Streak
Missing scene from Witness.
The rights to the characters of Smallville belong to its producers, the WB Network and DC Comics. I own them not.
His strength returned as quickly as it had left him and he ripped the door off its hinges, flinging it across the room as though it had been made of cardboard instead of hardened steel. Clark emerged from the blast furnace, pieces of singed flesh hanging from his body and stood glaring at the departing thugs through the walls of the foundry, enraged at his helplessness and foolishness, both. Reasoning with criminals didn't often work out and this had been no exception but he had tried. Now, here he was, naked and angry and wanting revenge. Physically, he healed with incredible rapidity as soon as the Kryptonite's influence was removed; his damaged ego, however, would take longer to mend. In a few minutes, he had recovered completely and sped from the scene, literally streaking toward home.
***
A mile away, Lex Luthor eased off the accelerator as he approached a country crossroads. Not known for his obedience to traffic laws, he nevertheless slowed for this particular intersection where an overgrown stretch of county highway crossed a weed choked back road that paralleled the railroad tracks in a remote corner of Lowell County. Many a country resident had been seriously injured or killed here where the train tracks left this quiet rural area of the state and headed out toward the more heavily populated and fast paced urban world of Metropolis. Lex didn't intend to join them.
The road seemed deserted as he slowed, looking each way and listening before he accelerated up the slope that led over the tracks. As he crested the top of the hill and eased over the rail bed, he thought he heard something on the road behind the Ferrari. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Lex saw low hanging tree limbs waving violently as though a sudden wind had blown up. He stopped the car and watched for a moment, puzzled; it was an otherwise calm day. Lex had the eerie feeling that something unseen was approaching from behind. Bushes near his car were starting to blow when suddenly something slammed into the car, rocking it violently and he found himself splattered with muddy water. Stunned, he leaned over the door and peered down; there was a dent in the side of the car that looked a lot like a large dirty handprint. Lex stared out the front windshield and watched bushes and branches up ahead whipping back and forth as if something was passing by them before each, in turn, fell still. For an instant, he thought he saw something down the road but it vanished before he could be sure. It had almost seemed as if his vision had blurred for a second.
"What the hell?" Lex revved the motor, laying a patch of rubber on the Kansas asphalt as he took off. Whatever it had been was already far ahead, judging by the trail of blowing and falling leaves. He pushed his Ferrari to the limit, thinking he might close the gap. Up ahead, the highway curved sharply to the right where it would eventually cross the interstate in a few miles, allowing travelers to avoid the rural environs of little communities like Smallville, all together, if they wished. His eyes fell on a weathered fence post leaning out at a precipitous angle where an old gravel road branched off to the left. As Lex approached the curve, he saw the post pop upright, as though an invisible hand had straightened it back into its original position. Then his vision blurred again and for a fleeting moment, he thought he'd seen a vague man shaped figure by the post; his impression had been that it was naked.
Lex downshifted and turned to the left where the…apparition…had been, skidding on the gravel as he made the turn too fast. He raced down the road, following the progress of the thing by the effect it had on the roadside vegetation though he now doubted he's ever catch it. As he rounded another bend in the road, he came to an abrupt halt when he saw a rippling wave sweeping through the tall grass of a nearby field until it ended in a thicket where the forest began at the far edge. Next to the road, an aging gate swung back and forth, its rusty hinges creaking in complaint, a testimonial, he was sure, to the passage of whatever he'd been chasing. He stood, watching in silence for a time, the squeaky gate and the soughing of the wind in the pine boughs at the side of the road, the only sounds he heard. But nothing else appeared and eventually he got back in the Ferrari and headed home, this time at a more leisurely pace, lost in thought. For some reason, the museum security tapes he'd saved after his encounter with Phelan kept coming to mind.
***
Closer to Smallville, Chloe Sullivan was stomping around the kitchen, slamming things on the counter and banging cabinet doors, in frustration. It was obvious that Clark Kent's infatuation with Lana had reached such epic proportions that not even the smallest of his obligations could be fulfilled if Lana batted her eyes and asked him to do something for her, instead. It was bad enough that her only real date with Clark had been cut short by Mother Nature herself, the chance to ever be more than friends with Clark, stillborn. But she could accept that, hard though it would be, if only Clark could still be a good friend like before. She'd listened to him yammer on about Lana for years and it hadn't killed her although there were moments when she could have gagged. Pete had told her she shouldn't have pulled the friends card on him when she did and maybe he was right but on that particular day, she just couldn't deal with the disappointment and rejection. As if that wasn't what she had now. One way or another, it seemed she was destined to part ways with Clark.
Chloe sighed and sat down on the window seat overlooking the back yard. Her father intended to plant a small garden this year if he could find the time. Like he'd intended to tinker with her old falcon but he had been too busy at the plant lately, to ever work on it. A shame, really, because her dad was good with cars; in his youth he'd been a quite a mechanic, his skills earning him quite a bit of extra money even in high school. He'd proudly showed off his mechanic's overalls, saved all these years as a testament to his youth and an easier and less complicated time. The coveralls were now in the little garden shed out back, though it was doubtful their proud owner would ever put them on again.
