seriousfic

Ghostbusters is a pretty fun game.

The vanity reflected the three images of the Hobgoblin, finishing his transformation from man to superman. He was brushing his make-up on like a hunter applying war paint. Finished. He stood, put on his helmet, and walked to his glider. He passed a TV showing the battle between Spider-Man and Octavius, switching it off.

”Wait'll they get a load of me...”

***

A truck driver ran up to the tangled wreckage of Octavius’s Acura. ”Anyone alive in there?”

A tentacle shot out, impaled him through the chest and came out his back covered in blood. The other three tentacles ripped Octavius loose of the twisted wreckage.

”Just us five.”

His tentacles reached out behind him. A claw grabbed hold of a high tension cable, whirred shut with a mechanical hum. A second claw grabbed hold. Now, locked onto the cable with those two claws, Doc Ock started to pull himself up, using the other two claws, arm over arm, toward the top of the Manhattan Tower.

Spider-Man landed, hands and feet clinging to the vertical high tension wire. He nimbly plucked his way up the wires, shadowing the nearby Octavius.

Ock spotted him. He pushed off the high tension cable, toward the next one, wrapped his tentacles around it and continued on to the next one. Spider-Man continued climbing. He reached one of the upsweep cables that led to the top of the Manhattan tower. He ran its thirty degree angle with incredible speed, then jumped, out over open water. Shot a webline onto the bottom of the upsweep cable and swung toward Octavius, catching him in mid-jump with a dropkick, sending them both flying high above the bridge.

”Just like an octopus. Bringing tentacles to a web-fight.” Spider-Man shot twin streams of web past the writhing Octavius, constructing a web between the two cables that Octavius was flying toward. Octavius hit and was stuck there like a fly.

Spider-Man landed over him. “Now then, where were we? The true identity of the Hobgoblin?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Harry Osborn.” His tentacles began ripping through the web.

Spider-Man backhanded him. “You’re lying!”

“What reason would I have to lie?” Octavius kept ripping away chunks of the web.

Spider-Man weaved new strands. “You said it yourself, you hate Osborn! You want to frame him!”

“Perhaps. But I don’t need to.” Octavius grimaced in frustration as his tentacles were bound in layer after layer of webbing. “Perhaps the question is, what reason would you have to doubt me? Osborn was the one who sent me to kill you.”

“He’s not like that! He was going through a rough patch, but he’s better now!”

“Don’t you get it, Spider-Man? We’re all ‘like that’.”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” Spider-Man demanded, punching Octavius out with more force than he usually used. It took him a moment to realize he’d broken Ock’s nose from the blood dripping off his knuckles. “You don’t know him.”

Suddenly, the familiar jet whine and that cackle.

”I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.” Spider-Man jumped off the web as Hobgoblin threw a pumpkin bomb. He was out of danger, but the bomb was heading right toward Octavius! Peter snagged the pumpkin bomb with a webline and whipped it away. It exploded harmlessly in the air.

Spider-Man landed on a cable and Hobgoblin, cackling, hovered over the Manhattan Tower.

“This seems familiar,” the Hobgoblin said, tapping his pointed chin. “A goblin, a spider, a bridge… all we need is a hostage. I don’t think the cephalopod counts.”

Hobgoblin rocketed toward Spider-Man, who leapt from cable to cable. The maniac weaved between the cables, trying to catch Spider-Man. Unexpectedly, Spider-Man stuck to a cable. Hobgoblin flew past accidentally and Spider-Man jumped onto his glider from behind, putting him in a full-nelson.

”Pew! Have you considered changing your deodorant, Roderick?”

”Roderick can’t come to the phone right now, Peter. I’m the goblin.” Hobgoblin did a loop-de-loop, dropping off the upside-down glider along with Spider-Man. Freed in mid-air, he whirled around and kicked Spider-Man away as his glider caught him.

”Wendy, I can fly!” He threw a goblin grenade at Spider-Man. The pumpkin-like vertical bulges exploded into Razor-Bats and attacked. Spider-Man shot a web out, caught the opposite high tension wire, swung on the biggest arc ever. Speeding away from the Razor-Bats.

And on a collision course with the unconscious, webbed Octavius.

”Octavius! Wake up!”

He swung over Octavius, rattling the web with his foot as he passed. Octavius groaned and began to come to. He saw the Razor-Bats coming.

”What’s this?”

