“Sounds fun.”
“Yeah, I had a pretty good night. I dunno, something weird happened, though. I had an…angry.”
“Are you all right?” Her eyes narrow. “Did you get high?”
“Mom…no.” Every so often, I forget my mom is A Mom, and then she busts out with a gem like that. “Someone made…improper advances toward me.” Wow. Just about as stupid as it sounds.
My mom puts on this really sly smile. “Must’ve been one pushy girl.”
I glance back. “Wasn’t a girl.”
Her smile disappears. We start talking.
THE ALLEYWAYSwhipped past me as I flew through the narrow passages between buildings. The creature from the other night had preempted me three more times, but I had finally managed to surprise it as it was finished squeezing the life out of some dirtbag with a gun and an ego. Now I was rushing after it, barely keeping up with its lopes and bounds. All I could tell of its figure was that it was huge, twice the size of a normal man, that it had tentacles of some sort hanging from its body, and that its presence felt…familiar. For some reason, the city’s song grew in me when I neared it, as if in recognition.
The massive silhouette grunted as it began leaping over a chain-link fence separating two alleyways. I pushed myself, forcing my body to fly faster, putting my fists out in front of me and charging my body with dark energy.
“STOP!” I called as I slammed into its back. The creature bellowed, and we exploded through the fence, crashing among newspapers and other wretched detritus. I was on my feet in a second, shaking the impact from my brain.
The being appeared like a huge octopus, a lump trailing a mass of black, slimy tentacles.
“Can you speak?” I whispered. No answer. Tentatively I reached out my hand to touch the lump—
The thing roared and reared back, showing me its full form. Horror filled my heart.
It was hard to describe what it was. It distinctly had the form of a human—arms, legs, eyes—but its attributes were hideously bestial. From its face, fingers, chest, knees, there came huge twisting masses of black tentacles, pulsating and grappling—a sewer anemone, if you will. Its face was almost like an insect’s: Two huge segmented eyes stared vacantly at me from a round head, another wriggling mess of black feelers where its mouth should have been. Its form was muscular, but it bent and turned as though it had millions of joints in every part of its body. There was nothing fluid about its posture or movement; it seemed to twitch its way around things rather than actually walk or crawl. As a being, an existing entity, it was just not right.
“My God…,” I whispered.
The monster responded by sending one of its massive claws smashing into my head. I felt my body, limp and helpless, hit a brick wall. Red dust and blinding light filled my vision, and I stumbled, trying to regain my footing. When I looked up, the thing had disappeared into the night.
Whatever the monster was, it was dangerous. And if it could hurt me, something was wrong. Somehow it had found a way to access the city’s negative energy as well. It had powers similar to mine.
Next time. Next time I would be ready for it.
CHAPTER FOUR
LOCKE! TELEPHONE!”
Maybe if I push my face hard enough into my pillow, I’ll sink into it and disappear forever.
“LOCKE!”
No dice. “For Christ’s…Who is it?”
“No idea!” my brother yells out.
Yuck. Something happened to my hair last night. It’s grosser than normal. What day is it? Sunday? Has to be. I was out last night. My mouth tastes like vomit and my shoulder blade hurts. I wonder—oh. Oh wait. Oh yes, thank you, memory, you bastard. The collage of emotions that was my night whizzes before my mind’s eye: first excitement, then joy, then fear, then rage, then disappointment. Jesus, Locke, if this isn’t proof that you just shouldn’t leave the house, I don’t know what is.
My hand scrambles around the floor of my room, among books, magazines, CDs, and socks. Phone…phone…there. I grab the cordless and put it to my ear, pressing the talk button. “Mrf. Hello?”
“Locke?”
There’s something about the voice that I can’t put my finger on. “Yes?”
“It’s Casey.”
I wake up really quickly. He sounds like a different person when he’s sober. More timid, maybe. How did he know my number? “How do you know my number?”
“Randall gave it to me.” A pause. “Did I wake you?”