The ding of the oven timer called her back to reality. She took another swig of her Lady Gray tea and went over to remove the last of the cookies. Baking was comforting, she'd found; probably because it reminded her of one cozy afternoon in her childhood when she'd been home sick from school and her mom had made cookies with her. It was the making more than the eating that seemed reassuring, all wrapped up with the memory of her long departed mother at a time when she'd actually cared about her daughter…best not to dwell on that old wound today. She really needed something else to keep her mind occupied.
A bowl of fruit caught her eye as she sat the cookie sheet down on the counter to cool. She got out the fruit dip, selected a plump Gala apple and grabbed a paring knife from the rack on the wall. It turned out to be as dull as a butter knife so she pulled out a steak knife and tried again. No luck there, either and as she tried one after another, she came to the conclusion that the Sullivan household didn't have a decent sharp cutting tool anywhere. Well, that was it then; her project had been chosen. She would sharpen every cutting implement she could find. Chloe reached in the bottom drawer for the sharpening steel but hesitated; that would take a while. Instead, she'd use the big grinder and have them all honed to a fine edge in no time.
Gathering up the knives and cleavers, she set them in a basket and carried them out to the shed where they kept the large grinder. Spreading them out on a workbench, she dragged the big grinder out of its dusty corner and started the big wheel in motion, sharpening the paring and steak knives first. Then she worked on several filleting blades, wondering why they had so many then moved on to the special slender blade she dubbed, "the four inch boner," cackling at her own dry wit. She then made quick work of the serrated bread knives as well as the slicing and carving blades then moved on to the larger and more formidable meat cleavers. They were quite large and as she sat at the wheel, grinding away at one huge blade, she imagined herself a crazed executioner in a medieval dungeon, sharpening her ax before she beheaded some unfortunate soul.
"Okay, I'm enjoying this way too much." She picked up the last blade, looking around the shed and wondering if she should start on the gardening implements.
***
Outside the shed, Clark Kent was crouching next to the back wall of the gardening shed behind a hedge of forsythia that grew up against it. He'd had a close call earlier when he'd zipped by Lex's car and stepped into a mud filled pothole next to it in a moment of inattention. He'd only managed to avoid falling flat on his face right in front of Lex by bouncing off the car. Clark could just imagine the astonished look on Lex's face if he'd seen him appear out of thin air and fall down naked in the middle of the road. At some point, he desperately needed to find something to wear and passing by, he'd thought of the Sullivan's unlocked shed and the old clothes they kept there. Unfortunately, he'd arrived to find Chloe in the shed, sharpening knives on a big grinding stone, of all things. And even though he was invulnerable unless there was Kryptonite around, the thought of Chloe wielding sharp blades made him vaguely uneasy, especially in his currently naked and very exposed state. Perhaps it was a feeling shared by beings with sensitive dangling parts across the galaxy, but as he watched her through a gap in the siding in a dark corner of the shed, he felt distinctly uneasy. He'd spotted an old pair of coveralls in a box next to the hole and if he could ease them out undetected, he'd be quickly on his way. As quietly as he could, Clark knelt down in front of the hole and slowly inched his long fingers through the gap, reaching for a sleeve that hung over the edge of a box.
***
Chloe finished the cleaver and let the wheel slow to a halt. It was starting to get dark and she decided to call it quits. The rays of the setting sun were starting to peek around the edges of the doorway, illuminating the coarse grain of the wood on the back wall. She imagined she could see a tall figure outlined there. Chloe chuckled then stopped suddenly, gasping at something all too real over in the corner. Through a hole in the wall of the shed she saw a pair of bare knees and…was that a…then a large hand was reaching in through the hole and it was trying to take her dad's coveralls. She yelled, "Hey!" and without thinking, she threw the cleaver she'd been holding, hitting the back wall with a satisfying thunk. The wood grain man would never have children. She grabbed up another cleaver and raced out the door, tearing around the shed to confront the thief.
By the time Chloe reached the back of the shed, he (no doubt about that) was long gone, leaving some very big footprints in the soft dirt beneath the forsythias. Quite large…the footprints, that is; about a size fourteen, she guessed. As far as the other evidence, well, she'd review that, later. The meat cleaver had pierced the wall and part of it now protruded outward; looking more closely, she saw something had gouged a deep notch in the large blade. Frowning, she turned and went into the shed to pick up the rest of her cutlery, still wondering what could have deformed the thick blade as she headed back inside the house.
***
Clark had taken off like a shot when the huge meat cleaver pierced the wall and slammed into his body. Several miles away, he stopped behind an overgrown snowball bush on Beresford Lane and quickly put on the stolen clothing. As Clark raced toward home, he decided maybe he should make another stab at getting back in Chloe's good graces.
He hoped his parents wouldn't ask him where he got the coveralls.