Spider-Man

by Peter David

  Peter let out a howl like the damned, and the people in the crowd who had been babbling to one another lapsed into silence, not so much out of respect but out of shocked fascination for this naked display. The ambulance siren continued to wail in the distance, like a banshee announcing a dead soul on its way to the hereafter.

  The world blurred out for a moment, threatening to go away entirely, and then Peter heard another cop call out, “They’ve got the shooter! He’s headed south on Fifth Avenue!” And that brought his surroundings snapping sharply back into focus around him.

  No . . . “they” aren’t going to get the shooter . . .

  I am.

  In a dark alleyway, Peter pulled on his wrestling sweats and, without hesitation, leapt into the air and onto the nearest wall. He skittered up the building, higher and higher, no longer caring about the heights he was scaling, or the danger he was facing, or anything except getting his hands on the bastard who had ripped his uncle away from him.

  He leapt onto a flagpole, swung around it by using it as an anchor to build up speed, and then released it, his momentum carrying him to the next building, which he ascended as rapidly as he had the first one.

  Achieving the rooftop, he looked far ahead to the cluster of police lights, the cop cars screaming down Fifth Avenue in pursuit of the shooter. Peter fired a webline—a silver strand twinkling in the moonlight, adhering to a building two blocks down. It was the longest swing he had ever attempted. He didn’t hesitate. He wasn’t even thinking about it.

  Everything now was a means to an end, and even as he swooped down, down toward the street, and then snapped upward on the arc … even as he fired another web line in midswing, caught another building, and continued his journey, never slowing, moving with an ease and defiance of gravity that would have turned the most experienced of acrobats green … even as all that was happening, all he could think of was Uncle Ben.

  Worse, all he could think about was that last conversation. Except it hadn’t been a conversation. It had been … a fight, a temper tantrum, a horror show. The petulant words of a brat and an ingrate, and Peter was sure that was what Ben Parker had carried with him in departing this life. It was horrible and unfair and it fueled his rage all the more as his swings overtook the police pursuit.

  Then he saw it.

  For a moment he felt as if he was seeing a ghost. There was Uncle Ben’s Oldsmobile, barreling down Fifth Avenue, the driver himself hidden by the long shadows of the night. In short order, Fifth Avenue was going to effectively dead end into Washington Square Park, and they’d probably have roadblocks set up there. The shooter obviously knew it. He cut hard at Eighth Street, misjudging the angle, his speed carrying him too far. He slammed through a row of newspaper boxes, sending the unsold papers flying. Three police cars also cut hard, continuing the pursuit.

  Given time, they might or might not have caught up.

  Peter wasn’t about to give them any time. If there was one thing he’d learned, it was not to assume that there would always be time enough for anything.

  Webbing left, right, left, right, unseen in the shadows, Peter outsped the police cars and landed with a thump on the roof of the Oldsmobile. Without hesitation, he funneled his full rage into his fist and effortlessly smashed through the roof of the car. He reached around, not knowing what he would grab, and was pleased when he felt what had to be the shooter’s face cupped in his hand. All he had to do was squeeze and the man’s face would become a pulped and bloody mass in his palm.

  He was all set to do it, even as he cringed inwardly at the thought, but then the car began to swerve wildly, back and forth, trying to shake him off. The natural adhesion of his feet and his one free hand enabled him to stay attached to the roof, but it wasn’t easy. Still, if he crushed the guy’s head, that would solve the problem, wouldn’t it.

  The car went against the light where Eighth intersected with Broadway. Cars slammed to a halt to avoid getting smashed. The Oldsmobile whipped right onto Broadway, with its wider lanes and more maneuverability. It fishtailed briefly, then kept going.

  Peter, meantime, discarded the notion of killing him outright. Instead he wanted to growl at him, “Remember the experience of being born? Well, you’re going to relive it right now,” whereupon he would proceed to pull the shooter, headfirst, through the hole in the roof.

