“Uncle Sam?”
“Violet,” he answered, looking around. “So this is where you come every time you disappear?”
“Yes,” she answered, knowing that a lie was futile.
“Your mother is worried about you, you know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll tell her a story, tell her you are helping me to scout the area.”
“You’d do that?” she asked, puzzled. “For me?”
He frowned. “Of course. I’m not your enemy, Violet.”
She didn’t answer.
He sighed. “I know you distrust me, and I know you’re unhappy.”
“I’m not unhappy, I’m…”
“What? What bothers you?” he asked.
“Tell me what’s wrong with me,” she blurted. “Tell me why I’m so strange, why I look so different, why I feel so different.” She thumped her hand on her chest in emphasis. “I’m a freak.”
“You’re not a freak,” he replied. “Don’t ever say that.”
“Yes, I am. Stop lying to me.” Her hands clenched into fists as her frustration grew. “Tell me the truth.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Violet,” Sam said, his face flushed with hot blood. “Stop being so obstinate.”
“I don’t belong here,” she insisted.
“Yes, you do. You belong with your mother, Rebecca. She raised you; she saved you from death; she―” Sam broke off abruptly when he realized he’d said too much.
“What do you mean, she saved me?” Violet asked. “Rebecca’s not my real mom?”
“Of course, she is. I meant―” Sam took a step back, dismay written on his features.
“I know what you meant,” Violet answered, her voice dropping to a low growl as rage flooded her veins. They’d all lied to her. All these years. For a split second, she saw red.
Sam’s eyes widened, but he stood his ground. “You’ve got it wrong, Violet. Rebecca is your mother, and you belong with us. Don’t you understand? We love you.”
Violet stared at him without answering, her mind a complete blank. Her nails cut into her palms as she fought to control her anger. Gradually, it receded, pulling back until she was calm once more.
“Please, come home. Forget what I said. Your mother loves you, and so do I,” Sam pleaded. “I’ll even speak to the other children. To David. I know they’re mean to you. It’s just kids being kids.”
At that moment, Violet realized he’d never tell her the truth. Neither would her mother, or Katy. Not because they didn’t want to, but because they couldn’t. Because telling the truth would force them to admit that she was different, and that would force them to face their hidden fears. The fear that she’d leave, or worse, become something terrible. Something dangerous.
Lie to him.
She took a deep breath and relaxed her posture. “It’s okay, Uncle Sam. I believe you. I’ll come back.”
He stared at her. “You will?”
She proffered a half-smile, one that didn’t expose her canines. “I guess I’m just feeling weird. I’m growing up, and everything’s changing. It’s confusing sometimes.”
The tension leached from Sam’s face. “Yes, that must be it. Why don’t you talk to Katy about it? I’m sure she can help you.”
“Do you think so?” Violet forced a hopeful note into her voice.
Sam chuckled, his relief palpable. “Of course. She’s a woman, after all.”
“I guess.”
Sam gestured to the path behind him. “Want to go now?”
“No, it’s okay. She’s busy. I’ll speak to her tonight.”
Sam paused. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’d like to take a quick swim before I go back.” She gestured toward the pond. “It’s nice and cool.”
He nodded, mollified. “All right, but don’t be late. You don’t want to get caught out here after dark.”
“I won’t.”
She watched Sam leave, her sharp hearing picking up the muttered words, “Teenage hormones. That’s what it is.”
It was rather sad how eager he was to accept such a feeble explanation for the changes she was undergoing, but then, she guessed he didn’t want to face the truth. None of them did.
“But I can.”
She unwound her fists and looked at her fingers. The nails were long and as sharp as daggers. Jagged cuts lined her palms where they’d dug into the flesh. As she watched, her nails receded, pulling back into the cuticles with painless ease. The holes in her palms healed, knitting together before her eyes.
She lowered her hands and looked at her reflection in the pond again. Tall, pale, watchful, her eyes black pools of night while her looks screamed predator. One thing was obvious. I am not human, and I can never go back.
Epilogue - Adam
Adam’s clawed hands clung to the lip of the cave he occupied. For weeks now, it had served as his home, this hole in the face of a cliff. The deep shadows sheltered him from the sun’s deadly rays and allowed him to survive so far from the city.
The city.
Home to him and his mate, Christine.
Home to their children, born of her flesh.
Home to his children, born from the disease he carried.
He felt them in his head, was connected to all of them, every one.
He felt them dying, starving to death when they failed to find food. For that was the one flaw in their genetic makeup. His children were mindless, feral. They killed, and fed, and turned without thought for the future.
They deserved to die, had to die. It was inevitable.
