Now…

“Listen, Gabe, I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Can’t we just go…?”

The bearded man in the Yankees cap grunts as he jimmies the window up another inch, enough to slide his crowbar between the frame and the sill. “Come on, Jen,” he says, levering the window fully open with a shove. “Too many horror movies? Not every old house is filled with ghosts and ghouls, you know. Just the ones in Hoboken.”

“I’m serious. Whatever we find here, do you really think it’ll be worth it?”

Gabriel Mays sighs. At his shoulder his girlfriend Jennifer Webb – blonde and blue-eyed and the kind of girl who looks like she should be entirely too nice for this kind of thing – is looking on miserably. The house is dark, inside and out. There’s no moon tonight, and the gardens of the property are lined with yews, blocking out the light from the city streets beyond. The glow of their hand-held torches, which had seemed sufficient earlier that day, are now exposed as rather meagre. Behind the window the shadows are thick as velvet, the air warm and musty. Gabe hesitates. Truth be told, he isn’t too enamoured with the prospect of proceeding either. But with them being evicted from their apartment at the end of the week unless they can stump up the three months of unpaid rent they owe, what choice do they have?

“Look, it’ll be simple,” Gabe murmurs, soothingly. “This Jacques knows what he’s talking about, okay? The owner’s some rich old goat who’s out of town for one night only, but he’s too miserly – or too senile – to hire a guard. No dogs either, so the alarm wires we cut were the only security defence. The joint’s been cased and mapped out; it’s straight in and straight out, we take the loot to Jacques, he gives us our dough, job done. We only got this gig because your brother knows we’re on hard luck street, right? And because he knows Jacques and told him we were professionals. If we screw this up, he’ll just hire someone else, and then where does that leave us? Homeless, that’s where.”

Jen bows her head. “I know,” she says, softly. “I know. But I can’t help it. Something about this house, it… it just feels wrong.”

Gabe grimaces. He should tell her the truth, of course. He should tell her that he feels the same way. But their apprehension is irrelevant. Again: what choice do they have? Without another word he and Jen push the empty holdalls they’ve carried from their car – four in all – through the window, then climb in after them.

Twin torch-beams cut through the darkness. Gabe references a folded floor plan in his hand, even though he’s already spent the best part of two days memorising the schematic layout the mysterious but resourceful Mister Jacques has somehow secured for them. He leads the way out of the nondescript room they’ve emerged in and down a corridor to another door. Jen takes the limelight here; anxious as she is, she still possesses a steadier hand when it comes to picking locks and she has the door open in a fraction of the time it would have taken her partner. The space beyond is vast, comprised of two good-sized rooms that have been condensed into one with their adjoining wall removed. This hall is pitch black, a wholly interior area with no windows, and the atmosphere is oppressive. The torch-beams dance haphazardly over row after row of rectangular glass display cases of varying sizes, some on plinths, some on tabletops, some so large that they’re free standing. The contents of these cases range wildly from innocuous items such as leather-bound books and wooden carvings to more unusual – and ghoulish – pieces, including lacquered skulls and medieval torture instruments. None of the cases are adorned with plaques or informative signage of any description, which isn’t surprising; this is a private collection, not a museum exhibit. A private collection that’s about to be rudely disassembled…

“No individual alarms,” Gabe reports, inspecting four cases and plinths in his immediate vicinity. “Jacques was on the money. This guy’s a senile old loon. Probably never crossed his mind that someone would want to rob him blind.”

The pair of them go to work, each armed with glasscutters and a list of explicitly prescribed artefacts to steal. Within twenty minutes they’ve filled each of the four holdalls they’ve brought; now there’s just one item remaining. As Gabe sets about a glass-topped table containing a gruesome specimen of bejewelled thumbscrews from the Romanov Imperial Dynasty of 18th Century Russia, Jen finds herself leaning against a large case that is some seven-foot long by three feet deep, elevated to waist-height. The case reminds her of a coffin even before she looks inside and sees the mottled green skeleton lying within, stretched out on a plane of dark red velvet. Jen stifles a squawk, then admonishes herself. Actually, as macabre as it is, she finds the skeleton rather fascinating. She leans down for a closer look, specifically at the skull, her face just an inch away from the surface of the glass…

…and that’s when she sees movement in one of the skull’s vacant eye sockets. She freezes, her heart rising in her throat. The movement flickers again – and then, something crawls out of the socket, something black and amber in colour, something with a distinctive body and a pair of trembling wings. It’s… a bee? Yes. An enormous bee! Jen panics and stumbles backwards, her glasscutters flying from her grasp. They fall heavily against the case with a loud crack, shattering the glass along one edge. Halfway along an adjacent row of exhibits, Gabe whirls at the sudden commotion.

“Jen, what the hell? What did you - ”

“Gabe! Gabe!”

