Spiderman 1 (25 page)

Given time, they might or might not have caught up.

Peter wasn't about to give them any time. If there was one
thing he'd learned, it was not to assume that there would al
ways be time enough for anything.

Webbing left, right, left, right, unseen in the shadows,
Peter outsped the police cars and landed with a thump on the
roof of the Oldsmobile. Without hesitation, he funneled his
full rage into his fist and effortlessly smashed through the
roof of the car. He reached around, not knowing what
he would grab, and was pleased when he felt what had to be

the shooter's face cupped in his hand. All he had to do was
squeeze and the man's face would become a pulped and
bloody mass in his palm.

He was all set to do it, even as he cringed inwardly at the thought, but then the car began to swerve wildly, back and
forth, trying to shake him off. The natural adhesion of his
feet and his one free hand enabled him to stay attached to the
roof, but it wasn't easy. Still, if he crushed the guy's head, that would solve the problem, wouldn't it.

The car went against the light where Eighth intersected
with Broadway. Cars slammed to a halt to avoid getting smashed. The Oldsmobile whipped right onto Broadway,
with its wider lanes and more maneuverability. It fishtailed
briefly, then kept going.

Peter, meantime, discarded the notion of killing him out
right. Instead he wanted to growl at him,
"Remember the ex
perience of being born? Well, you're going to relive it right
now,"
whereupon he would proceed to pull the shooter, headfirst, through the hole in the roof.

But he didn't have the opportunity, because suddenly his
spider sense was screaming in his head. Then bullets, fired
from inside the car, started punching through the roof. Peter's agility kept him one step ahead of the rounds of
ammo that came blasting up at him, but he knew it wasn't
going to last forever.

A truck was moving down Broadway alongside them, and
Peter vaulted onto the top of the truck. He crouched, watch
ing the Olds as it raced alongside them....

Then he looked up. There was a traffic-light arm extend
ing across the street, right at Peter's chest level. And another
a block beyond that, and another . . .

Peter jumped, executing a triple somersault over the traf
fic light and landing back on the roof of the track. But he
wasn't about to spend the rest of the evening vaulting traffic

lights. The moment his feet touched the bus, he ricocheted
off and landed back on the roof of the speeding Oldsmobile.
This time, though, as if defying gravity itself, he managed a
much softer landing so that the driver was unaware that he
had reacquired a passenger.

Light-footed, he vaulted onto the hood and swung around
so that he was peering right through the windshield. He had a satisfying glimpse of the stunned, terror-stricken shooter,
clearly not comprehending what he was seeing.

The car cut hard to the left, barreling down a sidestreet
toward the East River. Peter saw the driver fumbling around
on the seat, probably for his gun, but not for a moment did
Peter know the slightest fear. Later . . . later he would trem
ble with an awareness of how much danger he'd been in, but
at that moment, nothing—least of all his own self-
preservation—could penetrate the haze of fury that had
seized him.

Not giving the shooter an opportunity to start firing
again, Peter slammed his fist through the windshield, releas
ing webbing as he did so. In a heartbeat, the entire front of
the car was filled with webbing, completely blocking the dri
ver's vision.

The car screeched wildly, the driver losing control, and
the Olds smashed through the front gates of a creepy-
looking building near the East River. The impact nearly
knocked Peter off the hood, but the incredible adhesion of
his fingers stabilized him. Then his head whipped around as
he realized that the car was hurtling straight toward the front
door of the building, with no intention of stopping. The gates had been held closed by a lock which easily broke
upon impact, but Peter had the distinct feeling that the door
was going to be a lot less yielding. If he didn't bail, and
quickly, he'd be crashed.

He leapt straight up toward the building, just as the car

smashed into the door and through. The sound was ab
solutely ear-splitting, the collision so forceful that he felt the
vibration even though he was well out of harm's way.

And the blasted car kept going.

If the vehicle had been of more modern vintage, it would
doubtlessly have ended its automotive life right then and
there. But many was the time he could remember Uncle Ben
proudly saying, "Dammit, this is your father's Oldsmobile,"
as he would crow over the car's old-style durability as com
pared to
...
as he said ... "the tinfoil they're making cars
out of these days."

