The Spider Pt. 38

Anna stretched her legs out and took a healthy bite of her breakfast cucumber. She looked up through the dense branches and could just make out the red sunlight of whatever passed as "morning" on Black World.

It still felt a little weird to just be eating a cucumber whole, but as wonderful as May had made her garden be on Black World, there was still nothing to eat except for the apples and various vegetables that May was growing. Some peppers, green beans, tomatoes- and a lot of cucumbers. It seemed that May really liked cucumbers.

"But you won't need anything else!" May had told her some weeks ago. "All nutrition you need in there! Fat, protein, all vitamins. I put it all in there!"

And Anna had to give the woman credit, after weeks of eating nothing but the produce of May's garden, Anna had never felt better.

Still, though, I wouldn't mind like, a sandwich or something.

Anna dropped down to the floor of the garden and used her hand to quickly open up a window to Earth. She looked at her apartment, or what was left of her old apartment.

The police tape was down, and the blood had long been mopped up or however they cleaned up that much blood. Now it seemed that the unit was being rebuilt, there was fresh paint over the walls where the explosion had torn and stained them.

But there was no sign of the people she was looking for.

Well, there was no sign of Heather.

Where was she? Was she still alive?

Anna took another bite of her cucumber, not tasting any of it. She used her hands to make the window show her different scenes in her apartment, looking for a clue that she knew by now wasn't there.

I'll find you, she promised herself for the millionth time. Some day, in some way, I'll get off this God damn dead planet and find you, Heather.

Anna sighed. She knew she would spend the rest of the day scrolling through scenes in the City, looking for a face among the millions, knowing she wouldn't find it.

But what else was there to do, really?

Not paying any attention to her breakfast, her cucumber slipped out of her hands.

It fell into the window on the ground of the garden.

And of course Anna caught it- she was still the Spider, after all.

But it had fallen into the window.

It would have landed on the floor of her apartment back on Earth.

But her hand went into the window to catch it.

That hadn't happened before. She had been blocked by the Detective from being able to pass through her own windows.

She pressed again against the window- it gave a little bit, like a membrane, or like a thin sheet of plastic.

Weird, she thought. When did that happen?

Something has completely changed here, she knew. But what, exactly?

Before she could investigate, however, a breeze rippled across the leaves of the apple trees that towered over her head.

That was something else that didn't happen. There were no breezes on Black World.

Anna stood up. She looked around, narrowing her eyes.

She's here, Anna knew.

Anna started walking towards the end of the garden, where the lush green grass halted abruptly against the hot black sand. When she got there, she pushed the apple tree branches apart- very carefully, because of the thorns- and stepped out.

The red sun was blinding out there. She had forgotten how awful it was.

And off in the near distance, there she was.

"Shit," Anna whispered to herself, taking the other woman in.

What the fuck had he done to her?

Anna studied the Hawk, watching as her long, bat-like wings stretched and contracted, making a slight cooling breeze for her. Anna looked at the long talons where fingertips had been, looked at the black eyes, the cruel smile revealing razor sharp fangs.

"Hello, Anna," the Hawk said cordially. "How are you today?"

"What the fuck did he do to you?"

The Hawk laughed- sort of. Where a woman's melodic laughter used to live, now there was only a breaking screech, loud and piercing, hurting Anna's ears even across the distance.

"Oh, you probably can guess," the Hawk laughed cruelly. "The usual, it seems. He has enslaved me, of course. You knew that already, I can imagine. Discarded most of my humanity at this point, in a process that was both incredibly painful and mentally shattering. Turned me into his perfect killing machine. That's where you come in, actually. That's why I'm here today."

"I guessed. I've been down this road before, you know."

The Hawk pointed a long and distorted finger at Anna, the talon at the end glistening in the ugly sunlight.

"Let me ask you, Anna," the Hawk said quietly. "Is that a cucumber you are holding?"

"What?"

Anna looked down. Yep. She was still holding her breakfast cucumber.

"Uh, yes, it is. It is a cucumber. From the garden behind me," Anna jerked her thumb backwards to indicate where the cucumber might have came from.

She took a bite of it.

"It's delicious," she said, chewing her cucumber.

But that wasn't quite what she wanted to say, though. This was a little weird.

"That actually looks pretty good," the Hawk said. "Must be nice, running around in a beautiful garden with the salad and shit. I don't get any of that. All I have are all the Red Eyes I've been breeding- ugly, stinking creatures. I hate them. I can't wait to send them all to their deaths. I get to breed killing machines, and you traipse around here with cucumbers, huh?"

"Uh," Anna said. "Do you, like, want a cucumber or something? I can get you one, I guess. But I don't think you are here for cucumbers, are you?"

