by Peter David
Looks like it was a hell of a show, thought Brock, then a hissing sound guided his camera lens toward a subway grating on the sidewalk. Sure enough, a large, steady stream of sand was heading right toward it and into it. Brock immediately started snapping pictures. “Hey! Sandy! Look over here! Smile for the birdie!” he desperately shouted, knowing that pictures of a partly formed Sandman were going to nab a far higher dollar—more than that crappy fifty bucks from his first picture—than just a bunch of sand slipping through the grating.
Sandman didn’t, unfortunately, seem predisposed to cooperate.
Suddenly Brock saw a form that was both familiar and yet unfamiliar drop down near the grating just as the last of the sand filtered through. Was it… ? Yeah. Had to be him. But what was with the new tights?
“Hey, Spidey!” he shouted. Whereas Sandman had ignored him, Spider-Man actually stopped and looked in his direction. Focusing the camera on him, Brock remarked, “Going formal these days? Hey, gimme some attitude!”
“How’s this?” replied the black-suited Spider-Man. He reached in Brock’s direction, and suddenly a webline shot out, snagging Brock’s camera. Brock let out an alarmed shriek of protest as Spider-Man sent the camera flying from Brock’s hand and slung it against the side of a building. The camera exploded into metal and glass fragments on impact.
Brock was paralyzed with shock as Spider-Man said cavalierly, “New suit, new attitude.”
Finally recapturing the ability to speak, Brock squealed, “Hey! You no good—!”
At which point Spider-Man paid him as much mind as Sandman had. He yanked up the grating and dropped down to the subway below, allowing the grating to slam shut behind him.
Brimming with indignation, Brock had never felt more helpless. But in short order, he decided there was no need for him to feel that way at all. Spider-Man had screwed him over? Fine, the least he could do was return the favor.
Pulling out a small digital camera from his breast ; pocket, Brock thought, You wanna dance, Mr. Spider-Man-in-Black? Fine. Then we’re gonna dance. And he started taking pictures of the robbery scene with an eye toward what would most suit his purposes.
Marko was pleased to see that it took his “eyes” no time at all to adapt to the darkness of the subway. Considering his night vision had been for crap before, it was good to discover yet another useful aspect of his transformation.
Bags of money were secured in either hand. The merge trick came with ease this time, barely any effort at all. Once he’d poured his way through the grating, he’d reformed and pulled the two bags of money from his chest like a magician.
He started down the subway tunnel, moving as quickly as he could. No sight or sound of an oncoming train, so that much was good. It was late now, and there was no chance that Wallace was still at the research center.
Marko was basically homeless, but that didn’t matter i to him; as Sandman, he needed no creature comforts. He’d probably make his way over toward a convenient sandpit, spread himself out there, wait until—
He didn’t need his eyes to see.
That his eyes were in the front of his head was an arbitrary decision on his part. His body was aware of everything around him, in all directions; he was just the most accustomed to looking forward. But now he suddenly “saw” the shadows moving on the ceiling behind him… one shadow in particular.
Him. It had to be him.
With a roar of pure fury over Spider-Man once again mixing into his problems, Sandman spun and glared up at the ceiling.
Nothing.
How could that be?
The anger in Sandman’s face was replaced by bewilderment as he leaned forward, looking for some indication that Spider-Man was still there—or had ever been there in the first place.
Spider-Man came out of nowhere, slamming his fist into Marko’s jaw with such force that it actually rocked him back on his heels. Sandman gaped at his opponent, who now appeared to be wearing some sort of stealth costume that would enable him to blend in with the darkness. Cute. Stupid if he thought it gave him the edge to win this fight, but cute nevertheless.
“You again?” Sandman demanded. “I guess you didn’t learn your lesson.”
“This time I’m gonna school you.”
Sandman saw little point in continuing—Spider-Man meant as much to him as an actual spider would. Why bother wasting time? What point was there in Spider-Man’s engaging in a battle that he couldn’t possibly win? “What do you want?” Sandman demanded in exasperation. At this point he was so fed up that he might actually consider tossing the web slinger a couple hundred grand if it would just make him go away.
