Curse of Arachnaman Read online

  "I tried,” Peter replied. “You haven't cleared up your machine, you dill weed. It's full."

  I loved it when he got all sappy. “Want to go out?” I toyed with the coiled phone cord thing, wrapping each coil around one finger till only the end of my finger poked out. I stared at it and pointedly ignored any Freudian reference the whole thing gave me. “Are you, uh, working today?"

  "Not now, but I will soon. Tomorrow will be better."

  We made arrangements to meet somewhere downtown because I told him about the retro arcade on Sycamore Lane. He agreed to meet there. Being the super-practical type that I am, I told him that we could just walk around and enjoy the time without having to drive all over the place and waste precious minutes.

  * * * *

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  Chapter 11

  * * * *

  So I asked Mom's permission after Peter's call. Naturally, she didn't like it. She was totally not into saying yes when I told her, even going so far as to argue, “Didn't you two just have a date recently?” But I was pushy, and she saw that I wasn't going to back down at all.

  "Well, I guess it's okay, seeing as how it's daytime and all,” she said, rubbing her temples and pinching her eyes shut. “Make sure to finish your homework and chores before leaving. Just be home by three, okay?” Three? Three? What kind of sorry date was that?

  Peter and I agreed to meet at around noon, which didn't really give us much time together. “But that'll give us only three hours or something,” I protested. “That includes all the time wasted, walking around and deciding where to eat and chill out."

  "Eric, it's either three hours or nothing."

  Damn.

  I really hated being told to come home so early, especially since it was a stupid daytime date. It just plain sucked that Mom went to the other extreme on the maternal scale since my ordeal with the Trill.

  I'd been following her orders, of course, of being with Peter only when he wasn't in superhero mode. That was cool. In fact, it gave Peter a good reason to strike a balance between normal teenage stuff and superhero work, and his parents turned out to be pretty cool about it. Even Trent, according to Peter, had to agree that his brother desperately needed to enjoy ordinary stuff, not just get all Type A over keeping Vintage City safe the way Magnifiman was being over-the-top Type A. He even went so far as to say that he could handle day-to-day crumminess on his own every once in a while, giving his little brother extra time for fun stuff. What a braggart. Sheesh.

  Now it was like I couldn't do anything without Mom going all crazy over where I was going, whom I was going with, how long I expected to be out, etc. It was sort of like I might as well sign up for monk-hood or something. I didn't know how long this pressure cooker was going to last, but I figure that someday, something had to give. For now, all I could do was to grin and bear it because, well, I didn't want to upset Mom and Dad any more than I already had. Liz, I could still work on because, as you know, siblings were put on this earth to torment. Mom and Dad, no.

  * * * *

  The other shoe just dropped! My date with Peter for later had just been rescheduled because there'd been an attack downtown. Guess who was the victim this time? Dog-in-a-Bun! It looked like one of my favorite junk food hangouts was jumped by an army of beagle-sized mechanical spiders. Yeah, exactly like the ones that attacked the mall last time.

  Around noon, when the place was swarming with families all getting their dog fix, one of the employees said that she heard something scratching in the ceiling, like somewhere in the vents. She at first thought that it was nothing more than the air-conditioning doing weird things and rattling, but the sound grew louder and louder till everyone began to complain about the racket.

  Bambi Bailey interviewed her for the news, and the poor girl looked about ready to throw up all over Ms. Bailey. She was so upset that she couldn't talk straight, but she said something like, “I called our manager and told him about the noise, and when he turned off the AC and brought out the ladder to check what was going on, white stuff started shooting out of the vents."

  I was shocked. White webby stuff came flying out through the vents, covering people and trapping them where they sat or stood. Some tried to run out but were also caught in the web. Apparently the stuff sounded like a whoopee cushion on crack whenever it got spewed out. That sounded kind of gross and cool at the same time, I thought. People were stuck, with web solidifying around different body parts. Those who had the bad luck of sitting or standing directly under some of the vents were completely covered and nearly passed out from suffocation because of it.

