by Marv Wolfman
“I’m here,” the voice said from behind. He reached out again, but Joker had already moved. “You need glasses, Bats? I’m right here.”
The Joker was standing in front of him again, arms spread wide, fingers splayed. Batman jumped at him.
“You’re dead. Your ashes were flushed into the river. You can’t ever come back again. You’re dead.”
Then he stopped.
The Joker’s blood was making him madder than he should be. It was trying to take control of him. He needed to fight back, but he wasn’t sure how.
“You’re right, Bats. I am dead. A figment of your hopes and dreams and failures. And judging from your reactions, you’ve got a load of them. But Scarecrow’s not a fever dream. He’s real. I may have crippled the Gordon bitch, but he’s the one who’s having his way with her now.”
“Shut up, the Joker,” Batman muttered. “Shut the hell up.”
“I can’t. I’m nothing but a sick blemish on your head, which means you’re the one who’s actually doing all the talking. You’re the little meat puppet, mouthing the angry words. But he, he should be your target—not me. And you should kill him the way Gordon killed me.
“So what are you waiting for, Batman? Kill him.”
“I don’t kill.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. But we know better. Your greedy demands killed your parents. I hope that movie was worth it. You got popcorn and jelly beans and all it cost you was Daddy and Mom.”
Batman thrust a fist at the Joker, but the clown evaporated at his touch then appeared again behind him.
“C’mon, pal. You’re not an idiot. You know I’m not really here, so you’re wasting all that energy when you should be using it to kill him. C’mon over to my side, old friend. You’ll see how much fun it is.”
It was the Joker’s blood talking, and Scarecrow’s toxin was only making it worse. Batman was unable to shut out the voices shouting in his head. If there was only one way to stop him from talking, Batman had to take it.
He turned against Scarecrow and hit him.
It felt good.
He hit him again.
“Tell me where Barbara is and I’ll stop. For God’s sake, Scarecrow, tell me.” But Scarecrow didn’t answer, so Batman hit him again.
He slammed his fist into Scarecrow’s face, kicked Scarecrow’s legs and heard his knee bones snap and shatter. Suddenly, Scarecrow seemed to be in tears, begging for Batman to stop, but he didn’t.
The Joker laughed and leaned into the figure, bloody and beaten.
“Relax, Crane. The fun’s just starting,” the Joker said.
Batman punched Scarecrow again.
“Relax, Crane. The fun’s just starting,” Batman said.
“If only you knew how liberating this is,” the Joker said.
“If only you knew how liberating this is,” Batman repeated.
“Look at me, Crane. I’m amazing. And this body… you wouldn’t believe how strong I am. Though I suppose you’re getting a good idea, aren’t you?”
“Look at me, Crane,” Batman said. “I’m amazing. And this body… you wouldn’t believe how strong I am. Though I suppose you’re getting a good idea, aren’t you?”
“What’s wrong, Crane?” The Joker cackled. “Are you scared I’m going to kill you? Well, news flash… I am.”
“What’s wrong, Crane?” Batman echoed. “Are you scared I’m going to kill you?
“Well, news flash. I… I…”
Batman fell back, staring at the broken, bloody figure of Jonathan Crane, lying in a pool of his own blood, gasping for breath. Pleading for life.
“I—I can’t… I can’t… I won’t…” he said, and he stared at his own hands. Something was wrong—they weren’t bloodied. He looked to the floor. There was no blood anywhere. He looked around him.
Scarecrow was gone.
What the hell is going on?
He felt a sudden pain to the back of his head, gasped in surprise, and fell to his knees.
Scarecrow was behind him, a steel rod in his hand, and he hit Batman with it again and again until Batman could barely see him, let alone think.
“Let me help you, Batman,” Scarecrow said. “You’re afraid of dying, aren’t you? But you’re not dying—even if you wish you were. My toxin is filling your lungs, drowning you in your greatest fears.” He raised the steel bar over his head and slammed it down again.
The bar hammered Batman’s face, smashing him back to the ground, but he refused to scream. Scarecrow stood over him, placing his foot on his opponent’s throat.
