A/N: Yay for the fun part of the story! The plot could take a while to develop, but I think there actually is one,… so keep reading. And please review; I greatly appreciate it. Sorry for the minimal checking for errors, just didn't have it in me this time.

Chapter 5: The Phantom Conspirator

Chloe couldn't believe how well Lex had turned that disaster outside into a mere joke, especially while she'd fixed him with her most contemptuous glare ever. She had to hand it to him, he did seem determined not to let her get to him. But it wasn't like she was trying. They just didn't mix well when thrown together, though she wasn't sure whether it was because they were too different or too much alike. She was sure they had both been raised to be tough strong-minded individuals, partly as compensation for both losing a parent at a young age. Aside from that and their mutual friends, they shared little else besides determination to learn the truth. However, in Lex's case, this was often substituted with determination to hide the truth, and in some cases it meant paying people off to burn the truth to the ground and bury the ashes. It was strange how easily he fit in with their little group, with the exception of Pete, of course. Lana seemed to have finally been able to place her trust in him after he agreed to her proposition of owning the Talon together, and Clark…. Well, Clark was just an abundantly confiding person who could probably find the good in a heinous dictator if he tried hard enough. Of course it would have to entail saving Lana somehow, because otherwise it wouldn't be the classic unexplained Clark Kent miracle.

"Chloe, are you alright?" Lana asked from her seat to Chloe's right, and her voice seemed alarmingly loud through the fog of thoughts still lingering around Chloe's brain. She sat up straight, suddenly quite aware she'd been sliding down into her soft movie theater seat. Looking around, she realized they had all sat down in a row near the top of the stadium-like seats, though she couldn't remember picking a seat next to Lana. There was nothing wrong with Lana, of course, she was after all one of Chloe's best friends. It was just that Lana and Chloe always sat by each other, and Clark and Pete always sat by each other, so everything always worked out nicely for everyone. However, with Pete making excuses to not join them, Chloe had made the mistake of letting Clark and Lana sit right next to each other.

Poor me and Lex, she thought, slumping back down into her chair a little more at the prospect of watching Lana and Clark make small talk and exchange little admiring glances for two hours. A part of Chloe realized that neither of them knew what it was doing to her, but at the same time she just wished they would wake up and see she needed a little more time to fully get over Clark.

"Yeah," she finally replied, "I'm fine. Just can't get comfy in these seats, it's like it's impossible."

Lana smiled her naturally warm smile and nodded, apparently buying that as the only real problem. Chloe leaned forward a little to look down the row to her right and saw Clark and Lex talking about something. From the look on Lex's face, she guessed Clark had picked the topic.

He looks just as thrilled as me, she thought to herself with a smile, and she suddenly found herself wondering what those two ever talked about. Most of the time, she figured, it was probably Wall-of-Weird related, which usually involved Clark somehow. If there was anything else Lex and Chloe had in common, she thought, it was that neither of them were quite as oblivious to Clark's mysterious hero feats as everyone else in Smallville. Of course, there was always Lionel Luthor's interest in Clark, even if it was for some sort of personal profit. Honestly, Chloe wasn't sure if Clark should be afraid of Lionel. There was something to be said of being one of the richest men in the world and therefore one of the most influential, but Lex had usually been able to keep his father in check. Then again, could Lex even be trusted to keep himself in check?

"This is nice," Lana said with a sigh as she allowed herself to slip slightly down into the questionable squishiness of her own chair. Chloe saw her looking around the theater and noticed for the first time that it was completely empty other than the four of them.

"Yeah," she replied slowly, "but it's also weird. Didn't this movie just come out last week?"

Clark and Lex had stopped talking and were apparently joining in the conversation now, as Clark nodded in affirmation and looked towards each exit in turn.

"You're right," he offered, "there should be other people here, shouldn't there?"