He sprints to where Jen is cowering in a corner, her whole body shaking. He stares at the broken case, sees the skeleton – and sees the bee, now emerging from the crack in the glass and commencing to emit a strange, low, continuous buzz.

“Jesus, look at the size of that!” Gabe mutters. “Let’s get out of here. Grab the stuff and let’s go. Come on!”

Jen finally snaps out of her stupor and, shouldering the four holdalls between them, she and her partner exit the antiquities hall at pace. They hurtle back along the corridor and to the room, and the window, through which they gained entrance to the old house. Even before they’ve reached this point, however, they’ve both of them become aware of a rapid and unmistakable escalation in that strange buzzing sound. It’s no longer the drone of just one bee; in the space of a minute it’s multiplied, now a high, deafening rasp, emanating from all directions at once. Which, of course, is impossible… right?

Gabe reaches the window first. Jen almost crashes into the back of him when he skids to a halt. She thinks she hears him cry, “Oh my God!” but she can’t really distinguish anything over that ever-rising whine in the air. It’s only when she looks past her partner and sees the window ahead sheathed in a furry, shivering mass of black and gold, and the quiver of hundreds of wings, that she realises what’s stopped him in his tracks. Bees.

A swarm.

And this is when the buzzing drone suddenly changes pitch, appropriating the essence of a voice – a voice that declares, with no little delight, “At last. At last! For we have been caged for too long, nein…? And now the time has come to kill again!”

Jennifer Webb screams again, and this time her boyfriend Gabriel Mays accompanies her. These screams don’t last long, but that isn’t due to any mercifully quick death on behalf of the swarm that now engulfs them – it’s simply that it’s difficult to make the necessary sounds when one’s mouth and throat are full of bees…

Our destination turns out to be a private terrace house on West 26th, eight blocks south of the market. The Wasp initially flits ahead, far quicker than me, but after conducting a practised reconnoitre she doubles back to fly at my shoulder. Her expression is now grim; with each street we pass, me swinging on silver web-threads, I appreciate why. The skies around us have grown thick with insects by the time we reach our objective, and the roads and sidewalks below have all but vanished beneath a carpet of wriggling legs and black bodies, a living flood. We can hear screams and sirens. There are hysterical faces pressed up against the glass inside hundreds of windows, especially those at ground level. I’m unusually quiet; the sight of panic always quells my natural inclination to indulge in nervous chatter.

We draw up at the perimeter of the residence, me swatting a portion of wall clear of bugs so I can perch whilst my companion lands on my shoulder like a black and gold Tinkerbell. She looks tense and a little horrified, but there’s also a sense of excitement about her. I think I recognise these qualities because they’re so familiar to me. I like Jan, always have, and she’s been around as long as I have, which is to say forever. She can come across as flighty and girlish, but beneath that façade there’s a keen steel; I’ve seen her take charge of The Avengers and order around guys like Thor, Iron Man and Captain America, and I’ve watched them obey without question. Best of all she’s a true adventuress. I can bitch and moan about being Spider-Man ‘til the long shadows but ultimately I enjoy what I do. I love it, in fact. Janet van Dyne does too. I’m glad we’re heading into this situation side-by-side, and I think she probably is as -

“Are you okay?”

I frown beneath my mask. “What?”

“You’re very quiet. You’ve usually made at least three annoying and inappropriate jokes by this time.”

“Annoying?”

She shrugs her miniature shoulders. “I’m just saying, is all. Look, if this is freaking you out I can handle this alone. Or you could go and find Thor or someone, tell them I may need back-up…”

I bristle. “You know, I’ve never liked you.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” I stare across at the house in front of us, some hundred yards distant across an expanse of lawn that’s seething with a two-foot-deep tide of bugs. The residence itself has become a hive, rendered almost shapeless – and eerily active – by a coating of bees and wasps. The air all about us is filled with a high, hissing drone. I think I’m beginning to understand how arachnophobes and apiphobes and all the other kind of phobes feel. Even anoraknophobes.

“Ah, what a delight! An old friend come to take tea, ja…?”

This declaration erupts without warning from amidst the general drone, but it isn’t formed by any human voice – rather the buzz of the bees somehow warps, coalescing to frame recognisable words. Words that, uncannily, are tinged with a rich Germanic accent. At the sound of it I suddenly comprehend the identity of the enemy The Wasp and I are facing here. It really should have been obvious.

“Fritz von Meyer,” I snap. “That was his name. At least, it was before he became this.”

The Wasp, now taken wing and ready for battle, glances down at me. “There’s a person in there?”

“Only in the loosest possible sense. Von Meyer was a Nazi war criminal who was allegedly consumed by colony of mutated bees, only for his consciousness to be disseminated throughout the horde in the process. Now the only thing that remains of his human body is a preserved skeleton, which the sentient mass employ as their hive – forming the creature known as Swarm.”

