CHAPTER SEVEN: The Takeover



His vision was getting blurry. Every desperate gasp for breath was for naught, and time was running out. The icy-cold hand was clamped around his throat, choking the life out of him. The other seven people, whoever they were, were all beginning to surround him. Captain Payne slammed his right fist into his attacker's chest, and then he threw a left jab to the right eye. His attacker didn't even flinch. He was running out of options. Payne reached into his holster and grabbed his weapon, and then he proceeded to lift it up and blow his attacker's head off.

Now it was one down and seven to go, and Payne barely managed to take out that one. He hopped off of his car and opened the driver's side door. Then, he jabbed the key into the ignition and prepared to pull off. While three of his would-be assailants were piled on top of his car, four of them stood behind it. The car started, and Payne backed it out of the alley, running over the three people behind him. He backed into the street, turned, and drove off.

Payne was sweating heavily and panting for breath at this point. He was so distracted that he did not notice the middle-aged man standing in the street. This middle-aged man happened to be holding a young woman up in the air by her throat. The old man turned and saw Payne's car coming right at him. The old man then proceeded to hurl the young woman's body at the car. The body crashed through the windshield and landed in the passenger's seat amongst blood and glass.

"Holy shit!" Payne screamed at the sight.

As if that weren't scary enough, the seemingly lifeless body had sprung to life, and was now swinging at Captain Payne. He felt sharp nails puncturing the skin on his right cheek. He swung his right arm in a backfist and broke the girl's nose, but she continued to attack. He tried another backfist, but the girl simply caught his hand in her teeth. Payne screamed in agony and pulled away until his hand was free, with blood oozing from the girl's mouth as a result. He then reached for his gun and aimed. However, he was not able to pull the trigger. The girl slapped his hand away, and the gun flew through the open windshield. After that, the girl clawed away at his body. Payne immediately reached and opened his door, and then he dove out of the vehicle as it moved. His body rolled on the ground violently, causing new scrapes and bruises to appear. By the time he had stopped rolling, his eardrums had been assaulted by the ruthless wail of a car's horn. His eyes met a pair of bright white lights, with a couple tons of steel placed behind it. Just as the car was about to strike him, he felt something lift him up. Payne found himself being carried out of harm's way and to the nearby sidewalk. He landed on his hands and knees, with a shadow looming over him. Somebody had just saved him from a dangerous situation.

"Spider-Man, what the hell is going..." Payne turned to face who he thought was the webslinging hero, but who instead turned out to be a person with a gaping wound in his stomach. Whoever the guy was, he had the same blank look as Payne's previous attackers.

Payne attempted to rise to his feet, but a swift punch to the face knocked him backwards before he could even stand. His body was slumped against the wall of a nearby building, and he was now in the very same predicament as before. He now knew what it meant when people said that one would jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. Before the assault could continue, Payne took off on foot, in the direction of the precinct where he worked.

*******

Spider-Man was in the middle of a big swing. He was at the bottom of the swing and was preparing to swing back up. He tugged on the webline and pulled himself high into the air. He propelled himself and allowed himself to freefall through the buildings. There was a flagpole below him, which he grabbed. He used his momentum to swing around the pole two times before finally releasing it and hurling himself back into the air. Upon reaching the apex of his flight, he fired another web at a building. His body followed the law of gravity and fell back to the earth, but like a bungee jumper, he allowed his body to bounce back up thanks to the web and fly straight into another freefall. This time he found himself falling into an alley. He let himself fall until a fire escape flew past him. Then he turned so that he was upside-down in midair and fired a webline at the fire escape. His body jerked, and he hung upside down in the alley. He was about to change his clothes when his Spider-Sense began to buzz lightly. Looking down, or up, depending on how you look at it, Peter could see a young girl running into the alley. She was panting heavily, and in between gasps for breath, Peter could hear her crying. Upon further inspection., Peter recognized who the girl was.

"Jenny? What's wrong?" asked Peter.

Jenny jumped at the voice and looked up. The voice sounded familiar and friendly. Shortly afterwards, she could see Spider-Man lowering from the shadows. He was upside-down, dangling about four feet off the ground from a webline.

"Oh my God...Spider-Man, I need your help. It's...it's Steve..." Jenny said in a raspy voice.

"Your brother? What's wrong with him?" asked Peter.

"Something happened to him...I don't know...But I saw him kill somebody. He was like...a zombie or something..."

"Did he have a really blank look in his eyes?"

"Eye."

"Say what?"

"He only had one eye."

"Jesus...when was this?"

"Yesterday. And there's more people like him. I've been trying to hide from them since then."

"Oh no..." Peter was silent. How was he going to explain to Jenny that her brother was already dead?

"What?"

"Jenny, I'm not really sure how to tell you this but...let me just say, your brother is not responsible for what he's doing. It's just...he's really in a lot of danger right now."

