Carnage Unleashed

Issue Three of Four

The Brooklyn Bridge

I have no right to be doing this. Peter fired a web-line soaring high over the jam of cars stuck in their tracks below him. I have a wife. This is kiddy stuff. I'm playing cops and robbers. He considered turning back for a moment, running away. Of course that's not really an option. Not with him out there. The least I can do is find a payphone and call her. Let her know, she deserves at least that much…Jesus, what I put that woman through.

The Parker Home

Mary Jane turned the television off. She couldn't bear to listen anymore and turned to the stack of papers on the table and put pen to paper, doing anything would be better than just waiting, at least if only to get her mind off of the subject. And with the first stroke of her pen, MJ cast it aside and clasped her face in her hands, muffling her cries.

The sudden ringing of the phone jolted her back to her senses and sucking up her grief she walked over to the phone and placed the receiver against her ear, "Hello?"

"MJ?"

"Peter? Oh my God." Mary Jane exhaled in relief, "Peter, I was so afraid; they were saying you were dead."

He snickered on his end of the line, "They like to do that whenever they think they need a ratings boost…I'm okay, I just got a little cut on the head is all."

A silence set in for a moment. There was no need to communicate Peter's intentions, MJ knew him well enough, "Good luck, tiger."

"Thanks…listen, babe, I've got to go."

Brooklyn

The season veteran officer barked into the horn demandingly, "I repeat put your hands up in the air, lie down on your belly an-. Jesus Christ!"

Carnage began to slice and dice his way through the police force that had arrived to halt his progress. "You guys can't be serious." The murdering psychopath mocked, "I took on the Silver Surfer once! Compared to him you guys aren't even an ant hill."

An evisceration here, a decapitation there, the scene was a grisly one. "When is the Army supposed to get here?" One officer cried held up behind his patrol car listening helplessly to the slaughter in progress.

Carnage sliced another policeman in half. "You're pathetic all of you. I should kill your children on principle alone!"

Two web-lines attached themselves to Carnage's back and violently pulled on him slamming him against the exterior of an apartment building. "I think its time you took some deep breaths and relaxed, Kassidy. You're way too high-strung for a guy your age." Peter exclaimed from the rooftop of the tenement.

Carnage spun around in shock and sneered at the arachnid vigilante. He ripped the webbing off his back and with alarming speed crawled up the side of the building and joined his nemesis on the roof. "Didn't I kill you?" He asked pointing to the cut in Spider-Man's mask.

Peter back-peddled trying to keep his distance from the powerful symbiote. "Close but no cigar." He replied even while blood trickled from the open wound.

Frustrated, Carnage sprung forward swinging his two blade-like appendages. Peter escaped with a back-flip and landed on adjacent roof which Carnage followed him onto.

"Why are you doing this, Cletus?" Peter said warily maintaining his distance. "This isn't like the other times you've gotten out. What's this all about?"

For a moment, Carnage took on almost a humble appearance, "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me." Peter responded.

"Never." Carnage whispered painfully, "Stop trying to distract me!"

Peter fired a spray of webbing that enveloped Carnage's upper-torso. While the latter struggled to break free, Peter rushed in and unleashed a massive attack. Carnage screamed in pain as literally dozens of punches found their mark across his face.

He's going to beat us! We can't let him; we have to get to her!

We know!

We're losing!

Focus, Cletus! Focus!

Carnage suddenly nailed Spider-Man in the jaw with his heel and with a roar of anger ripped through the webbing. "We're both thoroughly sick of you, web-head!" He grabbed Peter's ankle and slammed him against the surface of the roof. "Now." Carnage then rammed him against a chimney, "Leave." Against the floor again, "Us." And in an instant of unbridled rage, "Alone!" He flung Peter off the roof. The superhero soared through the air like a comet and smashed right into a building across the street.

He's not dead.

"I know."

You don't have much time.

"I know."

Move, now!

Carnage fled.

Four minutes later

Meanwhile, Peter finally began to come to. When he woke he found a little girl staring at him with a teddy bear in her arms, "Hello."

"Hi." Peter slowly rose up to his knees and looked out the breach from his entry, "Sorry about the wall."

"That's okay." The little girl replied, her eyes as wide as saucers. "Hear this is yours." She said handing him his mask.

Peter froze for a moment suddenly feeling naked and took the mask from her, "Is your mommy or daddy home?"

"Not right now." She answered.

He sighed uneasily, "Listen; let's keep the part about me being without my mask just between us, can you do that?"

"Yes." The girl stood there for a moment while Peter finally stood upright, "I put a band-aid on your boo-boo."

Peter touched the band-aid and smiled, "Thanks." He pulled the mask back over his head, "Did you see where the red man went?"

"That way." The girl said pointing towards some buildings in the distance.

"Sorry about the wall again." He leapt out of the apartment and begun to swing down the street on a direct collision course with Carnage.