Free Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization by Greg Cox Page A

the entire platform crashing into the sea, taking him with it.
    Countless tons of steel and concrete drove him into the water, through thousands of gallons of burning oil. The flames licking his body, however, were doused as the sea swallowed him.
    He sank beneath the waves. Compared to the fiery pandemonium above, it was surprisingly cool and tranquil down below. The curtain of flames spreading across the surface felt very remote and far away, almost as though they belonged to a different universe. Stunned, Clark basked for a moment in the peace and quiet. He found it tempting to just stop fighting, stop searching, and vanish into the endless depths.
    Then a whalesong broke the silence of the deep. Complex vocalizations, punctuated by clicks, echoed beneath the sea. Three humpback whales, their sleek bodies gliding gracefully through the water, converged on him. The whales circled him in fascination, as though sensing something different about him.
    The largest one nudged Clark with his snout and began pushing him toward the surface. He floated among the gigantic mammals, even as his mind drifted backward...
SEPTEMBER, 1988
    “Clark? Are you listening, Clark?”
    It was the first day of school at Weisinger Primary. Ms. Rampling, Clark’s homeroom teacher, approached the boy’s desk while his classmates looked on.
    “I asked if you could tell me who first settled in Kansas.”
    Only nine years old and small for his age, Clark cowered at his desk. Wide blue eyes stared in horror at the thirtyish woman who regarded the mute child with confusion.
    “Are you all right, Clark?” she asked.
    The other children giggled at his discomfort. They couldn’t see what he saw—the inside of Ms. Whitaker. The teacher’s skin and clothes had gone transparent, revealing the bones, organs, and arteries beneath. He could see the blood coursing through her veins, watch her heart beat rhythmically. Her lungs expanded and contracted like fleshy balloons. Chewed-up food made its way through her digestive tract. She looked like the “visible man” model he’d seen in the Sears catalog, but life-sized and pulsing with animation. Exposed muscles, resembling strips of raw meat, covered her bones. Eyeballs rolled in the sockets of her skull.
    He looked away from her, only to discover that his classmates had turned into living anatomy lessons as well. Even worse, he could hear all of their heartbeats, which were pounding like kettledrums—and growing louder by the second.
    Clark threw his hands over his ears, but it didn’t do any good. He could hear everything. Even the ticking of the wall clock sounded like a jackhammer going off right in his ears.
    It was unbearable.
    Unable to stand it any longer, he shoved his chair back and jumped to his feet. The other children laughed thunderously, sounding like a million howling coyotes, and he ran in terror from the classroom.
    “Clark! Come back here!” Ms. Whitaker called.
    The skinless teacher chased him down the hallway, but Clark didn’t slow down. His own heart was racing in panic. He didn’t know what was happening to him. There was something wrong with his eyes—the world kept shifting in colors and degrees of perception. One minute, people were glowing red pockets of heat. The next, they were walking skeletons.
    Steam pipes, hissing like giant rattlesnakes, glowed behind solid walls, which turned clear as glass, revealing the playground and sidewalks outside the school. He could see all the way across Smallville...
    He tried to hide from the world in a janitor’s closet. Huddling among the mops and brooms, he locked the door from the inside right before Ms. Whitaker caught up with him. She knocked on it loudly enough to make him cover his ears again. Her knuckles rapped against the unyielding wood. It sounded like a tractor ramming into a barn, over and over again.
    “Clark!” she called, her voice raised. “Come out of there!”
    She tried the knob, wiggling it noisily.
    No! Clark