“Remember Ben Parker? The old man you shot down in cold blood?”
The question came so completely out of left field that it caught Sandman off guard. What did that have to do with anything? “I… it was…” Marko stammered, unsure of how to respond. He shook off the momentary confusion and snapped, “What’s it to you, anyway?”
“Everything.”
To his utter shock, Spider-Man yanked off his mask. Marko hadn’t given the slightest thought as to what the web slinger really looked like, but he was surprised to see just how young he was.
Then Marko looked, really looked closely, and even though the young man’s face was twisted in rage, Sandman nevertheless recognized just who was facing him.
My God, this is personal.
“He was an old man,” snapped Peter Parker. “Why not just force him out of the car? He couldn’t have been a problem for a big guy like you. Why? Why’d you have to kill him?” Parker pressed forward and Sandman actually backed up, not in the face of his power, but because of his foe’s anger, battering at him as if it had weight and substance. “You’re a coward, like you were that night. Well”—Parker’s voice dropped into a tough-guy cadence that was a reasonable facsimile of Marko’s own—“I’m gonna beat you up real bad. And then I’m gonna do it again. And then I’m takin’ what’s left of you back to that cell where you can rot for the rest of your life.”
Sandman shook his head. “That ain’t gonna happen. I’ve got an important thing to take care of… something I swore I’d see to.” He briefly considered telling Spider-Man exactly what was going on with his daughter, but decided against it. He didn’t need this guy’s sympathy or his understanding. He just needed him to get the hell out of the way, and if he wasn’t going to do it willingly, then he’d make it happen against Spider-Man’s will. “And you ain’t standing in my way again. Now step aside.”
“I will never step aside for you.”
“Then I’ll just have to take you apart, here and now.”
With a deft motion, Spider-Man pulled his mask back on and made a little inviting wave of his fingers. “Bring it.”
Marko took a step forward, his fists cocked, and actually felt sorry for the poor idiot. Not only was Spider-Man a glutton for punishment, but he was still carrying all kinds of grief over the death of the old man.
Screw him anyway. He’s the enemy. He’s the bad guy. He’s trying to stand in the way of my helping Penny.
Nevertheless, Marko was reluctant to launch a full-out assault on Spider-Man… and, admittedly, was also a bit stung over the charges of cowardice. Because of that, rather than simply blasting him with a full-on sand assault, Marko came straight at him. He thinks I’m afraid to take him on? Think again.
Spider-Man swung a fast double-punch combination, and this time Sandman didn’t allow the blows to pass through his body. Instead he willed his form into rock-hard consistency, and both punches slammed into him—one to the face, the other to the chest—with no measurable damage. In fact, Spider-Man stepped back, shaking out the pain in his hands from the impact, and Sandman brought his fist around and up. He caught Spider-Man just under the chin, sending the wallcrawler smashing upward into the ceiling with such force that loose bits of debris and rubble clattered to the tunnel floor.
Spider-Man bounded backward, skittering along the ceiling. Grabbing t
he bags of money lest he lose them in the dark, Marko pursued Spider-Man back down the tunnel. He snagged various bits of debris, pieces of railroad ties, and kept chucking them at Spider-Man, trying to knock him off the ceiling.
With a quick move, Spider-Man leaped down, grabbing Sandman as he passed. Bracing his feet, he hauled Sandman into the air despite his much greater weight and threw him as hard as he could. The Sandman crashed into a support girder, bending it but thankfully not breaking it. In retaliation, Sandman slammed his fist into the brick tunnel wall, yanked out huge pieces from it, and started throwing them one by one at Spider-Man. He dodged right and left, barely avoiding them, as the sounds of the large pieces of debris hitting the wall echoed up and down the tunnel.
Eddie Brock heard the sounds of struggle echoing up from below. He got down on his knees, peering into the empty space that yawned beneath the grating.
From his vantage point, he could barely see the tracks far below. Suddenly he saw, or rather was barely able to make out, the black-clad image of Spider-Man being slammed down onto the track. Then his view of Spider-Man was cut off by Sandman, who landed atop Spider-Man, knocking the wind out of him. Sandman grabbed the web slinger and started shoving him back, back toward the third rail. If Spider-Man came into contact with it, he’d be fried.
