Curse of Arachnaman Read online

I also noticed that a bunch of girls sitting at a table nearby were checking him out, but not in a good way. They kind of looked and then turned to each other to whisper and giggle a lot. A couple of them even made gestures that were obviously about the kid's weight. Arms held out on their sides and forming a large “O,” cheeks puffed up like balloons—yeah, you get the picture.

  I decided to go up to him and say hello, which he didn't seem to like very much. He just turned to me, surprised at first—like he never expected anyone to voluntarily talk to him or something—before frowning. “Oh, it's you again,” he said.

  "Uh, yup. How's it going?” I guess I should've turned tail and retreated, iced mocha in hand, the moment he looked at me. But then again, I'd always been a sucker for punishment.

  "Nothing's going. Thanks for asking.” He looked outside the window again. That was a pretty clear hint as far as I was concerned.

  "Oh, sorry. I should've known you were waiting for someone."

  He looked at me again. He frowned. Again. “Um, yeah, I am. Does it surprise you that someone actually wants to see me?"

  I raised one hand and took a step back. “Okeedokee. I'm going. Jeebus.” Shaking my head, I turned toward the door. “Oh, by the way, PMS pills are on sale at Baxter's Pharmacy. Buy one, get one free. It's always good to be well-stocked on that stuff."

  Okay, so I never actually said the last bit, but I was pretty close to getting kind of bitchy on him. All I knew was that I'd have more luck holding a conversation with gum under my shoes than with that guy. I just went straight home, happily slurping my drink while wracking my brain for more ideas on getting out of bingo night.

  I had to admit, though—there was something about that redheaded kid that stayed with me. I guess it was like there was something about him that bugged me but not in a bad way. Sure, he was obviously an easy target for bullies and for cheap shots from shallow types like those girls in the coffee shop, but there seemed to be something else about him that kind of nagged away at me, and I couldn't say what, why, and how. One part of me wanted to know him better, but that part happened to be a small portion of the Eric Plath pie. The rest of me would rather have my liver eaten out of my stomach by an eagle. Yeah, I'd been reading up on Greek myths.

  OMFG, shoot me. Life couldn't be any more boring than this. It was the afternoon, I had the house and the time to myself, and I did my laundry. I think I'd just scraped the bottom of the barrel.

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  Chapter 15

  * * * *

  Holy crap! That Chinese herb shop I just visited? It was attacked by beagle-puppy spider robots! I saw it in the news while waiting for dinner to be cooked. Yeah, Liz got her way, and I was now forever banned from the kitchen.

  "Dolores McBride, the owner of the Old Traditions herb shop, managed to escape, but her store's completely destroyed,” Bambi Bailey declared. She was standing in front of the shop I'd been in only a few hours ago, and on camera, the place looked totally trashed. The display window and the front door were both shattered, glass shards littered all over the pavement. When the camera went inside to show the damage, I was stunned.

  Everything was ruined. Glass jars filled with dry herbs, baskets, plastic bags packed with bulk items, Chinese knickknacks—nothing was spared. The shop's interior was covered with sticky white stuff, and anything that sat on shelves or tables had been swept off so that they all fell on the floor and got smashed into a gazillion tiny pieces.

  "Damn,” I breathed, staring in shock at the TV. “I was just there!” Yeah, I could even point out where I stood, exactly, a few hours ago.

  I thought about the other two attacks before this one, and I also remembered what Peter told me about them. There was a common thread in all these attacks—hot dog diner, Chinese apartments, and herb store. Business, home, business. WTF?

  * * * *

  Ms. McBride's words stayed with me because I had another bingo dream last night, and I rarely had recurring dreams. This time it was like Jabba had pretty much eaten about half of the bingo players, and I was left with the rest of them. I was still stuck where I sat, unable to move, my cards and marker thing both glued to my hands. I couldn't let go of them even though I could move my wrists. The game kept going, too, and no one seemed to care about the fact that their buddies were well on their way to being flushed down Jabba's toilet. Then again, if they were all zombies, they really wouldn't have cared at all. The fact that they kept shedding body parts without giving it a second thought as the game continued pretty much proved it.

