The house seemed smaller than it had when Clark was a child, more weather beaten and faded. It didn’t look like it had been cared for in years, despite the mysterious people who’d made sure that it was being paid for. Weeds and grass rose to knee level, and trash was strewn about the yard.
Clark sat in the car for a long moment, then glanced over at Lois. She put her hand on his, and he resolved to do better.
He scanned the place, and it seemed to be deserted, though for some reason he couldn’t see beneath the floor of the barn.
“The barn,” he said quietly.
Lois nodded, and they both stepped out of the vehicle at the same time. They walked carefully toward the barn, wary of unseen potholes or objects in the tall grass. The place looked long deserted. Clark couldn’t see any signs of recent habitation or any signs of life at all, other than the occasional movements of small rodents and insects.
He scanned the place again. Other than the dead spot at the floor of the barn, he didn’t see anything except…
Hidden in the eaves of the barn, Clark could see a small black sphere disguised as a wasps’ nest. It was a camera, where no camera should be.
He listened, and for a moment he thought he could hear some sort of movement from below, but it vanished before he could get a bead on it.
Stepping toward Lois, he leaned toward her and said, “There are cameras here.”
Now that he knew what to look for, he saw two more high in the eaves of the barn. They were well camouflaged, but the cords leading from them seemed crude and jury-rigged. They were connected to the lighting system of the barn and led into the ground. Unless someone was looking very carefully, they’d miss them. The placement of the cameras gave almost a three hundred and sixty degree unobstructed view.
Clark felt uneasy. The cameras were a sign that everything wasn’t as it seemed.
“We can come back another day,” Clark said quickly. Bringing Lois here was a risk, and Clark felt that something was deeply wrong here.
Lois shook her head. “We’ll never get to the bottom of this if we don’t look.”
Clark hesitated. Short of grabbing her and flying off, which he couldn’t do with all the cameras, he wasn’t going to be able to stop Lois if she decided to continue on. After a moment, he nodded. He jerked his head in the direction of the barn, and they both began to make their way across the weed-strewn expanse separating the gravel road from the barn.
His memories of this place were bittersweet. Clark could almost smell his mother’s cooking coming from the kitchen, could almost imagine that he could hear the sounds of his parents coming up the road, ready to rejoin him.
It took him a moment to realize that he really smelled something sickly sweet coming from the barn. It was faint, and likely wouldn’t have been caught even by a drug-sniffing dog. It was mixed with fainter, more pungent chemical smells.
The door to the barn was padlocked, but Clark snapped it off with a twist. The door creaked as it opened, and the smell of dust almost overpowered the stronger smells.
The interior of the barn looked just like it had when he’d last seen it, when he was ten years old, except that the entrance to the cellar was nowhere in sight. It had been covered with dirt, and a quick glance through the ground showed Clark that a new trapdoor made of something he couldn’t see through lay below three inches of topsoil.
He punched through the dirt and grabbed the handle, pulling up and simultaneously snapping the lock off. He pulled, and the door opened in a shower of dirt and dust. Lois coughed behind him, but Clark didn’t spare her a look. The smells from below were almost overpowering now, a combination of noxious chemicals and drug smells that he’d caught the occasional whiff of in his travels around the world.
The tunnel into the cellar was unlighted, but Clark could see well enough to realize that other changes had been made. The cellar had been cemented in inexpertly, and a tunnel led from it off into the darkness.
There were lights, but no light switch. Clark turned to Lois, but she was already grabbing an old kerosene lantern and was unsuccessfully trying to light it. Clark took it from her, and with a glance lit it.
The ladder leading downward was rickety and wooden. Clark floated down, set the lantern down and then floated back up for Lois.
They then both made their way down the narrow tunnel that lead out of the remnants of his parents’ storm cellar and off into the darkness.
The tunnel stretched off in the direction of the house.
Clark moved ahead cautiously, listening ahead as well as he could. Though he could probably have seen through the walls of the tunnel, the complete and total darkness wouldn’t let him see anything.
