Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
Here Part 56 Part 57Lois weaved and bobbed down one access road after another. Was she going around in circles? Why wasn’t she there yet? She hadn’t had time to pull on even her seatbelt, afraid that they would start shooting at her or the tires of the truck. The Bureau 39 soldiers didn’t follow her for some reason, or maybe they had, but she lost them in her roundabout way of getting herself lost.
When she was just about to give up, the paved road suddenly appeared in front of her.
“Yes!” she said, slamming on the brakes to stop and knocking herself into the steering wheel. “That was stupid, there, Lane,” she muttered to herself and pulled on her seatbelt, rubbing her sore chest.
Good thing she took a moment to do that, and then look both ways, because one of Bureau 39’s other trucks came barreling past. She ducked at the last second so they couldn’t see that a woman was driving in case they were looking for her.
“Let’s see, the Irig property is on the right side, on the way into town from the Kents’, so left would be west,” Lois told herself, never one good at navigating by the sun’s position. She was much better suited for Streets and Avenues.
She forgot to push down the clutch, and the gears made a nasty grinding noise as she shifted. Finally, she got everything where it was supposed to go only to find herself at the Kents’ driveway. She slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel at the same time. The truck skidded and slid, crashing into the huge oak tree down at the base of the driveway.
***
The radio in the patrol car crackled. “Sheriff, we’ve got a report of a shooting over at the Kent Farm. Proceed with caution.”
Jimmy’s eyes widened. Were they too late? Probably, with the speed this idiot was going. Or had that Hank guy arrived to kick some butt already?
The sheriff picked up the CB and answered, “On my way. Send Jacobs over as well. We need to arrest Hank Jessup for interfering in a police investigation.”
“There wouldn’t be a police investigation without Hank,” mumbled Jimmy from the back seat.
“A request for a Medivac copter has also been made,” continued dispatch.
“Negative on the copter, Darlene. You know they’ll charge us if it isn’t medically necessary. Let’s let me check out things first,” Sheriff Harris responded.
“But, Max…”
“That’s
Sheriff Harris to you, Darlene, unless you want to go back to slinging hash for Maisie,” roared Sheriff Harris.
“How in the hell did you ever get elected?” Jimmy asked. “You must be the most selfish self-important lawman I’ve ever seen, and I’m from Metropolis.”
“Shut up,” the sheriff growled.
Darlene was having some kind of coughing fit on the other end of the radio before she finally responded, “Thomas Irig said that his dad had been hit. That fits the bill for ‘medically necessary’. I’ve already called the Medivac. They’re forty-five minutes out.”
Go, Darlene! Jimmy would have done a fist pump if his wrists were free.
“Darlene, with our luck Irig will already be dead before we arrive, and we’ll still be stuck with the bill,” grumbled the sheriff.
“You do realize that everything you’re saying is in the presence of a reporter, don’t you?” Jimmy taunted with his own form of Miranda rights. He would ask CK about writing up an article for the Smallville paper about this dude and his lack of respect for the citizens of his county.
“Don’t threaten me, city boy. Anyway, nobody will believe you. We protect our own around here,” replied the sheriff.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Jimmy mumbled under his breath. “And if you’re in such a hurry, why don’t you turn on your siren and drive a little faster.”
“I’m going the speed limit,” replied the sheriff. “I need to set an example for the rest of Smallville.”
“What example? That their lives aren’t important to the sheriff? Because I’d be surprised if they hadn’t already gotten that memo,” Jimmy retorted.
Normally, he was a lot more respectful of law enforcement, but this guy hadn’t earned it. If he ever got back to Metropolis, he was sure Perry would rake him over the coals and never send him off on another assignment again.
A loud explosion with a fireball was visible in the distance. Even this moron couldn’t ignore that danger. With a heavy sigh, Sheriff Harris turned on his siren and picked up the radio again to call for the volunteer fire department to meet him at the Kent Farm.
Jimmy wished he could be pleased at being proven right, but instead his heart dropped into his shoes out of worry for his friends. At least, the sheriff had finally deemed this an emergency worth speeding to.
***
Hank shook his head. He wished he could say he couldn’t believe his wife’s reaction for his desire to help the Irigs, but it was par for the course. Lana had always cared about one person and one person only: Lana Lang.
