literature

Arkham Asylum Part 4

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Lydia tried to move, she felt herself shake and contort within her bindings. She felt light headed, but she supposed that was to be expected from what she went through. A moan escaped her throat despite how hard she fought to keep it in. Her eyes wanted to open, but she couldn’t muster the strength required to open them.

After a few minutes, she could make out the faint sounds of voices in the distance. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was a step in the right direction just to be able to make out that they were voices talking. Lydia shifted around slightly, trying to find her position on the ground, but she wasn’t able to move, something was keeping her tied together. She began to move quicker, her movements jerky and unresponsive. Her eyes snapped open.

Instantly, she regretted ever opening them, light flooded into her eyes painfully. Her head pulsated with the pain of an oncoming migraine, she could feel the blood rushing to her head, filling in the crevices of her skull and swashing around. Her face flushed, hot pain echoed through her mind, her ears popped with the added pressure surrounding her brain. The floor was above her, she stared helplessly down at it before looking up.

All of the pain evaporated in one frightening gasp. The Joker stood in front of her, his body tilted to her left at his waist, trying to mimic her upside-down position, while still standing upright, causing him to take on a half crescent shape with his body. A wicked smile spread across his lips, it was all at once completely frightening and sickening. She wanted to lash out at the man, to claw out his beady little eyes, but the ropes that held her up contained all of her rage. As she twisted and struggled, the ropes cut in deeper, forcing her to stop when it became too painful to handle.

The Joker tsked, waggling his finger back and forth as the annoying sucking sound came from between his teeth. He stood slowly, exaggerating a stretching motion, bragging silently about his freedom. Grace growled through the cloth covering her mouth, words she wanted to say merely came out as unintelligible gibberish to the Joker and his men.

“I’m sorry dear, there seems to be something you want to say. What’s that?” The Joker held a hand to his ear, pretending to try to listen. He started laughing a hideous, shrill laugh when she tried futilely to hit him with her head. The Joker continued to laugh as he walked up to a mahogany desk she hadn’t noticed before. Slipping a knife him underneath his sleeve, he stabbed it into the desk, cutting his laughter short. The Joker walked around the table, pulling knives out of various pockets in his jacket. Lining them up neatly, he sat down in a chair, resting his elbows on the table and twining his fingers together, resting his chin upon the net they provided.

The wicked smile was back, but this time Lydia controlled her emotions, she stared back nonchalantly. They stared at each other for a few minutes before a couple of the Joker’s men walked up from behind her and whispered something she couldn’t hear to the Joker. The smile slightly vanished, a more business like expression found its way onto his face as he whispered inaudible instructions back to his men. He stood suddenly and started to follow the men out of the room, but stopped.

“Oh, where’s my manners, I’m sorry I cannot be your host for a while, but fear not.” He stopped talking, stared at her for a moment, and shook his head deciding not to continue his thought. “Too easy. Anyway, fear not, I have someone here to take my place while I’m out.”

Without another word, the Joker left. For a while, the room was silent, Lydia hanging upside down, suspended a few feet off the floor, swaying ever so slightly, fighting the onset of unconsciousness once again. Her eyes refused to focus on any one object; instead, everything slowly swirled into a swatch of blurred colors and roughly outlined shapes. Lydia moaned, trying to wiggle out of her constraints warily enough to avoid making them any tighter. She idly wished that certain parts of her body weren’t existent as she tried to slip the rope from around her arms.

A familiar chuckle slowly started from behind her, the sort of low, guttural laughter that started out soft and gradually garnered louder notes until she thought it would become a cacophony that could destroy the building. However, it remained low, soft, and utterly disturbing. She wanted to try to swing around, to see what he was doing, she felt helpless tied up as she was.

She felt his hand push up against the small of her back, trailing a line around her side and onto her stomach. Gingerly, he stepped around to face her. His black suit was finely pressed, no wrinkles in sight. A long black tie dangled from his neck, the fat lead tucked nicely into the closed jacket. With a smile on his face, he lifted his hand from her stomach, passing it over her body inches from her body. He moved with a measured patience, gliding his hand over her body, moving down to her ribs and outlining the contours of her body as he passed over her breasts. Lingering for only a second, he let his hand move over her face. It was then that she could see it, a small nozzle sticking out from his sleeve, the tiny hole poised in front of her face.

Her body tried to swallow, but found it impossible, even in that she couldn’t hold control over her life. For a moment, he stood there, watching her reaction and staring off into the distance where the Joker had left. When he was satisfied that she knew the fear he could cause her, he closed his fist and stepped back.

