They woke up the next morning to a cloudy gray sky. So far they'd been lucky in the weather, only having one rain shower, and that a mild one that had been at night when they were in the tent. It looked like a downpour threatened today.
Lana grimaced at the fish on the cooking grill. On one hand, it was extremely fresh, Clark having gone into the lake and caught it literally minutes ago. On the other hand, it would taste a lot better with butter and lemon. They were down to what they could hunt and gather. Frankly, she thought, living off the land was overrated.
"Give me some highly processed food any day", she muttered to herself.
Clark laughed as he heard her muffled comment.
Lana looked up in chagrin. "I'm sorry, Clark. I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate your efforts. I do, and it's really good of you to go out fishing and get all wet. It's just…I'm ready to get back to civilization."
"That makes two of us", he said. "I'm ready for a hamburger and fries anytime now."
"Oooh…" Lana said, "You know, Clark, I'm salivating over the thought of a Quarter Pounder."
"Me too", Clark agreed. "Plus a chocolate shake." He continued. "I really think that today we can get to a city or town. Then we can get you and Laura checked out." He'd been worried about that; he wanted them to have proper medical care. Clark looked up at the sky. "And from the way that sky looks, we'd better get going soon before the rain starts."
Lana looked up and agreed. She quickly finished her fish breakfast, and finished nursing Laura. She tied up the halter-type bandeau she wore, and buttoned her blouse. (Her brassieres didn't fit her at all right now, and she'd been desperate for some sort of support. This was the best thing she could come up with the materials she had.) She and Clark did their morning ablutions. Clark packed up the campsite and scooped her up as usual.
They were silent as he ran; both considered what they would do when they were back in the company of others. Clark found himself fatalistic about his secret; either Lana would be able to keep it (aided by hypnotic suggestion) or she wouldn't. In either case, he'd done all he could do. He felt that Lana cared about him enough that she wouldn't voluntarily tell the secret, and hopefully the hypnosis would guard against the unconscious betrayal. Right now he was more concerned about getting Lana and the baby to safety. It had been a "Survivor"-type experience but now it was time to get home.
Lana found herself ready to get back home, back to regular meals and warm soft beds, but she would regret losing the closeness with Clark. It had been a magical interlude, close companionship with him. Despite the initial fear and horror, she didn't regret learning his secret. She thought about how much he had done for her, and wanted to reciprocate. The best thing she could do would be to protect the knowledge of Clark's origin and powers.
Lana thought about the strange mental feeling she had when she hid her knowledge of Clark's secret, and how she had honed and practiced that feeling. Even now, secure in Clark's arms, she could feel herself reaching for the proper mental state to trigger the concealment. Every time she did this odd mental practice, it became easier.
Laura squirmed in her carrier, bringing Lana back from her thoughts. That was out of the ordinary; Laura usually slept while Clark ran, apparently lulled to sleep by the regular motion, the warmth, and the closeness of Clark and Lana's heartbeats.
Lana looked up – the forest was thinning. It was odd, really; they'd been in the sea of green, with only minor clearings, so long that now it felt almost abnormal to see open country.
"We're getting to the edge of the forest, aren't we?" she asked.
Clark said, "Get ready for some major speed pretty soon." He sounded happy. "I'll let you know. When I give you the word, I want you to turn your head inward towards my chest. That'll protect your eyes."
"Oh", Lana said. She hadn't really thought about that.
They came to the edge of the forest; they were definitely into open country now. Clark gave a small smile; Lana could feel a change in his running rhythm. Then Laura began to cry.
"We'd better make a pit stop", Lana said. Clark slowed down.
"OK."
He put her down; she fed Laura, burped her, changed her. Clark hovered around like he usually did. When Lana handed him the dirty diaper (as usual), this time he didn't put it away in the plastic bag for cleaning later on that night as he usually did. Lana saw him blur away, then come back a few minutes later holding a clean, dry diaper.
"Clark!"
He looked abashed. "I just ran back to the lake to clean it."
Lana couldn't really yell at him for that, despite her nervousness about being left alone.
