“See anything?” The cop asked as Mac peered through a small side window.

The troubleshooter shook his head. It was far too dark to even see any shadows. He tried the front door, and it swung open with a small and very evident creak.

Neil winced, but MacGyver ignored his friend and the sound, instead opting to cautiously enter the house.

The porch led directly into a hall, with other rooms off-shooting from its central core.

Mac stopped and listened again, but all he could hear was the sound of his own blood pumping in his ears, and the squeak of Neil’s shoes on the linoleum. He was about to turn and whisper a comment, but the click of a safety made him stop and swallow.

Had Neil defied him and brought a weapon?

A hail of bullets erupting from further down the hallway suggested otherwise, and both men instinctively dived through the nearest door, which seemed to take them into a spacious kitchen.

Mac let his hands search the walls until he found a switch, and threw it, engulfing the room in a warm and inviting light.

At the back of the kitchen, Steffi was standing by an open side door, pointing a revolver out into the night. Her eyes bulged with terror, and her forefinger pulled back relentlessly on the trigger, even though the barrel was empty.

Neil stepped in front of MacGyver, holding out a hand. “Steffi, it’s empty. Put the gun down and tell us what happened?”

Steffi didn’t take her eyes off the open door, and her voice was several octaves higher than normal – like she was almost screaming out the words. “It’s here! Can’t you see it?” She stepped backwards until she bumped into the wall. “I shot it. I shot it six times and it still kept coming at me! Please, just make it stop…” Tears began to stream down her face as if she’d given in. “It has the knife. Damn it, it has the knife!”

Mac moved into the doorway and glanced out onto the yard, but there was nothing. He turned back to Steffi, keeping his tone low and neutral. “It’s gone,” he soothed. “You’re safe now.”

But Steffi’s eyes seemed to see on a whole new level that MacGyver’s and Neil’s didn’t. She screamed out again and slumped to the floor, dropping the empty gun.

As she hit the tiles, she began to writhe, like someone, or something was slashing at her. She held out her arms defensively, yelped in apparent pain, and then became still.

Neil appeared to be so surprised and confused he simply stared at the girl and then to MacGyver. “What the..? I don’t understand?”

“You will…” Mac held out a hand to stop him saying anything else, just as Steffi began to move again.

She jerked into a standing position, like a marionette being controlled by invisible strings. And somehow her face had changed, like her eyes had become soulless and her stare filled with hatred.

Steffi cocked her head to one side, mimicking the scarecrow – or was it something more?

Mac moved a little closer to her, keeping his gaze locked with her in some unseen mental battle. “Where’s Steffi?” He demanded, already knowing the answer.

“Steffi’s dead. I just killed her. About time too! She kept me out of the way, stifled my needs…”

Steffi’s head cocked further, and she smiled innocently. “I’m death. The one certainty in life.” She didn’t wait for a reaction, instead barreling at both men as if she could simply toss them out of the way.

Neil took the brunt of her first attack, taking a brutal punch to the nose from Steffi’s good arm that resulted in the sickening sound of his nose breaking. He tumbled backwards, clutching at his face, and MacGyver stepped into his place.

Mac made a grab for Steffi’s arm, trying to pull her away from his injured friend, but Steffi seemed to have the strength of a whole army behind her.

She grabbed at a chair, slamming it against MacGyver’s right shoulder until he was forced to let her go. Steffi grinned manically and began to toss anything that wasn’t nailed down at her foes.

Mac dodged a tea pot, a mug, and ducked just as a toaster flew too close to his head for comfort. By this time, Neil had recovered enough to circle around as Steffi kept up her barrage. His nose was bleeding, and his right eye was already turning a garish purple, but somehow he managed to wrap both arms around Steffi and hold her until MacGyver was able to use the cord from the kitchen phone to subdue her further without actually causing any harm.

Steffi continued to struggle, spitting and seething as they led her out to Neil’s cruiser and called in the local police.

After stowing her on the back of the car with his cuffs, Neil finally looked to MacGyver for answers.

“I still don’t get it,” he admitted, holding a tissue under his nose. “It’s like she’s not even the person I’ve known all these years.”

Mac peered into the cruiser. Steffi was yanking at the cuffs until red welts were forming on her wrists, and she didn’t even seem to notice the pain or harm she was doing to herself. “Maybe that’s the point,” he suggested. “I guess in a real sense, she isn’t that person anymore…”

* * * *

Crow Wing Mental Health Clinic
Minnesota

MacGyver watched through the two-way mirror as Steffi talked to her therapist. She appeared calm, even subdued to the untrained eye, but underneath there was an anger that just wouldn’t go away.

