Curse of Arachnaman

by Hayden Thorne

  He stopped several feet away, staring and frowning, his head bowed. He was in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking people's way, but he didn't seem to care. In fact, he didn't seem to be aware of anything else but what it was he was thinking about. Was he concentrating? He glanced up and tipped his head back a little. I could see his nose crinkle, so I guessed that he was sniffing the air. For what, though?

  Then he froze—or stiffened. The look on his face changed from cautious alertness to wide-eyed fear.

  "They're here!” he suddenly cried.

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  Chapter 25

  * * * *

  Sure enough, just as he spoke, the lights went out inside the African store and a few other shops up and down the street. No one outside noticed right away, but they did a fraction of a second later. The doors to those shops—those that stood open—slammed shut.

  I realized then that Liz wasn't with me. The African store was pitch-black, and from inside, cries of panic started to rise.

  "Oh, my God! Liz!” I yelled, lunging for the door and yanking at it. It was locked. I banged at the glass, hoping to break it, but it was too thick. “Liz! Help! My sister's in there! Someone help!"

  It was useless. Up and down the street, panic rippled through the crowds as they responded to screams for help from inside those shops. People pounded on glass doors and windows.

  "No! It's too late!” someone cried out. It was the redheaded kid. “Get away from those doors! Get away!” He started running toward me, waving his arms frantically.

  As he ran, a kind of white aura appeared around him, like a silhouette of hazy light. People who saw it fell back, all freaking out. He raised one arm and pointed at me, yelling something. There was a quick, sharp flash of light, and all of a sudden, I felt myself and a couple of other people standing next to me encased in something.

  It was a bubble. No, a force field. A quick scan confirmed it. I could barely see the faint silhouette of a gigantic bubble that surrounded me and the others. I was stunned. I could still breathe and move around, but the sounds outside were a little more muffled.

  Just as I was about to reach out and touch the force field, the door to the African store exploded, sending glass shards and bits of metal flying all over. I dove to the floor, crying out and covering my head, but I felt nothing. The force field saved me and the other two guys, both of whom had thrown themselves onto the pavement as well.

  "Holy crap,” I breathed, exchanging shocked looks with them.

  "Look out!” one of them shouted, pointing. I turned in the direction of the hole where the shop door used to be.

  Human arachnids emerged. It was like being in a Halloween movie—like, a really bad B movie. I mean, really bad. Talk about a major letdown. All this time, I'd been imagining all kinds of gross cross-breeding looks. I'd come up with spiders with human heads, or human bodies with spider heads, or something that looked like a monster from John Carpenter's The Thing. That movie rocks, by the way. I expected bits of human flesh fused with bits of insect armor or whatever they were called. I thought they'd be covered in thick, pus-colored slime from head to foot, and that when they moved, you could hear the stuff squish in a way that'd make your stomach turn. You know how it is in movie special effects.

  Instead, I saw people looking like people, only with spider legs sprouting on each side of them. They were all gray-skinned, too, as if they'd just gotten off a pretty crazy roller-coaster ride, and they were ready to hurl. Their eyes were sunken, their pupils gone, so they were just white eyeballs looking out...do white eyeballs actually look at things? They had fang-things jutting out from their mouths, and they looked so out of proportion that their mouths just hung open to accommodate those spider fangs, with strings of drool hanging off their chins. It was like one of those fake vampire fangs that you'd stuff inside your mouth. Then you'd walk around, looking like a vampire-wannabe with a major bucktooth problem.

  Seriously, WTF? I suddenly remembered what Peter told me a while back about what human arachnids looked like. He'd said “cheese ball.” Boy, he sure wasn't messing around.

  I just stared at them as they staggered out, walking like zombies. I recognized them as customers and the shop clerk, but I didn't see Liz anywhere.

  They staggered and stumbled past my bubble, and when I looked around, I found that pretty much everyone else who wasn't turned into B-movie rejects within the vicinity was safely inside a force field. Individually or in small groups, they were safe. The redheaded kid saved everyone.

