Summary: It isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you. A Smallvillian tribute to Shirley Jackson.

Warnings: Rated R. Hints of Clark/Lex, mostly Gen.

Everyone has a story to tell, and Leonard T. Vance has found his among the strange, the unexplained, the downright freakish. Of course, he's endured the inevitable slinging of arrows for his trouble. Hack. Muckraker. Sensationalist. He's heard it all and more, but a man on a mission is never fully appreciated in his own time--so he consoles himself--and nothing can dampen his pride in his achievements. The fish-boy of Bali. Three-headed calves in India. An entire colony of human clones living on the coast of Malta. He's broken quite a few must-read stories in his day and made a tidy living at it too, human nature and morbid curiosity being what they are.

Lately, though, he's begun to notice something that gives him pause. Perhaps it's just that he's spent so much of his life on distant shores in search of the exotic that he's grown unused to the ordinary, but now that he's back home, he can't help feeling there's something lurking beneath the surface of the workaday tranquility that surrounds him. He sees it in the effortless flick of the waitress' wrist as she serves coffee at the diner where he eats breakfast, in the people rushing past him in the streets, busy and unconcerned, in the plastic sameness of the merchandise in store windows--something skulking, brooding, gathering its forces beneath the cover of a normality that is far too perfect to believe.

His editor chalks it up to a simple adjustment problem.

"You're just not used to being back yet," he says when Leonard tries to tell him about the man at the newsstand, that there was something off about him, something he can't quite put his finger on. "Give yourself time, and I'm sure the guy selling papers will seem just like...well, a guy selling papers."

Leonard storms out of his office, deeply affronted. Thirty years as a reporter, and he trusts his instincts the way he wouldn't trust his own mother, much less Howard.

"What do editors know anyway?" he asks a startled fellow passenger on the elevator back down to the lobby.

Leonard smells a story, Howard's skepticism notwithstanding, and if there's one thing experience has taught him, it's that you have to go straight to the source. Whatever is going on in Metropolis, however disturbing, he feels certain it's merely a reverberation from some more malignant epicenter.

He spends his days in the periodicals room of the main branch of the public library, searching the weekly mirrors and daily gazettes of suspect little hamlets, places like Pleasant, MO and Normal, OK, hotbeds of all-American uneventfulness, scouring the back pages for some sign, of what exactly he can't say, but he's convinced he'll know it when he sees it. The quest brings a glow of fervor to his face, an air of mania to his shuffling of the pages, making the other patrons and even the old battleaxe of a librarian stare at him with more than a hint of unease.

He feels them watching--feels in his gut that there's something not quite right about them, either--but he won't let that distract him. He presses on, more determined than ever, his newshound's instincts fairly shrieking at him, until finally there it is, staring back at him from page eleven of the Smallville Ledger, a town he really should have considered sooner given its insistently innocuous name.

When the librarian turns her head, Leonard stuffs the newspaper under his sweater and bolts for the door. He hurries all the way to the newspaper office and doesn't wait for Howard's secretary to announce him.

He bursts in and throws the paper down on Howard's desk with a triumphant flourish. "You didn't believe me, huh? Well, take a look at this."

Howard peers over the top of his glasses and frowns. "Leonard, this paper is a year old."

"Just read it!"

"Fine. Smallville High routs Grandville in annual homecoming grudge match. Happy now?"

"No." He grabs the paper impatiently and points out a small box at the bottom of the last column.

"Adam H. Bornack, 56, an industrial supplies salesman from Edge City, last seen in the vicinity of Smallville, was reported missing to local authorities," Howard reads dutifully.

"You see!"

Howard raises an eyebrow. "See what, Len? A guy who got sick of his humdrum widget-selling life and took off for greener pastures?"

"People don't just disappear into thin air! Where the hell did he go?"

"According to this quote from his wife, somewhere there are Mai Tai's and blondes who aren't too picky."

"You've got to read between the lines." He frantically flips through the Ledger's pages. "Bakeoffs and county fairs and church picnics. Small town wholesomeness on every page. It's not natural. There's something really wrong with this place. I feel it right here." He claps a hand to his gut and lowers his voice, "You know what they say, that you shouldn't let the sun set on you in Smallville."