But his mate, Christine, and their children, that was a different story. They deserved to live. They were superior to humans in every way. A step up the evolutionary ladder. A new apex predator.
Adam’s eyes fixed on the girl below, standing next to the pond at the base of the cliff. The man, Sam, had left, and she looked alone and out of place. Not for long.
She too was his child. He was connected to her in the same way as the others. She’d drawn him here, and he’d obeyed the command. In her blood, she carried the answer. She was the future.
Violet.
The End
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Chapter 1
“Catherine Thompson. Please pay attention in my class unless you want detention.”
The shrill peal of Mrs. Marais’ voice cut through the haze of boredom surrounding Cat, and she straightened up in her seat amidst snickers from her classmates.
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she replied with a respectful, “Yes, Ma’am.” The last thing she needed on a Friday afternoon was detention.
Forty-five excruciating minutes later, the bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. Benches and chairs scraped across the floor as kids ran for the exit, jostling each other in their haste to get out. Cat imagined it looked a lot like a prison break.
She took the time to fish her phone out of her bag first and checked her messages. Three from Chris, her boyfriend, one from her best friend, Nadia, and a voicemail from her mother. On auto-pilot, Cat slung her school bag over her shoulder, picked up her hockey stick and walked out of class while checking Chris’ texts. They were pretty generic. Standard stuff for a Friday.
“Hey, babes. What’s up?”
Little kissy faces.
“Wanna come over tonight?”
Cat sighed. Instead of butterflies in her stomach, all she felt was leaden dread. For her, the relationship with Chris had soured after the fifth weekend spent watching rugby with his friends.
The entire time was passed glued to the edge of the couch next to Chris and his buddies. They’d cheer and shout enthusiastically at the TV, discussing the score and players during half-time, while she sipped on the homemade lemonade his mom forced down her throat.
Her thumb flew over the keys as she replied. “Maybe next time. Got things to do.”
Next, she checked Nadia’s message. “Hey, Cat. How’s it going, girlfriend? Have you seen the stuff on YouTube? People are going crazy about it. Freaky Friday!”
Cat frowned. She hadn’t looked at her phone all day. By rights, she wasn’t even allowed to take it to school but had put it on silent and hidden it at the bottom of her bag.
Her feet carried her out of the gates of High School Kroonstad. After crossing the busy street filled with irate parents and happy kids, she set off for home. She lived only three blocks from the school, so her mom had decreed that she walk every day. Cat didn’t mind, though. She liked the solitude.
Cat sent Nadia a reply. “What stuff? Haven’t seen a thing. By the way, can you come visit this December holiday?”
“Check YouTube and Facebook. Crazy stuff! It’s all over SA and even overseas. As for a holiday, no can do, sister. My mom’s been kinda out of it lately, and Dickhead bitched about the money for the bus ride.”
Cat frowned at that bit of news. When had Nadia’s drug-addict mom not been out of it? All her life she’d watched her best friend be pushed around and mistreated by her alcoholic mom and abusive step-dad. When Nadia’s little brother Bobby drowned, that had been a new low. To top it off, six months later they moved to Upington, and Cat despaired of ever seeing her best friend again.
“Well. We’ll just have to make a plan,” she sent back. If there was one thing that could be said of Cat, it was that she was stubborn. Even if she had to bribe Nadia’s step-dad, she’d do it.
“Hope so, C. Catch you later. Branden and I’ve got a date.”
“Have fun,” Cat replied before listening to the voicemail her mother had left three hours earlier.
“Catherine, I’m going to be late tonight. We’re swamped with patients today, and the boss wants us to work in. There are leftovers in the fridge. See you later, sweetheart.”
Cat sighed and tucked her phone away, resigned to a night spent in front of the TV with a bucket of ice cream. It wasn’t unusual. Her mom worked as an admin assistant at a local doctor, and she often stayed late when it got busy.
About halfway home, Cat’s attention was caught by a man staggering down the road. He had a full head of dreadlocks, topped with a Rastafarian beanie and wore a long trench coat. At first, Cat paid him no mind and continued walking.
There was something odd about him, though. He stumbled along haphazardly, moaning in an eerie way. The front of his coat was stained with what looked like black tar. A light breeze brushed over her face, lifting the hair off her neck and carrying a sickly sweet smell with it. She gagged, pulling her shirt over her mouth. “What the hell?”
Cat eyed the man she assumed to be either homeless or stoned and quickened her pace, hoping to slip past unnoticed.
No such luck.
When he spotted her, he raised his hands towards her, growling in a way she’d ordinarily find hilarious but now didn’t seem quite so funny.
