Spiderman 1

Prologue

"Let's wake the dead, baby!"

The souped-up black Corvette roared down the main road
of the cemetery, gravel blasting out from under its tires, spray
ing every which way. A few squirrels, foraging for food, fran
tically scrambled for the nearest trees as the car, its double
headlights flaring, cut hard to the right. Its rear fishtailed
around and the wheels spun on dirt and grass for a moment
before once again finding purchase on the narrow pathway.

The road was intended for slow, stately processions: a
hearse, followed by limos or regular cars bearing grieving
and stricken friends and family. It wasn't designed for hot
rods and fast turns, but the driver and passengers of the mid
night 'Vette couldn't have cared less. They were too busy laughing at the top of their lungs, blaring the horn and gunning the engine so enthusiastically that it seemed as if they would fulfill their stated purpose and cause the deceased to rise up in protest.

Their names were Tyler, Keith, and Daniel, and they were
flying high. They'd just come from a ball game over at the stadium in Flushing. It had been an extra-innings nail-biter
that the home team had managed to pull out of the fire at the
last moment, and the boys were pretty liquored up, so they were feeling good about baseball in general and themselves
in particular.

The 'Vette had a small ding in the rear bumper but oth
erwise was in perfect working order. Tyler, at the wheel,

had decided he wanted to open her up, and one of the best
places to do that was the main drag outside the local ceme
tery, since it wasn't especially well traveled at night. As
they had driven past, however, they'd noticed that only a single padlock, hanging on a heavy chain, was keeping the
large wrought iron gates closed. A quick clipping with a
pair of cutters that Tyler kept stashed in the trunk, and mo
ments later they had the moonlit cemetery all to them
selves.

The guys looked fairly alike. They all had their heads
shaved down to a razor cut, and they had similarly large and
sloped brows that indicated considerably advanced cranial capacity ... if one happened to be a Cro-Magnon. Keith was
wearing sunglasses, ignoring the fact that it was pitch-black
out.

They were, however, easily distinguishable, one from the
other, through their facial markings. Keith's face was
smeared with solid blue makeup, while Tyler was wearing orange. These coincided with the official colors of their favorite baseball team, and they had festooned their faces as a
mark of solidarity. Daniel had simply shaved all his hair off, down to the roots.

Tyler screeched toward an intersection, hesitated only a moment, then cut hard left. The roar of the engine filled the
cemetery, barely drowning out the joyful howling of the
guys in the car. Hard left again, and then right, tearing all
over the place like the ghost of a driver killed in a high-speed crash.

Shooting off the road, the ' Vette hurtled across a row of
graves. Daniel suddenly encountered a slight decline of
nerves, and from the minimal backseat into which he was crunched, he pounded on Tyler's shoulder.

"Knock it off, man, this ain't funny!"

"They're dead, man, whatta they care?" Tyler shot back.

"Yeah, man, let the man drive!" said Keith, who was rid
ing shotgun but had twisted around to face Daniel.

Suddenly the 'Vette slammed to a halt. It didn't happen with a screech of tires or an abrupt shuddering of medal. It
just stopped, as if it had hit a brick wall, except somehow the
front wasn't caved in.

"Tyler, you can't drive worth spit!"
howled Keith.

"I didn't do it!" Tyler shouted in protest.

"You're drivin', man!"

"I didn't do it!"
he repeated. "Something's holding us! Look!" He slammed his foot onto the gas pedal and the engine roared. The car drifted from one side to the other, the tires chewing up dirt, but otherwise it didn't move.

The full moon, which had been illuminating the grave
yard, now drifted behind a bank of clouds, and the night air
seemed even more chill.

"I'm getting out to see what's goin' on." Tyler unlocked
the door and pushed against it. Then he pushed again. "The
door won't open."

Keith tried to shove open the door on his side and had no
more luck. "Okay, man, this is screwed up...."

Suddenly Daniel pointed with trembling finger. "Wh . . .
what's that?
What the hell is that?!"

Something—some sort of strange, grayish strands were
covering the side windows and the windshield. They were
blind. Blind and trapped.

"There's something out there!" shouted Daniel.

"Oh, really? Y'think?!"
Keith, the oldest, tried to sound
sarcastic, but it only came out scared.

Daniel's mind was racing. "It's . .. it's a monster! Some kind of alien bug creature! It's wrapping us in a cocoon, to eat us later!"

Tyler twisted around to stare at his friend. "What're you,
stupid?!"
But the truth was that he'd been thinking the exact

same thing; he'd just been too panicked and felt like too
much of a jerk to say anything.

