Spiderman 1 (52 page)

Peter thought he was going to die.

It might have been preferable.

He gritted his teeth beneath his mask to avoid the shriek
that wanted to rip itself from his agonized body. His arms
were on fire, his muscles trembling. When he did speak, his
voice was a strained, harsh whisper, as he said to M. X,
"Climb down. The cable to the tram
 
. . .
 
climb down
 
. . . "

Her voice quivering, she said, "I can't."

"M. J., just do it."

"I'm scared."

"Trust me," he said, in the exact same tone of voice he'd
used back at the hospital.

Mary Jane stared into his eyepiece, and it was as if she
could see right through the mask, into his heart
. . .
 
as if she
were seeing him in so many ways for the first time, and
he said again,
"Trust me,"
keeping his voice level despite the incredible strain.

Without another word, M. J. eased herself down his body
and wrapped her hands around the cable. She started to descend, and Peter couldn't help but think that if the Goblin
wanted to pick the worst possible moment to show up, this was pretty much it.

Then his spider sense kicked in.

He barely had time to twist his head around before the Goblin zoomed in and slammed him in the jaw, and then
rocketed away with only laughter floating behind him. Obviously he was in no hurry to finish things, and equally ob
viously there was no reason for him to be. He had Peter cold,
and they both knew it.

Mary Jane was almost thrown from the cable. She barely
managed to hang on, when the Goblin slugged Spider-Man with incredible force. The fact that the webslinger was still
conscious, much less maintaining his grip, was nothing
short of miraculous.

Nevertheless the tram dipped precipitously, again throw
ing around the kids and their fathers.
Hold on, God, please,
hold on,
she mentally begged.

The Goblin swung around for another assault. He cackled
as he extended his arm, exposing razor-sharp blades that
adorned it. The webslinger watched, helpless, as the Goblin
delivered a crushing blow to his stomach. Pieces of flesh and
costume went flying, and that was it: He lost his grip on the
cable.

Mary Jane couldn't help it: She screamed as she and the tram plummeted toward the icy waters below.

Spider-Man dangled from the web, grasping for the cable
that was racing past him. As the last of it whizzed by,
he lunged for it, catching it. And now it was Spider-Man's
turn to scream, in agony rather than terror, as blood gushed
from his hand. But the cable went taut again.

Mary Jane lost her own grip and fell, landing on the tram
below. She raised her head and saw Spider-Man, his head
lolling to the side, finished, looking for all the world as if
he'd been crucified with his arms outstretched. And yet he
was still holding on, impossibly, miraculously, to the cable in
one bleeding hand and the web line in the other.

Then she heard the glider's engine as the Green Goblin
circled in for the final blow.

But he stopped. He hovered in front of Spider-Man, looking at the hero whose body was stretched to the limit and be
yond, looking like a pitiful rag doll that had been thrown on a scrap heap after a lifetime of service. For an instant, Mary Jane thought the Goblin was going to break off the assault.

Spider-Man raised his head, looked at his oppenent.

And then the Goblin threw back his head, laughed, and roared toward Spider-Man, his glider on full throttle.

It ripped at Mary Jane's heart. Her last thoughts—or at
least what she believed her last thoughts were going to be—
weren't of her own death, or the deaths of the children and
their fathers, but rather of how ghastly and unfair it was that
Spider-Man had suffered to such a degree, gone to such Her
culean efforts, all for nothing.

A huge chunk of asphalt slammed across the side of the
Goblin's head.

It sent him spiraling out of control, and he missed Spider-
Man clean. He pulled himself out of the spiral, looked
around in confusion, and more asphalt hit him. And then
bottles, rocks, shoes, a virtual rainstorm of garbage and de
bris.

He craned his neck and looked upward, as did Mary Jane,
and she was astounded to see dozens—maybe hundreds—of
bystanders, lined up on the bridge, no longer satisfied with
being sidelined like simple cheerleaders. Instead, they were
pelting the Goblin with anything and everything they could
get their hands on.

The creature howled with frustration, shielding his face
with his arms, and angled down and away, vanishing into the
darkness under the bridge, skimming near the surface of the
water.

Peter was stunned, shocked beyond his ability to compre
hend. His body was no less tired, his muscles no less spent.
But as he saw the support and adoration being voiced by
those most jaded of people—New Yorkers—strength began
to flow through him, born of newfound confidence. He
didn't know how long this second wind—second
 
. . .
 
more
like fifth by that point—was going to last. But then he saw,
at the bottom of the tower leg, a massive amount of rock that

spread from the support piling. If the tram had simply fallen
onto it, everyone aboard would have been crushed. That, however, was not going to happen.