"Nobody says that, Len."

"Well, they should!" he insists. "Look what happened to Adam Bornack."

Howard lets out a tired sigh. "We've worked together a long time, so I'm going to be straight with you. You've got nothing here. No mystery. No conspiracy. No story. Period. And since you've started wandering the halls of the office telling anyone who'll listen that your vacuum cleaner's been acting suspiciously, you don't have too much credibility with management, either. To be blunt, they think you're cracking up. So there's no way I can spend good money to send you on some wild goose chase out to the sticks where the only thing that's ever going to happen to anyone is that they might possibly be bored to death."

"It was the microwave. And fine." Leonard thrusts the copy of the Ledger under his arm, his chin jutting out angrily. "If that's the way you want it, I'll go to Smallville under my own steam." He points his finger. "But that means I'm under no obligation when I get back with the story."

Howard holds up his hands. "No obligation whatsoever."

Leonard sniffs indignantly. "As long as we understand each other."

"We do." Howard's expression is serious and rather pitying. "Good luck to you, Len. Try to keep your head out there."

Howard's lack of support does nothing to dampen Leonard's enthusiasm for his story. After all, nobody believed him about the French-speaking orangutan either, and look how that turned out. In fact, being on his own is almost liberating. No daily progress reports to make. No annoying interference from a know-nothing editor. And he gets to amuse himself imagining the look on Howard's face when he sells the piece to someone else, like a man who picked the winning lottery numbers but didn't actually play them.

To get a story you have to become the story, Leonard has found, so he heads to the Army surplus store to outfit himself. In the dressing room, he tries on his plaid shirt, straightens his John Deere cap and practices a simple-minded smile in the mirror. Nothing works to a reporter's advantage quite like being mistaken for an idiot.

On a bright, crisp Friday, he heads out to Smallville. His plan is simple--in fact, it's the plot of any number of late-night TV movies--but you take your inspiration where you find it, any smart reporter's credo. His car will just happen to break down on the outskirts of the shadowy little town, after some handy sabotage on his part. With his cover as a stranded motorist, he'll be able to move amongst Smallville's inhabitants, observing, ferreting out whatever it is that they're trying to hide.

Everything goes like clockwork. He's even lucky enough that a tow truck, faded red, emblazoned with a big, cursive "Buck's Auto and Body Shop" on its side, pulls up soon after he's popped the hood.

The driver hops out. "Give you a hand there?" The name patch on the man's overalls indicates that this is Buck himself.

"I sure would appreciate it."

Buck bends over the engine and squints as he examines it.

"I'm really glad you happened along. I wouldn't have any idea who to call. I'm not from around here," Leonard casually lets slip.

"No, sir. I didn't suspect you was." Buck's brows knit together in confusion. "The fuel pump fuse has plumb gone missing. I don't know how that could have happened, but we'll need to get your car back to the shop. I'll have to put a new one on her."

Buck hitches up the car to the tow truck, Leonard climbs into the cab, and they drive the last few miles into Smallville proper. They pass white steepled churches, immaculate lawns tucked behind picket fences, a sign announcing the annual Boy Scout bake sale, and Leonard is more convinced than ever that he's come to the right place.

At the service station, Buck calls over another mechanic. "Hey, Ricky. We got any fuel pump fuses for this model in stock?"

Ricky shakes his head. "Nah. We'll have to go over to Grandville for it."

Buck turns back to Leonard. "Sorry, Mr.--"

"Walker," Leonard supplies his alias.

"Well, Mr. Walker, it looks like it's going to take us a few hours to fix this."

"I'll have to wait then?"

"Yes, sir. I'm afraid you will."

"I might like to look around town," he says, testing the mechanic's reaction.

Buck only nods. "Right back up there about two blocks is Main Street." He points. "Anything that's much worth looking at, that's where you'll find it."

Leonard is a little disappointed that Buck doesn't seem more concerned about having a stranger in town, but then the place could hardly keep its secrets if its citizens didn't know how to put up a convincing front. He follows the directions and comes to Main Street, which looks more like a Norman Rockwell painting than any living town should. He walks past a picturesque antiques store with a collection of smiling china dolls in the window, a flower shop overflowing with tulips, and gets so caught up trying to eavesdrop on a group of farmers discussing crop rotation, which he figures must be code for something more sinister, that he runs headlong into a teenaged girl as she's about to head into something called "The Talon," whose sign advertises Large Mochachino, only $1.75!