  But he didn’t have the opportunity, because suddenly his spider sense was screaming in his head. Then bullets, fired from inside the car, started punching through the roof. Peter’s agility kept him one step ahead of the rounds of ammo that came blasting up at him, but he knew it wasn’t going to last forever.

  A truck was moving down Broadway alongside them, and Peter vaulted onto the top of the truck. He crouched, watching the Olds as it raced alongside them… .

  Then he looked up. There was a traffic-light arm extending across the street, right at Peter’s chest level. And another a block beyond that, and another …

  Peter jumped, executing a triple somersault over the traffic light and landing back on the roof of the truck. But he wasn’t about to spend the rest of the evening vaulting traffic lights. The moment his feet touched the bus, he ricocheted off and landed back on the roof of the speeding Oldsmobile. This time, though, as if defying gravity itself, he managed a much softer landing so that the driver was unaware that he had reacquired a passenger.

  Light-footed, he vaulted onto the hood and swung around so that he was peering right through the windshield. He had a satisfying glimpse of the stunned, terror-stricken shooter, clearly not comprehending what he was seeing.

  The car cut hard to the left, barreling down a sidestreet toward the East River. Peter saw the driver fumbling around on the seat, probably for his gun, but not for a moment did Peter know the slightest fear. Later … later he would tremble with an awareness of how much danger he’d been in, but at that moment, nothing—least of all his own self-preservation—could penetrate the haze of fury that had seized him.

  Not giving the shooter an opportunity to start firing again, Peter slammed his fist through the windshield, releasing webbing as he did so. In a heartbeat, the entire front of the car was filled with webbing, completely blocking the driver’s vision.

  The car screeched wildly, the driver losing control, and the Olds smashed through the front gates of a creepy-looking building near the East River. The impact nearly knocked Peter off the hood, but the incredible adhesion of his fingers stabilized him. Then his head whipped around as he realized that the car was hurtling straight toward the front door of the building, with no intention of stopping. The gates had been held closed by a lock which easily broke upon impact, but Peter had the distinct feeling that the door was going to be a lot less yielding. If he didn’t bail, and quickly, he’d be crushed.

  He leapt straight up toward the building, just as the car smashed into the door and through. The sound was absolutely ear-splitting, the collision so forceful that he felt the vibration even though he was well out of harm’s way.

  And the blasted car kept going.

  If the vehicle had been of more modern vintage, it would doubtlessly have ended its automotive life right then and there. But many was the time he could remember Uncle Ben proudly saying, “Dammit, this is your father’s Oldsmobile,” as he would crow over the car’s old-style durability as compared to … as he said … “the tinfoil they’re making cars out of these days.”

  Well, it turned out that Uncle Ben had been right, as the car vanished into the interior of the building.

  Just thinking about Uncle Ben’s words, dwelling on times that would never come again, fueled Peter’s rage all the more. Police cars were now approaching, searchlights sweeping the exterior of the building, but Peter wasn’t waiting around. Nor was he allowing any chance that the carjacker might somehow slip away.

  He made his way into the darkened building, which turned out to be a warehouse. Whereas before he’d been reluctant to trust his spider sense, now he utterly turned himself over t
o its guidance. It didn’t take long at all. Despite the grim blackness of the interior, he zeroed in on his prey, locating him on the second floor of the dilapidated structure.

  The shooter was cowering in the corner, clutching a gun, glancing around desperately and peering into the darkness. He was wearing a cap. He might very well have sensed that he wasn’t alone, but he didn’t have a clue as to who else was there or from where an attack might come. It never even occurred to him to look straight up.

  Peter practically slithered across the ceiling, undetectable by any ears that didn’t belong to a citizen of the planet Krypton. Outside, police boats were cruising the East River. Slowly the shooter arose and went to the filth-encrusted windows, trying to peer out. As the carjacker checked his options, Peter released a webbing strand and slowly lowered himself to the floor.

  He landed softly, just behind the shooter, still not making a sound.