Standing tall before her, he stared at her, contemplating something, something dark and evil. All-of-a-sudden, with blinding speed that Lydia’s eyes couldn’t follow, he plunged his fist into her stomach, the wind fled from her lungs as the pain shot through her body. She instinctively curled up, trying to comfort the hurt, but she couldn’t curl up far enough with the pain coursing through her body.

Crane’s eyes were wild as he crouched down in front of her. He passed a hand through his bangs, pushing them back farther onto his mane, out of his eyes. Lydia watched through tear-filled eyes as his smile widened into a toothy grin that resembled the mouth of a lion waiting to devour its prey. Carefully, he bit down onto his lower lip with exaggerated slowness, considering his options.

With a click of his tongue, Crane began to speak. “Feels…weird doesn’t it? Being all tied up like that.” He pointed to her ropes, slipping a finger through a loop at her arm and tugged on it slightly. “Not comfortable is it?”

Crane stood suddenly, letting out an exacerbated breath noisily. “Don’t worry though; we’ve got plenty of things for that.”

He disappeared behind her once again for a second. Lydia heard the sound of metal squeaking against metal. The sound stopped as Crane remembered something. Another second later, Lydia fell to the ground with a painful thud. Crane started back again. He walked beside her, pushing the cart that she used to carry the medications for the inmates. When he stopped, he put a hand under his chin looking at the pills. “Now, I know I may have a ‘degree’ in psychopharmacology,” he used his fingers to add emphasis. “However, I’ve always been partial to just finding out which ones work best by trial and error.”

Lydia’s face contorted, tears streamed down her face as Crane picked pills at random from different bottles. Depressants, anti-depressants, hallucinogens, and other pills piled into his palm, too many at one time. They spilled from his cupped hand as he transported them to her. With his free hand, he pulled down her gag and raised her up into a sitting position on his knee. Pulling on her hair, he tilted her head back, forcing her mouth open as she cried out in a mixture of pain and shock. In that instance, Crane shoved the pills into her mouth and massaged her throat, holding his hand over her mouth to prevent any pills from spilling out. Involuntarily, Lydia swallowed, taking a few pills at a time. It took a few swallows, but Crane forced all of the pills down her throat.

When she had the pills safely within her stomach, Crane reached over to the table and procured a bottle of water, unscrewing the cap with one hand while smoothing Lydia’s hair back with his other. With the cap off, Crane pulled her hair back once again, tipping the open bottle into her mouth. The water, that should have been refreshing, made her think of drowning and in a sense she was. Lydia coughed and gagged, trying to expunge the excess water from her mouth as she tried to swallow.

Giggling, Crane stopped pouring the water enough to let her swallow and then poured more in when her mouth was clear. He continued to do this until the bottle was empty. Crane let Lydia down onto the ground carefully, letting her head fall softly to the ground. Leaving the cart and Lydia where they were, Crane walked back to wherever he had gone before and started hoisting Lydia back up. It took longer than she thought it might if he wasn’t being careful not to make her throw up. Regardless of his efforts, Lydia felt her stomach roil with the invasion of the alien medication.

Once in front of her again, Crane straightened his tie. “You see, the only true answer to insanity is a little medication. I’ve heard of all these ‘methods’ to curing patients with ‘therapy’ and other useless pseudo-intellectual crap, but nothing beats a few pills down the throat.” Crane gave an uncomfortable laugh, but caught himself, adjusting his sleeves to make them even with each other, covering the nozzle once again. Crane looked at her, staring at her face, upside down. His composure regained, he began to speak again. “Now, you’ll have to excuse my earlier rudeness I’m afraid. You see, it’s not entirely you, but those damned guards that you always come in with. They never had the bedside manner you had.”

His eyes took in her full body, roaming over parts that made Lydia’s face blush involuntarily. His voice regained its seductive nature that used to make the female medical students faun over him when he batted his eyes their way. When he saw the embarrassment and rage filled expression on Lydia’s face, he continued. “Oh, no I don’t think you understand at all.”

Crane ran over to her, sliding down and meeting her face with his. He grabbed her hair again, holding the hand with the nozzle to her face. “You think my thoughts are only lascivious, no I hate to correct you, but you are wrong. No, you never acted out of fear; you never exerted your power over me because you were afraid. Barry was, and look how he treated me, and well consequently look how he ended up, but that’s beyond the point.” Crane was rambling, losing his focus. He shook his head and looked at her eyes, staring at her with a concentrated pleasure. “Oh, how I’m going to love changing that.”