She had known that Hank would take care of her, and Walt’s baby, and so she had come to him for “comfort” shortly after Walt died, probably the day she discovered or suspected she was pregnant. Hank had done the right thing and asked her to marry him, when she told him that she was pregnant a month later. He had actually been slightly surprised that she said ‘yes’ so quickly, as if she had expected him to ask.
Lana had told him, in no uncertain terms, that there were two reasons that she was going to prom with him. Firstly, her parents had told her that she couldn’t see Walt Irig any longer. Secondly, she had a better chance at winning prom queen with Hank as her king. He was definitely more popular and well liked than Walt. Hank couldn’t help but agree. He was Walt’s best friend, and even
he didn’t like Walt much. One didn’t argue with Lana Lang in those days. She was the most beautiful girl in school and she knew it. Lana always got what she wanted, and guys were willing to give to her.
Walt had come to him later to tell Hank that if he laid one finger on
his girlfriend on Prom night or otherwise, Hank wouldn’t live to tell the tale. Hank had known this without being told. People didn’t touch Walt’s stuff without permission. This even held true for Walt’s best bud.
“I’m taking Rachel Harris to Prom,” Walt had told Hank with a wink. “After pictures and getting Lana her crown, you’re going to meet us at the gorge. You can have Rachel. Do what you want with her. I’m taking Lana. This date of yours is just for show for her folks. Got it?”
Hank hadn’t needed to be told twice.
At the gorge, he and Rachel had sat around the campfire. Hank drank beers he had brought. Rachel waited, steaming mad. Hank wasn’t interested in Rachel in that way, and was smart enough, even with a few beers in him, to not even try anything. Apparently, Walt, in his typical fashion, had brought Rachel to the gorge after the dance without her permission. They could hear Lana and Walt out in the woods doing ‘it’. If Rachel hadn’t been in eveningwear and heels, she would have walked back to town. It had been a fun night for all.
Lana and Walt had eventually come back to the fire to get more beers, and Rachel demanded Walt’s keys.
“I’m driving myself home,” she had told him.
“Nobody, but nobody, drives my truck but me,” Walt had told her.
“I’ll take you home, Rachel,” Hank had volunteered, ashamed he hadn’t earlier, but being a fourth wheel was better than being a third wheel. At least, that way, he had someone with whom to talk.
“You’re stinking drunk, Hank. Give me the keys. I’ll drive,” Rachel said, holding out her hand.
Knowing she was right, he held out his keys only to have Walt take them away from him and toss them into the woods.
“Whatcha do that for, Walt?” Hank growled in frustration. It had taken him hours to find them, when Walt never returned to take Lana home.
“Nobody’s taking Rachel home but me. How’d it look to Mr. Harris if someone else brought her home?” Walt spat at him. “You know how everyone in this town talks.” Then turning to Rachel, he had run his fingers up her bare arm. “If you play your cards right, honey, you might even get a good-night kiss.”
The beer bottle came flying out of nowhere, clocking Walt in the temple. Hank had been amazed that Lana’s aim had been so accurate, and that Walt’s hard head hadn’t broken the bottle.
“You kiss Rachel Harris, Walt, and you’ll never get to touch this again,” Lana had said, adjusting the top of her Gunne Sax dress, which had seemed a size too small for her ample chest.
Lana didn’t have to worry. By the look on Rachel’s face, she wanted a kiss from Walt as much as an extra hole in her head.
“Let’s get out of here. I didn’t want to come here anyway. For some reason, I expected you to act more like a gentleman, Walt. I should have known that Thomas was the only one of you, who inherited those genes,” Rachel had retorted, climbing into Walt’s truck.
Walt had stuck his tongue down Lana’s throat one more time and, for good measure, a finger down the top of her dress. “I’ll be right back, baby.”
Sheriff Tinney was just filling the coroner’s wagon from Lawrence Emergency Room, when Hank and Lana passed by the accident scene, hours later. Hank had wanted to stop, but Lana had urged him to go on. She said it was because he’d been drinking and didn’t want Sheriff Tinney to smell the beer on him. They had kept silent about everything that had happened that night.
Hank still wished that the coroner had done that exam on Rachel, so everyone would know that Walt hadn’t violated her. After her comment about Walt’s baby brother though, Hank wasn’t one hundred percent sure himself. Hank had never told Lana, but Walt had cheated on her, so it was possible. Walt would have wanted payback. That was just the way Walt was. It was as if he was The Hulk with an attitude problem. Walt thought he was God’s gift to the world, and anyone who didn’t agree with his assessment of things would be taught to.