Without hesitation, Brock pulled out his digital camera and aimed it downward, praying that there’d be enough range on the flash to pick it up. Maybe Spider-Man would visibly sizzle, as if encompassed by lightning. What a picture that would make.
Displaying frightening brute strength, the Sandman pushed Spider-Man farther back, until Spider-Man’s head was barely inches away from the deadly rail. Just when Brock thought he was going to have the picture of a lifetime, Spider-Man brought his foot up, planted it squarely against Sandman’s chest, and shoved as hard as he could. Sandman flew in one direction, Spider-Man in the other, and Spider-Man twisted in midair, landing on the wall just above the third rail.
A massive rush of air blasted down the tunnel, along with blinding light. Brock fell back, barely keeping his grip on his digital camera, as a subway train hurtled past. With my luck, they’re both dead, and I didn’t get a picture of it at all!
Sandman didn’t realize that they had reached an intersection in the subway tunnels until the light from an oncoming train illuminated it for him. He literally flattened himself against the wall, his body morphing from its normal thickness to an eighth of an inch deep. He had no idea where Spider-Man had got to. With any luck, the meddling wallcrawler had wound up squashed on the front of the train.
Sandman restored himself to his normal depth as he stepped off the wall… and Spider-Man moved forward in a flash, slamming into Marko and staggering him with the surprising force of his charge. Sandman went down, Spider-Man atop him, slugging away as hard as he could. Bits of granitelike sand flew from Marko’s face and chin, only to be reabsorbed into his arms.
The ground rumbled beneath them. As one, they looked up and saw another train bearing down on them. They rolled out of the way onto another track, only to find themselves directly in the path of yet another train. They kept going onto another track, and this time Sandman knocked Spider-Man back, sending him skidding down the depression in the tracks.
Spider-Man scrambled to his feet. Sandman stood in the middle of the tracks, and he made the same mocking “bring it” gesture that Spider-Man had earlier made. The distant rumbling of a fourth train headed in their direction, but Sandman didn’t care. He still had plenty of time to get out of its way.
Quickly Spider-Man fired a web strand at him. Marko barely had to act to get out of its way and smiled grimly. Clearly Spider-Man was getting rattled if he couldn’t even hit a target from such a close distance.
Only when he saw Spider-Man yank hard on the webline and heard a loud ca-chunk did he realize Spider-Man had hit exactly the target he was aiming at: a railroad track switch. When Spider-Man pulled on it, it threw the switch and caused the track beneath Marko’s feet to shift.
Sandman fell onto his back, his arms splayed to either side. To his horror, he was out of time as the light from the oncoming train bathed him in its glow. He had a quick glimpse of the stunned engineer, and then the train pounded directly over him.
Had he been thinking quickly, he’d have been able to simply transform himself into sand and avoid it. But enough vestiges of human reactions were still in him that he’d frozen upon seeing the train bearing down on him. The train, unable to even come close to stopping in time, mowed him over, blocking him from view.
Seconds later, the train was gone.
So were Marko’s hands.
He stared befuddled at his outstretched arms. They were truncated at the wrists, sand pouring out from the stumps… his severed hands lying on either side of the railings.
With a shriek of rage, Marko leaped up from the tracks, transforming into sand in midair. No more screwing around. The tactic of going fairly easy on Spider-Man had lost whatever charm it might have had. Spider-Man backed up and tried to vault out of the way, but was too late as Sandman encased him in sand. He piled on, more and more, until Spider-Man was completely buried.
Time was on Sandman’s side. All he had to do now was wait.
He felt Spider-Man struggling beneath him. Every time it seemed that the wallcrawler was going to fight his way to the surface, Sandman pressed him down once more. For one brief moment, Spider-Man managed to get his head above the surface, and he gasped in lungfuls of air. But Sandman quickly hauled him back under again, and this time he made sure not to ease up until he felt Spider-Man’s struggling, after long moments, cease.
