Salt The Earth

*And it was abut the sixth hour,
And there was a darkness over
All the Earth until the ninth hour.
And the sun was darkened
And the veil of the temple
Was rent in the midst.*

Luke 23:44:45

He was at the Farmers' Market when the news came.

One minute, he was hammering out the details of a weekly produce delivery with Jonathan Kent and the next, Martha Kent was screaming. Her hands clenched on the table between her and a solemn-faced deputy, keening as if her heart was broken.

She was not alone. Gabe Sullivan's young daughter was right beside her, sobbing openly while the Ross boy stared in shocked silence. That shock spread in waves, halting friends and neighbors in their tracks as they witnessed the sudden outpouring of grief.

Jonathan broke off their negotiations, rushing to his wife's aid. With ashen face and shaking voice, he demanded an explanation. What he received aged him a century, his shoulders slumping as he buried his face in his wife's hair, clinging to her as if she were the rock of ages.

There were a few other white, strained faces in the crowd and as Lex looked at each of them, he took note of the ones where guilt dwelt instead of sorrow.

Someone was going to pay for this.

The intervening distance proved no match for nerves of steel and a new Porsche.

With the exception of the emergency personnel and the hapless member of his own security team who'd found the body, Lex was the first person to arrive at Riley's Field. He even beat the police cruiser bearing the Kents to the scene of their son's murder.

At least they were spared the sight of Clark being cut down from the cross. The boy had died in agony -- his entire body blue from the cold, limbs stiff and head tilted to one side, mouth swollen and black -- but thankfully his eyes were closed. The only thing he wore beside the scarlet "S" emblazoned across his chest was a pair of boxers and a delicate chain around his neck. When the ropes were cut, the chain broke, its dull green stone tumbling to the ground below.

A sharp-eyed deputy spotted its descent and he dove for the stone, clearly eager to be the one to solve this heinous crime. But in his enthusiasm, he jostled against his neighbors and nearly sent Clark's body face-first into the dirt.

A shout from Lex called forth a host of helping hands, each reaching to ease the burden. Clark was lowered gently, his body never touching the ground. Heavy black plastic was tugged into place around him, a zipper pulled closed and a final wisp of dark hair tucked in by careful fingers. Silent tears tracked down a sea of grim faces as the bag was loaded into the ambulance.

The wind whipped past Lex, his coattails flying in its wake as he witnessed the entire gruesome process. Unwilling to clear the dust out of his eyes, Lex refused to blink lest a moment's inattention on his part result in any further insult to his only friend's remains.

By the time the Kents arrived, the horror had been sanitized -- the blood-soaked ropes gone, the post scrubbed, the ground swept clean -- their son's tortuous death reduced to nothing but a black bag and a pile of clothes at the foot of the Scarecrow's perch.

The Kents refused his offer to pay for Clark's funeral.

They fought the coroner's office tooth and nail for the return of their son's body and then made all the arrangements themselves. The service was supposed to be small and private, attended by only close friends and family, but after Chloe Sullivan's blistering expose of Smallville's deadly tradition hit the AP wire, the Kents' plans had to be altered.

Anti-hazing activists poured in from every state. A song hastily penned and flung onto the airwaves by the angry, young voice of the year hit the top ten the morning Clark Kent was laid to rest. His funeral became the biggest thing to hit Smallville since the meteor shower of '89.

Lex knew the bills were astronomical but after the first rebuff, he didn't offer again.

Let the Kents' stubborn pride sink them further into the mire. Jonathan Kent was just as guilty as the boys who'd strung his son up and left him to die. On Homecoming Day of his own senior year, he'd been in the same cornfield, securing some other sacrificial lamb to a pole and painting an "S" across a defenseless, shivering chest.

He'd even congratulated the bastard who chose Clark as the Scarecrow, slapping him on the back and babbling about the awesome game won on in Smallville's stadium while Clark gasped out his last breaths.

Damn him, damn them all.

The same day Clark was found, Whitney Fordman came forward and turned himself in. That forthright act spared his family the fate which befell the rest of Smallville. Lex left Fordman's alone and when Bill Fordman suffered a nearly fatal coronary at his son's arraignment, Lex picked up the tab for the ensuing medical bills.

He also paid for the man's funeral a month later.

The Crows' winning season stalled after the arrest of their star quarterback. Their chances of a championship were hamstrung, the team's roster decimated mere days after Homecoming when an inexplicable truck accident claimed the lives of the three other key players. A few weeks later the head coach was caught in a cheating scandal, and the entire athletic department came under review.

The high school itself was shut down after a fire gutted the majority of the building and the principal was run over by his own car.

There were other bizarre incidents, all over town, most of them fatal, and people started leaving in droves. While the death toll mounted, the pillars of the community crumbled, whole generations uprooted in the blink of an eye. Houses and land were sold at rock-bottom prices as entire families fled.

Lex made a killing in real estate.

Main Street had all but dried up and blown away by the first anniversary of that cold October morning.

The final step in his plan was perfectly timed. One year to the day, Lex stood above the diminished flock of employees at LuthorCorp Plant Number Three and struck the death blow to a town that ate its young. A stunned silence greeted his announcement, and before a single protest could be raised, he ordered everyone off the premises.

The mansion was empty, pristine white sheets littering unused rooms. His cars, including a truck that had only been driven once, were already snug under their covers in the Luthor Towers garage. The helicopter awaited his departure and the lights of Metropolis beckoned him home.

He'd been sent to Smallville to prove himself, and that's exactly what he'd done.