Lois looked down at her unconscious husband, willing the tears away from her eyes. Jimmy was waiting outside the hospital room with Jason. It was early dismissal this week so Jason had been spending a lot of time at the Daily Planet bullpen. Lois had been picking up Jason from school when Clark went out on his own to speak with Baron Sunday, AKA John Hendricks.
Airport security had found Clark unconscious on the tarmac after Sunday’s plane took off. The filed flight plan was for Chicago where Sunday’s next series of performances was to take place. Lois already knew that Chicago police had been notified to pick Sunday up on suspicion of assault. She also knew from other sources, that Sunday’s plane had vanished into thin air about halfway to O’Hare.
She reached around the safety rail and took one of his limp hands into her own, willing him to open his eyes. The monitor beeped away. She silently repeated what she had said aloud earlier: “Clark, please come back to me. I don’t want to do this alone…”
Lois allowed her thoughts to go back to the beginning of the nightmare. Early Monday morning.
Clark needed little sleep and was normally a fairly light sleeper in any case. Lois frequently woke in the night to find his side of the bed empty. She knew he was off on a rescue somewhere in the world.
But Monday had been different. She had been awoken not by his absence but his presence. She had been awoken by a choked off scream and had opened her eyes to find him staring wide-eyed at something she couldn’t see. He’d batted at it with his hands, as if fighting something and his breathing became labored and harsh, almost like an asthma attack.
“Clark?” she had called softly and after a moment, he seemed to shake himself and came back to the here-and-now. The relief in his face was palpable as his breathing eased. “You okay?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Clark told her. “I don’t think I’ll be going back to sleep tonight.”
“Want to talk about it?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I’m going to go make myself some tea, maybe do some reading.”
“You’re sure?”
He looked troubled. “It’s probably just one of those anniversary things Doctor Ricco warned us about. It’ll be a year on Thursday. A year since Richard died.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Go back to sleep, okay?”
The day got stranger as it went on. First, she watched Clark tear open and discard a large red envelope. Whatever was in the envelope had Clark frowning, but then her phone rang and she didn’t think about it until later.
Then Jimmy walked up and handed Clark a red envelope identical to the one he had tossed. Clark gave the new envelope a puzzled look.
“But, I think I already got one,” Clark said, opening the envelope and peering inside. “I just got through tossing it in the trash.”
“What is it?” Lois asked, taking the envelope from him. Inside was a glossy publicity photo and two pairs of theater tickets. Jimmy was giving Clark an odd look.
“C.K., there's nothing in your wastebasket…” Jimmy said after a moment.
Clark stared at the empty wastebasket by his desk and then picked it up to check inside.
“Clark, what is it?” Lois demanded.
“Tickets to see this Baron Sunday,” Clark explained, but he looked unsettled.
“Oh wow, and you weren't gonna use 'em?” Jimmy asked in disbelief.
“He's what, that magician?” Lois asked. She’d heard the hooplah about the man but her natural pragmatism got in the way. Even as a child she hadn’t really enjoyed magic tricks.
“'That magician?' The magician. The greatest illusionist in the world!” Jimmy corrected. He pulled the publicity photo out of the envelope and showed it to her and Clark. Clark shook his head as if to clear it.
“Clark?”
Clark just shook his head as Jimmy went on. “The guy is so cool. He lives on his own airplane. He’s even offered a million dollars to the first person who could show how he does his disembodied head trick. Nobody’s even tried.”
Perry yelled for him and Jimmy scurried off.
Lois smiled as she watched him leave. “And to think, you were just gonna throw those tickets...” There was a sudden noise beside her and she turned to see Clark collapse into his desk chair. “Clark, what is it?”
The wide-eyed fear was back in his eyes as though he was seeing something beyond terrifying. He was having trouble breathing again and started loosening his tie.
“Clark…? Clark!”
After a few long moments, Clark’s breathing eased and the panic attack was over – this time. She crouched beside him.
“Clark, what were you seeing?” she asked worriedly. He was still pale and obviously shaken.
He shook his head. “I’m not sure, except I think I was being buried alive…” His head came up and she knew he was hearing something beyond the range of a normal human. “I’ll be back…”
Clark was back in the bullpen before Perry’s daily assignment meeting started. Lois noticed her husband slip into the room, unobtrusively taking a place beside the door to listen. Perry gave every one their marching orders and the rest of the staff hurried back to their desks to begin outlining their new assignments or work on older ones.
“Clark,” Perry said as Clark turned to leave. “What was going on earlier?” Perry rarely missed what was going on in the newsroom. That was one of the reasons he was the best of the best.
