Feedback, constructive criticism and comments are welcome & encouraged. As always, negative criticism will be fed to my cat.
Night Fell
Rated PG-13
<whoziswhatzis@hotmail.com>
Kermtzu
The man has always been a hero, but what happens when the hero is just a man?
Note to readers: this story is not the happiest. There are no WAFFs, and the story may seem like an extended WHAM. Characters die, and unpleasant situations abound. The story contains physical violence and disturbing imagery.
Words in ** denote emphasis
Previously: Clark fell to Earth after smashing Nightfall, but landed in California rather than Metropolis. He did not regain his memory, and as a result the smaller piece of Nightfall struck the Earth. As humanity struggles to rise up from the devastation of Impact, Clark fights for his memory. He is haunted by dreams of a beautiful woman with dark hair and deep, dark eyes, a woman who he is sure is in trouble and needs his help.
Night Fell, part 2 of 5
*****
Lois was in trouble. That was nothing new, in the past she'd always managed to find herself in the worst possible situation at the worst possible time, but always managed to worm, weasel, wiggle or sneak her way out of anything. It had helped to have always-steady Clark at her side to help. Or Superman, too, once in a while.
This time was different. She was running blindly for her life in the dark. Her hands were bound in handcuffs in front of her. Clark wasn't there, and might not even be alive. Superman was dead. Her best friend and Superman, heroes both, were gone, and a men with guns followed her through the sewers of Metropolis. If she were caught, a fate truly worse than death waited.
*****
-24 hours earlier-
Lois faced down five men in semi-darkness. The acrid smoke from torches in sconces irritated her nose. She had never faced a more dangerous group in her life. Every motion, every word had to be perfect. More than her life hung in the balance. The sword nestled in the scabbard behind her back was uncomfortable, but she dare not shift or move her body in any way but calculated motions.
"I've been looking for you for some time now, Burke," said Lois.
"You and a million other people. What's so important that you need to see me?"
Lois paused a minute. He didn't appear to have recognized her. Lois' picture had often accompanied her articles in the Planet, and while a source of pride in the past, that could now lead to losing everything. For this work, she had to be no one special. Best to appear just an intermediary.
"My employer likes what he's heard of your operations here. He sent me to find you. I'm authorized to work a deal with you and yours."
Burke didn't react for a moment. He was not an imposing person. Shorter than the average man, he had no real distinguishing features. Still, for him to run this operation and control the vermin who operated it, there had to be more to him than appearance.
Finally, he spoke. "Yeah, my boys found your message. Pretty hard to miss, what with it being spray painted on the wall. What could your boss possibly have that I want?"
"Guns. Ammunition. Batteries. Gasoline."
"Hmph. I've got all that."
Lois gave an inner sigh.
"Cigarettes. Alcohol. And women. *Willing* women."
The four armed men with Burke grew more alert with that comment. Lois would bet that none of these men had interacted with any consensual woman since Impact. That fact, along with what they did after violating their victims, was what brought Lois into the sewers.
Burke again paused. Perhaps this was how he held control, by avoiding impulsive or irrational decisions.
"Willing is nice, but not needed. Nice change, though. What does he want from me?"
Lois had to force out the word. "Meat."
"Right. Meat. Well, we've got that. Plenty of meat. I think we could negotiate a deal with your boss in the next meeting."
"Next meeting? He's ready to deal now. I'm here to arrange a trade."
"Oh, it will have to be the next meeting, since you won't be around much longer to negotiate. I told you willing is nice, but we can work around that. Your boss should have known better than to send a woman."
Lois didn't flinch. She'd guessed this might go bad. She had a trump card left, but it was soon too to play it.
Burke gestured and his men straightened. Like carrion, they sensed what was to come.
"Take your sword and put it on the ground in front of you, then back up six steps. Draw the sword, and I'll have my boys here shoot you in the legs before you can take a single step. They can still have their fun, and you'll still be good for later."
With no hesitation, Lois did as she was told. She unfastened the leather strap that held the sword and scabbard, and placed it on the ground. Stepping back six paces, she waited. From their posture, she knew it wouldn't be long.
Surprised at her immediate acquiescence, the jackals in human form started forward after putting their guns away, two of them almost running.
