Chapter 2

With a final thump, the door burst, and the stool snapped in half. Four SWAT members, armed with MP5 submachine guns, burst into the darkened room, weapon butts in their shoulders as they moved through the room and confirmed that no one was inside.

The tall leader of the SWAT team flicked back his anti-shrapnel visor and spoke into his radio, quickly and quietly. "Target is not in room! I repeat, target is not in room!"

Another voice, slightly scratchy, replied. "Could he have jumped out of the window?" asked whoever the SWAT captain was talking to.

"Well, there's no other door, and the window's five stories up," the captain rolled his eyes at the blatant stupidity of the other man manning the radio. Who jumps out a five story window into a courtyard full of police?

"Roger. Search the nearby area. This is Sergeant McClain, over and out."

The SWAT captain turned, but his team were already ready to move out. They'd been listening on their own radios.

"Let's find this son of a bitch."

Suddenly, a terrible shrieking voice sounded from above. "I'm right here!"

Carnage dropped from the ceiling, his red and black hands suddenly changing shape, forming a semi-circle of sharpened blade. The manic glint in the madman's eyes told the SWAT team everything the strange symbiote was about to do.

Carnage swung the blades like axes, opening up a crimson slash on the chest of the nearest SWAT officer, the captain. The man screamed and toppled back onto a desk, blood spraying out from his severed veins and arteries. The desk slid back, and the SWAT man fell to the floor in a heap.

Carnage whirled just as one SWAT man opened fire with his sub-machine gun. Thirty bullets, a full magazine, exited the SMG (sub-machine gun), and hit Carnage in the chest. The strange symbiote being didn't even flinch; his skin merely extended like a solar flare and grabbed the bullets in mid-flight, dropping them harmlessly to the floor.

Carnage swung his hand-blades down on the SWAT man's SMG as he tried to reload, slicing the stock off of the weapon. The SWAT man screamed and dropped his SMG, trying to grab his pistol. But Carnage had anticipated that. One of his hand-blades returned to its normal hand shape, and grabbed the SWAT man by the throat. The man squealed, and Carnage threw him bodily out of the window.

The next two SWAT men retreated, firing indiscriminately into Carnage. Again, the bullets were stopped.

Carnage swung his hand-blade at the closest SWAT man. The man, who couldn't have even been twenty five, dodged to the side, and Carnage's blade only severed his arm at the elbow.

The man screamed, dropping his weapon and falling to the ground, holding his stump of an arm and trying to stop the crimson flow of blood that was jetting from it.

Carnage laughed as the last SWAT member tried to run for the door, screaming. Carnage merely let his other hand-blade return to the normal shape of a hand, and extended his arms. Red lines of web shot from Carnage's wrists grabbing the SWAT member and wrapping around his neck. Carnage wrenched the web back, and the SWAT man, in the grip of the web, was dragged back, on his knees in front of Carnage.

Carnage spun the man around until he was facing away, and then tightened his grip on the web, using it as an improvised garrotte to throttle the SWAT member. He then put his foot on the man's back, pushing forward to increase the man's suffering as he gurgled and choked.

The man thrashed horribly, and slowly went limp. His face had turned a deep shade of maroon because Carnage had cut off his head's blood supply with the garrotte.

Carnage giggled insanely, and turned towards the last SWAT man living, the one that lay on the floor, sobbing and holding his severed arm. Carnage walked forward, bent down, and seized the man by the neck. Carnage's needle teeth glinted in the eerie blue of the police lights, as he plunged those needle teeth into the man's skull.

The SWAT man screamed incoherently, as, like a vampire, Carnage slowly sucked up the man's brain with his hollow needle teeth…

Spiderman twisted and looked down at the sound of gunshots. Below him, jus visible in the light cast by the streetlights was a small jeweller shop, the type that had no security and was therefore a prime target for robbers. The gunshot had come from inside the shop although the shutters were down, but the door was open.

Spiderman backflipped and landed just in front of the door. He leapt into the shop, cruising over a small aisle filled with earrings and landing in front of the counter. His spider-sense tingled to warn him of danger, and he twisted to the side just in time to dodge the white, forking bolt of lightning that shot through the air, just missing the wall-crawler.

