by Neil Kleid
“He’s here somewhere. I just know it.”
Edward ventured out into the middle of the water, away from the wall, and hunched over. His breathing slowed to its regular rate. “He’s here and he’s going to hit and hurt me. Hurt me all over again. I just know it.”
do something about it hurt him first
Edward wrapped both arms around his body and shivered in the rippling liquid. His teeth rattled as he pondered the inevitable. “No, I can’t take another beating! He almost killed me last time—he’s bad, that Sssspider-Man. He’s bad.”
Vermin sneered. listen to yourself look at us all teeth and razorclaws and muscles and ratssss! he is nothing! he is meat and man and he is in our home here where we are strong and you say he is bad—we are bad and we will eat him and prove how strong we are
Edward sniffled and shook his head, nearly in tears.
we are bad we are going to hurt him
Edward backed against the corridor and shouted down the voice inside his head. “He’s going to kill me!”
“I’m not going to kill you, Vermin.”
Strands of fibrous webbing appeared from nowhere—wrapping around Edward’s arm and torso, holding him in place against the wall. Edward looked up, his crimson eyes staring into crevices along the ceiling as Spider-Man emerged from the shadows. The hero’s costume was torn; filthy, bloodied flesh showed through at his arms and legs. The wall-crawler’s eyes stared down at Edward, blankly judging.
Edward whined, watching as Spider-Man approached, and quietly whispered to his furious, cruel other self.
“He’s going to kill me dead.”
FIVE
SPIDER-MAN faced Vermin, who was trussed up like a chicken and plastered against the wall. Peter was tired, wet, and desperate to finish this. He wiped water from his face, clearing the lenses in his mask. He circled Vermin.
“I told you before,” Peter said. “It wasn’t me who came after you last time—it was Kraven!”
Vermin shook his head, goggle-eyed with fear, hands trapped in adhesive and clutching at air. “No,” he said, “you…you get away from me, bad Ssssspider-Man…”
Peter moved closer. He kept his distance from Vermin’s feet, which jerked free in the water below. “I told you, it was Kraven! Not me.”
But Vermin seemed determined not to listen. “No, you get away. Or I’ll call my little rats and have them—”
Spider-Man punched Vermin in the face before the creature could finish his sentence.
“No!” Peter shouted. He pulled back his fist, hoping not to hear the skittering of tiny rat feet above and behind them.
Why did I do that? Peter wondered. I don’t want to hurt him, do I?
(I’m afraid!)
He shook it off, grabbing Vermin by the chin and lower jaw. He moved closer, repelled by Vermin’s rancid, stinking breath. “You so much as whisper to those rats of yours, and I will kill you.”
Beads of sweat appeared on Vermin’s brow. His head shook violently. “Then I won’t call them,” he mewled. “I won’t!”
Peter stared deep into Vermin’s eyes. The cannibal repeated “I won’t” over and over like a desperate, frantic mantra.
Peter’s heart went out to the broken creature before him. Kicked and beaten by society, captured and hounded by Kraven—Vermin hadn’t asked for any of this. Oscorp had done this to him. There was a man buried beneath—
(the ground)
—the fur and fangs and heavy smell. Peter knew, despite his distaste and personal anguish, that he had to find some way to help this man.
“Listen to me, Vermin—”
“Iwon’tIwon’tIwon’t”
Peter leaned forward and raised his voice. “Listen!”
Vermin gulped, shrank back, and clamped his mouth shut.
Peter took a deep breath. “Vermin. I don’t want to hurt you. I swear I don’t.”
Vermin raised his eyes, gazing skeptically into Spider-Man’s own. “No?” he asked, in a small voice.
“No. I want to stop your hurt.”
“Oh, that would be nice. No more hit and hurt.”
Spider-Man continued. “I want to take you up, Vermin. Up and out of the darkness.”
Vermin’s eyes went wide, and his babbling slowed to a halt. He seemed to be experiencing some sort of internal struggle. “No more hit and hurt…no more…,” he muttered to himself.
