by Peter David
That was the man who was standing there at curbside, begging Harry to listen to him.
What would it hurt? Really? Giving him five minutes to explain his side of the story? Harry was pretty sharp and could usually tell when someone was lying to him. If Peter tried to feed Harry some sort of bull, Harry would know. Harry would—
Don’t weaken.
Harry couldn’t tell if the voice was sounding in his head or was in the car with him, but the identity of the speaker was unmistakable. Harry was staring at the window, but it was not his own reflection he saw, or even Peter’s image through the glass.
Instead it was the face of his father, Norman Osborn, glowering at him.
Don’t weaken.
Norman Osborn, who had thought so little of Harry during much of his life, was now counting on Harry to be strong. To remain focused and not lose sight of what had to be done… and to whom it had to be done.
Lowering the window slightly, feeling as if an invisible hand were laid upon his throat, Harry said, “Tell it to my father. Raise him from the dead.”
He rolled the window back up, ignoring everything else Peter was saying, then leaned forward and rapped on the privacy partition that sepatated him from the driver. The car rolled away from the curb, leaving a frustrated Peter Parker in its wake.
Good job, Harry. You had me going there. For a minute I thought you were going to listen to my murderer.
Harry said nothing. Instead he put his hands to the side of his head as if battling a migraine.
His father continued speaking to him, whispering into his ear, inside his brain. He saw Norman’s image in the privacy partition.
Harry had spent months wondering if he was going out of his mind. Then, one day, he’d stopped caring. He’d simply accepted this condition as his new status quo. He was to spend the rest of his life being haunted, like Hamlet, urged by the ghost of his father to exact revenge on those who were responsible for his death.
There were two problems with that: First, he didn’t know how to go about it. And second, he knew exactly how to go about it… and was simply daunted by the prospect.
Bernard, the stately family retainer, came to Harry unbidden as the young Osborn sat in his study, staring at the wall. Bernard was carrying a glass of warm milk and said gently, “I thought this might help you sleep, Mr. Osborn. You’ve been up until all hours lately, and I was becoming concerned.”
Harry barely afforded him a glance. “No thanks. Could you go now, please?”
“I thought there might be something el—”
A sudden burst of rage seized Harry. “I’m not a child, all right, Bernard? I don’t need your concern! I don’t need your damned milk!” With a sweep of his hand, he knocked the glass off the table, sending it clattering to the floor. The milk splattered and the glass shattered.
Harry’s immediate impulse was to apologize, to offer to clean it up. But instead he closed his eyes and let his head sag back against the chair. He didn’t know how much time passed. All he knew was that, when he opened his eyes once more, Bernard was gone and so were any traces of the mess he’d just made.
Harry began to wonder if Bernard had even been there at all.
Maybe Harry’s father wasn’t there either.
Hell, perhaps even Harry wasn’t really there. That would explain everything, wouldn’t it?
The night that he had learned Peter Parker’s other identity—the night that he’d discovered his best friend was responsible for the death of his father—Harry had stood upon his balcony and contemplated throwing himself to the street below, rather than live with the unwanted knowledge. His recollection was that he had not done so. But perhaps he had. Perhaps all of this was just a wild fantasy, a last burst of synapses firing before his body struck the sidewalk and his tormented existence was terminated.
Don’t think that way, Harry. You have a destiny. You have a job to do.
“Aw, God,” moaned Harry, rubbing his temples. He didn’t want to see his father’s reflection again. Sometimes days would go by during which he’d see and hear nothing untoward, and he’d think that finally—oh, thank God—it was over. Then his father would show up unexpectedly, and it was off to the races once more. He’d never forget the time that Norman had appeared in his mirror one morning while he was shaving. Harry had almost slit his own throat. Perhaps that might have been a blessing.
Harry… it’s time. Look at me, son.
Slowly, Harry forced his eyes to open. For the life of him, he couldn’t have said whether he was dreaming. Norman Osborn was standing in front of him, no longer reflected in a surface but instead as big as life. He might well have strolled through the door and sat down, ready for a chat.
His mouth was moving, but his voice was slightly out of sync, like a badly dubbed film. I’ve been waiting for you to be ready. I now believe you are.
“Ready for what?” Harry whispered.
To avenge me, Norman said with a trace of surprise, as if it were stunningly self-evident. Against Parker. Against all of them that took me away from you.
“But… Peter is—”
Peter is the sickness, Norman told him heatedly, and you are the cure for that sickness. Then his tone shifted, becoming more cajoling, even sympathetic. Don’t you remember, Harry? I’d finally come to appreciate you for the loving, loyal son that you were. It could have been a new chapter in our relationship. But it was cut short by your friend.
“It was cut short because you were the Goblin,” Harry snapped back at him. “You threatened Mary Jane—”
To get to Spider-Man. To get to the man who had declared himself to be my enemy. The Goblin existed only to destroy my enemies… your enemies as well. The ones who would have taken all this—Norman gestured around the mansion—away from you. They would have reduced us to poverty because they were jealous of us, Harry. They were jealous and seized with a sick need to destroy us. I was defending myself… defending you. No father could have done less. And Spider-Man sided with our
enemies, and I died because of him. I died fighting for your future. Are you going to take that lying down?