“What can you see?” he demanded. “A city engulfed in fear? Your life betrayed by those you trust the most? Your darkest secrets revealed? What can you see?”
The Joker leaned in close to Batman and laughed.
“He doesn’t know it, but he’s talking about your parents’ deaths. That’s still our little secret. Oh, and your next greatest fear, turning into me. Well, sorry to tell you this, but that ship has sailed. You’re already ninety percent there.”
“NO!” Batman shouted. “I’m not you. I’ll never be you.”
“Who are you shouting at, Batman?” Scarecrow asked. “What fears are you experiencing that are agitating you so? Actually, it doesn’t matter if I know—not as long as you do. So as I tear your mind apart, Gotham City will watch. And when everything is ready, I will cut that mask from your face and the whole world will see the fear in your eyes. Then they, too, will understand what I’ve always known. You’re not their savior. There is no savior.
“And there will never be a savior.”
He brought the rod down again on Batman’s face and this time Batman was unable to stifle his pain. He screamed, and Scarecrow hit him again.
“Now we’re making progress, Batman. Pain releases fear. And fear makes you mine.”
“Kill him, Bats,” the Joker shouted. A second Joker appeared behind him. “You can’t let him kill you. That’s my job. Kill the ’Crow.” A third Joker joined the chorus, then a fourth. “KILL THE ’CROW!”
Suddenly, Batman felt he was gripping metal. There was a gun in his hand.
“I’ve provided the weapon,” the Joker said gleefully. The rest is up to you. Kill him!”
“No,” Batman said. “Murder is the last act of desperation. I don’t kill. I don’t kill.”
“Yes, you will,” the Joker said. “Because it’s the only way you’ll get what you want. And you want to find the girl. Squeeze that trigger, and I’ll make sure you do.”
“This gun isn’t real. None of this is real.”
“If it’s imaginary, then why do you care if you shoot him with it? This is only a test anyway. I want to see what it takes to make the kettle boil over.”
“No!”
“Come on, Bats. Finish him,” the Jokers shouted. “Do it. Do what you know you want to do.”
Four Jokers surrounded him, and all of them were shouting the same thing.
“Kill him.
“You want to find Barbara Gordon?
“KILL HIM!”
Batman’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“No. I won’t.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Will you look at him? He’s no better than the creep who killed your parents. You need to do something. You need to stop him.”
“No.”
“Then girl Gordon dies.”
“No,” he said again, his finger squeezing the trigger. He saw his reflection in a steel strut. His eyes were burning bright green.
“Do it,” the Jokers ordered. “He deserves to die as I deserved to die. So kill him and make everything right again. Kill him and you’ll know where he’s hiding Barbara Gordon. Kill him and the world will make sense again!”
“No,” Batman said again, but his voice cracked and his will disappeared. He turned the gun to Scarecrow. “I won’t. I won’t,” he kept saying.
“KILL HIM!”
Batman squeezed the trigger, and the gun fired.
“
Well, about frickin’ time,” the Joker laughed.
* * *
Then Batman woke up, drenched in sweat and fear.
The Joker wasn’t there, urging him to violate everything he had ever believed. He looked at his hands. He wasn’t holding a weapon. There had never been a gun. He hadn’t killed Scarecrow. It was another Joker-blood-induced nightmare.
But he had wanted to kill his enemy. He knew that, even if it was only in a dream, he did squeeze the trigger. And he knew his fear was very real—he was all too capable of killing.
He was no better than the villains he battled.
Batman looked at the steel strut again, and saw his face reflected. He thought his eyes were still glowing green, but he couldn’t be certain.
Scarecrow was there, holding Stagg’s device, watching Batman like a lab rat. Then he started to move. He backed away.
“Something’s changed inside you, Batman,” he said. “There’s something different. Imperceptibly different, but still different. Your fever dream… What did you see in it? Tell me.”
Batman was still weak, but he wasn’t going to let Scarecrow take advantage.
“You’re trapped, Crane. There’s nowhere to run.”
