Curse of Arachnaman Read online

  When I went to “school” this morning, I was all dressed up, messenger bag stylishly slung across my body. No one was around when I entered, but I was used to that. Brenda spent half her time in the back, doing God knows what, whenever she didn't have customers around. So it was pretty weird when I started feeling as though I weren't alone. The feeling crept over me and made my skin prickle. I figured that I could never get used to Brenda's shop. It was really like stepping into some kind of time portal thing, and having the place packed with old things and smelling like old things while little light filtered through the windows only heightened the spooky feeling I got.

  This time, though, I literally felt as though I were being watched. I tried to shrug it off as I picked my way through orphaned pieces of furniture and headless statues. Before I reached the counter, though, the feeling just got too much for me, so I turned around, a little freaked.

  Then I saw him. OMFG. He sort of materialized from one of the darker corners of the shop, saying, “Oh, hi. I'm sorry. Looks like I surprised you."

  Joshua Bell. In person. I just died and went to Buddhist heaven. He smiled and offered a hand. “Looks like you know me already.” Lordy, he was hot.

  I shook his hand. “Oh—yeah, kind of. I mean, I'm a big fan and so on. I've seen a lot of your performances on video, and I listen to your music and...” I stopped, and the world froze. Oh, hell. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Freddie?"

  Like Cinderella's coach when midnight struck, Joshua Bell melted, and there stood Freddie, giving me that crap-eating grin. Since my hand was still held in his, he decided to shake it, anyway. “Hey, how's it going, man?"

  Nothing was going unless he was talking about his balls and what I was going to do with them, using Brenda's antique nutcracker. Apparently he was practicing quick change. “I can now transform in three-and-a-half seconds, not five. And the process doesn't blind anyone anymore like before. Did you see it?"

  I glared at him. “I already know that, duh. God, don't you remember all those practice sessions we've had, with you guys morphing in front of me and giving me brain freeze?"

  "Shut up,” he said, grinning. What a dork. “Didn't you notice how cleanly I shapeshifted? No bizarre visual effects, man. Maybe you need a new eyeglass prescription or something. Oh, it doesn't even hurt you if I'm touching you while shapeshifting."

  I told him that he was a lying sack of crapola, but he just gave me a bear hug and wouldn't let me go while saying, “No, really! Wait, wait...” Then I realized that it felt that he'd grown a few more pairs of arms.

  "Check this out. I'm Kali. I'm working on Eastern religion and mythology now. Seriously, you should see me turn into a Chinese dragon. I can be my own Chinese New Year parade,” he crowed in a weird woman's voice. More like a woman speaking through a long tunnel half-filled with water. Okay, an underground sewer maze sounded more like it. So I pushed against his shoulders and stared at what it was that was holding me.

  It was Kali, all right. I only say this now because I had to consult Wikipedia after I got home afterward, but at that moment, all I could do was absorb the fact that this blue-skinned woman-thing with kind of wild, long afro-type hair stared at me with crazy eyes and a tongue hanging out and twitching. When I saw two of her hands appear, waving at me and then giving me a pair of thumbs up, and then felt myself still held tight by other arms, I did what every sane, level-headed boy would've done.

  I totally lost it and screamed like a girl. Then gave a Hindu goddess a knee in the Cosmic Zone.

  It also turned out to be a stupid thing to do because I'd just incapacitated my soon-to-be-undercover-partner and my ticket out of bingo night. I ask to meet him there, and I knee him in the ‘nads. Go me. For the next several seconds, I cried out as I fell to the ground while Kali howled, her eyes widening, her tongue lolling, while a few of her hands went straight for her genitals. As she doubled over, still yelping, her figure melted and faded back into poor Freddie Jameson, who crumpled to the floor.

  "Ohmigawd, I'm so sorry!” I cried, my hands plastered to each side of my head. I was majorly screwed. “Are you okay? Should I call a doctor? Freddie?"

  He didn't answer. Well, he sort of did. “Goddamnit, sonofab—” he spluttered, rolling around on the floor in a tight fetal position. “That hurts, you crazy jerk!"

