Venom swung off to a fancy restaurant called Tadich Grill. Venom formed back into Eddie as they landed on the ground in an alley. Eddie ran as fast as he could across the street, narrowly avoiding hitting a car, and ran inside the restaurant. Regretfully, he had to bump into people to get to the front of the line just to get to the waiter at the front. His ex-wife's life was at stake and he refused to let her die just because of his depression or her affair with somebody else. Once Eddie was at the front counter, he panted in starvation, his stomach growling.
The lead waiter taking names was an elderly man with gray hair and black sunglasses. (For Stan Lee, a cameo for him. RIP Stan Lee) "Hey there, are you on the list?"
"Is Anne Weying here?"
The old man squinted his eyes in recognition. "Hey, you're that Eddie Brock guy from the show! Can I get a picture with you?"
Eddie wasted no time, urged him to get out his camera, and he took a quick picture with the old man, barely smiling, and urged him to tell him where his ex-wife was.
"She's in the back, in one of the booths," the old man pointed.
Eddie hugged him tightly and cheered for him. "Thank you, you the man! You are the man!"
"I'm the man," the old man cheered as he pointed his two thumbs at himself.
Eddie races to the back, looking for his wife. "Remember, this is a 'me' thing, not a 'we' thing," he reminded Venom in a quiet tone. "Let me settle this with Anne."
"Told you I could track her scent. She smells nice in desert flowers perfume."
"That's creepy," Eddie scolded. "You're an alien from another planet, making weird remarks about something that isn't even of the same species."
"Owie, I am so hurt."
Eddie stood through one of the aisles of tables, scanning his environment to see if he could find his wife. He looks around once, then again twice, and then when he looked the third time, he saw a lady with blonde hair sitting in one of the corners of the restaurant, eating the seafood there with some guy in a white jacket.
"That's her," Venom confirmed. "She has the same scent."
"Thank you." Eddie speed walks over to her. Once he was at her table, she turned around and stared in shock upon seeing her ex-husband. "Hi, Anne. You look good." Eddie could tell that he was the last person she was expecting to see her. She did not know about his suicide attempt and he dared not to pour that kind of emotional harm onto her so he was going to say nothing about it.
Anne was struggling to find the words. She had no idea what to say to her former husband in front of her new and current boyfriend. "Thank you." She examines his clothing and finds sweat on him, most likely from fatigue. "You look like you've been working out, running at least."
"I have been," he panted as emphasis. "But I am not here to see you, Anne. I mean, I'm here for you, but not to catch up or anything." He suddenly became thirsty and he lunged for a cup of ice water on the table and poured it over his face, drenching his face in cold water. He sighed after gulping down a large amount and smiled in satisfaction. "That was the best cup of water I've ever had in my entire life." Now he was becoming ravenous because Venom was just itching to come out, projecting his hungry belly onto Eddie's.
"Don't do this to me now," he whispered to his parasite. He turned back to Anne and tried talking to her, but his words only came out in gibberish. "I am so hungry right now, and today is my birthday." He looks around the room like he's lost, stepping forward several feet to go into the kitchen, sneaking in when no one was looking except Anne and her boyfriend, Dan.
Eddie roamed into the kitchen, went into one of the fridges, his powerful senses leading him there, and he took out the only chocolate cake in there and devoured it with Venom's mouth. He never felt more satisfied in his life than eating the chocolate cake in his hands. He was done with the cake in less than two minutes and he heard Venom in his brain, moaning in pleasure from the taste of the cake.
"Best birthday cake I've ever gotten." He throws the tray away and wipes his mouth. Making sure that he no longer had Venom's mouth, he walked out of the kitchen and back to Anne's table. He took a knee and started speaking rapidly to her.
"Listen, I have to get you out of here." He was stuttering all of a sudden, craving something that was alive for some reason. He rubbed his temples trying to figure out why he had a sudden craving for brains. Then he snapped his head up, eyes wide, and realized that Venom was a symbiote that needed the one chemical element in both brains to survive. It started with a p and he couldn't pronounce it, but the same chemical is present within chocolate, which is why he was temporarily satisfied after eating the cake. "Is it suddenly hot in here? Or is it just me?" He began tugging on the front of his sweater.
He snapped his head over to Dan, the boyfriend that stole his love from her. He growled softly at him, moving over to the dark haired man, tempting to grab his face and bite his head off. He so much wanted to just bite into Dan's brain for stealing his wife from him. Even Venom was rooting for Eddie to make a move until Eddie mentally told Venom that Dan was just as much a human equivalent of raw meat, something no human could eat without getting sick. He said it mainly to convince Venom that eating Dan is just an easy outing for him and not true justice for what really happened.
