Spider-Man

  She turned toward the source of the crazed entrance, and was stunned. Floating a short distance away, the sound of his turbine engines roaring, was that ghastly creature the newspapers had dubbed the Green Goblin. She pulled bits of broken glass out of her hair as she gaped in confusion, watching as the costumed madman peered in through the hole he’d just created.

  Green vapor was spewing out of his glider, filling the room. Then his face suddenly seemed to widen and widen, until it became impossibly distorted and filled the room, reaching from one side to the other. Those yellow eyes of his were glowing in the relative dimness of the bedroom. He let out one loud, demented laugh, and Aunt May tried to flee. Instead she fell to the ground, putting up her hands, trying to ward him off as she stammered, “But … but … but …” over and over again.

  “Finish it! Finish it!” howled the Green Goblin.

  She clutched at her chest, unsure of what “it” the Goblin meant, unless the monster was referring to her time on earth. But then she understood, and she cried out in terror, “. . . deliver us from evil!” and suddenly there was a feeling like a massive vise across her chest, knocking the breath, the very life from her. Her back arched, tensed, and then she went limp as a sack of rice. Her eyes closed, her head slumping to one side, and the last thing she heard as the darkness claimed her was, “Amen, sister!” accompanied by a lunatic and very self-satisfied chortling.

  XXIV.

  THE

  YELLOW EYES

  Peter sprinted down the hospital corridor, out of his mind with worry. Nurses and orderlies scrambled to get out of his way. He almost collided with an old man just emerging from his room, pulling an IV on a rolling stand. But Peter darted around him with ease, so quickly that the elderly patient wasn’t quite sure whether someone had just gone past him or not.

  He reached the last room on the right, ducked inside, and stopped in his tracks. Despite the fact that he was in a hospital room, despite the fact that trained medical personnel were working with the frenzy of worker bees hauling ass to please the queen, still all he could do was flash back to that horrible moment that was Uncle Ben’s last.

  God, don’t let her die . . . it would be like being orphaned twice . . .

  If God was operating through the hands of the doctors, then He was working overtime. May Parker lay in a hospital bed, hooked up to so many machines that she looked as if she was ready to be fired into orbit. Her face was ashen, and although her eyes were wide open, it was unclear to Peter whether she was even capable of communicating. A major shock . . . triggered an episode, he’d been told. But the circumstances of May’s collapse were maddeningly vague, and it was that lack of information that was threatening to drive him over the edge.

  “Aunt May!” Peter called.

  At first he didn’t think she was going to respond. But then her eyes focused on him, and he was so overjoyed that his heart skipped a beat, figuratively speaking. Unfortunately Aunt May’s heart also skipped a beat, but it was rather more literal, and she started to twitch in great agitation.

  “What happened?! Is she going to be okay?!” Peter cried out.

  “Sir, please!” said one of the nurses with a commanding voice. “Let the doctors work!”

  Peter started to head toward his aunt, but the nurse—a stout woman who was to bedside warmth what wind shear was to airplane safety records—hooked an arm around his elbow and propelled him toward the door. Naturally, Peter could have lifted her over his head, slam-dunked her, used her as beach ball if he was so inclined. Instead, his attention fixed upon Aunt May’s face, Peter allowed himself to be led out of the room, frantically looking over his shoulder repeatedly for a last glimpse of her. And that was when he heard her cry out, “Those eyes … those horrible yellow eyes!”

  Those words meant nothing to the doctors and nurses who were attending her, trying to calm her. They undoubtedly figured she was experiencing some sort of delusion, a fevered and terrifying nightmare.

  But for Peter …

  At first his mind just locked up, hearing those words without fully grasping them.

  And then he saw the face of the Green Goblin.

  In his imagining, the Goblin’s face—with those blazing yellow orbs filled with hatred—was on an upright domino. The domino was wavering slightly, and then it fell over . . . and struck another domino with Aunt May’s face on it, which struck a final domino that had Peter’s face on it. But it had Spider-Man’s face as well. It was split right down the middle, vertically, and it wavered and toppled, falling, falling as the Goblin’s hysterical laughter floated through the air . . .

