by Greg Cox
“He won’t stop crying,” Martha said apologetically.
The nurse just shrugged. She was surely used to crying children.
“The doctor will be right in,” she said.
Waiting tensely in the doctor’s office, Martha hoped they weren’t making an awful mistake. She and Jonathan had been reluctant to let anyone examine little Clark, but his nonstop crying had left them no choice. Besides the fact that neither of them was getting any sleep, she couldn’t help worrying that there might be something seriously wrong.
What do we really know about him? she wondered for what seemed like the millionth time. Or what he needs to survive?
After a few minutes, Dr. Whitaker joined them in the office. The avuncular silver-haired pediatrician was a fixture in the Kents’ small rural community. Bifocals rested upon his nose as a concession to his aging eyes. He had delivered most of the babies of the Smallville, with the notable exception of Clark.
He took the wailing infant from Martha and placed him gently on the examination table. Martha gripped Jonathan’s hand as the doctor conducted a routine inspection, checking out his heart, lungs, and reflexes. Peering into Clark’s throat and ears, he didn’t appear to find anything alarming.
“It’s colic,” he pronounced. “Newborns have a built-in mechanism for tuning out sights and sounds. When that mechanism falls away, some babies become overwhelmed. Clark’s probably just more sensitive than most.”
But how sensitive? Martha fretted.
Dr. Whitaker produced a portable electronic device with a cord that was attached to a small earplug. He sterilized Clark’s ear with a cloth wipe, then inserted the tip of the probe into it.
“This is a test to measure hearing response,” he explained. “Don’t worry, it’s completely painless—lots of babies sleep through the procedure.”
Jonathan Kent frowned. His tanned, weathered features bespoke a life spent working outdoors. A few years older than his wife, he eyed the test apprehensively.
“I’m not sure that’s a good—” he began.
The doctor flicked a switch, activating the apparatus, which sent an acoustic signal into the baby’s ear. In theory, the device would measure the ear’s response to the sounds.
But not Clark.
The baby’s screams increased in volume. A deafening shriek shattered every window in the office—and beyond. Out in the waiting room, a gumball machine cracked open, spilling candy-colored spheres onto the floor. The nurse’s coffee mug came apart in her hand. An aquarium full of colorful fish exploded, flooding the reception area. Staff and patients rushed to rescue the gasping fish, which were tossed into paper cups filled with tap water. Broken glass crunched beneath their feet.
Car alarms went off outside. Storefront windows up and down Main Street shattered and spilled onto sidewalks. Windshields disintegrated into cubes of safety glass. The town’s one traffic light exploded in a shower of sparks.
I was afraid of this, Martha thought. We should have known better.
She cautiously uncovered her ears, which nevertheless kept on ringing. Dr. Whitaker stared speechlessly at little Clark. His glasses were askew, the lenses cracked. But the baby was smiling now, as if entertained by all the commotion.
Martha shared a look with her husband, who nodded in response. Before the doctor could collect his wits— or ask any unwanted questions—they reclaimed their son and hustled him out of the doctor’s office. Martha cringed at the mess in the waiting room, but didn’t stop to talk to the nurse or receptionist, who were busy coping with the chaotic aftermath of the event.
The Kents hurried out onto Main Street, where they found even more broken glass and other property damage.
Dear Lord, Martha thought. Did Clark do all this, just by crying?
The baby gurgled happily in her arms.
* * *
The waves were higher, the weather rougher, but the Debbie Sue hadn’t made her quota yet, so there was still work to be done. Down on the icy deck, the men were launching empty pots, baited with herring, into the sea. They leaned precariously over the rails as the freezing wind and spray pelted their faces.
Floating buoys marked the location of the pots.
“Mayday!” The radio in the wheelhouse squealed into life. “This is the Bright Aurora calling all ships in the vicinity. We’ve had an explosion and the platform is on fire. Numerous survivors are in the water!”