Well, it turned out that Uncle Ben had been right, as the
car vanished into the interior of the building.

Just thinking about Uncle Ben's words, dwelling on times
that would never come again, fueled Peter's rage all the
more. Police cars were now approaching, searchlights
sweeping the exterior of the building, but Peter wasn't wait
ing around. Nor was he allowing any chance that the car-
jacker might somehow slip away.

He made his way into the darkened building, which
turned out to be a warehouse. Whereas before he'd been reluctant to trust his spider sense, now he utterly turned him
self over to its guidance. It didn't take long at all. Despite the
grim blackness of the interior, he zeroed in on his prey, locating him on the second floor of the dilapidated structure.

The shooter was cowering in the corner, clutching a gun, glancing around desperately and peering into the darkness. He was wearing a cap. He might very well have sensed that he wasn't alone, but he didn't have a clue as to who else was
there or from where an attack might come. It never even oc
curred to him to look straight up.

Peter practically slithered across the ceiling, undetectable by any ears that didn't belong to a citizen of the planet Kryp
ton. Outside, police boats were cruising the East River.
Slowly the shooter arose and went to the filth-encrusted win-

dows, trying to peer out. As the carjacker checked his op
tions, Peter released a webbing strand and slowly lowered himself to the floor.

He landed softly, just behind the shooter, still not making a sound.

And then a stray searchlight came through another win
dow and, for just a moment, Peter's silhouette was projected
on the wall to the shooter's right.

The shooter whirled and fired in one motion, and had it
been a normal man standing behind him, the killer would have claimed another victim. But Peter simply leapt away, the bullet smacking harmlessly into the wall behind him.

Exterior lights played across the interior of the dank
warehouse, elongating shadows, throwing false targets.
Peter still couldn't see the shooter clearly; he was just a
shadow with a gun. But it didn't matter. His spider sense was
all he needed to guide him as the shooter blasted away ran
domly, desperately, and Peter effortlessly kept one step
ahead of him the entire time.

Peter heard footsteps from all around the building, ham
mers being cocked, rounds being chambered. The cops were
moving in, but there was no way—no way—he was going to
let them get to the shooter first. The carjacker fired once
more where he thought Peter was, but Peter was already sail
ing through the air, and he connected with the shooter's arm,
sending the gun clattering across the floor. The shooter
turned as if to go for it, but Peter grabbed him by the shoul
der and whirled him around.

"This is for the man you killed!" howled Peter from the
bottom of his soul, as he drove a roundhouse that connected
with the carjacker's mouth. He felt a satisfying crack of bone
under it; with any luck, he'd broken the man's jaw.

The carjacker was sent hurtling through the air, his cap flying off, and he slammed into one of the unbroken win
dows. The impact shattered the window, allowing floodlights

to pour through freely, although the security grill outside
held. The carjacker teetered for a moment, almost falling,
then tumbled forward onto the grimy warehouse floor. Peter
leapt into the window frame, grabbed the shooter up and hauled him to his feet.

The shooter was trying to talk, his speech hampered by
the damage Peter had done to his jaw, but he managed to get
out, "Don't hurt me ... give me a chance, man, give me a
chance . . . !"

Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing, and he shook the man furiously like a tornado molesting a tree, a force of
nature that could not be stopped.
"Did you give him a
chance? "
he raged.
"The man you killed! Did you? Answer
me!"

And in that moment, a moment where Peter was so filled with frenzy that he might well have torn the man's head off,
Peter saw the man's face ...

... and a piece of Peter's soul broke away and went
screaming down into a hell of his own making.

Dear Mom and Dad .
. .

You know. You must know, because Uncle Ben's with you now, and
he told you about the guy. About what happened. About how we
fought. The guy...

My fault. All my fault.

I went after him. And the whole time I was going after him, all I
was thinking about was how I was at least going to do this one thing
right, this one thing, after everything I'd screwed up. Except when I
cornered the guy, when I had him right in my hands, I looked straight
into his face, and he looked back at me with this . . . this terror in his
eyes, and part of me was thinking, "I recognize this guy . . . where do I
know him from?" I figured, you know, maybe from a post office wall or
something . . .

And then I knew. It was him.

He'd run past me at an arena where I'd gone to be a big shot, to