  "Well, I—I can see that..."

  Dr. Dibbs showed up with Brenda because of the noise we were making.

  "What's happening?” he demanded. “What's all the racket out there?"

  "Oh, my lord...” Brenda stammered. They stood there, their jaws hanging low, while I bent over Freddie, pleading and apologizing while he writhed on the floor, all signs of a cosmic visit from a goddess completely gone. Just a seventeen-year-old black guy looking like an oversized fetus, swearing up a storm at me.

  I also found out then that even though my education was really not much more than private tutorials, there was still such a thing as detention. Yeah, detention. I was dragged to the back room while Brenda looked after Freddie.

  "Human genitalia are there for a purpose, Mr. Eric, and I'm not talking about soccer practice,” Dr. Dibbs said when he filled out a detention slip. He was pissed. “But I'll also talk to Mr. Freddie about sneak attacks on people when he's practicing his masking powers. The ridiculous boy gets carried away sometimes, but that's no reason to assault him the way you did."

  When I showed Mom my detention slip, she grounded me for a day. Fun times all around.

  * * * *

  I told Peter what happened when I talked to him that evening, and he wasn't being very sympathetic. Okay, I deserved it, but shouldn't I be entitled to a little comfort from my own boyfriend? Sigh. I had a sinking feeling that all the superhero stuff was kind of reshaping Peter into being another Trent. I sure hoped not, but I wouldn't be surprised. Then again, he was upset because I screwed up. Again. I guess I shouldn't expect much.

  "You know that we need Freddie for undercover work,” he said a little testily. “Now that you just kneed him in the groin, I don't know how that'll affect him."

  "I hope it doesn't,” I said glumly. “I really didn't mean it, and you know that little accidents involving the ‘nads don't leave permanent damage. Seriously, I didn't do it so hard that he passed out."

  Peter didn't respond right away, but I heard some weird noises at the other end of the phone line, which made me wonder if he just squirmed in his chair or something. “God, I hate thinking about it,” he eventually said. “I'm having sympathy pain right now."

  "Okay, I won't talk about it anymore. I'm being punished by Dr. Dibbs and my parents, and now you're pissed. Let's move on before you all give me up for adoption or something.” I thought it was best to wait till I got off the phone to feel sorry for myself.

  I turned the conversation to what was going on in the city. I even remembered the other businesses that were most likely in danger of being attacked.

  "Thanks,” Peter said, sounding kind of business-like. “By the way, Althea's been to Mr. Bryant and Mr. Hernandez's businesses, and she checked out the ventilation system, with the cops’ help."

  "They found nothing?"

  "Nope."

  I frowned. “That doesn't make any sense. I wonder if the noise was caused by something that was, you know, staking out the place and stuff. Maybe the mutant spider has little gremlin spider helpers it sends out to spy on places, like, scope out the general layout of the business and maybe even the customer traffic and so on."

  "Yeah, that thought's crossed our minds, too, so we're not letting anything go yet. I'll tell the others about the gay bookstore and the international shop, but I won't be surprised if we don't see anything."

  I took a deep breath. “Not yet, anyway,” I said.

  "Exactly."

  So there we were, back to waiting for more shoes to drop.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 13

  * * * *

  God, I was beginning to wish that I'd gone for a
blog, anyway. All that handwriting stuff was starting to get really tedious. And my wrist hurt. I wondered if there were such a thing as carpal tunnel syndrome for those who did longhand.

  Today I figured that I should come up with a Plan B. I thought that maybe Mrs. Zhang would be able to help me in my bingo night situation. I mean, she was pretty traditional, so I was sure that she knew a hell of a lot of herbal concoctions that I could use to make myself unavailable when the time came. Of course, they had to be safe. Duh. They also shouldn't make me come out weird in any way, and I wasn't talking about an extra arm suddenly sprouting from my navel and all that. I was pretty happy with the way I was, save for the virgin bit, so no tampering with what was already a good thing. Speaking of the virgin bit, I wondered if the Chinese also had herbs for, you know, horniness and all that. Like herbal Viagra. I was thinking of sprinkling some of that stuff in Peter's coffee, so he could forget about all that lame “I'm waiting till the right moment” crap and just turn me inside out at the drop of a hat.

