I had this one ready surprisingly fast. I did pre-write most of this stuff a while back, so all I had to do before posting was correct some mistakes and check for plotholes. If anyone notices any in this one, please let me know and I hope you like it. There's only a few chapters left in Part 1 and when Part 2 gets here, some more characters will be coming and one of them is in this chapter.

Chapter 3

The Wall of Weird

Early the next morning, Clark went up into the loft and soon found himself standing by the telescope. He hadn't used it to look at anything other than the stars in over a month, since he'd given up on the practice of looking at Lana with it after Greg Arkin was crushed in the Creekside Foundry. Ever since he found out about Greg's extra-curricular activities, Clark was afraid of becoming just like him (even if Greg's methods were far more invasive) and for the longest time, couldn't bring himself to use it for that purpose.

Today, however, Clark fell victim to his temptation while he wiped the dust off the lens with a soft cleaning cloth. Then he tossed the used wipe aside and allowed himself to look. He aimed the telescope at Nell's porch, where he found Whitney giving Lana a book for her birthday, to apologize for not being able to make it on the big day.

The two of them had been dating for a little over a year, after meeting each other for the first time when Lana was a Sophomore and Whitney was a Junior. Though they had always been a year apart in age, they never noticed each other until that one spring day when they ran into each other while horseback riding. When the quarterback turned Clark into a scarecrow out of jealousy, it was the first time the tradition had been altered in such a way that the target wasn't even a Freshman. When Clark saw them embrace one another, he backed off from the telescope for a bit, feeling frustrated with himself.

After a little break, he looked through the telescope one more time, but then he heard Chloe's voice coming from the steps. "Getting your morning Lana fix?"

Surprised, he looked up and saw her standing by the stairs, trying and failing to hide the smile that was forming on her face.

"Chloe, don't you ever knock?" he asked, now feeling annoyed.

"It's a barn, Clark," she reminded him.

"Is there a reason your dad brought you here so early, or do you just enjoy busting my chops?"

Chloe flashed him a grin. "A little of both."

Then she walked over and handed him the newspaper from a couple days earlier. "I'm not sure how I missed this, but my dad figured it would be up my alley. A deer was found on Route Five with all of its blood drained out of it."

Now intrigued, Clark took it from her and carefully looked it over. According to the article, the deer had first been hit by a car, before some unidentified creature bit the carcass and drained about ninety percent of its blood supply.

"Huh, that is weird," Clark said. "So, what are we supposed to do about it?"

"I was hoping you could take us to see the remains before school. I figured that since you live on a farm, your parents probably know someone from animal control who can let us in."

Clark chuckled and started cramming books into his backpack. "Chloe, last time I checked, I only have a permit, not an actual license. Besides, I'm more worried about finding a gift for Lana right now."

"Maybe your dad can take us then," Chloe suggested. "If we look into this, then we can probably figure out why the feds are here."

Not really paying much attention, Clark grabbed his book bag and started to walk away, so she blocked his path with the paper that was in her hand. "I'll help you pick out a gift after school."

Finally giving in, Clark agreed. "Okay, we'll see if my dad will take us there, but I want Lana's gift to be something special."

Once they had come to an agreement, they descended the stairs and went up to the house to see if Jonathan would be willing to help them out.

Another school day came and went, but Jodi and her new friends were nowhere to be seen and Clark was still far too preoccupied with coming up with a gift for Lana's birthday to care about it. He was, however, still concerned about Pete's well-being, so he stopped by the Torch Office to do some last minute investigating with his friends, but they were already hard at work when he got there.

As soon as Clark entered the room, Pete motioned for him to come over to the computer to see what they learned. "Hey, Clark! You'll never guess what we found!"

Suddenly curious, Clark went around the desk and read the title of the article that was on the screen. "Missing girl returns home… Where's this article from?"

"It's from the town in Wisconsin where Lisa grew up," Chloe explained. "She went missing back in April and was gone for a few months, but then one day she just showed up in her hometown and was acting like Jodi. Not long after that, she transferred to Smallville High."

Clark leaned down and skimmed the article until he discovered something else interesting. "It says that her dad is a U.S. Marshal. He was the one that found her. She was wandering around in the street, covered with sunburns…"

Pete sighed. "Man, that part was messed up."

Clark stood back up and noticed the newspaper from earlier sitting on the desk. "So, what's your theory on Lisa?"

Pete answered the question before Chloe had a chance to say anything. "Chloe thinks she might be a vampire. If that's true, then Jodi might be one too."

Clark gave both of his friends a confused look. "Vampires? Literal vampires? Come on, Chloe…"

Chloe gave Clark a confused look of her own. "It isn't any more ridiculous than the things on the wall. You saw the bite marks on the deer this morning!"

