Orson: A Paragon Society Novel Read online

  I jumped up. "Wait. Calm down."

  "Calm down?" She pointed at my arm. "It looks like your arm was crushed under a car."

  "I already had it checked out. And I'm good." I needed her to calm down, so we could finish our conversation and I could get out of there.

  "When and by whom?" She stopped at the base of the stairs and crossed her arms.

  "I went to the hospital right after -" I almost said accident. "Right after it happened. They x-rayed it, and a real doctor checked me out. It looks worse than it is. I promise."

  "Orson, what am I supposed to do? You're not a kid anymore. I can't ground you. You're eighteen years old, but this stunt — it was childish and stupid. And you're not a stupid person."

  "I know. I know. I regretted it instantly. I really did. I'm sorry I upset you."

  "What about your job? People get fired for things like this." She was calming down. I think my messed up arm transformed all the angry energy in to worried energy, and she was now almost back to normal.

  What about my job? Becky had given me two days off, but that was before my girlfriend turned into a giant cat in front of me. How do you go back to a normal routine after something like that? Mrs. Kelly had seemed impressed with my reaction, but, to be honest, I was still in some kind of denial or shock state. My girlfriend had turned into a cat and if she and her mom were right, I was currently in the early stages of changing into something. Would I be a cat also? Maybe I should have gotten at least a couple of questions answered?

  "I'm not sure about my job." I held up my arm. "Becky told me to take a few days to let this heal up. I don't know if anything has been decided." Lying to her was making my stomach hurt.

  "I'm exhausted. I need to go to bed," she said abruptly.

  "Okay. Um, I'm going to run over to Tony's house." I blurted out the lie I had come up with as fast I could, throwing poor Tony under the bus as I did. "He's the other guy in the video. I need to talk to him about, you know, how it ended up on the Internet."

  "Why don't you just call him?" she asked.

  "I tried. He's dodging me, I think." I smiled. I was terrible at this. How in the world do people lie on a regular basis?

  "Okay," Aunt Tina said. "Don't be too hard on him. Remember you were a willing participant." She pointed her finger at me to emphasize her point.

  "I know. I'm just hoping I can get him to take it down."

  "It's the internet, Orson. It's forever." She leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "I'm glad you didn't break anything. You are my favorite nephew." It was an old joke. She had been writing that same phrase in birthday and Christmas cards for years.

  "I love you, Aunt Tina. I'm sorry I disappointed you."

  "I'll get over it. Just make sure you never do anything so stupid again."

  "You got it."

  I waited until I heard her bedroom door close. I grabbed my keys, checked my breath (ugh), grabbed some gum, and stopped and looked at myself in the mirror by the front door. I gave myself a silent pep talk, "This is really happening. You're two inches taller. You're strong enough to shrug off hundreds of pounds of bone-crushing weight. You can jump like a gold medalist track and field superstar. And last, but not anywhere near the vicinity of least, your hot girlfriend can turn into a giant black panther." I took I deep, cleansing breath. Yeah, I'm one bad hombre.

  I locked the front door behind me. As I walked to the Corolla parked at the curb, I was searching up the street for Mrs. Kelly's Range Rover. Elyse had borrowed it a few times to drive us to the beach, and it was a sweet ride, tricked out with every option imaginable. I spotted it parked about six houses up. I waved and then nearly had a heart attack when someone right behind me said my name.

  "Orson."

  I gave an unmanly shout as I spun around, my feet tripping over where the sidewalk met the grass. I caught myself before I tumbled over.

  A face I couldn't place immediately smiled at me. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." A woman in scrubs was standing in the middle of my lawn.

  It took me a second, but then it came to me. The nurse from the hospital today, the one whose face went all shark teeth stretchy nightmare. "Oh, hi?" I said. What was she doing here? How did she even know where I lived?

  Duh. Stupid, she has all of your medical records and personal information. If she wanted to, she could probably steal my identity with ease.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I tried so hard not to come here tonight. I really did." She took a step closer to me.