Mac felt sorry he hadn’t seen it sooner – not just for Steffi, but for her victims.

“I’m still not sure I get it?” Neil Ryder was standing close by, watching Steffi too, but the confusion on his bruised face said he was still having a hard time believing the cop was also a killer.

MacGyver turned to face his friend, uncertain if he actually had the skills to explain it all properly, but he tried anyway. “According to the doc in there, Steffi has Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

Neil shrugged. “Which in English means what? And don’t say plain whacko – Steffi deserves more than that. She hasn’t always been this way.”

“It’s sometimes better known as Multiple Personality Disorder?” MacGyver raised a brow and this time Neil bobbed his head in understanding. “Basically, Steffi has two distinct personalities, her own, and the scarecrow.”

“Okay, so all the time I’ve known Steffi, she’s been the dominant personality?” Neil still looked uncertain. “And now the scarecrow has slowly taken over until that side of her thinks it’s “killed” Steffi?”

MacGyver nodded and looked back through the glass. “Basically yeah. That’s how the scarecrow survived the two bullets to the head – because that never really happened. It was all only ever in her mind. There were no actual witnesses. She must have cut her own arm too with the turnip knife to make her story more credible.”

Neil turned away, his already damaged face turning crimson. “I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “I would never have told her if I’d known…”

“Sorry for what?” Mac met Neil’s rueful gaze.

“Well, this all explains how the scarecrow knew about us, the gun that killed Jesse, our hiding place…” Neil’s eyes dropped to the floor. “She was a fellow cop, a colleague, we talked about things, and I guess I inadvertently said too much.”

MacGyver brushed it off. “It doesn’t matter, it’s over now.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and moved back to watch Steffi “pretend” to be normal. She was good, but the therapist seemed to know how to make her slip back into her true character. “It does explain how the scarecrow got into the police evidence room to get the gun, though…”

“But why?” Neil shook his head. “Why has this happened to her? There has to be more to it than just a breakdown.”

“I asked Pete back at Phoenix to do some digging, and he’s passed it all on to the staff here.” MacGyver still watched Steffi as he spoke. He’d really liked her, and even now it was hard to accept what she truly was. “Apparently she saw her dad, a farmer killed at a pretty young age. The experience left her needing counseling.”

Neil’s face quirked at the mention of farming, as if it was all coming together in his head. “So that explains the turnip knife!”

“Well, everything seemed to be fine until eleven years ago, just before Steffi moved out here. Pete discovered her husband was killed by a group of thugs, and Steffi, the local cop wasn’t around to do anything.” MacGyver’s face saddened as he told the tale. Sometimes life threw out some pretty bad luck, and Steffi had gotten more than her fair share of it.

“So that’s when she cracked?” Neil shook his head.

“According to her colleagues she didn’t seem to react to her husband’s death at all. At least not on the outside, but the doc in there thinks that was what caused her to “break” and her mind split into two personalities. One normal, and one that thinks of nothing but death, because it’s seen so much of it.” Mac moved away from the window and slowly, hands in pockets headed for the corridor. He couldn’t watch Steffi any longer.

Neil followed. “So let me get this straight – the scarecrow has been around all those years – at least in her head, but it didn’t cross the line until those kids played the prank in the farmer’s field?”

Mac slipped his visitor’s keycard into a security door and moved through, ushering Neil along with him. “That’s pretty much it. The “scarecrow” part of her couldn’t differentiate between past and present, and considered the kids to be the same ones who caused Richardson’s death all those years ago. She decided to deal with it her way. I don’t think it was about revenge, it was simply a reaction to a certain set of events.”

“So no real motive.” Neil sighed. “Steffi must be pretty broken. I’m not sure if I’ll ever really get my head around all this.”

“I know,” Mac answered solemnly. “I didn’t even put it all together until the water wheel. The kid wasn’t tied, he was handcuffed with police issue no less, that coupled with the impossibility of the two head shots led me to the only real conclusion – Steffi was lying, or worse delusional.”

They paused at the exit to the clinic and MacGyver handed in his pass along with Neil’s. The security man on duty nodded to them and pressed a button to release the main doors.