“I’m not sure,” Clark told him. “It could be stress…”
“But?” Perry prompted.
“Superman saved an airport shuttle bus a little bit ago. The driver apparently went berserk, lost control of the vehicle. The passengers claim he was shouting to someone about an ambush and he tried to put the bus through evasive maneuvers like it was a jeep, like he thought they were in danger,” Clark said. “Superman got the bus stopped but by the time he got to the driver, the man was dead. An apparent heart attack, only there was no overt sign of heart disease or anything else that could have killed him. The ME won’t be finished until tomorrow or so. In the meantime I’ve got somebody in research looking into the driver’s background. I’m betting there’s something there.”
“Do you think it’s the tip of something bigger?” Perry asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Clark had told him. But Lois had gotten very good at reading Clark over the past year. There were things he wasn't saying.
-o-o-o-
“I should have told her what was going on. What I was seeing that was scaring me so badly,” Clark told Richard. The other man seemed too real to be simply a product of his imagination.
“Why didn’t you?” Richard had taken a seat on the crystal steps leading to one of the upper levels. His elbows were on his knees as he watched Clark.
Clark remembered reading about something called lucid dreaming, where a person could control his dreams, change the outcome of a nightmare. He tried to change Richard’s clothes from slacks and white shirt to jeans and a t-shirt. If this is a dream, this should work. Richard stubbornly refused to change, looking back at Clark with barely concealed humor.
“Why didn’t you tell her?” Richard asked.
“I didn’t want her to worry.”
“Oh, and you unconscious in a hospital bed isn’t cause for worry?” Richard retorted.
“Why are you here?” Clark demanded.
“I’ve already told you. I’m a manifestation of the part of your mind that isn’t hiding in a corner cowering in terror.”
“But why you?”
Richard’s expression grew more solemn and he started to change, rapidly growing older, clothes altering into a faded plaid shirt and overalls. The face became Jonathan Kent’s.
“Would you rather talk to me?” Jonathan Kent’s gravely voice asked. “It’s your choice. But I have to tell you, I’m a little disappointed in you, son. I didn’t think your mom and I raised a quitter.”
“I haven’t quit,” Clark defended himself. “I just haven’t figured out what’s going on, or how to fix it.”
“Lois told you,” Jonathan said. “You might try listening to her.”
The hologram showed Lois’s face again.
“Clark, you have to face the fear and go through it to the other side,” she was saying. “Your whole life has been about not showing fear... Pushing it out of your head. But this fear is part of you. It's something so terrible you've pushed it way down, and it's time to let it out, Clark. Because this thing could... this thing is killing you. You’re letting it kill you.”
The scene changed. Lois was standing in a street blocked off by fire engines as a fire raged in the background. She was looking up at him, expression earnest, firm, sincere. “I know for a fact that the demons inside my head are infinitely worse than anything anybody else can do to me. And I know that I am stronger than they are. And I know that you are stronger than the ones inside your head.”
Clark looked over at Jonathan. “But what do I do?”
“Face the demons, son,” Jonathan said softly. “Face them and go on. Before they kill you.”
-o-o-o-
The music was driving, eerie, with a heavy drum beat that was designed to make hearts pound. Lois took note of the way the music and stage were designed to keep the audience off kilter. The dinner theater was full and Lois recognized many of the faces. The rich and famous of Metropolis were all in attendance.
The people at her table were probably the least rich and famous in the entire audience. As near as she would tell, She, Clark, Jimmy, and Perry were the only members of the press in the audience. Jason and Perry’s wife Alice filled out the complement at their table. Clark had been sent four tickets. Lois didn’t know where Perry had snagged the other two tickets. This performance had been sold out for weeks and their table was right in front.
Baron Sunday was on the stage, a tall, esthetic black man wearing brightly colored robes. He stood next to a large box which encased the body of his assistant, leaving just the grinning dreadlock covered head sticking out. Sunday enclosed the assistant’s head in a smaller box. Sunday waved his hands, mumbling words Lois couldn’t make out from her seat. Then the smaller box floated away from the larger box and hovered in the air for a moment. A flap on the smaller box opened, showing the assistant’s smiling face.
The audience went wild – all except Clark, who had his glasses pushed down his nose as he watched the stage.
“I'm not sure how he's doing this. I can't spot any wires... trap doors...” he whispered to Lois as he pushed his glasses back into place.
On the stage, the small box came to rest atop another large box identical to the one the assistant’s body had been enclosed in on the other side of the stage. Sunday opened the fronts of both boxes and the intact assistant sauntered out, giving the audience a jaunty wave. The audience went wild once again, except for Clark who clapped politely but without near the enthusiasm of Jimmy or Jason.