Again that awful laugh.

"Right, right," the Hawk said. "I'm getting distracted. I'm new to being the evil villainess, you know! But you're right, I'm not here for vegetables. I'm here to make you an offer."

Anna took another bite of her cucumber.

"So, very soon, Anna, I'm going to kill you. That's the deal, that's what's going to happen."

"No, you aren't."

"I absolutely am. I am going to rip your throat out with my teeth and drop your corpse at the feet of my Master. No question about that. But I guess I thought to spare everyone a whole lot of trouble. Here's the deal: I can destroy this whole little garden, and everything in it. I know you both think you are safe here, but I can promise you that you aren't."

Anna lowered her hand with the cucumber to her side.

"And in that process, I will kill that woman in there- May? Is that her name? I'll kill her also. Destroy everything getting to you, and then I'll rip your throat out with my teeth and all that. It'll probably take all day, but I'll drink your blood and shit, no question."

"So- what is your offer?"

"Well, not a lot to it, really, just pretty much that you can come over here right now and just get it over with. That way I don't have to destroy the garden, or kill May, and all that- I'll even throw in some immunity for the people you love on Earth. Heather, and the others. If you make things easy for me, I won't hunt her down."

"Fuck you."

"Of course, I'm just a slave, so if the Master tells me to kill Heather then I'll still have to do it, no matter what promises I make right now. I'm sure you understand that. But what I'm saying is that I won't hunt her down on my own volition."

"Very generous of you."

"Well, it sort of is, really. He's been making me go to Earth and kill some people that he doesn't like for whatever reason, and I'm really starting to enjoy it. He made me kill some asshole rapist cop who shot him way back in the day- that was a blast! This fucking cop was actually in the process of raping this really cool chick Alicia, then I showed up and ripped his ass apart! I split him apart like a fucking piñata!"

The Hawk laughed at her own joke. It hurt Anna's ears.

"So, you know, anyway, I really like being the predator now. So you have to imagine that I would enjoy chasing down the people you care about one by one."

The Hawk took a couple of steps closer to Anna.

Anna took one last bite of her cucumber and dropped it on the ground, chewing slowly, watching every move the other woman made.

"But in the interest of getting on with things, let's just get it done now. I'll make it quick; you probably won't really feel all that much. And then May can keep on growing her salad back there. The Detective still cares about her, I think. Well, sort of. He doesn't really have feelings as such anymore that I can tell, but then again, he's told me to kill a couple dozen people at this point and she hasn't ever been one of them, so that's got to mean something."

"Do you know," Anna said evenly, "I've heard I can't even think of how many people give me this same speech. It's not going to happen. There's nothing special about you."

"Yeah? Well, I guess we'll do it the other way, then. That's fine too. I just thought I should say something- like I say, I'm still new at this villainess thing. But maybe you should pick up that cucumber, you know? You might end up needing it."

The Hawk stretched her wings out, spanning a good ten feet.

"I'm bullet proof. I am stronger than a horse. I can rip you apart with one finger, open you up with the flick of a wrist, and watch you scream and try and hold your organs in. I know, I've done it. I can tell you that you won't be able to hold them in."

The Hawk shook her head in exaggerated, mock sadness.

"You're just a woman, Anna. You don't have any, like, 'super powers' or anything. If you think your stupid little karate or whatever is going to hurt me, that's a joke. You don't even have any of your weapons here."

"Actually," Anna said, reaching into her pocket. "I have this knife."

Anna held the knife up for the Hawk to see.

The Hawk screeched with laughter.

"You still have that knife? Is that the one that the Fist used to try and kill the Master with? You saw what happened to her, right? You literally are bringing a knife to a gun fight, aren't you. You've been carrying that around all this time?"

"I certainly have," Anna replied. "And I'm going to use this knife to kill you. This knife right here? This knife is going to put you out of your misery once and for all."

The Hawk stopped screeching.

"Fuck," the Hawk sneered. "That little knife won't even cut my skin. I'm glad I stopped by today after all. I had thought it might be a waste of my time. But I see a scared little woman with a tiny little knife, terrified and ready to let a lot of people die trying to save herself."

Anna held the knife up a little higher, loosely between her thumb and finger, wiggling it back and forth mockingly.

"Just remember," Anna shouted across the distance. "This knife is the one that is going to kill you."

The Hawk shrieked with laughter again, leaping into the air. The laughter was so loud and piercing Anna had to cover her ears with her hands to get away from it.

The Hawk circled over Anna a couple of times before soaring off in the distance, her cruel and awful laughter hurting Anna's ears the whole way.

Anna stepped back into the branches and the leaves, safe for now.