  He stood there, glowing and grim, taking a step back each time the human arachnids edged closer. He held his arms a little higher at his sides, and his hands were nothing more than a pair of glowing white orbs. From the other shops, those that were also attacked like the African store, customers and shop employees who'd become lobotomized half-monsters ignored everyone else and went after him in their slow, zombie-like way.

  "What's happening? They're not coming after us,” asked one of the guys I was trapped in the bubble with. We were all frozen inside our force field, pretty much helpless the whole time.

  "Run!” I yelled at the redheaded kid. I tried to pound on the bubble, but it just yielded against my fists like thin rubber. “What're you doing? If you can fly, get the hell out of here, you idiot!"

  He didn't hear me. I didn't think that he would've given a rat's ass, anyway, if he did. He had ideas of his own, but whatever they might be, I guess that it included getting pounced on by lobotomized human-spiders and probably eaten alive. Instead of running or flying, he just kept stepping back...and back...and back, drawing the half-monsters away from the area. And away from us.

  Pretty soon, everyone trapped inside the force field bubbles was shouting at him. Run! Go! Save yourself! He didn't. He just kept moving slowly away till he was practically standing in the middle of the street. From up and down the block, I saw other human arachnids stumbling out.

  "I got ‘im!” someone shouted.

  The redheaded kid paused, blinking, and just when he turned to look up, something swooped down on him. He vanished in a flash, leaving a fading trail of what sounded like “Gwarrgh!” in his wake as Calais carried him off and into safety.

  The human arachnids stopped for a moment and then turned their attention to Miss Pyro, who'd just taken her position atop a parked truck across the road. I wasn't sure if it was me or a trick of the street and shop lights, but Miss Pyro looked a little different from when I'd last seen her. She seemed more streamlined, in a way. Her costume was brighter in color, and her hands and feet had some kind of fiery, pulsing halo around them. She also carried herself differently. She was a lot more confident and aggressive, no longer this stumbling newbie who was prone to crashing into something. She stood there, assessing the scene with a grim smile.

  "Hmm. How to take care of you guys...” she quipped. Just as the first few arachnid-types touched the sides of the truck and made like they wanted to claw their way up to her, Miss Pyro's hands vanished in a burst of white fire, and she flew up, throwing a stream of flames around her. Those she hit dropped to the ground, screeching and hissing, but they didn't look burned at all. Maybe stunned or something.

  Police sirens broke through the noise, and Magnifiman appeared, drawing some of the arachnids to him. Within seconds, Calais took his position a little farther away, and soon the street was a confusion of light, fire, speed, power punches, and drool, as the superheroes took the human arachnids down. I saw that they didn't hurt anyone, only knocked them down to stun them or something. The cops swarmed the area within moments, all of them masked. They took their positions behind parked cars and stuff, waiting.

  Magnifiman, who'd just tackled a couple of elderly arachnid-types to the ground, glanced up and nodded. “Yours, gentlemen,” he said in that sexy, authoritative voice of his. He released the two poor seniors, who flailed on the street, gurgling, their bizarre fangs snapping at Magnifiman. Just as he flew off and hovered above the scene, the cops
tossed a bunch of canisters in the middle of the squirming, drooling group. The canisters released a burst of pale gas that quickly spread over the human arachnids, who hissed, screeched, flailed, snapped, and made all kinds of gross sounds till they gradually passed out from the gas. The stuff blanketed them and swelled, sort of, till I saw that it took on the form of thick ground mist that rose to only a few feet above the street. It was creepy and awesome at the same time.

  Around me, people still trapped in bubbles cried out for their loved ones, and many cheered on the superheroes. I just gaped the whole time, my heart thundering. The gas eventually dissipated, and the mass of inert bodies lying on the street looked normal. No more fangs, no more stupid B-movie-grade spider limbs sticking out from their sides. They were a total mess, though, as they were all covered in dirt and slimed with their own drool. But they were normal. And passed out.