I shake my head, then realize he can’t see that. Locke Vinetti as the yardstick of human intelligence. “No, my little brother woke me.”
He chuckles. “You know what I mean.”
“It’s no big deal. Really.”
“Okay.” Another pause. This one’s much longer than the last one. I’m this close to blurting out, So, about last night when Casey cuts in. “You live on Eighty-sixth and Broadway, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Wanna go to Three Star?”
Is this a joke? Getting lunch with this guy is the last thing I want to do. “Um, wow, I’m not sure that’s, y’see, my mom needs some help today. I gotta look after Lon, my brother.”
“I won’t keep you long. C’mon, just get a burger.”
“No, I mean, if it were up to me, man—”
“Come on, Locke, give me…” He sighs, then takes a deep breath. “Listen, Locke, I know it’s asking a lot, but please, do me this favor, even if you owe me nothing. I’m no good at this, but just…five minutes, if that. I promise. You’re free to bail at any time, guilt free.”
He sounds desperate and confused to the point of tears. Cruelty isn’t in my nature (Locke’s nature). I make plans and hope I won’t regret them.
Three Star Coffee Shop is a diner on 86th Street and Columbus. It’s a quaint, ratty little place with great coffee and great burgers—and that’s it. Everything else there is terrible. Their fries aren’t even that good. But seeing as it’s already 11:30 by the time I wake up, I think a burger and some coffee might do me good.
As I walk out of the house, I yell out to the house in general, “Mom! I’m going out to lunch!”
“With who?” I hear from somewhere in the apartment.
I brace myself. “Casey!”
The next thing I know, my mom’s in front of me, wiping her hands on a rag, one eyebrow almost leaping off her face. “Casey. The boy from last night.” I nod slowly. Her eyes become slits. “So why are you going out to lunch with him?”
“I dunno. He sounded like he wanted to apologize.”
“I’m not sure I want you spending time with this creepy little rapist.”
“Mom, he’s not a rapist.”
“No one treats anyone that way, Locke, and especially not my boy.”
“Mom, come on. He’s, y’know, troubled.” The words leave my mouth, and I realize what I’m trying to get at. “Like me.”
She shakes her head, but I can see her face soften a little. It clicks. “All right. Just don’t let him try anything else, okay? Remember, honey, men are pigs. They’re thinking with something other than their minds, something arguably smaller and certainly less important.”
“You always wanted a daughter, didn’t you?”
She laughs. “Just so I could say that.”
“That last part, the ‘arguably smaller’ bit, that was good. You’re funny.”
“Don’t be a wiseass. No one likes a clever teenager.”
Casey’s there among the tobacco-tooth yellow interior of Three Star, staring into a cup of coffee as if it was a scattering of animal bones and he was a shaman. My nerves shiver at the very sight of him. Sweat starts forming on my brow and chest. I’m not used to having lunch with people I hardly know. The only reason I even considered approaching Casey last night was because everyone had seemed so cool and relaxed with me. And here we are, in the most intense conversational situation imaginable. Welcome to my nightmare.
I walk in and sit down across from Casey. He looks up and smil
es a little, resting his head on his folded hands. It’s all bullshit, though; a vein like a blue tree root throbs under his brow. He’s terrified.
I order a cheeseburger with Swiss and a cup of coffee, and we sit in silence.
Finally Casey says those fateful words. “So, um, about last night.”
I can’t help but laugh a little. He looks up, slightly hurt, a little jumpy. I just shake my head and say, “It sounds like we had unprotected sex.”
He grins. “You’re right. Sorry. Nerves. Weird position I’m in. Don’t quite know…”
“Same.”
“Well, I’ve never been choked before, I’ll tell you that,” he says, sipping his coffee. He tugs back at the collar of his shirt, and I wince: On either side of his throat are perfect little circular bruises, obviously from my fingers. I feel like I’m on COPS. “That was new. Definitely helps my street cred.”
“Glad I can help,” I say. My face begins to burn. I’m such a jerk. Normal people, healthy people, don’t do things like that. Everything’s dramatic and powerful, out of my control, until I have to stare down the ugly purple marks that my “situation” leaves behind.
