Spiderman 3

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue

The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book."

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Original
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Spider-Man and all related characters: TM & © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Spider-Man 3, the Movie: © 2007 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.

Motion picture artwork and photography: © 2007 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY

ISBN- 13: 978-1-4165-2721-3 ISBN- 10: 1-4165-2721-4

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Peter Parker does not believe that old notion that, when one is about to die, one's life flashes before one's eyes. He considers it a sort of "after the fact" add-on. Someone has a near-death experience and, in recalling it, mentally inserts all the highlights of his existence after the fact as a sort of mental counterpoint to life's near termination. Memory, after all, is a tricky thing, possibly the most deceptive aspect of the brain's function.

The main reason Peter has come to be dismissive of the concept is because, in his activities as Spider-Man, he has been near death more times than he can count. More times, in fact, than any reasonable person should have to experience. In all those times, all those close shaves, he has never once seen his life go flashing before his eyes. Not when the Green Goblin had him on the ropes, his uniform tattered and his last dregs of energy seemingly used up. Not when Otto Octavius had him in a stranglehold while Ock's fearsome machine sped on a particle acceleration toward destroying the entire city. Not once, during the myriad encounters with various petty crooks, bank robbers, muggers, and gunmen.

Never. Not even close to it.

This time, however, it's different. At this moment, as Peter thrashes his arms and legs about in midair, a good fifty stories

above the cold and unforgiving streets of New York, the recent developments in his life rip through his skull, like a projector un-spooling from somewhere deep in his cerebral cortex and projecting a picture on his retinas.

He hears his own voice speaking. It sounds distant, calm, as if he has managed to detach himself completely from his current predicament. He does not currently "see" the night, nor feel the chill of the stiff wind in his bones, but instead "sees" the sun creeping up over the East River. This is a day seen at its beginning, filled with promise and hope, not a day ending in sorrow and death.

What a day!
Peter's chipper voice tells him. Inwardly, soundlessly, he laughs bitterly over the irony of such shortsightedness
. Well, anyway, there's a fresh breeze.

The sun gives way to the spider symbol that typically rests upon his chest. Nevertheless, it is not his symbol, or at least not his chest. He sees a boy, a young boy, clambering up a high tree limb in Central Park. Peter is standing a few feet away, cutting through the park but pausing to take in the amusing sight of a boy pretending to be, not a cowboy or a robber or ninja or pirate, but instead Peter himself. More correctly, Peter's alter ego, for the boy is sporting a crudely stitched facsimile of Peter's costume shirt. It reminds Peter a bit of the makeshift costume he'd first worn when he'd embarked on his short-lived wrestling career.

Then the higher branch abruptly snaps in the boy's hand. Peter senses it just before it happens, and he is already moving to intercept the boy's plunge. He is not the only one, as it turns out, who is keeping an eye on the lad and is in possession of a hyper-awareness of danger. The boy falls, and suddenly his mother is

there, deftly snagging him before he hits the ground, faster than even Peter could have gotten over there. She rights him and scolds him
, No more climbing up there! You're not Spider-Man!

The boy retorts
, Am too!
With that defiant declaration, he starts right back toward the tree. The mother lets out a long-suffering sigh of infinite patience, and a smiling Peter turns away, confident the kid's safety is in good hands
.

As he turns, the scenery shifts around him once more, as it is capable of doing since all this is flashing through his mind between beats of his heart. Rather than being landbound, he is soaring above the city. He had been halting and uncertain in his earliest days of web slinging, careening off buildings through mistimed leaps and swings. Now he switches hands deftly, left and right, left and right, arcing through the concrete mazes of Manhattan with an ease that is literally lyrical, since there are no less than three songs about him by various artists in the
Billboard
Top 100
.

The city is safe and sound. I guess I've had something to do with that.
It is a modest thought, and a false modesty at that. There is no "guess" about it, especially when one considers that the giant video screen in Times Square has the words "NYC
Spider-Man rolling across it
.