SM: RTNY – Chapter 13

“I should have known!”  Peter slammed the list of Pym employees on the nightstand.

        “What?” Mary Jane beckoned.

        “Norman Osborn.  Harry and Liz’s son is on the board.”

        “Not Norman,” MJ refuted.  “It can’t be.  Mary Anna said he’s trying to help.”

        “Or trying to track us down,” Peter countered.  “He could have found one of his father’s warped journals and recreated the goblin chemicals.  We have to call Liz.”

        Mary Anna and Carl burst through the door.  “We have some news,” Carl announced.  “Carnage is on a rampage across Manhattan.”

        Peter began donning his costume. 

        “And that’s not all,” Carl continued.  “Dr. Hardigan’s on his way over.  Carnage paid his family a visit.  He said that Chrissy wasn’t underneath.”

        “What?”  Peter paused before pulling on his mask.  “What do you mean?”

        “Carnage shed his skin and some older man was there.  He gave Hardigan two days to create a repellant for the antibiotic that could separate him from the symbiote.  Peter, you were looking for a cure.  Carnage gave it to him.  It was already in his bloodstream.”

        “Then the goblin already used it to bond the symbiote with somebody else,” Spider-Man said.

        “Unless, it split and there’s more than one.”  MJ shivered

        “I have to go,” Spider-Man said.  “That might be our daughter out there.  Even if it’s not, the goblin started this to get back at me.  Nobody can handle Carnage, except maybe the deregulators, but for some reason, they aren’t.  Mary Anna.”  He looked at her.  “Don’t call Norman again.  Your mother will explain, but I think he’s behind this.”  Her mouth dropped.  “I think he’s the Green Goblin.”

        Grabbing the sonic gun, he lifted the secret floorboard and descended the ladder.  Shifting the ladder opened the floor, revealing a fire station pole falling into darkness.  He slid down.  At the bottom, a crack of light revealed a trap door.  Spider-Man flipped the lid and landed in the basement.  At the sliding panel, he rode the motorcycle to the garage.

        Smoke billowed in the distance.  He swung towards it.  Seven cars were stacked on one another, trapping occupants inside as another automobile burned nearby, its flames licking awfully close to the pile up. 

        Rescue crews had tried to free the victims, but pulled back due to the chance of fuel detonation.  They cowered as Spider-Man leapt onto the scene.  “Hold this.”  He handed the sonic weapon to a rescue worker.

        Spider-Man climbed the heap.  Blocking out everything, he focused on his spider sense, using it to warn of an explosion.  The top car was empty.  Straining, he shoved it to the street below.  Something popped in his back.  Ignoring the pain, he concentrated on the next car.

        A lone man was pinned behind the steering wheel.  Spidey tore the door off and eased the man out, lowering him to awaiting arms with a web line.  He started to shove this car, but the weight shift threatened to topple the tower.

        Clinging to twisted metal, he peeked in the next car.  The teenager behind the steering wheel was beyond help.  Another passenger, a young girl, sat in shock, still clutching her dead boyfriend’s hand.  As Spider-Man attempted to move the dead boy, the girl shrieked.  Under ordinary circumstances he would have consoled her, but a slight tingle had already tickled his head.  He had to move fast.  From the hood, he stuck a glop of webbing to the windshield and shattered it; the webbing prevented any shards from breaking loose and further injuring the girl.  He yanked her out and lowered her thrashing body.

        A lone woman was crammed in the next car.  Her legs were shattered and a laceration in her arm spurted profusely.  A scream sounded from a car below.  He tried to block out the agony as he rushed to save as many as he could. 

        “Save my baby,” the woman pleaded, sliding a crying infant through a narrow rip in the metal.

        “I have him, miss.”  He quickly lowered the child to outstretched arms.  “Let me get you out.”  The woman didn’t respond.  “No,” he exhaled.

        Before dropping to the next car, tingles exploded in his skull as a voice shouted from below.  “Now that’s not fair, ruining my masterpiece!”

        Spider-Man looked into the crowd.  He couldn’t believe it.  “Kasady?”

        “Glad you remember.”  The symbiote flowed out from inside his body.  “Now they all die!”  Tendrils of living skin reached out and yanked the middle car.  While the pile crashed down, Spider-Man leapt to safety.  Anger built as the screams of the innocent died amidst the screams of twisting metal.

        “That’s it, Carnage!”  Spider-Man lunged, surveying the dispersing crowd for the rescuer with his gun.  The weapon lay in pieces next to the man’s shredded body.

        Carnage conjured a symbiotic shield to block Spider-Man’s attack.  Spidey swerved to the side and landed a solid blow to the head.  The makeshift shield sucked back into his body as Carnage staggered to the pavement.