  "No worries, but why are you here exactly? Do I need to, like, sign a form or something?" Don't be stupid, Orson. Random nurses from the ER didn't hunt down patients late at night to get them to sign forms. Was this a lame attempt at hitting on me, because, she was kind of old. Not grey-haired old, but at least a couple of years older than Aunt Tina.

  Wait a second . . .

  Hunt down patients.

  Hunt down.

  Hunt.

  Shark teeth stretchy nightmare.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. She took two more steps toward me. One more, and she would be able to reach out and touch me.

  "I never do things like this," she said. Was her face elongating? Oh, crap. "But it's just . . . what are you?"

  Yeah, her face was getting longer, her mouth filling in with way too many teeth. Sharp, rip-your-skin-to-pieces teeth.

  "Your life force is so . . . enticing." The word enticing came out as deep, creepy whisper. She leapt at me. Mouth of razor teeth wide open, claws — yep she had claws curving off each fingertip — reaching for me.

  I jumped back and up with enough of my new found Olympic superstar ability that I landed on top of the Corolla. Not on top of the hood, on top of the roof. With the space I had been standing in suddenly vacated, the shark-nurse-monster-lady smashed head first into the side of my car, caving in the driver's side door and shattering the window.

  An ear-splitting howl ripped through the night. At first, I thought it was the shark-nurse, pissed off at ramming her skull against the metal frame of my well-made Japanese import. But then I noticed movement to my right, and I was sure shark-nurse had brought a friend to share in Orson Tartare I glanced to my right, convinced I would see another shark-nurse or maybe a shark-chef or shark-banker - something definitely shark-y and scary.

  It was nothing shark related. It was Mrs. Kelly.

  She was running barefoot down the street, and as I watched, her body shimmied once and then Boom! all of her clothes exploded off of her body. That's not exactly right. It was more like her body exploded in a burst of gold light; her clothes were just collateral damage. Mrs. Kelly was still running straight at me, but she wasn't Mrs. Kelly anymore, and she was definitely not a cat like Elyse. Or, at least, not entirely a cat like Elyse. She had cat parts; her head and ears were all cat, but her body was still running on two feet. She was like a person, a really ginormous person, dressed up like a cat. Then, all my years of comic and sci-fi and fantasy reading gave me the term I was looking for: beast-form. Something between a person and a cat. All the best parts of both, basically. If comics were to be believed (and after recent events why should I doubt them?), beast-form was like the berserker mode of shape shifting - a near unstoppable rage machine of death.

  Shark-nurse hadn't missed the howl either. The header into my car hadn't seemed to faze her much. She looked at Mrs. Kelly, then turned her black doll eyes back toward me. The hunger and desire radiating from them gave me a shiver. She hissed, and I thought it was just to scare the crap out me, which it did, but then a big glob of sticky goo shot out of her mouth, hitting me in the arms and chest. So gross. And then she ran — and damn was she fast. She moved away from me in a blur, down the block and into the darkness.

  Mrs. Kelly started to give chase but skidded to a stop. She turned her panther beast-form nose in my direction and sniffed.

  That's when the burning started. My chest and arms were on fire. I fell backward off the Corolla, headfirst onto the asphalt. I
would have screamed my head off, but I couldn't suck in enough air to even gasp.

  My world became a black dreamscape, with flashes of reality — or what I assumed was reality. Mrs. Kelly, back in human form, naked, yelling at Elyse to avoid the black goo coating my torso and arms. Being lifted into the back of the Range Rover. Street lights flashing by overhead through the windows. Elyse driving, one hand on the steering wheel, the other hand stretching back to grasp my leg. A loud voice, over amplified through the car's Blue-tooth, shouting directions at Elyse. Being pulled out of the back seat. A glimpse of my Corolla, its door smashed in, Mrs. Kelly behind the wheel. White walls. Fluorescent lights. People I didn't recognize, standing over me.

  Elyse crying and whispering, "Fight, Orson. Please fight. You can't die because I love you, you big dork."

