Hysteria Read online

  HYSTERIA

  By Christopher Gordon

  Copyright 2011 Christopher Gordon

  Cover Art and Design

  By Christopher Gordon

  Table Of Contents

  Hysteria: What is this book about?

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Message from the Author

  The Dinosaur Games

  Tyrannosaur Trilogy

  License Agreement

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the prior written permission of the author.

  What is Hysteria?

  One Pill makes you harder, better, faster, stronger, smarter… Hysteria.

  McKenzie Chase wakes up in hospital to discover he is the Source Code. The most valuable commodity in the world. Everyone wants a piece of him and they will do anything to get it. Even if it means killing him first.

  Chapter One: Fat Suits

  Mylo and McKenzie squeeze through the main doors, one at a time, due to their size, and waddle breathlessly into the Lobby of the Empire State Building.

  McKenzie’s face squishes on the glass door and his nose rubs up against a Missing Girl poster. He pulls at Mylo’s butt.

  It makes a sucking noise as the padded latex fat suit peels away from Mylo’s skin.

  Mylo slaps away his friend’s hand. “Man, get off me.”

  “Your pantyhose butt is showing,” McKenzie says, nervously patting down Mylo’s skirt. “You want to risk a guard getting interested?”

  “Why do I have to be the woman?” Mylo says. “I’m sweating like your momma under this thing.”

  “Jenny’s dress don’t fit me,” McKenzie says.

  “No, but I seen you try on these heels,” Mylo says. “And man, you way into them.”

  “Shut it,” McKenzie says paying for two tickets to the Observation Deck. All too aware of the dirty looks from female staff for the apparent rudeness to his wife.

  “Swinging your hips and all strutting your stuff, like you the catwalk queen,” Mylo says.

  McKenzie feels his fists clench tight. He bites his lip. “Stop joking around,” he says. “Or we’re dead.”

  “You know Jenny’s going to kill you when she finds out you cut up three of her dresses to make this,” Mylo says trying not to breathe in deep as his bulk strains at the seams.

  The two teens stand in front of the wall mirror and carefully adjust their sticky private parts under their fat suits, as subtly as they can.

  “Oh my God,” Mylo says staring at himself and gripping McKenzie’s arm.

  “What now?” McKenzie says.

  “My makeup is running,” Mylo says. “Jenny spent hours working on it.”

  “That better be all my sister was working on,” McKenzie says.

  “Right now, I feel a need to assert my masculinity,” Mylo says. “So I’m denying nothing.”

  “I’ll assert my boot up your butt,” McKenzie says quietly as he smiles at the man in the security guard uniform passing a metal detector over him.

  Mylo steps back.

  “Just relax dear, its procedure,” McKenzie says.

  The guard tells McKenzie to turn around.

  A little man in a security guard uniform passes a metal detector stick back and forth over Mylo’s massive fake boobs.

  “I felt that,” Mylo shouts.

  “What?” the bored looking guard says and flushes red.

  “You touched them,” Mylo shouts as loud as he can. “Do you know the pain of enduring a double M cup? No you do not.”

  “You tell him sister,” says a woman stood behind them in the long queue.

  “Oh God, no,” McKenzie hisses and glances at the exit.

  The guard waves them on, looking everywhere but directly at Mylo and his massive fake ones.

  “Don’t flip me with your big natural’s fetish fixation,” Mylo shouts snapping his fingers under the guard’s nose. “Your momma never breast feed you as a child?”

  The security guard waves his metal detector over the next tourist. Flushing as she glares at him.

  McKenzie pushes Mylo along to the elevator queue.

  “Psychological scarring by a Big Naturals fetish monster,” Mylo shouts. “I ought to file a personal injury suit.”

  “Get in the elevator, now,” McKenzie hisses. His stomach back flipping as a supervisor walks over to them. “Getting to five, already.”

  “There a problem, Sir, Ma’am?” the supervisor says and his eyes narrow as he stares at Mylo.

  “No, just my wife, she-”

  “Do not blame my time of the month,” Mylo says. “I am the victim.”

  The elevator doors ping and slide open.

  McKenzie pushes Mylo into the elevator and waits patiently for the doors to slide shut. Counting the seconds to five. Hoping the Supervisor is on his way home at the end of a shift.

  The Supervisor steps in with them.

  As the doors slide shut, a boy maybe a year or two older than McKenzie in an Iron Maiden Number of the Beast Tour Tee and a girl of about McKenzie’s age squeeze into the corner. The girl with a gaunt starved look and rings around her eyes peers through dirty matted blonde hair. Her crumpled dirty jeans and stained Dinosaur Games Tee of a kid riding a Tyrannosaurus Rex cling to her skin like she’s never worn anything else in her life. She stares up at Mylo and his fake ones.

  Mylo seems to be holding a dignified and silent protest.

  Her eyes move onto McKenzie. She seems vaguely familiar to him as her hauntingly dead eyes trace over every nuance of his costume. She could be fifteen, sixteen or seventeen. Something about her eyes that seem to make her look older. As if she’s seen too much with them. Seen too much, too young and now she’s unable to close them without reliving it all.

