Edgar Allan Poe In My Own Backyard: Chapter four EDGAR ALLAN POE IN MY OWN BACKYARD: Chapter Four
by Linda Seaton
With her
egg and Clark’s egg resting in her bag on her lap, Lana sits in the passenger
seat of the Kent truck. Clark looks at her worriedly.
“It’s kind of
unusual that I had the truck today. We’re lucky because I had promised to give
some wood to Lex after school.”
“What?”
“Most of the time I take
the bus to school but because I had to deliver the firewood I had the
truck.”
“Oh. Who’s Lex?”
“He’s a friend. He’s really rich and
lives in this giant house outside of town. You manage a coffee shop that he
owns.”
“Oh. Aren’t I in high school? How do I manage a
business?”
“You’re very talented.”
“Oh. Clark are you my
boyfriend?”
“No, we’re just friends.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, from
the edging forest Pete Ross (wearing only his boxers) charges out across the
road and disappears from sight.
Clark stomps down on the brakes and the
truck screeches to a stop just as Faux Pete (also in his boxers) flashes across
the road. “Pete?!”
“Pete?” Lana asks as she cradles the
eggs.
“He’s a friend of ours and they just ran across the road in front
of us.”
“They?”
“There were two of them and there should have only
been one. Stay put, Lana. Lock the door and wait. I’ll be right
back.”
Clark superspeeds off leaving the small, blinded, amnesiac girl in
the truck with the eggs.
Lana sits bolt upright. She thinks she hears
steps and then there is a soft tapping on the
window.
“Lana?”
“Who’s there?” She turns in the direction of
Lester’s voice.
“It’s Lex Luthor. Are you alright?”
“Oh, Lex. I
can’t see.” She opens the truck door and Lester leans in and gives a strange
look to the eggs. “Clark was here and then he ran off.”
“Here’s my hand.
Why don’t you come back to the house with me.”
Some little internal
non-concussed inner voice tells Lana that something is very wrong. “Thanks, Lex,
but I think I’ll just wait.”
Lester sighs and reaches in for Lana.
She kicks and punches. “Let me go!”
The eggs go flying. Lester
manhandles her out of the truck and accidentally knocks her head against the
door. She is out cold.
Lester throws her over his shoulder and heads back
toward the house.
“Couldn’t be easy. You couldn’t be Chloe.”
The
voices of Lester and Lana reach Clark. He slows and listens. But then he hears
two voices that sound remarkably like Pete.
“I think we lost
him.”
“But what now?”
“Pete?” Clark calls out.
“Clark!” Two
voices answer in tandem as Pete and Faux Pete emerge from some
underbrush.
“What happened? Why are there two of you and why are you in
your underpants?”
“It was the meteor rock, Clark.” Pete explains. “I
spilled some paint thinner on one in my rock collection and when I woke up he
was there.”
Pete gestures toward Faux Pete who takes up the rest of the
story. “And Lex Luthor stripped us down and is hunting us for
sport.”
“What?”
“But it’s not the real Lex, Clark. It looks like
someone wearing a Lex suit. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Clark shakes
his head and tries desperately to fathom what is happening.
“I left Lana
in the truck just up there. Let’s go to my house and we’ll call Chloe. Maybe she
can figure out what to do.”
The two Petes nod in tandem and follow Clark
back toward the road.
They find the truck door open, eggs splattered
everywhere and no sign of Lana.
“Someone’s kidnapped Lana! There’s no way
she’d let anything happen to those eggs.” Clark spins in a fast
circle.
“Someone being our man Lex.” Faux Pete comments.
“I guess
we’re storming the castle, huh?” Pete straightens.
“And we’re going to
kill this non-Lex Luthor!” Faux Pete offers.
“We’re not going to kill
anybody, man. It’s just not cool.”
Clark, flanked on each side by a Pete,
hurries toward the distant Luthor estate. Using his x-ray vision, Clark scans
the upper floors of the mansion. He thinks he can make out the prone figure of
Lana Lang.
Lying in the center of king-sized bed, Lana gasps. She opens
her eyes and then a smile spreads across her face.
“My name is Lana Lang
and I can see.”
She sits up and finds herself alone in one of the
bedrooms of the Luthor house. She knows it has to be the Luthor house because no
one else in Smallville has that many ancient Grecian knick-knacks.
She
gets to her feet and moves to the door. It is of course
locked.
“Hello?”
There’s a shuffling sound on the other side of
the door and an unfamiliar voice responds, “If you’re awake I need for you to do
me a favor.”
“Who are you?”
“Lex Luthor.”
Lana knows it is
not Lex but does not know what to do. She leans against the
door.
“Alright Lex, what do you want me to do?”
“Call Chloe and
get her to come here.”
Suddenly the handset of a phone is shoved through
the crack as the bottom of the door with its curling cord stretched behind
it.
“What do you want with Chloe?”
“Just call, please.”
He
sounds a lot like a desperate teen-age girl, which frightens Lana. She presses
the phone to her ear. “Okay, you can dial. Her cell phone is 555-0164
.”
Chloe’s phone rings and she grapples with her coat’s left pocket
trying to retrieve it.
Behind the wheel of his car, Lex pulls back from
her probing finger. “Hey, watch your hands.” He smirks in her
direction.
She finds her phone and presses it to her ear. “This is
Chloe.”
Lana sighs, “Chloe this is Lana. Lex Luthor needs to see you. And
what’s that heavy breathing sound?”
“That is the breathing sound of Lex
Luthor. Lana what’s going on?”
“Please, Chloe, just come to the Luthor
estate.” Lana pleads.
The phone goes dead and Chloe moves her face back a
few inches so she can focus on Lex.
“Did you know that you need to see
me?”
“Chloe, if I see any more of you, your father is going to hunt me
down and kill me.”
“That was Lana. She’s at your estate and she just said
that you were there and wanted to see me.”
Lex grows murderously still.
He swerves the car off the road and puts it in park. Then he explodes. “My
father!” Lex yells as he beats his hands against the steering wheel. “I don’t
believe he did it!”
Bobbing and weaving to keep from getting another
black eye, Chloe shouts, “What has he done?”
“He’s replaced Lex, me, with
one of his bastard children.”
Chloe sits in silence for a moment, tries
to find words, remains silent and then offers, “That’s insane. He’s got another
Lex?”
Lex begins pounding the steering wheel again.
“Stop!” Chloe
commands. He listens. “Your father has installed a pretender to the throne. We
just have to depose him. It’s not like he’s lived with your father all his life
and endured decades of emotional and mental abuse. You think this bastard Luthor
is tougher than a legitimate Luthor?”