Peter tensed, edging backward, waiting for some kind of reaction. His spider-sense flared up, sizzling through his spine as Vermin’s face clouded over with anger and hate.
With a vicious growl, Vermin tore through the webbing and rushed from the wall, claws bared and out for blood.
SIX
SPIDER-MAN tried to evade Vermin’s blows, but the frenzied cannibal dug his claws in and came away with a handful of fabric.
I don’t want to be here, Peter thought again. I want to be home with Mary Jane, home where it’s safe and secure.
Vermin pressed his attack. “No!” he shrieked. “The light is bright and warm and terrible! I love the blackness—the cold, the wonderful filth!” He waded forward, slashing and pawing at Spider-Man, forcing him against the wall and obscuring his vision with splashes of sludge.
Spider-Man edged back and lost his footing, slipping below the water for a moment. He flashed on the distant grave, digging his way out beneath the stormy sky—
(so dark)
—then quickly rose to his feet, wiping sewage from his arms and back. Vermin growled low and long, then loped toward Spider-Man, furious and ready to kill.
Peter was still hallucinating. He couldn’t get the image of the grave out of his mind. He saw a vision of a bloated spider’s corpse, upended and sprawled along the long, dark tunnel. His breath came in short, sporadic hitches; a sudden cackling echoed in his head, filling his mind with images of teeth, talons, and the smell of death.
(I’m afraid)
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t tell what was real. All he wanted was to be free. He turned and ran up the corridor, splashing his way to freedom, to air, to the safety of the streets above.
Vermin turned to follow, clambering into an adjacent corridor as Spider-Man raced toward the closest manhole.
I’m afraid, Peter thought, taking gulps of stifling air. But I can’t let my fear stop me. I can’t.
(Yes, I can.)
Please don’t let it stop me.
(Run! Run!)
Peter ran. An army of rats skittered at his heels, hoping to catch him from behind.
Yes, run, but not from the darkness. Not away from the fear. Run toward something—toward the waiting, beating heart. Follow its thunder, its clarion call. Run up and out.
Peter listened for the heartbeat, for the lifeline that might bring him home—but all he could hear was the splashing water and squeaking, stampeding rats. He tried to picture Mary Jane’s face—the warmth and love reflected in her eyes, and the smile on her sweet lips.
(come to me, Peter)
I will not die. I will not die again. He ran, and now he could hear a heartbeat and recognized it as his own. His breath raced, his blood pumped, his legs churned through the water. He vowed not to become another Ned Leeds or Norman Osborn or Joe Face. He would not be another ghost in the graveyard—left with nothing but guilt and regrets, dead at Spider-Man’s hand.
I will not die again, Peter swore to himself. Mary Jane’s smile and waiting arms drove him forward. He wanted life and love, he hated death; this time it was Spider-Man’s heartbeat that brought him out of the ground, away from death and darkness, up, up—
—out into the light.
SEVEN
MARY JANE slept, having finally given in to the needs of her body, and she dreamed. In the dream, she slumbered on a sumptuous feather bed, alone on an endless field of white. She wore a simple dressing gown.
She rubbed her eyes and got to her feet. The bed vanished and Mary Jane stood alone, warm and wondering in eternal emptiness.
She walke
d, taking long strides across alabaster plains. As she traveled through the unnerving purgatory, her clothes transformed into a black, sleeveless top and a pair of blue jeans—the very outfit she’d been wearing the day she and Peter had first met. She walked, turning her head this way and that, and waited for some shift or change in the blanched landscape.
Finally, Mary Jane looked up and found herself surrounded by imposing stone tombstones. They’d simply appeared, as if revealed from a mist; they loomed high above, casting shadows on the field of white as far as the eye could see. MJ had to fight the urge to lay down and curl up into a ball. All she wanted was to rest forever beneath the faceless slate of the encircling markers.
Then she realized the tombstones weren’t blank at all. They’d been carved with names that were all too familiar. Voices drifted her way, laughing and calling from below and around the graves. Something throbbed in Mary Jane’s chest—something she could not place— as she looked around for the source of the laughter.
