Getting close to the end. I promise.
____________________________
0 0 0
The shooting in the alley had stopped. Mike peeked out the shattered window to see Metropolis police officers wearing flak jackets coming out from behind their cars to check on the five men who were on the ground.
Lois pulled herself to her feet. “Is it over?” she asked.
“I think so, maybe,” Mike told her.
In the bedroom, Martha’s thoughts were racing. “I need something to act as an insulator. Rubber, glass, wood, anything that won’t carry a current.”
“Latex?” Sam asked. He pulled a bag of latex gloves from his medical bag and handed it to her.
“I also need some insulated wire, an extension cord, anything,” Martha added, tearing open the bag and started stuffing the gloves between the metal band and Clark’s neck. Clark whimpered at the pain of the torque touching his neck, hands pressing, even temporarily, against his throat. “I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry,” Martha kept repeating to her son. Pain was the last thing she wanted to cause him, but it couldn’t be helped.
Jonathan disappeared a moment, then returned with a white extension cord. He already had a pocketknife out and had cut both ends off the cord. He stripped the insulation off both ends and handed the wire and the knife to his wife. She scraped at the surface of the torque then wrapped the raw wire around the scraped off area of the metal band. Jonathan took the other end of the wire, taking it into the bathroom. Sparks flew as he wrapped it around the nearest cold water pipe he could find.
Martha screamed. “Clark!”
Jonathan came running to see Clark’s body arching off the floor, then collapse. Sam ran over to them, checking for a pulse at Clark’s throat. He didn’t find one.
Martha tilted her son’s head back, recalling her CPR lessons, and began breathing for him. She’d taken CPR and kept her certificate current for Jonathan. His family had a history of heart disease and when they’d started getting older, she’d been afraid for him, afraid that an ambulance would never make it to the farm in time if there was a problem. She never dreamed she’d end up using her training to keep her son alive.
This wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Children weren’t supposed to die before their parents. Please God, don’t let my baby die like this.Sam started chest compressions.
Puff puff, thirty compressions, puff puff, thirty compressions. It was hard to inflate his lungs properly. It seemed like an impossibly long time, Lois weeping on her uncle’s shoulder in the background. Then, finally, Clark took a weak breath on his own.
Sam sat back on his heels and listened to Clark’s heart through his stethoscope. It was irregular, but getting stronger, more even. “He’s back,” he announced. “But, for the life of me, I don’t know how.”
“Clark’s a strong boy,” Jonathan said quietly, but the gray worry in his expression told another story.
“Clark, honey, wake up,” Martha said, peering into her son’s face. He was very pale. His eyes fluttered open as he tried to orient himself. His right hand went to the torque and found the wire that was wound around it. He shuddered and tried to pull away from Sam and Martha. He found Jonathan kneeling behind him, stopping him from getting away. Clark pulled himself into a ball, shaking.
“Oh, son, what did those bastards do to you?” Jonathan murmured.
0 0 0
As Myerson pressed the button on the controller, the two cooks moved. The taller one kicked the controller out of his hand while the shorter one simply tackled him, knocking the gun out of his hand, sending him slamming into the aluminum canned goods rack behind him. To Straker’s surprise, the heavy food cans didn’t fall, but when Myerson slumped to the floor, there was blood on several of the rack ends.
The taller cook grabbed the controller and tossed it to Straker. “Superman may be an alien from outer space, but by God, he’s our alien from outer space and no f**k *ss jerk is going to change that.”
Straker put his gun back into its shoulder holster, under his jacket. “He’ll be glad to know he has friends. And I’ll make sure he knows as soon as I find him and undo the damage this f**k *ss jerk has already done.” He nodded to Myerson, moaning in pain. “See to it that Colonels Freeman or Foster are the ones to take him away. Tell the police officers you’re under orders of General Straker. And don’t let him get away.”
“Sergeant Warren, sir,” the tall man introduced himself. “This is Corporal Singer. And yes, sir, we’ll see to it.” Both men glared at Myerson. Singer picked up the fallen gun and held it on Myerson.
Straker gave them a nod, headed into the alley and up the stairs to the apartment above. Myerson had triggered the torque. Straker just hoped it hadn’t been set on the highest setting, that the young man he’d been trying to save wasn’t dead.
Jonathan was seated on the bedroom floor, holding his grown son in his arms, rocking him as one would a small child. Martha was beside them, murmuring reassurances.
Lois was on the floor beside the bed. “Its okay, Clark, it’s over,” she was saying.
Clark was shivering. “He’s still out there . . . I can feel him . . . He’s going to come after me . . .”
“Myerson isn’t coming after anyone ever again,” Straker announced. “Most, if not all, of the rest of his team is dead. We’ll pick up any stragglers after we’ve interrogated him.”
“Like he interrogated Clark?” Lois asked.
“Hardly, Miss Lane,” Straker said. “Myerson wasn’t interested in answers. He was interested in destroying, mentally and physically one of the few people who’d ever stood up to Trask, who’d ever cried foul against him and his madness.”
“I wrote the article,” Lois reminded him.
“Clark was the one who physically faced him down, but you would have been next,” Straker said. “My people will have Myerson’s secrets and we’ll track down the rest of his people, although it may take some time. And no, we don’t use torture. There are much more effective ways of getting what we want.”
Straker looked at the controller in his hand, frowned, made an adjustment on the dial and pressed a red button. The torque came undone. Martha pulled it open and away from her son’s neck. She handed it to Straker.
“It should have killed him, you know,” Straker told them.
“It almost did,” Sam said. “Mrs. Kent managed to ground it, probably kept the full force of the shock away from him. It was touch and go for a while. His heart stopped.”
“Electricity always takes the easiest path to ground,” Martha explained. “We just had to make sure the easiest path wasn’t straight through Clark.”
Straker grinned. “Cousin, I hope you know how lucky you are to have her.”
“I know how lucky I am to have both of them,” Jonathan admitted. “So, what happens now?”
“An ambulance should be here in about five minutes . . .”
“No hospital,” Clark managed to say.
“How about a private clinic for a couple days, get you checked out? Then we’ll probably ship you off home with your folks until you’re well enough to go back to work,” Straker said.
“Private clinic?” Clark’s color had improved almost immediately on the removal of the torque, but the fear hadn’t left his eyes.
“Clark, you have broken bones that need to be set,” Straker reminded him. “Believe me, you need a few days under observation.”
“Clark, we’ll be with you,” Martha said. “And we’ll make sure Mister White knows where you are.”
“And I’ll be there, too,” Lois promised.