Cat stopped and backtracked, raising a hand to ward him off. “Hey, back off, buddy. I don’t have any money.”
He ignored her and kept coming. As he got closer, the smell intensified until it rolled across her senses in a tidal wave of rot. She could now make out the smaller details of his appearance through watering eyes.
His bottom lip was missing, exposing the lower teeth and jaw, pink flesh and white bone shining through clotted blood. Her stomach rolled as her eyes fixed upon the stain on his clothes. The black stuff she’d thought was oil, now looked more like old blood. Bits of hair and other things were matted into it. Her stomach heaved. “Oh, God, is that…a tooth?”
Cat screamed, stepping back as he reached for her with hands that had turned into claws, the nails crusted with dirt. She swung her hockey stick and hit him, dancing on her toes to put distance between them.
He regained his footing, and she whacked him over the head again, the sound hollow to her ears. Her school bag swung like a pendulum, pulling her off balance. With a cry, she fell.
Her bare knees hit the asphalt, sharp pain flaring up her legs. She shrugged it off, rolling away when he reached for her. He tripped over her bag and fell in a tangle of limbs. Cat ripped the strap off her shoulder and scrambled away on all fours, gravel digging into her palms. Her heart banged in her chest, air whistling in and out of her lungs as her throat closed.
Not now, she prayed.
Cat lunged to her feet and whirled, brandishing her hockey stick. Like a loathsome crab, the homeless guy rose from the ground, joints cracking as he scuttled toward her.
“Leave me alone,” Cat cried, wheezing for breath.
He kept coming, teeth snapping like a rabid dog. Cat danced away like a boxer and hit him again, harder this time. His head swung, but he kept coming.
“Bugger off!” Spots danced in front of her eyes as the tightness in her chest increased. It was a feeling both familiar and unwanted, like a distant family member who overstays their welcome at Christmas.
Cat skipped sideways and swung the hockey stick like a baseball bat, putting all her strength into the blow. The edge connected with his temple, and she heard the sound of cracking bone. He fell to his knees, and she hesitated. Blood streamed from the cut on his scalp, but it looked odd. Thick and sluggish. Once again, the smell that emanated from his form assaulted her senses.
“Stay down,” Cat whimpered. “Please, stay down.”
A low growl vibrated from between her attacker’s clenched teeth. He lurched forward, crawling towards her. With a wordless cry, she swung again, aiming for the same spot as before.
A hollow pop rang out. His skull collapsed and skewed his face. With his snarl frozen in place and bulging eyes, the homeless guy toppled over to lie motionless.
Cat stood, chest heaving, waiting for him to get up. A slow trickle of blood crept toward her toes, a river of black death. Her hands began to tremble. She smothered a gasp, stepping back until her heels hit the sidewalk. Her knees gave way, and she sat down with a thump, her eyes never leaving the corpse. “Oh, my God. I killed him.”
Cat wrenched her eyes away and looked
up and down the street, half expecting a cop to pull up and arrest her for murder. “I killed him. I really, really killed him! Crap!”
The trees whirled around her in a dizzying blur of green. An iron fist constricted around her lungs and throat. Cat sucked in a breath, dragging oxygen into her lungs. One hand fumbled for the asthma inhaler in her pocket. She never left home without it.
Placing the mouthpiece to her lips, she pressed down. With a whoosh, the precious dosage filled her lungs. Cat wrapped her trembling arms around her knees and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. The taut feeling in her chest eased, the dizziness passed. A semblance of clarity returned. “I’ve got to phone Mom. She’ll know what to do.”
Cat dialed the number.
Her mom answered on the fifth ring. “Dr. Botha’s office.”
“Mom! Mom, I just killed a guy. He came at me, and he wouldn’t stop, and I whacked him with a stick, and now he’s just lying there, and he’s not breathing, and half his face is missing, and I don’t know what―”
“Catherine, slow down. Take a deep breath.”
Her mother’s voice had an immediate effect, and Cat obeyed. In, out, in, out.
“That’s it. Get it under control. Now tell me what happened. Take your time, sweetie.”
Cat slumped, tears spilling over her cheeks and dripping onto her school uniform. “I don’t know what happened. I was walking, and this strange guy attacked me. I screamed and hit him with my hockey stick, but he wouldn’t stop. He was acting all crazy, growling and trying to bite me.”
“Oh, no. sweetie, are you hurt?” Her mother’s voice was frantic and sparked a fresh surge of panic within Cat.
“What? No, I’m fine,” she replied, ignoring the sting in her knees.
The Hybrid Theory - Subject 306 Page 6