Hank never knew the cause of the accident. Was it the two beers Walt had drunk before taking Rachel home? Had he tried to make a move on Rachel and been slugged for it, causing the truck to veer off the road? Had that beer bottle to the head given him a concussion, causing him to black out and crash the truck? Had it be a combination of all those things?
Hank also knew that if Lana had come to Walt with the same pregnancy tale she had brought to Hank, Walt would be the first one to deny paternity, even when Barbie was so obviously his child.
Maybe Hank should have been suspicious when Barbie arrived in only eight months. It took time for her red hair to grow in, a trait that had appeared neither in the Jessup family nor the Lang family trees, for Hank to know the truth. By that time, he was so enamored with his daughter; Lana couldn’t have taken her away from him if she had wanted to. He and Lana had never talked about Barbie’s paternity until that very afternoon, when Hank admitted to her that he knew that she was actually an Irig.
Out of nowhere, Hank heard the screech of tires and sound of crunching metal and breaking glass, pulling him out of his thoughts. He pressed down on his gas pedal, speeding up his truck. He saw an army truck wrapped around the big oak tree at the base of the Kents’ driveway.
Pulling into the driveway, he parked a safe distance away from the accident. Sitting in the front seat of the truck was that reporter lady, her head was resting against the steering wheel. Her door was smashed against the tree. He could smell the telltale scent of gasoline and knew that he didn’t have much time. Running around to the passenger door, Hank jumped inside. He took out his pocketknife and cut through the seatbelt holding her in her seat, hooked his arm under hers and pulled her from the truck.
It wasn’t until he had sat Mrs. Lane down in the front seat of his truck that he realized that she had a satchel wrapped around her. He took it off and tossed into the back as he went to retrieve a bottle of water from his cooler. He held it up to her lips.
“Ms. Lane? Ms. Lane?” he repeated, hoping that she’d respond. She had a nice gash on her forehead, which was bleeding down her face. He opened the glove box and removed a packet of baby wipes, pulling one out to hold up to her head. “Mrs. Lane?”
She turned towards him and raised a hand to head with a groan. “
Mrs. Lane is my mother,” she grumbled. He breathed with relief. She’d be okay.
“Wake up. You’ve been in a car accident,” Hank told her.
He heard footsteps and saw the most unexpected sight, Thomas Irig running down the driveway and holding on to a rifle. Right. Trouble at the Kent farm. That kid in town wasn’t kidding. It would take his father or the Kents being in danger to get a gun into Thomas’s hands. He remembered Walt laughing about what a sissy his brother had been about guns, hunting, and killing stuff.
Why had he been friends with Walt again? Oh, right, because Walt decreed it, and one didn’t say ‘no’ to Walt Irig.
Hank buckled the seatbelt around the reporter and drove up the drive to meet Thomas. When he got there, the truck behind him exploded into a fireball. So much for the old oak tree.
***
Jonathan watched as Jerome raised his hand pleading for Martha to stay back, but she ignored him, in true Martha style. She picked up a shovel and aimed it at Trask, who was sitting on the ground against the side of the van, for exposing Jerome to Kryptonite. Like Jonathan, Martha had grown fond of their new friend, and didn’t want anyone hurting him. Trask pulled another pistol out of his ankle holster and shot at Martha. Jonathan clutched his hands to his chest, sure that his heart would explode.
Luckily, with his arms to his elbows stuck under the steel bar Jerome had bent around him, Trask didn’t have the range to shoot properly, causing the bullet to hit Martha’s spade rather than Martha herself. That was enough to do the trick though.
Martha dropped the shovel and raised her hands, thankfully backing towards her husband. Jonathan reached for her hand and took hold of it, wishing that he were able to defend his wife and friends properly instead of being relegated to the side as an audience.
Trask shifted the Kryptonite into the same hand as his pistol and, with some difficulty, finally pulled the rag from his mouth. “Stay back. Get any closer, or try any more tricks, Mrs. Kent, and I
will kill him the fast way.” Switching the Kryptonite back into his free hand, he angled the gun so that it pointed at Jerome, who was twisting in agony on the ground a few feet away.
Martha nodded her compliance. Jonathan knew his wife though. She was only biding her time until another opportunity availed itself to her. He clutched her hand, hoping it would stop her from putting her life in danger again. He doubted he could survive another such attack upon his heart.
