Hysteria

by Gordon, Christopher

  He twisted his body to manipulate their direction and rate of descent, as Madison seemed to understand his intent and positioned herself on his back in a way that gave him more maneuverability.

  The wind and rain whipped at them as a small crowd of early morning commuters stared up at the strange sight. Like two winged angels entwined in a ball of green and blue lightning they glided down towards the memorial pool.

  “It’s now or never,” she said, “but there’s one thing I need to do first.”

  “What’s that?” McKenzie said as he looked over his shoulder as she leaned over to touch his face with hers and place her lips on his.

  “I figured it out,” she said, “it happens when Hysteria and the source code meet and touch.”

  Madison stretched out her arms and lightning rose up into the sky and electrified a billion raindrops with Hysteria, imparting a green luminescence to each raindrop.

  People began to clap and cheer, to hold out their arms at the rainbow hue shower, letting it run down their faces and, into their eyes and down their throats/

  McKenzie hit the pool and glided to a stop.

  “How long before the whole city gets infected?” McKenzie asked.

  A woman in a wheel chair reached up at the color lightning rain and stood. took a first tentative step.” my god, I ain’t been able to do that since-”

  She seemed to be weeping with tears of joy.

  “That a new fantasy fifteen product?” a kid shouted down at them. “Some kind of freebie promotional offer?”

  “Better than that,” Madison shouted and laughed.

  “Or worse,” Mackenzie said.

  “What do mean?” she said. “Look how happy it makes them.”

  “But is it hope or Hysteria we’re giving them?” McKenzie said.

  She shrugged. “See for yourself.”

  McKenzie looked over at Damien’s pulverized motionless body dashed against the memorial museum roof. “But what if Damien was right?” McKenzie said. “Are we heroes or villains?”

  “I guess only history can decide that,” Madison said and hugged McKenzie tight. And he let her.

  And for McKenzie, not even the joy he felt at the warmth and electricity in the sensation of her lips kissing his could soothe his heaving stomach twisting his insides into an agonizing knot when he thought about the unknown horror they may have unleashed upon the world together.

  ### The End?

  Message to you from the author

  The next adventure of Hysteria and McKenzie Chase was due to appear under the title Hysteria 2 (original, huh?). But upon reflection it will make more sense for the sequel to Hysteria to appear in the dystopian adventures of the Dinosaur Games series. A near future dystopia where a group of High School children are forced to fight dinosaurs for freedom.

  The sequel to Hysteria is due out Christmas 2013. Enough time to get familiar with the Dinosaur Games series.

  If you can't wait until Christmas and wish to learn more about Angel Hunter and her mysterious past, then she appears in the Dinosaur Games 3: War of the Pterosaurs, part of the Tyrannosaur Trilogy.

  Sergeant Rodriguez also appears in Dinosaur Games 3: War of the Pterosaurs.

  Sometimes, not often, I blog important stuff, but usually just random things and again not often on www.read-chris.blogspot.co.uk

  Even less often I tweet @ReadChris

  Email for latest news, etc, is MailChris2013@gmail.com

  Thanks for reading. Chris.

  The Dinosaur Games

  What Is The Dinosaur Games?

  A near future dystopian society forces High School kids to become Gladiators fighting dinosaurs for freedom...

  One week ago, they took Jack's neighbors.

  Six days ago, they took his parents.

  Five days ago, his brother.

  Four days ago, the girl he loves.

  Three days ago, he surrendered to them.

  Two days ago, Jack rode his first T-Rex.

  Yesterday, they made him a Gladiator.

  Today, he will save the girl he loves, even if it means his own death.

  By tomorrow, they will wish they never forced Jack Reaper to enter the Dinosaur Games.

  You are not safe in your home. Are they coming for you next?

  Preview The Dinosaur Games Book 1

  ONE: A week ago...The stench of Tyrannosaurus Rex

  One week ago…

  The dawn breeze reaches through a gap beneath a door and blows the stench of Tyrannosaurus Rex into the kitchen.

  The cattle rancher and his wife put down their coffee and listen to the wind.

  “Stench gets worse every day,” his wife says. “Thank God they can’t swim.”

