Smallville: The Darkest Night
Synopsis: On the night of Clark's senior trip Smallville suddenly falls under the sway of a power that even he cannot fight. How can he defeat the menace of a mentally disturbed teen that can do anything, and what does it have to do with that drifter that's living in his car down by the river?
Category: Smallville
Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama
Rating: PG13 for violence, teen angst, implied sexuality, gratuitous canoncide, and everything else that makes the TV show great. Incidentally, nobody in this story is homosexual. Not even Lex. Deal with it.
Author's notes: This takes place sometime in season four of Smallville, which I assume to be Clark's senior year. The story is meant to stand by itself and not be part of thelarger storyline.
Prologue:
It was just another night in Smallville, Kansas.
The former creamed corn capital of the world and current alien meteor rock capital was known for its normalcy, which was a laugh. Not only was it perhaps the least normal place with the least normal inhabitant in the world, but also had a history of monumentally bad fortune. The meteor strikes of the late 1980's were only a symptom of a greater problem. Nobody knew what it was about this little town that attracted trouble the way that it did… but tonight was no exception. Tonight would plant the seeds of a terror that would change lives forever, and nobody would recognize that terror's most unlikely messenger until it was too late.
After all… since when does terror drive a run-down El Camino?
Jonathan Kent was on his way back from a late run into town, which he had not intended to take nearly as long as it did. The Sheriff had once again bent his ear about how often his boy was in the middle of whatever trouble was going on. He had given her the normally polite brush off about it, thinking more about Clark than he was about the conversation with this woman. His boy had been on top of the world when he had won that State Championship as quarterback of the football team and been given a scholarship to Metropolis University. Then Alicia had been brutally murdered by a psychopath that believed he was on a moral mission, and he had never seen Clark so low. Despite the twisted events surrounding that day they had all held the hope that things might somehow settle down into something resembling normalcy.
They had been wrong.
The Chevy that was neither car nor truck swerved on old mill road, fishtailing dangerously at dangerous speed. Jonathan almost collided with the vehicle before he swerved out of its way, and his pacemaker almost gave out on him as he saw the El Camino go off the right side of the road and nearly slid into the lake. His mouth open to curse the idiot, but when he saw how much trouble he was in he stomped on his own brakes, screeching to a halt. The El Camino had just wrapped itself around a tree.
"Oh my God!" Kent gasped as he put his old truck in neutral and pulled the E-brake.
He saw a man stumbling out of the car, either slightly hurt or very drunk, and begin staggering toward the lake.
Kent jumped out of his car and started running at the man, wondering what the hell he was doing.
"Mister! Are you ok? Do you need a doctor?" Kent yelled as he ran closer, but if the man heard him he gave no sign.
"Fearless!" he heard the man, who he could see was a young man, yell as he approached the lake.
"What?" John said, stopping a safe distance up the slope. He could smell the alcohol on the boy from here, and knew that this young man was in a lot of trouble.
Thestranger stumbled toward the water, muttering, but John could make out some of what he was saying.
"Fearless…" he said again "Without corruption… without fear… without corruption… got the wrong guy…"
"Son…" Kent said, drawing closer to him, but the young man sprung up to his full height and bellowed.
"DON'T YOU SEE YOU CHOSE THE WRONG GUY?" He screamed at the top of his lungs and threw something into the air over the water.
For a moment, John Kent was sure that he saw a glint of green, as pure as the meteor rocks that made Clark sick, sail over the water and plop into the lake. He didn't have long to dwell on it, though, because the young man collapsed on the shore.
"Son?" John repeated himself as he helped the drunk to his feet. "Are you ok? Do you need a doctor?"
"I'm not hurt. You… you got a bottle?" The pathetic wreck asked.
He should have been angry, but when Kent looked at the boy who was looking back at him he did not see a college age tough who got carried away with the liquid courage. He saw someone who needed some serious help, just like he had at that age.
"I don't have a bottle, but I can take you somewhere safe… somewhere warm." He surprised himself by saying.
"Don't deserve safety… don't deserve warm…" the boy said.
"Deserve doesn't have anything to do with it. I'm John Kent, and you'll find the name means something around these parts. What's your name, son?"
"Mud." bubbled from between the boy's lips as he leaned against what was left of his car.
John had to keep himself from smiling "Other than that."
"Harold." He said.
"Well, Harold… I think that you should come with me before the sheriff shows up. This accident hurt nobody but that tree, and it would be a shame for you to lose your whole life over one stupid night. My Farm is just down the road. You can sleep it off and we can come back out to get this car in the morning. Nobody should be able to see it from the road. What do you say?"
"Don't think… I can argue." He said inarticulately.
"You're right." John Kent said as he slapped the kid on the shoulder. He didn't know why he was doing this, but it was not the first time he had done something against the law to help a lost soul. Sometimes, the right thing to do was not always the legal one. He just hoped that Martha agreed with him.
Neither one of them gave any mind to the object that was not sinking as it should have to the bottom of the lake. Instead, it was caught on a current that would take it all the way around the rim of the body of water to end up in the very worst place that it could possibly end up. But that was a story for another day, and as John Kent piled hapless, drunk, Harold into his truck he had no idea of the terror that tomorrow would bring. He had no way of knowing that it would wield a power that even his son would be powerless against.
Tomorrow would be the darkest night Smallville would ever know.
Next:
The Lake