Susan Nyugen was one of the best attorneys Lois knew; she’d been Lois’s roommate when she’d gone to Columbia University. They’d gotten along famously. Susan had the same drive and determination that Lois had, with fewer moral qualms.
It made her the perfect lawyer, and as Lois pushed the button on her telephone, she felt a grim sort of satisfaction. The exhumation might take place, but whoever had ordered it wasn’t going to enjoy the experience. Susan was like a bulldog that didn’t know when to let go, and when she wanted to be, she was annoying as hell.
The Federal government had to serve her with a notice of the exhumation and they would not be allowed to exhume the body for forty eight hours after that. During that time Susan would be able to file an objection on behalf of Lois, as the senior living family member.
She wasn’t going to file the objection until Lois told her she’d been served notice. It wouldn’t do to have the government looking into who had leaked the order.
Lois heard a beep from her telephone and cursed. The battery was low. After the report last night she should have charged it up. She’d used it again to report the evacuation this afternoon and to speak with Susan.
She glanced down to fumble through her purse for the other battery. It wasn’t there.
She’d left it in the charger at home.
Glancing back up at the road, Lois gasped as she saw the car swerving into her lane. She screamed out an obscenity and yanked the wheel rapidly to the side. There was a thump from the trunk, and Lois fought the wheel as the rental skidded on the shoulder.
The other car didn’t even slow down.
Lois gasped, her heart racing rapidly. She’d had nightmares about what it must have been like for Lucy and her parents that night. She turned and squinted, trying to see a license plate number, but the car was already disappearing over a hill. With the setting sun in her eyes, there wasn’t any way she’d be able to see anything useful.
She frowned as something occurred to her. The sound she’d heard didn’t sound like it had come from underneath the car or from the axle. It sounded like it came from inside the trunk.
But the inside of the trunk was empty. She hadn’t bothered to put her video equipment inside, something she now regretted. Shots of streams of family members exiting the hospital would have been handy; by the time camera crews could have reached the area the evacuation would have been over.
Considering that Lois had seen helicopters in the air, she didn’t imagine that news helicopters would have been welcome.
She felt her stomach clench as she realized something. The military had been looking for a dangerous fugitive in the area around the hospital and now her empty trunk had something inside it.
At this time of day there wasn’t anyone on the road leading to the cemetery. This meant Lois was alone, possibly with a crazed killer in her trunk.
She didn’t have a working cell phone and no one was around. If this were the movies, Lois would get out of the car, go to the trunk, open it and be hacked apart after an extended chase scene.
Lois had been to three tours in Iraq, she was a third dan black belt and she had pepper spray. She knew exactly what she was going to do.
She was going to drive to the nearest police station and pretend that nothing was wrong. She’d keep one eye in her rear view mirror in case he tried to push his way through the back seat. In no way would she act as though she knew he was there.
Putting the car in gear, she pushed the accelerator. The wheels spun uselessly.
She’d slid off the shoulder and into the mud by the side of the road. The car wasn’t going anywhere.
Lois’s gut clenched again. She glanced into the rear view mirror, convinced that someone was going to be rising out of the back seat at any second.
Taking a deep breath, she made a decision.
The horror movie solution it was. If he was armed she wouldn’t stand a chance out in the open. Her one chance was to catch him by surprise.
Cautiously she reached into her bag and pulled out her pepper spray. She unlatched the door as quietly as she could and pushed it open.
She cursed to herself as the interior light came on and the warning bell rang, telling her that she’d left the keys in the ignition. She pulled them out and shoved them into her shirt pocket.
Sliding as quietly out of the vehicle as she could, she crept down by the side of the car, watching the trunk carefully to see if it was opening.
Sliding the eye into the latch, she held herself to one side and turned it.
It didn’t connect. Whoever it was had damaged the lock. Lois was briefly happy that she always got the full insurance on these things. Given Washington traffic it always paid to be safe.
She tugged on the lid to the trunk only to find it solidly stuck. No matter how hard she pulled, the trunk would not open.
*************
His best bet would be to hold on to the hood until she got fed up and went away. All she’d have to do was turn her back on the car and he’d be gone faster than she could see.
With the sun setting, he’d soon be able to fly anyway without worrying, so long as he was careful to stay away from sensitive areas.
He still didn’t have any idea how to find out where the prisoners were being held. Agents weren’t likely to mention it in casual conversations where he could overhear, and anyone who did no was likely to keep the whole situation as quiet as possible.
If this were his world he’d be able to do more. He had resources. He’d be able to use press credentials to get people to talk.