Finally they reached a wider chamber, little more than a man made cave. The smells here were strong enough to be almost unbearable, and Clark could hear Lois beside him choking slightly. He glanced at her, and her eyes were watery and red.
The smells of ammonia, urine, acetone, paints and antifreeze all mixed together. Long tables covered with beakers and hot plates, tubing and metal coils stretched out into the darkness. Discarded bottles of antifreeze lay scattered in the corner, along with open bottles of paint thinner and unused bags of rock salt.
Fans were scattered around the room, and gas masks lay at every table. He grabbed one and handed it to Lois. There wasn’t any question that the air here was toxic.
They moved forward cautiously and eventually they came to another tunnel in the wall on the other side. They moved into it. It was wider than the last one, wide enough for both Lois and Clark to walk side by side. They moved almost a hundred yards, with the overpowering smells from behind them becoming fainter and fainter until finally they found piles of boxes and bags scattered on either side of the tunnel. These grew more frequent, and when Clark glanced inside them with his special vision, he gasped.
There were thousands of pounds of marijuana, and cocaine here. The farther they moved, the more boxes and crates they found. Most were disguised as other things, with clothing, toys, books and other items covering smaller compartments holding the drugs.
The tunnel finally ended in a large, open cave. Clark was about to speak when blinding light flooded the cavern. A fleet of trucks, almost twenty of them sat waiting beneath the huge, seemingly natural cavern.
“We’ve been waiting for you, alien.” Simon Hunt stood before them in all his glory. He’d traded his shabby tabloid reporter outfit and replaced it with army fatigues.
Surrounding them in a line in front of the nearest truck were ten men, all in gang colors, and all carrying semiautomatic rifles pointed in their direction.
Clark allowed the world to slow down and he turned to grab Lois. He couldn’t worry about his secret coming out; he had to save Lois. Then he’d make Hunt pay.
He didn’t get more than two steps before the world wrenched itself back into normal speed, and his world was filled with searing pain.
“Don’t try to leave so soon,” Hunt chided. “We’ve just gotten started.”
The crystal in his hand was damning. Pete had died for it, and Clark gritted his teeth. “You’re going to pay for what you did to Pete.”
“I don’t think you are in any position to make threats,” Hunt said. “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself properly. My name is Jason Trask, and I’m finally going to get my chance to prove the truth.”
Pulling a pistol from the holster at his hip, he shot Clark in the thigh. As Clark fell, he replaced the gun, then gestured. One of the men handed him a video camera. “I don’t know how you got the orb to stop working all those years ago, but you’re going to make it work now. We’ll see what my bosses have to say when I’ve got a real alien autopsy to show them.”
The sound of the second shot thundered, echoing in the silence. Clark closed his eyes, turning away as well as he could, the sight of Trask’s falling body, of blood and viscera flying burned into his mind.
It was a moment before he could open his eyes again. Seeing Jess walking out from behind the truck, rifle in hand followed by a pale and agitated Carl was the final straw. Clark pitched forward and fell unconscious.
********
Clark woke slowly, painfully, his leg throbbing. It was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, and he was in a large tent. He could see Lois to his side, tied up to a large tent pole.
Jess was sitting on a chair, watching him.
“Hey, Buddy.“ It was the same old smirk Jess had always had, as though he knew more than anyone else.
“Jess…” Clark said, the words coming with difficulty to his dry, parched throat. Unlike Lois, he wasn’t tied down. He was simply lying in a cot. “How?”
“That piece of dirt out there faked my death in return for your orb.” Jess shrugged. “Had me puking for a week, but it was worth it.”
“You stole it…?” Clark still felt groggy, doubtlessly from the residual effects of the rock’s radiation. It was hard to believe that it’d been Jess whole stole the orb; Jess would have used it for blackmail, held it over his head with a sort of casual cruelty.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly a choir boy back then, Clark. Hell, we were brothers…what was yours was mine, and….well, I guess that was about it.”