  “The Goblin …” whispered Peter, standing in the hospital corridor.

  All around him people lay in rooms with tubes attached to every possible part of their body, fighting for their lives, and here Peter’s life was in mortal jeopardy, yet he was just standing there.

  “He knows … oh God … he knows who I am …”

  He bolted down the hall and dashed up the stairway, springing up each staircase as if he were on strings. He burst out onto the hospital roof and, as rain poured down upon him, let out a scream of mortal terror such as never had exploded from his chest before.

  Dear Mom and Dad:

  All my efforts to make up for letting Uncle Ben down have come to this: Not only is my own life in danger . . . which was mine to risk . . . but so is the life of the woman who committed the cardinal sin of loving me.

  I haven’t made things better. I’ve made them worse than they ever were.

  I feel like I’m watching from a distance, like I’m outside my body, and my whole life is about to be flushed away.

  What am I going to do? God in heaven, what am I going to do?

  He’d brought a picture to set at her bedside: a lovely shot of a young Peter with a smiling Uncle Ben and Aunt May standing on either side of him.

  And Peter Parker sat there, like a statue. He could have been there for hours or days. He’d often read the phrase “time had lost all meaning,” in books and such, but the concept had never really meant anything to him until now. He knew it was night, since a glance out the window told him so. But for all he knew, he’d been sitting there for days on end. He really hadn’t been paying attention.

  The rain had soaked him up on the roof, but he’d dried off.

  He stared at the picture that he himself had brought. Uncle Ben, dead … because of him. Aunt May, hospitalized, in mortal danger, because of him. This bizarre “gift” he had received came with too high a price tag, as far as he was concerned.

  He leaned forward, kissed Aunt May on the forehead as he blinked back tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  He brought textbooks to keep current with his studies, but they sat in the backpack near his feet. He knew he’d get around to them, eventually, but at this point he was afraid to take his eyes off Aunt May, lest she somehow slip away into oblivion while he turned away even for a moment. At the end of visiting hours, the nurse who ran the ward tried to get him to leave. He ignored her. He simply sat in the chair, not moving. She could have been addressing a department store mannequin for all the luck she was having.

  The nurse, annoyed, called the doctor, who came and told Peter much the same thing. He had to leave, visiting hours were over, his aunt’s condition had stabilized, and he wasn’t going to accomplish anything by taking up room. Besides, it was hospital policy, that was all, and such policy was well known, carved in granite and not to be trifled with under pain of … well … Very Bad Things.

  Peter didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t even glance at him.

  He.

  Just.

  Sat.

  Annoyed, the doctor summoned a burly orderly, who endeavored to pick Peter up bodily. Peter ignored him, too. He didn’t fight back; didn’t have to. He simply didn’t budge when the orderly, who outweighed him by a good hundred pounds, tried to move him. Annoyed, the orderly tried to lift Peter’s chair clean up, and was stunned when he had no more success at thi
s than he’d had at his earlier attempts. He did not, of course, see the small globs of webbing Peter had taken the precaution of using on the bottoms of the chair legs.

  So the orderly and the nurse and the doctor put their heads together and thought about calling the police. The orderly observed that the little guy was stronger than he looked, and if the cops started getting physical, things could get real ugly, real fast. The doctor asked if Peter was hurting anyone, the nurse admitted that he wasn’t. That he wasn’t a burden at all, and indeed, if not for the fact that they were making all this fuss, his presence would go completely unnoticed and unremarked upon.

  The doctor shrugged, said “Keep an eye on things,” and walked away. And that was pretty much that.

  Peter hadn’t realized that he’d drifted off to sleep, but before he knew it he was blinking away sunlight in his eyes. His shirt was soaked completely through with sweat. He didn’t care.

