“Where does he work?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Vaughn said. “Something medical.”
We started talking about the fight again for another thirty minutes or so. Somehow the conversation turned to Lee, and I reminded people that he wanted all of us there the next day and ideally every practice thereafter.
“And that’s why I need to go,” Jaclyn said. “If I want to have time for that, I can’t stay here all night.”
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 10
Sean looked over the oncoming crowd a little nervously, and asked me, “What are we supposed to do now?”
“No idea,” I said.
Then I turned on the loudspeaker.
They were halfway across the lawn, and the growing darkness gave the group a “Night of the Living Dead” feel. Not that they were really zombies, but a crowd of people walking toward you isn’t a normal situation.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 9
Payback screamed and fell over, his body outlined in electricity.
The air smelled of ozone, and smoke.
When the lightning stopped, I could see Payback more clearly. His chest still moved, but he wasn’t doing much more than that. His right arm looked uncomfortably red and blistered.
From behind me Vaughn shouted, “I got him, right?”
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 8
I raised my left arm, fist pointed upward, shielding my chest. My right arm hung near my waist, ready to punch.
I didn’t punch Skewer.
Pushing down on two buttons on my right palm, I blasted him with the sonics.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 7
By the time we got there, there were four of us. Vaughn met us in the air. Jaclyn met us at the house.
The house didn’t stick out normally. A white, two story house in a subdivision full of modern, two story homes of almost exactly the same design (basically a rectangle), it didn’t have much of a chance of looking ominous. The lawn had been mowed, the bushes clipped. The trees still looked bare of leaves, but, if the rest of the yard was any indication, not because the owner had neglected anything.
Tonight the house stuck out. The front door hung by two of the three hinges. The windows in its upper half had been shattered. Its metal body bent inward.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 3
The next day we stepped out of school and into a media circus.
Sometime between last night and that afternoon, the reporter’s story had been taken up by the Associated Press and a video of Keith’s transformation had gone viral. Reporters stood at the bottom of the steps. Vans with satellite uplinks parked alongside the sidewalk. Photographers and cameramen stood waiting.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 1
I couldn’t think of a person I’d least like to hear say those words, but it didn’t really matter what I thought.
Sean, still limping a little, but off the crutches he’d been using since our fight, pushed through the crowd. The fact that Dayton, Sean’s much larger friend, walked with him undoubtedly helped with the pushing.
Ignoring Vaughn, he said, “So what do I do?”
“Just hold out your arm.” Keith put drips of each liquid on Sean’s forearm.
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 6
“Well… Where are you meeting?”
Keith said, “Nowhere much. The school parking lot. It’ll be quick.”
He grinned at me. “I’ve a majorly cool demonstration of what I found out.”
I wanted to ask him about it, but he must have read that off my face.
He started walking down the hall toward at the stairs. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll show you when I show everyone else.”
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 5
Vaughn never got hit by the lightning.
When the strikes stopped, he stood there unharmed, smiling nervously, glass shards and glass craters surrounding him.
“He’s cheating! You can’t do that.” The King of Storms shouted at Lee.
“He’s controlling weather.” Lee said. “Get on with it or yield.”
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 12
“Let’s get on with it then,” Lee said.
Both Vaughn and the King of Storms turned to look at him.
“Neither of you is going to change their name so now it’s time to come up with another way to handle it. You’ll want to choose seconds and Vaughn, you get to choose the weapon if it’s a duel.”
“Duel?” Vaughn sounded incredulous.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 11