Clark nodded. "You're right. It was kind of strange…"

Pete smirked at Clark when the trip to animal control came up. "I still can't believe you got your dad to take you there."

Chloe looked up at Pete and explained, "Mister Kent was worried about the possibility of some new, invasive species in the area. If it's attacking deer, the cows could be next."

Pete looked at Clark again, who now appeared to be deep in thought, and snapped his fingers at him. "Hey, Clark. Are you still with us?"

Suddenly coming out of whatever trance he fell into, Clark looked up at Pete and then glanced down at Chloe. "There's something else you guys should know… When those feds first showed up, I overheard them talking. They said something about blood suckers coming out in the daylight and Lisa being the leader of a nest."

This annoyed his friends big time. Chloe gave him a 'what the hell' kind of look and asked, "Why didn't you tell us about that before?"

Like a deer in the headlights, Clark froze. "I don't know. Probably for the same reason you didn't show me the Wall of Weird right away."

Still looking annoyed, Chloe turned her attention back to the computer screen. "Touché."

Feeling bad about keeping such an important detail a secret, Clark apologized to his friends. "I'm sorry, I wasn't even sure if I heard them right. I didn't want to say anything until I was certain."

Chloe started to say something else, but then they heard a knocking sound come from the doorway. When they looked over and saw Lex Luthor standing there, the twenty-three-year-old businessman walked in wearing his business attire with a friendly smile on his face.

"I hope I'm not interrupting. I came to meet with your principal. Apparently, your school's computer lab needs an upgrade, so I figured I could help."

Clark smiled back. "Hey, Lex. We're just doing some research on another one of Chloe's theories."

"Speaking of theories." Lex went over to the Wall of Weird and examined the news clippings and photographs, before turning his attention to Chloe. "Your father told me about the work you do for the Torch, so I stopped by to check it out."

Pete gave Lex a dirty look and started heading for the door. "I'll see you guys around."

Lex glanced at him briefly, but then his gaze returned to Chloe. "I like your meteor rock theory, it's fascinating."

At first, Chloe was speechless. "Uh, wha- Thanks! So far, the only other person that thinks so is Mister Hamilton."

"The guy that sells plastic meteor fragments by the side of the road?" Lex walked over to the desk, suddenly curious. "Is he a fan of yours?"

"Not really," Chloe answered. "We just have similar interests."

Lex chuckled. "It's nice to know that not everyone blames my company for everything that goes wrong around here." Then he noticed the newspaper on the desk and picked it up so he could look at it. "So, what's your theory on this?"

He turned the paper around so Clark and Chloe could see the article about the deer again and Clark answered, "We're still working on it. Chloe thinks we might have a meteor rock infused vampire in town."

Chloe laughed nervously and then Clark made a quick announcement. "Anyway, I have to go. I'm gonna find Lana and see if I can get some ideas from her for a birthday gift. I only have until tomorrow."

Lex put the paper down and slapped Clark on the shoulder. "I hear you're escorting the birthday girl. Nice work. Nell's been working hard to get everything ready for the big party, so I'll see you there."

Then Clark smiled at his friend and hurried out of the office to meet up with Lana, leaving Lex and Chloe behind.

Clark found Lana sitting in the bleachers by the football field, reading the book that Whitney gave her that morning. After a brief conversation about the book and Nell's party preparations, he discovered the secret behind her dislike of birthdays and came up with the perfect idea for a gift in the process. Then she brought up her concerns about the big math test that would be coming before the party and Clark did his best to reassure her.

"I hope I can remember everything we went over during the test tomorrow," Lana said, still not feeling sure of herself.

"You'll do fine," Clark said with a grin. "It'll be over before you know it and you can blow off some steam at the party."

Lana laughed. "You have a lot of confidence in me, don't you?"

Clark grabbed his backpack and got up from the bench he had been sitting on. "Definitely. Anyway, I have to get home and get my chores done."

Lana grabbed her book and got up as well. "Thanks for helping me with that. It would've been so much easier if we could've stuck with basic math, like we learned when we were kids."

Clark slung the backpack over his shoulder. "It was no problem. Go through your notes again tonight and you'll be good to go. I'll see you tomorrow."

After they parted ways, he took the steps down to the track that went around the football field and headed for the exit. He opened and closed the gate in the fence that surrounded the field and made his way to the nearest parking lot, looking for a place to use his super speed without being noticed, but then he heard voices and took cover behind a large, black pickup truck.

Listening closely, he heard Sean Kelvin's voice and it sounded like he was talking to a female student. At first, he thought it was his new girlfriend Lisa, but soon he realized that it was someone else.

"Jenna Barnum?" Clark whispered to himself as he crept around the truck to get a good look at them.

