“I’m going to stay,” Clark said. “The nurses think he needs to be observed for a while, and I’m not comfortable with the thought that those guys might not come back.”
Lois nodded. Despite regulations, it wasn’t that hard for a determined person to find out where a patient had been shipped off to. All they had to do was start with the nearest hospital and work their way out.
“Do you think it was just a random mugging, or…?”
If it had been a deliberate attack, that implied that someone was either watching them or had been tipped off that someone was investigating Sunnydale. Either way, Jimmy might be in danger.”
Clark shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I just think it might be better if I watch over him until we can get him up and running.”
Lois nodded. “I’ll take his bag and go over the rest of the things he found out.”
“And send the story to Perry?” he asked.
Lois flushed. He HAD been warned about her. “I don’t steal stories Clark. We’re sharing a byline on this one.”
He smiled slightly, as though she’d confirmed something he’d suspected about her.
Lois found herself flushing a little. Other than Perry White, it had been a long time since a ma she’d respected had approved of her.
It was surprising how much she enjoyed it.
“I’ve already got enough to write a few stories,” Lois said.
“And the supernatural angle?”
Lois shook her head. “All we’ve got is rumor and hearsay. Something this major is going to take ironclad proof. Otherwise they’ll laugh us all the way into the tabloids.”
In the meantime, she was going o look for alternative explanations. All of this just seemed too convenient. Wrap everything under the aegis of the supernatural, and say that the world won’t believe it.
You couldn’t get a hundred people in a room and get them to agree to anything. There were always dissenters, people who would speak out against things even the rest of the world commonly believed as good.
So getting thirty thousand and more people to agree not to talk was an impossibility.
There had to be a few people in the crowd who were ready for fame and fortune, people who wanted to sell their story and make money in Hollywood. She just had to get to them before the rest of the reporters did.
All together, Lois hoped the explanation was simpler, like aliens.
************
Lois opened the bag and pulled out several files worth of research. The first few were the files she’d already seen. The pictures of the mayor, stories confirming at least the bare bones of the rumors Jimmy had come to them with.
Lois frowned as she pulled a large book from the bag. It was hardback, bound in red, with the inscription, “Sunnydale High: The future is ours.”
Irony was sometimes cruel.
This was a copy of the Sunnydale high school yearbook. Lois suspected that the library didn’t lend these out and she smiled a little at Jimmy’s initiative.
She frowned a moment as a thought struck her. Lois began flipping pages quickly, searching for one particular face.
There were no pictures of a brunette who looked like the woman Lois had seen in the hall of the hospital. Lois sighed. She’d hoped that there might be some connection, even if the name Faith was probably a pseudonym.
There was only one picture in the page after page of student pictures that was missing. Buffy Summers.
Lois flipped through the pages until she came across a picture of a blonde girl in a tiara.
Buffy Summers, Class protector.
This girl was a classic California blond, not at all like the brunette Lois had met.
Faith had not been a student at Sunnydale high school, at least not in 1998.
The “In Memoriam” section was shocking. Over twenty dead on the first page alone, including four teachers and one school Principal. Each had a short phrase describing how much they would be missed, but as Lois turned the page five more times, she wondered how anyone had gone to that school at all without suffering post traumatic stress.
Lois cross referenced the list of the dead with those killed on graduation day. Those weren’t even included in the list, which had likely been published before the school had been destroyed.
The inscriptions on the back page were revealing. “I’m glad to see you coming out! You’ve been great this year!”
“You survived all four years! You should get a shirt.”
“I’m glad you aren’t trying to look up my skirt anymore, or I’d have to kick your *** again. Buffy."
Lois frowned and flipped back through the pages. Buffy was listed as the class protector, but she’d also been voted most likely to go to jail.
She studied the only picture of the girl in the book. She was smiling brightly in the picture, and she looked happy.
It was odd how happy the kids looked in all the pictures. You’d think that with the specter of death hanging over everyone’s heads that that stress and fear would show in the pictures. With the exception of a few anomalies, these kids didn’t seem any different than anyone else.
The surface seemed bright and sunny, but what was underneath was much more dark and sinister.
It reminded Lois of the first vacation after her parents’ divorce. Everyone had tried so hard to have fun, to smile and pretend they were having a good time, when in reality they were all miserable.
She rose and headed for the bathroom mirror. She stared at her reflection, trying to see if she looked any older.
It should change you, being a murderer. But she couldn’t see any difference at all.
**************
There was movement in the underbrush, and all Lois could feel was an overwhelming sense of danger. It was oppressive, and it was all around her.
It was hot and dry. Lois was in some sort of gully, with a small stream beside her feet. All around her were patches of brambles and thorns.
She saw movement from the underbrush near the cavern wall. It took a moment to focus, to understand what she was seeing.
The figure was vaguely human. Slathered in white mud that gave it the appearance of mottled white earth, it moved slowly, deliberately.
Its movements were those of a predator.
It crouched unnaturally low to the ground, sliding closer to her with a horrific noise rising from its throat.
Its eyes snapped open and it stared at her for a long moment. It stilled and was completely silent.
It took her a moment to realize it was female. In that instant it leapt toward her. Moving out of the brush with blinding speed, it slashed out at her, and Lois was barely able to move in time. As it was, she gasped as she felt pain in her shoulder.
