Catch Me // Spider-Man (BOOK 1)

Chapter 9 - Surprise, surprise

"When you get home I'll explain everything," Peter promising over the phone to clear up all the questions I had after the events with Dr Connors.

"Well it might take me a while. The traffic is crazy, literally bumper to bumper on the bridge."

"Hey, do you know what the hold up is?" I asked the taxi driver whilst still on the phone to Peter. We were literally going nowhere. On a Saturday night you're used to some kind of delay, but nothing like this.

"I'll just go take a look."

The driver got out of the car and starting walking forward on the bridge, hoping he'd get a better look as to the cause of the delay. As I watched him through the front windscreen from the back of the car I heard something, something that made my nerves set on edge. It was the sound of people screaming.

"Peter something isn't right," I spoke into the handset. People were running past me, coming from all directions and with fear in their eyes, the few cars that had any available space to move crashing into one another.

"What is it?" I'd never heard him more panicked. It was odd, even with all the commotion I still noticed something weird about the audio coming back to me through the phone. Sure there was Peter's voice but on top of that some strange whooshing sound, like wind in a storm.

"Oh my god, there's something on the bridge."

"Peter?" I looked down at the phone when I got no answer from him and saw what I hoped wouldn't be the case. My battery died.

Deciding it was best to follow in the direction where everyone else was headed, I took a deep breath and ran as fast as my feet would carry me. Trying to navigate around the abandoned cars and trucks was a task all in itself, without the fear of what was coming our way on top.

I had run half way across the bridge, people all around me moving just as fast if not faster than I was. My leg still ached a little from the mugging so it was hindering my efforts slightly, I had to push past it though, had to concentrate of getting out of there.

"SOMEBODY HELP ME?" I heard a man scream from just behind me. I've got to admit for a split second I thought about carrying on and pretending I hadn't heard, survival instinct and all that. I couldn't though. I couldn't ignore someone calling for help.

"What's wrong?" I asked with ragged breath, reaching the man with terror in his eyes.

"My son's trapped in the car. I got out and as I was going around to get him that van slammed into us, the doors are jammed." The man was close to hysterics, he couldn't stand still, couldn't concentrate.

"What's his name?" My eyes darting between the man, the boy, the people rushing by and the ever closer crushing noise which was coming our way.

"Jack."

"Ok. Hi Jack, I'm Lauren. Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so." He looked so scared and he had reason to be.

"We're gonna get you out ok?" I put my full attention on the young boy inside the back of the car, trying to come across as normal as possible.

Looking around me I tried to find something that I could use to smash the window in, Jack's Dad still trying to prise one of the doors open. It was whilst doing that, that something caught my vision up ahead. It was the thing that had everyone so terrified, it was the thing that was quickly heading our way.

"Is that a lizard?" I said out loud as much for my benefit as anyone else's. It literally was just that, a giant mutant lizard.

It was ripping cars apart with it claws, almost as if it was looking for something. It was angry and on some kind of warpath. It wasn't going to stop until it got what it wanted, whatever that was.