts that usually don’t bother him when he was making a kill.

Why isn’t he afraid of me? I’m killing him, aren’t I? And why isn’t he defending himself?

His hands weren’t by his throat as he was pressing down choking and Crane frantically was gasping for breath. His hands were searching for something on the floor.

He truly is mad. An object on the floor is worth more than his life! Mad … Arkham … Arkham Asylum.

Suddenly the courtroom scene flashed back in Machiano’s mind:

“Sarah Anne Crane has been confined to Arkham Asylum due to psychological and emotional instability following her recent attack by the accused.”

“Her initial doctor, Dr. Jonathan Crane, admitted her.”

“Any relation to the Sarah Crane?”

“Yes, Dr. Crane is her son.”

“You’re Dr. Crane,” Machiano hissed.

Suddenly Machiano felt a sharp painful jab of a hypodermic needle stabbing into his thigh. He screamed, releasing the chokehold on Crane. Crane gasped deeply for breath, then picked up the mask off the floor and slipped it back on.

“Yes, I am Dr. Crane. Sarah Crane is my mother – the one you raped, beat and left in the gutter like so many others. And now I am going to cure you once and for all!”

He raised his arm, about ready to release the deadly toxin for the last time on Machiano, but Machiano tackled him hard to the floor, smashing into the table and scattering the notes everywhere. The sedation hypodermic spun on the filthy ground and Machiano grasped for it frantically, wrapping his fingers around it and turned toward the stunned Crane.

“Sedation? I’ll give you sedation! Sedation right through your heart!”

As Machiano whirled around, ready to plunge the glistening needle into Crane, a white puff of toxin shot full into his face. The toxin burned his nostrils and he could feel it choking his throat, his lungs.

“That’s right, breathe deep, that’s it. Good,” whispered Scarecrow. “Soon you’ll be mine. All mine.”

Machiano slowly opened his eyes from the blinding powder and saw instead of the crooked stitched mouth, vicious slavering teeth had grown and instead of the piercing blue eyes of Crane, burning demonic eyes glared back it him.

No! It’s not real. Not real! Kill him! Kill him before it’s too late!

Machiano moved toward the monster, wielding a pathetic little hypodermic needle that somehow was supposed to slay it. With it black claw it grabbed his hand and as soon as it touched Machiano, it burned his flesh and continued to burn until all his flesh melted away until there was nothing but bone. He shrieked. The hypodermic dropped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.

“Now let’s continue where we started, shall we?”

The monster cracked open Machiano’s skull, tearing it until the brain was completely exposed to him. Machiano screamed and whimpered from the pain, but he could do nothing, nothing while the room spun and the walls twisted and the c0ckroaches came to munch at the flesh that continued to slide off his bones.

The monster slid his claw into his brain and felt the monster ooze into every crevice of his brain, invading, contaminating every portion of it.

“No! No,” Machiano screamed, writhing on the floor.

Scarecrow is in your brain now. Scarecrow will always be in your mind!

[girl in the sharkskin tuxedo]

OMR. that was...soo....I CAN'T EVEN DESCRIBE IT. i loved it!!!

[azina]

Thanks Jinna! I wonder if anyone else will discover my latest post. Nobody has of yet. LOL

[keke]

I love this story! This last chapter was spectacular, keep up the good work!

[azina]

Thanks keke!

[Dr. J Crane]

Azina, I could not have felt Mahiano's brain being exposed more clearly if I was seeing it on screen with the best visual effects money can buy!!!

That was bloody brilliant!

Azina - seriously!!! I cannot believe how you ended that chapter - sssooo gruellingly!! Oh man! I feel like I should be checking the top of my own head to see if Scarecrow somehow managed to crawl through! And I know it is useless. You do realize its your own potent toxin, almost as if you've poisoned us, so to speak!

We're addcited!

[azina]

So glad you enjoyed it and it wasn't a let down. I've been building up to it for so long and I was afraid after all that that maybe it wouldn't live up to expectations.

[azina]

Hopefully I'll be able to write a bit more tomorrow ... then again maybe not. I have homework to do this weekend.

Crane watched Machiano on the floor, his breath coming in short gasps, his muscles still twitching after all the writhing he had done for the last several hours.

I’m amazed even he could keep it up for that long, Crane thought in curiosity. His horrors must have been intense indeed.