“I…”
Norman drew closer, his voice more intense, his eyes almost hypnotic. See him in your mind’s eye. That smug bastard. He took your girl. Took your father. Took your peace of mind. He keeps taking and taking, and haven’t you had enough? For God’s sake, haven’t you had enough?
Harry saw Mary Jane on a field of stars, singing of love… singing to Peter right there in the front row. He felt an acid taste in the back of his throat, and a thudding in his head, and a buzzing in his ears.
He had thought he could live with it. He had thought he could keep himself from acting upon this terrible knowledge, because the knowledge of what he would have to become to combat it was almost as terrible. But seeing her tonight… seeing him… knowing what they were likely off doing now… Peter enjoying the life that should have been his…
“More than enough,” grated Harry.
That’s my boy.
Norman Osborn embraced him. He had no substance at all. Harry didn’t care. He hugged him as hard as he’d always wished he had in life.
Then Harry rose from his chair, guided by his father. He headed for the entrance to the lair hidden by a full-length mirror that Harry had once shattered, then quickly replaced once he’d realized what was concealed behind there.
He pushed the mirror aside and stepped through.
The equipment beckoned to him, and he would heed the call, for the son could do no less for the father than he, the father, had done for him.
Flint Marko, aka William Marko, aka William Baker, pressed himself flat against the alleyway nearby a row of rundown apartment houses. A police car was cruising by, and although Marko had fairly unremarkable features—light brown hair, a square jaw—the prison garb he was wearing would have been a dead giveaway.
He was having trouble catching his breath and wondered not for the first time if he was having a heart at
tack. Curiously, the thought of dropping dead in the alleyway wasn’t all that disturbing to him. Flint Marko had lived his life in a way that didn’t engender much love for his own existence or much care as to whether he lived or died. A guy like Marko knew that when your number was up, there was no use whining about it.
He remembered once, when he was young, seeing a big hourglass in a pawnshop. He had turned it over, watched the steady stream of sand as it filtered to the bottom, then reversed it just before the sand had completely run through. Then he’d watched as it fell through the other way, then again and again, turning it over and over until his mother was done hocking her wedding jewelry and informed her son that it was time to leave. He had found it frustrating because he’d felt as if he were in competition with the sand, and if the sand made it all through to the other side, he was going to lose. Defiantly, he’d laid the hourglass on its side in hopes of thwarting the sand.
The hourglass had rolled off the table and crashed to the ground, spreading sand everywhere. The angry shopkeeper had demanded compensation, taking back just about all the money he’d given to Flint’s mother, and young Flint had gotten an earful and a good beating when he got home.
It had been a hard-learned lesson: the sand always wins. Because the sand represents time, and nothing can stop time from passing.
But he’d be damned if he was going to spend any more of his passing time in the custody of New York State, that was for sure.
He was clutching a stack of letters to his chest, held together by a rubber band. The edges of some of the envelopes were battered, and the ink was smeared on a few of them. Closer inspection would have revealed the words DELIVERY REFUSED: RETURN TO SENDER Stamped On the front of every single envelope.
Marko hugged the shadows, not wanting to make the slightest move until he was certain the police car was long gone. Once he was satisfied that—for the moment—he was safe, he made his way over to a familiar fire escape. The ladder was above his reach. He glanced around and found a length of frayed, discarded rope nearby amidst the rest of the garbage in the alley. It wasn’t much, but it would serve his purposes. He tied the end of the rope around the packet of letters, then tossed the letters upward. He missed the first time, but the second time, the packet swung up and over the lower rung and dropped halfway down again. Marko reached up, now able to grip both ends of the rope, and pulled down as hard as he could. The ladder resisted at first, then gave up and slid noisily down toward him.
The racket caused Marko to step back into the shadows to wait for a reaction from anyone. But there was nothing. No response at all from any of the windows above. He supposed that shouldn’t have been a surprise. This was New York, the city where, years ago, several buildings’ worth of people had turned away and done nothing—not even call the cops—while a young woman was brutally murdered, screaming for help the entire time. If cries for succor weren’t sufficient to get neighbors interested, certainly the creaking of a fire escape ladder wasn’t going to prompt any involvement.
He scrambled up the ladder like a monkey on a mission and, moments later, was clambering up the fire escape. He was doing so as quietly as he could; no use tempting fate by counting too heavily on the perceived apathy of New Yorkers.
Marko drew close to a familiar window and briefly considered the possibility that the people supposedly living within had moved. Why not? He’d have no way of knowing. No one ever came to visit him in prison, and with his letters returned, who was to say that they weren’t currently residing in New Jersey or Connecticut or Outer Mongolia. Peering into the darkened room, he saw someone asleep in the bed, and for a moment his worst fears were realized. It wasn’t Penny. It couldn’t be. Penny was much smaller than this child…
But then he recognized the array of medicines upon her night table, and the snow globe he’d gotten her for her fifth birthday, and his concerns were eased. He even took a moment to appreciate the humor of the situation: that he had been thrown off by the simple fact that Penny had grown. Well, of course—he’d been in jail for eighteen months.