  “Cattle are too quiet,” says the rancher loading his rifle and opening the door. He steps out onto his porch.

  Beyond the hay barn and the grass meadows lies Red River snaking through the neighboring ranches to the horizon. His focus moves along Red River to the horizon and a glowing soft blue hue of a force-field fence surrounding Big D’s Dinosaur ranch.

  Silence. Nothing moves.

  “Fixing on riding up to Reaper ranch,” he says. “Maybe Victor seen something.”

  His two sons, Oliver fourteen, Jamie eleven, are supposed to be hard at work on a fence in the fields before school. They begin frantically waving and running towards him.

  A pair of pale blue dragonflies buzz about his head and as he swipes them away, he swears they carry tiny cameras on their backs. He shakes his head. The dawn light must be playing tricks with his nerves.

  The rancher steps off his porch and waves back at his sons as a shadow rises up over the ranch house and the low sun vanishes.

  What seems like a meteor crashes into the hay barn. Punching a hole in the side. The rancher runs to the barn and peers through a cow shaped hole in the side of his barn. One of his full grown prime beef long-horns lies crushed and dead. A rogue Rex? Why throw away good food unless… it’s something else you crave?

  The rancher hears a crash like a tree falling on the roof and he spins around to see a dust cloud explode out at him from where his house used to stand.

  His wife coughing and rubbing her eyes stumbles from the dust cloud.

  “Is it a gas leak?” she says.

  He shakes his head, feeling grateful and amazed she lives.

  As the dust begins to clear, a set of jaws the size of the rancher’s tractor bursts out of the cloud and snatches his wife away from him. And almost at once vanishes.

  The rancher raises his rifle and squeezes the trigger. Emptying every round into the dust cloud. If a stray bullet hits his wife, thank God for small mercies.

  The rancher turns and runs. He tells himself he must live for his sons. Or die saving them. This is his last thought as he feels the ground disappear far below him. He hears himself shout, “Run.” And then he dies in the Tyrannosaurus jaws.

  His sons head towards the river. A pair of dragonflies buzzing around their heads, leading the way. Seems obvious the boys believe no one has ever heard of a T-Rex crossing water. If they can just make it that far. Dive in and stay under the surface long enough to lose their scent.

  Two hundred feet to the river. The T-Rex is nowhere to be seen. Oliver knows there’s just enough time, bought and paid with their parents’ lives. If they run like the wind, through the grass, over the cliff, the boys can make it.

  The ground shakes.

  “Jamie, faster,” says the older brother looking over his shoulder. The older boy is faster. His brother falls behind.

  The T-Rex appears, maybe fifty feet behind them.

  The ground shakes like an earth quake. The T-Rex is a sprinter. Short powerful bursts. Its huge tail flicking side to side knocking cattle out of its way.

  Jamie twists his ankle, stumbles, falls. “Go, Ollie, go.”

  Oliver slows, hesitates.

  T-Rex is forty feet away.

  Oliver runs back to his brother. “Can you run?”


  Jamie shakes his head. “You go, I’ll hide.”

  Oliver knows there is only one thing he can do. “Get to the river, stay under, I love you.”

  “No Ollie,” shouts Jamie as his brother runs at the T-Rex waving his hat. Shouting and swearing with the foulest language he can think of.

  Jamie knows his brother runs in the opposite direction of Red River in hope of leading away the T-Rex and saving Jamie. For a moment Jamie freezes. Struggling to comprehend the sacrifice. A voice in his head screams, “Run.”

  Jamie wipes his tears and hobbles to the river. Holding his ears as his brother’s screams fill the air.

  The river is close. He needs another ten seconds.

  The T-Rex is on his trail.

  Jamie needs five seconds. He grits his teeth as he puts his weight on his ankle and ignores the pain shooting up his leg. He knows he must run and dive from the river bank’s fifty feet high sharp drop. Maybe the dive will snap his neck and kill him. But it’s better than the alternative. And if Jamie survives the dive, he’ll need to hold his breath under the surface until his lungs burst. Convince the T-Rex its meal has slipped away.