  What would I have against bingo night, anyway, besides the fact that it was boring and horrible? On my way to “school” today, I decided to take a quick detour and check out the old bingo hall about five or so blocks from Brenda's shop. I looked inside the window and saw the place empty, but it was easy to picture it completely packed with people, all armed with those big colorful marker things, hunched over a collection of bingo cards as the bingo ball caller guy talked into the microphone.

  Consider this my way of figuring out my problem. Frankly, I saw nothing other than the fact that, yep, it was boring and horrible. What other reason did people expect from me, anyway? Everyone hated something, and everyone in his right mind would do anything and everything to avoid having to deal with it. Why couldn't I?

  I certainly couldn't answer that, so I just sulked all the way to my tutorials. I made sure to bring Freddie a bag of jelly beans as a peace offering. I hadn't seen him since I kicked his balls, so I figured that it was enough time for him to stay mad at me. Besides, I was desperate. I really needed his help in getting me out of this without Althea, and especially Peter, knowing what I did. I was fast running out of ideas, and I was beginning to wonder now if every shop I went to or planned to go to would end up getting mowed down by bizarre beagle-puppy spider robots. At least Freddie was a superhero. If I got in touch with him and made him an easy target for those crazy spiders, he'd be able to defend himself. Plus the other heroes would come to help.

  Brenda met me when I showed up, and she pulled me aside. “Freddie's here with Dr. Dibbs,” she whispered, holding my gaze. “I asked him to come because I told him you've been wanting to apologize for nearly maiming him."

  "Thanks,” I said, relieved. “I brought him something, but I was going to hand it to Dr. Dibbs and ask him to give it to Freddie. I promise I won't kick his ‘nads anymore. Ever.” Unless he freaked me out again and made me do something I normally wouldn't have, of course, but you really couldn't tell with Freddie and his uber-eagerness when it came to showing off his chameleon powers. I didn't tell Brenda that, no. I figured that Freddie had been given a talk about catching me by surprise with his masking abilities. Hopefully he listened.

  Freddie was alone when I entered my “classroom.” Dr. Dibbs had just stepped out, so I took advantage of that moment to fish out the bag of jelly beans and give it to him while he stared at them suspiciously.

  "They're not tainted, I swear,” I said in my humblest voice. “I'm really sorry I screwed up your masculinity. I promise I won't do it again."

  "What flavors are in that bag?"

  "Well, the store was out of the variety pack, so I just got a scoop each of watermelon, bubble gum, blueberry, and grape and mixed them all in here. Will that work?” I shrugged, embarrassed. “I'm a little biased toward blueberry, so hopefully you like it."

  He took the bag. “It's cool, man. Thanks. For what it's worth, multi-armed gods are off-limits to me now unless I'm trapped and need to use that mask to freak opponents out. Or scare Brenda with when I'm bored."

  "Hey, you can even use all ten arms to beat the crap out of bad guys. Can you imagine the carnage? It'll be wicked!” When Freddie gave a big thumb's up and a hearty nod, I figured we were friends again. You really couldn't go wrong, urging a superhero to kick some thug's ass. They were kind of wired for justice and virtue and all that. So we shook hands, gave each other a slap in the back, and I was free to dump my stuff at my desk.
/>   When I turned to look at Freddie, I saw that he'd taken to practicing his transformation powers when I had my back turned. He stood there—or, rather, a miniaturized monster did. Three heads, no arms, big bat wings, thick body and legs, scales all over...

  What a show-off.

  "What the..."

  "I dig those old Japanese monster films. Don't you?” he said, swinging his massive tail and nearly swiping furniture off the floor.

  I just stared at him. “Okay, I'm not even going to ask."

  "I'm a miniaturized Gidrah! God, where've you been, dude? Hey, where's Calais? I can carry you off, and you can make like the damsel in distress, and he can swoop down, and we'll get some more search-and-rescue practice in..."

  "He'll kick your scaly ass."

  Gidrah snorted. Well, one of his heads did. I hoped. If that snorting sound didn't come from one of his monster mouths, I'd rather not have known what its other source might be. “It's good for my split-second transformation mode. If anything, his super-speed will be an awesome challenge. Think of it as friendly competition."