"Hey!" the girl says, annoyed.

"So sorry! Please excuse me. I really should have been watching where I was going, but I was just so busy admiring your charming little hamlet. I'm George Walker, by the way." He shakes the girl's hand, taking her by surprise. "New in town. An outsider, you might say."

"O-kay," She gives him the sort of look teenagers reserve for especially clueless grownups and continues on into the coffee shop.

Through the window, Leonard watches as a lanky boy meets her with a kiss. The girl smiles and launches into a story with a roll of her eyes, making the boy laugh. Leonard has the sneaking suspicion she might be talking about him. When she catches his glance and quickly looks away, he's sure of it.

"Now, I'm getting somewhere," he says under his breath. "This must be where it all happens."

He goes inside, takes a seat. The place is populated almost entirely by teenagers, and a pretty one with long dark hair, wearing as much pink as humanly possible, swoops down on him, tray in hand, to take his order.

"Hi. Welcome to the Talon," pink girl says brightly. "What can I get you?"

"Can you tell me what's good here? I'm afraid I'm a stranger in these parts."

The girl laughs as if he's made a joke. "Well...we can do pretty much any kind of coffee, and the cinnamon rolls are fresh out of the oven."

"That sounds good. And a cup of black coffee with it."

"Coming right up."

Pink girl goes off to fetch what he ordered. A few tables over, the blonde with the attitude pretends not to see him. Leonard takes out his notebook and records what he's found so far. Sarcasm. Pastels. He's sure there's some secret meaning to it, even if it's not immediately apparent. He'll have to work on deciphering it later.

The food arrives, and he pretends to be absorbed in it while scanning the room.

At a nearby table, a dark-haired boy says in a sulky tone, "I thought you were going to help me with my term paper."

His companion, a bald man in a business suit who bears an uncanny resemblance to Lex Luthor, doesn't glance up from his laptop. "I'm sure you're doing fine on your own, Clark."

"But it would go a lot faster if I didn't have to look up every fact that you could just tell me off the top of your head."

"True, but it would be far less educational."

The sulky boy, Clark, lets out a sigh.

A couple comes in, a short black boy in a letterman's jacket and a petite girl with long honey-blonde hair. They stop to say hello to Clark before finding a table of their own.

"I still say you could have shown me your dress for the dance, Jody," the boy insists the minute they're seated, as if it's a subject he just can't let go. "I mean, that bad luck thing is only when you're getting married. And what if I reserved the wrong corsage or something?"

"Pete," she says, in the patient tone people take with willful children. "I told you. I want it to be a surprise. And you know you're supposed to get white flowers."

"Yeah. I know," he grumbles.

"There's just one more day to go." She takes his hand and lowers her voice flirtatiously. "And I'll try to make it worth the wait."

Pete breaks into a huge, leering smile, and Leonard adds horny to his list of observations.

He stays there for hours, pink girl refilling his coffee time and again. People come and go. The letterman has to get ready for the game--from what Leonard has gleaned, it's homecoming weekend, game tonight, dance tomorrow--and his girlfriend leaves with him. A red-haired woman comes to collect Clark; Leonard assumes she's his mother. The bald man walks them out to the car.

Pink girl appears to have a sizeable fan club. Leonard counts at least three boys who can't take their eyes off her: one trying to hide behind the pages of The World's Guide to Insects; another who divides his time between glancing longingly at Miss Pink and scribbling in his notebook, sentimental adolescent poetry, if the expression on his face is any indication; and the last would-be Romeo spelling out what Leonard suspects are love notes with his word-of-the-day magnet set.

Leonard waits and waits for something to pierce the surface ordinariness, the telltale off-key note, the same lurking sense he felt in Metropolis, but there's nothing. Plans for the big dance and speculation whether some girl named Jennifer really has a crush on the biology teacher and pink girl worried about the short supply of plastic spoons, and Leonard begins to fear that this place may be just as humdrum as it appears.