  Okay, this was the kicker. Apparently, things would've been way worse had it not been the fact that a force field—yes, a fucking force field—somehow got activated and encased the customer area with protective bubbles. So after the initial spewage, the force field suddenly materialized, and whatever else poured out of the ventilation systems afterward just sat on the bubbles till help came.

  I couldn't believe it. A force field! Which meant that there'd been a superhero somewhere in the vicinity! I bet that he or she was one of the customers, and he or she just turned on the power and BLOOMP! There it was. I must admit that the thought got me all excited. Imagine, another superhero in our midst! I kind of expected Freddie to be the last one, but I guess not.

  How did I know for sure if it was really a superhero and not a bad guy? Well, duh. Why would a bad guy have protected the customers and staff? If anything, he'd've cashed in on the incident and probably locked the doors to keep people inside.

  "My goodness! Are you sure?” Ms. Bailey asked, and the girl she was interviewing nodded so hard that she almost tumbled down. Then again, she was also visibly shaking and really traumatized. Her clothes were a mess, her hair stood on end, and she had food splatters all over. I felt so bad. Why Ms. Bailey decided to single her out for an interview, I didn't know.

  "Yeah. It was like giant bubbles...you know, the kind that you used to play with as a kid? You blow bubbles through a little loop and stuff? It was like that, but only way, way bigger, stronger, and there were so many of them popping up and closing around people."

  "And no one knows who was responsible?"

  "It all happened so fast, and it was so crazy...” The girl shook her head and then finally burst into tears and had to be led away. I should have written the local TV station and voiced a complaint about the way Ms. Bailey handled that one.

  Spirit Wire responded to the emergency first, she reported. Made sense. I figured that it was easy for Althea to “reach the scene of the crime,” so to speak, because her computer-possessing powers acted like range weapons.

  "The cash registers first went crazy,” said another girl who was being interviewed. “They kind of went off like those arcade games, the numbers moving real fast, the cash drawers opening and closing like when a UFO comes around, and they all made that clinking sound."

  Apparently, the AC suddenly turned on by itself, freezing the webby stuff even as it was being puked out of the vents. Then it went off and the heater came on, raising the temps inside the place to pretty uncomfortable levels, but apparently it worked because the webby stuff started to soften up and melt a little. Then the force field bubbles vanished, and all the crap they'd collected just fell onto the floor in sticky puddles.

  A few moments later, Calais and Miss Pyro appeared, while Magnifiman went about looking for the source, according to Ms. Bailey. People were freed. Those who nearly got done in by webby stuff had to be hauled off in emergency vehicles to the hospital. No one else who was interviewed could say where the force field bubbles came from.

  Dog-in-a-Bun was owned by an Aaron Berkowitz, and he was also interviewed. Poor guy looked devastated. His business was temporarily shut down while police investigated, and there was also the damage situation on both the restaurant itself and the people, both staff and patrons alike.

  "I don't understand,” he said, shaking his head and looking really overwhelmed
in a pretty bad way. “It's only a small business. What have I done wrong? I'm proud of our success, proud of my staff, and we've got so many repeat customers. I don't know. I don't know..."

  Liz, who had today off from work, pulled me aside and talked to me about that weird feeling we both had when we were at the Dog-in-a-Bun.

  "Isn't that crazy?” she asked. She looked really alarmed. “You know, we could've been there. It could've happened that day when we had lunch.” I nodded. Yeah, it was best not to show our freaking out to Mom and Dad, or they'd just ground us both for life for our own safety. We both consoled ourselves with some cheesecake.

  * * * *

  I talked to Peter on the phone later that evening, and he said that they'd found some bizarre-looking boxes sitting near each ventilation grate. There were no spiders anywhere, but those boxes were responsible for spewing out the white stuff.

  "That's not even the half of it,” Peter added, sounding pretty grim over the phone. “We also found timers on those boxes. They were supposed to explode at a certain time. It's a safe bet that it would be around the moment when the mutant web stuff was all emptied out and completely blanketing the restaurant."