"I forgot it's your birthday, Eddie," Anne said, catching Eddie's attention. "What is it you needed to see me with? I'm on a date with Dan. How'd you even find me in the first place?"
"I followed the scent of your perfume," Eddie said abruptly, having no control over his words. "Listen, you are in terrible danger and I am doing everything in my power to save you. We have to get you somewhere safe."
"Eddie," Anne said quietly. "What's going on with you? You're making me worried about you."
"I'm worried about you!" Eddie said, terrified that his wife might not believe him for what he has to say next.
"You remember Cletus Kasady, right?" He did not give her any time to remember or answer because he was on an extremely tight schedule. "He broke out of prison tonight and I have reason to believe he is after us. He said that he was going to cause carnage to everybody that I love and I guess I still love you so I need you to get as far away as possible."
"Eddie," Anne began. "You are not making any sense. Why are you sweating and why are you so ravenous?" She turned to her boyfriend of a doctor. "Can you figure out what's wrong with him?"
"I'll see what I can do," Dan said as he got up to put a hand on Eddie's forehead. Eddie backed away like the touch of fire. "What's wrong?"
"Your skin feels like fire. We can't stand fire or loud noises so don't touch us."
"You're cold," Dan said with concern. "Your body temperature is impossible under fifty degrees Celsius."
"I don't feel bad. I feel healthy and hungry, and thirsty, and worried about Anne's safety so get lost because I am trying to save a life. I'm a desperate to save my ex-wife's life so just let me be, buddy."
Dan turned a concerned look over to Anne as Eddie began biting down into the lobster that was just brought to their table. He spat hard when he tasted a bone in his mouth. He threw the lobster away and turned to the waitress. "Find me something that isn't dead. That lobster you are serving taste like a corpse, so bring me something that is alive."
"Food," Venom urged with impatient. "We want food right now!"
"Hang on, buddy," Eddie urged to his friend as he moved around the restaurant to look for something that was alive to eat. "We have a goal in mind and we must stick to that goal. We will get Anne out, and then we will quench our cravings."
"Our stomachs are in pain, Anne is right there and I am not sensing my offspring yet, so find something to eat or else I will eat your pancreas."
Eddie staggered towards a couple in another booth and reached for their fish sticks. He bit into like an animal. He liked the taste of the fish, but spat hard against the window and threw the fish sticks across the wall. "There has to be something in here that is alive. Something has to be alive, but where?!" Then he smelt something from outside and it piqued his interest. Instead of walking, he sprinted out the place and into the alley that he came into.
When he gazed down the long alleyway, he saw a woman being mugged by a lone man in a black hat. "FOOD!" Venom formed over Eddie and he shot two webs at the criminal before he could stab the girl, reeled him in and bit him down on the head, swallowing it and throwing the corpse to the side, Venom turning back into Eddie just as he suddenly felt full.
Eddie was transported to the nearest hospital for his cold body condition. He was put in a hospital bed after being stripped naked and wearing nothing but a hospital gown. He was lying on his back on a bed, trying his hardest to get as much rest as possible. Even though he was trying his hardest to sleep, Venom and his own worry were the two main factors that were keeping him awake. Eddie was trying his hardest to go to sleep, but the two factors were persistent.
"What if Kasady tracks Anne down here to his hospital? What if he's in the waiting room right now, chopping her up into tiny little pieces?" Eddie was truly horrified of the place that he was in. He had straps on his wrists so he won't pose a threat to himself. He tried snapping free of the restrains, but they were really tough to break. Like trying to snap a pipe with your bare hands, "I don't want Anne to die."
"I know how you feel, Eddie," Venom comforted. "From digging through your muck of a mind, I think some of your feelings for her gave passed over to me. Call me creepy, but I think I want to start a romantic relationship with her."
"You just had to say 'romantic' specifically? Are you trying to imply that you want to have-"
"NO!" Venom barked. "That is gross even for us if we did it with a human being. What the hell is wrong with you for thinking something like that. If we did it with another symbiote being, then I would be all in and as for you, I would subconsciously black you out so I can get her all to myself."
"Can we talk about other stuff other than that? What if Kasady breaks in? What is gonna happen to Anne?"
"I may not be able to track his scent, but I have heightened danger senses."
"What?"
"I have ESP, which basically means that I can border precognition. I can see dangers before they even happen, so if there was a dangerous situation going on, I think that I would be the first to know and you would be the second to know."
"Well...that's is good to know. I don't care what the doctor says though, I have to get out of here and be next to Anne. I just have this sixth sense that Kasady will be breaking into this hospital in less than an hour. Better safe than sorry if you ask me."
"We wouldn't ask you."
"Okay, so can you break me out of those bonds? Please?
"I'll see what I can do, but no promises."