  CHAPTER 7

  I woke up, instantly alert. I sat up in a strange bed, in a strange room. The sun was peeking out from behind heavy drapes that covered large windows. I had perfect clarity of the attack and the events that preceded it. I gently touched my chest and winced. The skin was red and tender, but the unreal burning was gone. I noticed my phone on a nightstand to my right and checked the time; it was just after 3:00 pm. I had been out for most of the day. Unless it was Wednesday a week later. I checked the phone: Nope. Just one day. I considered that a win. So, I was attacked by an acid spitting shark-nurse, and my girlfriend's mom had gone full beast-form and chased the shark-nurse off. No biggie. Of course, I was also turning, evolving, metamorphosing (is that even word?) into something other. A giant cat would seem the most likely outcome of my change. I had been infected, or whatever, by Elyse, who could shape shift into a cat. I wonder if she could turn into anything else or if it was a one animal form per person kind of thing? I'd had a busy night.

  Aunt Tina. She was probably freaking out. I checked my phone more thoroughly: emails, voicemail, and text messages. Huh, nothing. I heard someone outside my door. It was Elyse. Don't ask me how I knew that before she opened the door. I could just sense it was her.

  She slowly opened the door, pausing when she saw me sitting up, "You're awake."

  "Yeah. I just woke up a minute ago. Where are we?"

  "My house. Well, the guest apartment behind my house, you know above the pool house," she explained. "Let me get my mom. She'll want to check you out."

  "Was I at a hospital at some point?" I asked. "I vaguely remember fluorescent lights and a bunch of people. And my chest seems better than I'd expect. Was that like some kind of acid?"

  "Yes. We took you to a . . . it's a private clinic." Elyse wouldn't meet my eyes. She seemed uncomfortable. "Are you okay?" I asked.

  "Yes, I'm fine. Let me just get my mom."

  "Wait. Aunt Tina?"

  "She's fine. At work." Elyse fidgeted, her eyes everywhere but looking at me.

  "But where does she think I am?"

  "Oh. We left a note. Or, rather, you left a note. I mean, we left a note as if it was from you. It said you had to leave for an early study session."

  Her nervousness was starting to make me nervous. I went over the events of the previous night. Maybe she was embarrassed about taking her clothes off in front me? Or after the acid hit, I had become loopy from pain. Maybe I'd said something rude or mean to her.

  "Elyse, I didn't do something stupid, did I? Because having a shark-nurse spit black, gooey acid-poison on me seems like a pretty darn good excuse for bad behavior."

  She met my gaze, tears spilling down her cheeks. "You think you did something to me?" Her lower lip quivered, and she bit it. "I ruined your life. If you hated me and never wanted to see me again, I would totally understand."

  I jumped out of bed; thankfully, I was wearing a pair of sweats. The USC logo down the leg gave away the fact that they probably belonged to Mr. Kelly, Elyse's dad. I pulled her into a soft hug, doing my best to protect my chest. "We covered this last night," I said. "I have a crap-ton of questions, but I'm not mad at you. You're my best friend." I cupped her chin in my hand so she couldn't look away and gently said, "And I love you."

  Her body shuddered as she sucked in air. "I know you said you were . . . okay with everything, but that was before you almost died."

  "You and your mom saved me. Your mom, by the way, total badass."

  "Watch your language, Orson."

  Elyse and I jumped. Mrs. Kelly had come down the hall behind us with zero noise. I guess that made sense, as she was some kind of uber were-cat shape-shifter.

  Mrs. Kelly smiled and said, "And thank you for the compliment." She patted her daughter's arm. "Go wash your face, sweetie. We'll meet you up at the main house. I'm sure Orson is hungry."

  At the mention of food, I realized I was famished. Like, I-could-eat-half-a-cow famished. "Yes, Ma'am. I could definitely eat."

  Elyse pulled away, giving my arm one more quick squeeze before walking away to what I presumed was the bathroom. I watched her with a contentment I had never felt before. Maybe this was what it was like to love somebody? Or romantically love somebody. Because I loved Aunt Tina, and I had a warm feeling when I thought about her and what she meant to me, but the feelings I felt toward Elyse were different, more intense and kind of scary.

  Mrs. Kelly gave my chest a professional once-over. She seemed satisfied with what she saw and said, "I think Richard left a shirt and a pair of sandals for you also,"

  "Right. Let me just grab them."