Scarecrow smiled then stepped to the back of the room—the rear of the airship. A ring of explosions detonated immediately in front of him, separating the front section of the airship from the rear.
* * *
Batman watched helplessly as the compartment disappeared into the sky. He struggled to where the separation had occurred, then saw that the rear compartment was attached by cable to a twin-engine helicopter, carrying it away from the dirigible.
Scarecrow had his toxin-dispersal machine. Batman felt another fear growing inside him—greater than all the others. Scarecrow was going to win this fight, and nothing could be done to stop him.
Even if it was a fever dream, the moment he killed Scarecrow, Batman lost the war.
28
The copter and the airship section disappeared into a cloudbank that hung low over the Gotham City islands. Sometimes it seemed as if the city was always covered by clouds that blanketed it in a perpetual sense of hopeless gloom. But it also provided many areas for the police to reflect the Bat-Signal, alerting him to any impending crises.
Given Gordon’s anger, there was no telling how long the signal would be allowed to stay.
Gordon… Barbara? That screen shot of Barbara.
Batman turned and saw the computer Scarecrow had used. Crane had destroyed its monitor but its hard drive could still be accessed. He used a USB cord to connect it to his gauntlet, and downloaded the computer’s contents. All of the data it contained might prove useful, but his primary focus was that picture of Barbara.
His gauntlet holo revealed a series of images. Batman quickly swiped through them. He found the one of Barbara, and realized he knew where she was being held. She was in one of the cells in Scarecrow’s Chinatown penthouse—the same makeshift prison Ivy had been in before Batman freed her.
* * *
He landed on the Chinatown roof. Without hesitation he pushed through the door, then made his way inside. No one was there to slow him down, and the room where Ivy had been was still empty. Batman checked his sensors and saw a single heat dot thirteen feet south of his location.
In the next room.
This door was locked. He sprayed it with explosive gel and set off a small, controlled explosion. The door swung open to reveal Barbara sitting, slumped over in a chair, unmoving. A table was next to her, with a pitcher of water sitting on it. Behind the pitcher he could see a gun.
There was a bank of blank monitors on the opposing wall, but otherwise the room was empty. Barbara was also in a cell, but unlike Ivy’s prison, this didn’t have steel bars to keep her inside—it had been constructed as a large transparent box. There were a few air holes drilled into it to keep her alive, but otherwise there was no way in or out. Even its seams were fused together.
Batman walked around the glass, tapping the window but getting no response from the lifeless figure. The Joker was suddenly walking beside him, also tapping the glass while humming a tune from Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.
“What? We hurry all the way here, and Crane’s already killed her?” The fiend shook his head. “That really sucks. The man’s got no sense of occasion.”
Batman scanned the room, looking for some sign of Scarecrow.
“Crane, I know you’re watching this,” he said. “You don’t have to do this. You have me. Leave her alone.”
The bank of monitors behind the cell suddenly flickered with life. Scarecrow’s face filled all the screens.
“Oooh, Batman, do you see the twisty needle-finger man?” the Joker mocked. “I am soooo scared.”
“That is enough, clown,” Scarecrow said. “Fear is theatrics, so permit me the indulgence of putting on this show.”
How can he see the Joker? Batman wondered. The barrier between reality and illusion was becoming more fragile with every passing moment. Yet he had no choice but to allow it to play out.
The Joker bowed in fake acquiescence. “Maybe I got Bag-Face wrong. Go on with the show. I’m waiting. But make it good.”
Suddenly, Batman heard the hiss of gas and saw Scarecrow’s toxin flood into the chamber from a vent in the floor. Then Barbara’s eyes opened—she’d been unconscious, not dead.
“Wh-what’s happening?” she asked. Her voice cracked, and she was almost unable to speak.
“Barbara!” Batman yelled to her, but she couldn’t hear him. Her eyes widened, and Batman knew what she was seeing. Like the patrons in Pauli’s Diner, she wasn’t staring at other human beings, but at demons—or in this case, a single demon. It was more than her toxin-controlled mind could take, and she screamed.