  Anyway, if there were one thing I prided myself in, it'd be parental manipulation, but I needed to be a little more careful about that because Mom was starting to look at me funny right when I began to plan my next attack. Twice, I had to back off and pretend that I wasn't thinking anything nefarious, which kind of put a damper on things. Today, though, I wasn't going to back down.

  Since I was grounded, I went straight home after my tutorials and waited till Mom arrived. By the way, Freddie was still kind of pissed at me, even when I asked Brenda to give him the box of lemon cookies I got for him. Mom looked tired, and she dragged her feet, so I planted myself between her and the stairs and asked if she wanted me to trot over to Mrs. Zhang's takeout joint for some Chinese food.

  "I wish I could cook,” I said with a shrug. “But my kitchen skills are less than zero, so if I want to help you around the house, the only thing I can do is run errands. So do you want to just kick back and let me to go to Mrs. Zhang's?” Please? Pretty please? Remember, Mom, I'm the baby of the family and your only son. And I don't bully Liz; she bullies me. I'm totally, totally innocent. Unless you ask me about Peter—in which case, the deal's off.

  Mom just stared at me. I held my ground. Smiled ever so slightly so that only my dimples showed. Then she sighed and nodded. “Okay, honey. Go ahead. My wallet's in my purse on the coffee table. Take what you need. You know what everyone wants.” She even gave me a pat on the shoulder and a kiss on the cheek when I stepped aside, and she walked up the stairs.

  God, I should have my dimples trademarked or patented or something. Supervillains’ uber-weapons ain't got nothing on these babies.

  I was about three blocks away from Mrs. Zhang's place when I had to stop because of police activity. In fact, the whole three blocks, including the one where Uncle Chung's was located, were completely taped off. Squad cars were parked haphazardly up and down the street, and cops swarmed all over, some of them planting themselves midway through the block where I'd stopped, and telling people not to go near. I stared at the scene, heart thumping.

  "Oh, my God, what's happened to Mrs. Zhang?” I called out, pushing my way past some gawkers. “What happened? Is she okay? Is Mr. Zhang okay?"

  The cop I approached held up his hands and shook his head at me. “Sorry, son, but you have to stay back."

  "What happened? I have to go get dinner for my family and stuff, and—"

  "There's been an attack at the Yee Apartments."

  Yee Apartments—an apartment building that catered to mostly Chinese immigrant families, and while I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Zhang didn't live there, it was still a pretty crazy thought. I walked past that building all the time, when I went to Uncle Chung's or to those shops at the other side of the main boulevard, which were only about two more blocks from Uncle Chung's. The Yee Apartments had always been a pretty cool housing block because of all the distinctive Chinese motifs that they used to celebrate their culture. Each floor had a decorative eave that you'd normally see in those old Chinese pagodas, but much smaller and less turned-up. I'd heard some people complain that it was an eyesore because it didn't blend in with the rest of Vintage City's faux nineteenth-century European architecture, but I always thought that with the grime and filth that covered every building up and down Vintage City, the Yee Apartments fit in really perfectly.

  Since the cop wouldn't tell me anything more, I had to push my way back out of the crowd and run home. I immediately turned on the TV to the news before hurrying to the kitchen and digging around for whatever frozen food we might have lurking in the darkest corners of our freezer. I found a bag of chicken potstickers, ironically enough. That it was nearly cemented against the back wall of the freezer made me wonder how long that bag had been sitting there, completely forgotten, but beggars couldn't be choosers, so I just went on ahead and cooked them, which turned out to be a breeze. I seriously didn't realize how easy it was to cook potstickers. I needed to ask Mom to get more the next time she made up our grocery list.

  After measuring rice into our rice cooker and pouring in some water, I checked the potstickers while they simmered in the bit of water I poured inside the pan before running back to the living room to see if the news was on. Nothing yet.

  I went on ahead and took care of the rest of dinner—leftover tomato soup plus salad, which, if I were to add to the potstickers and rice, would make for a pretty mind-blowing time with the mega-sized bottle of antacids that Dad kept around.