He reads me with a glance and frowns. “I’m not trying to be glib, man. It was okay that you choked me. I think it was for the best.” My shrug doesn’t seem like enough for him, so he keeps pushing. “I mean, how do you feel after last night, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“How do I feel?” This isn’t the question I was expecting.
“Yeah. What’re your reactions?”
“How the fuck do you expect me to feel?” I blurt, getting venom-tremors along my fingers and forearms. “When I said all that shit, I kept punctuating it with ‘never told anyone this before’ for a reason, dammit, and then it all gets spat back at me because I’m not a…”
Casey beams as I twitch and sputter. “Oh, man, this is the best part. Watching you search for a term.”
My face floods cherry, ’cause he’s got me right on the money. “That’s not funny. This isn’t funny.”
“Are you kidding? This is hilarious! This is like the part in a Van Damme movie where they explain the accent!”
“Shut up! I’m not a homophobe!”
“I never said you were,” he says, now compassionate. His eyes still have the knowledge they carried last night, an unfamiliar understanding; he knew exactly what buttons he was pushing and how many times he could push them while still being fair. “That’s not what I’m trying to do here, Locke. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t even know you were gay.” I sigh. “You left that part out when we were talking. I didn’t know.”
“You’re a guy,” he says. “It freaks a lot of guys out. Makes them think I’m just going to hit on ’em nonstop. Plus, Randall’s friend and all, you know how it is.”
“So what, you don’t tell me so I won’t see it coming? Thanks.”
“Okay, okay, bad explanation. Forget it, I’m a moron.” He holds up his hands in defense, giving me his most humbled, pitiful look. “Last night was my fault, no questions asked. I’m really, really sorry I acted that way, and you have every right to be mad.”
The question that’s racked my brain all night bubbles up to the surface: “Why?”
His eyes go to his coffee, irritated, angry at himself. “Number of reasons, I guess…Well, the easy one is that I just broke up with someone. Religious kid, typical self-loather. He got in a fight with me Thursday night, called me a lot of really fucking awful things, and then told me never to call him again. Which is why I was sitting alone, drinking myself into a warm little coma. So there’s that….” He makes eye contact with me again, and it hurts; there’s shame there, the kind that I recognize on a daily basis. “But also, y’know…You’re not the only one who realized they weren’t alone last night. The black is something that’s been screwing with me, mucking up my whole existence, for as long as I can remember, and soon I convinced myself that it was just me. That my anger, my hate, was unique, because it existed in a way that no one else seemed to understand. Trying to kiss you last night was sort of impulsive and…and drunken, but a good deal of it was…excitement? Rejoicing?” He shakes his head. “That’s the best I can do. I’m sorry, Locke. Really, really uncool, I know.”
My cheeseburger comes, and I load ketchup onto it, giving myself time to think through this emotional swamp before me. How can I hate him for feeling the same elation I did, knowing there was someone who gets it? The venom growls, aching for action, but I manage to push it down with a bite of burger. Condemning Casey any further for acting the way he did last night wouldn’t be warranted; it would be cruel, unnecessary.
“Well, look,” I say, “I’m not gay, so please don’t try that shit again.”
“Yeah, duly noted.” He chuckles. “Well, there go my plans for the afternoon.”
I laugh despite myself, and he can tell we’ve slain the monster of this particular conversation, and we’re okay again. The laugh feels good, unscripted, real. “You okay from last night? I didn’t do any real damage, did I?”
“Nah, after some coughing and sputtering, I was fine. I ended up going to Renée’s, spilling my heart out to her about the whole thing.”
The venom raises its head, interest piqued. “You told Renée about what happened?”
“Yeah. She likes you, by the way. I can tell. Randall really has talked about you a lot, you know? We’ve been mad excited to—”
“Bullshit, Casey, don’t try to make me feel okay. My dad does that voice on Christmas a lot better. You didn’t tell her about me, did you? About, y’know. The venom.”