The Wasp arched a finely manicured eyebrow. “An undead Nazi made out of mutant bees?”

“Yes.”

“An undead Nazi. Made out of mutant bees.”

“Yes. You have something to say?”

“No, no. It’s fine. It’s just… well, your rogues gallery? It’s generally a bit… odd, isn’t it?”

I snort. “Um, hello? Egghead? The man with the head shaped like an, oh, what was it… an egg?”

“That was one of Hank’s.”

“Uh-huh. Because you were all about Trago, The Man With The Magic Flute, right?”

She glares at me, hands on hips as she hovers. “It was a trumpet.”

“Oh? I stand corrected…”

The insects all about us are massing in frenzy now – swarming – and then, before our eyes, the dark cloud parts… and disgorges not one but two humanoid figures in our direction!

“A pair of opportunistic wretches,” the disembodied voice of Swarm announces, “awakening me from my slumber and thereafter providing sustenance for my queen, the one surviving member of my original colony. These specimens became the first victims of my wrath – but, now I’ve gathered a new swarm, by no means the last! Destroy him, my drones – destroy Spider-Man!”

The Wasp twirls at my shoulder, her expression cross. “Well, how rude!” she exclaims. “What am I, the side order of onion rings?”

“Actually… I don’t think he knows you’re here,” I murmur. “He sees the world through his bees, and they don’t seem to categorize you as a threat – which is just the advantage we need. Von Meyer’s a royal egotist; I’m thinking the only reason he’s not attacking us – me – straight on is because he can’t. He’s gathered this swarm to protect himself.”

“So somewhere inside that mass our primary enemy is vulnerable?”

“I’m just guessing. It may be a trap.”

The Wasp waves a hand dismissively. “Oh, pooh. What’s life without a little unpredictability? You take care of these two – and let me worry about Swarm!”

See? There she goes with the orders. And, just like Cap and Thor and all the others, I’m hopping to it without a moment’s hesitation…

As The Wasp zips away, heading for the black mass ahead, I concentrate on spinning myself an impromptu web-cocoon about my body, one that’s thin enough for me to breathe through and manoeuvre in but which is simultaneously hardy enough to protect me against the vicious stings of the swarm that now engulfs me. The two figures who lead the attack are crude versions of Swarm himself, skeletons given animated form by the sentient hive-mind of bees that gathers about their bones; as such, my usual repertoire of spasmodic leaps and flips interspaced with the odd kick to the breadbasket or haymaker to the jaw are rendered spectacularly useless. Not that I don’t try – after all, a guy can always get lucky, even me – but as I duck and weave among the buzzing mass I’m more concerned with steering clear of suffocation than anything else. That, and getting into position so I can unleash… a web net!

“Hang on to your beehives, little hummers,” I cry, “it’s your friendly neighbourhood apiarist!”

I smother one of the humanoid drones with a silver blanket, and even though the majority of bees that comprise my adversary’s body are swift enough to escape, the skeletal foundation is firmly snared. I turn my attention to my second foe – but at that moment the ground beneath me rears up and wraps itself about me. I can’t help but shriek as a living tide of spiders, ants, termites and who-knows-what else drags me down, pinning my arms to my sides – and leaving me helpless as Swarm’s remaining lieutenant rushes in, ready to inflict a flurry of stings in an attempt to breach my web shield…

The daughter of a world-renowned cosmologist, Janet van Dyne had only been a slip of a girl – barely nineteen – when she had first met and fallen in love with an associate of her father’s, biochemist Henry Pym. Their affair had coincided with the beginning of the Age of Marvels, an ostentatious media epithet for that period in which super-powered individuals such as the Fantastic Four and the X-Men had first emerged, and Pym himself had been fascinated with unlocking the secrets of the human genetic code. Discovering a strain of sub-atomic particles that could affect both organic and inorganic matter alike, creating a spatial molecular field that allowed anything within it – including the human form – to expand or condense within a static environment, Pym effectively created a means for he and Janet to become miniaturised. Consumed with a thirst for adventure, Pym had adopted the identity of Ant-Man whilst Jan had fought alongside him – against costumed villains and extraterrestrial invaders – as The Wasp.

That was a long time ago. A lot has changed since then. Foremost among this progression is The Wasp’s evolution from that fey lass to a woman, intelligent and capable – and not overawed in the slightest by being faced with the nigh-impenetrable cloud of insects that stands between her and her quarry.

Of course, it might be a different matter if Swarm was aware of her presence and her intentions, for then he would issue telepathic instruction to engage her; as it is, The Wasp is able to infiltrate the mansion via the same window as poor Gabriel and Jennifer the previous day and make her way to the antiquities hall at the end of the corridor. The world is black, a churning, whirring hive of bees. It’s admittedly unsettling. But The Wasp has seen worse and lived to tell the tale. When she arrives at the hall, emerging from the body of the swarm into an unexpectedly calm environment at the eye of the storm, she is fully focussed on the task at hand.