Lois waited until the first was almost upon her. As he reached for her left arm she pivoted on her right foot and spun her body to the left. Trapping his arm between her left arm and body, she allowed his forward momentum to carry him as she grabbed and twisted the arm outwards and back in her spin. She felt the arm give at the shoulder as it came loose from its socket. Continuing the spin while dropping her hold on her attacker, she kicked backward with her left foot, catching the second man squarely in his abdomen. She made certain to pull her leg in quickly to avoid his forward rush doing any damage to her leg, and fell forward in a planned crouch. The dislocated shoulder had the first man down, writhing in pain.
With a quick twist around, she was up on her feet and facing the remaining three men. Her second assailant had had the breath knocked out of him, so he was for the moment not a threat. Burke was expressionless, but the other two stood gaping at her. Thankful for the space she'd been ordered to put between them, Lois lunged forward. Years of martial arts training served her well, as she kicked one man in the groin, bringing her knee up to his jaw as he dropped downward in pain. The fourth man was reaching for his gun as she knocked him down, gurgling, with two quick punches to his throat. It was dirty fighting, but the Marquis of Queensbury was not here not referee.
She bent quickly and pulled the gun from the waistband of the third man she'd dropped. She clicked off the safety and pulled back the trigger as she placed the barrel of the gun squarely in the center of Burke's forehead.
"Burke, you just penalized yourself twenty percent of whatever I was ready to deal. I don't appreciate your attitude, and I don't think you thought through just what would happen if I don't return. My boss plans to send seventy men in these tunnels for a non-negotiable agreement if I don't report in. He doesn't want to lose any men in a gunfight, and I'm sure you're not in a position to do so either. Bargain with me now, and we all benefit. Refuse, and I'll kill you now *and* my boss takes over your operation."
She suddenly lashed her right foot to the side and slightly back; her second assailant had regained his breath. His attempt to creep up behind her was foolish and not nearly as silent as he‘d hoped. Lois was fighting for her life: her adrenaline and mind were in full harmony with her body. The thug fell backward as her foot struck his chest, and she heard a satisfying meaty thunk as his head hit the side of the sewer tunnel.
Burke hadn't blinked, but he now spoke. "I think we could come to an agreement."
Lois held the gun in place a moment longer, then pulled it away. The barrel had been pressed so firmly into his forehead that a red circular mark remained.
"Good. For your sake, though, don't change your mind. I dislike drawing a gun and not using it almost as much as unsheathing my sword and not drawing blood."
With that, Lois released the trigger and placed on the safety before placing the weapon into a pocket of her coat. She coolly turned her back on Burke, emphasizing her disdain for his authority and her superior fighting ability, although she quailed inside, expecting a bullet to strike her at any moment. The men she'd taken down were either unconscious or in no mood to give her further trouble. Kneeling down, she took the scabbard and once again attached it to her back with the leather strap, tightening and fastening the strap across her chest.
Forcing herself to move slowly in order to keep control of the situation, she disarmed the other three men and placed their revolvers into her coat pockets. She smiled, not a nice smile at all.
"Spoils of war, Burke. Now show me your operation."
Leaving the four thugs behind, Lois followed Burke as he turned in the tunnel, leading her deeply into the bowels of the system, well below the city of Metropolis. Her way in to the sewers was now far behind her, and all the areas she knew from exploring passed by. Even her search for Superman's space ship hadn't brought her this deeply into the sewer system. Lois was now completely on her own.
*****
Lois was running her hand along the wall as they walked. Burke looked back curiously.
"It's not as wet as I would have thought," murmured Lois.
"They dried up pretty quickly once the water all ended up downtown. Funny that the sewers are now a nicer place to live than two thirds of Metropolis." With that, Burke gestured toward the central area, an old retention well for the sewers. "Three of the main five drains collected here when the system was in use. Here is where we keep them until they're ready for processing. There's a downward slope for waste and enough ventilation for a hundred people, although we've never had that many at a time."
Lois clenched her jaw as they approached. The whole purpose of her mission lay ahead. She was almost desperate to avoid facing it for as long as possible. Just a few seconds more. That's all she needed. Just a few more seconds.