        “Good shot,” he praised, cracking his neck.  “Now it’s my turn.”  A rain of symbiote bullets fired.

        Spider-Man leapt up, swirled around, and shot his web.  Carnage ducked the strand.  It adhered to the ground behind him.  Yanking on the line, Spidey propelled himself back to earth.  He barreled into Carnage, knocking him once more to the ground.

        “You’re over, Kasady!”  He slugged him again and again, not giving his foe a chance to recover.  Every time Carnage made headway, Spider-Man pounded him back to the asphalt.  “Where is my daughter?”  Like a man possessed, he pummeled him with a barrage of super powered punches.  “I swear you either tell me or you die!”

        Carnage was dazed, not expecting such ferocity.  So long in a state of suspended animation, he moved slower than he used to.  He lived his life by random violence and chaos.  Those thoughts, so imbedded in his mind, prevented focus on anything else.  The punishment that he was receiving did not help.

        Coming to his senses, Spider-Man let up.  “What am I doing?  I’m not like you.  Can’t become like you.  No matter what.”

        “Too bad.”  Carnage spat blood, pushing off the ground and launching a dagger of symbiote.  Spider-Man evaded it, retaliating with a kick to the mid-section.

        “Give up, Cletus.  Tell me what I want to know.”

        Carnage sat on his haunches and laughed.  A crimson pool of symbiote leaked from his body.  “The amazing Spider-Man finally beats me all by himself.  Talk about the ultimate unexpected, a form of chaos, the irony that I lose.”  He coughed as he laughed.  The symbiote had already drained from his upper body and was shedding from his waist.  Bruises and abrasions lined his face.  He wheezed and fell to his side.

        Spider-Man hopped next to him, concerned that he might have become a murderer.  “Cletus?  How can I help?”  The buzzing in his head registered too late.

        The symbiote on the ground acted like a giant Venus flytrap and engulfed Spider-Man.  “For starters, you can die.”

        The symbiote tightened its hold as its prey struggled to break free.  Totally covered, his airflow was cut off.  He gasped, but the second skin was flawless, suffocating him.  Lashing out blindly, he missed Carnage by miles.

        Two spectators closed in with video comm. devices, but neither could break through the decloaker fields.  “I’ll give you guys a show that you can see,” Carnage snarled.  “Point the cameras at one another.”  One guy zoomed in closer to where Carnage should be in the viewfinder while the other did as the monster told.  “Good boy,” Carnage commended.  “Now you get a show.”  He lashed out with a scalpel sharp appendage and gutted the man aiming the camera at him.  The other man recording started to pull away, but Carnage ordered, “Keep taping or that will happen to you.”  The man’s camera stayed affixed to intestines rushing out of the stomach wall.

        Carnage turned back to Spider-Man.  “Quit fighting it!” he shouted.  Spidey still thrashed.  Carnage raised him up and slammed him to the ground.  Spider-Man’s struggles ceased.  Carnage slurped the symbiote back to himself. 

        On the verge of unconsciousness, Spider-Man gasped for breath.  His eyes rolled to the crimson ghoul towering over him.

        “I’d kill you now,” Carnage began, “but the Green Goblin has other plans.  Thank him for your life.  If he didn’t have a hold over me, you’d be the thorn that I finally plucked.  Perhaps I’ll eat your daughter’s kidneys tonight.”  His hideous smile stretched.  “Or your son, your daughter-in-law, or maybe your grandchild.  Little Emily looks so delicious.”

        Spider-Man’s heart stopped at the mention of his family.  No, he’s just taunting me.  They’re hidden somewhere in Chicago, aren’t they?

        “No, Chrissy will do just fine.  My other didn’t like her anyway, but I’ll be the judge of that.  Chow!”  He leapt into the air and fired strands from his hands.  Spider-Man unsteadily shot a web line and missed.  He started pushing up from the ground when deregulators arrived.

        Scrambling to his feet, he tried to flee, but their van rushed up too fast.  Four armored individuals exited, wielding various types of weapons.  Barely able to stand, Spider-Man faced them.  His knees wobbled as his equilibrium fought to re-establish. 

        “Surrender, Spider-Man,” a familiar voice ordered from beneath a metal faceplate.

        Spider-Man stared in confusion.  Strength and stamina depleted, he dropped to his knees.  The four deregulators converged, drawing an irregular reaction from the bystanders. 

        “Leave him alone!” one shouted.

        “He didn’t do anything wrong!” another yelled.

        A chunk of metal flew through the air at the deregulators.  Then more projectiles launched from various parts of the crowd.  “Don’t take him!”  “He was trying to save people!”  “Get the hell out of here!”  Bombarded with debris, the deregulators did not return fire, but rather kept attention on Spider-Man.  Another deregulator van and large truck pulled up on the scene.

