The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight

Prologue

In a small northern community only reachable by bush plane, very few people can hear you scream...

The boy sat curled up in the corner of the dark, damp, mildewy cell. His dark hair, lank and filthy, hangs about his hunched shoulders. The loose cloth of the inmate garment he wears sags off his thin frame, shapeless and baggy. He's crying softly.
"Jonathan?". The boy looks up. "Jonathan?" The voice calls out for him again. "Jo-ona-than," He slowly crawls to the door of the little cell and peers out between the bars, into the dimly lit corridor.

  Ghosts. Ghosts. This place is filled with Ghosts. "🎶When the crypt door creaks...🎶" He hears the voice again. It's singing softly in a gravelly voice, a voice like nails scraping a chalkboard, or rusty hinges. A voice half-human, half-creature. A voice made of nightmares. "Who's there?" the boy says, his voice barely above a whisper. "🎶And the tombstones quake...🎶" the voice sings. "Hey! Quiet over there! Some of us are tryin' to sleep," one of the other inmates yells. Ghosts... It's the ghosts... Arkham's filled with ghosts. "Why don't you be quiet! 'Else I'll remove your vocal cords by force!".

  There was no reply. In fact, no other patients said anything the rest of the night. "🎶Spooks come out for a swinging wake...🎶" the boy curls up into a tight ball, trying to drown out the voice. That scratchy, eerie, deep voice. "🎶Happy haunts materialize...🎶" he wraps his arms around his knees, pulling them tight against his frail body. Tears flowed down his cheeks freely now. "🎶And begin to vocalize...🎶".

"Ya leave that poor sweet boy alone!" a high-pitched female voice yells out. "He's terrified enough as it is without ya goons pestering him. Don't worry Johnny! I'll look out for ya!" The boy buries his face into his arms. "🎶Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize...🎶" The boy plugs his ears with his fingers. "🎶Now don't close your eyes...🎶" A guard walks past. The boy can hear him mutter, "Crazy kid. Who knows what else his insane father did to him,". The boy crawls to the front of the cell and reaches through the bars. "Please... make him stop... he won't stop singing...". All his protest garnered him was a smack on the arm from the guard. "Keep your hands away from me! Freak..."

"Please..." the boy's protests fall on deaf ears. The guard walks away from him as the guard continues on his way. "Someone should tell Dr. Arkham that Crane's meds need adjustment." the guard says as he passes. "That guy gives me the creeps," the boy hears him say to another guard. "Who? Crane?" "Nah. Crane's just a little boy. Not like he can harm us or anything. The doc. Arkham. Something not right about the man,"

"🎶And don't try to hide...🎶" The boy pulls his arm back through the bars and wraps it back around his knees. "🎶Or a silly spook may sit by your side...🎶" The boy's hair falls around his face. He clenched his eyes shut. "🎶Shrouded in a daft disguise...🎶" The boy reaches up and plugs his ears in an attempt to drown out the gravelly voice. "🎶They pretend to terrorize...🎶" The voice sounds even louder now. "🎶Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize...🎶"

  The boy bites his lip till the blood flows. Trying to focus on the pain and hoping to ignore the voice. "🎶As the moon climbs high o'er dead oak tree...🎶" He scrapes his teeth against his lip, making the skin red and raw. "🎶Spooks arrive for the midnight spree...🎶" The boy digs his fingernails into the palms of his hands until small crescents of blood pool underneath them. "🎶Creepy creeps with eerie eyes...🎶" He starts biting the nails down until they split down to the beds. "🎶Start to shriek and harmonize...🎶"

  The boy picks at the splintered cuticles, tearing small strips of skin off, making them bleed. "🎶Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize...🎶" He hears the guard come back around. "Wish he'd stop singing to himself," the guard mutters, as he makes his way past the boy's cell. "Starting to creep me out," The boy shivers as the cell gets cooler. There's no way of knowing if it's night or day in here. Or if it's summer or winter. It always feels cold down here. "🎶When you hear the knell of a requiem bell...🎶"

  "Please... make him stop... make him stop..." Another guard walks past. He stops for a moment and looks into the cell that the boy is in. "Shut up in there! Doc Arkham is gonna hear about this. An' I don't think he's gonna be as nice to you as I am," The boy is silent for a few hours as the guard walks on. "🎶Weird glows gleam where spirits dwell...🎶" the whispered singing continues in the darkness of the cold, dank cell.

  The boy cries out. "He's here! He's in here with me! Please help me!" The boy hears a dark laugh from somewhere in the darkness. "🎶Restless bones etherealize...🎶" The boy curls back into a ball and sobs. "🎶Rise as spooks of every size...🎶" The boy cries out as a searing pain bursts between his eyes. "Another migraine, boy? 🎶Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize🎶"

"🎶Grim grinning ghosts come out...🎶"

  The voice slowly fades away. "🎶Grim grinning ghosts come out...🎶" The boy looks up with tear-blurred eyes. "🎶To socialize...🎶" Finally silence falls and the boy slowly drifts off to a fitful sleep. "Hurry back..." the voice continues. "Hurry back..." Now he's hearing the voice in his dreams. The boy tosses and turns.

  "Be sure to bring your death certificate... If you decide to join us... Make final arrangements now... We've been dying... To have you..."