Clark pointed off in the distance. "There's a highway that way." You could walk there if you had to, if something happened to me, he thought. He could tell Lana had the same thought.
Changing the subject, Clark looked up at the sky. Definitely grayer and more threatening. "Lana, I don't like to hurry you, but I think we're going to get caught in the rain."
She took her attention from Laura for a moment, looked up. A frown crossed her face. "You're right." At that very moment, a light drizzle began. Lana gave a rueful smile.
"Speak of the devil…" She fumbled with the makeshift diaper and safety pins. Clark was about to offer to do it himself, in super-speed, but was glad he hadn't said anything when Lana finished it in a shorter time than he would have thought possible.
The drizzle changed to a pounding rain. Clark stared in dismay; this storm was serious, and getting worse fast. And Lana and the baby were both getting wet. Let's get them to shelter ASAP, Clark, he told himself.
Lana fumbled with the baby carrier, but soon had it arranged to their satisfaction. Clark picked her up again, tensed his muscles to run. A loud thunderclap startled him, disrupted his preparations. Laura began to cry, frightened by the noise. The rain drummed down harder – it was turning into a real summer thunderstorm.
Clark said to Lana, "Ready?" Another thunderclap drowned out his words. He looked over in concern as a lightning bolt touched down. By force of habit, he counted seconds between the lightning and the next thunderclap. He frowned; there was hardly any time between.
Time to get moving. Clark figured that he could outrun the storm with a little time spent in super-speed. He gave Lana a reassuring smile, scooped her up. "Turn your head", he said belatedly, realizing he was about to set off with Lana facing outward, her eyes exposed to the almost supersonic speeds he could attain.
Lana obediently put her head on his chest, holding Laura in the "V" formed between their bodies. She flinched as another thunderclap boomed. Laura was howling now, obviously unhappy.
Clark looked around in concern. That last lightning strike was entirely too close. It was definitely time to get out of Dodge.
He set off running. To him, the raindrops stopped falling; Laura's cry cut off; Lana's heartbeat slowed to nothing; she and the baby were frozen statues in his arms. The eerie surreality of the world when he moved in superspeed always reminded him of a Dali painting.
Clark ran. In a moment too short to be perceived by normal human time senses, he was at the highway. He got onto the highway, began running. He brushed past raindrops suspended in mid-air, a thicker curtain than he'd expected. This storm ranked right up there with some of the summer thunderstorms he'd lived through in Kansas. Apprehensively, he glanced upward at the threatening clouds.
An ozone-like odor and a strange feeling to the air were his only warning signs. Despite his super-speed, electricity moved faster still. With malign fate, almost as if it were searching for him, a bolt of lightning speared the running figure. The electrical discharge traveled through him, and then through Lana and the baby. Clark fell out of super-speed, gasping for breath. An eldritch blue aura outlined them for a moment as the lightning hit. He could feel Lana convulsing in his arms.
. Frantically he looked at Lana and the baby, slipping in and out of X-ray vision, desperate to find if they had been injured. Laura seemed to be OK; he could see her heart beating strongly. Clark quickly turned to Lana, scanning her unconscious form.
Oh God. Lana wasn't breathing. Clark took another quick glance at her heart. He'd heard of this before but he'd never seen it. Instead of the forceful, coordinated beat it should have had, the heart muscle writhed and squirmed, looking like a bag of worms. It's ventricular fibrillation, he remembered, having done a lot of research on cardiac conditions after his father's heart attack. The next line in the medical textbook came to him. If the arrhythmia occurs for more than a few seconds, blood circulation will cease and death will occur.
Moving as quickly as he dared, Clark set Lana down, and threw off his backpack. He removed the baby carrier and set Laura to the side. Panicking, he tried to remember the basics of the Red Cross class he'd taken one summer. He grabbed at half-recalled facts. Then he mentally thanked the instructor who'd given him a simple way to remember.
"It's A-B-C. Airway, Breathing, Circulation."
Clark went over it quickly. A for Airway – he opened her mouth, did the oral sweep with his finger. Lana wasn't choking, had an open airway with no obstructions. No problem there.