"Can't you help him?"

"I can try. Are you hurt?"

"Not too bad. I'm just tired...and a little scared...okay, I'm really scared. I just don't know what's going on..."

"Me neither, Jenny. Me neither..."

"What am I supposed to do, Spider-Man? I mean...I actually had to watch people die...a lot of them...in just a day..."

Peter could recall the time when he had the same feeling. That day was September 11th. He was there, in the thick of it. He watched two-thousand people die in a matter of hours, and it was a pain that would never truly go away.

"I know what you mean, Jen. But you're a survivor. If anybody's gonna make it through this, it's you. But I gotta get you off the streets while I figure out what's going on." Spider-Man released his web and flipped to his feet. "I think I know where you'll be safe."

"Where's that?"

*********

Captain Payne stumbled through the front doors of the precinct. Upon entering, the first thing he noticed was that all of the lights in the building were off. Also, all of the blinds were closed. Only the smallest bit of sunlight managed to creep its way into the building. The exhausted captain turned to the nearest person to him. He could barely make out the face of the man who stood before him in the darkness.

"Jenkins, is that you? Jenkins?" asked Payne.

He reached for Jenkins's shoulder, and received a punch to the throat in return. Suddenly he could feel several fists and feet converging upon him. His body was being knocked around by countless assailants, until finally he lay still with blood leaking from his mouth and nose, with cuts and bruises all over his body. The lights turned on after that. Captain Payne looked up to see several uniformed men and women who worked with him every day, except now, they were all ready to kill him. Several feet away, perched in a makeshift hammock of red and black, there sat a very demonic looking individual. The individual in question met the captain's gaze with a devilish grin.

"Hey, cap! Pleased to make your acquaintance!" Carnage greeted gleefully.

Two red tendrils grew from Carnage's arms and snaked towards the captain. One wrapped around his body while the other wrapped around his throat, and they lifted him up until he was face-to-face with the symbiotic killer.

"What...what have you done?" asked Payne through gritted teeth.

"I've begun my big farewell party, cap. You, these cops, the people of New York...you're all just party favors."

"You're insane!"

"And you're a complete idiot. Did you really think I didn't already know I was insane? Duh! I've been in several mental institutions, cap. And that's even before I got my stylish red and black pajamas. Y'see, I'm going to be leaving you all very soon. But before I do, I wanna take some company along. So I figure, what the hell, bring all of New York! Five-thousands's company, as they say!"

Just then, Carnage could see something out of the window. Somebody dressed in red and blue was swinging toward the street in front of the precinct. Carnage smiled to himself and used a spawn of his symbiote to cut all of the lights back off.

"Places, people!" Carnage commanded to all of his slaves. He tightened the tendril around the Captain's throat so that he couldn't gather the breath to speak.

*********

Spider-Man, who held Jenny in his left arm, swung gracefully down to the sidewalk. He landed and placed Jenny on the ground, and the two of them looked up at the building.

"I thought you didn't like cops," said Jenny.

"I don't. Nor do I like paparazzo. But there's a guy in here who can help me," replied Peter.

Jenny and Spider-Man stepped into the precinct and immediately found themselves in an unlit room. Spider-Man stopped and grabbed Jenny when he felt his Spider-Sense going off.

"What's wrong?" asked Jenny.

"We have to get out of here," replied Peter.

Just as he turned to leave, a fist met his mouth. He backed away and fired a web at whatever had just struck him. His Spider-Sense went in eight directions at once, so he did what his instincts told him. Peter knelt over Jenny and used his body to protect her while fists and feet bashed him from all directions. Eventually the lights turned back on. When he looked up, Peter saw that several police officers were standing around him. Psychotic laughter could be heard from above. Peter looked up at the sound of the laughter and gasped. Carnage hung from the ceiling in his hammock, holding Captain Payne up with him.

"Well ain't that some shit! I managed to catch a cop and a spider with the same trick within about three minutes! That's gotta be a record! Oh, and it looks like the spider brought a little friend to play with us," said Carnage. His blank white eyes stared deep into Jenny's. Until now, she had never seen Carnage in person. He must have been the most truly terrifying thing she had ever seen.

"Carnage, what the hell are you doing?" asked Spider-Man.

"I don't feel like giving the same speech twice! The captain here will tell you when you're both in hell. Or heaven...who cares, as long as you're not here!" replied Carnage. "You know what? Normally I have a fondness for cutting and stabbing and death by sharp objects in general. But today I think I'll try something a little different. I never really got to play with guns. And waddya know? Here we have a bunch of cops...with guns! Well, you all love to shoot me so much. Now, shoot him!"

Peter looked around. There had to be about twenty cops surrounding him. With every command that Carnage spoke, the officers would act.

"Ready..." they grabbed their guns.

"Aim..." they aimed at Spider-Man and Jenny.

"Fire!"



END OF CHAPTER SEVEN