With a shove, he let her head fall and stood up, walking over to the cart. He stood unmoving for a second, reveling in whatever it was he was holding. Spinning around, Crane held the burlap sack that he used to use to induce fear on his subjects. Dangling it with one hand, he waggled it before her, showing her fate to her.

Using both hands to pull the mask on, he let out a satisfied moan at feeling the itchy fabric once again brushing against his smooth face. It was like ecstasy feeling it again. The euphoric high he felt came rushing back, filling his entire body from head-to-toe. No longer was he Doctor Crane, no longer was he burdened by the thoughts of justice, the conscience that he had—what little it was, he was instead reborn into Scarecrow.

“Now Lydia, you look positively frightened.” His voice lost the enticing, smooth, elegant quality and gained a new rough and gritty texture. Scarecrow loosened his tie while making slow deliberate steps towards her, hunching over as he progressed. The hand with the nozzle concealed behind the jacket’s cuff twitched in anticipation. Scarecrow made low guttural sounds craning his neck and tilting it to the side to complete the façade of a horrific menace.

Lydia tried to contain her fear, but the sheer absurdity of everything was causing her eyes to widen to the point that she was afraid they might fall out. Despite being covered by the mask, Lydia could make out the outline of a smile spreading across his face. His hand moved up towards her face, his palm extending towards the ceiling, exposing the nozzle further. Lydia watched as the metal cylinder pushed its way from underneath his sleeve, her eyes traced the edges, watching as her fate was spread out before her like an open book. It wasn’t everything she expected, her life didn’t flash before her eyes, no white lights, but she suspected that was because she wasn’t actually dying. No, this was going to be a living death, one that would last longer than she thought she could bear.

Scarecrow’s arm moved with a trained precision, the small rope that was tied to his middle finger was taut, but not enough to release the caustic gas. He was toying with her, dangling her over the edge of the mental cliff, but not letting her fall just yet.

“I don’t usually let my patients last this long, you don’t know how difficult this is for me. The fear, I need to see it, I need to feel your fear.” He pulled his arm away slightly. “It’s always better to let the fear manifest itself, to let it steep within your heart and mind, but I can never wait that long.”

His arm moved, the string became tighter, she could hear the trigger clicking into place, the gas was only a mere breath away. She thought about what she could do; what options she had. Her mind was still hers for the moment; she would have to come up with a plan, some way to stall him. Nothing was coming to mind, nothing. She had a thought then, she remembered something from when Crane was still on the loose in Gotham. There was an antidote, if she could keep her wits about her long enough to find the antidote, she might be able to survive with her mind intact.

The sound of air expelling from the nozzle slowly hissed as Scarecrow’s hand pulled up, readying the spray. His hand twitched suddenly, jerking back down, releasing its tension on the trigger. Lydia’s eyes still transfixed on the dispatching method for the weaponized chemical gas that Scarecrow used, didn’t notice Harvey’s hand on Scarecrow’s wrist, holding him back.

“No.” His voice was hoarse like he had been screaming. The visible muscles in his jaw tightened when he looked at Lydia, her body draped casually above the floor. Harvey pulled Scarecrow’s hand away from Lydia’s face and pushed it away as if he were grasping a serpent.

“Come on Harvey, you know what--”

“Oh, come now Crane you’re not going to ruin the fun are you?” The voice came from the desk; the Joker was sitting cross-legged on the desk. Lydia didn’t know when he had entered the room, nor was she aware of him moving at anytime. A wicked smile was spread on his lips; the make-up that normally coated his face was mostly wiped away by beads of sweat that left trails of the make-up as they rolled down his chin. In conjunction with his make-up, the Joker’s clothes were slightly disheveled. It looked like he had just run the greater part of a marathon before returning to the room.

Harvey moved away from Lydia, she didn’t want him to, but he walked over to the Joker and stood by the desk, folding his arms over his mutilated chest. She saw the Joker’s men walk into a semicircle around the desk, farther back, but still within a few paces. Among them, she noticed that most were doctors, nurses, and security guards, she wasn’t sure if she could even spot an inmate in their midst.

Harvey opened his mouth to speak, but the words weren’t there. He passed a hand through the side of his head that still had hair, pushing it back and letting it flop down lazily back where it had been. Casting a furtive glance towards the gathering of the asylum’s staff, Harvey found his lucky coin in his pocket and began rubbing his thumb over it comfortingly.