  "I don't think so. Besides, how're you going to carry me? You don't even have any arms. Nice try turning me into a girl, bucko.” An idea hit me, though, and I had to backtrack. “Actually, do you think you can be Gidrah and mess up my chances at bingo night? That looks like a pretty cool disguise. Do you breathe fire like Godzilla, too? Or do you spit snakes or something?"

  "What the what?"

  Another idea crossed my mind almost immediately after, and I wilted. “Oh, you can't. You'll probably scare all those senior players to death, including Grandma Horace. Do you have anything that you can use on Althea, so that she'll forget about my promise? Do you have a disguise that has corpse breath that you can use on her and mess with her brain without permanent damage?"

  Gidrah just blinked all three pairs of eyes at me. I didn't think that communicating to a kinda-sorta monster with no arms would be so much hard work, especially since he had three pairs of ears. Dr. Dibbs showed up at that moment, so no scheming. He eyed us dubiously for a moment before grunting, “Mr. Freddie, enough with the horseplay. I know you're very proud of the advances you've made with your powers, but do leave Mr. Eric alone. It's class time for him, and you're giving him reasons to procrastinate. Besides, I'm out of detention slips and prefer not to be placed in another situation that calls for one."

  Freddie shrugged. I think. I suppose that quick twitching of Gidrah's sides was the equivalent of a shrug. “Okay, fine."

  I watched Gidrah melt into Freddie. I must say that I was pretty impressed with his new transformation process. I was sure it wouldn't be long before he'd be turning into one thing after another at lightning speed. I got so caught up with his improvement that I'd forgotten about my predicament. “You know, you can do a lot of fun things when you're bored. Hey, can you transform into a mutant snake that's rotting all over and then hide yourself in my sister's truck, like, under her seat? All you need to do is say ‘boo,’ and that's it.” God, the possibilities...

  "Uh, no. You're crazy. Good thing about being bored, though, is that I've been able to practice manipulating my powers some more. Real people, real animals, mythological things—you name it, I can be it,” Freddie said with a broad grin. “And I don't need to sleep as much to regenerate."

  "Furniture?” I prodded, plopping myself down on my chair because my tutor was already narrowing his eyes at me. “Or better yet, furniture that morphs into creepy crawlies, so you can freak out my sister? Have you ever seen Beetlejuice?"

  "Nope, can't do inanimate objects. Made-up creatures, sure, but not inanimate objects."

  "Same difference."

  "No, actually."

  I shook my head, my brain threatening to leak out of my ears. “Okay, whatever. I'm sure there's some kind of logic behind your power's limitations."

  "Mr. Freddie,” Dr. Dibbs said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the door. “Out."

  "Okay, okay, I'm going. Hey, Eric, you need to tell me more about that bingo night thing. That sounds pretty cool."

  I perked up. “Really? You'll help?"

  "I've never been to one before. How much can I win? Is there a limit to raking in the cash?"

  I withered. He wanted to play? Was he nuts? How screwed up was that? “I'll call you,” I grumbled. He left the room, and Dr. Dibbs and I got down to business. It was pretty quiet for a moment while we sorted through our notes and stuff.

  Then, from somewhere in the main store area, Brenda's scream sliced through the calm, and I jumped in my chair. Dr. Dibbs continued to do his work like he was deaf. I guess it was pretty obvious that he was used to this sort of thing. Go Freddie. Before I could say anything about it, though, the scream was followed by a hysterical “God damn it, Freddie! I hate zombies!"

  * * * *

  When I got home after school, I discovered that the other places I knew were having problems with their vents were also attacked. Bam, bam, bam—one after the other. It was like Arachnaman finally went on a total rampage after all those days of silence. One after another, he claimed his victims. I didn't even know if anyone should speculate on whether or not today marked some kind of special anniversary because the destruction happened all at the same time.

  I stared at the TV, wide-eyed and drop-jawed. “Jeebus, what the hell's wrong with this nutcase?” I cried as I watched Mr. Hernandez's Mexican grocery and Mr. Bryant's auto shop vanish in a thick spray of water. No one was injured, according to the cops, but there was extensive damage done inside.