B for Breathing – she wasn't. He quickly tipped her head back, put his mouth to her, gave her a rescue breath. He realized that what breath remained to her was actually hot. Later he realized that the lightning had heated the air within her lungs.
C for Circulation – there was a big problem. Her heart had stopped. Clark frantically x-rayed it – still fibrillating. He momentarily panicked. I need an electrical defibrillator. I don't have one. What to do? Clark got ready to start CPR, not knowing what else to do, then remembered one thing he'd read long ago, one day, when he'd been surfing the Web and messing around on Wikipedia. The precordial thump. The textbook words came back to him.
"A precordial thump is a medical procedure used in the initial response to a witnessed cardiac arrest when no defibrillator is immediately available. About 25 of patients in cardiac arrest who received a thump on the precordium regained cardiac function. To perform a precordial thump, a highly trained provider such as a paramedic or physician strikes a single very carefully aimed blow with the fist to the center of the patient's sternum. The intent is to possibly interrupt a heart-damaging rhythm. The precordial thump is thought to produce an electrical depolarization of 2 to 5 Joules. However, the thump is effective only if used at the onset of ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia and so should be used only when the arrest is witnessed or monitored."
Clark dithered for just a moment, worried about damaging Lana further. He wasn't a highly trained medical provider, he thought desperately. Then Clark realized he had to do it. Hurriedly, he raised her shirt, seeing strange fernlike branching red markings on her skin. He ripped off her halter brassiere, felt for her breastbone. Finding the center, he drew in a deep breath. Guessing at the right amount of strength to use, and sending up a prayer, he flicked with his finger. Her body recoiled from the blow.
Clark stared at her, frantic with worry. Then he gave a deep sigh of relief as he saw Lana's heart shudder back into rhythm, begin beating once again. Clark tipped her head back, gave her another rescue breath. He had to do it once again; then suddenly she gave a gasp, coughed, and began breathing on her own. Clark picked her up, held her close, oblivious of the drenching rain and the dirt on the side of the road, shaking with fear at Lana being so close to death.
With a screech of brakes, a pickup truck stopped, its tires spraying them with water from the quick stop. Clark looked up in surprise.
"Are you all right?" A concerned man got out of the cab, ran to them.
"We were hit by lightning", Clark blurted out. He didn't want to let Lana go. He could feel her heart, her breathing; she was unconscious.
The driver looked at Laura, crying in her carry sling, lying next to the roadway. "What about her?"
Clark couldn't answer.
The driver, a stocky, middle-aged man, said decisively, "Let's get you to a hospital." The man picked up Laura. Clark, dazed, allowed the man to guide him to the cab of the pickup. He climbed in, still holding Lana. The driver put Laura down on the seat between them; Clark spared a hand to hold her.
"It's only a few more miles to the town", said the man, a determined expression on his face. He put the truck in gear and drove off. Clark checked the speedometer – the driver certainly wasn't sparing the horses. Rain-drenched landscape zoomed by as they sped into town.
Clark focused on Lana, concerned about her ragged breathing. He frowned as he X-rayed her again; the lightning strike had definitely damaged her lungs. At least her heart rhythm seemed stable now.
Their Good Samaritan pulled up at the emergency entrance of a small regional hospital. Shouting, clearing the way, the man led them into the ER. There, concerned medical personnel took Lana from Clark's arms and rushed her in for treatment; another group gathered around Laura.
Clark stood, slowly coming out of his daze. Unfortunately, he'd spent enough time in the Smallville Medical Center and other hospitals to be familiar with emergency procedures. Just another episode, he thought bitterly. He always seemed to be bringing in, or visiting, someone he cared about.
"You all right, buddy?" A hand clapped his shoulder. Clark looked, startled, into the eyes of the pickup driver who'd taken them to the hospital. He remembered his manners.
"I'm fine", he said. "Thank you so much." Clark shook the man's hand, trying to put the gratitude he felt into his words. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."
"I hope that everyone does well", the man said. Clark was about to say more when a nurse came to him.
"Sir? We need to get some information from you—" Clark turned around to thank his rescuer once again, but the man was walking out the door. I never even got his name, Clark thought.