Lex rounded the corner and took the exit from Hickory Lane that led up to the old church. Behind his Hummer and on the adjoining road to the left, the thick, swirling fog was already gathering pace.

Lex gulped and pushed the military designed vehicle just that little bit faster.

Earlier in the evening, he had tuned into Chloe's radio show, unsure what to expect from the Smallville High reporter. He had been worried the blonde would bring up Luthorcorp's past transgressions to haunt him, but what he had heard had been a haunting of a very different nature.

Most people wouldn't have believed Chloe's pleading screams as she howled into the microphone, but Lex had. Here, in Smallville, anything was possible thanks to the plethora of green rocks scattering the countryside. Where those meteor rocks responsible for tonight's mayhem? Lex didn't know. What the millionaire was sure of, however, was the fact that he needed to get to the old church, and fast. Chloe had made it quite clear, and he wasn't going to doubt her with a mile wide fog on his tail.

Lex glanced in his mirror, but this time not to watch how close the miasma was. Instead, he let his gaze fall on the Hummer's rear seat and to his passengers. As soon as he had exited the mansion, he had thought of the Kents and Clark. When he had hastily called around, however, Clark and his new sidekick Lois had been missing. The Kents had been trying to get Martha's car to start out in the driveway, but to no avail so he had offered them a ride.

Now, Jonathan and Martha Kent sat huddled together in the middle of his rear seat. Jonathan had an arm tightly clasped around his wife's shoulder, and kept stealing a look outside every few seconds.

"I'm sure Clark is safely at the church by now, Mr. Kent," Lex offered. "Chloe will have made sure of that." In truth, Lex didn't know if Chloe had even made good her escape from the radio station. The Kents had heard the same harried pleas as he had, and then silence.

"Chloe might be a safe bet, but Clark was with Lois. She can be…" Martha let her words trail. She knew Lois was a good person, but sometimes she didn't think first.

"Headstrong?" Lex guessed. "Or daring, even?"

Jonathan shook his head. "Lois might be a lot of things, but I'm sure she'll do the right thing, just like Clark will." A vision of Lana Lang entered the farmer's head but he tried to push it aside. Clark will try to check on Lana, I know he will, and what if this thing is meteor related?

"Lex!" Martha cried out Lex's name as he took his eyes from the road for a second to look their way. "Watch out!"

The millionaire hit the brakes before he'd even turned back around. When he saw the reason for Martha's shrill scream, he let out a low breath through his teeth. Up ahead, four teenagers were running for their lives from the fog as it ebbed from yet another side road.

As the Hummer screeched to a halt, Clark, Chloe, Lana and Lois all stopped running and looked behind. Clark recognized the vehicle even before Lex had chance to get out.

"It's Lex! Come on!" Risking running through a thin veil of the vapour to reach the Hummer, Clark scooped up the waning Lois in his arms and made a line for the purring 4x4 before anyone could argue.

Lana shot Chloe a strange glance and then followed the towering teen. Chloe brought up the rear with a tiny smirk on her face. She had long since given up hope of winning Clark's heart, but to see Lana's expression as he had carried Lois had been priceless. Heck, maybe my favourite farmboy is finally seeing some sense!

As Clark reached the Hummer, Jonathan swung open the rear door and helped his son guide Lois onto the seat. She looked a little pale, but her sassy expression was still intact. The farmer guessed she was a little shaken, but she'd be okay once they got her someplace warm. He looked up to Clark as the other girls arrived, but there was no time for explanations. Instead, both men shuffled along the seat to make room for Chloe and Lana.

Before they had the rear door closed, Lex hit the gas again and headed straight for the church a few miles down the lane. "We thought you'd already be at the church," he suggested, this time keeping his eyes on the road and the encroaching fog.

Clark shook his head and wrapped his jacket around the still shivering Lois. "We got held up by a bunch of angry spooks." He waited for the rebuttal he suspected would come, and was surprised when Lex nodded instead.

"Is it meteor related?" The millionaire seemed to direct his question towards Chloe. After all, she had been the one to try and alert the town.

Jonathan and Martha both glanced at one another at the suggestion, but remained silent. They too had no real clue what was happening. Except, that perhaps history had come back to haunt a town riddled with secrets.

"Actually," Chloe began. "This time I don't think this has anything to do with the infamous green rocks. I think we're dealing with a bona fide spookfest. Clark found a diary in the farm attic and it tells a pretty gruesome tale of murder in Smallville. And tonight is the anniversary of the main event." Chloe screwed up her face in confusion. "What I don't get is why you told me to direct people to the church. Don't tell me it's the old Holy ground cliché? Because I really don't think that will hold any ground with these ghosts, Clark."