It wasn’t until Crane pulled his mask off that the silence was punctuated. “So, what are we going to do then? He does know right?”

The Joker merely smiled in reply, looking at Harvey to answer the question. Harvey’s frown grew more pronounced. Something about him wasn’t right, he saved her, but he was regressing, regressing back. Back to Two Face.

As if to reply to Lydia’s silent musings, Two Face flipped his coin, catching it as it fell, not looking at the outcome, and flipping it again. He began to walk, performing both tasks simultaneously as he thought about the best way to approach whatever conundrum they were talking about. When he caught the coin once more, he stopped suddenly and turned to her.

“You knew didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question, but an accusation.

“Harvey, I’m not sure what you’re-”

“Don’t lie!” He slammed his fist on the desk. “I don’t want to hear anymore lies, no more half-truths, or soothing words. You knew didn’t you?”

“Harvey if you’ll just tell me-”

“You know what? It doesn’t matter; you know why it doesn’t matter?” He waited a compulsory moment before answering the question himself. “Because it’s not about me anymore, no, no, no---it’s all about this.”

Two Face held up the marred coin between his first two fingers and his thumb. He slammed the coin down on the table, letting the flat of his palm rest on it for a moment before walking behind the desk. Sliding open one of the drawers, he procured a revolver.

“You said it was okay, that she was resting in peace.” He laughed through the tears that fell down the human side of his face, pushing the revolver to his forehead, covering his face. Lydia suddenly knew what was happening.

“Harvey it was necessary, if everyone knew-”

“I don’t give a damn about anyone else! How can someone rest in peace if no one even knows? How can their family mourn? How can someone just disappear like that and no one know? How? How? How?

“Is this city so corrupt that we can just make someone vanish?” He flicked his fingers out, imitating the action of disappearance. His eyes were burning brightly, he was teetering on the edge of insanity once again, a line he walked constantly. Normally, she could keep him on the right side of sanity, but if he knew what the police did, how they kept everything about him and Rachel a secret…

“Harvey, it’s not like that, it was necessary, if the people found out that-”

“So, her life isn’t important, it was just a sacrifice she had to make, one that no one can even know about?” He was twisting her words around, making her seem like the villain. “She had to pay the price for all of those God forsaken peons? How exactly is that fair?”

Two Face picked up the coin and held it in his free hand as he paced back and forth in front of the desk. The Joker swung his feet perfunctorily, watching Two Face make decisions. He stopped walking again, turning to Lydia.

“She was much more than any, one of those vulgar scum, they couldn’t hold a candle to her. Tell me how that is fair; tell me why it had to be her? They only saved me for their precious city, why was my life more valuable than her’s? This city doesn’t deserve her, it doesn’t deserve any of it, what it does deserve is to be slaughtered, yeah, slaughtered like the animals that inhabit it.”

Two Face caught himself, he stopped talking, almost snapping his mouth shut as an idea occurred to him. “It’s not my choice though, that’s not justice, no, not justice at all.”

Suddenly, he was off, nearly running to the first doctor he could find. With the hand holding the coin, he gathered the man’s coat in his fist, dragging the man to the desk. A sad smile was etched onto the man’s bloodied face, but fear and pain were clearly displayed on his glossy eyes. Two Face rooted around in the desk for a few minutes while the man stood their chuckling nervously to himself. After a while, Two Face pulled out a piece of paper.

Holding the paper to the man’s face, comparing the picture on his file to the man’s adulterated face, he began to rifle through the file, pulling out a single sheet of paper. “’In accordance with the mandatory silence by the Gotham City Police Department, I, Richard Mansfeld, agree to keep everything I witness or discuss with my patients silent and confidential within and without the walls of the asylum. I agree to these terms under penalty of law.’ Here at the bottom in the fine print it refers directly to ‘special inmates’, if you’re not sure who they are, they’re us.” Two Face pointed to the other two men and then himself. “Well, let’s continue on shall we? ‘Under the circumstance that I have any encounter with any of the special inmates, I will not discuss, with anyone not assigned to those inmates, their mental or physical health. Furthermore, I agree not to name any inmates that are in my care, under penalty of law’.”

Two Face took a breath, staring at the man for a second before continuing. “You see Lydia, you, along with all of your other cohorts; have been denying my life since I arrived here. All of that to protect your defective city, letting it fester for a while longer. That isn’t justice that is bandaging an infested wound at the detriment of others.” He lifted up the coin, visible to everyone. “We’ll have to see that justice is served.”

