Curse of Arachnaman (17 page)

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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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.

I was so focused on what I was coveting that I didn't even hear him walk up to me—only felt a light brush of his hand against my waist as he took his place beside me.

"Now what?” he asked, sniggering. “Don't tell me..."

"Check it out!” I breathed, pointing at a machine that stood way, way in the back corner. “Look, it's Pong!"

"Holy cow. People still play that?” It was his turn to press his face against the glass. I swear, we looked like a couple of street urchins, yearning for some Christmas goose or something. “Wait, I didn't even know that Pong was, like, an arcade game. I remember my Aunt Sharon owning an old, old console for home playing, but I've never seen an actual arcade version. Wow."

"Do you think it'll explode or something after a few games? It looks pretty old. I mean, seriously."

"I'm surprised that it could still stay upright. Damn. Check out the fake wood paneling on that thing!"

"Come on, let's go in,” I said, taking his hand and giving it a tug.

The spell had broken. Peter dug his heels into the pavement and looked at his watch. “Eric, we don't have much time. We can check this out another day. I'm hungry and want to spend more time with you."

"Well, nuts,” I grumbled, staring longingly at the dusky interior.

Even the windows seemed to absorb light, so people could peer through the glass without being bothered by reflections or anything like those. The arcade's interior was dark and pretty grungy, the only lights inside coming from the different old-school machines that littered the place. Even the people inside looked as dreary and musty as the machines as they took turns, playing. For a few more seconds, I turned my attention to the kids inside, watching them shuffle from one machine to another, the only parts of their bodies I could see being their faces and hands. It must have been a trick of the light, or, in this case, the lack of, but it seemed that their complexions glowed softly. When a girl turned around after finishing a game, our gazes briefly met through the window, and I was startled by how zombie-like she looked. Skin abnormally white, eyes unseeing and sunken, a ring of dark shadows around them, mouth a little slack. I had to blink several times to make sure that I wasn't having some weird hallucination, but by the time I tried to figure out what it was that I'd just seen, the girl had already vanished in the shadows.

"Hey, Peter,” I began, but he'd already looped an arm around my shoulders and was guiding me away. I tried to look back over my shoulder, but all I could see was a black window. There were no signs of life inside, let alone any faint lights flickering in the dusky interior. It was just—blank.