Clark shook his head and paused a second while he watched his mom tend Lois' arm. Once Martha nodded that it wasn't bleeding anymore he replied, "Its not Holy ground that can save us, its meteor ground. The church took a hit all those years ago. When Lois and I visited father Malone earlier, the ghosts had already tried to get to him. He's the catalyst in all this, but for some reason the spirits of the dead can't pass the green rocks in the church yard…" And I can't pass them either.

"So, what do we do once we get there?" Lois took in a sharp breath at the stinging in her arm, then continued, "We can't just sit in the church and starve to death."

Jonathan thought about the first lines in the journal and looked to Clark. "Son, didn't the diary say something about between midnight and one?"

Clark appeared flustered for a moment. In all their haste, he had forgotten about the journal, and was suddenly afraid he had left it behind during his last ghostly encounter. Quickly, he patted his shirt pockets and was relieved when he felt the familiar shape of the book.

He teased it out and gently opened the yellowed pages again. Reading from them, he nodded. "Midnight till One belongs to the Dead." He checked his wristwatch. "Does that mean in twenty minutes we're safe?"

Jonathan didn't know, but at least ahead the ominous shape of the church was finally visible. It was as if the structure was waiting for them, and for the events that were to yet unfold within the bowels of the ancient fog.

For a few short seconds, everyone fell silent. Then, as the looming church grew in their field of view, so did a thin veil of mist. It had been there before when Lois and Clark had visited, and now it waited for its next victims.

"Wha …what's that?" Lana's voice quivered as she was the first to spot something dangling from an overhanging tree near the gate.

Lex was tempted to hit the brakes again. "It's a body…" As he said the words, the shape of a long dead farmer began to take form under the mangled cadaver. It waited for them patiently to grow closer.

Chloe shook her head. "Not just any body, though. It's Stacey." She tugged on the back of Lex's seat, pulling herself forward. "You better hit the gas, not the brakes, Lex. That thing has no intention of letting us through into sanctuary."

"Yeah, make some spook sushi before they do the same to us!" Lois scowled at her own words, and looked to the Kents for comfort. Somehow, the family gave her a kind of peace her father never had had time for. Even Clark in his own way was a reassuring force in a world gone wrong.

Right now, though, Clark had other things on his mind. If Lex rammed the ghost and drove the Hummer straight through the stone wall into the church yard, then he would surely collapse from the multitude of meteor rocks. Not to mention, if dad is wrong about his midnight until one theory, everyone will be trapped!

Lois saw his intentions first, and frowned as she realized how foolhardy he was being. "Hey, Smallville!"

Before she could say more, Clark pushed his way over to the side door and slammed it open until it almost sprained the hinges. At the same moment Clark dived from the lumbering vehicle, Lex rammed it through the wall and into safety.

The Hummer ploughed through several crumbling gravestones and eventually came to rest near the wooden church door.

Clark rolled over as he jumped and spun his body upwards and onto his feet, careful not to edge near the Kryptonite rocks as he made the move. He stole a glance as his parents and friends climbed from the crashed vehicle, and then turned back to Stacey's limp body and the creature below it.

Clark slowly walked forward, trying to move confidently even though he had no clue how he could placate the spirit before him. As he neared the thing, he realized he somehow knew the figure was Blake.

Blake remained motionless, even though from the church Lois and the others had begun to call desperately to Clark. His eyes glowed brightly, and he seemed to stare at the teen before him with a new kind of respect, even though his intentions were still to kill.

Clark paused a few steps from the charred creature and gulped. Could it understand anything but hate after all these years? He held out a hand, knowing he couldn't be harmed, but hoping to gain some kind of trust.

Still, the seemingly rotting cadaver of a ghost didn't move. Instead, beside him, another presence began to materialize. It was the woman again.

"Elizabeth Dane…" Clark murmured, becoming mesmerized by the new apparition's appearance. This time, the manifestation of Dane was different –she was perfectly formed. No burns marred her skin, and her long, flowing dress blew lightly in the night breeze. Only the swirls of mist that replaced her feet gave always that this was an illusion of the dead.

"Six must die…" Dane's voice was soft and yet commanding. She glanced to Blake at her side, and he nodded his agreement. "Those whose forefathers transgressed must pay…"

Clark shuddered. "None of the people here should pay. They did nothing. Not even my own relative was involved." For the last time, Clark produced Nathaniel Kent's journal and offered it up. "Take this, and see the truth. I know you were wronged, but two wrongs never make a right. You can't kill for the sake of killing. Not if you were ever good, God-fearing people."