“Well…yeah,” he says, puzzled. “Kind of an important part of the story, that.”
Anxiety explodes into my head. “Oh fuck, Casey, why? That was private! I didn’t expect you to tell anyone about…fuck. Fuck.”
“Oh, get over yourself.” He sneers. “Look, Renée’s been one of my best friends since God knows when. She knows all about the black, so it’s not like you freaked her out that much or anything. Honestly, the only thing that upset her in the least is that I made a move on you. Relax.”
As we finish up the meal and pay, I try to calm myself, pushing away the idea that any chance I had with Renée is already poisoned and heading toward a slow death. We come out into the glaring autumn sunshine, burning out our retinas from a hundred reflections in a hundred apartment windows. Casey effortlessly throws on a pair of stylish wraparounds, transforming him from angsty teenage gay guy to slick badass villain. Which reminds me.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Casey nods.
“When you’re…every night, going to sleep, I have a character, or a couple of characters, and I play out situations in my head. They’re superheroes, or wizards, and the venom is…their power, the source of what drives them. It feels really childish, but I play out these story lines in my head, and it makes me feel safe, like the venom’s not my enemy anymore.” I gauge his reaction to my ramblings and find it’s not wary or weirded-out, but anticipatory. “Do you do that?”
“Not really,” he says slowly, his brow furrowed seriously. “It’s not characters and superheroes for me, but I sometimes think of the black as a power. Something I can use, tap into if need be. However, while we’re on the subject of superheroes…” He reaches into his tote bag and pulls a book out with sort of a Shakespearean flourish. “Check page forty-five.” There’s a slap on my shoulder and a warm smile, and then he bounds away uptown in a jovial, charming sort of way.
The book is a graphic novel, a collection of Spider-Man comics. The cover shows Spider-Man leaping out of the path of what looks like his evil twin, a big, bulky Spider-Man dressed all in black with a gaping mouth full of sharp alligator teeth and a long, thick tongue. The character looks familiar, and I try and remember who he is for a few seconds before looking at the book’s title.
The cover reads, Spider-Man versus Venom!
The world around me goes silent, and everything on Earth
becomes this all-too-perfect creature trying to tear Peter Parker a new one on the cover of this book. This is going to be good.
Absentmindedly I flip to page forty-five. Sitting there is a small scrap of paper reading, “Renée,” followed by a phone number and an address.
This is going to be very, very good.
The rest of the day is spent in my room, on my bed, with this book open, falling in love with Todd McFarlane, comic-book artist extraordinaire.
Venom’s actual name is Eddie Brock. Apparently he was a big-time reporter until Spider-Man exposed him as a fraud and his career got ruined, after which he was forced to write for tabloids and scrape together just enough cash to eat. He blames Spider-Man for the whole ordeal. Then one night, while he’s trying to kill himself, he’s attacked by the symbiote, this black, drippy alien that Spider-Man used to have as a costume before he realized it would try and bond with him for life—this thing lives inside a person and manifests itself as a suit, pouring out of the host’s body like black fluid coating. The symbiote bonds with Brock, and he becomes Venom, who’s basically Spider-Man’s insane, buff, and utterly hideous doppelgänger. He’s a good guy at heart, really. Just homicidal.
How the hell have I not discovered this character before? I have the Internet (Topher Grace played him in the movie? Is that a joke?). I’m kind of a geek, in that I don’t have many friends and like reading. But this whole time, there’s been a character in comics literature that looks, acts, feels like he was created for no one but me, and I’ve been clueless to his existence. What the hell, man? Watching him get beaten down every issue is murder. Every sanctimonious speech Spider-Man screams out about innocence and sanity, I want Venom to open his huge caiman mouth and bite that little red head off.
On my way back from grabbing a soda from the kitchen, Lon spies the comic book in my hand. “I didn’t know you read Spider-Man,” he says excitedly. It’s the first time he’s really spoken to me since the whole bookstore thing yesterday, so I take what I can get.
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