Like a knife throwing trick in a magic show, all the Razor-Bats missed him, but tore through the web. He was freed enough for his tentacles to exploit the sudden holes. He began climbing the two cables in his unique way, tentacle over tentacle. This process left one tentacle free at all time and he used it to destroy the attacking Razor-Bats like King Kong swatting bi-planes.

Spider-Man had reached the apex of his swing. He began to swing backwards; right into Hobgoblin. The villain grabbed Spider-Man with a silver-threaded snare and dragged him away, bashing him against the upsweep cables before carrying him upwards.

“Come on, dear. Let’s watch the sunset together!”

They ascended thousands of feet as Spider-Man blasted impact webbing into Hobgoblin’s back. The goblin shrugged them off like they were spitballs. His helmet closed.

”A pity you don’t have an oxygen supply like mine! The air’s quite thin up here, you know?”

Spider-Man formed a glob of liquid webbing and threw it past the Hobgoblin. They collided. It covered Hobgoblin on contact! With Hobgoblin netted, Spider-Man managed to slip his foot out of the snare.

Peter reached terminal velocity, tumbled through the sky over the Brooklyn Bridge, the ground racing up at him, fast and inevitable. No time for anything fancy. He stretched out his arms, shot out webs, one after the other, trying to catch them on everything, anything. Finally…

Splat!

A web stuck to the first Manhattan Tower. It tightened, changed the angle of his fall, turned it into a swing, he soared through space, a huge arc, for a moment or two he was right in the middle of traffic, swinging against it. Right toward an oncoming car.

With the tip of his toes, he managed to touch the pavement and hurl himself out of the way. Then he was up, up, let go of the webbing, heading for a dead-on collision with the second Manhattan Tower before he began to drop again. This time his head had cleared more. He shot a webline out and swung around the Tower several times before slamming down on top of it. Spread-eagled, back nearly broken.

Hobgoblin was there. Ready and waiting. He threw a pumpkin bomb.

Spider-Man mustered all his energy, rolled out of the way. The blast picked him up and threw him across the tower. He landed painfully on the opposite side, completely spent.

But Hobgoblin had another pumpkin bomb.

”Goodbye forever, Spider-Man!”

He threw it. For a horrible moment it seemed to hang in the air, pregnant, glowing bright as a torch..

Octavius caught it in a tentacle and crushed it!

”Spider-Man is mine to kill! Mine!”

Hobgoblin braked into a hover, gobstopped. “What are you doing!? You psycho!” he yelled, somewhat hypocritically.

”Genius has always been reviled by the ignorant!” Octavius said smugly.

Hobgoblin flew at Octavius, firing his glider’s machine guns. Octavius deflected them with his arms. The drill bits on Hobgoblin’s glider whirred, aimed squarely at Octavius’s heart. Octavius gripped the floor with his lower pair of tentacles, using the upper pair to intercept the glider. It jerked to a stop, throwing Hobgoblin clear. The Goblin plummeted towards the ocean. His glider flew to catch him, but Octavius hung onto it with two tentacles, the other pair anchoring him to the ground.

Spider-Man was still groggy. He’d crawled to the edge of the Manhattan Tower, one arm dangling over the edge. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand by and watch someone die, even the Hobgoblin. He threw his arm up and fired a webline…

It snagged Hobgoblin. He began to swing back towards the bridge…

”No! I won’t be saved by the likes of you!” He severed the webline with his glove blaster.

Spider-Man cried out, but there was no need to worry. Hobgoblin spread out his cloak to parachute down, landed safely on the bridge. He stuck the length of webbing into his Goblin Bag, came back out with two Goblin Grenades. He pressed a button. The sphere split in half, the half sections articulated out and the inner structures unfolded to become wing-like. The individual ‘bulges’ straightened out with the first flap of the wing. The stems turned into the butts of laser cannons. The Goblin Birds flapped upward and attacked Octavius, who had to let go of the glider to fend them off.

Spider-Man was still out of it. He looked around. “I can see my house from up here…”

Hobgoblin mounted his glider and ascended toward Octavius, who ripped a piece of concrete off the tower and threw it. A Goblin Bird was obliterated. The survivor fired a laser; Octavius blocked with a tentacle. The blast made the hit tentacle segment glow red-hot. Octavius retaliated, boxing the Goblin Bird in with all four tentacles, then closing in for the kill… The bulges, like feathers, drifted downward on the wind…

Hobgoblin flew over Octavius and threw another bomb at him. Octavius slapped it away with a tentacle, not noticing that it landed next to Spider-Man. Octavius’s tentacles latched onto the glider. He was carried away.