Clark could hear the sounds of trucks driving away in the background. The ground beneath them rumbled with the vibrations, and the whole place smelled of truck exhaust. He hoped the ventilation was sufficient. From the look of the rest of the place, the Sangrias hadn’t always worried much about safety.
“You’re still with the Sangrias?”
Jess shook his head. “You’re a world class reporter, Clark. You just aren’t living up to expectations. I’d have thought you would have worked it out by now.”
Lois spoke for the first time, her face pale and her eyes finally leaving Clark. “You’re the leader, aren’t you?”
“If I want to hear from you I’ll tell you!” Jess’s voice was sharp and angry. There was a note of something there that made Clark uneasy- a note of more than just the casual cruelty he’d come to expect, but of hatred. Jess turned to Carl. “I guess she’ll never shut up. Gag her.”
Carl hesitated for a moment with an apologetic expression, but turned and did what he was told.
“She’s right though. I’ve now got control of the tenth largest drug distribution network in the country, and in the northeast we’re closing in on number three.” Jess chuckled. “I remember how you always used to tell me that hard work and ambition would get you what you wanted in life, and I guess you were right.”
Jess stood and poured a glass of water from a tall, transparent pitcher on a small stand beside Lois’s head. Lois’s eyes kept flicking back and forth between Clark and Jess. Carl had already left the room.
“I’m sorry you got shot, Clark. That piece of dirt back there was a nut. He was useful sometimes, but he got off the reality train a long time ago.”
“Why are we here?” Clark asked finally.
“You made the choice to be here. All I did was provide the welcoming committee.” Jess offered the glass of water to Clark, who hesitated, then weakly took the glass. Jess wouldn’t need to poison the water to hurt him right now, and he was aware of an increasing feeling of thirst. He’d need all his strength if he was going to help Lois get out of this alive.
He gulped the water gratefully and tried not to look at Lois. He could tell by the rhythmic motion of her body that she was trying something, probably trying to get out of whatever restraints that kept her hands trapped behind her back. He would have to keep Jess distracted.
“So the thing with Pete...the beating in my hotel room, trying to shoot me while I was in my car, that was all Trask.”
Jess smiled slightly. His eyes were strangely devoid of emotion. “No, that was me.” He turned to Lois, who was once again still. He crouched down beside her for a moment and caressed her face lightly. “Pete was weak...he was no better than a woman. He deserved what he got.”
He stood up and turned. “As for the beating...I had to see what you were made of. And the shooting...well, my men weren’t really after you.”
“You were after Lois?” Clark asked.
Lois became still as Jess glanced back at her.
“She’s got a reputation with the boys in Metropolis. Besides, she’s just a woman. She’s not like us. None of them are.”
“Who?” Clark asked, feeling uneasy.
“The bitches, the whores...all of them. They’re all dirty, weak, deceitful. They’ll stab you in the back the first minute that they can.” Jess’s expression was sincere, the revulsion in his voice was difficult to fake.
Clark said, “They’ll desert you.” Jess’s mother had been an addict and a prostitute. Clark didn’t doubt that he’d seen things that Clark couldn’t even imagine, been through things that Clark didn’t want to.
He’d done things that Clark couldn’t keep out of his mind’s eye. Clark had a sudden vision of the photographs he’d seen of what had been done to Lilah, of the repeated torture, the vicious rape. He felt nauseous.
Jess nodded. “They deserve whatever they get, whatever we give them...”
“You’ve been doing it for a long time.”
A trail of thirty bodies and more, stretching across the northeast, Jess’s seat of power. He’d been picking them off one by one, repeating some sick inner vision.
Lois must have come to the same conclusion, because she began moving even more rapidly. Clark had to keep Jess’s attention at all costs.
“You did it to Lilah, didn’t you?” It was all he could do to keep his voice level. The outrage that he felt inside was growing; years of horror, of suppressed anger, of disbelief and betrayal.
“Why do you act so surprised? You’ve known it all these years.”
Clark shook his head.
“You see me standing outside the coach’s house just hours before he dies and you never made the connection? And you got into reporting?” Jess chuckled and pulled a flask out of his pocket and took a deep drink.
