Venom's Last Victim

Short story about the villain known as Venom within the Spiderman comic books. I do not claim to own any characters already owned by marvel written within this novel or discussed.

"Brushing my hair, singing the brushing song, hm," Ashley Bradson sang into her haircomb as she danced around in her studio apartment bathroom, naked as the day she was born. She looked over at her miniature boom box to see that it was still precariously perched upon her sink, right next to her toothbrush, toothpaste which she had left open this morning, and the cup she left all of her combs inside, each having a different purpose. The comb she currently was running through her hair was her pre-shower comb, one that was pink and was studded by cubic zirconia along the rim. She smiled at herself, content with her life now. Sure, she wasn't a movie star or some glamourous celebrity, and she lived in a studio apartment with the wages of a pizza delivery driver, but she liked her job. She liked her boss and her co-workers, her friends were fun to hang around and she almost always had a blast window shopping for expensive items that she would never be able to afford. 

"Note to self," she said as she got into the shower stall, "Buy a stool or something to set my boombox on." She sang along to the next song that came on, one that her favorite pop singer sung, and was scrubbing her hair, when she felt the floor shaking. At first, it was only a slight shake, so she paid it no mind, thinking maybe the hot water heater was overreacting again, the one that was directly below her bathroom floor. She felt the ground shake again, this time more violently, and it kept on shaking. She couldn't keep her balance in the shower, so she grabbed onto the shower curtain and it came down with her, several of the metal rings popping out of place as she slipped down into the tub, managing only to lightly bang her head up against the wall. She heard several items outside in her apartment crash to the ground, as well as the boombox and the cup full of combs, a crack splitting open along the middle of the boombox. The whole building felt like it was shaking, even the tub she was laying in began to vibrate under her naked body. An enormous crashing sounded somewhere near the top of the building, and it felt as if the whole building was moving. Through the crack of her bedroom door, from a nearly prone position, she managed to glimpse a large amount of debris from the building above her head fly out and crash into the building to the right of her apartment building.

"Oh f**k, oh f**k, oh f**k," thought Ashley, as the vibrations throughout the building subsided. After awhile, screaming, the crackling of flames and the pounding in her heart were the only sounds in Ashley's head, and the only sounds she cared anything about. She took a few moments to collect herself, to breathe calmly. Obviously, something had crashed into the building just above her, but had managed not to topple the whole building by some miracle. She listened to screams, and slowly climbed out of the shower, turning off the faucet, which was also somehow working as well, and walked over to the bathroom door, opening it. She held a hand to her mouth in awe as she gazed out of her small window across from the bathroom door and stared out of her window. It looked as if her apartment building had decided to jump into the next apartment building and pick a fight, and her apartment building had won, almost completely crushing it's opponent to a giant pile of rubble. She wanted to get dressed, to see what had happened, so she went over to her towel rack, grabbing her pink towel, and rubbing herself dry.

She was staring in the mirror, wondering what could possibly have caused that much destruction, when she heard a plopping noise, something like a large plastic bag filled with soup plopping onto the kitchen counter, just behind her. She saw a puddle of black liquid oozing out of a crack in her ceiling she had just realized was there, and screamed herself in terror. Then, stopping when she realized how absurd it was to scream about a puddle of black goo, turned around to inspect it. It looked like a bunch of oil, only it was... moving. She bent over, looking to see if it had been a trick of the light or something, maybe the traumatic experience had shaken her a lot. Sure, she was alive, and her apartment was, for the most part, intact, but still, two buildings had collapsed just over her head. She remembered George, the guy on the 5th floor she had always hit on, Jennifer and Samantha, the lesbian couple and Thomas, who had always been so rude to her, but that didn't mean he deserved it.

"Yes he did," Ashley heard, or rather, felt, a voice inside her head say.

"What was that," Ashley said, her voice shaken and cracking and her hand vibrated at the speed of, of... The subway station floor, as a subway passed by.

"Thomas was never very kind to you, he always sexually assaulted you, you don't deserve that. He deserved  his death..." The voice sent chills down her spine, it seemed to ooze and flow around inside her head. Just as she wondered if she was going crazy, the oozing black liquid lept from the ground and attached to her hand. She panicked, screaming like a howler monkey, and tried to move her hand away, but couldn't, for some reason. She was paralyzed, but not by terror, though she felt plenty of that. The oozing black liquid slithered up her arm like a snake, winding it's way around her arm, covering it up like a second skin. Slowly, it began to cover her entire body. She wanted to scream, to cry, to run away and hide in a closet, but she could do none of these things. She was no longer in control of her own body. 

