The Jackal

Down on the ground, the man the three giant spiders attacked sat soundly at the back of an ambulance van, a blanket around his shoulders and a cup of hot chocolate in his shaking hands as a police officer questioned him for information. It took several minutes to cut him out of the spider silk he was covered in when an anonymous tip told them of an attack on the street, finding him hanging upside down surrounded in cobwebs, but alive.

“So… You got attacked by three giant spiders, and you were saved by a woman wearing a white leotard?”

“Uh huh…” The man answered, sipping from his mug.

“Well… If it wasn’t for the fact the whole city was crawlin with’uhm last week I wouldn’t have believed you.” Leaning down to whisper to the man, the police officer confided in the man. “My wife went that way and the only way to keep her from eating me was to fetch her pigeons from the window to eat. Saved our marriage when she turned back to normal.”

Hearing something swing overhead, the officer and man sitting at the back of the ambulance looked up to see Susan Lower herself to the ground with her three passengers letting go when their feet touched the ground. All three of them covered in black cobwebs wound around them to form make-shift clothing. Seeing the ambulance and the medical response holding spare blankets, the three ran barefoot towards the paramedic to get covered over and share a seat with the man they attacked earlier.

“Uh… Who are you three?”

“THOSE are the giant spiders who tried to attack this gentleman.” Explained Susan, approaching the officer with the grace of a runway model in her high heels. “Seems the vaccine that cured the spider virus didn’t reach everybody. But don’t worry, I cured them.”

“Now?”

“Didn’t you hear the word?” She asked playfully, making another heroic pose for the group of people. “I’m Lady Anti-Venom!”

“I thought J.Jonah called you Mommy Long Legs.”

The trio of people she saved did a spit take and laughed, leaving even the office worker and cop to giggle at the infectious laghter.

“J.Jonah Jameson called you that?! Good luck with THAT lady, knowing that kook he copywrote that name. That’s stuck on you for LIFE!”

Frowning, Susan eyed the drink in the man’s hand and approached him slowly, bending at the waist as she looked the man she saved eye to eye.

“Yeah? Well… He’s full of shit and Spider-Man’s a hero!” Snatching up the mug out of his hands, she drank the hot chocolate all in one gulp and tossed the mug back to his empty hands, exhaling a plume of steam into his face. “It’s Lady Anti-Venom, don’t forget it!” standing straight and turning at her heel, walking away and raising an arm to shoot a web line up into the air to jump and swing away.

“And tell J.J. he can kiss my tight little ass if he thinks he’s getting royalties!”

Seeing her depart, the man held his empty mug and looked to the three former spiders and back to the cop.

“Okay, we’re all in agreement, right? Mommy Long Legs sounds better?”

Murmuring and nodding, even the cop shrugged and nodded.

Swinging away and turning a corner. Susan landed on the surface of an apartment building and sat to look down at her symbiote covered arm. Closing her hand and opening it again, she looked out into the city at night and worried.

“So… A few people are still scurrying around all brundlespider out there. I hope that’s the last of them.”

Aiming her fist out into the streets, she shot a web line out to swing deeper into the city, making her way back home.

*

Somewhere deep in the sewers of New York, a man in an expensive green business suit whistled to himself as he carried a duffle bag over his arm. Having walked into the sewers through the drain reservoir and walking a well-planned path in the dark to a large space that was lit with overhead lights and hummed with the buzz of computer equipment and instruments that looked like they came from a chemistry lab. Setting the duffle bag nearby, the man looked over the security camera he had placed at the entrance and checked what had happened since he was gone, smirking when he spotted three giant spiders scurry out of the sewers and made their way into the city.

Pulling the hood off from his head to comb his fingers through his hair and pointed ears, the green skinned man chuckled and documented the event on a notepad nearby.

“So… Someone got hungry and didn’t want to wait.” He spoke out loud with an accent. “Well, these things wouldn’t remain hidden for long.”

Sitting at his chair and going over the rest of the footage AND his current research notes, he leaned back and crossed his arms in satisfaction. Apart from the three stragglers, his other subjects remained where they were. Making the Jackal smile all the more.

“Honestly, THIS is how you conquer a city Adriana; not all at once, but one bit at a time, unseen, unheard. Under the shadows where no one is looking, and when the time is right. It’s already too late for anyone to stop it.”

Hearing a hiss behind him, the green skinned man stood up and went to his duffle bag to unzip it open, pulling out an entire half slice of a pig from a butcher shop still wrapped in news paper.

“SPEAKING of my ever growing army of instigators, it’s a good thing you are patient in your hunger unlike the other three.”

Throwing the cut of pork out onto the floor of the sewage junction behind him, he didn’t have long to wait when several dozen arachnids the size of wolves quickly scurried into view from the overhead lights and fought over the slab of meat, dragging it into the darkness where the Jackal could hear them hiss and screech over their meal, followed by the crunch of bones.

“She never learned the first lesson when it comes to changing the nature of the world. BIG things have SMALL beginnings.”