The lights high overhead on the ceiling blinked erratically for a moment and then went dim one by one, each light flickering once and then going out until the theater was dark but for the silent advertisements on the screen. The gray light from the screen cast a faint glow on the faces of the others as Chloe exchanged glances with them, and she had suddenly acquired a cautious feeling of uneasiness. But that made no sense… Clearly the movie just hadn't been a big hit, or some other new movie was racking up all the points with moviegoers, and therefore no one else was bothering with last week's news. And the lights in the old theater had been faulty in the past, just like most other things in Smallville designed to help bring in a profit. So what it really came down to was Chloe being paranoid, she figured.

"Did that look strange to anyone else?" Lex voiced from next to Clark, and Chloe cringed silently.

Yeah, but maybe if we just ignore it everything will be fine!

Just then the screen began to crackle, vertical lines dancing across the gray Pepsi advertisement as spots appeared and the projector blinked off, leaving the theater in almost total darkness. Chloe gripped her seat unknowingly as Lana exhaled suddenly from beside her, and Chloe wondered if the power had gone out everywhere in the theater. But that wouldn't explain the projector, would it? Did those things even run on electricity?

"Guys, what's going on?" Lana said with noticeable worry.

It was times like this when Chloe really hated sitting on the outside of their little group. She always found it was nice to be between two people, especially when her mind started to go crazy with images of teen slasher movies like Urban Legend and Scream (A/N: haha, Michael Rosenbaum was in Urban Legend).

"The power probably just went out," Clark said reassuringly, and Chloe was this close to believing it when the big metal doors to either side of the theater slammed shut loud enough for all four of them to jump slightly. They all exchanged glances for a second before Clark and Lex jumped up to go investigate. They were halfway down the stairs when Lana looked at Chloe sideways, a look which Chloe interpreted to mean "Screw staying here by ourselves!" Despite her inner voice of logic, Chloe agreed wholeheartedly.

They hurried over to the stairs and began hastily making their way down when Chloe slipped on something rather sticky and fell backwards onto her butt despite Lana's best efforts.

"Chloe!" Lana yelled as the sound of Clark and Lex trying different exits clattered below. From on the floor, Chloe looked up and behind her as something moving caught her attention. She sat up and spun around, temporarily ignoring the stickiness of whatever she was sitting in to look up at the window to the projector booth. To her shock, the black silhouette of a tall man in a top-hat came into view just inside the projector booth behind the window. The man tipped his top-hat forward as if making to bow then slinked away into the dark void of the booth.

"Who the hell was that?" Chloe asked, barely able to get her voice to work. Lana looked up at her from a few steps below with a baffled stare like Chloe was going insane.

"What are you talking about?" Lana asked in unison with Chloe thoughts. Naturally, having not fallen on the floor like Chloe, Lana didn't see the man in the projector's booth. But she was certain she'd seen him! Just as she was about to get up and try to clean herself off, one of the overhead lights directly above Chloe switched on with a luminescent whit glow amidst the dark theater. It cast a pale light on Chloe as she looked up at it and then at Lana, who was suddenly clasping her hand to her mouth in horror. Chloe was about to turn to see if the man in the booth was back when she caught sight of what Lana was gaping at… Looking down at the floor, Chloe found that the sticky substance she had slipped on was not pop or some other drink as she had expected, but a sticky pool of something deep red that she could only guess was blood. She felt the needle-like pricks of panic surge through her body, starting in her stomach and spreading until her hands began to tremble as she brought them up palms first to find them covered with the vivid crimson color of the substance. Chloe suddenly felt a shadow of logic seize her briefly as she wondered if she had injured herself from the fall, but it passed as soon as she saw the origin of the puddle. The small stream seemed to be trickling down the stairs from a crack at the bottom of the windowsill of the projector booth where the phantom silhouette had been just moments before.

"Come on!" Lana said shakily, reaching a slender arm out to help Chloe, who remained in a horrified daze. Still trembling from the encounter, with images of the tophatted man replaying in her head, she felt Lana grab her by her arm and pull her to her feet, and it was all she could do to follow her down the stairs and avoid the stickiness that coated them and clung to her shoes.