The skeletal remains of Fritz von Meyer are located at the heart of the room. Standing, swathed in a wrap of burgundy velvet – the lining of his display case, now pressed into service as a makeshift cloak – he is predominantly still merely stone-white bones and skull, but there is evidence of his uncanny lifeforce in a small colony of bees nesting in his eye sockets and rib cage. One particular bee, larger than the others – the queen – sits majestically upon his crown. The Wasp pauses to consider her options, but in that moment von Meyer’s skull twitches, and the bees crammed into his eyes and mouth begin to vibrate.

“I sense an interloper,” rasps the voice of Swarm. “So the accursed Spider-Man sends a minion against me…?”

The Wasp purses her lips. “Try friend and colleague,” she barks, bringing the villain’s attention into focus.

“You don’t fear my sting, fräulein?”

“Not in the slightest. You, on the other hand, would be well advised to beware mine.”

And with that, The Wasp flares her wings and darts forward – just as von Meyer bids his drones to takes flight!

Shrunk to a half-inch in length, The Wasp’s size is on a par with that of each of the dozens of bees that now swarm about her, yet she remains undaunted. Not only is she faster and more manoeuvrable than her enemies, her physical strength increases in direct relation to how much she reduces her size and she can also unleash powerful bursts of bioelectricity from her hands – her own personalized wasp stings. The sheer number of the bees massed against her is problematic, but individually they’re inferior; blast after well-aimed blast, to their eyes or wings or furry underbellies, despatches one after another as The Wasp weaves among them, angling her lithe body between their clumsy attacks. She is buffeted on more than one occasion, and once an insect’s sting almost stabs her squarely through the abdomen only for her to shift her weight into her hips and veer clear at the final moment… but just once. Thereafter there’s nothing to stop The Wasp carving her way through the wall of buzzing black drones and descending towards the cadaver of Fritz von Meyer, home now to just a single bee once more: the queen, always the queen, monstrously large in the eyes of her miniature aggressor.

“An undead Nazi made out of mutant bees,” Janet van Dyne murmurs, shaking her head. “Honestly, you couldn’t make it up, could you? And to think Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee used to be my favourite orchestral interlude when I was younger…”

The queen takes wing, black and furious. Jutting her abdomen she thrashes her legs and stabs forth with her sting but The Wasp is too fast, ducking beneath the attack and alighting upon her adversary’s thorax, just behind her head and between her forewings. “You know,” she says, grabbing hold of the bee’s sensitive antennae, “back when Hank and I first got together and he was studying insect biology it would’ve never countenanced hurting you. But, sometimes, I guess a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. Tally ho, your highness!”

The Wasp yanks on the queen’s head then, steering her down towards the skull of Fritz von Meyer – and then unleashes an unprecedented torrent of bioelectrical sting, causing the bee’s entire body to spark and twitch and then explode just as it enters von Meyer’s eye-socket! The Wasp hurls herself clear, whirling gracefully upon her outstretched wings, her face grim. And all around her the bees that had constituted the entity known as Swarm suddenly erupt in an alien scream…

I’m drowning in a sea of spiders, ants and wasps when I hear – or, perhaps more pertinently, I feel – Swarm’s drying shriek undulate through his drones. The mass clasps at me, with a desperate hate, but it’s suddenly weakened; gathering my strength I fight back, slamming my fists into a solid trunk and scattering bugs in all directions. The air is black, filled with legs and wings. I itch all over. I am so going to be needing therapy after this. But, one instant I’m hammering my way through wave after wave of arthropoda…

…and the next the swarm falls away, dispersing above and beneath me, leaving me staggering and twitching in circles in the middle of a lawn, with a grim old house casting me in its shadow.

I hear the sound of vibrating wings and I whirl, fists raised. But then The Wasp grows to full size before me, touching down on firm ground, and I all but collapse into her arms.

“Are you okay?” she asks softly. I shiver.

“Well, I think I’ll be sleeping with a can of Raid on my bedside table tonight if that answers your question. Swarm…?”

“Just a pile of mouldering old Nazi bones. No more bees, mutant or otherwise.”

“Think we can swap bad guys? Trago and his trumpet suddenly sound really appealing.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says. “Until then, I feel it’s my duty as your conscience to convince you to return to that market and let all those good people know they can start trading again…”

And Janet van Dyne smiles. It really is a lovely smile. I sigh. How can I resist?

NEXT ISSUE:

SPIDER-MAN...and NIGHTCRAWLER

If you’d like to give feedback on this series, positive or critical, please don’t hesitate to drop a line to ameriades@hotmail.com.

For those interested, a list of my fanfiction can be found at http://meriadesfiction.livejournal.com

Thanks for reading!

- Meriades Rai