That’s that, he thought.
Spider-Man’s hand punched up and out. It startled Marko—Spider-Man should have been down for good, but it didn’t concern him. So he had a few seconds’ fight left in him. So what? Sandman still had him cold.
A webline flew out of Spider-Man’s hand, heading straight up. Sandman’s first impulse was not to care—it was obviously the desperate move of a desperate man. But then he remembered how casually he’d assumed that Spider-Man’s previous web shot was harmless, and he’d wound up getting his hands cut off.
So Sandman looked up…
… just in time to see that the webbing had snagged a pater pipe directly overhead, and then Spider-Man yanked as hard as he could. The water pipe tore loose from its moorings with a tremendous gush of water. It poured down upon them, flooding the tunnel.
Marko had just enough time to picture what happened to a sand castle when a wave washed over it… and then he felt himself starting to dissolve. He tried to pull himself together, to prevent it, and then ultimately to scream in protest. The bags of cash were right nearby, and he reached for them. But his rapidly melting hand didn’t permit it, liquefying along with the rest of him. He grabbed one of the handles and tore a bag open… and then felt himself swirling down the drain in the middle of the tracks.
Consciousness slid away from Marko as he slithered down the drain, his thought before dissipating being: Penny, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, damn that Spider-Man, let me live so she can live and he can die…
And then he was gone.
Minutes later, when the remains of his body dribbled from a drainage pipe into the East River, there was no indication that the dark brown substance was anything other than dirt mixed with water and had ever been anything other than lifeless mud.
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
PATHS BOTH LOST AND FOUND
“Rent!”
Peter felt as if he’d just gone ten rounds with a cement mixer. He was worn out physically, emotionally… every way possible.
Earlier, when he had emerged from the subway tunnel squinting against the daylight, dark clouds had started gathering ominously, suggesting an imminent weather change. The day went from pleasant to stormy in minutes, and rain was pouring down as he slogged to his apartment building. The clothes he was wearing ill-fit him, which made sense sinc
e he’d grabbed them out of a Goodwill deposit box. It was the only choice he had: there was no way he was going to be able to sneak in and out of his apartment in broad daylight, dressed in a skintight, black Spider-Man outfit.
Now, as he staggered down the hallway toward his apartment, his landlord, Mr. Ditkovitch, stepped out of his own residence and blocked Peter’s path. Peter could see Ursula inside, washing a dish.
“Rent!” snarled Ditkovitch.
Peter slowly turned toward him. “Rent?” he echoed.
“R-E-N-T!”
Every time in the past when Ditkovitch had harassed him for rent—which was admittedly perpetually overdue—Peter had stammeringly promised to make good on the debt. Ditkovitch and his power over Peter had always loomed large. Now, however, Peter stared at Ditkovitch, and instead of quaking in fear or being consumed with regret that he was behind, all he could think was Who the hell does this guy think he is?
He suddenly envisioned Ditkovitch dangling twenty stories… no, make it fifty stories… high above the ground, a single gossamer thread his only link from death. There was the acerbic landlord, screeching like a howler monkey, begging for his life, and right above him, dancing about like a loon, was the deliriously happy, black-suited Spider-Man.
Peter had never realized just how angry Ditkovitch’s rants made him until that very moment. Doing nothing to restrain it, Peter stepped toward him. The motion was so decisive and unexpected that Ditkovitch automatically took a step backward, looking confused, as if they were doing a waltz and Peter had abruptly decided to lead.
“Rent?” Peter said, and his voice grew progressively louder with each passing second. “Rent, when you fix the showerhead. Rent! When you stop painting over the mold. Rent! When the hot water’s hot and the heater gets repaired and you fix my windows and patch my ceiling and the smell of your sardines doesn’t creep under my door!”
Ditkovitch’s eyes were popping. Ursula, witness to Peter’s unexpected explosion, looked as if she didn’t know whether to be frightened or thrilled. Peter turned and went to his door, only to discover that it stuck worse than when it had frustrated Mary Jane. He whirled and bellowed at Ditkovitch, his fury reaching fever pitch.