Spider-Man weakly pushed himself off the tower before the pumpkin bomb could explode.

No energy left whatsoever. Nothing. But fate smiled on all of us sometime and Spider-Man landed in an open-bed trailer transporting bales of hay. Spider-Man looked around, amazed to be alive.

”Well, it’s better then kitty litter…”

He laid back and took a siesta.

Over the Brooklyn Bridge, Hobgoblin tried to shake Octavius loose. Octavius’s tentacles lifted him up in front of the glider and allowed Ock to deliver a punch to Hobgoblin. But Octavius’s human limbs were still those of a scrawny scientist and Hobgoblin laughed off the blow.

”Pathetic.”

He slapped Octavius. Octavius’s sunglasses dangled from his ears. Hobgoblin was taken aback by the sight.

”What’s wrong with your eyes?”

Ock brought up two tentacles and attacked Hobgoblin as he corrected his sunglasses. ”They’re the window to the soul… and I’ve been a little lacking in that area lately.”

Hobgoblin grabbed each of the attacking tentacles, holding them at bay with incredible strength. Octavius set himself down on the glider, his feet astride the flying wing.

”I’m really going to enjoy this…” Octavius snarled.

”Not as much as I will, Beaker!”

With a touch of his wrist console, Hobgoblin detached the wings of the glider from the central tube. He settled on the tube like a broomstick rocket. The wings continued on course, carrying Ock over the open sea. Octavius used his tentacles to throw himself off the glider towards land. Hobgoblin pressed another button and the wings detonated, the explosion washing over Octavius. Octavius screamed, on fire, as he fell several hundred feet down to sea.

”Always knew you’d make a big splash, Otto! Hope you wanted a burial at sea!” Hobgoblin laughed and flew off to repair his glider.

***

Curt wasn’t woken up by pain, even though his skin was clinging to the stake-sharp tip of his stump’s armbone like it was the rib of a famine victim. He was woken by hunger.

There were some pork chops that were still in the shrink-wrap, red and unseasoned and barely frosted from the refrigerator. He heated them in the microwave until they smelled sickly sweet to his nostrils, like too many candy canes sweating on a Christmas morning, and then he ate them raw. Didn’t even bother with a fork, just ripped them to shreds in his teeth.

Licking his fingers clean, he sat and looked at a piece of paper held to the fridge door by magnet. It was an article from Popular Science. An article he’d written.

It all started off so simply. A lizard can release its tail from its body when confronted by a predator, leaving the amputated body part squirming to distract the predator as it seeks shelter. Amazingly, a new tail grows back. An entire body part from nothing! Using neogenics, the manipulation of DNA itself, this process can be transferred from reptiles to mammals.

Connors looked at it with a slit-pupiled eye.

His son was asleep in bed. His dog was asleep in the backyard. Where was his wife, his woman, his mate?

Headlights cut off at the end of the street and the car glided in through darkness, parking in the driveway. Even from the kitchen, Curt could smell the perfume. The sweat. And underneath it, something salty and guilty.

He stood, walked, sifting through the shadows until he heard a key turn in the lock. Martha walked in. Her dress was short, her make-up made her look as garish as a clown. He waited for her to notice him, breathing in and out, blinking only once in a lifetime.

“Oh, Curt, I didn’t see you there.”

He walked forward, now not bothering to compensate for an arm that wasn’t there, a phantom limb that threw him off with its weightlessness.

“I was just going out to get ingredients for tomorrow night, but the stores were closed… apparently one of the restroom toilets backed up…”

His sole hand flexed and squeezed and tightened into all sorts of interesting fists.

“I can smell him on you,” Curt said.

Martha looked over him in a kind of panic. “Curt, you were…. All that time on that weird project of yours, and he, he, he was just so attentive, so nice…”

“And he had two arms. Didn’t he.”

“It wasn’t like that, we barely even… we just talked… Curt, your arm is bleeding.”

Blinking rapidly, Curt held his hand up in front of his face.

“Not that arm.”

With a tearing sound more wet and slick than any paper, a jagged edge of bone poked through the skin of his stump, finally letting loose a splatter of blood that jolted the white plaster wall.

Curt raised his arms to shield his face from this new threat, this monster growing out of his own body, and his new elbow bent obligingly, spilling more blood. Then the bleeding stopped. The bone glistened a dark crimson in the moonlight before the skin grew over it, once more sealing it in. Curt used his real hand to try to wipe the blood from his face, but only succeeded in smearing it further into his skin. He laughed, turning to Martha as she stared in horror.

“It worked.”