Sunday looked out over the audience. With the stage lighting it should have been impossible for him to make out anyone in the darkness, but his eyes seemed to light on Clark. The illusionist was looking straight at him, flashing a brilliant smile.
“Is he smiling at me?” Clark asked Lois in a worried whisper.
“Sure looks like it?” Lois whispered back. “Is there something you want to tell me?” She kept her tone light but there was something unnerving about Sunday’s smile.
“And now, to finish up the evening,” Sunday announced grandly stepping down from the stage. “I'd like to create a special illusion for a member of the audience. Any volunteers?”
Sunday stopped at their table and Lois could see Clark stiffen at the man’s proximity. “You, son?” Sunday asked, looking to Jimmy instead.
“Sure. Okay,” Jimmy agreed, getting out of his seat and following the illusionist onto the stage.
“I need your name, birth date and city where you were born,” Sunday told him.
“James Bartholomew Olsen. Born here in Metropolis on February 15, 1978.”
Suddenly a piece of paper and a pencil appeared in Sunday's hands. He jotted down the information Jimmy had given him and then held the paper over Jimmy's head.
“I want you to relax. When the ashes float down around you, you will fall into a deep trance,” Sunday instructed.
“Ashes?”
The paper suddenly burst into flames and fine gray ash fell down around Jimmy. He closed his eyes.
Lois glanced over at Clark and Perry. Clark had stiffened again, as if ready to jump out of his seat. Perry looked faintly worried.
“Now, when I snap my fingers, you will imagine you are back at your first day of second grade,” Sunday told Jimmy. Sunday snapped his fingers and Jimmy opened his eyes. He looked toward the audience and waved. Lois was struck at how much Jimmy actually looked like a little kid – his posture, expression, even his voice.
“Hey Bobby! How was your summer?” Jimmy asked an unseen companion.
“I forgot to mention... you've come to school completely naked,” Sunday added, grinning at the audience.
Jimmy’s eyes widened in horror as he blushed and tried to cover himself with his hands.
“I don't know what... I mean... I was dressed when I left this morning...” Jimmy squeaked in panic. The audience was laughing as he looked around for a place to hide. Finally he crouched down as if hiding under an imaginary desk. He rubbed is head as if he had bumped it and started whimpering.
The audience reacted with a collective “Aww...” of sympathy.
Jason was watching the stage, his forehead creased in a frown. “Mommy, is Uncle Jimmy okay?”
“I’m sure he is, munchkin,” Lois assured him, although from the look on Jimmy’s face, she wasn't as sure as she was trying to sound.
“When I snap my fingers, you will be back here, fully clothed and you will remember everything,” Sunday instructed. He snapped his fingers. Jimmy blinked his eyes as if waking from a sound sleep then stood up, rubbing his head. Sunday took his hand they both bowed to the audience’s ovation.
A short time later, as the rest of the audience began to leave, Sunday’s assistant came to their table. “The Baron would like you stay a few moments to speak with you,” he said, but there was a nervousness about him that Lois hadn’t seen on the stage.
“I thought Baron Sunday didn’t give interviews,” Lois said.
“The Baron wishes to meet the famous Lane and Kent,” the assistant said. He then scurried off, disappearing behind the curtains of the now darkened stage.
Jimmy was still rubbing his head. “What happened to your head?” Lois asked. She reached over and parted his hair to find a growing lump on his head.
“I was trying to hide under my desk and I guess I bumped it,” Jimmy explained, wincing at her touch.
“But the desk was only in your imagination,” Perry observed, giving the young man a curious look.
“Mister Olsen was so convinced of what he was experiencing, his body reacted as if his vision were real,” Sunday said smoothly as he approached them from the darkness backstage.
“Interesting trick,” Clark commented.
“Hardly a trick. I only made use of what was already in his mind,” Sunday explained. He stared at Clark long enough to make Lois nervous. “You're a... Pisces, right?”
Clark nodded slowly. “February 28th.”
“Nineteen seventy-six?”
“Seventy-two.”
“Another Metropolitan?”
Alarm bells went off in Lois’s head. “You planning on sending him back to second grade?” Beside her, Jason giggled.
Sunday gave her a glare that sent shivers down her spine. Then he smiled. It wasn't an improvement.
“No, Miss Lane, I'd have something much more interesting in mind for a man as worldly as Mr. Kent,” Sunday told her. Behind him, the assistant seemed to shrink in on himself as if afraid.
