Chapter 5: Remembering.
New York is such a busy city. So much so that no one ever notices the dreary cemetery on the outside of the tall city buildings. Like central park it is a lonely place that still has natural features, like grass and trees, sticking out from the sides of Queens. Away from Manhattan Island, where Peter Parker usually roams, separated by the Hudson river, yet joined by the Queensboro bridge.
The graves of bygone New Yorkers filled this area of land, for even though most of them died in the city, this was the place that they had all been brought to rest in. A mist rose a few feet above the ground, obscuring anyone's vision if they were to walk through it. The trees were dark and eerie and loomed over the graves as if pointing at the tombs, reminding any living people that were walking past that the dead were still there. It was a full moon and Peter Parker enjoyed the sight of the glowing sphere on the dusk background of the sky. He strolled through the mist with a mobile phone held next to his ear.
"I know, I know…" He told the responder. "Yeah, you told me earlier, but… I've been busy." He excused. "I'm doing it now… Yeah even as we speak… Okay, bye Aunt May." He ended the call and continued his journey. He past a large grave, on a small hill, with the words,
'NORMAN OSBORN III
Unjustly slain by the vigilante,
Spider-man.
A credit to the business world,
A conqueror of New York's financial empire,
Founder of Oscorp,
Son of Norman Osborn II
Father of Harry Osborn I.'
, engraved on the large, stone surface. Peter was once again reminded of Norman Osborn's death.
'Peter… Don't tell Harry.' A dying voice whispered in his head. 'Don't tell Harry. Don't tell Harry!' The voice grew louder and Peter could still hear Norman coughing up blood and that same blood splatter over the wooden floor he died on. Peter stared at the monument.
"Don't worry Norman." He said deeply. "I won't." Peter continued to stare at the grave for a few more minutes and then continued along the graveyard's path. He stopped at a small grave a few feet away from the road that cut through the middle of the graveyard. He looked around at how the environment was different from Norman Osborn's funeral. Instead of a clear afternoon with trees that were full of vegetation and leaves there were bare trees with rough looking bark and clouds of fog that swept through the grounds of the cemetery. He knelt down and retrieved nine roses from a pocket inside his coat. "Hey Uncle Ben." He greeted the stone tablet in front of him. He looked up at the words carved in to the rock.
'BEN PARKER
BELOVED HUSBAND AND UNCLE.'
"Sorry I'm late." He apologised to his deceased relative. "But I've just had an entirely more complicated life thrown at me." He started placing three of the nine roses that he held, down on the ground, in front of the gravestone. "But then again you'd probably know that, lying up there on the big mattress in the sky." Peter looked out and blew through his closed lips. "I wonder where I'll be a year from now." He said. He looked back down and wore a confused face. "What a weird thing to say." He smirked. He turned to his left and saw a bigger gravestone about a foot away from his uncle's. "Hey mom, hey dad." He said, crawling over to the sepulchre. Carved on the grave were Peter's parents' names.
'Mary Parker
darling WIFE AND MOTHER.
RICHARD PARKER
treasured HUSBAND, BROTHER AND FATHER.
TAKEN BEFORE THEIR TIME.
Their WORK CREATED A BETTER WORLD FOR THE SON WHO NEVER KNEW THEM.'
He continued placing the remaining six roses on the floor before the grave. "How's life in heaven? How're you doing up there?" A gust of wind blew through the cemetery and carried an issue of the Daily Bugle as well as some rubbish. The broadsheet hit the photographer in the face. He pealed the paper from his features and read the cover. It read, 'SURVEY SAYS People Are 'Proud' of wall-crawling menace.' Peter smiled at the paper, and at the photograph of himself in costume on the front page. "Thanks guys." He folded the paper up and placed it under his arm. "I love you." He told his departed family. "And thanks for giving me all that you have given. Whether it's life," He smirked at his parents' grave, "or a home and education." He continued looking over at his uncle's grave. "Thanks." He turned around and marched off in to the shadows of the burial ground.
Without going three yards, Peter walked along a piece of earth that felt soft and made his feet sink slightly.
"Yuch." He said, quickly running off the weak ground. He turned back to see a hand thrust from the floor and pull its way out from underneath. Following the arm came the body of a grown, adult man with a vampire's face. He groaned as he pulled himself up and dusted off the earth that covered his clothes.
"Oh man!" He moaned. "I can't believe they buried me in this." He commented on the white tuxedo he was wearing. "Hey." He said calmly, looking up at Peter's bored looking face.
"I didn't know you actually came out of the ground." Peter murmured to the vampire. The demon stared back at him, feeling really confused.
"How do you know…"
"Long story." Peter interrupted, turning around and twisting a pointed branch off a tree behind him. "I'd much rather kill you right now." He said.
"You and what army?" The vampire plunged itself forward and tried to grab Peter's neck. Peter dodged and pulled the stake back.
"I'm not in a talkative mood." He droned. "So I'm going to do this." He said punching the vampire in the cheek as the vampire's face turned to see him. The vampire flew backwards in to the tree. He jumped forward again and went to punch the photographer. Peter blocked with his right, stake holding arm and punched again with his left. The vampire shook off the pain and leapt at the man once more. Peter dived under the vampire's flying body. He turned around. His face took on a metamorphic change. When he turned to see the vampire, his face was angry, with focused eyes and gritted teeth, but what he saw made his face appear horrified. The vampire had fallen over the cemetery grounds and had crashed in to the Parker tombstone. His parents' tombstone. The vampire's collapse had smashed the gravestone all over the muddy ground.
Tears crept from Peter's eyes as he looked away briefly. He turned back angrily and leapt at the vampire.