  Mrs. Kelly led me out the door toward the main house. The Kellys have one of those big Pasadena California Craftsman houses that my house was a junior version of. It is nestled at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. It has a gated circular driveway and a backyard big enough for a pool, a volleyball pit (added for Elyse), and a half-court basketball court. The guesthouse I woke up in is part of the rather large pool house. There was a bathroom and changing room accessible from the pool area. A set of outdoor stairs led to a second story entrance that led into the spacious one-bedroom apartment I had spent the night in. It included a full modern kitchen and a bathroom bigger than either of the two bathrooms at my house.

  I took in the view from the top of the stairs; they looked out over the pool, but to the left was the fence separating the back of the Kelly property from the Angeles National Forest. It was still stunning to me that in the middle of the urban sprawl that was the Los Angeles basin, there was this massive forest. Maybe forest was kind of a strong word, but it's what the federal government called it and who am I to argue with the Feds? It wasn't a forest in the sense that most people think of: giant trees and green mossy stuff everywhere. It was Southern California's version of a forest, and it was pretty cool, if you ask me. And it was big enough that at least once a year some knucklehead or group of knuckleheads would get lost in it. It was home to mountain lions, bears, and wild pigs. So, yeah, people from states with actual mountains laughed when we proudly pointed to the San Gabriel 'Mountains' and our very own National Forest, but to heck with those interlopers. We native Californians love our conveniently located wilderness.

  The Kellys had a gate built into a corner of their back fence that led to a small hiking trail. The trail, if followed for a few miles, wound all the way up to more serious hiking and backpacking trails and even part of the Pacific Crest Trail, that ran for hundreds of miles North and South. Elyse and I had covered just about every trail reachable from her backyard and had even blazed a few trails of our own. Looking out now at the deep brush behind the Kelly house, I couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic for that time — a time before I shoved hundreds of pounds to the side and before I watched Elyse turn into a cat. I took a deep breath and coughed. The smells that came with the breath were super intense. I'm talking brain bursting intense. Chlorine, grass, wet cement, a woody smell I assumed was the fence, and the multitudes of scents coming from beyond the fence were dizzying. Earthy, primal smells. Even with the layer of city stink layered on top, I could smell the wilderness and it called to me.

  I swayed on my feet.

&
nbsp; Mrs. Kelly reached out a hand to steady me. "Are you all right, Orson?" She could transform into a muscle-popping, clawed and fanged were-beast, but she was still a mom.

  "Yeah. It's just all of a sudden I could smell . . ." I wasn't sure how to put it into words. "I could smell everything."

  "Oh. Of course." She kept her arm on mine to steady me and turned her attention to the hillside beyond the fence. "What do you smell? Try to be exact." She gave me an encouraging smile.

  I took another big breath and started coughing again. "Sorry," I said. "It's just so overwhelming."

  "That's fine, take your time. Close your eyes and take a few smaller breaths. Let the scents flow in."

  I tried what she said, closing my eyes, inhaling and exhaling in a slower rhythm. The controlled breathing did the trick, and I stopped coughing. I concentrated on what my nose was telling me was out there.

  "Chlorine and grass close by."

  "The pool and the yard. Yes. What else?" she asked encouragingly.

  "I can smell the city. The exhaust of cars, rubber and steel, I think. But under that is . . ." I struggled for the right words. "Earth, you know, soil. Plants, lots of plants; some of them smell spicy, others sweet, some . . . I don't know . . . tangy? Does that make sense?"

  She chuckled. "Yes. That's the sage. I think 'tangy' is the perfect word to describe it. What else?"

  "I'm not sure. There's kind of a musty smell. It's very faint, but it's there." With my eyes still shut, I pointed up the hill and to the right.

  "Excellent. What you're smelling is a jack rabbit."

  My eyes popped open. I stared intently at where I had pointed. All I could see were bushes - brown bushes, green bushes, and brown-green bushes. "Really?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "How?" I turned toward Mrs. Kelly. "How am I smelling a rabbit under a bush, at what, twenty yards away?"

  I was surprised at the frankness of her answer.

  "Because your animal is waking up and He will make you over from head to toe. Outside." She gently tapped my sore chest. "And inside."