Martha and Jonathon Kent were lying down in bed when a loud crash woke them up with a start. “What in the world?” Martha said, climbing out of bed. She pulled her robe from the closet and wrapped it around herself. “Do you think it might be Clark?” she asked her husband. Jonathon gave her a worried shrug and hurried into the hall. He listened intently from the top of the stairs. From downstairs, he could hear the sound of someone rummaging around. Worried, he opened the hall closet and quickly reached up and inside the doorframe. He pulled a shotgun down and swiftly clicked it open. Jonathon glanced at Martha, who grabbed a key off their dresser and hurriedly unlocked one of the drawers. She pulled out a small box of shells and tossed it to him. Catching it with one hand, he started to load up the gun.
“Can’t be certain,” Jonathon said quietly. He finished and held it up, ready. Inching his way down the steps, one at a time, he made his way downstairs. Martha followed after him, brandishing a darkened flashlight like it was a club. The both paused at the bottom to see the remains of their door lying smashed and broken at their feet. There was a small trail of blood that led from it into the kitchen. Eyes wide with fear, they followed it around and crouched by the wall nearest the kitchen. Past it, they could hear someone moving around quietly. Suddenly there was the sound of running water and some splashing. They paused, looked at each other and then sprang out together. Jonathon held the gun out, ready to fire as Martha switched on the flashlight.
“Clark!” they both said in astonishment as they saw who it was. He was sitting up on the kitchen counter, running his shirt under the cold water. The water that dripped down from it was pale red.
“What are you guys doing up?” Clark said lamely. He tried to laugh, but winced as his side cried out from the effort.
“What happened to you?” his mother asked, rushing up and throwing her arms around him. “You’re covered with sweat and- oh, my God,” she exclaimed, “you’re bleeding! What happened, it looks like you got stabbed!”
“I’ll call 911,” his dad said and reached for the phone.
“No!” Clark yelled. “I came back here to keep from ending up in the hospital,” he said. “Can’t let them examine me, especially when I’m bleeding like this. What happens if someone runs some tests on me? Who knows what they’d find.”
“Right, sorry,” his father nodded. “Well, then we’ll have to take care of that here.” He put the shotgun down and grabbed Clark’s shirt. “Martha, better grab the medical kit from upstairs,” he said. She nodded and hurried back up the stairs. Jonathon pressed the wet shirt against Clark’s side. Clark winced and sucked in his breath slightly.
“I didn’t think anything could cut you,” his father muttered. “I can’t even remember you ever skinning your knees.”
“I think I could definitely do without it,” Clark winced again. Martha hurried back into the kitchen, robe flying out behind her.
“Here,” she said, popping the case open and removing bandages and iodine. “This is going to sting,” she warned him, soaking up a bandage with the iodine. Clark nodded and braced himself as she pressed it into his side.
“Ow… ow…ow… OW!” Clark cried out as she wiped the wound clean. “I think you got it!” he said and leaned away from her. She smiled a little and started to clean up the area around the cut.
“Clark,” his father asked, “just what happened? You left with Lana hours ago.”
“Is she alright?” his mother asked, concerned.
“She’s fine,” Clark assured her. “It’s a long story,” he said quietly. Slowly he filled them in on everything that had happened that night. He told them about the search at the circus, following Bruce, getting shot at, and then returning to find that Richie had slaughtered half the circus. By the end, his mother was pale with worry and fright. His father leaned against the counter, shaking his head in disbelief.
“All those people,” Martha murmured. “How could one boy become a monster like that overnight?”
“The meteor rocks,” Clark said. “He had them embedded in him, I saw them. They must have changed him.”
“But did they make him kill all those people?” Jonathon asked Clark pointedly.
Clark stared at him then shook his head slowly. “No, I guess not.”
“Clark, son, I know you,” Jonathon said. “Right now you feel that you’re responsible in some way for what this boy did. How can you be? Did you force him to kill those people? He chose to do that himself. He’s the only one to blame.”
“But still, I brought those rocks here,” Clark said.
“How?” his father asked him. “They weren’t packed in with you on the rocket. They fell with you. It could have been an accident that they arrived here at all.”
“Right,” his mother agreed. “You’re not responsible for everything that has happened in this town since the meteor shower.” Clark nodded, a little ashamed of himself. “Well, in the meantime,” his mother stated, “what are we going to do about Bruce Wayne?”
“He knows about your powers,” Jonathon remarked. “There’s not much we can do, I suppose. If he goes to the papers…”
“He won’t,” Clark said confidently. “If he did, I would have to tell them about what he does at night, but he won’t tell. I don’t know how, but I know.”
“We should call the hospital,” Martha said. “See if he’s alright.”
“Better leave him till morning,” Clark said. “He’s probably pretty mad at me right now.” Then Clark thought of something and jumped down from the counter. He hobbled over to the phone and started dialing.
“Clark, what’s wrong?” his father asked.
