Man of Steel

Ms. Whitaker ran to find the principal.

  For a time, Clark had the closet to himself, but its cramped confines provided little refuge from the clamorous world outside, which continued to bear down upon his overwhelmed senses. His hands still over his ears, he squatted in a corner, squeezing his eyes shut as tightly as he could. There was too much to see, hear, smell—and all of it louder or more intense than he could possibly handle. It was as though someone had turned up the volume on the entire world.

  Make it stop! he thought frantically. Please!

  The booming racket made it hard to pick out individual sounds, but eventually, after what felt like forever, a familiar voice broke through the din. He heard his mother rushing down the hall.

  “Clark, it’s Mom,” she said. “I’m here.” She didn’t shout. She knew she didn’t have to.

  A crowd of teachers and students, gathered outside, parted to let her through. She knelt in front of the door. Her gentle voice penetrated the fragile wood that stood between them.

  “Will you open the door?” she asked.

  Clark hesitated, afraid to let in the scary world. He tried to focus on just his mother’s voice, but he could hear every other word being whispered out in the hallway. His classmates’ voices ganged up on him.

  “He’s such a freak. He’s always doing stuff like this.”

  “His parents won’t even let him play with other kids.”

  The hurtful words were almost worse than the avalanche of noise. Only his mother’s voice, soft and soothing, provided any comfort.

  “Clark, please, sweetie. I can’t help you if you won’t let me in.”

  His longing for his mother helped him overcome his fear, at least a little. He slowly cracked the door open. His heart sank as he saw through her skin, too. All he could recognize was her caring brown eyes.

  Tears filled his own.

  “The world’s too big, Mom.”

  She nodded, understanding.

  “Then make it small.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Yes, you can,” she promised. “Just focus on my voice. Pretend it’s an island. Can you see it? Out in the ocean?”

  He closed his eyes and tried to do as his mother said. It was hard, with all those living skeletons screaming at him from all directions, but he forced himself to imagine an island, far out in the water, where strange horned beasts roamed and giant dragonflies buzzed beneath a huge red sun. There was something oddly familiar about it.

  “I can see it...”

  His mother’s voice encouraged him.

  “Then swim toward it.”

  He visualized himself swimming out to the fantastic place, leaving all the jarring sights and sounds of the world behind. His own heart slowly settled, and the overpowering din began to fade away. He opened his eyes cautiously, ready to squeeze them shut again if he saw too much. But, to his relief, his mother looked more like Mom at last. Tanned skin covered her face just like it was supposed to. The shifting colors stabilized, going back to normal. The world became reassuringly solid again. The volume got turned down.

  It’s over, he realized. For now.

  He rushed out of the closet, into his mother’s arms. She held him tightly as he sobbed on her shoulder. Even though he was better, he couldn’t forget what had just happened. Or what the other kids had said.

  “What’s wrong with me, Mom?”

  C H A P T E R N I N E

  Clark awoke underwater, surrounded by whales. He found himself drifting naked beneath the sea, his clothes having been burned away by the inferno. The humpbacks nudged him toward the surface, their lilting songs echoing in his ears. They, at least, seemed to want him to keep going.

  Fair enough, he thought.

  He shook the cobwebs from his mind, and poked his head above the waves. The burning platform was now several miles away, spewing clouds of black smoke into the sky. Eavesdropping on the Coast Guard and other first responders, he got the impression that the worst was over. Everybody who could have been evacuated from the collapsed platform had been. Numerous survivors, many seriously injured, had been fished from the water and were now receiving medical care. All that was left was the cleanup—and mourning the dead.

  I couldn’t save everyone, he realized. But I made a difference.

  Bobbing upon the waves, he knew that he couldn’t return to the Debbie Sue. There would be too many questions he couldn’t begin to answer, questions that had haunted him his entire life. The words of that dumbstruck roughneck, back in the galley, echoed in his memory.

  “What are you?”

  Clark wished he knew.