"You bastard!" Peter shouted. Grabbing the vampire and holding him above, by the shoulder and stared furiously at the vampire's whimpering face. The demon fidgeted in the photographer's grip and screamed as Peter plunged the wooden pole in to its chest. The vampire exploded with dust and left Peter panting on the half-liquid surface.
In the back of his head, Peter felt his spider-sense tell him that he was not alone. He looked up in to the trees in front of him and saw several pairs of eyes staring back at him. The noise of his breath lowered as he saw the bodies of the eyes lurk out from the shadows. He grasped the stake, firmly.
"Okay." He growled. "Who's first?" He saw one of the vampires approach him gradually. "It doesn't matter which." He continued. "I'm going to kill you all anyway." He whispered threateningly. He leapt forward, punching the vampire's fanged face.
"So this demon is in someway connected to Peter." An extremely tired Buffy asked her former boyfriend. Angel nodded to her as they walked down the warm, dark streets of Chelsea. "How did you find that out?" She asked. She watched the homeless people in the streets, some were lying down, sleeping, and some were begging passers by for money.
"I don't know why its linked with him or how." Angel began to explain. "I couldn't access the confidential files about that date in the police system. It just said that Peter was there, so really the only person who knows what actually happened that night is Peter."
"And from the way he wrote the words, 'Don't forget!' On his calendar and how he found strength to walk off after a leg wound…" Xander commented, "… I'm guessing what happened that night was something big." Behind the three of them walked the scoobies.
"Has anyone wondered how Peter got those powers?" Kennedy pushed her way to the front of the group and looked back at the others.
"I bet he and his pet tarantula fell in a volcano when he was small." Xander's comic book loving childhood personality dreamed. He looked up, smiling and eyes closed. When he looked back down at the rest of the scoobies they all looked at him as if he'd fallen from Mars.
"Peter told me that he was bitten by a genetically engineered spider." Giles corrected him. "He told me when we first went to his apartment." He and the other scoobies began to walk again. They were heading for Flat Iron.
"Oh now that's a lot cooler!" Xander shouted excitedly.
Angel stopped on the end of pavement, staring up at a triangular building.
"Angel?" Buffy asked. "What is it?"
"Well, well, well." Angel said, reading the name of the building. "The Daily Bugle. Better go tell Jameson what's happened. I can smell his shaving cream from here, he must have a terrible barber. Either he's working really late or coming in really early." He said, running across the street and slowing down to enter the building. The scoobies waited outside.
Buffy took a few minutes, walking through the street and looking up at the gigantic buildings. The size of these structures dwarfed her and made her realise how minute she was in the world. Then she suddenly began to think of someone she hadn't thought of for a while, her mother, Joyce Summers. Buffy's cheeks became cold as the moisture of her tears hit the air. She sniffed away her memories and went back to her friends.
"You come here often?" Kennedy joked to the other adventurers. After a few minutes, Angel returned laughing to himself.
"Angel? What's so funny?" Willow asked the vampire. Angel tried to tell her through his laughter.
"I've fought demons, vampires and monsters from the deepest pits of Hell…" He began, still laughing, "… but I've never seen a face as angry as J. Jonah Jameson's." They all laughed with him. They all began to walk again. Buffy began to wonder something as they headed for the centre of Manhattan.
"Angel?" She asked, he looked back at her, interested. "We're all staying in a hotel in Midtown. Where are you and Spike staying?" Angel looked South towards the Financial district.
"There's a Wolfram and Hart office and hotel down South." He nodded towards the South. "We've been staying there for the last three days. They've given us all kinds of luxuries, like room service and limos."
"Wait!" An enraged teenage voice yelled out from the back of the group. The scoobies all turned around to see a frustrated looking Dawn rubbing her ankles and glaring at Angel and Buffy. "You mean I've been walking around the vampire, demon and criminal filled streets of New York when you," she pointed at Angel, "could just call for a limousine anytime you wanted?"
"Yeah." Angel said, shocked at the amount of decibels being produced by this tiny, teenage girl.
"Then why didn't you get one to pick us up?" Dawn shrieked at her sister's ex.
"I'm used to patrolling on foot." He excused. "Look, Dawn if you want a limo to come and pick us up then just watch." He pulled out a cell phone from his jacket and dialled a five digit number. Within seconds a limousine with the letters, 'W&H,' painted in sparkling blue on the white door. "Now how cool is that?"
Dawn, Kennedy, Tracey and Xander clambered in to the limo and waited for their friends to follow. Buffy was about to enter the car when she noticed something about Angel's face. He seemed distracted by something. He was staring but Buffy could tell that it wasn't his sight he was using.
"What is it?" She asked. Angel continued to stare.
"Don't you hear it?" Angel asked, he could hear a viscous creature running through the city somewhere. He could hear its drool smack against the floor and its fur ruffle in the wind. He could hear its angry snarls. He could even smell the stench of the creature's slobber drenched fur. "That's a werewolf." He said, starting to run in the distraction of the evil-driven creature.
Peter staggered through the gateway of the cemetery, clutching his left elbow.
"That's a bruise." He said, rubbing his arm. He bent forward and lifted his denim trouser leg. He pulled back the bandage and could see that his leg wound was already, rapidly healing. "God bless spider-stamina and healing." He walked off with a slight limp, (His pace was also improving). Before leaving the area he turned back and looked up at the large, black gates of the graveyard. He was thinking about how he spends too much time in graveyards and is surrounded by too much death. He then strolled off, with an easier stride. "Who would have thought there'd be so many dead guys in a cemetery?"