Blake's bony hand reached out, and his scrawny fingertips caressed the edge of the book in Clark's palm. As corporeal and non-corporeal met, the journal began to glow with a bright yellow light that engulfed both men.

Clark felt a surge of energy run through his frame like a lightning bolt, and his boots suddenly seemed glued to the spot where he was standing. His muscles shook with the force coursing through them, and he was somehow compelled to keep his eyes on the book in his quivering hand, even though he wanted to look away.

"It is you who must see the truth…" Blake's voice was nothing like that of the watching Elizabeth Dane's. It was deep and guttural- dead.

As he spoke, the journal glowed with a fiercer intensity, and suddenly Clark was no longer looking down upon an aged book. He was looking down upon a church filled with people- men, women and children, laughing and joking as they congregated for their regular town meeting.

Clark tried to pull away from the image, but the vision from the past had imprisoned him in its era. Here he would stay until the ghastly deed had at last been witnessed by an outsider. "I know what happened," he pleaded, but Blake was stoic in his resolve.

The inside of the church became even larger, and abruptly Clark was no longer looking down upon it, he was inside like some invisible fly on the wall…

As the people of latter day Smallville began to quieten down, Clark noticed two figures had made their way to the forefront of the crowd. Both were impeccably dressed for their era, and the teen recognized them as Dane and Blake.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Elizabeth and I have asked you all here this evening to bring you some sad news," Blake addressed the gathering while stealing a glance at the woman at his side. "I'm afraid I have decided to sell my land to Holbrook at the generous rate he has offered. Rather than see bloodshed in Smallville, I would suggest you do the same…" Despite his words, it was obvious Blake was struggling with the choice he had made.

Men and women in the crowd began to murmur. Some felt betrayed and began to shout out in despair.

"You brought us together all these months with your words of hope, only to let us down now? You're no better than Holbrook!"

More voices joined the irate farmer who had hollered until the church was awash with angry shouts. Eventually, Elizabeth Dane could take no more.

"People! This isn't a choice that has been taken lightly…" She took Blake's hand, feeling his sorrow. "My good friend and neighbour has been diagnosed with a terrible sickness for which there is no cure. Would you wish him to spend his last days fighting over land he has no need for?"

The leering stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and the crowd gathered in the church abruptly became sombre. Blake's illness had brought home to them how feeble their own tenuous grip on the Kansas land was. After five minutes silence, the murmuring began again.

This time, the people were talking amongst themselves, and Dane was the only voice who could break them up. "My friends, it would make sense if everyone voted on what we should do now. I will be selling my land, and perhaps it would be better if we all did. I fear Holbrook will go to illegal lengths to take what is not rightfully his…"

Heads bobbed in agreement, and as Clark watched the gathering in the church swiftly voted to give up their fight for the small town and its land. Without Blake and Dane they had no backbone.

Clark's skin suddenly became cold as he realized what this all meant. "They're going to die for nothing! Holbrook and Malone burn the church down little knowing the people had already voted to give up the fight!" he backed up, but the past was not about to release its hold on him yet- not until the final act of terror had been completed.

Clark's superior auditory skills alerted him to a sound and he honed in. it was the soft tapping of a hammer and nail on wood, over and over again. His head jerked to the source, and as he scanned through the wooden walls he cringed at what he saw.

Malone and one of Holbrook's henchmen were hammering the church doors closed. There would be no escape from the fire they would soon set.

The teen wanted to shout out and warn the people around him, but he knew it was futile. They couldn't even see him, let alone take heed of any warning he might try to give.

Then came the smell of burning. It was faint at first, as Malone lit the torch and tossed it on to the dry timbers of the house of God. Soon though, as the wood began to smoulder it became more intense.

The crowds began to notice too, and as people started to panic a stampede for the doors erupted. If only I could smash through the wood and end this! It would be so easy with my strength! But in this century, Clark Kent did not exist.

Screams filled the church, followed by a thick, grey blanket of smoke. Men, women and children began to cough and gag as the fumes and heat burned at their throats, and finally came the flames.

Clark closed his eyes as the roof beams started to crumble and fall in on those who had not already asphyxiated. He could even sense the intense heat on his skin and smell the aroma of burning human flesh, but he refused to open his eyes back to the imagery. "You died for nothing…nothing…women and children murdered when you had already agreed to give up what Holbrook wanted…"

Abruptly, the attack on his senses ceased and Clark dared to let his eyelids open once more. Still, the diary shook in his hand, held their by the glowing power of the dead.

"Six MUST die!" Blake reiterated his earlier command.