Captain Heraldson scowled. The Bright Aurora was an offshore oil rig only a few nautical miles away. An explosion at the massive platform was seriously bad news. He grabbed a mike and shouted to his men over the boat’s loud hailer.
“Lock it up! Just got a distress call from a rig due west of us.”
The emergency was going to cost them a day’s fishing, maybe more, but Heraldson didn’t hesitate. An oil platform like the Bright Aurora could house more than two hundred souls, all of whom might be in mortal danger. The code of the sea—and common sense— demanded that he respond to their SOS.
He hoped it wasn’t already too late.
To their credit, his crew battened down the cages and gear in record time. Heraldson opened up the throttle, pushing the Debbie Sue to her limits as the boat ploughed through the waves. Locating the burning rig wasn’t a challenge—the smoke and flames were soon visible from miles away. And it was as bad as he had feared.
The enormous drilling platform, which loomed hundreds of feet above the surging waves, was engulfed in flames. With its towering derrick and one-hundred-and-fifty-foot tall cranes, the imperiled platform resembled a large industrial factory on fire, which was essentially the case.
Terrified oil workers could be seen dashing around the rig’s various decks, fleeing the flames and explosions. Some had no choice but to leap from great heights into the frigid water, taking their chances with the sea rather than facing the blazing inferno. Lifeboats bobbed on the whitecaps, fishing survivors out of the oily waters. Gargantuan fireballs blossomed on the upper levels of the platform.
The Debbie Sue joined a flotilla of boats coming to assist in the rescue efforts. Heraldson spotted several of his competitors in the choppy waters around them. Fishing crews hurried to pluck burned and drowning roughnecks from the sea. Coast Guard rescue ’copters buzzed overhead, braving the rising smoke and flames. Turning the wheelhouse over to Byrne, the captain joined his own crew at the rail, searching the waters for more survivors.
Along with the rest of the men, the young greenhorn stared in horror at the disaster. Strong winds carried the choking odor of burning gas and oil. Heraldson covered his mouth and nose.
“Dispatcher says there’s still men trapped inside,” he informed the others. He doubted that anything could be done for those poor bastards, but maybe he and his crew could still rescue the desperate souls who had made it into the sea. He struggled to spot any survivors amidst the foaming swells. “Greenhorn, go fetch my binoculars!”
The kid failed to acknowledge the order. Heraldson turned irritably, only to discover that the youth was nowhere to be seen. A discarded orange slicker lay atop the deck.
What the devil?
C H A P T E R E I G H T
The violent sea thrashed the underside of the platform. A thirty-foot wave crashed against one of the massive steel legs supporting the rig. Churning white water briefly hid the rusty metal spider deck that lay below the main complex, just above the surface, but when the wave subsided, a solitary figure was left clinging to the leg.
Clark dug his bare fingers into solid steel. Icy water streamed from his dark hair and beard. The wave had done him a favor, carrying him up out of the water and onto the platform. Despite swimming through the Arctic waters, he wasn’t even shivering. Cold didn’t bother him the way it did other people.
Neither did fire.
He took a second to get his bearings. The deck modules containing the control rooms and living quarters were still levels above him. His eyes probed the sprawling metal structures, seeing beyond the painted st
eel. He heard men screaming and cursing and praying. Everything smelled of gas and smoke.
There was no time to lose.
He tensed his muscles, and then hurled himself upward at the module above. He smashed through the floor of the lower deck, exploding into a smoke-filled corridor. Emergency lights flickered weakly. Blaring sirens competed with the ferocious roar of a rampaging fire. Random explosions rocked the floor. Straining girders moaned in agony. The air reeked of gasoline.
The enclosed deck was a dark, claustrophobic maze. An ordinary man might have found it impossible to navigate, but Clark ran through walls of flame without hesitation, unaffected by the scorching heat. Heavy steel bulkheads got in his way and he barreled through them as though they were made of balsa wood.
The fire was spreading rapidly, peeling the paint of the walls and blocking fire exits. Walls and doors were too hot to touch, at least for most people.
