Spider-Man

  “Stop saying ‘incredible!’” It was all Peter could do not to laugh out loud at Harry’s frustration. “Call me when you wake up. We’ll go for breakfast and … I’ll buy you something beautiful … Why? Because I want to. It’ll make you … feel better,” Harry told her, sounding a bit uncertain. It was understandable. If Mary Jane felt as good as she seemed to, she’d float off the planet. “All right, g’night, get some sleep, uh …” Plainly he didn’t want to disconnect and was searching for things to say. “Uh … sleep tight … don’t let the—”

  Mary Jane hung up.

  Harry snapped shut the cell phone. Then he cleared his throat.

  “She’s … still a little rattled.”

  Peter nodded as he tipped back the glass, finished the last gulp, and lowered it. He glanced in a nearby mirror in approval. Milk mustache.

  “At least she’s all right.”

  “Yeah … look … about M. J… .” Harry said after a long moment. “I know that was a picture you didn’t want to take.”

  Ahhhh … so Harry was going to admit that he’d spotted Peter during the festival. “I didn’t take it,” Peter said indifferently.

  “I know. I should’ve told you about us,” Harry said, exhaling deeply as if trying to get the weight of the world off his shoulders. “But you have to understand, I’m crazy about her.”

  “We’re friends. You didn’t have to lie,” Peter reminded him, sounding sharper than he would have liked.

  “I always knew you wanted her for yourself, but you never made a move.”

  That was a bit more candor than Peter had expected from the moment. He lowered his gaze, his momentary anger replaced with self-reproach. “I guess I didn’t.”

  Harry shook his head uncomprehendingly. “What was that thing that killed them? It happened so fast.”

  “I don’t know. But somebody has to stop it.”

  “Right. Well … I’ll pray in the bedroom.”

  He hesitated, as if there was something else he wanted to say, but apparently thought better of it and walked into the bedroom. Peter was left alone at the window, looking out at the night sky. Tomorrow the entire city was going to know that there was a genuine masked menace in town, because Peter had been smart enough to anchor his camera, set the automatic shutter, and get some extremely good shots of himself in battle with that goblin …

  The Green Goblin. Peter winced. What a name. It sounded so juvenile, as if he should be sporting a little purple hat and booties. But it’s what Jameson had dubbed him, upon taking one look at the photo. “Goblin” because Jameson thought he looked like a Halloween creature come to life, and “Green” because Peter’s shots had been in black and white, and Jameson wanted to let the reader know what color he was in order to make even more of an impression—and sell more newspapers, no doubt.

  “Ever since Spider-Man, they all gotta have a name. Hoffman!” Jameson shouted. “Call the copyright office! Trademark the name! I want a quarter for every time somebody says it!”

  “But … ‘Green Goblin,’ ” Peter said in weak protest. “It sounds so …”

  “We have to make the name more memorable! And nothing makes people remember a name like alliteration!” J. Jonah Jameson said.

  “Do you really think so?” Peter Parker asked the nearest bystander.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Robbie Robertson commented. Then J. J.’s secretary, Betty Brant, informed him that he had a conference call with the noted scientists Bruce Banner and Reed Richards.

  Left alone, Peter wondered where that armored lunatic was hiding out. He tried to picture what someone like that was like when they weren’t wearing armor, a grotesque mask, and terrorizing people.

  Did he have a wife? Did she know who, what he was? Did he have a daughter who adored him? A son who looked up to him? If he did, Peter had a feeling they had no idea what he’d been up to. He probably led some sort of double life. He felt sorry for that madman’s friends and family.

  Then again, who was he to talk?

  The headline stared up at Norman Osborn, who was standing at the threshold of his apartment, the newspaper lying flat in front of him. He blinked against the brightness of the morning sun and couldn’t help but feel that the paper was mocking him, somehow, as the banner shouted up at him, TIMES SCARE! SPIDER-MAN, GREEN GOBLIN TERRORIZE CITY!