  And then a stray searchlight came through another window and, for just a moment, Peter’s silhouette was projected on the wall to the shooter’s right.

  The shooter whirled and fired in one motion, and had it been a normal man standing behind him, the killer would have claimed another victim. But Peter simply leapt away, the bullet smacking harmlessly into the wall behind him.

  Exterior lights played across the interior of the dank warehouse, elongating shadows, throwing false targets. Peter still couldn’t see the shooter clearly; he was just a shadow with a gun. But it didn’t matter. His spider sense was all he needed to guide him as the shooter blasted away randomly, desperately, and Peter effortlessly kept one step ahead of him the entire time.

  Peter heard footsteps from all around the building, hammers being cocked, rounds being chambered. The cops were moving in, but there was no way—no way—he was going to let them get to the shooter first. The carjacker fired once more where he thought Peter was, but Peter was already sailing through the air, and he connected with the shooter’s arm, sending the gun clattering across the floor. The shooter turned as if to go for it, but Peter grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around.

  “This is for the man you killed!” howled Peter from the bottom of his soul, as he drove a roundhouse that connected with the carjacker’s mouth. He felt a satisfying crack of bone under it; with any luck, he’d broken the man’s jaw.

  The carjacker was sent hurtling through the air, his cap flying off, and he slammed into one of the unbroken windows. The impact shattered the window, allowing floodlights to pour through freely, although the security grill outside held. The carjacker teetered for a moment, almost falling, then tumbled forward onto the grimy warehouse floor. Peter leapt into the window frame, grabbed the shooter up and hauled him to his feet.

  The shooter was trying to talk, his speech hampered by the damage Peter had done to his jaw, but he managed to get out, “Don’t hurt me … give me a chance, man, give me a chance … !”

  Peter couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and he shook the man furiously like a tornado molesting a tree, a force of nature that could not be stopped. “Did you give him a chance?” he raged. “The man you killed! Did you? Answer me!”

  And in that moment, a moment where Peter was so filled with frenzy that he might well have torn the man’s head off, Peter saw the man’s face …

  … and a piece of Peter’s soul broke away and went screaming down into a hell of his own making.

  Dear Mom and Dad . . .

  You know. You must know, because Uncle Ben’s with you now, and he told you about the guy. About what happened. About how we fought. The guy . . .

  My fault. All my fault.

  I went after him. And the whole time I was going after him, all I was thinking about was how I was at least going to do this one thing right, this one thing, after everything I’d screwed up. Except when I cornered the guy, when I had him right in my hands, I looked straight into his face, and he looked back at me with this . . . this terror in his eyes, and part of me was thinking, “I recognize this guy . . . where do I know him from?” I figured, you know, maybe from a post office wall or something . . .

  And then I knew. It was him.

  He’d run past me at an arena where I’d gone to be a big shot, to start a career as a high-priced wrestler. He’d run past me with a bundle of cash that he’d taken off some guy who I figured deserved it. Because I figured, you know, this guy, this promoter, he’d stiffed me, so the way I added it up, one bad turn deserved another. I kept thinking, karma, you know? Karma. And what I didn’t stop to think about for a second was that by letting the guy go when it was in my power to stop him . . . by letting him commit a criminal act and laughing up my sleeve about it . . . I was performing my own bad turn. I was turning my back on the needs of society, a society that should be protected from creeps like that.

  So the karma came back at me, and why couldn’t it have come right for me, huh? Why couldn’t it have bitten just me on the ass? But no, no . . . it went straight past me and nailed your brother, Dad, just . . . just nailed Uncle Ben.

  It was the same guy. The thief from the arena was the same guy I was gaping at, up in that warehouse.

  I dropped him, just staring at him, lights from outside flashing all over. He stood up and aimed a gun straight at me, and I didn’t care. No, I take that back. I cared. Because at that second all the anger I’d been feeling, that I’d been turning outward, was turning inward. I started toward him, not more than ten feet away, and all I could think in my blind rage was, “C’mon, c’mon! Shoot me! Put a bullet in my chest! In my brain! Send me to be with Uncle Ben, because that’s what I deserve!” At that moment I was in so much pain that the thought of living with it was unbearable.