  The bubble around me faded at around the same time, and I had to reach out and test it to make sure. “Yes!” I breathed, turning and grinning to the other guys with me. “We're free!"

  We all sprang up with a loud whoop, and everywhere, people began to run around, many of them going for the poor victims of the spider attack. Police came forward and tried to hold everyone off, while the superheroes investigated. More sirens wailed, and ambulances appeared at one end of the street.

  I had to find Liz. I took one last look at the scene and saw, to my surprise, Dr. Dibbs and Freddie, along with a handful of other people I didn't recognize, mingling with the superheroes and kneeling over victims. I figured that the Sentries were there, doing their own investigation, too, and probably even injecting the victims with antidotes and stuff. I wouldn't have been surprised if they were the ones who'd put together the formula for the gas that the cops threw at the human arachnids.

  I quickly ran inside the African shop. “Liz!” I yelled, groping around and straining my eyes. The lights were still out, and illumination from the street barely made a dent inside. “Liz! Where are you?"

  I stopped when I heard a muffled shout from somewhere. Then a series of pounding sounds followed. “Liz! Keep yelling! I'll find you!” I continued to grope my way farther inside the store and then stopped next to a chest. The yelling and pounding was pretty frantic then. Thank heaven the chest, which was large enough to fit a body, didn't require a key to open it. A hook had swung down and secured the lid, most likely when Liz had thrown herself inside and slammed the chest shut.

  "Oh, my God!” she cried as she pulled herself up to a sitting position. Even in the dark, I could see her hair all wild, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. I sighed in relief as I helped her up, giving her a hug once I saw that she was okay. “God, what a nightmare!"

  "What happened?"

  She leaned against me the whole time, and I led her out of the shop. “It happened so fast. The lights went out, and I heard scratching noises everywhere. I figured that the shop was being attacked, so I just jumped inside that chest without even thinking about what I was doing. I could hear everything, Eric. It was awful. A lot of screaming and crashing..."

  She rambled on and on. I felt her trembling against me, and it was all I could do to wrap an arm around her and maneuver us both through the crowds once we were outside. We stopped when we heard Scanlon yelling our names.

  I turned and found him pushing his way to us, looking frantic and disheveled. He saw Liz and bounded toward us, nearly running over people. “Are you two okay? Liz?” he cried, catching my sister when she pushed me away and stumbled toward her boyfriend.

  "I am, yeah. How about you?"

  They talked for a while, kind of lost in their usual little world. With all the noise around us, I couldn't make out their conversation, but I didn't think it'd matter. I just watched them interact with each other and wondered if that was how other people saw me and Peter when we were together. Well, not that we could behave the way straight couples behaved in public, anyway, so forget I even wondered about it.

  I had to look away when Scanlon kissed Liz. I must admit that I still had some hang-ups about him, but I figured that after spending more time with Scanlon, I should be able to deal with them properly. I hoped so, anyway.

  "Come on, scamp, we'd better get you two safely home,” Scanlon said, breaking my thoughts.

  I turned to him and grinned. “Sure. Thanks, Scanlon.” He tugged at my cap's visor, and I just tried to pretend he didn't touch it.

  We made it home, somehow. I can't remember how we managed that, but we did. Mom was freaking out, and I expected her to ground Liz the way she grounded me, but she didn't. She just, well, freaked out and gave my sister a hug. Then she gave me a hug. Then she gave Scanlon a hug. Dad was furious and immediately turned on the TV for late-breaking news.

  Eventually it came on. Bambi Bailey appeared, and declared, “Even with Arachnaman in custody, the danger isn't over yet. Tonight's attack is only the first, he says, of a series of planned attacks on the city. Ladies and gentlemen, Arachnaman has planted dozens of robot spiders at different strategic locations. All are timed to attack—to terrorize the citizens of Vintage City and to disable the superheroes.” She paused to take a breath. “With the bad news comes the good, however. Vintage City now has a new ally—a defense hero, a young man who possesses the powers to protect innocent civilians with force fields. For those who were saved tonight by Quickshield, you owe your lives to that remarkable young man...” And she went on and on and on.