His spider-sense tingled again, and he leapt to the side, dodging another bolt, and kicking off from the wall just in to dodge a third lightning attack.

Suddenly, the nearest aisle, the one Spiderman had leapt over, collapsed, sending jewellery flying everywhere. Behind the toppled aisle, was a short man, his chest having as he drew breath. He wore a black raincoat, and a pair of jeans. A mask made from a beanie hat with holes cut in it covered his face. Had this man attacked with those bolts of lightning?

Spiderman noticed that the man clutched a large brown bag, holding it by the straps. It was obviously full of money. And, jammed into his jeans, the man had a gun.

"Hey, pal, put the bag down. If you pull that gun on me, or try to escape, all the stolen money will go to your funeral!" said Spiderman, advancing carefully and trying to spook the criminal.

"No!" The man spoke with an accent, perhaps Russian, but definitely from a former-Soviet state. "I take the money! Do not interfere!" The man's free hand went for his gun, and Spiderman reacted.

He fired a quick blob of web at the criminal's hand, knocking it away from the gun. He then fired a long stream of web at the Russian, which blasted the criminal against a wall in a stream of white semi-liquid.

The Russian was suspended on the wall, feet dangling uselessly, pinned by web. His gun had fallen from his jeans, and lay of the floor. He'd also dropped the moneybag.

Whirling, Spiderman surveyed the scene. The jeweller shop was actually bigger than he'd expected, but he had to find whoever the Russian had fired his gun at earlier, when Spiderman had first been alerted to the robbery.

Peeking around a corner, Spiderman found the gunshot victim. He was an old, wearing a white shirt and black tie. There was a hole in his hip where the bullet had entered his body, stained dark brown as the blood had dried. Wait a minute! Spiderman thought. This man's been dead for hours!

Spiderman whirled as he suddenly became aware of a ripping, sizzling noise coming from his prisoner.

Racing towards the Russian, Spiderman froze. The web that he'd used to stick the Russian to the wall was blackened, curled and burned. The Russian wasn't much better. His face was blackened and gaunt, and steam rose in curling wisps from his boiling skin. His hair, formerly brown and shaggy, was now black and sticking out in all directions. His mouth was still open in a final death scream, belching smoke. The man had been electrocuted.

Spiderman heard hurried footsteps heading towards the door. He broke into a run, just as the footsteps slid to a stop and changed direction, heading to the back of the shop. Spiderman, trying to find whoever was casting the strange lightning bolt attacks, changed direction, following the sound of the footsteps.

Spiderman reached the back of the shop, just in time to see a small door leading to a staff-only area of the shop swing shut. He raced towards the door and tried the handle. The door didn't budge; whoever was in the staff-only area had keys.

Spiderman rammed the door, and its thin wooden frame splintered and broke without protest.

The wall-crawler burst into the corridor ahead. The only light came from the far end; moonlight. A fire escape had been opened, and whoever had been running from Spiderman had escaped.

Spiderman's head spun as he tried to think of anything that could cast lightning bolts.

"Hey! Freeze!" Whirling, Spiderman heard the shout of a policeman as he entered the jewellers through the front door. Evidently, someone had heard the gunshot and called the police.

Spiderman didn't have time to examine the scene thoroughly; he had to go. Breaking into a sprint, he jumped out of the fire escape, landing out on a street. The policeman had came in from the other street, through the front of the building, leaving Spiderman maybe twenty seconds to escape.

Breaking into a sprint, Spiderman knew that if the police saw him fleeing the crime scene, an official warrant for his arrest would go out, so he had to get away.

Sprinting away down the street, Spiderman came to the conclusion that web-swinging away form the crime scene would be too conspicuous. So, bending his knees, he leapt straight up, flying fifty metres into the air and landing on a rooftop with a thump that made his knees wobble.

Racing across the building, Spiderman leapt across the street, landing atop yet another building. He continued to jump from building to building, racing homeward; he'd did enough crime-fighting tonight.