  And, yeah, even the gay bookstore was attacked. The news kind of did a whiplash thing, swinging from one crime scene to another, while Bambi Bailey and a guy reporter took turns talking to the camera. Both looked disheveled and smoke-stained. Behind them cops and firemen hurried back and forth, while three small businesses, all owned by decent people who'd done nothing to deserve this, went up in flames.

  "Unlike the attack at the Dog-in-a-Bun and the Yee Apartments,” Ms. Bailey said, her mascara slightly smeared around her eyes because of the tears that must've been pouring out of her eyes from all that smoke, “the simultaneous attacks today were all triggered by sabotage. Staff and customers weren't covered with web material; instead, there were reports of tiny bursts, like very small explosions, that were heard by witnesses. These noises were said to have come from somewhere in the back areas of each establishment. Police suspect that small spider bombs were planted, all timed to go off at the same time."

  "Sick,” I spat. Then I blinked. “Spider bombs?"

  Ms. Bailey, who was probably psychic, nodded at the camera. “Yes, spider bombs. No one can say what the original devices looked like, but when they exploded, they unleashed a collection of small mechanical spiders—much smaller than those in recent attacks—that spread out all over the shops, attached themselves to different merchandise and furniture, and then burst into flames."

  "This Arachnaman psycho has quite a bit of an arsenal,” I noted. Even though I was angry and upset, I couldn't help but be a little impressed by this nut-job's methods. He was definitely way more sophisticated than the Trill, the Debutantes, or the Puppet. If the Sentries could put together antidotes against his arachnid injections, I hoped that they had the resources to mix together a pretty potent bug spray in an aerosol can the size of a car.

  "I'm glad no one got hurt,” Liz said from the couch. “Dude, get out of the way. I can't see."

  I walked away gladly. I was too disgusted and upset by the whole thing to want to hang around and learn more. I thought about Mr. Bryant and Mr. Hernandez and how long I'd known them. Since my childhood, in fact. Then I thought about that guy in the gay bookstore and how miserable he'd looked because his business was going down the drain.

  I trudged up to my room, sickened. “I don't get it,” I muttered. “What did they do to get this kind of crap done to them? Nothing! Like Mr. Berkowitz and Ms. McBride and all those families at the Yee Apartments..."

  I shook my head
and fired up my computer. Maybe a few online games would help. I didn't even worry about Althea, as I was sure that she already had her hands totally full with today's craziness.

  * * * *

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  Chapter 16

  * * * *

  It had been three days since Arachnaman's last attack, and I hadn't seen or heard from Peter the whole time. A superhero's job is never done, anyway, so I'd been keeping myself busy with homework, chores, fending off the recurring presence of Scanlon Dorsey, and nighttime fantasies. I was cool.

  He'd called me last night, though, sounding a little tired from all that superhero work, and we'd set a date for our date. Yeah, finally. How long did it take for us to get something set? Anyway, we'd talked about the retro arcade a while ago, and the time we made our original date, he agreed to meet me there. I mean, I figured that since we were stuck going out on a daytime date (thanks, Mom!), and I was expected back home by three p.m. (no, really, thank you—not!), we had to limit our movements to a small area downtown.

  There was also a Mexican restaurant that we hadn't tried out yet that was also a block away. The idea was to have fun at the arcade and then enjoy a steaming plate of Mexican goodness before separating and getting all angsty and heartbroken over an unfair curfew.

  Considering all the bizarre genetic fallout of the recent months, one would think that Vintage City, for all its grimy, acid rain glamour, wouldn't exactly be a great place to start a business. With the recent attacks, who'd want to hang around here? Maybe there was something in the water that made us all major suckers for punishment. Well, the owner of the new retro arcade apparently saw something promising in our city, but as to what it might be, I'd no clue.

  At any rate, Vintage City continued to live up to its name, and its new attraction was The Asteroid Belt, which boasted every classic arcade game that could be had. So that was where Peter found me, standing outside with my nose pressed against the glass, salivating over all those pinball machines and Pac-Man things.