  I winced. Poor Quickshield. See, this was the reason why I preferred that the superheroes came out with their own aliases before Bambi Bailey got to them and destroyed their reputations forever.

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  Chapter 26

  * * * *

  The following days were crazy. I stayed away from all my friends because they were now, literally, zipping up and down Vintage, following leads that they managed to squeeze out of Arachnaman. The crazy jerk had planted different kinds of robotic things that were all timed to go off, with about half being set to detonate, or whatever that might be called, at the same time, and the other half set to go off in a more staggered schedule.

  I sure would've hated to be a fly on the wall when Trent asked to be left alone with Arachnaman. Peter said that the Sentries had provided him with something like a truth serum that he managed to inject into Arachnaman's arm...well, after he wrestled Arachnaman to the ground and pinned him there. It took a couple of minutes for the formula to work, and before long, Arachnaman was this sweating, shaking tattletale who couldn't have shut up if his life had depended on it.

  So, in brief, Arachnaman got outwitted, and he spilled his own beans. You know what I mean. After the serum's effects wore off, he got all crazy and started hollering all kinds of obscene things at everyone, threatening to destroy all the heroes once he freed himself. I wouldn't doubt that he'd end up free someday. Supervillains did that a lot. For the time being, I guessed Arachnaman was whisked away to an “undisclosed location” for safekeeping. I wouldn't have been surprised if people were to swarm the police station and try to tear him to pieces after everything that had happened.

  "Peter, you guys really need to up your defense and offense,” I said, chewing on a cuticle nervously as I listened to Peter over the phone. It was the only phone call I enjoyed with him during the week of The Great Purge, as local papers were apt to call it, and he sounded so, so tired. I really wished that I could stay with him and comfort him in some way, but he specifically told me to stay home when I wasn't in school.

  "We will. Don't worry about us,” he said, yawning. “We'll just have to put in more practice hours. You up for it?"

  I grinned. “Sure. Why not? Just don't tie me up."

  "Man, you sure know how to rain on my parade."

  For the whole week, several businesses and apartment complexes were purged of Arachnaman's planted robots. Even my old church was a target! One by one, they were cleaned up. There were a few messy accidents involving robot spiders self-destr
ucting once they got cut off from their main connection, but they caused minimal damage. At least no one got hurt even though some merchandise went up in flames. In a couple of cases, the shops’ back doors got blown apart when Spirit Wire threw the robot spiders just as they self-destructed. It could've been worse. I knew that superheroes could heal themselves, so long as the injuries weren't too severe, but all the same, I'd hate to have Spirit Wire temporarily out of commission because the robot spiders she held went haywire and tried to off themselves.

  By the end of the week, Vintage City was declared safe from Arachnaman. At least for the time being. We knew that it was only a matter of time before he'd strike again. For now, it was best to pick up the pieces, brush ourselves off, and move forward.

  I also managed to finish all the take-home work that Dr. Dibbs gave me, and it was sort of good that he was so distracted by all the cleaning-up happening around the city that he'd forgotten to ask me for my work.

  I just played coy when he finally remembered. It was Thursday, and we were in the middle of Chemistry lab. Yeah, I know. It sucked.

  "Oh,” I said, flashing him my sweetest, most innocent smile. Ever. “I didn't think to bother you with them, seeing as how you've been so busy with out-of-school stuff.” That was the truth. I just didn't admit to procrastinating on my last essay all that time as opposed to getting everything done before the week started. Then again, he never asked, and I wasn't about to encourage him.

  "Why, thank you, Mr. Eric,” he said, blinking and scratching his head. “I really appreciate your consideration. But work is work, as they say, and I'd like to have your essays back tomorrow, please."