Clark Kent's Arc

Chapter 6 of 4

Clark counted their supplies by the dim work light. Three ration bars. Half a jug of water. Not enough for a day. The storeroom had one door, hidden behind the steel tree and the unicorn. The creature still drifted through the ring above them. If it lingered, they starved in their own shelter. Safe was not the same as free. "We need to draw it away," Clark said. "Someone has to move it out of the ring." Elena shook her head. "Open that door and it maps us. Then this place is worthless." A fist knocked on the wall. Slow. Heavy. Not wet, not dragging. A human knock. Clark pressed his ear to the door. A low voice came through, plain and quiet. "Kent. It's Andre. I'm alone." Clark knew the name. Andre Roussimoff, the giant who wrestled here. He had come hunting the same thing they hid from. A good man he knew had vanished, and Andre had walked in alone to find whatever took him. Clark cracked the door. Andre filled the whole frame. Behind him stood Hulk Hogan, bandana damp with sweat, watching the dark hall like it might bite. "We saw the props moved," Hogan whispered. "Figured someone hid here. That thing's still circling, brother. It won't leave." "It's waiting for us to open up," Clark said. "We can't. And we're out of water." Andre looked past him at Elena on the crate. "Then it waits for the wrong door," he said. "I'll give it one." Clark understood. Andre could not sneak. He never had. But the creature fed on fighters. It wanted flesh, and Andre was the largest meal on the station. "It'll follow you," Clark said. "You can't fight it. It reforms." "Don't need to fight it," Andre said. "Just need it to chase me." He pointed one thick finger down the far corridor. Painted gold bricks curved along the floor there, an old stage path winding out of the hall. "That road runs to the lift bay. Long way. It'll be busy the whole time." Hogan set his jaw. "I'll run the other end. Split its eyes." Clark's chest tightened. Two men were offering to be bait so three of them could live. "When it clears the ring, we move," he said. "Cargo bay. Water's stored there." Andre nodded once. He stepped into the open hall and slammed his palm against the steel tree. The clang rang through the whole ring. From the dark, the wet dragging started fast. Andre walked away down the golden path, loud and slow, and the hollow-chested thing came after him. Hogan bolted the opposite way, shouting. The ring emptied. Clark counted ten seconds, then pushed the door wide. "Now." He pulled Elena up and ran with Orion into the cleared hall. The creature was gone, drawn off down the bright winding bricks after a man it could not eat quietly. The shelter had held. But its secret was spent, and Clark was running again.