  Glancing around, his extraordinary vision located a small Aleutian island only a few nautical miles away. He swam toward it, speeding through the water even faster than his cetacean rescuers. Powerful arms and legs carried him through rough waters that would have defeated even an Olympic swimmer. Hypothermia wasn’t an issue.

  His bare body was still steaming as he emerged from the sea onto a rocky shore populated by a large group of sea lions. The barking mammals were the only witnesses to his arrival. A disturbing thought occurred to Clark and his hand went to his chest, where a spiky black key hung on a chain around his neck. The unusual pendant had survived the fire that had torched the rest of his clothes.

  Good, Clark thought. I didn’t lose it.

  A small fishing village occupied the island. A cannery dominated the remote community, which also boasted a post office, general store, and church. Painted wooden structures fought a losing battle against the elements. Boats were docked at the pier. Moving stealthily, Clark spotted clothes hanging on a line outside a weathered log cabin. A pair of muddy boots rested on a stoop.

  Sorry, friend, he thought as he furtively helped himself. He felt bad about stealing, but what else was he to do? Walking around naked would attract too much attention. Crouching behind a rusty dumpster, he pulled on a flannel shirt and jeans. To his relief, the stolen clothes and boots fit, more or less. He tucked the black metal spike beneath his collar.

  As he emerged from behind the dumpster, a bright orange school bus rolled down a gravel road nearby. Rowdy kids made faces at him through the windows. The bus looked just like the ones he’d ridden back when he was a kid in Smallville.

  OCTOBER, 1992

  Thirteen years old, Clark rode in the back of the bus as it rumbled down the interstate. Rain pelted the windows and highway. The Red Hot Chili Peppers leaked from a classmate’s Sony Discman. Another kid was playing Mortal Kombat on his Sega Game Gear.

  Clark was just trying to mind his own business, although he was acutely aware of the presence of Lana Lang across from him. He’d had a crush on the pretty girl for as long as he could remember, but he’d never had the nerve to do anything about it. For all he knew, she thought he was weird—like everybody else did.

  “I can’t see Favre ever dominating like Majkowski,” Pete Ross argued in the seat ahead of Clark. The big redhead wasn’t talking to him, of course. “The guy fumbled four times against the Bengals.”

  Pete’s buddy, Whitney Fordham, looked back over the seat at Clark. A smirk betrayed his ugly intentions.

  “Hey, ass-wipe, what do you think?”

  Clark’s heart sank. He’d been hoping that Pete and Whitney would leave him alone for once. He stared out the window and tried to ignore them, not that that had ever helped before. Up ahead, just few minutes away, a bridge spanned the flooding Arkansas River, which meant that the bus still had a ways to go.

  Just my luck, he thought glumly

  To his surprise, Lana came to his defense.

  “Leave him alone, Pete.”

  “What are you, his girlfriend?” Peter asked with a sneer. He leaned back over the seat to get in Clark’s face. “I wanna hear what ass-wipe thinks.”

  “I don’t really follow football,” Clark mumbled.

  That wasn’t good enough for Pete.

  “What do you follow, dick-splash?”

  An explosive bang, coming fr
om beneath the bus, distracted everyone. Clark was momentarily relieved, until he realized that the bus had blown a tire. It hydroplaned across the wet highway, swerving toward oncoming traffic. The panicked driver yanked hard on the wheel and the bus swung to the left, straight into the bridge’s safety rail. Teenaged passengers screamed as the bus crashed through the rail and plunged down into the frothing river many feet below.

  The driver and kids were thrown from their seats even before the bus hit the water. Pandemonium erupted aboard the sinking vehicle as everyone shouted and scrambled frantically, in fear of their lives. They clambered over one another to get to the exits.

  Freezing water flooded the interior of the bus, adding to the chaos and desperation. Loose backpacks and injured students clogged the aisle.

  Only Clark wasn’t afraid—at least not for himself. He turned his gaze toward the rear of the bus, which was sinking faster than the front. Lana was trapped in her seat, neck-deep in the water. Blood streamed from a nasty gash on her forehead. She gasped fearfully as the water rose toward her mouth.

  And she wasn’t the only one in danger.