  He went downstairs, grabbed some snacks from a machine, went back to May’s room and started reading the textbooks. He did this for a time, nodding to the nurses who came in every so often to check on his aunt. They’d stopped worrying about him, apparently choosing to think of him as one of the fixtures, no different than a chair or a bedpan. Perhaps they even thought it was kind of sweet.

  Just after 9:30 A.M. Peter realized that May’s eyes were open and fixed on him, the edges crinkling gently in that way she had when she was happy to see him. She murmured his name, and he didn’t want to hug her for fear he’d break her. Quickly, Peter summoned the doctor, who checked May over, and a look of relief settled on his face. He asked her some questions while he jotted down readings from the machines that were monitoring her and seemed satisfied with the answers. When he asked if she knew what had happened, she just stared at him blankly.

  Peter stayed with her as she drifted back to sleep. He was still tense and nervous, but the doctor seemed cautiously optimistic. Yes, that’s what they always called it: Cautiously Optimistic. He informed Peter that he could go home now, and Peter just stared at him as if he’d sprouted a third arm, so the doctor rolled his eyes and walked away.

  Since Peter’s sleep during the night had been minimal, to say nothing of uncomfortable, he eventually fell back to sleep. He was awakened by a rapping, a gentle tapping, upon the chamber door. For a moment he was confused as to where he was. He looked up, licking his lips, his mouth feeling as if it was filled with cotton.

  Mary Jane was standing there, a tentative smile on her face. She was holding a bouquet of flowers under her arm. “Can I come in?” she asked.

  Immediately Peter felt rejuvenated. How can one person have that much of an effect on another? he wondered as he got to his feet. He popped a breath mint into his mouth as M. J. entered the room tentatively, casting a sad look upon Aunt May’s unconscious form. Then, still holding the flowers, M. J. went to Peter and delicately put her arms around his shoulders. She drew him close in a comforting hug, and Peter let out a low breath that he felt like he’d been holding forever.

  “I’m so sorry. I just heard about it,” she whispered. He nodded, drinking in the closeness of her, and it was all he could do to hold himself together, rather than break down on her shoulder.

  They stayed that way for a long moment, and then she turned toward the bed. Moving closer to Aunt May, she lay the flowers on the bedside table, gently touching the wizened woman’s forehead. “Will she be okay?”

  “We think so,” Peter told her, shoving his hands in his pockets. “She finally woke up this morning. For a while. Thanks for coming.”

  “Who would do this to her?” asked a puzzled Mary Jane.

  Peter’s head snapped around. “How did you know that somebody ‘did’ something?”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Peter … who do you think found your aunt? Called the ambulance? It was my mom. She heard your aunt screaming and howling, the noise. It was so unusual for your house that she went over to check on her. She found your aunt’s bedroom wrecked, and there were burn marks, like someone had been trying to set the place on fire… .”

  The glider, Peter thought grimly. The turbos and thrusters would certainly leave burns on the carpet, on the wall. The monster . . .

  Mary Jane was shaking her head. “Your Aunt May … she’s so loving, so giving. Why would anyone want to hurt her? Do you know who did it?” She said it skeptically, clearly not thinking that Peter would have an answer.

  He wasn’t going to tell her, but he blurted it out just the same. “It was the Green Goblin.”

  M. J. paled. “But … why?” she said when she found her voice. “Why would he need to attack her?” He didn’t answer. What could he say? The truth? Oh, like that was going to happen. “I’m sorry, Peter. I know you’ve asked yourself these questions …”

  “It’s okay,” he shrugged, trying to look bewildered when he, in fact, knew more than he wanted to think about. Turning it around, he said, “How about you? Are you all right about the other night?”

  She looked down, obviously chagrined. “I’m sorry about that. Makes things worse for everybody.”

  “You were fine. Have you talked to Harry?”

  M. J. shook her head, still not looking up at him. “He called me. I haven’t called him back.” Then she turned her back to him completely, focusing on the sleeping Aunt May. She tucked in the bed sheet. “The fact is,” she continued, still presenting her back, “I’m in love with somebody else.”