She halted. "So where do you go aboveground to find them?" She already knew the answer, a subway entrance near Centennial Park. Several days ago she'd found the hole they'd blasted in order to connect the sewers and subway tunnels.
Burke turned to her. "You're here to deal, right? I'm not going to make you a partner. You wanted the tour, so let me show you around and then we'll talk trade."
Lois drew in a deep breath. It stank of filth and sewage and human despair, and as she and Burke entered the central area, she saw why.
The sewage retainment area was no longer used to house liquid waste in order to prevent overflow and regulate reclamation. Instead, Burke and his men and put it to a use unthinkable. As Lois' eyes adjusted to the more brightly-lit area from the darker tunnel, she couldn't stop a slight gasp from escaping.
There were over a dozen people shackled to the walls and floors. Two were young women, possibly in their teens, and both appeared to have been raped. The despair in the eyes of all the prisoners sank Lois' heart like a stone. It was everything she could do to not run to them to comfort and help, or to beat the keys away from Burke and free them all. The man standing guard over the prisoners looked bored, but shifted to a more alert posture when he saw them enter, nodding and gesturing slightly with his rifle toward his superior.
"After we bring them in, we keep them here for three days, giving them only water in order to lower their strength without doing any physical damage. That way they're more compliant when we take them out for processing."
Lois managed to look away and continue the charade. This was horrible, but necessary information. She still needed more before she could end this abomination.
"So you soften them up first?"
"Yeah. We still have a few that try to escape when we transport them along, but nothing compared to when we started. They've been starving even before we bring them down, so they don't put up much of a fight. The boss suggested we shoot them and then take them, but I don't want to waste the bullets."
Lois' attention was alerted. Burke had a boss? So he was just a lieutenant. She wanted to get her hands on every last one of these men, especially those that orchestrated it, but helping those in need came first.
"We've several hundred yards to go through that tunnel to the processing room," said Burke, gesturing to a side tunnel. Lois motioned for him to go first, and she gave a last horrified look at the poor unfortunates in the chamber, masking her face as the guard glanced her way.
After walking for several minutes, Lois heard noises up ahead. Smells far worse than she'd noted before assailed her nostrils. Noticing a sudden proliferation of barrels along the tunnel walls, she queried Burke as to their purpose.
"Salt water -- brine. Keeps it fresher."
Placing her hand against the tunnel wall, Lois fought back her gag reflex. It was fortunate she did, for she and Burke entered the processing area, another retention area now used for a much more foul purpose.
God, the horrors of that room. Lois managed somehow to lock everything of feeling away in her mind and look about numbly, not really seeing. Had Burke attempted to disarm her, he could have simply reached in and pulled the guns from her pockets. What manner of monster could set something like this up and operate it? There could be no shred of humanity in that sort of beast. Lois had seen victims of accidents, bomb blasts, war and natural disasters, but this was a repudiation of anything human. Men worked methodically and unfeelingly over the bodies of men and women. In high school she had viewed the film 'Night and Fog' which showed the inhumane conditions of Nazi concentration camps. This was similar, but with one telling difference: these men didn't want their victims emaciated and gaunt.
They left the area, Lois still numb with shock and horror. None of the victims in that charnel house had still been alive, or Lois doubted she could have held back from ending her role at once. It was unspeakable, and Lois knew that no matter how long she lived, the horror of what she had seen would never go away, never fade, and would haunt her dreams.
Burke was still talking, but it took everything Lois had to simply follow. She wanted to run back and flush out that horrible room with fire and flame, and to free those poor souls she'd seen in the first retention area. She wanted to fill in these tunnels with cement and completely erase this cancerous system. Nearly stumbling in dismay, she forced herself to focus on Burke. She had nearly everything she needed, and then she could flee to the world above.
She nearly bumped into Burke as he paused just before an adjoining side tunnel. "Are you ready to talk turkey?" he asked, striking a match on the wall to light a cigarette.
"Yeah, I'm ready. We'll need to work out a system for continued trade. I like your operation, and my boss will want to have a steady supply. We can supply a few men as well to help with the hunting."
"Right now we have twenty men. A few more would be excellent, Lois."