She staggered back, trying to remember every bit of martial arts instructions she could recall. She’d insisted on drilling on each move over and over so that she wouldn’t forget at times like this.
It didn’t seem to matter. The creature lashed out at her again, and this time it grabbed her by the arm.
Lois fell backward, trying to flip the thing, but somehow it held on to her with a grip of iron.
She tried to force its face back from her.
It spoke.
“Your strength is death.”
Lois shoved it away, and struggled to stand.
It was dark and she froze as she realized that there was a single dim and dirty light shining feebly from a single bulb.
“No.” Lois felt the blood draining from her face.
It hadn’t changed. The dingy walls, the single toilet in the corner. A single bunk covered in a filthy mattress, and an even filthier blanket. From where she was, Lois could see the blanket moving slightly. From experience, she knew it was the vermin underneath.
There were bars on one wall, and across from that, Lois could see another cell. Its single occupant stared at her dully, a female face that had lost its femininity to pain and uncomprehending loss. This was a face that did not remember hope. All it knew was unrelenting pain and anguish.
It was a look that was on every other face on the block.
Lois had thought she’d stumbled on a simple gunrunning story. Instead she’d found something worse than she’d ever imagined.
There was a hallway filled with cells on each side. Lois could hear muffled sobbing coming from one of the cells. She could smell old urine and stale sweat.
She’d been such a fool, believing she was invincible. She’d always escaped before. She was Lois Lane. She was better than everyone else.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Lois heard the sound she’d been dreading all along.
Screaming and sobbing, the sound of a woman being dragged. The sounds of dozens of boots hitting the concrete floor of the hallway in unison.
Marta had been a girl just out of womanhood. As they dragged her around the corner, Lois didn’t recognize her.
The things they’d done to her made her stomach cramp.
She felt sick, and she knew they were coming for her next.
As they opened the cell door, she lunged for the first of them. She elbowed him in the face and managed to wrench his nightstick out of his hands.
She then used it to hit one of the men who had been abusing the girl.
They were all around her, crowding her, not letting her have any room to move. There were too many of them, and the moves she’d learned in martial arts class had never been meant to work against twenty men.
It angered them that she’d fought back, and she could see it in their swarthy faces. They began to hit her over and over again. Although Lois never gave up, at some point she realized she was on the floor.
Her rage never faltered, even though her body did. As the blows fell, all Lois could hear was a single voice.
“Are you ready to be strong?”
She’d accepted without thinking.
A moment later, the blood began to fly, and the walls turned red.
*************
Lois woke retching. She staggered to the bathroom and dry heaved. Whatever had been in her stomach was long gone.
She felt an oppressive, overwhelming presence. It wasn’t simply the sense of a predator, like she’d gotten in her dream.
This was the feeling of pure evil.
Feeling weak, Lois wiped her mouth and stepped back out of the bathroom. The feeling was still there in her gut, a sense of terrifying wrongness.
There wasn’t any way she was going to be able to get back to bed.
Lois slipped over to her window and cautiously pulled back the drapes.
She couldn’t see anything outside. The hills stood in the moonlight as they’d doubtlessly stood since before mankind had ever come to this place.
It was a beautiful view, but the sense of evil still remained.
Lois grabbed her robe. She hesitated a moment, then grabbed her cell phone off the table. She had an odd urge to confide in Clark. More realistically, Clark would be able to confirm that Jimmy was doing ok, and she’d be able to go over some of the details of the stories she’d sent in.
Hearing another human voice would be a relief. Something had Lois spooked and she wasn’t sure what it was. She headed through the back door through the courtyard.
The evening was dead silent. The usual sounds of the evening, crickets and other insects were entirely absent.
The place was ominously quiet.
She slipped through the door into the main living area.
She heard voices at the door.
“Pepito, let me in.”
It was Angela’s voice.
A child stood at the open door, with only a locked screen door to keep the insects out between him and the outside world.
Lois frowned. From what she’d gathered, Angela no longer lived here with most of her clan. She lived in the city, near her work.
“Angela?” Lois asked.
Angela looked terrible. There was blood all over the front of her shirt, and she looked as though she’d been in a fight.
“Lois?” she said. “Let me in.”
“Are you all right?” Lois asked, rushing to the door.
The woman looked like she’d been in an automobile accident.
Lois unlatched the door and pushed it open. “Come in.”
The woman lunged for her, and it was only Lois’s newfound speed that allowed her to avoid having her arm grabbed.
Her face was changing into something horrible, and she lunged forward, only to howl as she pushed up against some sort of invisible barrier.
Lois staggered back.
From behind her, she heard a quiet voice. “The invitation has to be from someone who actually lives here.” It hesitated. “Come away from there Pepito.”
Lois felt ashamed that she’d barely paid attention to the child who was staring at his sister with undisguised horror.
The head of the family stood behind her, his eyes red rimmed as he stared at the thing that had once been his daughter.
His daughter was dead. That her corpse was still talking didn’t change that incontrovertible fact.
Lois started as her phone rang.
She flipped it open.
Clark’s voice was terse on the other line. “They found Marcus’s vehicle near his apartment two hours ago. Angela Cortez is missing too. Are you all right?”
Lois imagined that she could almost feel the alien presence lurking behind Angela’s eyes.
The thing smiled as behind her two good people wept.