Flint slid open the window and eased himself into the room. He almost tripped over a doll she’d left on the floor. Cautiously he picked it up, praying it wouldn’t make any noise, and placed it on a chair. Marko moved like a thief in the night, except he was dropping off rather than taking away.
It was a reckless indulgence, but he leaned down and kissed his sleeping daughter anyway on the top of her brunette head. She didn’t stir. A bit more boldly, but still being careful, he eased the stack of letters under her pillow. There. That way Penny would be sure to see them in the morning, provided “other people” didn’t stumble over them first.
He paused by the snow globe and picked it up. He recalled when he’d first found it in a curio shop, with its tiny castle surrounded by swirling snow. He remembered imagining Penny’s delighted reaction and hadn’t been disappointed. She had clapped her hands with glee and thanked her father profusely. Even Emma had smiled, and that wasn’t something she did easily in those days… and, admittedly, probably even less these days.
Marko made his way carefully out into the living room. His old trunk was there, right where he’d left it. He opened it slowly so as not to cause the hinges to creak.
Just as he’d figured: all his clothes had been stuffed into it. Emma had cleared out his closet and his drawers. He supposed that shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. Perhaps he should have been relieved she hadn’t donated them all to Goodwill.
Quickly he doffed the clothes he’d been wearing and pulled on a pair of dark trousers and a black-and-green-striped sweater. He kept the shoes he’d been wearing. Then he moved quickly to the kitchen, desperate to fulfill the craving for food at the pit of his stomach.
He felt like a trapped animal, and every bit the loser that his wife had pronounced him to be. Emma had made it clear that she wanted Flint out of her and Penny’s lives. But how could she say that? Didn’t she understand what he was capable of doing to help? Some freaking compassion was all he was looking for, some acknowledgment that he was just doing the best he could to help. Doing the best one could had to count for something. Why couldn’t she just—
The kitchen light snapped on.
Flint turned and froze, as if the beam of light had lanced through him. The bread was still in his mouth as he found himself staring into the startled face of Emma Marko. Then that expression of surprise faded, replaced by a total lack of surprise, as if she’d expected that—sooner or later—he’d show up at their apartment, desperate and on the run like an idiot.
Being a well-meaning idiot didn’t earn him a lot of cred from her these days.
He opened his mouth slightly and allowed the bread to drop into his open hand. Flint both looked and felt foolish. The weight of their mutual history settled between them like a vast invisible barrier.
Without the slightest indication that she was at all curious how he’d managed to break out—perhaps she’d read about Marko having slipped away when a fight had broken out among fellow convicts during an enforced outing to clean up local highways—or what it was he wanted or hoped to achieve in having come here, Emma brusquely said, “You can’t hide here, Flint.”
Her hair prematurely graying, her face careworn (both of which Marko blamed himself for), Emma drew her ratty pink bathrobe more tightly around herself, as if that would protect her should he choose to attack her.
Ultimately Flint Marko decided that, despite the dire situation, he need not forsake at least the slightest indication of respect and even—dare he say it?—affection. Pulling together what little charm he had left, Marko forced a smile and asked, “How are ya, Emma?”
She looked as if she wanted to laugh at the question. Obviously she considered it ludicrous. “How’s it look how Emma is?” she demanded. She gestured broadly, trying to encompass the entirety of her miserable life. “She’s on welfare and got no insurance. And we have this beautiful furniture,” she added sarcastically. She shoo
k her head and, in a fairly decent impression of his deep, growling voice, mimicked,” ‘How are ya, Emma?’”
She was trying to put him on the defensive. She was lashing out, and he had to keep reminding himself not to react in anger. In truth, she had every reason to be pissed off at him. He d brought all or this down on them. Granted, he had just been trying to help. In the end, though, what difference did that make? He was still a lousy con on the run, Penny was still sick, and Emma’s life was still in the toilet. Intentions didn’t mean a damn. Only results mattered.
“I’m just here to see my daughter,” he said, forcing himself to keep his voice calm and even.
“You’re an escaped convict,” she snapped. “The cops are looking for ya. You’re not getting near her. You’re nothing but a common thief, and you maybe even killed a man.”
“No, I—!” Marko could feel his self-control slipping. Emma sensed it and, perhaps worried that she’d pushed him too far, took a defensive step back. He took in a deep breath, let it out, regained control. “It wasn’t like that. I had good reason for what I was doing, and that’s the truth.” He knew it was futile. She didn’t care about the truth. She didn’t care about him.
“You and the truth sitting in prison having three meals a day,” she sneered. Her face was so twisted in fury, it was hard for Marko to believe that she had ever loved him. How was it possible for someone to change that much? “You wanta talk truth? I live in the presence of great truth. That’s the truth you left behind.” She pointed toward Penny’s door. “Right there in that bedroom.”