“I’m going to call Chloe and tell her about this. I don’t want her to find out about me, but I need her to do some research.” The phone rang on the other end, and then a groggy voice answered.
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“Hello,” Chloe’s voice was flat and a bit angry. “What?”
“Chloe, it’s me,” Clark said quickly. “Something happened tonight at the circus,” he started, sketching in the bared details to her, leaving out the parts about his powers. By the time he was halfway through explaining, Chloe had come alive over the phone. He could practically hear her scribbling down on a pad of paper all the details. “Can you meet me at the hospital tomorrow at eight?” he asked at the end. “I think that’s the start of visiting hours.”
“Are you kidding? I’ll be outside waiting at seven. See you then, Clark.” She hung up and Clark put the phone back.
“I really think you should get some rest, Clark,” his mother said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood and you’re not really used to being hurt and everything.”
“I can’t,” he said firmly, “I have to take care of this.”
“You can’t go looking for that boy now, the police are probably swarming through the forest, looking for him,” he said quietly. “Besides, son, unless you have some sort of plan, I don’t think you’re going to do any better than before.”
Clark grimaced and touched his side briefly, wincing again. Pain was a new sensation to him and he didn’t think he enjoyed it very much.
“You’re better off waiting for tomorrow,” his mother told him. “You need to rest first. Maybe you’ll think of something.”
“Alright,” he said reluctantly. His parents sighed in relief. Smiling, his mother took his arm and helped him up the stairs.
“We’ll wake you up at seven so you can get going, but now you’ve got to get some rest.” Clark smiled and nodded as he was led into his room.
He didn’t see how he was going to sleep after tonight. Yet as soon as he lay down on the bed, he seemed to hear someone knocking on his door. Clark sat up; stunned to find that it was dawn. He turned a little and his side cried out again, kicking the cobwebs from his head. He prodded his bandage experimentally, and then slowly got to his feet.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Clark hobbled downstairs. His mother was waiting in the kitchen with a steaming platter of eggs and bacon. “All of it,” she demanded, thrusting it at him. “Every last bit, you need your strength.” Clark stared the heaping platter and looked at his father for help. Jonathon sat at the table, watching the two over the edge of The Smallville Ledger.
“Don’t look at me,” he said quickly and raised the paper in front of his face. Helpless, Clark took the plate and sat down, shoveling down the food as quickly as he could.
In between bites, he asked, “Is there anything in there about last night?”
His father nodded and turned over the paper so he could see. The headlines read, ‘Youth on Rampage at Circus’. “It says that apparently this Richard Telebaum went on a killing spree,” Jonathon said, reading bits of the story back to him. “’Details are sketchy about the extent of the damage… Victims appeared to be badly slashed or impaled… Rushed to Saint Mary’s Hospital… Escaped police custody...” He put down the paper and rubbed his forehead. “I still find it hard to believe that all this could happen in one night.”
“Tell me about it,” Clark said, touching his bandaged side again. As he ate, he quickly scanned the rest of the article. There was no word yet of how many people had been killed or what had happened after police had arrived, but it had been clear that the body count would be high. “They don’t say what happened to him,” Clark mumbled, rereading the article. “Eluded capture… If he ran, where was he headed?”
“They might not know, Clark,” Martha pointed out. “And even if they did, I don’t know if the papers would print it, might cause a panic.”
“If he was headed this way,” Jonathon said, “I’d certainly want to know.” Clark nodded and kept eating, going over the article for a third time, seeing if he’d missed anything. While he was doing so, the clock on the wall chimed once. Clark dropped his fork and stared at it.
“7:45!” he said, “geez, I’m going to be late.”
His father got up. “Here, I’ll drive you out to the hospital.”
Clark shook his head. “No, it’ll be quicker if I run.” He swung a jacket over his shoulders and started out the door, stepping over the remains of they’re screen door in the process. “Uhh, sorry about that last night,” he said, eying the wreck.
“Forget about it,” his dad said, coming to the doorway. His mother stood next to him, rubbing her arms in the crisp morning air.
“Be careful,” she called out to him. Jonathon hugged her close and whispered something in her ear.
“I will,” Clark said, waving back at them. Then he turned around and was gone in a blur of motion. The dust kicked up at his heels obscuring the road for a second. When it died down, Clark was standing at the end of the lane, gripping the fence post tightly with one hand, the other clutching his side. His parents ran out of the house and down the road towards him. When they reached him, Clark stared up at them, trying to grin through the pain. “Ummm…” he said slowly. “I don’t suppose I could take you up on that ride?” he asked his dad.
The ride from the farm to Saint Mary’s took only twenty minutes, but by the time Clark and his father drove up, they could see Chloe pacing outside the entrance, looking like she had been waiting for hours. When she saw the car approach, she hurriedly picked up her backpack and stood anxiously. “Hi, Mr. Kent,” she said quickly, then “Clark, where have you been?” she demanded. Clark slowly climbed from the truck and looked at her. Chloe looked like she had been up all night; there were deep lines under her eyes and her hair seemed to go off in all directions at the end. She was wearing bulky sweater that almost came to her knees.