  Clark knew what he had to do. He swam through the gushing deluge to the submerged rear exit, and kicked it open. More water invaded the bus, but he pushed against the current, diving headfirst into the river outside. The muddy water was dark and agitated, but he could still see what he was doing.

  He grabbed onto the bus and kicked.

  * * *

  Lana thrashed wildly as the water rose past her mouth, her nose, and her head. She held her breath to keep from drowning. The freezing water numbed her body. She was running out of air...

  And then, miraculously, the water began to recede. Within seconds, it sank beneath her head and she gasped hungrily for air. Confused, she looked to the rear of the bus—where she saw Clark framed in the rear doorway. Straining, his face a mask of concentrated effort, he pushed the bus up and onto the river bank. Torrents of water, escaping the bus, spilled past him.

  Lana’s eyes widened.

  “How?”

  * * *

  Clark couldn’t have explained if he’d wanted to. Shifting position, he braced himself against the back of the bus and shoved it further ashore. A choking noise caught his attention and he glanced back at the murky river. His eyes narrowed in concentration.

  Hang on, he thought. I’ll be right there.

  Letting go of the beached vehicle, he dove back into the raging river.

  He saw Lana watching as he disappeared beneath the waves. Along with the other kids, she’d managed to extricate herself from the bus and stumbled out onto the shore. Wind and rain buffeted her, making it hard to see, but she scrambled to the river’s edge. Anxious eyes searched the water.

  Clark saw her staring when he climbed out of the river, carrying Pete in his arms. The bully—who must have been washed out of the bus at some point—was unconscious, but he was still breathing.

  Emergency sirens signaled approaching rescuers, but it was the shocked expression on Lana’s face that concerned him the most. She backed away from him apprehensively.

  How on earth was he going to explain this?

  * * *

  “My son told me what Clark did.”

  Clark sat on a swing outside the Kent family farmhouse. It was late afternoon and it was already starting to get dark. Barns and silos rose behind him. A windmill turned in the autumn breeze. Fields of corn waited to be harvested. Even though he was outdoors, he could easily see and hear his parents talking with Mrs. Ross in the living room.

  Pete’s mom sounded pretty worked up.

  “Pete was under an enormous amount of stress, Helen,” Jonathan Kent said. “Everyone was. I’m sure what he thought he saw—”

  “—was an act of God, Jonathan.” She had her arm around Pete, who was more subdued than usual. He stared at the floor, not speaking. “This was Providence.”

  Martha Kent refilled a coffee cup.

  “I think you’re blowing it a little out of proportion.” she said calmly.

  “No, I’m not,” Mrs. Ross insisted. “Lana saw it, too. And the Fordham boy. And this isn’t the first time Clark has done something like this.”

  He flinched at her strident tone. He didn’t want to listen anymore.

  Clark was long gone by the time the swing stopped swinging.

  * * *

  His father found him out by the cornfields, not long after their visitors had left. Clark was seated on the open tailgate of a pickup truck. He braced himself for another lecture.

  “I just wanted to help,” he said defensively.

  “I know you did,” his dad said. “But we talked about this. You have to keep this side of yourself a secret.”

  “Was I just supposed to let them die?”

  His father hesitated before answering. His face wrestled with conflicting emotions.

  “Maybe.”

  Clark stared at him in surprise. He couldn’t mean that, could he?

  “There’s more at stake here than our lives,” Jonathan said, trying to explain, “or the lives of those around us. When the world finds out what you can do, it’s going to change everything. Our beliefs, our notions of what it means to be human. Everything.” He shook his head solemnly. “You saw how Pete’s mom reacted. She was scared, Clark.”

  Clark didn’t understand. He had saved Pete’s life. Her son would have drowned if not for him. She should have been grateful that he could do what he could.

  “Why?”

  “People are afraid of what they don’t understand,” his father said.

  He could see that. Clark didn’t understand his own abilities either, and that scared the heck out of him. He’d spent his entire life trying to figure out what made him different from everyone else.

  “But is she right?” he asked. “Did God do this to me?”