"What?!"
"Oh, come on Miss Lane! As often as you were on the news being flown around by Superman or as many of my friends as you put in jail with your reporting, you think I didn't recognize you? I just thought I'd give you a quick tour before I indulged myself with some well-deserved revenge!"
Lois started to back up and pull a revolver from her coat, but she was struck from behind. She'd never heard anyone behind her; as she fell into unconsciousness she realized that Burke must have signaled someone by lighting the match.
She fell into darkness.
*****
Lois woke slowly. Her head ached, and she had to shut her eyes quickly after opening them. The dim light was too bright for her eyes. No doubt she had a concussion, hopefully not an incapacitating one. As many times as she'd been struck or knocked out over the years, Lois figured she could handle it. She cracked her eyes open again, widening them as the swirling spots of light faded as her pupils adjusted.
She was in a smaller chamber, apparently used previously for maintenance. It had been turned into rooming quarters, as there was a mattress and clothing strewn about. She saw Burke sitting atop a metal folding chair, her coat draped over the back and her sword in his hands. He smiled slowly as he saw her gaze. It was the smile of a snake.
"You are an incredible woman, Miss Lane. You came down here and faced my men with nothing but a costume sword?"
Lois snorted. It hurt her head, but that comment called for a snort. "It worked, didn't it? I wouldn't know what to do with a sword, but you and your men focused on it and thought me harmless without it. Years of Tae Kwon Do are more useful than waving something sharp around."
"Useful or not, you made a grave mistake coming down here. Why? Your newspaper doesn't do investigative reporting any longer, and I doubt you work for someone who would be interested in our product."
Lois started up from her prone position and was stopped both by her pounding head and the discovery that her hands were cuffed to one another.
"Product? You can call men and women a product? Is there no shred of decency in you at all?"
Burke didn't rise to her insults. "It's all well and good to be noble, but when you are hungry and the world has gone to Hell, a man has to do what he can to stay alive. Your friend Superman saved us from extinction, but he might as well have not even bothered breaking up the asteroid. If humans became extinct, the world would go on without us, but instead it's civilization that's gone extinct. It's kill or be killed, Miss Lane. Survival of the fittest. A man who is prepared and waits for the unprepared will always be victorious."
"But what you're doing - it goes beyond criminal. Only beasts eat their own, Burke."
"Then we are beasts. *Living* beasts. Beasts that will be here long after people with delicate sensibilities and who lack the will to survive will be gone." Noticing her surreptitious movement, he pointed to the four guns she'd confiscated from his thugs.
"You no longer have those or the plastic sword, and I wonder just why you had this," he said, holding up a piece of dirty chalk. "Or this walkie talkie. Who would answer if I pressed the talk button? Your partner, Kent? The police? I guess we'll never know, since I'm not about to risk you using it or the chance the walkie talkie has a tracking device. I pulled out the guts, and as you so correctly mentioned when we met, I can always use batteries."
Lois slowly closed her eyes. Of course he would have searched her once she'd fallen. Her trump card was now in his hands, and any chance she had of communicating was gone.
"Don't take it so hard, Lois. You're incredibly lucky, after all."
Lois opened her eyes. "Lucky? How am I lucky?"
"Some of the boys wanted to hurt you real bad, especially Tony and Vic. Tony is still holding his crotch and Vic can't talk. I think you damaged his vocal cords. Nice work. You're quick, agile, talented, and you think on your feet. Too bad you came under false pretences; I could use more people like you.
"I've decided to keep you for myself. I'll even keep you alive for so long as you please me. Once that's over, I'll either give you up as a toy for the others, send you over for processing, or both."
Lois scuttled back slightly as he got up. It was difficult to move with handcuffs, and made impossible as Burke sat on her outstretched legs.
He seemed to enjoy the look of disgust on her face. "I'm not like the guys in the movies, Lois. I'm not going to talk to you and then walk out for some reason, giving you a chance to escape. I want you, and I'm going to have you. Now."
Burke reached slowly into a pants pocket and pulled out a knife. Lois wondered if he was going to kill her first, but gained no relief when he instead grasped the bottom of her top and pulled upwards with the knife, slicing the fabric. Without her coat, it was cold in the room. As her shirt came open, her flesh prickled.