Now Crane was most fascinated in the eyes. Machiano would not meet his gaze, shrinking from his stare as though unnamed terrors lurked in his pale blue eyes.

(Good! Let him fear us! Let us savor that Fear, whispered Scarecrow.)

We were foolish to let our guard down, especially with one so dangerous as him, Crane thought. I should have known better. I have dealt with his kind before.

(Let’s hear his screams again! His terror! His terror is so sweet, hissed Scarecrow.)

Crane knelt down on the filthy floor and looked at Machiano. Quickly Machiano averted his eyes from the doctor, trembling to look at him. As Crane felt Machiano’s pale skin, he realized it was covered in damp, cold sweat and he was shivering.

“Don’t – don’t touch me,” Machiano gasped. “Don’t – don’t touch!”

“I find it amusing you don’t wish me to touch you – how many times did your victims beg you not to touch them?”

“Please don’t! It – it hurts – the claws.”

Madness, the beginnings of madness induced by the toxin. I think that last toxin worked out quite well.

Ignoring Machiano’s pleas, Crane uncurled Machiano out of his fetal position and looked at his face, though his eyes remained clenched shut in fear.

“Scarecrow! Bugs with teeth,” Machiano cried. “My skull won’t close! My brains will fall out! Veronica with a hook waiting! Please stop! Make it stop!”

Fascinating! His madness includes not just the object of his induced psychotic delusion – Scarecrow – but a past victim – Veronica Kestrel – who presumably is tormenting him in his mind. I must document this.

Crane loomed close to his victim, gripping his arms tightly.

“Oh, the madness won’t stop,” Crane whispered. “It’s just beginning for you, Mr. Machiano. You see, I’ve cured you! This is your cure! You’ll hurt no one else now! No one! The world is safe and I’ve saved it! I’ve saved everyone from you! Open your eyes! OPEN THEM!!”

For a brief moment Machiano was gazing at him, staring in horror not at Crane but Scarecrow looming close to his face, but then the light from his eyes faded and he was lost to the horrors and delusions of his own mind.

“Scarecrow,” he gasped, faintly tossing his head from side to side. “Scarecrow.”


Crane drove in the plush Italian leather seat, his hands swathed in gloves while his patient was firmly buckled into the passenger seat. Machiano was not trying to escape while Crane drove Machiano’s own red Ferrari, though just a day ago he would have killed Crane if he even so much as tried to touch his precious car. Crane rounded the corner and stopped at Birmingham Street, just a few blocks away from Falcone’s familiar haunts. Crane scanned the intersection carefully and saw that the area was deserted. Quickly and quietly he parked the car along he curb and slipped Machiano out of the passenger seat. He was like a limp rag doll in his arms, a blank stare in his vacant gray eyes.

“Scarecrow,” he gasped.

Yes, Scarecrow. You are mine now, gloated Scarecrow. You will never be free of me. Never!

But at this point Crane was more interested in covering his tracks. Although Machiano was so much dead weight in his arms and Crane was not an athletic man, he managed to carry him a few feet away from the car and laid him down to make it appear he collapsed. Crane slipped out a sedation needle and gave Machiano a quick injection. In 10 seconds his eyelids drooped and the persistent muttering of “Scarecrow” faded from his lips.

Now one final touch.

Crane slipped from his own suit jacket the deadly sniper gun Machiano prized so much.

You won’t be needing this anymore. You won’t kill again, but Falcone will be looking for this. It will be suspicious if they find you and you don’t have it.

He placed the gun back in Machiano’s jacket and gazed long at him sleeping on the cold, wet ground. It was odd, but he was hesitant to leave him, hesitant to give up his patient and the “therapy.”

No, Falcone’s men will be around here soon and I mustn’t be seen here. I leave you in the gutter, like you left so many others. Goodbye, Snake.

Crane walked away, leaving Machiano and the car in that lonely, dark street. He wasn’t worried about himself or his way home. He knew these streets so well – it wasn’t far from the place he first was forced to accept the drug CliMax in that dark alley long ago; the drug he had perfected into a toxin, turning Machiano, the deadliest hit man of Falcone, into a vegetable.

[keke]

AAaaahhhhh....loved this last chapter!

[§ilvercell]

i love vegies!

[azina]

Wow, I can't believe I'm nearing the end to this sprawling story (more a novella). This isn't the end ... there's still one more part after this folks then I'll be closing up shop on the lovely Crane.