Clark wasn’t most people.
Bursting into the smoke-filled hallway, he found a handful of desperate engineers and roughnecks trying to make their way to safety. Soot blackened the men’s faces. They clutched rags to their mouths, but were coughing and choking anyway. Burns, bruises, and broken limbs slowed down some of them, so they were being helped along by their equally frightened comrades.
Clark could hear their hearts pounding in fear.
A flashlight shone in his face.
“Are there any others?” he asked.
The men were too intent on escaping to question his presence.
“Forget ’em!” a limping hardhat shouted. Guilt and anguish contorted his sooty face. “They’re dead!”
Clark listened harder. He heard what the other men couldn’t. An explosion knocked out the lights, plunging the hallway into darkness.
“No,” he said. “They’re not.”
His headlong tear through the module had ripped open an escape path for the men to follow. A flashlight probed a busted bulkhead. Once they started along the cleared route, Clark trusted them to find their way to the lifeboats or helipad. There were others who needed him more now.
Without another word, he re-entered the smoky blackness, following the almost inaudible cries of those still trapped inside the burning module. His route took him rapidly through the drilling chamber at the center of the platform. The vertical drill string, suspended from the derrick, stabbed down into the erupting well. A high-pressure stream of oil gushed from a ruptured pipe.
Clark rushed through the stream, dousing himself in the flammable liquid. Flames ignited the oil, setting Clark ablaze. He kept on running, covered in flames, as his clothes burned away—but not his hair or skin.
Fire and smoke filled the pitch-black corridor outside the mess hall and galley. A red-hot fire door closed off the entrance to the galley. Clark’s eyes narrowed in concentration as he peered past the flames that were still engulfing him. His vision shifted along the electromagnetic spectrum so that he could see through the steel walls and into the chamber beyond.
Dozens of men, trapped inside, appeared to him as living X-rays. Even over the roar of the flames and the groaning metal, he could hear the despair as they wept and begged for their lives. Others made their final farewells to loved ones they never expected to see or hold again.
Clark figured differently.
He ripped the door off its hinges with his bare hands and tossed it aside. He rushed into the galley, eliciting startled gasps from the men. They stared at him with varying combinations of shock and wonder. A few backed away fearfully, and Clark realized how he appeared to them—like a fiery angel, burning brightly.
“What are you?” a man asked.
Clark didn’t have any good answer for him. Ignoring the question, he raced across the mess hall and hammered a wall with his fists, popping it free like the door of a bank vault. Open air showed on the opposite side of the breached surface, offering a way out.
“Go!” Clark bellowed, and he stepped aside to let the men through.
Diminished flames danced upon his bare skin as he hustled them out onto a swaying metal catwalk, hundreds of feet above the frothing sea. An exterior stairway led to the main deck and helipad. Clark was relieved to see that the landing area was still relatively free of flames. Scanning the sky, he spotted a Coast Guard helicopter hovering nearby. He waved his arms above his head to get its pilot’s attention. The endangered roughnecks jumped and shouted as well. The ’copter was their best shot at getting away from the burning rig.
The chopper pilot spotted them. Clark heard the pilot barking into his headset.
“I’ve got some guys on the helipad!” he said. “I’m gonna try for them!”
Braving the smoke and flames, the chopper came in for a landing. The wash from the ’copter’s spinning rotors temporarily dispelled the choking smoke. Clark shouted above the noise as he herded the men into the chopper.
“Go, go, GO!”
More explosions erupted from the engine rooms. The entire rig seemed on the verge of collapse. The drilling derrick, towering over a hundred feet above the main deck, listed to one side as its overheated steel trusses began to give. It leaned precariously over the helipad, threatening to crash down on the ’copter even as the last of the men clambered aboard.
In the cockpit, the pilot fought the control stick, trying to keep the chopper level amidst the explosions. The ’copter tilted sideways, almost dumping the rescued roughnecks back onto the deck. A hardhat called out to Clark, who was still standing on the rig, clothed in flames and smoke. He stretched out his hand to rescue his rescuer.