"No one here can die. I won't allow it." Clark fought the effects from the journal to look the dead man straight in the face. "They don't deserve it! What have these people ever done to you? What had Stacey done to you?" he was angry now.

"Malone…" Blake intoned. "Malone sent us to them…"

"No more deaths!" Clark screamed out with a yell so intense the link between his hand and the book was finally severed, and he felt himself blown backwards as if he'd been hit by a speeding car.

The bond between living and dead broke in a golden flash of light, and Clark realized in dismay that he had been tossed so far he was now lying in the graveyard. There really was no escape now from the spectres, but perhaps that was a good thing.

Already, his veins had begun to burn with the green rocks scattered around him. His energy waned in seconds as the alien radiation took a hold on his body. With the pain came a thought, and despite the agony he felt reassured. I can still save my parents and everyone…

Somehow, Clark managed to pull his failing body up to sit on his elbows. He shook with the effort, but he needed to face Blake and Dane one last time. "You want another death…take me…"

Dane and Blake floated forward within the miasma that created them until they reached the edge of where the meteor rocks began. Neither spoke, but Clark could have sworn he sensed a strange look in Dane's eyes. Was it compassion? Understanding of his sacrifice perhaps?

"You can't pass into the graveyard. You can't even touch me, but you don't have to," he continued. "If you want another death all you need do is watch and wait…" Clark slumped down then from his elbows until he was curled in a foetal position on the ground, shaking. The shadow of Stacey's still dangling body hung over him like a mark of death. "Take me and let the cycle be complete. No one else must die…" He rasped out the last sentence and was sure he saw Dane hold out a palm to him in anguish. Is she saying it shouldn't be this way? Or is she beckoning me to join her in some ghostly netherworld? Clark tried to hold onto consciousness until he had the answer, but as always the Kryptonite won the battle, and he slipped away into some dark, more comfortable place.

Hours or minutes could have passed, Clark had no clue, but sometime later he began to stir. Am I dead? There was no pain from meteor rock exposure, just the dull dizziness and disorientation it sometimes momentarily left behind.

He coughed as it felt like the bony finger of Dane was prodding him in the chest. Dare I open my eyes?

Clark groaned and the probing began again in earnest, followed by a concerned voice. "Clark, are you hurt? Say something to me dammit, Smallville!" More desperate voices followed, all wanting to know if he was alive.

Clark was tempted to grin. Three pretty girls all huddled around him like this and he had to tell the truth. If they hadn't just been through a night of hell he would have been tempted to fake injury in exchange for a little tender loving care. He stopped dead in mid-thought and realized what he was thinking. Tender loving care from Lois? Wow, those spooks must have really fried my brain!

"Clark, Sweetheart?" This time it was Martha pleading with him to wake, and he at last dragged his eyelids open and looked up at her. "Oh thank God, Clark!"

Martha cradled his head in her lap until he finally pushed up into a sitting position and looked around. Now that his head was clearing from the kryptonite's effects he realized there were more questions than answers. For a start, the fog had somehow magically dissipated, and he was now lying well away from any of the evil green mini-boulders that could have killed him.

"What happened?" Clark looked to his dad first, knowing the others had no clue about his allergy to the meteors.

Jonathan nodded back towards the church. "We saw you thrown backwards after touching the journal with one of those spooks."

"And we thought you were…were dead." Lana whimpered slightly as she gazed up towards Stacey's very lifeless body.

"I could have died…" Clark turned his attention to where he had originally fallen and raised an eyebrow towards his dad. As far as he knew, only Jonathan and Martha realized the graveyard could have killed him. So, what had occurred while he had been unconscious?

Chloe filled in the gaps, or at least some of them. "When you fell backwards and the ghosts moved nearer we thought…we thought," she stammered and then carried on. "Well, anyway, your dad and Lois decided to play heroes and ran into the fog to get you, but someone beat them to it."

Clark's brow furrowed. The ghosts couldn't help him, so who? Lex perhaps?

"It was Father Malone," Jonathan informed his son. "We didn't see where he came from, but he appeared out of the mist with a bottle of whiskey still in one hand and dragged you clear of…" The father faltered, knowing Clark understood the priest had saved his life.

Finally, Clark nodded in understanding. Malone had been in the churchyard drowning his sorrows and had overheard Clark's selfless offer to die in the others place. Some inner part of Malone's conscious had at last been pricked enough to bring out the real holy man hiding within the alcoholic's guise. He dragged me clear, but at what cost?

Clark frantically looked around the yard. Now that the fog had vanished, it was a clear, moonlit night with no cloud. What had happened to Malone? "Didn't you see what happened next?"

