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Dr. Jonathan Crane, MD - Entry 032a
🕑 Added 2017-11-01 18:00:00 +0000 UTC STRANGE ENTRY: 0932 – Jonathan U. CraneSTRANGE: These are the medical journals of Dr. Hugo Strange. The date is September 7th, 1995.
Patient interview with Mr. Jonathan Crane. There’s no smoking allo- hm, alright.
Let’s begin, shall we?
CRANE: Strange… That can’t be your real name.
STRANGE: The family name is Schturang, but it is less than palatable to the American tongue. But we are not here to talk about my family, Jonathan. Tell me about yours.
CRANE: Nothing to tell.
STRANGE: Oh, I don’t believe that. I believe there is much more to Jonathan Ulysses Crane than you let on.
CRANE: …
STRANGE: You flinched there. Surely there isn’t something about your own name that bothers you so much, is there? Jonathan? Ulysses?
CRANE: …
STRANGE: Fascinating.
CRANE: Is it now?
STRANGE: Your parents must have been fans of literature.
CRANE: …*laughs*
STRANGE: This is funny?
CRANE: Not a history buff, are you, doc?
STRANGE: I admit, I am not.
CRANE: Do you know what the best way was for a southern parent to show they had a child they didn’t want? Name him after the enemy. Don’t let anyone tell y’otherwise - confederate views were still very much alive in the south, so to be named after a Union general? Well… that’s settin’ your child up for a whoopin’ or two, or three, or four.
STRANGE: I find it hard to believe someone would deliberately wish their child harm.
CRANE: You never knew Elijah Crane.
STRANGE: Well, tell me about Elijah Crane.
CRANE: Arrogant son of a bitch. You know he called himself the Creator of Fear?
*lights another cigarette* And once he realised he had a test subject he could have complete control over? Well, that just made his damn day.
Heh, I remember for my eighth birthday, he bought me a bicycle. Shiny, red little thang. Beautiful. I didn’t even realise until the first hill that he’d pulled the brake lines out of it. I screamed for help - I didn’t know what else to do. Tree came outta nowhere. I went ass over teakettle n’ landed right beside the riverbank.
I remember… cryin’... sobbin’ away, n’ when my father walked over to me, I put my hands up t’ward him. He was smiling. Smiling. He said, “That went better than I’d hoped.” and left me there, just went right back to takin’ notes.
That was the last time I cried.
The scarin’ never stopped. Day in and day out he found somethin’ new to torment me with. Snakes in the bed, blood in the shower, but I started to get used to it. It loses its edge after a while, even the dogs he sicced on me got… dull.
STRANGE: Did your mother do nothing while this was happening?
CRANE: Ha… my mother. Y’know what she said? She said it was God’s will. That my suffering was for something greater than myself. If that wasn’t the biggest crock of shit I’d ever heard…
STRANGE: You have a rather large scar on your cheek. Would you like to talk about that?
CRANE: Everyone has a breaking point. Where they say enough is enough. I was eleven, and… hell, I can’t even remember what he did, but I had a knife in my hand, and it was going straight for his heart. Never made it. Scar’s a reminder that I gotta know my place.
But I guess I don’t learn easy. I got him on the ground, had my hands ‘round his neck. I remember seeing the life fading from his purple face, and thinking how much happier I would be without him. But mama threatened to call the sheriff, and I just let go.
I was so damn close.
She left that night.
I was eleven years old and she left me with that man.
Strangely enough, and I don’t know if it was the stranglin’ or the leavin’, but the old man backed off. Almost had something of a childhood. But it didn’t last.
STRANGE: Tell me about October 31st, 1990.
CRANE: You know what happened. Elijah John Crane died.
STRANGE: I know he died, but I want to know HOW he died.
CRANE: What makes you think I know?
STRANGE: Because you smiled as soon as I mentioned the date, Mr. Crane. A smile of satisfaction. And, if you truly wish to practise medicine, you will need me to declare you able.
CRANE: I found his notes one night. He had a theory - a serum that could be administered in order to enhance the effects of fear. It was all ideas and possibilities, with no actual base in reality.
Or so he thought.
I worked every night, sneaking into the local clinics and animal hospitals - putting together this fear tonic… this… toxin. I had just turned seventeen when I tested it on myself.
Y’know, I’d almost forgotten how it felt to be afraid. But this was so vivid. So exciting. I had finally succeeded where my father failed - for once in my life, I was truly terrified.
I had created pure fear.
I kept it under my hat for months. I imagined this is what Christmas must’ve felt like - I plotted every step, every action. It was… it was beautiful.
STRANGE: How did you do it?
CRANE: I knew the man drank. Every night he had his nightcap before heading off to bed. The toxin’s effective at a dilution of one unit per 100mL, but I gave him five. I watched the unease wash over his face as every object in the room became a ghoul, a creature grasping toward him. I locked the front door, forcing him out into the backfield. Jack-o-lanterns lit a path of terror, ending at a six-foot ditch with me hanging over it… the scarecrow on his perch.
I remember hearing his whimpers as he tried to claw out of the hole, and I laughed as the fear he thought he controlled, turn against him like a hungry pack of dogs, consuming him utterly. He grasped at his chest, and I heard the last sounds he would ever make…
...hrooo… hraaa…. I have no idea what he was trying to say, but those words… stuck in my mind. Hroo… Hraaa….. and as he lay dead in his own grave, I remember thinking to myself “Well, that went better than I had hoped.”
STRANGE: Of course, you couldn’t leave him like that.
CRANE: No. But for that night, Elijah Crane got to sleep where he deserved.
STRANGE: Very impressive, Mr. Crane. Creative, Inspired, Motivated. All excellent qualities for a practising physician. You shall have my letter of recommendation in the morning.
CRANE: Much obliged, Doctor Strange.