  Osborn licked his lips, ran his tongue along his teeth. He felt as if something had crawled into his mouth and died. He leaned against the doorframe, looked down at his disheveled clothes, and came to the realization that he couldn’t remember having gone to bed. The last thing he could clearly recall was the board meeting. It … hadn’t gone well. He didn’t know what the details were … he just knew it hadn’t gone well.

  He picked up the newspaper, scanning it as if it could provide him with answers to questions that he didn’t even know to ask. Then his gaze came to a halt on a smaller, less prominent headline … reading almost like an afterthought: OSCORP BOARD MEMBERS KILLED.

  He blinked furiously, an owl in the daylight, trying to make sense of it. He was starting to sweat profusely. He felt disgusting. He felt as if he wanted to climb into a shower and just stay there for days.

  Shoving the newspaper under his arm, he staggered away across the entry hall, kicking the door shut behind him.

  And then, somewhere, far in the distance, he heard a faint cackling.

  He stopped and looked around in confusion. Where the hell had that come from? Feeling vaguely uneasy, he lurched across the foyer and up the stairs.

  The cackling continued as Osborn drew closer to what seemed to be the source: his den. But as he approached it, got within just a couple of feet, the laughter abruptly stopped. It was as if there were an intruder who suspected he’d been discovered and was trying to avoid detection.

  “Somebody there?”

  He should just be calling the police, but something stopped him. It wasn’t just that the laughter had ceased. There was a palpable sense of emptiness.

  He peered around the corner cautiously, aware that there could be some lunatic standing to the side wielding an axe, ready to behead him. Then again, considering how much his skull was pounding, that might be doing him a favor.

  But there was no one. The room was empty. The only thing staring back at him was his collection of masks, and they obviously weren’t posing any threat.

  “Of course not,” he said to himself. He took a deep breath, walked into the study, and moved to a small table that had a whiskey decanter sitting on it. He poured himself a shot, alarmed by how much his hands were shaking.

  “Stop pretending, Norman . . .”

  He whirled, the sudden realization that he wasn’t alone a cold dash of water in his face. Sweat was rolling off him in buckets. The glass was wobbling in his hand, the whiskey slopping over the edges.

  The voice was mirthful and otherworldly, and so damned familiar that it chilled him to the bone, especially in the informal tone it was taking, as if the intruder and Osborn were old friends. He stumbled to the middle of the room, spinning in place, trying to see everywhere in the room at once.

  “Who said that?!” he demanded.

  “Don’t play the innocent with me. You’ve known all along.” The voice spoke in a demonic monotone.

  “Who are you?”

  “Follow the cold shiver that’s running down your spine. Look . . . I’m right here.”

  Osborn turned and faced a long mirror that was hanging nearby. He stared into it. His reflection was ghastly and pale, like a man on his deathbed. “I … don’t understand,” he said, his throat closing up on him. He wondered if he was going to keel over right there, before this intruder even showed himself.

  “Did you think it was coincidence? So many good things . . . all happening for you . . . all for you, Norman . . .”

  “What do you want?” Osborn shouted, his terror mounting, and he felt horribly weak for reacting that way. Sweat was dripping into his eyes. He rubbed them furiously to clear h
is vision, and when he lowered his hands… .

  Something else was staring out at him from the mirror. Not his own reflection, no. No, it was that … that creature that had been on the front page of the newspaper. That Green Goblin, leering at him …

  “What do I want? To say what you won’t . . . to do what you can’t . . . to remove those in your way,” and with a slight inclination of his head, the Green Goblin indicated the newspaper.

  The horrifying reality slammed home to Osborn all at once. “The board members? You … killed them?!”

  “We killed them.”

  Osborn backed away, shaking his head, positive now that either he was dreaming or going mad, or both. “Oh God. Oh God …”

  “Stop mewling,” the Goblin snarled. “You sicken me. You ooze weakness.”

  Now … now he understood, more than ever, why the Goblin sounded so familiar. It was the way his voice sounded to himself … when he was talking to, or about, Harry. “I’m not a murderer … I’m a scientist, a respectable businessman. The police …”

  The word hung there, the salvation. Osborn hurried for the phone, reached for it …

  … and the Goblin was already there, no longer confined to the mirror, growing stronger in Osborn’s psyche with each passing moment. His armored hand sat atop the phone, and he snarled into Osborn’s face with putrid breath, “Hypocrite! Liar!”