“Why would you do it?” The smart thing would be to agree with him, do anything he could to get himself and Lois out alive. But Clark couldn’t keep the horror out of his voice. He’d spent too many years focusing on what had happened and on its consequences.
“The coach was going to rat on me. He found my first little chem lab. I couldn’t let him talk.” Jess grinned. “I did his wife right in front of him. I told him what you ‘d done too.”
“How could you?” Clark asked. “You and she...”
“Oh that? I lied. It was really Pete that she was into. I was just pulling your chain.” Jess chuckled and glanced back at Lois again. This time there was something in his expression that Clark couldn’t discern, but that made him deeply uneasy. “I was too much of a man for her. She was into boys.”
“So what do you want from me?” Clark asked, when Jess turned slightly at a sound Lois made. Her arms moved with a jerk, then quickly went back behind her back.
She was partially free, though there were still her feet to deal with.
“Well see, I’ve got big plans. It seems to me that you are a bit of a hero type...the kind of a guy who would like to rid the world of something nasty like drugs being sold to little kids on street corners.”
Keeping his water glass in his hand, Clark slowly tried to sit up. He grunted at the wave of agony from his leg.
“A man like you, being able to shoot fire from his eyes, could do some pretty big damage to coca fields and marijuana fields.”
Clark had a moment to wonder when Jess had found out about his ability to set fires. He hadn’t set that many when he was living with Jess; his powers had been mostly under control by then.
“I thought you sold drugs.” Clark said. “Why would you want me to- oh.”
“Not my fields. I’d like you to burn up everybody else’s. It’s all about supply and demand. If I’m the only one with the supply, then everyone will come crawling to me.”
“More likely, they’ll come and try to take it away from you.”
“What are bulletproof brothers for?” Jess said. “If not to lend a hand out now and then. I wouldn’t even care if you gave them all up to the DEA.”
Clark gripped the glass in his hand tightly. “What makes you think I’d ever help you? Assuming I ever get my abilities back?”
“I’ve got your girl,” Jess said. “And I have this.”
He pulled a small box from his pocket. When he opened it, Clark fell back with a gasp. He’d set part of the kryptonite into a ring. The waves of green pain washed over him for the third time, again dwarfing the pain of the bullet in his leg.
Jess leaned over him and said, “You don’t want to be in Coach Holder’s shoes, do you? Don’t push me.”
“I’m no good to you dead,” Clark gasped. He could see Lois sneaking up behind Jess, and he didn’t have any idea of what she was trying to do. Whatever happened, he had to get the ring back in the box, or it would all be over?
“So you’ll help?” Jess grinned. He pulled the little lead box out of his shirt and clipped it shut. “Hell, you’re even easier than Carl was. I had to give him a few lessons before he gave in. Of course, he didn’t have anything as sweet as-”
Lois smashed Jess in the face with the glass pitcher of water as he was turning back to look at her. He staggered backward a little, and Clark saw his chance.
He tripped Jess. Jess fell back onto him, and the cot collapsed beneath them both, sending shards of agony through his leg as they landed on the hard floor of the cavern.
He held on as tightly as he could, despite the renewed wetness on his leg as the wound tore open again. Lois grappled desperately for the gun at Jesses side, and even while on the ground, Jess managed to backhand her.
“You’re no better than the rest of them, he shouted, twisting and gouging three fingers into the wound on Clark’s leg.
Clark grunted in agony, but he had his arm around Jess’s neck now and he refused to let go. Jess dug deeper, and Clark found himself blacking out.
His arms loosened a little, and that was all Jess needed.
He punched Clark and rose to his feet, kicking Lois’s legs out from under her. He pulled the ring from his pocket.
“You’re going to watch while I-”
The sound of the shot was unexpected. The look of surprise on Jess’s face as a splotch of red blossomed on the front of his shirt quickly vanished as he collapsed.
Carl stood at the entrance to the tent, Trask’s gun smoking in his trembling hands.
*********