Trask glanced over at his associate but he was still knocked out. Jonathan hoped that Jerome hadn’t killed the man, when he had burst out of the van and hit him with the doors. If he had, it was an accident, but not one Jonathan would shed any tears over.
“Come here, Mrs. Kent,” Trask commanded to Martha, waving at her with his gun. “Untie my boots.”
“What?” Martha gasped incredulously.
Jonathan nudged her.
Better to do as the man says for now. It was a strange request, but the man’s logic was far from logical.
“Untie my boots, woman, unless you want me to place my rock closer to your friend, Superman,” Trask said, and then turned his attention to Jerome. “You think you’re better than humans, don’t you. Flying around. Oh, so perfect and superior. Well, those days are over now, aren’t they?” he announced, stretching out his legs so Martha could have easy access to his boots. He trained his gun on her while she worked.
“You’re wrong!” Jerome spit at the crazy man. They were the only words it seemed he could get out of his mouth as he pulled his knees up to his face, contorting in pain.
Jonathan’s heart ached for the man whose friendship and kindness he had grown to love as a son this summer.
Trask set the Krypto-rock down mere inches away from Jerome’s face. “No,
you’re wrong.”
Jerome tried to roll over away from it, but it seemed that even took more energy than he currently possessed. Instead he groaned. Martha glanced back at her husband. They knew they had to do something before that rock killed him. They had lived their lives fully. Jerome was still young and in love.
“It’s over now, and I have won, and this little piece of home is going to be the death of you, Superman,” Trask continued, kicking off the boot that Martha had untied. “The other one now, madam.”
Martha started on his other boot.
“You see, all this time I thought I needed a big piece of this meteorite to hurt you. The bigger the better but, now, I see size doesn’t matter. All that matters is its proximity and that it’s sucking the life out of you,” Trask taunted, glee seeping into his words. “I like seeing you rolling around in the dirt in pain, Superman. It’s befitting for a man of your station.”
When Martha finished untying the second boot, Trask kicked that one off as well. She backed up to her husband and took his hand in hers again.
Jonathan pulled her against his chest to whisper in her ear. “If you get the chance, grab the rock and put it in my father’s old tackle box. It still has its original paint. But be discreet.”
Martha nodded.
Jonathan didn’t want his wife on that mission, but they had to do something, and she was the only mobile person left on their team.
Trask picked up and moved the piece of meteorite to the center of Jerome’s back, and the man screamed out in pain as if the rock burned him even through his clothing.
“Maybe with this treatment you’ll end up a cripple, like dear ol’ dad,” he said, waving his gun around and stopping it when it pointed at them. With his boots off, Trask was able to slide the chain around his knees down and off his feet, making him mobile. “If you survive, which you won’t. I’ll make sure of that.”
Jonathan’s heart swelled.
Dad? Jerome had said he and Martha reminded him of his deceased folks. ‘Dad’ was a title Jonathan would wear as a badge of honor, if such a man as Jerome wanted to call him that.
“I told you, Trask, I just met these people. I only came here less than half a year ago,” Jerome groaned through clenched teeth as he still tried to protect them from this madman.
“Are you telling me that these people risked their lives for you out of the goodness of their hearts?” Trask scoffed, pulling back on his heavy military boots and loosely tying them up, before he standing. “I’ve been waiting a long time to do this,” he said, and then kicked Jerome on the side of his face. It was a strong enough kick that it rolled Jerome over several times, knocking the small chunk of meteorite off his back and into the dirt.
Martha whimpered at watching the harsh treatment of their friend.
Jonathan kept an eye on the small green stone, no bigger than half a hotdog, biding his time until Trask could be distracted enough.
As the two men moved further away from Wayne with their fight, Martha went over to check on him, even attempting to drag his inert and heavy body closer to Jonathan. Trask ignored her as he continued to kick Jerome with his steel-toed boots. Martha bent down to inspect Wayne’s wound, taking a moment to palm the green stone, before pressing on Wayne’s leg in another attempt to wake him up to move him. Wayne groaned in pain.
Martha stood up and slipped the rock into her pants pocket, before trying once again to pull Wayne away from the area in front of the shed where Trask was beating up Jerome.
Wayne opened a wary eye and looked between Martha, and Jerome’s fight with Trask.