  The Goblin reared back, heaved the phone toward the balcony, and Osborn was inside and outside his own head at the same time, unsure whether the Goblin had truly sprung to life, whether the phone being thrown was an hallucination, or whether he himself had thrown it in the throes of a delusion.

  And there was the Goblin, up on the den’s balcony, ducking as the phone zipped past his head. The Green Goblin stood there, looking down at Osborn. “Now shut up and listen! Try to understand the beauty of all this!” he snapped at him. “You are now in full control of OsCorp Industries. Your greatest wish, granted by me. Say thank you,” he told him silkily.

  Osborn didn’t say thank you. But he stopped trembling, shaking in weakness. The truth was that he’d been more appalled at the prospect of getting caught than by the act itself. There was no love lost between himself and the board members, certainly.

  “Hmmm … And … then what?” he asked cautiously.

  Clearly pleased that Osborn was warming up to the situation, the Goblin continued. “We’ll eliminate your rivals. OsCorp will become the most powerful military supplier in history. You’ll have limitless wealth.” He spoke in an increasingly seductive tone. “Presidents and kings will court your favor. So don’t be shy. Take what you’ve always wanted. Power. The weak will serve you. The world will be yours and mine. Yes. You and I, we can have a hell of a time.”

  Osborn lurched toward his favorite chair, leaned on its back. “I … suppose the damage has been done, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can we … do it alone?”

  “There’s only one who could stop us.”

  Osborn drew himself up, struck by a better thought. “Or … be our greatest ally.”

  “Exactly! We need to have a little chat with you-know-who.”

  “But … how do we find him?”

  The Goblin didn’t have to answer out loud. The answer was already in his head, and without any further prompting Osborn picked up the newspaper from where he’d dropped it. He stared at the front page with the picture of Spider-Man and the Green Goblin.

  He gave a low, pleased laugh that sounded vaguely like a cackle.

  XX.

  THE REAL TRUTH

  J. Jonah Jameson was having a very good day so far, and all the nattering from Peter Parker wasn’t going to ruin it.

  Parker was stomping around Jameson’s office as if the little twerp owned the place. Jameson made a mental note to slap Parker down; he’d been getting entirely too big for his britches lately. “Spider-Man wasn’t terrorizing the city!” he told Jameson. “He was trying to save it! It’s slander!”

  “I resent that!” Jameson snapped at him, not even bothering to look in his direction. He was too busy admiring the front page of the Bugle. He wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t have made the type even bigger. “Slander is spoken. In print it’s libel.” His cigar had burned down to the nub, so he flicked it out the window.

  “You don’t trust anybody,” Parker said, stabbing an accusatory finger at him. “That’s your problem, Mr. Jameson.”

  Whereupon he turned and strode angrily out of Jameson’s office, which was just fine by Jonah. “I trust my barber!” Jameson called after him. Then, pointing at the picture of Spider-Man, he shouted, “What are you, his lawyer? Let him sue me and get rich like a normal person! That’s what makes this country—”

  The cigar that he had just thrown out the window flew back in. Jameson looked down at it, puzzled, and then turned to see if somehow there might have been a passing pigeon with a highly overdeveloped retrieval instinct.

  That was when the Green Goblin, as if leaping off the front page of the paper, smashed through the window frame. Jameson let out a yell of terror as the Goblin grabbed him by the throat with one hand and scooped him off his feet, his glider hovering over the floor of the office.

  Outside Jameson’s office, pandemonium erupted. People dashed about like so many headless chickens, shouting for security. Photographers were madly grabbing up their cameras. How wonderful, Jameson thought. Front page coverage of his death. Bleakly, Jameson hoped they’d snap his good side.

  “Who’s the photographer who takes the pictures of Spider-Man? I need to talk to him about his favorite subject. Where is he?”