  "You're kidding. That's fucked up. You mean to say that this nutcase behind the spider attacks is actually bent on killing people?"

  "Looks like it. But, Eric, a few people were pretty badly injured during the Puppet's attacks. Sucks to say this, but we've been kind of expecting something more drastic from this guy."

  So now it looked as though we'd gone from robbing and terrorizing to attempted murder. I hoped like hell that this spider menace person was the last of the supervillains. From the Devil's Trill to the Shadow Puppet and then to the Deathtrap Debutantes, the craziness seemed to fly all over the place. This spider person freak was way, way more dangerous than the rest, and what worried me even more was that he might prove to be much, much harder to take down.

  And the vents! All those accounts of noise rattling the ventilation systems of different businesses? This was the end result. Someone or something must've crawled through ventilation shafts to plant these time bombs, targeting different businesses. I hadn't heard from anyone, either the Sentries or the heroes, about the ventilation problems that had been happening at the same time. Then again, I never really bothered to pursue it.

  "Oh, God, I'm an idiot,” I hissed, slapping my forehead with my free hand.

  "What's up?"

  So I told him, which made him quiet. “Don't you think we should get those places emptied out or something, while the police search through their ventilation ducts?"

  "I'll look into that,” Peter replied. He sounded a little ticked off. “How come you never mentioned it to me or the others before?"

  My blood froze. “I—I thought I did,” I stammered. “I know that I told Brenda about them, and she said nothing."

  "The Sentries and the heroes work together on a limited basis, remember? If you told Brenda, it's likely that she's pursuing that with the rest of the Sentries, while we're left in the dark."

  I scratched my head, puzzled. “That's really messed up. Shouldn't you guys team up or something? I mean, your goals are pretty much the same. You want to keep Vintage City safe. So why aren't you getting together on this? I don't get it!"

  Peter sighed heavily. When he spoke, he sounded a little tired. “They keep us at arm's length,” he said. “It's their choice to do that. Hell, we're lucky that they're willing to help us with our training, antidotes, and spy work. Beyond that, we're two completely separate entities with the same goals. If the Sentries want us to work with them in investigating these ventilation problems, they'll let us know. In the meantime, we're talking to a brick wall."

  "Man, that's messed up. It shouldn't be that way. I thought that all the good guys work together and stuff."

  "Remember that they're a covert operation, and they're a little more vigilante-like than we want them to be. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't want the heroes’ help in their investigation of these ventilation problems."

  That was still messed up. “So what're you gonna do?” I prodded.

  "I'll tell the others what you told me, of course, but you have to let me know exactly which businesses are affected. So far, only Dog-in-a-Bun got attacked, while the others aren't touched. But it's likely only a matter of time before they become victims. Do you remember who the others were?"

  "Um...” I racked my brain. “Mel Bryant and Francisco Hernandez,” I sputtered. “I'll have to get back to you on the others. Seriously, I'm kind of drawing a blank."

  "That's cool. It's a start. If you can't reach me, just leave a message with the info. We really need to get to these people before anything else happens."

  Oh, great. Now the safety of a few little businesses up and down Vintage depended on me. I think my heart momentarily stopped at the realization. “Okay,” I said weakly. “I won't let you down.” But what if I did? I didn't want to think about it. That was totally messed up. It wasn't until after I hung up the phone that I also realized that I'd forgotten to ask him about the strange force fields. I'd have to put a sticky note on my phone to remind me next time.

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  Chapter 12

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  Because of the Dog-in-a-Bun attack, Peter got himself swamped with superhero detective work. That meant our delayed date got delayed again, but that was cool with me. In the meantime, I figured I'd get in touch with Freddie Jameson and see if he'd agree to pretend to be someone who could give me an excuse not to go to bingo night. You know, I used to think of chameleon powers as cool enough, but never before did I even consider it to be absolutely, fantastically awesome when the threat of staring at a stack of bingo cards continued to hang over my head like a chemical cloud about ready to burst.