Someone tapped her shoulder, and she whirled around. Astonished, she came face-to-face with her menacing, drunken father. He sneered at Mary Jane, then lunged toward her. She threw up her hands to defend herself, but the ghost exploded and flew apart. Bits of her dead father drifted away into the emptiness with an ugly cackle.
She closed her eyes and shook her head, fighting back tears, the throb in her chest increasing. “This isn’t real,” she told herself. “It’s only a dream.” She willed herself to wake up but could not.
(Take a look around, pumpkin. Tell me what you see.)
Mary Jane shuddered at the sound of her father’s voice. She tried to hide her eyes, but eight strong arms pried her hands apart and forced her to watch, to pay her respects.
(Tell me what you see!)
A marker slid by. “Here lies Ned Leeds,” Mary Jane read, barely able to get the words out of her mouth. Ned’s sad, lonely ghost stood by with his hands clasped before his funeral suit.
A second monument. “Here lies Gwen Stacy.” Gwen, cool and lovely as she’d been in life, stood before her stone in the coat she’d been wearing when she died. Mary Jane tried to go to her, to talk to her former rival for Peter Parker’s heart, but Gwen’s ghost was already walking out of sight, unwilling to engage.
Tombstones encircled MJ, penning her in. Ghosts wailed and keened around her, begging her to explain why Spider-Man had failed to save them, had let them die. Victims that she’d never known, confidants whose faces filled her memories. Countless others. Dead, gone. Lives lost because of their ties to Peter Parker.
They surrounded her, their voices growing louder, harmonizing in time to the hypnotic sound of drums and thunder. She stood frozen, overwhelmed by the memory of her father’s driving, angry laughter. Remembering their stories, envisioning their ends, she wondered whether she might join their ranks someday. Would she, too, die because of her love for Peter Parker?
All at once, the thunder overpowered her father’s voice. The tombstones retreated, vanishing into nothingness. Mary Jane shivered, alone again. A lone marker waited in the distance, and she started toward it. As she grew nearer, a percussive drumming sound seemed to rise up around her. She came to the last tombstone and looked up to read the inscription. As she did, MJ realized that the rhythmic sound of the drum was hardly a drum at all.
It was a heartbeat—her very own. She touched her chest, then looked at the name once more.
“Here Lies Peter Parker.”
Her fingers drifted down to a second, smaller inscription, below her lover’s name.
“With Great Power Must Come Great Responsibility.”
She smiled. Her heart lit up, warming her body. Ben Parker’s words—the very words by which Peter lived his life. But Mary Jane knew deep in her heart that here, in her private graveyard, the words meant something different.
She felt another hand on her shoulder, and smiled at its warmth. She reached up and took the hand, feeling its soft, lined, welcoming weight. She turned, and Ben Parker graced her with a kindly smile.
You have great power, Ben said, and great responsibility. But being a hero also means making great choices. It means protecting those you love, as well and as fiercely as you can.
He spread his hands and drifted away, back into the ether. No man is perfect, Mary Jane. Not even a Spider-Man.
Mary Jane woke up. The dream cleared from her mind as light streamed in through the window and onto the twisted sheets. She tossed aside the bedding and kicked away the half-filled suitcase. She walked to the window, opening it wide to let in the cool Manhattan air.
Ben Parker’s words echoed in her ears. Being a hero also means having great love. And you do the best you can with what you have.
A smile tugged at her lips. “With great love must come great responsibility.” She laughed. The welcome rays of sunlight declared that, finally, the storm was over.
EIGHT
SPIDER-MAN was halfway up the tunnel, heading for the far end of the reservoir. Edward hesitated. Hadn’t Spider-Man promised to help him?
you idiot, Vermin said. he’ll say anything to get you to believe him he doesn’t want to help you he wants to lock you away again
Edward didn’t believe that. Hadn’t Vermin been listening? That had been another, different Spider-Man.
this one that one who cares they both want to hit and hurt you but this one you can beat this one you can defeat by himself
Edward stopped dead as the last words sunk in. Vermin made sense—but Vermin had been wrong before. Vermin had taken Edward up and out of the nice, safe darkness and risked everything. Vermin had forced him to hunt those women. Vermin had betrayed their safety and caught the attention of the bad Spider-Man, the one who had caged and beaten them for days. So why believe Vermin now? Why not trust this other Spider-Man, this one who promised to end the pain. “No more hit and hurt…no more…” Edward whined for a moment, weighing his options.
whatever you were doesn’t matter edward what matters is who you are now and they’re going to lock you away again and hurt you and torture you because you killed and ate all those people
No. Edward could not let that happen.