Eddie sighed softly, trying to calm himself down as his companion was starting to form some kind of plan. He knew that if he just transformed into his full form, then he would break the bonds with his size, but he at least wanted to try his new liquid powers. Recently, back on his planet, he had mastered the power to turn his entire form and his host into a liquid form. It would be good for steal and breaking in and out of places. Course, at this point he didn't really think it would be necessary to have this power, but better safe than sorry and now it looked like this ability was going to come in handy.
Venom took over Eddie's body and turned himself into a liquid form and slithered out the bed snake-like. When he formed back into Eddie in his full form, Eddie realized that not only did he slip out of the bonds like butter, but he slipped out of his hospital gown and he was left standing there, naked. His face blushes from embarrassment and he covers himself up with a magazine and flower vase. Venom was laughing hysterically over the human's humiliation, which only added salt to Eddie's wound.
Eddie snapped at Venom, "Stop that; it's not funny."
"It is kinda funny," Venom protested. "You're naked in a hospital room and the old lady in the bed behind you is staring at you like you're from another planet." He laughed louder, but only in Eddie's head. The human turned around to see an old woman with an eyepatch over her right eye stare at Eddie in horror.
Eddie hid behind the curtain that separates his bed from the old lady's bed. He took one last half-second of a glance at her frozen in horror face. "That's not funny at all, I'm naked."
"You were naked when you were born too." Venom continued to laugh, not stopping for a single second. "You were naked when you went skinny dipping with Anne at Iguazu Falls. Remember that?"
"That's because it was our honeymoon, and I need a change set of clothes."
"Would you like some overalls or would you like a see-through costume with breasts on it?"
"You wouldn't be laughing if you genitals were exposed."
Venom's laughing abruptly stopped, which gave Eddie some chills. "Would you like to see what my genitals look like? They are better than what you will ever have and your father wishes he had my sack of dangling ornaments."
"That's disgusting, Venom; you have a tasteless personality." Eddie reached into the drawer on his side of the bed and tore out his clothes that have been wrapped up and placed in a plastic bag. He put on his sweater, then his jeans. Once he was fully clothed, he walked out of the hospital room and went to go look for Anne. He roams the hallways like a lost boy looking for Anne, trying to see which hospital room she would be in. "Venom, you have her scent, so look for her."
"I don't want to sound like a creep, but she smells like a delicate flower. Probably because she is wearing desert flowers perfume and where do you keep flowers from dying in a hospital?"
"Nowhere. The only place that I can think of where doctors store flowers are the waiting room."
"Ding ding ding ding, we have a winner. Run and collect your flower, make up to her, admit that you are sorry for having doubted her."
"That is some seriously F-ed up Mad Hatter rhyming bullshit right there, Venom. You're just like the Cheshire Cat!"
"We can't help it; when we smell your ex-wife's perfume, it drives me to drive you mentally crazy."
Eddie ran to the end of the hallway, sprinting through a set of twin doors and into the waiting room. He came to a slow stop as he raced to the middle of the room, he scanned to see where he was and to get an idea as to where all the exits were. He turned around and he saw Anne sitting in a green chair, looking at him with great concern.
"Eddie?" she called out to him as she stood up and walked towards him. "What's going on with you?"
Eddie could barely control Venom from taking over his subconscious to stroke Anne's shoulders in a gentle way. Anne was slightly confused but did nothing to push his hand away.
"Look at her, you had a lot going for you and you dump her because she doesn't remain faithful to you."
"I gave her a chance," Eddie whispered, but Anne heard.
"You gave her a chance, you didn't give her a second chance. What kind of person are you if you weren't to give second chances?"
"I'm an unforgiving person," Eddie said normally instead of whispering, not afraid to say his answer out loud. "I can't believe that I'm an unforgiving person."
"No, Eddie," Anne tried to persuade. "I cheated on you, I didn't deserve forgiveness."
"Imagine the guilt she must've felt for cheating on you. Imagine that all that guilt would have faded away if you just talked to her and worked it out. Her sadness levels are just as high as yours, if not higher."
"I'm sorry for the guilt I caused…" Eddie said quietly with a whisper to Anne. He knew what Venom was trying to do. Venom was trying to bait Eddie into saying the words that he wants him to say to Anne. He is trying to indirectly start a conversation with Anne and trying to get Eddie to apologize. Eddie was completely aware of this but played along because he felt like if he didn't know the words to say to Anne, then Venom would help him.
"If anyone of all people deserves a second chance, it's Anne. How many people will come to you after they reveal that they've had an affair with somebody else? Someone like that means that their word is always trustworthy."
"Anne, you were always a trustworthy person, and I'm sorry I threw it back in your face."