  McKenzie begins to sweat. Has she noticed something wrong with his suit? Will she give them away? He senses he’s moments away from a world of trouble. McKenzie sighs with tension. His mouth feels like a desert storm whipping his flesh clean off the bone. He licks his teeth to moisturize and tries to swallow discretely like he’s not a care in the world. His Adam’s apple seems to stick in his throat like it’s held with super glue and makes a noise like the whini
ng of a constipated duck. He’s playing it cool, calm and collected. Not.

  “Law suit,” Mylo hisses.

  McKenzie shifts the weight on his feet and they make squelching noises. His ears seem to fill with painful air pressure and refuse to pop with the sudden ascent. He hopes this is not an omen for their sudden and impromptu descent.

  Now the supervisor is getting curious. He seems to be a star pupil in the method acting school of non-blinking. A make my day, punk look that gives McKenzie’s stomach the same feeling as a trampoline beneath a bouncing Tyrannosaurus Rex.

  “I know you ain’t looking at them,” Mylo says loudly. “God given and like God’s apples in the Garden of Eden. Partake of these apples and get your butt kicked out of paradise.”

  McKenzie tries to imagine how a husband would address his wife. Even one as annoying as Mylo. “Darling, my sweet pumpkin pie with extra creamy topping, shut it,” McKenzie pleads and feels himself sweating even harder under his fat suit. His fake mustache and beard tickles his face like crazy.

  At last the ping sound and the doors slide open.

  The supervisor steps out first. Followed by the boy and girl. She hovers and looks over her shoulder, smiling at McKenzie.

  Every fiber in McKenzie’s body screams out, she knows. She knows his secret. He’s a dead man walking.

  She raises her finger to point and her lips seem ready to call over the supervisor.

  Mylo is stuck fast in the doors. There’s no way back down. No way out.

  McKenzie pushes at Mylo but his friend remains stuck in the elevator doors. So he settles on a swift hard boot to the butt.

  “Who touched my butt?” Mylo says.

  “Shut it, idiot,” McKenzie whispers, looking around for the boy and girl. “Before we get busted.”

  An alarm sounds. Two security guards come running at McKenzie and Mylo.

  “Sir, Ma’am, stay,” the supervisor shouts holding up his hand. “Do not move.”

  “Rumbled us, McKenzie,” Mylo says. “Run for it?”

  McKenzie shakes his head. “Bluff it and follow my lead.”

  “I have a medical condition,” Mylo shouts in the supervisor’s ear, grabbing the man’s arm.

  The two other security guards run up to McKenzie and Mylo.

  McKenzie takes a deep breath. He stares at fly poster of a young girl, maybe fifteen years old. One hundred days and still missing. Have you seen Madison? Call…

  “It’s her,” he whispers to Mylo. “Same girl in the elevator.”

  “Who cares, McKenzie?” Mylo says. “You tell anyone and we’re so busted.”

  The guards carry on to where the Supervisor is pointing.

  McKenzie lets out a shuddering breath. But where is the girl now?

  Beyond the safety barrier, over the metal fence to the outer rim of the Observation Deck, a boy, maybe a year or so older than McKenzie and Mylo, seventeen at the outside, walks around the perimeter without holding onto the fencing.

  Tourists hold up their smart phones and start taking pictures and video.

  Two security guards make a grab at the boy, snatching his Iron Maiden Tee. The boy leans back with his arms out wide. He looks directly at the girl from the elevator. She nods at him and walks away.

  Somebody screams.

  “For God’s sake,” a security guard shouts. “Don’t do it, son.”

  The boy smiles.

  Even from where he’s standing in front of the elevator inside the tourist shop, McKenzie knows there’s something extra weird about the jumper.

  “He’s stealing our thunder,” Mylo says.

  “Who cares?” McKenzie says walking away calmly and pulling Mylo with him. “Go, go, go.”

  They waddle around to the other side as everyone pushes by. It seems rushing to witness the jumper. McKenzie and Mylo find a quiet spot on the deck.

  “Did you see his eyes, man?” Mylo says. “The kid’s wired.”

  “You’d think the buzz of jumping would be enough,” McKenzie says.

  “Here?” Mylo says.

  “Here,” McKenzie says.

  Mylo reaches into his dress, fumbles a zipper on his breasts and yanks down hard. His breasts flop to the side and his fat suit peels away, dropping to his ankles. A fifteen year old kid, tall and muscled in a red jump suit, steps out of the fat suit. He’s still wearing the heels.

  McKenzie in his blue jump suit checks Mylo’s harness and parachute container.

  “Tell me you are not jumping in those heels,” McKenzie says.

  Mylo shrugs. “I forgot my boots,” he says.

  McKenzie pulls on a helmet-cam. Mylo fits a chest cam pointing to his face.

  “McKenzie, you think Jenny will date me when she sees the footage?” Mylo says.