Despite being in Martha’s pocket, the rock, with its radioactive juice, was still too close to Jerome, continuing to keep the man from being able to defend himself. Due to Trask’s kicks, Jerome had been pushed far enough away from where he had collapsed with Wayne that he could finally reach the shovel Martha had tried to hit Trask with earlier. Jerome picked up the shovel and swung it much too slowly at Trask’s knees. The soldier saw the move coming and easily jumped over it.
Jonathan cautiously started to roll his chair backwards towards the shed. If the three of them could get inside, Jerome wouldn’t need to worry about protecting them, only himself. Wayne must have had the same idea. He started doing a three-legged backwards crab crawl, with his injured leg dragging in the dirt, to get himself to the shed. Martha grabbed the back of Jonathan’s wheelchair and helped him up the step into the shed. Jonathan pointed at the tackle box and Martha nodded, quickly crossing to it and locking the offending rock inside. She then went to help Wayne inside.
***
“My briefcase!” Lois gasped, trying to jump out of Hank’s truck and run back to what had once been Bureau 39’s truck, but the seat belt held her inside.
“Hold your horses, missy. You aren’t going into that,” Hank said, gently taking hold of her arm. “Your briefcase is in the back of my truck.”
Lois finally extricated herself from the seatbelt, put her feet on the ground, grabbed her briefcase out of the back of Hank’s truck, slung it over her shoulder, and turned to face Thomas. This took a matter of seconds. “Where’s Chuck?”
“Everybody’s down at the tool shed, next to the barn,” Thomas said, setting a hand on her arm. “Jerome’s...” He paused and glanced over his shoulder towards the barn, which they couldn’t see from their location. “— hurt.”
Lois’s knees buckled, and she grabbed Thomas’s arm to keep herself standing upright. “Shot?”
“No. No, I don’t think so,” Thomas said vaguely. “I saw him from the upstairs window. He kind of collapsed.”
“Come on. Back into the truck with you,” Hank suggested, holding up a towel to her head. “You’re hurt as well.”
“Collapsed?” she repeated, stunned. Then she turned to look at Hank. “What?”
“You’re bleeding, Lois,” Thomas said, pointing to her head.
She pushed aside his hand. “I’m fine. Head wounds bleed a lot. Take me to Jerome.”
“Let me drive you, Lois,” Hank said. “Hop in the back, Thomas. Glad to see you again. I only wish it was under better circumstances.”
“Me, too, Hank. Me, too,” Thomas replied, jumping into the back of Hank’s truck.
Lois took Hank’s advice as well. Driving would be faster.
Hank took the gun from Thomas and set it on the gun rack on the back window of his cab.
“What are you doing here?” she asked after Hank started up the driveway.
“Some crazy kid in town said that there was trouble up at the Kent farm and that Irigs needed help,” Hank said with a shrug. “I’ve known Thomas since before he started school. Mrs. Irig used to make the best caramel apples every Halloween, and as you know, Thomas’s older brother and I were friends.”
Crazy kid? “Jimmy isn’t crazy,” Lois corrected.
“He was spouting off stuff about UFOs and other such nonsense,” Hank explained. “To the sheriff, no less.”
“Trask, the guy who kidnapped Wayne Irig, thinks Superman is the front runner for an invasion force to take over the Earth. He’s trying to kill him,” Lois said, giving Hank the short version of the story. “Where is Jimmy anyway?”
“Sheriff Harris arrested him for… hell, I don’t know what for… probably because he can,” Hank said, with a shake of his head. “This is about Superman?”
“Yeah. I forgot to warn Jimmy about the sheriff,” Lois mumbled, flipping down the visor to look at her head wound in the make-up mirror. If Clark was feeling poorly enough to collapse, it probably was for the best he didn’t see her bleeding. Oh, now, she wished she hadn’t thought about Clark collapsing. Maybe Thomas had been mistaken. Perhaps Clark was faking it. On the other hand, could he really be hurt? Had they been beating him up or torturing him? Mr. Irig had been cradling his hand. If Trask did anything to Clark, before she could, she swore she’d disembowel that crazy ex-military man herself.
Thomas knocked on the roof of the cab. “You’ll want to stop by the house. That psycho with the gun is hiding behind a van down by the barn. He’ll be able to see us coming, but we won’t be able to see him.”
Hank nodded and pulled up next to the front porch. His brow furrowed. “Why is there a wheelchair ramp on the Kents’ front porch?” he asked.