Finally, he asks for the check. He's drunk enough coffee to do serious kidney damage, and after what is possibly the hundredth refill of the afternoon, even pink girl's patience is wearing thin.

He settles up, and pink girl seems to regret letting her professional demeanor falter, however slightly, because she says with a sunny smile, "Come back soon!" And waves as Leonard trudges off, crestfallen.

Back at the garage, he finds Buck closing the hood of his car.

"Perfect timing there, Mr. Walker," he says. "I just finished up."

"It's all repaired and ready to go?"

"Yes, sir. Good as new. Come on into the office and we'll settle up, and then you can be on your way."

Buck seems rather eager to get him out of town, and Leonard's optimism returns in full force as he follows him inside. Buck tallies up the bill, a figure so low compared to Metropolis prices that Leonard has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as he counts out enough cash to cover it.

"You know, I find your town here very intriguing. Stimulating, even," he says in a conversational tone.

Buck scratches his head. "I can't rightfully say I ever heard Smallville described that way before, although folks do make the trip for the organic artichokes."

"I'm sure they're worth it. In fact, I think it would be well worth sticking around and seeing more of the town and the countryside. But--" He sighs dramatically. "I suppose it wouldn't be possible to find anywhere to stay at the last minute?"

There's a script of how this is supposed to go in Leonard's head. Buck will swear up one side and down the other that every last room in town is booked, give Leonard some friendly advice about getting on the road before it starts to get dark. Leonard will pretend that's exactly what he's going to do, then double back, hide, see how the salt-of-the-earth townsfolk change once the sun goes down.

Apparently, Buck didn't get a copy of his lines because he's quick to reassure Leonard, "Oh, that's not a problem. Mrs. Featheringill over on Larchmont," he points out the window in the direction of one of the side streets, "she's got a right nice bed and breakfast. Don't get a lot of visitors in Smallville, of course. I doubt her place has ever been full up since they opened it." Buck scribbles on a piece of notepaper, tears it off and hands it to Leonard. "There's the directions. Tell her I sent you, and she'll set you right up."

Leonard struggles to smile through the disappointment. "You've been very helpful."

Buck beams at him. "I sure do hope you enjoy your stay."

Leonard has lost some of the newshound spring in his step as he goes back out to the car, but, still, it's not yet nightfall and what was he expecting anyway? For Smallville just to give away its secrets?

At the bed and breakfast, Mrs. Featheringill greets him at the door, a tiny, ancient lady with surprisingly sharp blue eyes, neatly dressed in a navy skirt and white blouse, with a jaunty red scarf tied at the neck, her snow-white hair pulled back into a tidy bun. When he mentions Buck's name, her smiles grows even more welcoming.

"Oh, do come and sit down, Mr. Walker." She ushers him into a small, comfortable living room. "I'm sure you must be tired from traveling. I'll get you a nice cup of tea. That will fix you right up."

She bustles off to the kitchen, and Leonard takes the opportunity to go through the drawers of the end tables and sideboard. He finds a rusted old key, a ball of dark green yarn, a pile of blank greeting cards, birthday, sympathy, thinking of you. Leonard frowns as he quickly adds this information to his notes before the old lady comes back. There's a certain odd pattern to the items--he feels sure--if he could just put the pieces together.

Mrs. Featheringill returns with a tray of tea things and a large plate of cookies. She plies him with sweets and a long list of questions. Where does he live? What does he do for a living? What brings him to Smallville?

"I was just passing through, actually. When my car broke down, I had some time to look around and fell in love with the place. I think it could be quite a popular vacation spot if more people knew about it."

"That's exactly what I used to tell Mr. Featheringill, rest his soul," the old lady says with just a hint of triumph over her dead husband. "I told him that tourism would surely come to Smallville one of these days. We just had to wait for it." She smiles. "Well, I see you've finished your tea. So let me show you on up to your room."

He follows her up the stairs and down the hall.

"I thought you'd be more comfortable in something with a manly feel to it. This was my son Gerald's room." She opens the door, and he steps inside. The walls are covered in red and gold, Smallville High pennants and stickers and posters, an adolescent daydream frozen in time.

"Your son must have had quite a lot of school spirit."