  And then, as my way of paying him back, I planned to offer my services to him as a superhero sidekick. Like undercover work. I didn't see what Mom and Dad would object to, really. We'd only be spying or digging around for clues and stuff. It wasn't like I'd be in the middle of a fight or anything. Besides, they always told me that one good turn deserved another, and if Freddie agreed to work with me on Operation Blow Bingo Night, I'd work as his assistant for free. My backup plan to that was an all-out bribe, which meant coming up a way of scraping up enough cash to pay off a superhero, but I'd worry about that when the time came.

  At any rate, I decided not to tell Mom and Dad what I had in mind. Best not to give them another reason to worry about me. Besides, I kind of lived with this perpetual threat of eternal grounding hanging over my head in this household. One false move, and BAM! I'd be turned into a monk for life. Mothers can be pretty crazy that way.

  So I called him yesterday. I actually got him while he was in chameleon mode, and it took me a while to figure out that the grumpy old man mumbling on the phone was actually hyper, dorky, seventeen-year-old Freddie.

  "Oh, sorry. Are you undercover or something?” I asked after I got my brain reset. It was a pretty common thing when it came to Freddie. If you want to go crazy in the shortest amount of time, lock yourself in a room with him and have him transform into one person or mythical beast or animal or whatever. I guarantee complete mental malfunction by the time he's done.

  "Yeah, I am, thonny,” he barked. I blinked. It sounded like Freddie's mask didn't wear false teeth, and he wasn't used to it, either, so he was having the worst time communicating with me. “I'm thitting at the park, watching the thtupid duckth thwim."

  "That's undercover work? What're you after? Rogue birds or something? I thought we're up against mechanical spiders."

  "Dude, don't make me talk too long. Communicating without teeth ith hard. What do you want?"

  I sighed. “You know, I'll just wait till tomorrow, when I go to Brenda's shop for my tutorials. I'll talk to you then."

  "Hokay. Bah.” I think he meant “bye,” but I couldn't be so sure. It sounded like he had his mouth covered by something. “Oh. Damn. Thtupid m
inth. Jutht dropped five.” Then the line went dead.

  That was yesterday. Onward to today. Or, rather, this morning.

  The upside to being tutored was that I didn't have to deal with other kids, who were annoying about 99.9999% of the time. Private tutorials were all about me, me, me, me, me in that little library-type room, with Dr. Dibbs coaching my skinny ass. Recess involved tea and treats from Brenda, and lunch was, well, whatever stuff Mom packed for me in the morning. School time varied quite a bit, too, depending on Dr. Dibbs’ agenda for the day. Too bad it didn't vary according to my moods; if it did, I'd stop bitching about Geometry and Chemistry and consider those a fair swap for more flexible time.

  I just hoped like hell that what we'd been doing would be recognized by the Board of Education or whoever was in charge of home schooling and private tutorials. Because I seriously wanted my diploma someday, and I sure didn't need my chances screwed by last minute deals made with Renaissance High's school administration.

  So that was the upside to my new educational situation. The downside was having Freddie come over every once in a while to harass me during my lessons. Though in this case, I blamed myself because I was the one who'd asked him to come over. A close second to that point was my having to wear a stupid tie. No, really. Dr. Dibbs took his role pretty seriously, but I could only account for that by saying that he was a scientist, and he was used to wearing a suit or something semi-formal under his lab coat.

  So I was kind of sweet-talked into wearing a white dress shirt and a black tie to my tutorials. I resisted for a while, of course, but I gave in eventually. I was just happy that they let me wear jeans and my old blue Converse with those. Althea thought it was weird: “Okay, that's just wrong.” My parents thought it was cute: “Oh, my God, Frank, look at your Catholic school boy!” Liz thought...well, Liz was my sister: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Peter got horny: “That tie has a hundred and one uses, you know, and I'm not talking about playing dress-up, either.” Oh, baby. Scanlon had yet to see me looking all geeky, and if he did, I'd be inclined to do something pretty drastic to him to make him forget.