In his own world, the people at Star Labs would have a fair shot at finding a way to get people back through a portal in time and across dimensions. He had no idea whether this world had those sorts of weird scientists or not, and he certainly didn’t have any idea how to get in contact with them.
It was ironic that he’d chosen to hide in the car of a member of the press, especially one he knew. Now that he knew who she was he realized that he’d seen the car before as well, back when she was first reporting on the airplane landing by the fence.
Maybe his subconscious was trying to tell him something.
Despite all his powers, he didn’t know this world. He wasn’t able to navigate the changes easily enough or fast enough to avoid being caught or revealing himself.
He needed help.
Lois Lane was a woman whose very name was associated with Superman. She was a reporter with the resources to find the passengers and the native knowledge of this world to help him do what he needed to do.
All he had to do was convince her that he was neither a murderer nor a terrorist. It was a daunting task.
He let go of the trunk and a moment later it flew open.
**********
The sound of movement inside was a dead giveaway. Lois tried the trunk again, and it moved!
The moment the trunk opened, Lois held out the pepper spray and pushed down the button.
He was out of the trunk almost fast than she could follow, with his hand over his eyes wiping them. He didn’t seem discomfited at all, although he reached out and grabbed the spray out of her hand.
She immediately twisted to get out of his grasp. She launched a kick at his midsection and it was like kicking a brick wall. He let her go, and she began to run.
A moment later he caught up to her and said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He didn’t try to touch her or stop her, but as quickly as she ran he kept pace with her. Other than the stench of the pepper spray when the wind picked up, Lois almost wouldn’t have thought she’d sprayed him with anything worse than water.
The spray must have been defective. If Lois gout out of this she was going to complain-
“I was on the plane last night, the one you reported on.”
Lois stopped suddenly. Running wasn’t going to do her any good; he was faster than she was. Also, he looked vaguely familiar.
The fact that he was dressed in a nice business suit and wasn’t moving in a threatening manner helped. Of course, Ted Bundy had been charming too, and anyone with money could buy a business suit.
Truth to be told, if he had a gun there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
“Pardon me for feeling a little threatened by the creep hiding in my trunk,” Lois said. She wasn’t breathing hard; months of carrying eighty pounds for hours at a time had left her tough and strong. “But I’m going to reserve judgment on that.”
“I need your help.”
“Why would I remotely want to help you?” Lois asked. “What have you done for me other than jimmy the lock on my rental car?”
The man stood and frowned for a moment. His eyes weren’t even red at all, although Lois could smell the pepper from where she stood just out of his reach.
“I can help you get your car out of the mud,” he said. “Then you can drive off if you don’t want to hear what I have to say.”
“So you’ll get behind and push,” Lois said. “And then what?”
“Then I try to get you to help me find the other people on my plane.”
Lois thought about it for a moment, and then nodded.
He held his hand out and said “My name is Clark Kent.”
Lois grimaced. “Of course you are.”
That’s where she’d known him from, from the photo in the wallet. He was a federal fugitive, wanted for counterfeiting at the very least, and if Homeland security was involved, possibly for terrorism.
“All right,” Lois said. “Let’s try that.”
She marched back to her car, trying not to allow him to see the trembling in her legs. Looking as though you were in command of the situation was almost as important as feeling that way.
She got into her car and looked up expectantly at him. “Well?”
He stared at her for a moment then nodded. Heading to the back of her car he said, “Start the engine.”
She turned the ignition. As the engine roared to life, she felt the back of the car rise and the vehicle slide forward slightly.
Jamming her foot onto the accelerator she watched as mud sprayed Clark whoever he really was, covering him head to toe. For a moment the engine spun, but then it found traction and the car began to move.
A moment later the vehicle was on the road. A moment after that Lois was watching Clark Kent’s figure retreating into the distance.
She felt a moment of grim satisfaction. It served him right, hiding in the back of her car. As soon as she could get to a phone she was calling the authorities.
He didn’t even look angry.
***********
Agent White was waiting for her at the funeral home with the Exhumation order in his hand. Lois stared at it for a long moment, wondering why so much of it was blackened out and wondering if that was even legal.
It felt a little unreal, holding the paper in her hand.
“I’ll have to have Susan look over it,” she said. “I’ll be filing a protest.”
“You may not want to,” he said. A distinguished looking man in his early fifties, he’d always reminded her a little of Morgan Freeman.
“I’m not going to let you dig my sister up,” she said. She knew she needed to tell them about the lunatic who had hidden in the trunk of her car, but she had to reiterate the point.
“We have reason to believe your sister may be alive.”
Suddenly all thoughts of the lunatic disappeared.