        “Damn!”  The familiar-voiced deregulator charged forward.  Spider-Man steadied his arm and fired.  The deregulator ducked.  He rolled, came up next to Spidey, and whispered, “Pete, you gotta trust me.”  He turned back to his three accomplices and shouted, “Scatter them!”

        As the new deregulators disembarked, the original arrivals blasted energy bolts at them.  Stunned, the newcomers took cover around the sides of their vehicles and returned fire.

        Spider-Man slumped down.  The deregulator scooped him up and dashed for the van, tossing him in the rear.  A fifth slammed the accelerator to the floor.  Spinning around, the vehicle swerved and retrieved those that had arrived in it.  The van bumped and jostled away from the scene.

        “Who are you?” Spider-Man demanded. 

        The lead deregulator removed his armored mask.  It was Flash Thompson.  “I heard the deregulators were dispatched and given orders to only apprehend you, not Carnage.  I couldn’t let them.  The only way to escape and not be identified was by posing as deregulators.”

        The driver turned around.  “Your welcome, Spider,” Felicia commented.  She turned back to the street and yanked the wheel, weaving through traffic.

        “Thank you,” he offered.  “That’s twice you’ve helped me.”

         “I saw the gun shattered,” Flash acknowledged.  “Too bad.  Were you at least able to get what you needed to help your daughter?”

        “That’s not her,” he declared.  “Somehow the goblin separated them and brought Cletus Kasady back from the dead.”

        “That’s Kasady?”  Felicia shouted, keeping her eyes on the road.  “Then Carnage really is loose.”

        “I’m afraid so.  But I have a lead on the goblin.”

        “What is it?” Flash asked.

        “I think he’s Norman Osborn.”

        “Normie?” Flash said stunned.  “Harry’s son.”

        “I’m afraid so.”

        “There’s too many of them!” Felicia shouted.  “We’ll never loose them.”

        “Can’t we get to a ditch?”  Flash referred to a drop-off point to desert the van and climb into another vehicle.

        “Our trackers spread throughout Manhattan show all routes cut off.”

        Spider-Man looked out the windshield.  “Go seven blocks, turn left, and wait in the alley.”  Leaping to the rear of the van, he opened the doors.

        “Why?” Felicia asked.

        “Just do it!” 

        Spider-Man jumped out.  Webbing the side of a building, he arced up like a pendulum.  Muscles screamed and arthritis flared.  His joints were on fire.  Blocking out his aches, he focused on escape.

        The pursuing van skidded around the corner just as Spider-Man reached the peak of his arc.  He let go.  Falling, he sprayed the windshield with a thick gob.  The van screeched its brakes before an internal defense system burned the webbing off.

        Spider-Man ricocheted off adjacent buildings, slowing his descent.  Landing next to the van, he webbed the doors shut.  The webbing sizzled as deregulators pried to get out.  As the door slid open, he emptied both web-shooters inside into a gloppy mess.  Leaping away, he refilled with spare cartridges from his belt.

        He dashed along the sides of buildings when another deregulator van veered from a side road, pursuing Flash and Felicia.  Spider-Man shot a strand to the top of the van.  Releasing his foothold on the wall, he was pulled like a parasailer.  Deregulators fired from the windows.

        He shot a burst of webbing at a passing building.  Before losing slack, he tied the strands together and let go.  As the line went taut, the van jolted.  The shock did not break the webbing, but rather ripped a chunk of debris from the building and launched it like a missile, striking the rear of the van. 

        Startled by the impact, the driver slammed the brakes.  Spider-Man emptied his web-shooters once again as the door opened.  The mass of webbing stuck to everything inside.  Reloading, he leapt into the specified alley.  Flash, Felicia, and the three others waited impatiently.

        “What now?”  Felicia demanded.

        He grabbed Felicia and Flash and carried them up the side of the building.  Then he hurriedly webbed the others and pulled them up.  At the skylight, he shot a slender strand to the floor.  “Follow me.”  He slid down with the others on his tail.

        Inside the garage, he hoisted up the manhole cover.  “In here.”  Without hesitation, they followed his order.  He pulled the cover in place before descending.  Through the myriad of passages, he led them to Safehouse.

#

        An alliance was formed as Carl and Flash shook hands at the dinner table.  After the meal, Carl drove Flash and his crew to their dilapidated building where they entered the Morlock tunnels. They compared Carl’s floor plans of the sewers with floor plans of the tunnels and found several spots where the blueprints neared each other.  One was near Safehouse.  Carl and Flash marked their prospective maps and sent teams from each end to connect their strongholds.