But an instant later Clark was gone. Dashing away from the helipad, he threw himself against the toppling derrick. He pushed back against the tower, fighting gravity and thousands of pounds of red-hot steel. Straining with all his might, he managed to halt the derrick’s momentum long enough for the chopper pilot to guide his craft out of danger.
Unable to hold the structure up any longer, Clark rode it down as it slammed into the helipad with the force of a giant’s hammer. The seismic impact in turn set off a volcanic explosion that sent the entire platform crashing into the sea, taking him with it.
Countless tons of steel and concrete drove him into the water, through thousands of gallons of burning oil. The flames licking his body, however, were doused as the sea swallowed him.
He sank beneath the waves. Compared to the fiery pandemonium above, it was surprisingly cool and tranquil down below. The curtain of flames spreading across the surface felt very remote and far away, almost as though they belonged to a different universe. Stunned, Clark basked for a moment in the peace and quiet. He found it tempting to just stop fighting, stop searching, and vanish into the endless depths.
Then a whalesong broke the silence of the deep. Complex vocalizations, punctuated by clicks, echoed beneath the sea. Three humpback whales, their sleek bodies gliding gracefully through the water, converged on him. The whales circled him in fascination, as though sensing something different about him.
The largest one nudged Clark with his snout and began pushing him toward the surface. He floated among the gigantic mammals, even as his mind drifted backward...
SEPTEMBER, 1988
“Clark? Are you listening, Clark?”
It was the first day of school at Weisinger Primary. Ms. Rampling, Clark’s homeroom teacher, approached the boy’s desk while his classmates looked on.
“I asked if you could tell me who first settled in Kansas.”
Only nine years old and small for his age, Clark cowered at his desk. Wide blue eyes stared in horror at the thirtyish woman who regarded the mute child with confusion.
“Are you all right, Clark?” she asked.
The other children giggled at his discomfort. They couldn’t see what he saw—the inside of Ms. Whitaker. The teacher’s skin and clothes had gone transparent, revealing the bones, organs, and arteries beneath. He could see the blood coursing through her veins, watch her heart beat rhythmically. Her lungs expanded and cont
racted like fleshy balloons. Chewed-up food made its way through her digestive tract. She looked like the “visible man” model he’d seen in the Sears catalog, but life-sized and pulsing with animation. Exposed muscles, resembling strips of raw meat, covered her bones. Eyeballs rolled in the sockets of her skull.
He looked away from her, only to discover that his classmates had turned into living anatomy lessons as well. Even worse, he could hear all of their heartbeats, which were pounding like kettledrums—and growing louder by the second.
Clark threw his hands over his ears, but it didn’t do any good. He could hear everything. Even the ticking of the wall clock sounded like a jackhammer going off right in his ears.
It was unbearable.
Unable to stand it any longer, he shoved his chair back and jumped to his feet. The other children laughed thunderously, sounding like a million howling coyotes, and he ran in terror from the classroom.
“Clark! Come back here!” Ms. Whitaker called.
The skinless teacher chased him down the hallway, but Clark didn’t slow down. His own heart was racing in panic. He didn’t know what was happening to him. There was something wrong with his eyes—the world kept shifting in colors and degrees of perception. One minute, people were glowing red pockets of heat. The next, they were walking skeletons.
Steam pipes, hissing like giant rattlesnakes, glowed behind solid walls, which turned clear as glass, revealing the playground and sidewalks outside the school. He could see all the way across Smallville...
He tried to hide from the world in a janitor’s closet. Huddling among the mops and brooms, he locked the door from the inside right before Ms. Whitaker caught up with him. She knocked on it loudly enough to make him cover his ears again. Her knuckles rapped against the unyielding wood. It sounded like a tractor ramming into a barn, over and over again.
“Clark!” she called, her voice raised. “Come out of there!”
She tried the knob, wiggling it noisily.