"Oh, my, yes," Mrs. Featheringill assures him. "He was quarterback of the football team, you know. Crowned king at the homecoming dance. Very handsome, always so popular. He's a pediatrician in Chicago now, married with two children, doing very well. Very well, indeed."

"You must be proud."

"Lord, yes!" She laughs. "But don't get an old lady started telling you how proud she is of her children. You'll never hear the end of it." She pats his arm kindly. "Go on and get settled. Be sure to let me know if there's anything you need."

When she's gone, he pulls out his notebook and sits cross-legged on the bed. He flips the pages, reading through his observations, but the words swim on the white paper, blurring together in his head. That moment of piercing clarity he'd hoped for, when it would all come together and make some kind of bizarre sense, seems hopelessly elusive. There's a nagging worry at the edge of his thoughts that he'd prefer to ignore, all the more troubling because he's so unused to it. When was the last time he felt doubt about anything?

The fact remains, though, that he hasn't sensed anything since he's been in town. Maybe Howard was right, after all. Maybe he did just need time to adjust.

But no. No! he tells himself. That's exactly what they want him to think. He has to stay focused. He must be close to something really big if they're resorting to homespun courtesy and pecan sandies. It's more important than ever to keep digging.

When he hears noises coming from downstairs, someone stirring, perhaps up to something and not wanting to be discovered, he feels a warm rush of vindication surge through him. He creeps out of his room and down the stairs as silently as he can. He spots Mrs. Featheringill standing near the front door. He takes another step, trying to get a better view of what she's doing, but he hits a creaky stair and the old lady whirls around, alarmed.

"Oh, mercy, Mr. Walker! You startled me." She's dressed in the now familiar school colors, wearing a Smallville High sweatshirt, a wool blanket folded over her arm.

"So sorry. I was just-- I thought I'd--" He feels suddenly sheepish about spying on an old lady, and he's not quite sure how to explain why he was sneaking down the stairs.

"You've just saved me a trip up to see you," Mrs. Featheringill says, apparently finding nothing odd about his behavior. "I was coming to tell you that I'm off for the evening. Tonight's the big game against Grandville, you know."

"I suppose it's only for people in the community? Not just anyone can go," he ventures.

"Oh, my. Don't be silly. Everyone is welcome. I'd be glad for the company if you'd like to come along."

Every story has its turning point, the moment it starts to rush forward, toward its inevitable denouement, and he fully expects the game to be this pivotal event. He is sadly mistaken. At the stadium, he finds nothing more than a sea of beefy, expectant faces yelling encouragement from the stands. The smell of greasy french fries in the air. Bobbing cheerleaders with their flippy skirts and lip-glossed smiles. Grain-fed linemen breaking the huddle with a thunderously loud, Go Crows! And Leonard understands at last. This is the honest-to-God heartland, home of hard work and clean living and neighbors helping neighbors.

Hell, in short, for any reporter looking for a story.

On the way home, Mrs. Featheringill chatters excitedly about Smallville's victory and how "marvelous the boys were tonight." Carloads of triumphant teenagers drive by hooting in celebration. Leonard would dearly love a drink.

Back at the bed and breakfast, Mrs. Featheringill locks up. Leonard says goodnight and goes off to his room to brood. He's seen it happen before, reporters who lost their instincts, who woke up one day and couldn't tell a UFO from a paper plate. He just never thought it would happen to him.

He pulls out his cell phone and calls Howard, not at home, because then he'd actually have to talk to him. He leaves a voice mail at the office instead.

"Okay, so you were right," he says to the machine. "There's no story here. In fact, everything is just mercilessly wholesome." He sighs heavily. "I don't know where I'll go from here or when I'm coming back. I don't really know...anything."

He hangs up, buries his face in his hands, and wonders what he's going to do with his life now that he's lost it. Get an office job? Sell used cars?

He stays that way for a long time, hours maybe, until a creaking out in the hall makes his head snap up. For a moment, he thinks it might just have been his imagination, but then it happens again. He turns off the light and steals over to the door, opens it as soundlessly as he can, just enough to peer out without being seen. Mrs. Featheringill stands frozen at the top of the landing, a nervous expression on her face, glancing back at his room. He doesn't move, doesn't even breathe, and she seems satisfied that she hasn't alerted him and continues on down the stairs.