  Jamie’s head thumps with dizziness. He fights the urge to stop and vomit as he stumbles through the grass at the buzzing insistence of the dragonflies.

  They zing around his head. Never giving him peace. Urging Jamie on. The dragonflies lead Jamie to the cliff edge where they hover above a woman and settle onto her shoulders.

  Is she mad? Can she not hear the T-Rex? The screams? Feel the stench of death? “Run,” shouts Jamie.

  The woman turns towards him, smiling.

  Jamie grabs the woman’s shoulders. “T-Rex is loose.”

  “Don’t you folks worry none,” the woman says. “I ordered the attack.” And she pulls away from Jamie. Pushes him backwards over the cliff edge.

  Jamie snatches at the woman’s shoulders and falls. He has time for one sharp breath. He hits the water and feels his ribs crack with the impact. Down deep, he plunges beneath the surface. He may drown but he’s been given a chance to live. For his family he will not waste it. Somehow, he must warn his neighbors. Jamie swims to the surface coughing and retching.

  As Jamie surfaces the T-Rex bounds down the slope to the river bank. It hesitates. Skims the surface with a claw. And steps into the river.

  Jamie tries to remember what he should do. What did his brother tell him? He starts swimming to the far side. The current is strong, his arms grow heavy.

  On the far bank is Big D. Cold dark eyes stare from under his wide brim hat. A scar etched across his stone hard face curls as he smiles. The Tyrannosaur ranch boss raises his rifle at Jamie. “That’s as far as you go, boy.”

  “Please,” Jamie says, coughing water, “why?”

  “Your daddy should have sold your ranch to me,” Big D says.

  Jamie feels Red River’s cold bite into his body. His legs grow numb. He closes his eyes and let’s himself slip beneath the surface. Giving himself up to the swirling whirlpool currents sucking him down and away. He looks down at pale blue wings poking through his fingers.

  Wriggling to free itself from Jamie’s clasp, the body of a dragonfly squirms and kicks out at him. Tiny sparks flicker from the camera on its back as a holographic montage of the morning’s events replay in a projected beam of light in front of Jamie. Of a mother and father dying to give precious time and hope for two boys running. Of a brother’s sacrifice of love becoming one boy falling to freedom and finally drowning.

  At last, Jamie stares back at himself. His last breath expiring in a cloud of bubbles from his mouth and nose. His widening, unblinking eyes reflecting on the surfaces of a thousand bubbles know his struggle is over. But somehow, he must find revenge for himself and his family. He holds the dragonfly close to his chest as the sunbeams reach down through the surface and vanish.

  A shadow looms over him and an ear-splitting roar explodes down into the depths.

  Jamie hears no more as all turns dark.

  TWO: Dragonfly Secrets

  The woman, Diana Diabolus, watches from the cliff edge as the enraged Tyrannosaurus Rex paws the fast flowing river for its elusive prey.

  A dragonfly, leaving Diana’s shoulder, hovers head height.

  She speaks to it. “Folks, that sure concludes our little test to prove our little old friend Tyrannosaurus Rex here can indeed track and kill humans. Without getting himself all fuzzy minded and distracted with other critters.”

  The dragonfly emits a stream of flickering light. The bushes by the cliff edge shimmer and shake and five people appear out of nowhere. A man steps forward. He and his group are full size holographic images.

  “Governor Diabolus,” says the man. “Your test does not prove T-Rex can discriminate. Between one human and another. We require a further test. Please return to the Colosseum at once.”

  The group shimmers and vanishes.

  Diana stamps the heel of her cowboy boot into the dust. “How dare they?” she spits. “After all I’ve done for them and the New Republic.”

  Big D rides up the cliff face on his stallion as his Ranch-Hands throw laser-lassos around the T-Rex’s neck. Subduing the monster with laser-whips.

  “Some people ain’t ever fixed up for pleasing,” Big D says.

  “They’re lucky I don’t feed them to a T-Rex,” Diana says brushing her empty shoulders. “I’m missing a dragonfly-cam. Did you recover the boy’s body?”

  “Not yet,” says Big D. “Swept on downstream to the Reaper Ranch.”