Scarecrow’s voice came over Batman’s comm, but he was talking directly to Barbara.
“Do you see the horror behind the glass?” he said. “The monster that will be your doom? You know he wants to use those claws to tear you apart.
“He wants to feast on your blood and viscera, and watch you die. But worst of all, he wants to turn you into another monster. Another creature of the damned. You’re not going to let that happen, are you?”
Batman called to her, desperate to get her attention.
“Barbara, don’t listen to him. It’s me.”
But she still couldn’t hear him.
“No!” she shouted. “You won’t kill me. I won’t let you. Scarecrow, please don’t let him…”
“You have a way out, Barbara,” Crane said. “You know what to do, so do it.”
Batman saw Barbara reach for the gun behind the pitcher of water. She held it up, waving it at him.
“Get away from me.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Barbara, don’t do it.”
“It’s too late, Batman,” Scarecrow responded with murderous glee. “You bring death to everyone you love.”
“Crane’s right, Bats,” the Joker said. “You are a real downer.”
“Barbara,” Batman said frantically, “I’ll leave the room. I won’t come back. Put the gun away. Please, for God’s sake, don’t use it. I promise I’ll leave you alone.”
“I don’t believe you,” Barbara said as she put the barrel of the gun under her chin.
She squeezed the trigger, and fired.
Batman stared as she fell to the floor, dead, then dropped to his knees and cried. He had failed Barbara Gordon… again.
“Now that was truly cold, Batman,” the Joker said, sitting on the chair Barbara had occupied only moments before. He held up his index finger to his temple. “Pow! Wham! So very cold. Not even I ever went that far.”
A second Joker walked back and forth in the cell behind the first one.
“Now, if only you hadn’t broken in here the way you did, all monster-like and growly angry, she might be alive right now. But no. You had to prove your major-league macho-osity, didn’t you?”
A third Joker appeared
, leaning over the body, smearing his finger with Barbara’s blood then using it like ink to write on the walls.
“I’ve got the perfect epitaph for her tombstone. ‘RIP Barbara Gordon. How many times did Batman let her down? In how many ways did he destroy her?’” He turned to Batman and laughed. “You know, if I actually gave a damn about her, I’d be crying real tears right about now.”
The first Joker walked to the transparent wall and leaned against it, blowing hot breath to form a layer of fog on its surface. His finger drew a happy face in the haze.
“But the good news is, my death—and now maybe hers—has emboldened the common Gotham City gutter rats. They’re all embracing their crazy.” He walked through the transparent barrier. “It’s enough to make me proud.”
Batman lurched at the Joker, but the hallucination faded even as his hands closed around his neck.
“More nightmares. Nothing but nightmares,” he muttered to himself. He stood up straight, looked again into the cell and saw that it was empty. Nothing, not even that single chair, had ever been there.
Barbara might, in fact, be dead, but Batman was willing to bet his life on the slim hope that Scarecrow wasn’t yet done with her. If he wanted Batman to suffer, there would be more.
He made his way back to the Batmobile, collapsed in the front seat, and called Alfred. His shoulder throbbed.
“Sir, did you find her? Ms. Gordon?”
“Crane’s playing games with me. He made me see Barbara. She was locked in a cell. I watched as she killed herself. But after… Alfred, she wasn’t there. She was never there.”
“So she might still be alive, sir?”
“I don’t know. It’s gotten to the point where I’m not sure if anything I see is real, or another of his damned hallucinations.”
“I am so sorry, sir. I wish to God I could be there with you now.”
“Me too, Alfred. I need to look at a friendly face. Staring into nothing but hell… it’s corrupting. And the Joker’s blood mixed with Scarecrow’s toxin only makes worse everything I see and do. But if she’s gone, I now know it wasn’t because of anything she or her father did. If she’s truly dead, she was killed because of me.”
“You can’t assume she’s gone, sir. There’d be no reason to kill her, sir. Dead, she’s useless to him. But alive he can continue to use her… and perhaps control you.”