Lois hated to be the bearer of bad news; well, face to face, that was. “Jonathan fell off the roof of the barn last fall and broke his spine. He’s unable to walk.”
Hank nodded vaguely as if the memory of someone telling him that news was trickling back to his conscious brain. “Right.”
They climbed out of the truck and walked around to the back of the house, where they could have an unobstructed view of the barn and its outbuildings.
***
Within moments of the Kents entering the shed, Clark started to feel better, not super, but at least, not in pain anymore. He glanced over to where he had been when Trask had set that Kryptonite on his back. He could no longer see it and glanced over at the Kents. He saw Martha give him a small thumbs-up sign.
With the Kryptonite out of range, Clark could finally defend himself pain free, man to man. It was a much more equal fight, except that Trask still had his gun.
His adversary must’ve noticed that Clark wasn’t writhing in pain anymore as Clark pushed himself to his feet. Trask lifted his gun and pointed it at Jonathan. “Where’s my meteorite, Mr. Kent?”
“I put it away where it can no longer hurt anyone,” Martha told him, from in front of Jonathan where she was assisting Wayne.
“What did you do, Mrs. Kent?” Trask growled, shifting his aim onto her. “Blood traitor!”
Jonathan grabbed a wrench sitting on a worktable next to him and threw it at the man. “You’re the only traitor here, Trask!”
The wrench missed, but it distracted Trask long enough for Clark to jump the man, knocking him to the ground and the gun from his hand. Without it and the Kryptonite, Trask was just a man, wearing a piece of steel bent around his chest and biceps.
An explosion down the driveway, far enough away that they couldn’t see its exact location, but near enough to see the plume of smoke rise into the air, caught Clark’s attention. He knew the location of the explosion with an intimate familiarity. It had haunted his nightmares these last twenty years. His heart froze. “Lois?”
Clark rose to his feet and started down the driveway, wishing he had his super speed or his enhanced vision so he could see what exactly had happened around the bend of the road. Trask kicked Clark behind his knees, once more knocking him to the ground.
“Going somewhere, Superman?” Trask asked.
“Someone might need my help,” Clark said weakly, pointing in the direction of the smoke. Lois. Lois needed him.
“You’re giving up?” Trask said in disbelief. “You’re not going to fight me?”
“I never wanted to fight you, Trask,” Clark said, pulling himself back up to his feet. “I just want to live my life.”
“I can’t allow that,” Trask retorted.
“That’s not your decision to make,” Clark returned, continuing on his way down the driveway and towards the smoke, and Lois. He tried to make his body move faster than a walk, but after the Kryptonite and Trask’s beating, he was lucky to be standing upright at all.
Trask picked up the wrench off the ground and threw it at Clark, hitting him on his shoulder blade. “Fight me!”
Clark looked up at the sky. Why did everyone want to fight him? He kept walking, ignoring Trask and the throbbing in his shoulder, until he heard the telltale click of the cocking of a gun.
“Who should I get rid of first?” Trask said, aiming the gun that he had pulled off his associate, at Clark. “You, Superman? Or the human traitors who have sheltered and protected you?”
Clark spun around. “You know, Trask, if you want a fight so badly. Fine, I’ll fight you,” he said with only lackluster enthusiasm. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to find Lois, make sure she was okay, and go home, but he refused to let anyone hurt the Kents.
As Trask shifted his gun to the Kents, Clark ran towards Trask as if he was a football-training dummy, hitting the center of the man’s chest with his shoulder and knocking him to the ground. That was probably a bad idea, since that was the same shoulder Trask had just hit with the wrench. Clark was still vulnerable from his second recent dose of Kryptonite poisoning. Sharp pain radiated from his left shoulder up his neck and across his chest.
Clark hit the man in the jaw with his fist. Trask was right. That
did make him feel better.
Trask shook off the punch and head-butted him back, causing the two of them to roll each other over to get the next punch in.
Clark was on top of Trask and had his fist pulled back for his next punch as the sirens of a patrol car echoed through the yard, reminding him of the explosion that had just happened down the driveway. The sheriff pulled up halfway between the house and the shed.
“Saved by the bell, Trask,” Clark told him, shoving him down instead and going to stand up.
“Why don’t you just kill me? I’d kill you,” Trask taunted.
Clark rolled his eyes. “You’re not worth the effort.”