She watched the black liquid cover her body like a second skin, first covering one half of her body, and then covering up the second half, covering everything from the neck down. Her head was tilted up in a silent scream, but the scream would not, could not be released from her throat. She felt the liquid bubble at her neck, as if her pitiful resistance somehow was prolonging it's inevitable transformation of the rest of her body, her head, and then it enveloped her head all at once. It expanded into a bubble, and consumed her.

The voice that wasn't a voice spoke again, "I like this new body, it will suit me very well."  She felt herself stand, though she had not commanded her legs to move, and strode over to a mirror. She saw that what she now realizeds was not really a liquid, but more like a liquid-like skin, which was a parasite that had now taken control of her body. It covered her entire body, her entire body, and it definitely accentuated every curve, nook and cranny of it. Forming in the middle of it was an emblemn, a white spider across her chest. Though a thick, white, membrane covered her eyes, she could see as clearly as if she they were uncovered, better in fact. Little light filtered in through the doorcrack, but she could see everything as clearly as if it had been lit by a mid-summer sun. Her teeth, which she saw as this entity curved her mouth into a wicked smile, now had cerrated edges. They reminded her of sharks teeth, only they looked to be far more deadly. Ashley now had a name to this nameless entity, Venom.

Venom, a creature she had heard of in stories, newspapers and magazine articles, one of the most deadly nemesis Spiderman has had yet to face. She had never actually seen Venom in person, and she was very glad that she had not. The last she had heard, the government had funded a project to send the symbiote into space. How had it gotten back?

"Yes, you know of me. This is good, I had hoped to skip the introductions this merging, I'm glad I can do so. You are confused by my reappearance. I will show you how..." but before it could finish speaking, a loud crashing sound could be heard from within the other room, her bedroom/kitchen/living room/dining room. A loud, whirring sound emanated from the other room, and before she could even react, her body had ducked and rolled away from a missile that burst through the door and crashed into her mirror, exploding in a great burst of heat and flames. Ashley heard the first of many screeches to come from the symbiote. The sound gurgled as if coming from underwater and it echoed and reverberated as if it had been bounced around in a canyon before it came out of her mouth. Ashley felt her body crash through the cheap plaster that had once been her bathroom wall and faced Venom's newest opponent.

It was a man, that was true, but he barely qualified as one now as he was encased in a bipedal armor suit, similar to the one Ashley had seen in the movie Alien, with Sigourney Weaver, her favorite actress of all time. The suit was made entirely of a metallic alloy that seemed to shimmer as if it had just been made yesterday, though bits of plaster and brick clung to it, courtesy of the hole it had made bursting through her wall. The entire machine was completely crouched down, it's cockpit hanging in between it's two inverted legs, which were crouched down to accomadate for her 10 foot high ceiling. Instead of two arms, it was adorned with what looked like a large tuning fork and a flamethrower. Tubing and pipes led from the legs and arms to the back, where she could see the faint glow of what could only be an energy pack of some kind. The glass covering the cockpit was green, and though it looked like it could easily be cracked, Ashley was sure that it was shatter resistant. The last feature she noticed had a streaming curtail of smoke coming from one of it's four barrels, what could only be a miniature missile launcher.

"How interesting,"  said Venom, it's voice actually coming out of Ashley's mouth,"I have yet to fight a mechanical foe before, you shall be quite a challenge." 

A voice came out of a speaker that ashley could not see on this small mechanized soldier, "Stand down! I repeat Venom, stand down! I am authorized by the government of the United States of America to use any and all deadly force at my disposal, but I would much prefer to avoid a..." He was not allowed to finish his sentence, for before he could open his mouth to utter a single syllable, Venom had crossed the distance and crashed straight into the mech, shoving the entire mech straight out of her apartment, into the street in front of the apartment building. Venom left the threshold, staring at the mech which lay sprawled out onto the ruined street, which had large chunks of debris and rubble from her apartment buidling scattered about the street, as well as the three apartment buildings adjoining it.

Venom faced it's opponent again to charge it while it lay defenseless, but before it could reach the mech, it had raised it's tuning fork-arm and swung it at the symbiote, throwing back up against a still standing lamppost. The mech stood, it's full height now realized at almost 2 stories high, almost 20 feet, and it swung one of it's legs out at Ashley, or was it Venom. Though she should have been filled with fear, Ashley was only filled with adrenaline and jubilation as her body swung at least 15 feet into the air, dodging the attack and landing to the right of the mech. The mech turned it's flame-unit arm at the creature, turning it up full blast, and also swerving it's body to face it's opponent. Another screech from Venom as it barely managed to backflip out of the flames, Ashley could feel the flames curling up and around her body. Bit's of Venom fell off of her body, to reveal part of her skin, but those bit's quickly filled back up to cover her skin again. She had almost felt naked, which gave even more terror then when she first had been covered by the creature. She was now starting to like having this new skin.