  Jonathan paused, biting his tongue. His jaw tensed from the effort of keeping silent. Clark could tell he was holding something back.

  “Tell me,” he pleaded.

  The expression on his father’s face showed that he had come to a decision. He nodded gravely, and led Clark to the old threshing barn out back. The modest, dilapidated structure had long ago been rendered obsolete by a bigger barn that could handle the new combine. His parents had declared the smaller barn off limits years ago, “for safety reasons,” they said. Clark had always respected their wishes.

  Maybe that had been a mistake.

  Night was falling, cloaking the old barn in darkness. Rusty metal doors guarded the storm cellar that lay beneath. At his dad’s request, Clark threw open the heavy doors. Jonathan stepped forward and shone a flashlight into the murky cellar.

  The beam exposed a large, roundish object, partially covered by a dusty tarp. Clark gaped at the oddly organic looking curves of the object, which resembled no piece of farm equipment he had ever seen. What was this buried secret, and what did it have to do with him?

  He cast a puzzled glance at his dad as they descended into the cellar. Jonathan Kent yanked off the tarp, exposing... what?

  The object, which was the size of a tractor, looked like a cross between a space capsule and a piece of abstract art. An empty cavity rested inside a bulbous shell molded out of a slick, pearly material. The capsule’s outer plates were scorched and blackened, as though they’d been through a crash landing—or been burned in a fire.

  “We found you in this,” Jonathan explained. “At first we thought maybe the Soviets sent it up. We were sure the government was going to show up at our doorstep.” His gaze turned inward, as though he was looking back through time. “But no one ever came.”

  Clark tried to process what he was seeing and hearing. It was almost more than he could take in.

  His parents found him?

  In a spaceship?

  What does that mean? he wondered. Where did I come from?

  Turning away from the capsule, Jonathan guided Clark to a work area that had been set up at the back of the cellar.
He shined the flashlight beam over the wall above the workbench. Dozens of Xeroxed articles and newspaper clippings were pinned up there, many of them faded with age. Clark quickly scanned them. It didn’t take long to pick out the common thread.

  UFOs.

  There were articles on the Roswell incident. And a sighting in Delphos, Kansas back in 1971, which left a luminous ring on the ground afterward. And glowing red fireballs seen above Manitoba, Canada, for several weeks in 1975 and 1976. Every article was about some sort of alleged extraterrestrial encounter.

  “We kept searching for evidence of someone like you,” Jonathan said, “but we never found any.”

  What are you saying? Clark thought, too stunned to speak. That I’m an alien? But try as he might, he couldn’t give voice to his questions.

  His father pulled out a drawer and took a small object swaddled in oil-cloth. He unwrapped the object, exposing a palm-sized black spike or nail, and handed it to Clark.

  “This was in the chamber with you,” Jonathan said. “It was fitted into a slot, like a key. I took it to a metallurgist at Kansas State. He said whatever it was made from didn’t even exist on the periodic table.”

  Wondering briefly how his father had persuaded the scientist to keep quiet, Clark held the object up to the flashlight. It refracted the beam in ways that were strange even when seen by ordinary vision. The spike felt peculiar, too—more like a horn or shell than metal, but somehow different. It had a texture like nothing he had ever touched before.

  “Just think, Clark,” he father said. “The fact that you’re here means we’re not alone in the universe.” He smiled warmly. “You’re a miracle.”

  Clark knew his dad was trying to put a positive spin on things, but it was no good. He felt dizzy. His whole world had just turned upside down. All this time, he had thought he was human—sort of—but that was a lie.

  “I don’t want to be,” he said. Tears welled up in his eyes. His throat tightened.

  “I don’t blame you.” Jonathan placed a reassuring hand on Clark’s shoulder. “It’d be a huge burden for anyone to bear. But you’re not just anyone, Clark. And I have to believe that you’ve been sent here for a reason. All these changes that have been happening to you, one day you’re going to think of them as a blessing. And when that day comes, you’ll have to make a choice whether to stand proud in front of the human race, or not.”