Scarecrow

A/N I am trying something new. Please let me know if it's total rubbish, or if 'tis worth a continuance. R&R

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds. Any places or names used are purely coincidental, or real!

There are only three sins - causing pain, causing fear, and causing anguish. The rest is window dressing – Roger Caras

Prologue

The little West girl didn't really stand much of a chance. It was upon her and it was over before she could blink.

The boy from over the hill in the little valley near the big river was taken quickly too. They thought he had fallen into the big sweeping Penobscot. They mourned for him and grieved for him, and they prayed for him, but he never came home.

The lady with the big brown bag and the glasses was just wondering what she wanted for dinner when she stopped being her and started being something else. She didn't feel it. It just sort of happened.

The man with the hair and the glasses was sitting alone at his computer. He was thinking, and he could hear the birds and the rushing of the wind in the trees. His hands would move into quick bursts of action over his keyboard, and then he would go back to sitting and thinking. He was smoking strange long thin brown cigar things, and had a glass of whiskey on his desk. Tap, tap, tap, his fingers would go drumming on the desk as he thought. Then the quick clatter of keys. Occasionally ash would fall onto the keyboard and he would blow it away lazily.

He heard another noise. Loud. A scream. A child or a woman? He couldn't tell. His imagination? He sat back on his big leather swivel chair and took a long drink from the tumbler. He smiled to himself about something and listened to the screams and puffed on his cheroot.

When the Snaggly twins didn't come home from school that day there was a big search. The local police got the locals together, but the forests are too deep and they are not enough people. If the children had wandered off or had been taken into the forest they could see no sign of it. They could see no sign of anything.

Tish Bollenger had been sitting on the grass outside the big council building. They found her lap top and one shoe. They never found Tish Bollenger.

The man with the hair and the glasses and the long dust coat walked down the old broken up track. He held one hand onto his hat and the other was holding a cheroot. He was humming a tune to himself – something he had heard as a child but had forgotten, and he kicked at the stones in a playful way with his black cowboy boots as the wind blew and the trees moved, and the dust rose.

The team sat around the round table awaiting the briefing for the next case. JJ was standing with the remote in her hand wearing a pretty sharp black suit.

"…..a series of disappearances in Maine has been brought to our attention because of the peculiar way the vics just seem to disappear."

Click

A picture of Kat West popped up on the screen. "21yrs old, Kat West. She had been to a second hand curtain sale and was driving home. They have found her car, and the things she purchased. But there is no sign of what happened to her."

They all sit and look at the odd looking female with black hair and too much make up wearing what looked to be a princess costume made out of curtains.

Click

Gideon was flicking through the file and looking at the notes as JJ talked. Morgan was leaning forwards with his elbows on the table looking at the screen and shaking his head.

Hotch was doing much the same as Gideon.

Prentiss was watching the screen, and Reid was folding bits of paper up into tiny bits and twisting them into shapes of animals.

JJ went through the list of names and ages, and genders, and told them all that there is absolutely no sign of the missing people at all. Nothing in common apart from they all lived within 10 miles of each other. There were no other links at all.

So with a "Wheels up in 20" the team grab bags and make their way to the runway. Reid leaves his little paper animals behind on the table.

The plane trip was mostly uneventful it was the ride from the air strip to the hotel they would be staying in which grabbed the interest of the team in the SUVs. It was time for the leaves to fall, and they fluttered in the wind like golden butterflies and along the edge of the road…scarecrows hanging from the trees. Not just one or two, but probably hundreds of them. Hanging by necks and arms and legs and torso. The cars slowed down so that they could take a closer look at them.

"What the hell?" Morgan said.

Reid stared at them out of the window, and put the palm of his hand on the glass as he looked.

From the forest a man with hair and glasses and a hat stood in his long dust coat. He watched as the cars passed by this family, and slow down and look, and saw the hand reach out and touch the glass of the car window. The man took his cheroot from his mouth and dropped it to the forest floor, being careful to grind it in deeply to the damp undergrowth, and he smiled. "You are mine" he said as he looked at the cars drive on down the road. "You are going to be mine."

Reid shuddered and removed his hand. It had suddenly turned very cold and he felt his skin jump up in goose bumps. Just for a second he thought he heard someone crying, but it passed almost as soon as it started.

"Spence you OK?" JJ was watching Reid, and noticed the odd look which had slipped across his face.

"I'm fine JJ…why do you ask?" and he wrapped his arms around himself and spouted some scarecrow facts. "In the United Kingdom, where the use of scarecrows as a protector of crops dates back from time immemorial, and where dialects were rife, there are a wide range of alternative names, Mommet, Murmet, Hodmedod, Tattie bogle, Bwabach, are a few…..but these are not scaring crops. Why are they here?"

"They might not be scaring crops," Emily says, "But they make me feel uncomfortable."

Reid opened his mouth to snap something back but stopped himself, and the cars carried on to the small hotel which seemed to be in the middle of no where.

The girl walked around in the garden. She looked like she had been playing dress up and was in a slightly outgrown party dress, and odd striped socks…one green and black and one red and white. She had silver sling back sandals, and had been playing with lipstick. Her mouth was blood red, and her smile huge.

"Hey." She called out "where the hell have you been?" and she ran over to the man with the hair and the hat and the long dust coat and was engulfed in hugs.

"I've been walking and working sweetheart. You are looking pretty today." And he kissed her on the top of her rich dark hair.

"I want some new toys." And her mouth turned down, and suddenly the pretty girl looked demonic. "You promised me!" she moaned and stamped her feet, and slapped at the man.

"I know. I know. I have seen what I want to get you honey…I just need to work out how to collect."