Mac strode out first, letting the fresh November air reinvigorate his senses after the harshness of the mental facility. Neil followed, taking the lead towards Mac’s Jeep.

“So now what?” The Mission City police sergeant asked with a deep breath. “I mean, can they treat her?”

MacGyver climbed into his car and sat staring out across the Minnesota countryside. When Neil joined him, he shook his head dejectedly. “When I spoke to Doctor Harris this morning she wasn’t all that optimistic. D.I.D. is pretty hard to treat, even when they know the traumatic cause. It’s a long term thing, maybe years, maybe never…”

Neil touched his broken nose cautiously, his mind seemingly recalling the moment it had happened. “And the deaths?” he questioned.

Mac shrugged, suddenly feeling a chill, but whether it was from the weather, or his subconscious, he wasn’t sure. “They can’t send Steffi to trial for murder; she’s mentally unfit to stand.” He paused, wishing there was better news. “Given what’s happened, I have a feeling she’ll spend the rest of her life here.”

He reached to the ignition and fired up the Jeep, but didn’t pull away. He couldn’t, because something was eating at him.

The person back in the padded interview room, with the two-way mirror could so easily have been him, given the whole traumatic experience he’d gone through with Jesse.

Just one little twist of fate, one change here and there, and he could have turned out just as psychotic as Steffi. Heck, anyone of his friends could have.

“Something wrong?” Neil appeared to sense his friend’s guilt.

“I was just thinkin’ how easily it could be me or you, or Chuck back in that room. Seeing Jesse die as kids was no different to Steffi seeing her dad killed. Heck, it’s been messing with my head for how many years?” Mac’s voice was low, but the hurt in it was still evident. Maybe he’d never forgive himself for Jesse’s death. Maybe that was his punishment for allowing it to happen.

Neil shook his head. “Mac, there’s a massive difference between you and Steffi! You used your bad experience in a positive way. You changed, just like Steffi did, but for the better. You help people, you always try and do the right thing, and without using a gun. Not many could or would try and do that in this day and age. What happened when we were kids, it shouldn’t have happened, and I know that, we all do, but it shaped us into something better, not killers.”

The cab of the Jeep grew silent as both men seemed to want to stare at the floor rather than one another. Eventually, Neil looked up, smiled and abruptly slapped Mac on the back playfully.

“Hey, enough of this dark mood, okay? We hardly ever see one another, now we’ve finally got you back here, its time we did something positive!” Neil’s moustache twitched as if he was about to get mischievous. “How about I call Chuck and we go do something fun for a change?”

MacGyver finally cranked the 4x4’s ignition and slid on his sunglasses, which he promptly looked over the top of in suspicion and curiosity. “Maybe…” he answered warily as he pulled out of the parking lot. “If Pete doesn’t have an assignment lined up.”

Neil rolled his eyes as if he’d been expecting the excuse. “Okay, so if not now, what about Christmas? You know you have to bring Sam over for that, right?”

Mac squirmed as he spun the Jeep out of the lot and out onto the highway with just one hand. “Are you kidding?” He teased. “If this is how you guys celebrate Halloween, I so don’t want to be around for Christmas. I mean, c’mon, what next, demonic Santa?” He chuckled as he pulled past a Chevy that was piloted by an octogenarian at the very least.

Neil wasn’t taking no for an answer. “You’ll be fine,” he pushed. “Just as long as you do something with your hair…” His lips curled into a cheeky grin.

“What’s wrong with my hair?” MacGyver feigned a hurt expression, expecting his friend to bring up the “mullet”.

Neil apparently had other ideas. “You do know you’re going grey, right?”

“Am not!” Mac almost choked out.

Neil chuckled. “Oh yeah, you so are old buddy. Let’s see you “MacGyver” your way out of that one!”

Mac scowled, but couldn’t come up with a suitable retort. “You do realize this is not the way to get me back to Mission City any time soon?”

“Who says I’m letting you leave?” Neil waved his handcuffs in the air lightheartedly and Mac finally gave on.

“Okay,” Mac conceded. “I’ll stay for dinner, how’s that sound?” He thought about it for a second. “As long as you’re not doing the cooking…”

As MacGyver headed back to his home town, the Jeep was filled with laughter, and for a moment both men could be in one another’s presence without thinking about Jesse, or how things might have been different.

The 4x4 vanished over the horizon, Mac and Neil locked in a verbal battle of wit and humor that would last until they reached Mission City.

And MacGyver didn’t mind one bit.

The End

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