Gently angling the gondola in a pendulumlike swing, he
lowered it further and further until it touched down onto the
rocks below. The moment it did, a new roar of approval
erupted from the crowd. He almost passed out from relief as
he swung his torn and bleeding right hand around to clutch onto the web line with both hands. He felt absolutely light
headed; in fact, he felt as if he were floating in zero-G, hav
ing gone from supporting the weight of the tram to simply
his own body weight.

He saw Mary Jane, perched atop the cable car, looking up
at him with concern, and more. Then suddenly her expression shifted to fear at about the same time his spider sense
warned him of danger.

A cable snaked around Peter's waist, and for a split sec
ond he thought it was from the tram car somehow. Then the
Goblin, holding the other end of the rope, swept past him.
The cable went taut, and Peter was yanked off his web, high
into the air, hauled behind the Goblin glider completely out
of control. He thrashed about, to no effect, and the glider an
gled down and around, back toward Roosevelt Island.

The Goblin turned and cackled, clearly delighted at the costumed teen's struggles. Then, apparently having seen
enough, he held out his arm, once again exposing the blades
on it, and the blades sliced through the rope. Peter crashed into the abandoned, hulking ruin of a condemned smallpox
hospital at the southern end of the island.

He staggered to his feet, and suddenly from everywhere
they were coming at him: The bats. Razor sharp, sweeping
in from all around. He had no idea where the Goblin got
them, no clue how they functioned, no concept of anything except that they were ripping into him, shredding his cos
tume, leaving glistening lines of blood on his chest, his legs.

Every time one struck him, pain exploded behind his eyes,
to the point where there was so much that he just wasn't feel
ing it anymore.

"Enough!" bellowed the Goblin. But the bats, failing to
heed their master's call, continued slicing at Peter as he staggered across the dusty floor of the hospital.
"I said enough!"
the Goblin bellowed, and this time some cybernetic circuit must have kicked in. The razor bats stopped their destruc
tion, flying meekly away.

Peter didn't even realize he was on the ground, lying on
his back, until the bats departed. He rolled over, leaving an
outline of blood marking his resting spot. He looked up at
the Goblin, who was hovering over him, and tried to stand.
His legs turned to jelly and he crashed to the ground.

The Goblin, laughing, reached down onto his glider and
pulled out a rod. At the top of the rod was a button, which
he pressed, and three blades popped out of the front, giving
the weapon the appearance of a pitchfork.

"Ahhh, misery, misery, misery," the Goblin said sadly, as
if commiserating. "Again and again I've tried to make my
case, but you won't oblige. Had you not been so determined, your sweetheart's death would have been quick and painless.
But now, now that you've really pissed me off, I'll see to it
that it's slow and
 
. . .
 
painful. Just . . .
 
like
 
. . .
 
yours
 
. . . "

The Goblin reared back with the spear, bringing it down
toward Peter's chest. At the last moment, Peter caught it, and
as he looked at the Goblin, stared into the face of hate, his strength returned. He yanked the spear out of his grip and
smashed it against the monster's armored head so hard that
it nearly decapitated him. As it was, it knocked the Goblin
clear off the glider, sending him flying back ten feet and crashing to the ground.

Peter staggered back from the exertion for a moment,
went down to one knee, taking deep breaths. There was

blood everywhere, all his, and the Goblin, who had terror
ized so many, who seemed to exist purely to bedevil him,
was lying on the floor moaning. The fact that such a monstrosity could exist filled him with a nameless rage, and he felt as if everything he'd gone through had happened purely
to bring him to this moment. To look into the face of evil and
say,
Your day is done.

It was Peter Parker who had been knocked to the floor,
torn and bleeding, but it was the amazing Spider-Man who
got to his feet and snapped the pitchfork across his knee,
tossing the parts to the side. It was Spider-Man who grabbed the Goblin by the chest, pulled him up from the ground, and
threw a haymaker that would have dislocated the Goblin's
jaw had he not been protected by his armor, and came
damned close to doing so anyway.

The Goblin went flying through a nearby wall. He rose,
managed to advance a few steps, and then Spider-Man
struck another devastating blow. The Goblin crumpled
against a nearby stone wall, and his voice was pathetic and
pleading when he said, "Please
 
. . . "

Spider-Man didn't want to hear it,
would
not hear it. He picked the Goblin up yet again, and he wanted to crush his
opponent's face beneath his fist. Wanted to see the Goblin's
blood, for once.