  He aimed at me point blank, grabbing up the canvas sack with his money in it, the blood money that Uncle Ben had died for. He squeezed the trigger and for a second I flinched in anticipation. Except nothing came. His eyes went wide and he fired again and again. Click click click, nothing, just . . . nothing. I couldn’t believe it. He was out of bullets.

  I let out a scream, then, and I have no idea what it must’ve sounded like to him. But the next thing I knew, he’d backed up too far, and he tripped over a piece of rotting paneling and smashed into a window. Unlike the previous one that had kept him from falling, this one didn’t. There wasn’t time for me to get a web shot off to snag him, so I lunged forward, trying to catch him barehanded. I missed. . . .

  I missed because I was too slow.

  Or I missed because I didn’t want to be fast enough.

  I’ll never know.

  And then he was gone, out the window and down, down. The side of the warehouse faced out onto the river, so there was no sidewalk there. There was, however, a wooden dock below . . . fifty feet below. He hit it with a thud that sounded like a watermelon exploding. Money from his canvas bag fluttered all around, some of it landing on his dead body, the rest of it landing on the water and washing away. He’d lost his money. He’d lost his life. Uncle Ben had lost his. The scales didn’t seem balanced because . . . the one who’d started it off . . . was still there.

  A police patrol boat was roaring down the river, and its spotlight picked up the shooter’s body. Then it swung up toward the window where I was standing. I flinched back, throwing my arm over my face, as much from the brightness of the light as from wanting to keep my features obscured. One of the cops on the boat shouted, “There’s the other one! I told you there were two of ’em!” They didn’t give me any chance to surrender, to come out with my hands up, no matter how much you hear that they’re supposed to. They just raised their guns and got ready to start shooting, probably figuring that I had the advantage since I had the altitude. They didn’t want to take any chances with a “cold-blooded murderer” like me.

  They came pouring into the building as quickly as they could. Like it did them any good. Like they could keep up with me. By the time they were all running around on the first floor, I was already out and gone. None of them saw me. None of them knew m
e. No one knows me. No, while they were trying to find me, I was blocks away, crouched on a rooftop next to a stone gargoyle, and I was sobbing like a baby. Saying “Uncle Ben . . . oh God . . . I’m so sorry . . .”

  Like God was listening.

  Like God cared.

  You’re with God, Mom and Dad. Next time you see him . . . you ask him if he’s satisfied. Is he pleased I got the lesson?

  He gave me these powers, and I tried to cash in on them, and I became selfish and self-centered. And I have to carry that with me every time I see, in my mind’s eye, the body of Uncle Ben lying there in the gutter. And every time I see, in my mind’s eye, the putrid face of that shooter, the one who got away. Who I let get away.

  And I had to carry that with me when I saw Aunt May’s face, when I had to share with her that her husband was never coming back, that he’d been taken away from her because of a violent world . . . a world that I did nothing to improve, except try and get into show business.

  I’m like . . . like Scrooge, being told by the Ghost of Christmas Present that mankind should have been my business. I spat on gifts and ignored those who loved me, all for a power trip and the hope of making some fast money, and I can never, ever tell Aunt May about it because she would hate me forever.

  If anyone should have died, it was me. I’m the one who had the opportunity to do something great with this power. Instead I’m left with the only father I’ve ever really known, lying in the cemetery. And the only mother I’ve ever really known mourning his passing.

  You tell God . . . you tell him that I get it, okay? I get it. It’s what Uncle Ben said . . . that with great power comes great responsibility. But responsibility for who? For what? It’s sure not to my pocketbook, or to a life of fame and fortune. I saw what happened when I made those things important.

  I have to look inward and outward, all at the same time.

  I have to do something . . . before I go crazy with grief.