Max Harris jumped out the car and aimed his gun at Clark. “You, there, with the glasses. Hands up!”
Clark slowly raised his hands with a sigh. He didn’t expect any better from Max.
“No, Max, the other man is…” Martha said, coming out of the shed.
“
Sheriff Harris.
Sheriff Harris! Is that so hard for everyone in this town to remember? I’m the sheriff now, Mrs. Kent, and I’m due some respect around here!” Sheriff Max Harris yelled.
“Clark?” Clark heard Lois’s voice softly call out to him from behind the cloud of dust blown up from the patrol car’s entrance.
He moved his gaze off the sheriff and onto the woman coming into view as the dust settled. She was running from the house towards him; it felt like slow motion from out of an old timey movie. Lois was alive! She hadn’t died in that explosion. It had only been a cruel trick of fate that made him believe that someone he loved had to die against that old oak tree, just as his folks had. He started moving towards her. He needed to hold her. He needed to touch her and reassure himself that she wasn’t a mirage.
“Chuck!”
“Halt!” Sheriff Harris called to him again, but Clark could only focus on Lois and getting to her.
“He’s not the man who kidnapped us and shot Wayne, Max,” Martha explained as she pushed Jonathan across the yard. She pointed at the other man. “Trask is.”
Sheriff Harris looked at Lois and Clark, lowered his gun, and approached Trask. “Afternoon, Colonel.”
“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” Trask replied.
The sheriff looked at the bent metal around Trask’s chest. “Need some help with that?” Sheriff Harris holstered his pistol and with all of his strength loosened the bar enough to pull it over Trask’s head.
“Did you do that, Colonel Trask? All those things that Mrs. Kent said? Did you kidnap the Kents?”
“I held them for questioning,” Trask clarified. “National security issue. You understand, don’t you?”
The sheriff nodded, accepting this answer.
“Trask is also wanted for the murder in Metropolis of a federal employee, an ombudsman by the name of George Thompson,” Lois called over to the sheriff, before taking the last few steps into Clark’s embrace. She wrapped her arms around Clark and pulled him close. “You’re alive.”
It had been a long painful day for Clark, but he felt it was worth it, if it meant he was able to hold Lois again. He rested his head against hers. “The explosion,” he murmured. “I thought you…” His voice faltered and broke. No, he hadn’t accepted her death as final. He was never so glad to be wrong. He pulled her tighter against his chest.
“Yeah, I crashed my truck. I hate stick shifts. Hank pulled me out before it exploded,” she murmured. “How did you know it was me?”
Clark closed his eyes with a wince. Lois
had crashed there. He couldn’t speak, only hold her and cherish that he hadn’t lost her in the same way he had lost his folks.
Wayne Irig hobbled out of the tool shed, still clutching his hand to his chest. Thomas ran past them to help with his dad.
“What happened to Wayne Irig?” Sheriff Harris looked back at Trask. “Did you do that to him? Mrs. Kent said you shot him.”
“National security,” Trask said vaguely as if that excused his actions.
Sheriff Harris raised a brow at Trask, and sighed. “Wanted for murder? Shooting one of my constituents? I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in for questioning, sir. I’m sure it’s some great big misunderstanding that we’ll clear up in no time.” He opened a pouch on his holster, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
Trask’s gaze narrowed at him as if daring the sheriff to try to use those handcuffs on him, instead the sheriff turned towards Lois and Clark. “Who are you?”
“Lois Lane, Daily Planet,” Lois replied. “And this is my partner…” She looked at Clark as if she was unsure what she should say.
This was it, the moment of truth. “Clark Kent,” Clark replied. It was the truth after all.
Lois looked at him, her eyes full of questions. Not anger, for once, just confusion.
The sheriff looked at him skeptically as if he didn’t believe this story either. He tapped his handcuffs against his palm. “You’re under arrest for the assault of Colonel Trask there. I saw you punching him when I pulled up. Plus, you had wrapped him in that metal bar.”
Lois tightened her embrace around Clark. “Trask abducted him. He was defending himself,” she said on his behalf.
“He’s
not Clark Kent!” roared Trask, slamming his fist into the sheriff’s nose and grabbing the sheriff’s pistol from his holster. “He’s Superman!”
“Lois!” Clark screamed, pushing her to the ground. “Get down!”
Trask’s gun exploded once and then twice.
***End of Part 57*** Part 58 Please all
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