Leonard strains to listen, and when he hears the front door close, he bursts into action, pulls on his jacket, grabs his camera and hurries after the old woman.

If he goes out the front door, he'll risk being discovered, so he leaves through the back, quietly edging around the house, darting behind a row of trashcans. He's just in time to see a pickup pull up to the curb. A man hops out. Leonard points his camera and starts to record. It's Buck from the auto body shop. Neither he nor Mrs. Featheringill speaks, moving with deliberate stealth, casting cautious glances back at the house. Buck helps Mrs. Featheringill up into his truck, and they head off.

Leonard nearly trips over his own feet in his haste to get to his car. He races past darkened homes and businesses, trying to catch up, and then has to stomp on the brake to keep from being spotted when he rounds a curve in the road and sees Buck's truck not far in the distance.

He hangs back, just keeping the taillights in sight. The road is straight and flat and seems to stretch on forever as they drive past endless rows of corn. Finally, the truck makes a left turn. Leonard turns off his headlights and tails it onto a gravel-covered back road. In the distance, there is a glow coming from the field. He pulls off and goes the rest of the way on foot through the corn.

He can hear voices now, the rise and fall of friendly conversation. He inches closer, going slowly so the rustling of the stalks won't give him away. When he finally gets close enough, he sees a wooded meadow beyond the cornfield with a clearing where the townspeople are gathered. Lanterns are strung from the tops of the trees, there is a pile of carefully stacked wood for a bonfire, and people cluster together in groups, talking and laughing. He sees the boy, Clark, and the bald man. Clark's mother and a tall farmer wearing plaid he supposes must be Clark's father. He also spots the letterman and his girlfriend. The sarcastic blonde and her beau. Pink girl surrounded by her many admirers.

He hits the button on his camera and starts recording, even if there really is nothing to see. Could this possibly just be a party? Some homecoming festivity. Would the entire town really come out to a field in the middle of nowhere at three o'clock in the morning just to celebrate a high school football victory?

Leonard is not sure how much time goes by, although it feels as if he's been standing in that field since the corn was planted, and the only remotely surprising thing he's seen is Clark and the bald man holding hands and occasionally kissing, in plain sight of everyone, with no discernible reaction, not even from Clark's father, whom Leonard would bet anything owns an entire cabinet of shotguns.

Doesn't anyone in this town have any secrets? he wonders darkly.

This question is soon answered when one of the lanterns blows out and falls from the tree.

"Jeremy, do you think you could fix that?" Clark's mother asks a wiry young man standing near her.

"Sure, Mrs. Kent. No problem."

The young man, Jeremy, picks the lantern up and touches it with the tip of his finger. Electricity arcs through the air in a blue flash, sparks fly up, and the lantern goes on again.

Leonard's mouth falls open. He's seen a lot of weird things in his life, but never anything like this.

His astonishment only grows when one of pink girl's paramours, the bug lover, takes the lantern from Jeremy. "I'll put it back." He nimbly scales the tree with the surety of...well, an insect, replaces the lantern, and quickly scampers back down.

Now that the mask of ordinariness has come off, a veritable festival of freakishness breaks out.

Two young men trying unsuccessfully to light the bonfire call over a stocky bulldog of a man, "Hey, help us out, Coach?"

The coach smiles. "Sure thing, boys. Stand back and watch how it's done."

The coach holds out his hand, touches one of the logs, and the entire thing bursts into flames.

A moment later, burning logs float mysteriously into the air.

"Justin!" the coach yells.

The boyfriend of the sarcastic blonde ducks his head. "Oops! Sorry." The logs drop back where they belong. "I guess my control is kind of on the fritz."

On the other side of the crowd, there is a teenaged girl with long dark hair. Her features start to bulge and distort, the bones shifting beneath her flesh until she looks just like the fire-starting coach. The insect boy. The sarcastic blonde. Clark's mother. Buck. When she finally reverts back to herself, she is pale and exhausted-looking and out of breath.

"I can't hold my shape," she says mournfully.

Pink girl hurries over with a bottle of water. "Here, Tina. Have some of this."

