“This is Jeremy Creek, taken twelve years ago,” Chloe Sullivan announced, holding up a photograph of a boy from an old school yearbook.
“And this picture was taken four hours ago.”
She pointed toward the computer monitor, where the newer photograph was displayed.
“Huh.
He aged pretty well.
Was he kept in a freezer?” I joked.
“Almost.
I looked into it.
He was in a coma for twelve years.
He had an electrolytic imbalance, which is why he didn’t age.
Three days ago, he disappeared from the hospital after a generator accident.”
“He just woke up?”
“They repaired the generator, but Jeremy was already gone.”
“And now he’s wandering around town charged up like a battery,” Pete Ross cut in.
Where the hell was I, anyway?
Who were these people?
My friends, apparently.
I’d somehow ended up as a member of the journalism club.
More specifically, I was on the editorial staff of the school newspaper, the Torch.
There were three of us in the group: Chloe Sullivan, a short, hyperactive, ridiculously curious blonde who seemed physically incapable of leaving a mystery alone; me; and Pete Ross, who was about Chloe’s height and had his hair cut almost down to the scalp.
Well, “about Chloe’s height” was actually a little unfair.
Pete and I were the same age and in the same class, just like Chloe.
I remembered both of them as soon as I saw them.
They were funny kids, and I had a good relationship with both of them, so there was no reason to turn down their invitation to stop by the Torch’s office.
That was when the two amateur detectives attacked me with an entire bucketful of “shocking” information.
Apparently, we had a serial killer walking around Smallville.
Three victims already.
All former athletes.
Interesting.
“But why is he targeting them?
What’s his pattern?” I asked, giving them the question they were clearly waiting for.
“Because they made him the Scarecrow!
Twelve years ago!” Pete answered excitedly, completely missing the fact that my question hadn’t been phrased quite the way he’d expected.
Apparently, the whole Scarecrow thing hit a nerve with him.
It turned out Smallville High had an unofficial tradition.
At the beginning of every school year, some of the football players would grab an unfortunate victim, usually the least popular nerd they could find, and hang him on a cross out in a field with a large letter “S” painted on his chest.
They did it around the time of the school dance.
Some stupid tradition, if you asked me.
“So they found him twenty meters from where the meteorite landed…” I read aloud from the underlined section of the newspaper clipping Chloe had shoved into my hands.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I think we should show him,” Ross said dramatically, then gave Sullivan a theatrical little punch on the shoulder.
“Show me what?” I played along.
The two conspirators silently walked over to a locked sliding door at the far end of the room.
They opened it and dramatically revealed an entire wall covered in newspaper clippings.
Hundreds of them.
“We call it the Wall of Weird!” Ross proclaimed.
“At first, we were just collecting clippings,” Chloe explained.
“But eventually it turned into a whole exhibit.
Everything strange and unexplained that’s happened in Smallville since the Meteor Shower is here.
That’s when it all started.”
“Everything?” I asked, skimming the articles.
“We think the green rocks that came down with the meteorites somehow affect people who come into contact with them.
They cause mutations.
Give people unusual abilities.”
“Interesting theory.
Any actual evidence?”
“An entire wall,” Pete replied with a smug grin.
I looked over the collection again.
Well.
It was certainly interesting.
But I had somewhere else to be.
“All right, this is fascinating, but I have to go.”
I glanced at the clock.
I’d spent practically the entire previous night online, working my way through programming textbooks.
I’d already “learned” several programming languages and set up a profile on one of the popular websites where freelancers and potential clients posted jobs.
“Where are you going?” Chloe asked suspiciously.
“Off to the school dance?”
“No.
I bought a computer yesterday.
I’m going to check whether anyone sent me a job offer through the freelance site.”
I didn’t see any reason to hide it.
“Dude!
You became a computer geek?” Pete looked genuinely shocked.
“I didn’t expect that from you.
Of all people, I definitely didn’t expect it from you.”
“Hey!
Watch it!” Chloe protested.
“You’re a computer genius!” Pete immediately corrected himself.
“Everyone else is a geek.”
“Anyway, you two can keep flirting with each other.
I’m heading out.”
I waved and headed for the door
***
The moment I stepped outside the school, a familiar wave of nausea and pain hit me.
It came suddenly.
All at once.
With enough force to make my knees buckle.
“Lana?”
I rasped the name in surprise and turned around.
Except it wasn’t Lana.
It was Whitney.
The jealous bastard.
He was standing there, angrily spitting something in my face, apparently still furious over yesterday’s little “thank-you kiss.”
I wasn’t listening.
My eyes had locked onto his neck.
Hanging there was Lana’s necklace.
As I remembered, it had been made from a piece of the meteorite that killed her parents.
And now that necklace was faintly glowing.
Whitney followed my gaze.
His thoughts apparently traveled along some very strange roads, because he came up with a solution.
He grabbed the necklace and shoved it around my neck. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Here.
Take it!
But you’re never getting Lana!”
The pain became immeasurably worse.
I may have blacked out for a few minutes.
Or longer.
I don’t know.
The next coherent thought I had came while I was already hanging from the cross.
Naked.
A large red “S” painted across my chest.
The necklace still hanging around my neck.
My first coherent thought was:
At least they tied me up instead of doing it the traditional way and driving nails through my hands.
My second thought was:
Then again, I suppose I don’t deserve nails.
I’m not Jesus, after all, and these guys aren’t exactly Roman soldiers.
Then came the pain.
Minute after minute.
I have no idea how long it lasted.
I wasn’t in any condition to count.
All I could concentrate on was staying conscious.
For some reason, that seemed important.
Human beings are remarkably adaptable creatures.
We’ll get used to almost anything.
Assuming we don’t die first.
I didn’t die.
Eventually, I started adapting.
I even tried using some of the breathing techniques I’d learned from Qigong.
They didn’t help, of course, but at least they made the time pass a little faster.
Then he appeared.
Jeremy.
The boy from Chloe’s photograph.
He looked at me with those strange, almost fish-like eyes and started ranting about the system, about how it needed to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.
In other words, as far as I could tell, he intended to go back to the school and kill everyone.
And the bastard didn’t even untie me.
He just walked away.
Then Lex appeared.
I have no idea where he came from, but he untied me without asking a single question.
And when I fell to the ground, that damn necklace finally slipped from my neck.
The relief was indescribable.
An orgasm didn’t even come close.
“Lex, thanks!
Seriously, you saved my ass.
We’ll deal with all the questions tonight.
Right now, I need to go break someone’s face.”
“Want a ride?”
He didn’t ask for an explanation.
I nodded.
“To the school.”