Arkham Asylum was quiet at this time of night. Crane enjoyed coming here the most in this early morning hour, when most of the patients were either asleep or so heavily sedated they had no choice but to sleep in their beds under the ever-watchful eye of the camera. He walked silently down the sterile, white halls, beneath the flickering fluorescent lights, past the absurdly cheery sign that said “Welcome to Arkham Asylum! All Guests Must Sign In.” If Crane had his way he would rip the sign down each time he brushed past it.

“Hello, Dr. Crane,” murmured Nurse Pam Sweeney. “I’m surprised to see you here at this hour.”

Crane stood at the nurses’ station and gazed briefly at the clock: 1:34 a.m.

“I’m just coming to check up on some paperwork I failed to finish earlier,” Crane said.

The nurse gazed at him earnestly.

“There’s no need to lie to me, doctor. She’s down the hall. I won’t tell Gooding.”

“Thank you, Pam.”

Crane slipped her a few bills, despite her protests, and walked down the hallway, absently gazing at the darkened windows, flashing at him like watchful eyes. Up ahead he could see a faint light glowing from one of the windows; it always seemed to glow even in the dead of night at the asylum – she had grown afraid of the dark now, yet another fear she had accumulated since the attack. Crane swiped his ID card into the door and it clicked open.

Even in the dim light he could see she wasn’t sleeping, her eyes gazing wide and blank at the ceiling and she lay on her back upon the stiff, simple bed.

“Mom, I’m back,” he whispered.

“Jonathan, you’ve been gone long – so long,” she whispered. “I thought you had abandoned me here – left me for good.”

“Never mom – I never will. You will be free, mom, free – free as I have promised.”

Crane sat down in the simple plastic chair by her bedside. She didn’t turn toward him, but continued to stare up at the ceiling.

“Sometimes I think if I stare long and hard enough, I can see the sky, that the ceiling will crumble away, that I will see the clouds and birds again,” she whispered.

“And you will mom, you will.” Crane took her hand in his. “That man who hurt you – he will hurt you no more.”
She turned her eyes toward him; her cracked lips parted in bewilderment.

“He will hurt no one anymore,” said Crane, a slow smile spreading across his lips.

“Jonathan – he’s dead?”

“No, much better! Cured! I cured him! And I can do more, much more – now that I know what will cure the criminal mind.”

“Jonathan! How amazing, I’m proud – so proud of you!”

She turned, to reach toward him, to give him a weak embrace, then he saw the scratch marks upon her left cheek. The smile quickly faded from his lips.

“Mom, did you do that to yourself?”

“No! I didn’t! They did!”

“And who is ‘they,’ mom?”

“The others, Jonathan. Don’t you see them? They’re here, in this room, right now!”

She slid up from reclining on her bed and gazed, wide eyed around the room, gazing at phantoms Crane did not see.

“They are friendly sometimes, whispering, keeping me company, telling me you’re all right. But some are mean, Jonathan! Some of them whisper awful things! Some tell me you are cruel and evil! Some say I will be here forever, that I will melt into the bricks and mortar like they have, becoming one with this place. I don’t want that, Jonathan! I don’t want that at all!”

“And the scratching. When, do you scratch yourself?”

“I don’t! Didn’t I tell you! They do! THEY DO!! They claw at me sometimes when I don’t listen, when I don’t believe them. They’ve been here for so long, Jonathan. They say I will be too – and that when I die, I won’t leave, but stay here, peering at the mad ones with eyes from the walls!”

“Mom, please stop!”

“And the monster, Jonathan, the monster, he won’t stop, coming, poking with needles, asking, prying, binding me to the chair.”

“Soon he will be gone, I promise you.”

“Do you, Jonathan. Do you? How? Tell me.”

Crane’s heart sank as he was gazing at the mirror of madness in his mother’s eyes, a wild, frantic look in eyes once so warm and comforting. He kept looking back at the claw marks, so red and raw upon her flesh. Her hands reached up and gently grasped both sides of his head, her thumbs upon his temples.

“They say, the others say, a monster walks the halls, seeking fear, feeding on fear.”

“Gooding, you mean Gooding,” Crane said.

She faintly shook her head and continued to look closely into his eyes, studying them.

“You’re eyes are different, strange, so strange, so cold. Does a monster dwell in them, Jonathan?”

“Mom, that’s absurd. You’ve been talking crazy all night, but that truly is the most insane thing you have said to me.”