That was when the car started to shake violently. The
guys screamed, cried out, shouted for someone—anyone—
to help them as the car rocked from one side to the other.

Tyler let out a scream that they could have heard on the other side of the Whitestone Bridge, even as he shoved the car back into drive. And then, with a rending of metal, they
were free, the rear bumper having been torn clean off.

The main gate still hung open, and they barreled through it at top speed, honking the horn like mad, which was fortunate
since it was the only thing that kept them from smearing them
selves along the side of an oncoming truck transporting—
appropriately enough—beer. The truck slammed to a halt as the ' Vette darted around it. Before long the smell of burning
rubber and the frightened cries of the trespassers faded from
the night air.

In the cemetery, all was still.

Then a figure clad in blue and red emerged from the
branches of one of the large oak trees, so dark that it seemed
as if one of the shadows had separated and come to life. He moved so silently that the absence of sound would have
prompted any onlooker to think that maybe he wasn't there
at all.

His body was muscular but, at the same time, extremely
well proportioned, and he moved with a lithe, skittering
grace that seemed barely human. His gloves and boots were
dark red, as was the design that spread up his chest and down
his arms. His mask was the same color but was interrupted
by two eyepieces that were impenetrable from the outside.
Indeed, anyone looking at him would have wondered how in
the world he was able to see at all.

Thin black web patterns covered all the scarlet areas of

the costume. And on his chest, just over his solar plexus,
there was the design of a spider with its legs outstretched.
Had he simply been standing up, walking along down a
main thoroughfare in the middle of the day, arms swinging
casually at his sides, he might have looked like a circus
refugee. But here, in the still of the night, with only the eye
pieces visible as the moon once again darted behind the shadows, he looked more like a spider himself, in human form, spit out by dark forces which ordinary mortals could
never even begin to comprehend except in their deepest
nightmares.

He dropped to the ground, still noiseless, and surveyed
the area which had—so short a time ago—been the scene of
unbridled pandemonium. Looking at the tire tracks that
scarred the earth, he shook his head and mentally scolded
himself for not having arrived sooner and, therefore, having
done more.

"But then . . . that's always the way, isn't it," he said
softly.

As much as he might berate himself for not having ar
rived sooner, at least he had arrived just in time. The path of
the racing 'Vette would have taken it directly across the one
gravesite in the cemetery that was important to him. His intervention had prevented that, bringing the speeding car up short. And hopefully the lamebrains who'd been in the thing
would never, ever, so much as think about setting foot in the
place again.

Still so silent, silent as a ghost, silent as the grave, the
masked man walked over to the headstone that was his des
tination, then crouched in front of it.

"Hey," he said softly in greeting. "Did you see them run?
Pretty good show, huh?"

He reached gingerly toward the headstone and ran his fin
gers over the letters. "Least you've got a good view. That's

what the guy at the funeral home promised; that you'd have
a good view. Paid extra for it. But it was worth it." He paused
there for a moment longer, as if uncertain what to say, or
even why he had come by in the first place. "I'm sorry," he
said finally. "I
. . .
I should have come by and spoken with
you sooner. I know I haven't been by for a while. But I
. . .
I
wasn't sure what to say. How to start the conversation,
y'know. But . . . here, check this out. I figured this would be
an icebreaker." He stood and turned in place, his arms out
stretched to either side, like a runway model. "Like the outfit? I figure to make the best- and worst-dressed lists, all at the same time. And the pecs ... not bad, huh?" and he flexed to prove his point. "I mean, okay, I'm no Arh-nuld, or even Kevin Sorbo, but I've come a long way, right? Not the way
you figured I'd end up, right? I guess ..." The jocularity
began to fade. "I guess ... neither of us ended up the way
we thought we would, huh."

Then the masked man took a step back and placed one hand on his chest as if in surprise.

"Who am I, you ask?" he said in mock astonishment, as
if a voice had addressed him from the grave. Then he leaned forward and continued in a surprisingly conversational tone.
"You sure you wanna know? The story of my life is not for
the faint of heart. If somebody said it was a happy little
tale
...
if somebody told you I was just your average, ordi
nary guy, not a care in the world ..."

Then his voice choked for a moment, and he forced him
self onward, ". . . then somebody lied."

Struggling to pull himself together again, to recapture
the carefree air
of joie de vivre
that typified his costumed
persona, he flipped over so that he was doing a handstand
with his left hand only. "Mine," he called out, like a ring
master encouraging all onlookers to listen in, as if he were
addressing all the other graves within hearing, "is a tale of