  I checked the news again once everything was cooked or heated up and the table was set, and Dad and Liz had gotten home from work and were both cooling off in their respective bedrooms. I sat glued in front of the TV, my mouth hanging open.

  "Hundreds of mechanical spiders invaded the Yee Apartments this afternoon,” Bambi Bailey announced. “They were smaller than those unleashed weeks ago at the Emporium Grande. While those spider robots were the size of beagles, those that attacked the Yee Apartments were more like beagle puppies. At twelve weeks old. Without their shots."

  Most people had escaped harm because they were all at work. However, those who stayed behind, like little kids and grandparents, were victims. They'd been stung after being held down by the same webby stuff that was used at the Dog-in-a-Bun. Most of them had turned into fully-developed human arachnids by the time the superheroes arrived.

  "What does that mean, ‘fully-developed human arachnids'?” I demanded because Ms. Bailey, Sergeant Vitus Bone, witnesses, etc., wouldn't explain what that meant. How did they look? I kept thinking of Vincent Price in The Fly except that, in the movie, he had a teeny-tiny human head attached to a fly's body instead of a spider's body. Seriously, that was beyond mental.

  I thought about the victims at the mall attack. I remembered that some of them were stung and were on their way to turning into human arachnids, according to reports, but that was way different from what I was hearing now. Intervention happened at the right time then. For today's attack, it was too late.

  And why would the new supervillain want to turn them into half-human, half-spiders? Did he operate like the Shadow Puppet, trying to transform innocent people into an army of killer spiders with human heads?

  "One final item,” Ms. Bailey said, tossing her hair back, her earrings clicking from the dramatic flourish. Was there such a thing as a neck job in the creepy world of cosmetic surgery? Because Ms. Bailey's throat seemed longer than usual, but it could have been because her neckline was pretty low. She was seriously pushing the envelope there, and I was surprised that she still had a job. “Someone left a mark of identification on the wall of one of the victims’ apartment units. It was sprayed-on greenish slime, from what's been described by police officers, and it said, ‘No more. Arachnaman.'” She stared hard at the camera and gave a solemn nod. “Ladies and gentlemen, our new threat has a name."

  After dinner, I waited by my phone in case Peter decided to call me, but he didn't. I figured that with this incident, he and the heroes were now up to their ears with work.
I also tried calling Mrs. Zhang's takeout place repeatedly, but the line was busy each time. I really hoped that she and her husband were okay. I'd have to run over there the next day and see how things were with them.

  By the way, Liz made a formal request with Mom and Dad to have me banned from the kitchen for the rest of my life.

  * * * *

  I couldn't swing by Mrs. Zhang's on my way to Brenda's shop because Dad drove me to my tutorials on his way to work, the whole time nagging me about my detention.

  "Just because you're being tutored, Eric, it doesn't mean special treatment,” he huffed behind the wheel while I slumped in the passenger's seat, sulking. “What were you thinking, kicking that poor boy the way you did?"

  "Dad, have you ever been given a bear hug by an Indian goddess with ten arms?"

  There was a good-sized pause that followed my question. “Point taken, but did you have to kick him there? A yell would've been good enough."

  "It was literally a knee-jerk reaction. I didn't have time to think. If that were the real goddess, I probably wouldn't be here with you right now. I'd be in the morgue, dead from fright and any kind of cosmic spell-thingie she might've cast on me. I might even be missing body parts, who knows?” Oh, that was a real beaut. Those words just rolled off my tongue like slippery jelly.

  Dad sighed as he turned the car into the street where Brenda's shop was located. “I have to agree with your mother. You really are a drama queen, son."

  "Don't blame me,” I grumbled. “I was the one who inherited the gene pool.” The car finally stopped in front of the antique shop, and I stared at it, wondering how many other kids were in bizarre schooling situations like me. Probably zero because I was totally made of fail. “Detention's after school,” I said with a tired sigh. “I guess I won't be back home till five or something. Unless I run away and spare you all the trouble of having a boy who's probably too bright for his own good."