“Thanks for meeting me, Chloe. Late night?” he asked, looking at her again.
“Are you serious,” she said, pulling him away from the truck. “This is the first real evidence that there is something definitely wrong with this town. We’ve got proof now.” Clark waved as his dad pulled away in the truck, and then turned back to Chloe.
“Evidence? What about all the other things? Your ‘Wall of Weird’?”
“Yes, they were all true,” she said waving her hand, “but no one ever believed them! This is in the papers though, the real ones, not just the Inquisitor. The Daily Planet’s got a truck camped out on the other side of the hospital, waiting to interview people. And,” she said quietly, leading him inside the hospital, “you can imagine what’ll happen if they hear that Bruce Wayne’s here.”
“Does the hospital know who he is?” Clark asked quickly.
“No, he gave that other name, Tom Mallone,” she said. “They’ve got him upstairs in room 321, apparently under sedation.”
“Sedation?”
Chloe nodded and looked away awkwardly. “Seems he didn’t want to stay put. And he tried to attack a few orderlies when they restrained him. To tell you the truth, I sorta didn’t believe what you said about him until I heard that.”
“Yeah,” Clark agreed, “it’s kinda strange, but he’s not a bit like he pretends to be. Remember that guy you met yesterday at the Beanery? Forget him, he doesn’t exist. I don’t know who Bruce Wayne really is.” Chloe shook her head and stared down for a second. Clark suddenly thought of something and turned to her again. “Chloe, how did you find all this out? I thought visiting hours started like five minutes ago.” Chloe turned red and mumbled something. “What?” Clark asked. Finally, she pulled up her sweater to reveal a pin-striped dress underneath.
“Satisfied,” she said quickly, shoving it back down.
“A Candy-Striper?” Clark laughed out loud. “Where’d you find it?”
“It was my sister’s,” Chloe admitted, “I just borrowed it so I could sneak in here early. Didn’t work out totally like I thought though, they sorta made me work.”
“Great reporters have to make sacrifices,” Clark said stoically.
Chloe nodded as they walked through the lobby. She led him quickly to the elevator and then pushed the third floor button. “Oh, I called Pete in on this,” she told him. “He’s going to be doing a bit of research on our friend Mr. Wayne, and we’re going to meet him in the newsroom at eleven. Something about Bruce doesn’t make any sense, and I’m going to find out what.”
“Something?” Clark asked. “Try a lot. First he’s the picture of a spoiled brat, rich and bored out his skull, next he’s risking his life hunting down car thieves and getting shot at. And you should have seen him fight, it was like watching a Chow Yun Fat movie.” Clark paused and looked at Chloe. “Do they know yet how many people…”
Chloe nodded, biting her lip softly. “Yeah, the tally was finished this morning. “Thirty three people,” she said quietly. “Four of them were cops.” The elevator door opened and Chloe stepped out. Clark followed her slowly, thinking it over in his head.
“Thirty three people,” he muttered in disbelief. “Do they know anything about where he is?” She shook her head sadly.
“I checked the police band before I came here, and they hadn’t found him yet. They think he’s hiding in the woods, so they’re trying to organize a search.” Clark stared off for a moment, rubbing his side gently.
“I hope they don’t find him,” he muttered. “The police can’t handle someone like him.” Chloe stared at him and came closer.
“Clark, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Clark said quickly, putting his arm down. “I just got a little too close to the action last night and I’m still feeling some of the bruises.”
“Well, be more careful next time,” she told him. “You leave the dangerous stuff to the people who can handle it next time: us journalists.” He smiled at her and nodded. “I mean it, Clark,” she said again. “You always seem to be in the middle of this, and one of these days, you’re really going to get hurt. You’re not indestructible, you know.” Clark touched his side again and nodded.
“I think I know what you mean,” he muttered.
The third floor seemed to be running over with patients. Not a few people were lying on benches in the hall, cradling bandaged arms and legs. They were all conscious and in a lot of pain. A few were crying softly to themselves, while others tried to comfort them as best they could. “There’s so many of them,” Clark said quietly, staring down the hall. “I thought you said the count was thirty three?’
“That was people dead, Clark,” Chloe whispered back. “More people than that were wounded; most of them just as they were trying to escape. I don’t think anyone but Bruce survived going face to face with him.” Clark thought back to the way Richie’s fingers had gleamed like knives last night. How easily he had cut his way out of that car, into Clark.
“I’m surprised we did,” he said.
“That’s right,” Chloe noted. “He saved you didn’t he? I guess you owe him you’re life.” Clark grumbled something and Chloe laughed. “Too much for you to admit, huh? That’s okay.” They came to the door marked 321, and Chloe stared down the hall in both directions. “Okay, I think it’s clear.” She opened the door quickly and they slipped inside, shutting the door behind him.