"What the hell!" Chloe finally managed to scream as they reached the bottom of the stairs and turned sharply to the right in search of Clark or Lex at one of the exits. She tried desperately to wipe the blood from her hands, but from where she had fallen on the floor the color had stained her skirt and had smeared down her shirt as well, turning the formerly green outfit to an ugly shade of reddish brown all down her side and bottom.

"You didn't see him?" she asked slightly less frantically, jogging to catch up with Lana in front of her as they sped down the dark hallway of turns to the exit hidden at the back of the theater, and finding it exceedingly difficult in her lousy choice of high heels. Lana barely seemed to hear her, but looked over her shoulder at Chloe, at which point it became apparent that she had lost most of the color in her face.

"See who?" she replied sounding frustrated with a question that didn't pertain to the disturbing encounter they had just had. Chloe knew it was stupid to keep prying when clearly Lana had no idea to whom she was referring, but she judged that her reasons were reputable for acting insensibly at the moment.

"The guy! The guy with the top hat… He was in the window at the top of the stairs! You didn't see him at all?"

Lana's only response was a sudden quickening of her pace as Lex came into view as they turned the corner. His pallid form was visible even in such darkness as the lack of electricity afforded them, and Chloe couldn't help but feel relieved when he heard them coming and turned towards them, abandoning his efforts to open the clearly locked exit door. Some light shone in through the window on the door from the illumination of the snack bar just outside the exit, and it cast a dull orange tint on the features of all three of them as they met by the door.

"Looks like someone had this planned ahead of time," Lex started to say, but stopped as he saw Chloe trying to wipe the blood from her hands onto the soft purple carpeting of the wall beside her. Even in the panicky state she was in, she interpreted his expression as concern, which was refreshingly surprising to see.

"Chloe, what happened?" he asked, his voice betraying any suggestion that he was only slightly worried.

Chloe was feeling suddenly very exposed, completely a mess and out of her mind with worry and frustration rearing their ugly heads. She'd never really felt the need to try to impress anyone, least of all the self-absorbed materialistic type of guy, but right now she really would have loved to have had a minute to compose herself in front of a mirror or something. The fact that Clark would soon be present wasn't exactly comforting in that sense either.

"I'm fine," she answered rather hoarsely, as though she had momentarily forgotten how to speak. She cleared her throat and continued,

"I just… I slipped in something. I think it was blood."

Hearing it out loud, it sounded like something out of a cheesy horror movie, but she had more than enough proof that it had indeed happened. Images of the mysterious silhouette flashes again in her mind, and she tried once more to make a connection to who the figure might have been.

"It was coming from the projector booth. So, I don't know…. That might be somewhere to start looking, if I'm correct in assuming that identifying any conspirators is a step in the right direction?"

Lana looked at her as though wondering whether Chloe had really seen anyone there or not. Maybe this was a good thing, after all, since the overwhelming need to prove her sanity in identifying the tophatted man would drive her past her fears of what awaited in the projector booth.

Just then, they heard Clark's distant yell from the other exit at the other end of the theater and all three of them started off at a run down the dark hallway.

Sorry if this is an awful ending place! Also, I hope someone is still reading this! Hahha… Reviewers, though scanty in numbers, you are greatly prized!

Kit Merlot- Wow, you totally get everything I was going for! Yes, I too like Lex's attitude on Lana's "comedy." Hah.

Campbti- Thanks so much! The Chloe/Lex jabs were SO fun to write! I'm just waiting for a chance to do more.

JohnnyPeaches- You sound just like my friend who loves Johnny Depp, too! ;) Yeah, I like Lex's point of view too.

AhToLoveABat- I love people who love the banter! We should start a club!

chloedouble1011- I know, I really wanted people to be surprised by his laughing, 'cause you don't see it on the show!