"You should apologize because of your actions in leaving her, Anne was driven to commit suicide, only to fail. Just seeing you is driving her into an even bigger depression than you are in. She deserves an apology for everything that you have put her through and if you don't apologize, then I-"
"Anne," Eddie interrupted Venom to talk to Anne, he didn't need to hear any more from Venom. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything that I have done to you. I'm sorry for leaving you, I'm sorry for costing you your job, I'm sorry for not forgiving you, and I'm sorry that I made you depressed. I am so sorry for everything that I have done and I just wanted you to know that. I don't expect you to forgive me, or if I even deserve forgiveness, I just wanted you to know. I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart."
A single tear rolled down Eddie's cheek, catching Anne's attention. Just seeing this single tear made Anne remember how much she missed Eddie and how desperately sorry for being unfaithful to her loving husband who has been nothing but faithful to her.
Just as their lips were about to connect, the wall beside them explodes and they are thrown across the floor. Anne went sliding underneath a table while Eddie went sliding across the floor. Just as he slows to a stop, he sits up and a piece of debris and he struck his head again. He groans and rolls over to the side. Eddie grunts in pain as he sits up on his arms and knees, his head looking forward at the hole seven feet wide and height. He thought that there must've of been some kind of explosion because people from the door beside the hole were running like hell to get away from something. The patients and families in the waiting room followed their example and made a run for it, not a single person stopping to help Eddie up.
"What the hell was that?" Venom panicked. "Whatever that was, it didn't set off my senses."
"That's a good thing, right?" Eddie wheezed and leaned against the wall with one hand. "No senses, no danger."
"Not necessarily because the only two things that can't set off my senses is no danger and…." He left Eddie hanging on the last part as a thought crosses his mind, making him thinking and sign in terror. Eddie heard Venom's frightful terror and it sent shivers down Eddie's throat.
"What is the other thing that can't set off your sense, Venom?"
Anne hit her head against one of the legs of the table. Her head was throbbing and bleeding and a concussion was setting in, making her dizzy. "What was that?" She crawled out from under the table and rested her head on one of the leather chairs.
Eddie limped forward as something stepped into view from the hole. A tall figure with red features stepped through the hole and stood to its full six-foot-ten height and stared at Eddie.
Eddie's throat closed up on him as he sees a red symbiote being with organic axes for hands. The eyes on the red symbiote were wider than Venom's, but just as milky white. The smile it gave looked something like that of a Glasgow smile and the teeth were pitch black. Then there was the symbol on the chest, a spider in the center with a twisted web motif that gave off the black and white illusion pattern, only black and red instead of black and white.
"Oh my god," Eddie whispered in terror. "What are you?"
"Hey there, Eddie!" The voice was loud and booming, sounding demonic and a robotic-like tone that sounded similar to a voice changer. "Told you I would be back. You remember your dear old good friend, Cletus Kasady, right?" The ooze around face pulled away to reveal Kasady smiling like a maniac. His face was covered again and he continued laughing.
"Kasady, you better walk away; I'll kill you myself."
"Unlike you, I carry out my threats. And my name's not Kasady anymore. It's...CARNAGE! Something I promised to unleash upon you and your family and I think I will start with your ex-wife."
Anger was spiking up within Eddie's chest, but he controlled it and mentally signaled for Venom to get ready. "You touch her, and we are going to hurt you really badly, Carnage."
"Who's 'we?'" Carnage asked out of curiosity and possibly out of adrenaline. He has barely been able to use his new symbiotic abilities on anybody as he wanted to save it for Eddie and Anne, and now, he was hoping that he would get to fight two people at once.
"Since you asked," Eddie stopped to wink. "I'll show you who 'we' are." He licked his lips in anxiety and made a fist. "SNAKE!"
"HISS!" The symbiote heard his secret call word. He took over Eddie and the two became Venom once more, growling with his tongue sticking out of his mouth at Carnage.
"Well…" Carnage tilted his head to the side as new knowledge processed through his mind. "What do we have here...Daddy?"
"Hey there, sonny boy," Venom mocked his offspring. "You run around, making a mess out of the town and not cleaning up after yourself? You need to be taught some manners boy."
"You know what, Papa? If you turn Eddie in right now, then maybe I just might forgive you for what you have done to me," Carnage offered. "What do you say?"
"I say 'what the hell have I done to you'?" Venom genuinely had no idea what he has done to his own son to cause him to bond to a serial killer.
"I am going to hurt you so badly, Dad. I'll be sure that after Kasady kills Eddie and Anne, I will save you all for myself. I will make you suffer and make you wish that you were dead."
"We share the same weaknesses."
"I have no weakness. Neither Kasady nor I have any weaknesses. Now enough talk. What I'm about to give to you is not goodguy-badguy love, it's father-son quality time."