The shapeshifting girl smiles gratefully.

The letterman's girlfriend isn't faring much better, doubled over, clutching her sides. There is a loud, rumbling sound that Leonard mistakes at first for thunder, but quickly realizes is her stomach.

"I'm not going to make it!" she frantically tells her boyfriend.

"We need some help over here!" the boy cries out.

Clark and his parents hurry over.

"Can you hold on just a little longer, Jody?" Clark's father asks. "It's almost time."

She shakes her head miserably. Her stomach makes another thunderous lurch, and she starts to cry.

"Son, go back to the farm. Get Jody something to tide her over. And be quick," Clark's father tells him.

Clark nods. "I'll be right back."

He disappears before Leonard's eyes--one second he's there, the next he's not--and reappears a moment later, a slaughtered calf draped over his shoulders.

"Put it down over there." Clark's mother points to a comparatively private spot behind one of the larger trees.

"Thanks, Clark," Jody says quietly.

Everyone finds a reason to look away as Jody slips behind the tree. The girl falls to her knees, and her mouth opens, wide and grotesque, and she sets on the offered calf, devouring it in a driven gluttonous frenzy, her eyes gleaming with a satisfaction that the word "unnatural" does not even begin to cover. Leonard has to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from losing the hot dog and fries he had at the game, but he never takes the camera off the action. By the time the girl is finished, the carcass is a dried out husk disturbingly reminiscent of beef jerky.

The sheriff walks through the crowd, getting everyone's attention. "The mayor's ready to get started.

The people circle around the bonfire. Jody wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and returns to her boyfriend. He puts his arm around her, kisses the top of her head and says, "It'll all be better soon."

A man in a suit clears his throat--presumably the mayor, he has the calculating air of a politician--and everybody falls silent.

"When our people first came to this land," the mayor begins in a solemn voice, "they understood the harsh realities of life. Nature gives, and nature takes away, and they knew if they were going to survive, they had to make sacrifices, give something back for everything they gained, keep the ancient covenant, life for life, the eternal balance, as old as the Earth itself."

The townspeople listen intently, the glow from the bonfire distorting their features into something less personal, less human.

The mayor goes on, "Our ancestors made their offerings and prospered, and life grew comfortable, and it was easy to forget the old ways, until there was nothing left of them but adolescent pranks." He pauses for dramatic effect. "Then the meteors came."

A stirring of grief passes through the crowd.

"We received a message that day, a wakeup call. Nature gave..."

Gazes fasten on Clark, and the bald man squeezes his hand.

"...and nature took away."

The girl in pink cries.

"And some of us were left as reminders..."

Eyes dart around the circle to the coach, Jody, the insect boy and others.

"So we would never again forget how important it is to keep the balance."

Restlessness flows through the group, a wordless demand for action.

"Not all of us likes what we have to do," the mayor says.

A few heads turn toward Clark's father.

"But we all understand why it's necessary."

Jody's stomach makes a dangerous gurgling.

"At least this way, we don't have to sacrifice one of our own. So let's go out there and do what needs to be done. Get our people back to normal and get on with our lives for another year."

The sheriff claps his hands with authority. "You heard the mayor."

The people scatter, and Leonard can't tell what they're doing until they form a grim line and start to advance on the cornfield. Some of them have rocks in their hands, others shovels, tire irons, pieces of wood. Kindly old Mrs. Featheringill wields what Leonard suspects is her dead husband's cane.

"Let's go get us a scarecrow," the Sheriff says.

Leonard keeps filming. He is a professional after all. They close in, and he starts moving backwards, camera trained, thoughts of Pulitzers and publication rights still foolishly running through his head. By the time he lets the camera slip from his hands and turns to run, it's already too late.

He stumbles along the hard furrows, his sense of direction hopelessly lost, lungs burning, legs protesting. He can just imagine how page eleven of tomorrow's Smallville Ledger will read: Leonard T. Vance, 47, freelance journalist, was reported missing to local authorities, after leaving what may be a suicidal message for his editor. They'll include a quote from Howard, of course. We thought he was cracking up, it will say.

The footfalls grow heavier behind him, and he keeps running, deeper into the heart of the corn. Even though he knows there's nothing out there that can save him.