Two Face flipped the coin and slapped it against the back of his hand. The doctor swallowed subconsciously, liquid warmth flowing down his legs as he watched Two Face release his hand. Two Face frowned, a grim and foreboding frown.

“No! No! No!” Lydia was screaming before Two Face could even move his arm. It did little to assuage his motivation though; the arm completed its arc, the revolver lying in his hand like death itself. With his thumb, he flicked the hammer back into position. Punctuating the sounds of Lydia’s frantic screaming, the doctor laughed nervously, not moving to save his life. Two Face whispered something that Lydia couldn’t her over the sound of her own voice before squeezing the trigger. Blood and brain matter exploded out of the fresh hole in his head, which snapped backwards and bounced forward with the force of the bullet. The semicircle of staff members were splattered with the beginnings of the savage slaughter.

Without any hesitance, Two Face let the body fall to the ground, a doctor, and nurse from the semicircle moving quickly to move the body out of the way. Lydia could only stare into his glazed over, lifeless eyes as the blood streaked out from underneath him, leaving a macabre trail everywhere his body moved. Ignoring the organic matter splattering their clothes, the doctors and nurses chuckled nervously, watching their colleague being dragged out of the room by his limp feet.

Two Face pushed the cylinder of the revolver out of place, exposing the remaining ammunition. He slapped the gun down onto his hand, pushing the unused bullets away from the single empty casing and tossing the spent husk to the side. One by one, he replaced the bullets, pulling another one from his pocket and pushing it into the still warm slot that held the last bullet.

Nonchalantly, Two Face flicked the cylinder back into place and slowly made his way towards the next person in the semicircle. Lydia struggled in her bindings, trying to get out and stop him. Finding it impossible to maneuver, she gave up and decided to try to appeal to his still human half.

“Harvey, listen to me, this isn’t you, you aren’t like this.” She wasn’t even sure she believed herself anymore, what had he become? He was going to slaughter them all one at a time, who was she to say what he is and isnt’? “Look, there are other ways to go about this.”

He stopped inches away from his next victim and snorted, a short exhalation that, if he didn’t have her full attention, Lydia would have missed. “This is the only way, you still don’t get it do you? Justice, justice, justice. That’s what this is all about. I’m only doing what is fair, fair for everyone, fair for…Rachel.

“These people took her life; they all had a hand in it.” Two Face motioned towards every one of the morbid faces before him. “Maybe not directly, but each and every one of you had a hand in suppressing her story, her legacy, her life.”

“Harvey, you don’t have to stoop to our level, you can be better than us, be better for Rachel.”

“Don’t you dare use her name, don’t you dare try and use her to save your friend’s lives.” He growled, shaking the gun at the people in front of him as he spoke.

“Harvey, just think about what you’re doing.”

“I am.” Two Face clicked the hammer back, revolving the cylinder into place as he held up the coin for Lydia to see. Using his thumb, he flipped the coin in the air, catching it as it fell. As he opened his fist, he looked up into the nurse’s eyes, his next potential victim. His finger squeezed ever so gently on the trigger, tightening his grip on the revolver. Tears streamed down the woman’s face, her legs were shaking, but unmoving otherwise.

Suddenly, with a loud click, everything went dark; a gunshot rang out. Lydia whipped around; trying to see what happened, but she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Something moved in the distance, a shadow passing among the darkness, only she was certain she was the only one that noticed. Another flicker of light, and the thing was gone. She strained her eyes, watching through the confusion to find the ephemeral shape that passed between the scattering semicircle of medical staff. Without knowing how it happened, Lydia was plummeting to the ground, hitting the cold concrete floor painfully.

She stared for a moment, watching as the shape weaved in and out of the paths of the panicking doctors and nurses, making its way towards her. The drugs must have been working because she thought it was the devil himself coming to rescue her.
Okay, here's part 4. I spent a great deal of time writing this because I had two papers to write while I was trying to write this section. Although, I don't forsee that the next part (which should be the final part) taking any less time.

Anyhow, if you'd like to see something cool, *RosaSericea drew the scene with Crane and Lydia very accurately, so that's how I envisioned it.

Again, thanks to *RosaSericea for previewing the story and giving me helpful advise. :D
© 2008 - 2024 Zombiehugger
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scellocat's avatar
this is my favourite one! It has so much detail, and its really entertaining! Maybe its my fab cuz dr. Crane is my favourite villian ever! But I think the fanale is really good too. Even though when I was reading the chapters, I was exsausted! It still kept me on the edge of my seat! (even though I was lieing on my bed...)

~ scarecrow ~