  Parker! He wants Parker . . . !

  Jameson’s first instinct was to shout the name, shout it as loudly as he could. But then something else kicked in: the oldest commandment in the world. Protect your source. Jameson had, on two separate occasions, gone to jail rather than violate that fundamental principle.

  He looked hard into his soul at that moment, as the Goblin’s face leered at him, and recognized himself for the money-seeking, headline-manufacturing, truth-bending leech that he was, but by God, he was just trying to keep his newspaper afloat, and at least his newsman’s soul was still unblemished. That wasn’t going to change.

  Not even in the face of death.

  Besides, if he blurted out the name, the Goblin might just kill him anyway. The longer he stalled, the more chance he had that security would get their slow, wrinkled butts in gear and take care of this nut.

  “He’s a freelancer,” Jameson said. “I … I don’t know who he is! His stuff comes in the mail!”

  That sounded horrendously lame, and the Goblin obviously saw through it.

  “You’re lying … !”

  “I swear!” Jameson choked out.

  “This is your last chance—!” His voice was high-pitched, he was practically giggling the entire time, a green-armored demoniac.

  “Please … air …” The world was starting to haze out. “… Stop …”

  “Hey!”

  It was another voice, from somewhere outside Jameson’s fading field of vision. And then he saw the source.

  Spider-Man was hanging, upside down, just outside the window.

  “I wear the tights in this town,” he said mockingly.

  “Speak of the devil,” the Goblin growled. He let go of Jameson, and the newspaper owner slumped to the floor, gasping.

  But even as his lungs fought for air, he managed to get out, “I knew it! You and Spider-Man are in this together! I knew that creep was—”

  There was a thwipp noise and suddenly Jameson couldn’t move his mouth. A glob of Spider-Man’s webbing was covering it.

  “Hey, kiddo, let Mom and Dad talk for a minute, will you?”

  The Green Goblin pointed at Spider-Man, as if about to challenge him … and suddenly gas billowed from his fingertip, spurting directly into the wallcrawler’s face.

  Caught completely unawares, Spider-Man gasped, tried to choke out
the gas, failed … and toppled backward out the window. Instantly the Goblin was gone, as well.

  My God . . . he killed him … Jameson thought wildly as he staggered to his feet, using the edge of his desk to haul himself up. He heard the sound of running feet coming up behind him, the useless security guards. He made a mental note to fire them as he stumbled over to the window and looked out, expecting to see Spider-Man’s dead body splattered all over the sidewalk below.

  Instead he saw the Green Goblin, arcing up and away into the sky … with Spider-Man’s body slung over his shoulder.

  I knew it! The Goblin saved him! He wouldn’t have saved him if they were enemies! Damn! I need photos. Where’s Parker when you need him! Jameson thought furiously as he pulled in futility at the webbing on his mouth.

  He’d seemed . . . bigger, somehow.

  That was the Goblin’s thought as he hovered above the unconscious Spider-Man, who was lying on a rooftop just below him. When he’d been battling the wallcrawler the previous day, the bug man had seemed bigger. More powerful. Everywhere at once. But lying there as he was, moaning softly, rubbing his head . . . well, he looked pretty pathetic, actually. Maybe he wasn’t really worthy of being an ally.

  Still … when his fist had connected, especially that first time, the Goblin had felt it right through his armor. And hell … even Hitler had probably looked harmless—maybe even adorable—when he’d been sleeping.

  Spider-Man was beginning to move, but he looked as if he couldn’t coordinate his limbs. The Goblin knew why, of course. “Relax,” he said.

  The webslinger struggled to drag himself to a sitting position. He couldn’t have moved any slower if he’d weighed a thousand pounds, and it probably felt as if he did. “My hallucinogen gas has slowed your central nervous system to a crawl,” the Goblin said conversationally. “Just for a few minutes. Long enough for us to have a talk.” He saw Spider-Man instinctively reach for his face, and he chortled. “Don’t worry, I didn’t remove your mask. I’ll respect your privacy … for the moment, anyway. Because I respect you.”