He spotted Sean and Jenna heading towards the rusty, beat-up car that Sean always drove and they both got in. Today, the vampire was wearing his Crows jacket, instead of the black clothes he'd been wearing the day before when he was hanging out with Jodi and the others. Knowing the truth about what they all were, Clark had a bad feeling about this. He knew that he would have to follow them and stop Sean before he killed his ex.

"Where are we?" Jenna asked, when Sean pulled his car up to the front of an old, abandoned house in the woods.

She looked up at it in disgust. The windows were boarded up, the roof was sagging and full of holes, and the steps to the front porch looked like they had been partially chewed up by termites.

Sean looked at Jenna with a creepy smile. "It's just an old house. No one will bother us here."

Jenna smiled at him but didn't find anything exciting about the situation. While she was looking at her ex-boyfriend, it became obvious that something was off. Not only did he have a huge bandage on the side of his face, but the smell of chemicals was so strong in the car that she almost felt like gagging.

"Is there somewhere else we can go?" she asked. "I don't like it here."

Ignoring her, he got out and went around to her side of the car. Feeling a bit scared, Jenna scooched over towards the driver's seat, trying to stay as far away from Sean as she could when he opened the door.

He looked down at her and his smile faded. "Come on, it'll be fun."

Jenna hesitated and then Sean became angry. "Come on Jenna, this won't take long! Just come inside and we'll have a good time, alright?"

"No, Sean, please take me home," she begged. "Something is wrong with you!"

Not wanting to wait for her anymore, Sean grabbed her by the arm and yanked her out of the car. "Come on, Jenna!"

He wrapped his arms around her torso and began pulling her towards the front door of the house. The sun shone down at them from the mostly cloudy sky and Jenna noticed the smell of burning flesh. Looking down, she saw that the sun was slowly cooking the skin on one of his hands.

"No, Sean, let me go!" Jenna screamed as she struggled against his grip, but he was much stronger than she remembered, and he easily dragged her up the steps.

Sean finally let her go once they were inside and he barred the door shut with a 2x4. Seeing this as a chance to get away, Jenna turned and ran, hoping to find a back door, but her ex moved so fast that he easily blocked the doorway she was gunning for.

"Sean, please!" she begged. "Why are you doing this?!"

Sean grabbed her by the arms and smiled. "I promise this won't hurt much, Jenna. I'm tired of sharing with the others. All I want is to feed and enjoy myself."

Then he opened his mouth and fangs came out of his gums as he spun her around and pressed her back against the wall. Jenna tried to push him away as he prepared to bite down on her neck, but he was too strong for her. "No! Sean!"

Sean's fangs were just about to pierce the skin on her neck when the door that was held shut by the 2x4 exploded into a shower of splinters and Clark burst into the house, tearing up his red flannel shirt along the way. "Let her go, Sean!"

Sean kept Jenna in a firm grip, but the commotion scared him, and he whipped his head around to face the intruder. "How did you get here, Kent?!"

Clark took a step towards him and balled his hands into fists. "I said let her go. I won't say it again."

Jenna continued to struggle against the monster that was holding onto her, so Sean turned her around so he could use her as a hostage and smiled, showing Clark his fangs. "Or what? Do you even know what I am?"

"A monster," was Clark's reply, before seemingly vanishing into thin air and appearing behind them. He freed Jenna from Sean's grip and then the vampire turned and punched him in the face, causing him to fly backwards through one of the thin walls of the dilapidated structure, into another room with cardboard boxes strewn about on the floor and water-damaged furniture sitting in the corners.

Not wanting to see what was going to happen next, Jenna made her escape. She found a back door and took off running through the patch of woods that surrounded the old house. Behind her, she heard shouting and wood snapping and forced herself to run even faster. As she fled through the trees, she glanced over her shoulder, afraid that either Sean or Clark would be there to suck her blood but doing so prevented her from noticing the root sticking out of the ground up ahead, causing her to trip over it and cry out as she fell.

"Keep running, Jenna," she told herself as she frantically tried to get back up. "Keep running!"

Once she was back on her feet, two older men wearing leather jackets and jeans came around a thick cluster of leafless bushes with machetes in their hands, stopping Jenna in her tracks. One of them appeared to be in his early sixties and the other his late forties and the younger of the two held a crossbow in his other hand, where she noticed blood dripping down from the tip of the bolt that was in it.

"Don't hurt me!" Jenna begged as she put up her hands and started sobbing. "Please… Don't hurt me…"

"We're here to help," the younger man said. "Dan, take her back to the truck! I'll handle the vampire!"

Daniel lowered his machete and Jenna hugged him, despite not knowing anything about these strangers, while his young partner ran in the direction she had come from. Then he put one arm around her and allowed her to cry on his shoulder for a moment, before he helped her escape from the woods and took her back to the place where they hid the truck.