They’re going to hit and hurt you and hit you again out of the darkness out in the
“Okay!”
With a deep sigh, Edward set Vermin free.
Vermin gathered his army, calling to all corners. They came on diminutive feet, a legion of rodent soldiers ready to do his bidding.
Vermin laughed at weak, pathetic little Edward. This time, there would be no tricks. This time, Spider-Man was running away.
if he’s running, then he’s mine
Vermin loped up the corridor, salivating and splashing through the water. His stomach groaned. Vermin was so hungry—they were so hungry, he and Edward, having eaten nothing but a paltry rat since escaping the other Spider-Man’s clutches.
The bad sssspider-man, Edward whined inside Vermin’s head, the stronger one who hit and hurt us and then locked us away
hush edward, Vermin said. this is not that one this one is weak and beaten
this sssspider-man is dinner
Edward snuffled quietly, and Vermin ignored him. Drool fell from Vermin’s tongue in ropy strands, mingling with the liquid at his feet. More rat warriors joined his crusade, scurrying after Spider-Man with raw hunger.
They came to a crossroads. A metallic noise sounded to Vermin’s left; he turned his head, alerting the rats. Vermin waded between two stone arches and found a runged ladder leading up and out through a closed manhole cover. Vermin had used manholes just like this to scout and seize the soft, sweet-smelling women that had kept them fat and healthy for the last month. He had ascended through one such manhole about a mile away, the last time he’d left the sewers.
to prove we could to prove our strength remember yes yes we went up to kill sssspider-man
And this time, he would succeed. Vermin planned to end the night with Spider-Man’s throat between his jaws, blood
running down his chin.
But something held him back. Even the rats could feel it; their squeaking intensified, and they drew back into the shadows, away from the ladder. Vermin stood alone, wondering what kept him from leaving.
edward
yessssss
It was always Edward. Staying their hand, isolating them from the world, stopping them from taking what was rightfully theirs. Edward the fool. Edward the weakling. Edward who wanted nothing more than to be left alone or to feel the love and touch of his momm—
Something struck Vermin, slapping his face, and he reeled from the blow. Stunned, he held a hand to his cheek and glanced around, searching for Spider-Man. The masked man had tricked him, ambushed him! But no one was there, and Vermin realized that the slap hadn’t been real. He had felt it, but only inside his mind.
Pitiful little Edward had developed a spine.
up we need to go up you idiot
No, Edward disagreed, the last time we went up, we were locked in a cage.
Vermin hissed back. the last time we went up we ate like kings
Edward shook his head, ssspider-man hit and hurt us. captain flag hit and hurt us.
there is no captain flag, Vermin answered back. its only him we faced the police and fed like princes we need to go up and kill the sssspider-man now before he gets away
Edward bit his lip and glanced at the underside of the manhole, staring at the water dripping down. His crimson eyes went round and wide. He edged closer to the ladder, tentatively touching the lowest rung.
“Up there. He’s up there?”
Edward didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to be hurt anymore, but Vermin would not let him be. The foul shrieking in his ears, the forceful shoving at his back pushed him closer to the ladder. He felt a gnawing feeling in his empty gut.
“Should I?” Edward asked himself, the sibilant whisper carrying down the corridor and echoing against the walls. “Should I?” he repeated, this time addressing the few rats that remained.
yes yes yes of course you should up up up
Edward grabbed the ladder and started to climb. He pictured Spider-Man’s stupid mask in his mind, warming himself with the thought of how good the flesh beneath would taste.