The mech followed Venom as it ran away from the flames, it's speed almost being matched by the Mech, but not quite; the mech was barely trailing behind. Venom ran through the streets of the city, knowing the mech would be reluctant to follow, and would not want to fight amongst other humans. Venom stopped, knowing that it wanted this fight, revelled in the bloodlust, and turned and sprinted into the mech. The U.S. government agent was not expecting this, holding up it's arms to brace as Venom leapt the full 40 feet into it's metallic opponent, grabbing onto the flamethrower and pulling with all of it's might. What it did not realize until the last second was that it's body was now right in front of the missile launcher, and Venom and Ashley could only watch as the man inside the machine pressed a button, and she/it felt an amazing pressure as she flew with tremendous speed towards a nearby office building. Though Venom only had only about a second to react, it magaed to squirt out a cord made from it's oozelike skin and pull it's entire body away toward the opposite side of the street as the missile impacted brick wall and detonated, taking out several empty offices in a blaze of fire. Ashley somehow managed to turn her head toward the blast, to see if anyone had been hurt, but she could see that the offices had all been emtpy, the building complety devoid of life.

Venom looked down at the mech, which now stood directly under it, and simply let go of it's gravity-defying perch and fell onto the top of the machine. It grabbed at the missile launcher, pulling with all it's strength, yanking it off of the hinges that it had been bolted onto with large nails, throwing into a nearby cheverolette, almost killing the person inside of it. The mech turned 180° and shoved it's back into the building behind it, sandwhiching Venom in between two tons of mech pressure and a cement wall. The screech that sounded aquatic was now a guttural growl and Ashley felt herself squirm and shove and push, trying to wriggle herself/itself out of the pressure. The mech ran away and swiveled it's body, bringing the tuning fork to bear and it vibrated at an incredible speed.

And then, Ashley could not hear anything but an intense pain, not hear, feel. She couldn't concentrate on anything else, except for the pain that wracked her body. The pain lifted briefly as the Venom skin lifted off of her skin in the shape of her body. The mech brought the tuning fork closer, and the vibrating noise lifted more of the pain. That was when she realized, it wasn't her feeling the pain, it was Venom. The sickly black oozed began to lift off of her body, and she clawed for all she was worth, tearing it off of her. She didn't care if she was bleeding from the eardrums, she just wanted to be free.

Once the last little bit came off of her foot, the mech's speakers barked out, "Move!"

Ashley did her damndest to move out of the way as he brought to bear his flamethrower arm and turned it on full blast. It felt as if she had stuck her head into the oven, the heat was so intense as she scooted her naked behind out of the way from the flames. She turned to see the symbiote burning up, boiling and writhing in agony.

"F**k you," Ashley screamed, pulling out her middle finger on the creature. No matter which way the symbiote slithered, the flamethrower followed it. The blast wave of flames ended at an open sewer drain, as the last of the oily skin evaporated in a puff of smoke. She gave out an audible sight of relief and collapsed onto the floor, slipping slowly into darkness.

*****

Ashley awoke in a hospital bed, a vaguely familiar sight appeared above her. It was the man in the mech, he was a little short, blonde hair with blue eyes and he was wearing a plain black business suit with a tie and a white undershirt.

"Hello Ms.," He checked the medical chart at the foot of the bed, "Bradson. We're so sorry for any inconvenience that this matter has given you. We have already wired money into your account for damages to your apartment, and any property you may have lost, as well as for the week you have missed your job."

"Week," Ashley said meekly.

"Yes, you've been out of it for a week. I, um... I brought you some flowers," He held out his hand and pointed at a vase next to her bed, daffodils. Her favorite flower, she wondered how he had known that, or if he had just made a lucky guess.

"Thank you, those are so sweet," said Ashley, and they really were. She couldn't remember any time she had ever been given flowers by a guy. She smiled and began to make small talk with him. He told her his name was Ashford, and that he had gone to harvard as a politics major. They chatted for about an hour, and they even split her hospital meal. He made a joke about talking her to dinner for real, and she accepted. 

"Guess this wasn't such a bad day after all," said the voice in her head, very softly.