  “I’ll cut your harness if you mention my sister one more time,” McKenzie says. “Ready?”

  Mylo nods.

  They climb the safety barrier and scale the tall metal fencing, sliding over the top to the other side. Carefully lowering themselves to the narrow ledge at the foot of the fence.

  The two teens stand together, holding onto the fence with one hand. McKenzie looks over his shoulder.

  It seems no one has seen them.

  “If you feel yourself about to tumble,” McKenzie says.

  “I know,” Mylo says. “Lean back, spread my arms and legs and deploy before I off-head.”

  “Free-fall max out is five seconds,” McKenzie says. “Got it?”

  Mylo nods.

  “On three,” McKenzie says.

  “Three,” Mylo shouts and jumps. “Jenny I love you.”

  “I’m cutting your harness,” McKenzie shouts and throws himself clear of the Observation Deck. He dives into the pale blue freedom of the sky. Smiles as the wind whips his face. Free at last like an Angel stretching his wings. His mind clear of every anxiety, every worry, every fear and every inferiority he’s ever experienced. Free of his parent’s constant battles. Free of their expectations of him. Up here, in this moment he is free to be himself. No one telling him what is best for him.

  Up here, nothing matters but his own judgment. Up here, in this moment he is no longer a high school kid. He is a man ruling his own destiny. Living a glorious moment on the edge of life and death. Experiencing the power of choice to maximum effect. To pull the cord or let himself wipe out. At last, he is in control of his life. He wouldn’t give this up even if the hand of God reached down and offered him the world.

  The clouds seem to form into the gates of heaven slamming closed and throwing him back to earth.

  As McKenzie jumps, he looks back at a girl staring at him. Across her chest, the jaws of a Tyrannosaurs Rex and The Dinosaur Games logo.

  Startled by her, he takes a deep breath and for the longest second drinks in her presence. Maybe seventeen, somehow her stunning blue green eyes burn through thick tangles of blonde hair streaked with crimson, like dry blood. A hunter’s eyes. The piercing stare of a wild cat stalking her jungle prey.

  McKenzie can’t look away from her terrifying beauty. Mesmerized he could gladly let her talons slash him. He drops and she vanishes from view.

  McKenzie tries to ignore the shouts above him. He sees a shadow on Mylo’s back and looks up over his own shoulder at wild eyes and a fixed grin looming down on him.

  The kid in an Iron Maiden Tee. The jumper. The boy cuts through the air and knocks aside McKenzie.

  McKenzie loses control of his free-fall, feels himself tumble.

  The boy jumper lands on Mylo’s back and manages to stand upright on Mylo’s shoulders.

  Mylo screams.

  The boy waves his arms and shouts, “Surfs up, dude.”

  McKenzie knows that Mylo is a dead man, unless he does something radical and suicidal. McKenzie steers his tumble. He flattens out and make’s himself crash into the back of the boy jumper, taking out the kid and himself and freeing Mylo.

  The boy jumper grips McKenzie’s shoulders. His eyes are a swirling mass of color
. A spiral galaxy of exploding stars. Like millions of insects running under the boy’s skin. An army of soldier ants on a determined march. A suicide mission.

  This boy jumper is somehow not human.

  McKenzie hears someone screaming. As he looks down at the ground, maybe five seconds away, he realizes the screaming is coming from himself.

  Chapter Two: Jumper

  “What the hell are you?” McKenzie shouts as he kicks out at the boy jumper and snatches at the cord to release his chute.

  “I am a God,” the boy shouts and pulls McKenzie closer to him.

  Mylo’s chute is still not open.

  “Save yourself, Mylo,” McKenzie shouts.

  Four seconds from the ground. McKenzie can hear the car horns. See the faces of passersby, staring up at him. Pointing. Running. Car drivers slowing. Stopping. Looking up.

  The boy jumper sends himself and McKenzie into a spin.

  “Can you feel it?” the kid shouts.

  McKenzie counts down to his death. Three seconds to oblivion.

  “You don’t need that,” the boy jumper shouts and punches the release catch on McKenzie’s body harness.

  McKenzie feels his backpack rip away on the wind.

  Two seconds. The choice is clear now. Slam dunk into the path of a Gasoline tanker or explode across the windshield of a school bus full of kids. Give them a bird’s eye view of his splattering brains.

  He wouldn’t wish this on his worst enemy. And that enemy is this boy jumper. Only one thing for it. McKenzie flips the boy jumper onto his back. If he can hold the crazy kid beneath him, maybe, just maybe he can survive the impact with a few dozen broken bones. Maybe walk again after a year. Never jump. Never know true freedom again. But to stay alive. The best he can hope for.

  The boy jumper looks up into McKenzie’s eyes, lifts his knees under McKenzie, and gets his feet up under and between them both.

  “Been radical, partner,” the boy jumper shouts and kicks up at McKenzie.

  McKenzie feels something, someone grab him under his arms. Grip so hard his shoulder dislocates as his rate of descent slows up sharp. He looks up into a parachute canopy and the grinning face of Mylo.