  Peter thought his head was going to explode. He cleared his throat. “You are?”

  “At least … I think I am.” Then she did turn back and look at him. “This isn’t the time to talk about this.”

  “No, go on,” he said urgently. Fighting to remain nonchalant, he took a step closer to her, closing the distance between them. “Would I know his name? This guy?”

  “You’ll think I’m a stupid little girl with a crush.”

  With as much fervency as he could muster, he said, “Trust me.”

  She looked into his eyes, long and hard, and suddenly she laughed as if tremendously embarrassed over having been caught at something. “I’m, like, head over heels!” she exclaimed. “It’s whacked!”

  “Who is he?”

  “It’s funny. He saved my life twice, and I’ve never seen his face.”

  It was all Peter could do to suppress a smile. Granted, he’d been hoping that M. J. would say that it was himself … except under the mask, it was. In a way, he was competing with himself. The absurdity of the situation struck him as amusing.

  “Oh. Him.”

  She swiped at his shoulder in mock annoyance. “You’re laughing at me!”

  “No, I understand. He is extremely cool.” If I do say so myself . . .

  “But do you think it’s true, the terrible things they say about him?”

  “No way,” he said immediately. “That isn’t Spider-Man, not a chance in the world.” Then he realized he’d said it with a bit too much intensity to sound natural, and she was looking at him oddly, as if waiting for an explanation. “I … know him a little bit. I’m sort of his,” and he lowered his voice to sound very entre nous, “unofficial photographer.”

  “How do you always manage to find him?”

  He shrugged. “Wrong place, right time, I guess.”

  M. J. looked him up and down, and suddenly he felt uncomfortable. As if he had opened a door he really didn’t want to walk through. But it was too late to retreat as Mary Jane asked, “You ever … talk to him?”

  “Sometimes,” he said uneasily.

  “Does he ever talk about me?”

  “Uh … yeah. Once. Once he asked what I thought of you.”

  She drew a sharp intake of breath. She rested a hand on his arm as if wanting to touch someone who had once shaken hands with Elvis. “What did he say?”

  He didn’t have the faintest idea what to say. And then he reached deep, deep into his imagination, and he looked across the room into a mirror on the wall. There was Spider-Man,
reflected at him, looking at him with his masked face, and maybe he was laughing under it, or frowning … it was impossible to tell.

  He saw his own image reflected in the mirrors of Spider-Man’s eyes, and he said, “I said … I said, Spider-Man, I said the great thing about M. J. is when … when you look in her eyes, and she’s looking back in yours and smiling, well … everything feels … not quite normal because you feel … stronger. And weaker at the same time, and you feel excited and at the same time, terrified.” He pulled his gaze away from the mirror to look at Mary Jane, and her eyes were moist. Peter was suddenly brimming with confidence; she was hanging on his every word.

  “Spidey—I call him Spidey sometimes—the truth is,” and he looked back to his reflection, saw the webslinger in the mirror, waiting to hear the “truth,” “you don’t know what you feel, except you know the kind of man you want to be and what it is, is …”

  His confidence started to waver. He was getting tangled up in his mouth, in his thoughts. Now it was Peter who wasn’t able to look into Mary Jane’s eyes as he completed telling her the conversation that he had, indeed, had a hundred times with Spider-Man … in his head.

  “It’s as if, when you’re with her, it’s as if you’ve reached … the unreachable … and you weren’t ready for it.”

  Oh my God, that sounded horrible . . . like some half-baked Don Quixote thing . . .

  He looked back up at her and was dumbfounded to see that tears were welling in her eyes.

  “You said that … ?” she said with a choking sound in her throat.

  And suddenly Peter felt guilty and small. What he had done was voice his innermost thoughts, true, but he knew that he’d misrepresented himself. However he didn’t have the faintest idea how to go about fixing it. “Uh … um … sssomething like that.” Then guilt spilled over into embarrassment, for he knew he had said too much. In pretending to speak to Spider-Man, he had really, truly told M. J. how he felt, and she had to know it.