  “The data on that dragonfly must be found and destroyed. Reaper Ranch will be your next stop. Prepare the Rex,” Diana says. “Make the usual offer they can’t refuse. Hurry, it’s almost light. I want the cattle rancher’s opposition crushed before I bring in the media to voice my shock and outrage at these senseless deaths.”

  “Got someone to pin the deaths on?” Big D says.

  Diana simply smiles.

  THREE: Dinosaur Thieves

  “Wake up Jack, missing first Tyrannosaurs,” Egg says, pinching my nose.

  “Hang fire, Raptor turd,” I say. “Fixing up to a birthday lie-in.” But we both know I’m fully dressed under the duvet. Neither of us slept all night making plans.

  Egg jumps on me. “Fifteen thumps, one for each year you stupid,” he says giggling and pulling my duvet off. “Get smart, Raptor brain.”

  “Raptor breath, you want your eleven thumps early?” I say. “Race you.”

  We lit out back to our dirt bikes and roll them stealth-like down the path in dawn’s first light. Our border-collies, Old Cedric and Caesar crawling low like us.

  Dad’s arguing again with our neighbor Big D and his Ranch-Hands.

  “Shoot-fire, if Dad catches us skipping school again our butts are for the laser-whip,” I say as long shadows move our way. We hide in the hay barn.

  “My cattle are for humans. Not for sale to likes of you freak ranchers,” Dad says. “And neither is Reaper Ranch. But maybe you need reminding?”

  A crack of Dad’s laser-whip thunders at Big D. A breeze brings a sharp stench of charred flesh. Big D picks himself up off our lawn. Holding the side of his face. Fingers dripping in blood. Big D’s Ranch-Hands reach for their rifles but Dad is cracking his laser-whip again. Sending their rifles spinning.

  “Get off my ranch,” says Dad. “And if I catch you this side of Red again...”

  Dad cracks his laser-whip into a fire-arc. Big D and his Ranch-Hands howl with pain. Egg throws his hands up over his ears. Shaking with his eyes shut tight.

  Big D and his Ranch-Hands climb on their horses and ride off under a wide sky of angry crimson clouds. Under our gate sign, them Ranch-Hands slow up and Big D yells, “You sells to me or you moves out, Reaper. And tell your brats, I catch them near my Tyrannosaurs, they be flossing T-Rex teeth with their bones.”

  Dad turns his back. “Jack?” shouts Dad. “Egg?”

  Egg jumps to attention. He’s shaking and starts high tailing it to
Dad.

  I put my hand over Egg’s mouth. Hauling him back. “Hang-fire, don’t squat with your spurs on. Dad’s fixing up to a Norther.”

  Egg nods.

  I let go.

  “Hell fried hot cow chips, Jack,” Egg says. “Tell me you ain’t fixing up to be like Dad?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t kick cow chips on a hot day.”

  “Promise, hope to die in Raptor Ravine,” Egg says, tears welling up.

  “I promise, hope to die,” I say laughing. “Nothing going to change us.”

  “T-Rex or school?” Egg says kicking a straw bale like he wants to cry.

  “You heard Big D,” I say and shrug.

  “Dumping me for a hot date?” Egg says.

  I am aware of myself flushing hot. “You my hot date, Raptor breath.”

  “Jamie and all the kids in our class be expecting us –” Egg clams up.

  Egg is trying to avoid my gaze. I know he’s up to something and with Egg, that’s never a good thing. “What scam you running?”

  Egg reaches into his back-pack and takes out an egg shaped web-cam. “We set it up in a nest before T-Rex arrives,” Egg says. “Ten bucks a week subscription. Whole class signed up.”

  “Bet your teachers don’t know about this.”

  Egg grins. “Cut you in for ten percent on all merchandise.”

  “Twenty,” I says.

  “Fifteen.”

  “Done.”

  We hi-five.

  “T-Rex here we come.”

  Egg’s face lights up and he punches the air. “Dinosaur-thieves strike again.”

  We grab our dirt bikes.

  Ghost, our milk cow, Egg raised since a new born calf, pulls at her tethers.

  “She’ll give us away,” I say.