Lois closed her eyes again.
"What, the big bad Lois Lane afraid? I'm a little surprised."
"Be a lot surprised, jerk!" snarled Lois, as she grabbed his hand from below with both of hers and thrust upwards, continuing his motion while pushing backward. He flinched as she did so, and she was rewarded by her efforts by feeling a splash of warm fluid on her hands and chest.
She opened her eyes to see Burke rising up. His knife lay stuck inside his cheek at the end of a long gash from his lower jaw. It was in no way a fatal wound, but Lois knew it had to hurt badly. He stared at the blood on his hands as Lois rose.
Pulling the knife from his cheek, he never even saw Lois' foot snap back and then forward into his left knee. With an audible crunch of cartilage, he fell as Lois turned and ran. His shrieks of pain followed her from the room as she fled into the darkness of an unlit junction tunnel.
*****
Lois was in trouble. That was nothing new, in the past she'd always managed to find herself in the worst possible situation at the worst possible time, but always managed to worm, weasel, wiggle or sneak her way out of anything. It had helped to have always-steady Clark at her side to help. Or Superman, too, once in a while.
This time was different. She was running blindly for her life in the dark. Her hands were bound in handcuffs in front of her. Clark wasn't there, and might no longer be alive. Superman was dead. Her best friend and Superman, heroes both, were gone, and a men with guns followed her through the sewers of Metropolis. If she were caught, a fate truly worse than death waited.
She elected to use tunnels that were not lit, as it meant not only that they were used less often and thus unfamiliar to Burke’s men, but also that there was no light from torches that could give her away. She looked desperately at each intersection, using what little light there was, to try and find a familiar area. She'd been searching the tunnels for days before learning from a man scrounging for scrap material of Burke. That knowledge helped her to arrange the meeting, but now the only thing she wanted to know was a way out of the sewers.
Darting at random into another tunnel, she had to slow to a shuffle. Moving slower made less noise, and she had no wish to slam into a wall during a full run. She'd suffered enough head trauma.
Shouts ahead of her caused Lois to pause and evaluate options. Should she move backwards, and try another tunnel, or stay still and then move forward once that group moved on? Thankfully, there were no rats left in these sewers. Lois hated rats. They were absent due to the thousands of hungry people scrounging anywhere for food, even in the sewers. In the sewers, that is, until the disappearances of so many, disappearances that carried terrible rumors, rumors Lois now knew to be completely true.
She jumped slightly, startled, when she heard a voice closer than before. She decided to back out and try another off tunnel. Moving as quickly and quietly as she could, she re-entered the hub only to find Burke and three of his men waiting for her. They had flushed her like prey from her position. Leaning on a metal pole, Burke held a bloodied cloth to his face and smiled grimly at her. Deep inside, Lois knew that he no longer planned to keep her to himself.
Burke motioned to his men, who approached warily. Lois was tired from the running and lack of food over the last day, and the throbbing in her head made her dizzy. These men apparently had been warned about her, for they all closed at once, gripping her shoulders and from behind. She managed to kick two shins, but that was all before she was pushed along through the twists and turns she had just followed.
The group entered another large chamber. Two large drain tunnels tilted downwards. Lois noted that the area was equipped as a barracks, with private areas along the walls closed off as best as possible for privacy. A fire burned in the center of the room, the smoke roiling upwards toward one of the two drains. Clothing, guns, ammunition, portable propane tanks, a generator and a television with stacks of DVDs were all Lois could notice before she was pushed to her knees.
Burke limped slowly around her, well out of her reach. "You're everything I'd heard, Lois, and more. I actually admire you, despite what you've done to me. Too bad you lived up to your reputation."
Lois didn't move. Burke was hurting, she could tell, and his bravado was intended to impress his men. With a group like this, a sign of weakness would lead to his removal as leader, and possibly even to him being...
Best not to think of that horror. Lois needed to focus.
Burke gestured, and two of his men came to Lois from behind, lifting her to her feet.
"She's all yours, men. Try and leave something for Tony. He's probably going to need a few more hours before he's back to normal, and I think it fitting he has a turn." With that, Burke limped back to the entrance to watch.