Lois put her good hand on Clark's shoulder. "The fog seemed to just disappear, like it was being sucked inside some huge vacuum." She shuddered. "Malone went with it."

"He died for me." Clark looked down at his hands. The horrid sight of his veins protruding and pulsing green had gone, thanks to someone giving up their life for his.

Jonathan shook his head. "No, Son. He died for himself. He regained his dignity."

No one spoke for a moment. Then, as usual, Lois had to break the silence first. On this occasion though, no one minded. She leaned over and offered Clark a hand up even though she was still giddy herself. "Are you sure you're okay, Smallville? No extra holes there to match the one in my arm?" she smiled a little then, and Clark smiled back impishly.

Three pretty girls, all staring at him expectantly for an answer. Maybe I could just feign a slight limp…

Epilogue

Many of the townspeople never knew what had happened the night of the fog, and perhaps it was better that way. Some had looked from their windows and decided quite wisely not to leave the house. Others had been so engrossed in the TV shows they were watching that they had never heard the thundering wrapping on their screen doors. For Clark and his family, though, and those who had heard Chloe's broadcast, Smallville would never be quite the same.

The morning after the miasma vanished, Sheriff Adams discovered Father Malone's body out at the church. He had been decapitated by a sword. The murder weapon had been left at his side, and had since been dated via markings back to the American civil war. It was said by many locals that there could never be any suspects, because the dead had claimed their own.

Clark, Chloe and Lois knew the real truth. It hadn't taken long for Chloe to look back in Smallville's records once she knew what to look for. It appeared Blake had been a distinguished cavalry officer in his time, and had served under General Ulysses S Grant for several years. Grant had given him the sword for an act of bravery, and it was said he had been buried with it after his untimely death in an accidental fire.

"It was no accident…" Clark arose early and sat at the breakfast table mulling over the facts. He'd not been able to sleep since the night of the fog, and was pretty lucky his Kryptonian body didn't need as much rest as its human counterparts.

"You're up early again, Son." Jonathan breezed in from outside and poured out a cup of strong coffee. He pulled out a chair and sat down next to Clark with a sigh. "What's bothering you, Clark? You can't go back and change things. The past is set in stone."

Clark nodded and fumbled with his own half empty mug. "I just don't understand how people can do that to others. Kill, murder, lie all just to get what they want, or for simple revenge. The more I think about it, the more I realize how lucky I am to have such wonderful people around me as you and mom."

Jonathan smiled slightly and patted his son on the back. "Not to mention three lovely ladies who keep ringing here worried sick about a certain farmboy with a limp?" he exaggerated the last word to let his son know he was fully aware of the little subterfuge.

Clark's cheeks flushed with color and he abruptly wanted to creep back upstairs to bed. At his father's laughter, he cringed and offered, "Two lovely ladies, and one Lois."

Jonathan took a sip of his drink and became more serious again. "Son, I know you might find this hard to believe, but Lois thinks a lot more of you than you know. Out at the church, she was the first person to dive into that fog after you, despite already being hurt herself. And when we got to you lying there lifeless, you should have seen the look on her face!"

"I felt her prodding, trust me!" Clark grinned and shook his head, "but, Dad, we annoy one another…"

From the doorway Martha cleared her throat and let a small smile play across her features as both men turned to look at her. "Honey, maybe you two just enjoy hating one another too much?" she winked, teasing her suddenly horrified son. "They say that's how the best relationships start."

Clark jumped up from the table, and dived for the stairs back to his bedroom before Lois thought about re-acquiring it. She'd stayed with Lana for a few nights to keep her company, and Clark was beginning to like his old room back a little too much. "Ugh, no way, Mom!" Lana once said that too…No…it can't be true! He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Lois is growing on me…

As their son ran for dear life back towards his room, Jonathan and Martha shared a quiet moment.

Jonathan slipped an arm around his wife's waist and pulled her close. "Do you really think those two could ever?" he asked with a playful frown.

Martha shrugged. "I don't know, Jonathan, but there is something between those two, and it's not hate…"

The farmer nodded knowingly and tugged his wife closer. "You mean something that might eventually turn out like this?" Before she could ask more, Jonathan pulled her into a long, passionate kiss.

Upstairs, Clark bounced onto his welcoming duvet and lay on his stomach. He couldn't sleep, and it wasn't Lois that was giving him insomnia. It was something far more worrying.

Blake and Dane had said that six must die, but even with Malone, Clark could only account for five deaths.

On some dark, lonely April night in the future, would the fog return to seek its last victim?

The End