Crane slipped out of her grasp and stood up from the chair.

“Clearly you have problems sleeping. I can prescribe something for you, if you’d like.”

His mother’s face changed in an instant, from being curious and concerned for her son to melting into anguish.

“Oh! Don’t you play the doctor with me too, Jonathan! I’m your mother!”

“You just seem agitated and lack of sleep clearly –”

“No! I don’t need anymore shots or pills or therapy! I’m just glad you’re back, Jonathan! I’m so glad they were wrong about you! I don’t believe them! Really, I don’t!”

She threw her arms around him and hugged him firmly, her wild, tangled hair brushing against his face.

“I love you, Jon,” she whispered, her arms holding him close. “I love you so much!”

“Love you, mom. No will hurt you,” Crane vowed. “Not ever again, I promise.”


The door slammed shut, the metal bolts locking automatically under the door’s weight. The first pale rays of dawn still didn’t creep through the barred window of the patient’s room and Arkham still didn’t stir from its sleep.

“Good morning, Mrs. Crane. I hope you slept well. It’s time for our early morning session. I pray you didn’t forget,” said Dr. Henry Gooding.

He didn’t look up from the briefcase he was carrying, heavy with a thick tome on psychotic behavior and a hard case of hypodermic syringes with different vials of medications.

Let’s see, what shall we try today? The woman has been growing increasingly hysterical. That’s to be expected given the circumstances, Gooding thought smugly.

He looked up and was surprised to see the bed where Mrs. Crane slept was empty – and in her place stood Dr. Crane, his eyes icy, his face contemptuous.

“So pleasant of you to drop in so early for a visit, Gooding,” Crane said. “Although I hadn’t expected you to come at 4 a.m. … That’s a bit odd, don’t you think? I wonder what sort of ‘therapy’ merits depriving a patient of her sleep?”

“Crane! You get out of this room this instant and bring back my patient! She is mine if you recall!”

“Yes, you have made that point quite clear, but now it’s time for me to make my point clear, Gooding.”

“You will make no points unless I make them for you! Now you bring her back and leave this room or you not only will be terminated from Arkham, but barred from psychiatry permanently in Gotham! Don’t cross me Crane! I have the connections and I will use them!”

“No doubt you do, Gooding, but once again you underestimate me, as you always have.”

Crane coolly placed upon the table his briefcase and snapped it open.

“Like everyone, Gooding, you have ignored me, pushed me aside, bullied me and took credit for all my genius.”

“That’s enough, Crane!”

“But what you don’t understand is I’m used to it. You see, I’ve dealt with that sort of ill treatment my whole life.” Crane gave a tightly controlled grin. “In fact, I probably could have endured it for many more years at your hands, that is until you brought in her.”

At the mention of “her” his grin vanished and a creepy, piercing stare, on par Gooding believed he had seen in the eyes of some of his worst mental patients, was burrowing into Gooding’s skull.

“Once you brought in her – my mother – well, let’s just say, it was the end. No more Gooding, no more.”

Gooding tentatively made his way to the speakercom and pressed the button.

“Nurse,” cried Gooding. “Bring me security, right now!”

There was no response from the speakercom.

“Nurse!!”

“Speakercom has been disabled, as is the door temporarily. The camera video also is on loop from a few hours earlier.” Crane smiled indulgently. “Don’t worry, Gooding. We are quite assured of our privacy here.”

“Okay, Crane, what do you want? You want your precious mother released? Fine!”

“Oh! Is that what you think I want? I’m sorry to give you that false impression, doctor.”

“Then what do you want, Crane?”

“I want you to see my mask.”

Gooding stared in dumb shock at the young man as he slipped from his briefcase the burlap mask and slowly unfolded it.

“I only have used it on one patient before with great success and as a fellow psychiatrist, I want your opinion on its future possible use in therapy treatment.”

“Have you gone mad, Crane?”

“I’ll take that as a rhetorical question.”

As he slipped on the mask, he savored watching Gooding fruitlessly press the speakercom button over and over again, shouting into it, screaming for help, yanking with all his strength and weight at the securely locked door.

“Now, Gooding, I want your ultimate opinion in this ‘new therapy’ for our patients.”

Gooding stopped briefly from his efforts to gaze at him wearing the hideous burlap mask – the guise of Scarecrow before him.

“I want your FEAR!”

Gooding screamed even before he inhaled the toxin aimed straight at him.