Lois gave a shriek and backed up. She swung her head back and forth to take in the number of men. Her hair fell into her eyes as she gave out pleas for mercy.
Burked tsked tsked from the doorway. "No matter how brave you are, Lois, you’re still like every other woman we've brought in. Try not to think how much better it would have been if you'd done things my way."
Those comments and the guttural and vulgar comments from the approaching men showed how well Lois had them fooled. She'd backed up to the spot she'd picked earlier in her quick appraisal of the chamber. Turning to grasp a portable propane tank by an inset handle, she somersaulted over it and pulled it along. She felt a bone snap in her left wrist, but that couldn't be helped. She bowled into one of the men, knocking him down. She scrambled with her left hand for his gun despite the pain. She still needed her right for something else. Grasping the gun, she stood up. She'd loosened a tooth in her tumble, and it added to the ache in her head.
Burke looked shocked, and everyone froze. Lois turned slightly and backed up toward a living space along one wall. Holding the gun in her left hand and the propane tank in her right, she pointed the gun at a different one of the men every other second. It was difficult to hold her arms out forward with her hands bound as they were, along with the weight of the tank and her injured hand. It was effective, however, as no one had drawn a weapon yet.
Burke stared at her in open admiration. "You are incredible, Miss Lane. I wish I had met you long ago."
"Sorry, Burke, the feeling's not reciprocated."
"I thought not. You are a constant source of amazement. I hope you realize, however, that you have eleven men between you and the exit, and many fewer bullets than that in the gun you just took. You might be able to shoot one or two of us, but not all, and of course you will never escape."
Lois smiled. "I'm not planning on shooting all of you, Burke."
"Oh? I suppose you'll just knock us all out with your tank, then?"
"So to speak. How fast can you move with that bum knee, Burke?"
With that, Lois swung her arms to her right side, and then forward, letting go of the propane tank as she did so. It flew forward and fell into the fire in the center of the room. Quickly transferring the gun from her left to right hand, Lois aimed and shot.
The bullet struck the tank, and Lois saw simultaneously the first release of fluid and the shocked look on Burke's face. That was all she had time for, as she dove into the living space she'd seen equipped with a mattress. Falling to the ground, she rolled to the right and pulled the mattress over herself. Lois heard a cracking sound and curses before the explosion in the enclosed area nearly deafened her. She felt something strike the mattress, but she planned to stay beneath it unless it caught flame. As her hearing returned to normal, she heard the cries of injured men, and then the crack of gunshots. Her agile mind was already planning her next move when the mattress was pulled off of her.
Lois tried to swing her arms up, but had shifted them to pull the mattress. Her arms were trapped on the right side of her body, and she was unable to use the gun. She snarled, ready to go out fighting.
And saw the sardonic face of Henderson.
"You know, Lois, you could have just used the walkie talkie to signal us."
"Ugh! Help me up. Be careful, though. Something's broken in my left hand."
Henderson frowned as he helped her up and undid the handcuffs. Was she mistaken, or did Henderson seem concerned for her injury?
"Thanks, Henderson. There are twenty of them. One has a dislocated shoulder and another a damaged kneecap and knife wounds. Once you've got them rounded up I can show you where they keep the people and where they... where they..."
Henderson squeezed her shoulder gently. "It's okay, Lois. We followed the chalk marks you left along the walls. We've rescued those... that could be rescued."
Lois gave a deep shudder. It was over.
"Did you get them all, Bill?"
Henderson looked haunted for a moment. "Yes, Lois. We caught them all."
"What will you do with them? What can you do to make them pay for this?"
Henderson paused before answering, "There is no way to adequately punish them for something like this, Lois. I don't think we will have to, though."
"Why not? There has to be some --"
Her comment was cut off by a single gunshot in the tunnels. Then another, and another.
Lois looked at Bill Henderson, and understood. None of these men would ever leave alive. Emotions whirling in her mind and body aching, she looked Henderson in the eyes. His eyes, too, were haunted.
"C'mon, Lois. Let's get out of here. I don't know about you, but I need fresh air."
Lois and Bill Henderson walked out and up into the sunlight.
