Jackson Humes is Not a Superhero

CHAPTER THREE

The big cat continued to growl for a few more seconds before he jumped off of me and landed gracefully on his haunches. "Look I don't want to waste my time. Are you going to help me or not?"

My options were very dim. I could try to ditch psycho kitty in the woods, but he'd proven that he could outrun me. "I'll help you," I said, knowing I didn't really have a choice. "But please don't pounce on me like that again."

The mountain lion rolled his eyes. "Fine."

On any other day we would have come across joggers, hikers, and their dogs, but today the trail was eerily deserted. By the time we reached the two posts that marked the exit, my nerves were shot, my legs were giving out, and I was a sticky, sweaty mess. I was in need of a long, hot shower and possibly a therapy session to find out if I had completely lost my mind, but neither of those items were at the top of my pressing concerns list.

My aunt's house was a modest two-story Victorian at the end of a cul-de-sac that sat at our town's limits. The land had been in our family for a couple of generations and had initially started as a peach orchard, but most of it had dried up a long time ago. The only other house on our street was at the far end of the orchard and belonged to Mr. Saltzman—a cantankerous old man who lived alone with his dog.

"Is the coast clear?" Marv asked, sniffing the air.

A white van was just pulling out of Mr. Saltzman's driveway. It was the same van that I'd seen at his house at least once a week for as long as I could remember. I had asked my aunt about it years ago, but she had advised me to mind my own business. I waited until the van turned at the end of the street and disappeared from view before hurrying across the field.

Marv raced across the living room and headed straight into the kitchen as soon as I opened the front door. "Stop!" I said, running after him and shooing him away from the fridge. "You're going to get claw marks all over it." I pulled out a bowl of leftover spaghetti and meatballs, which he ended up wrestling away from me. He devoured the cold meal in a matter of seconds, leaving a ring of marinara sauce around his white muzzle.

Marv ended up polishing off four pieces of fried chicken, a half loaf of French bread, a variety of deli meats, a can of baked beans, and a carton of fruit punch. Stuffing his face must have left him in a food coma because he wobbled over to a sunlit-bathed spot on the kitchen floor and collapsed on the ground.

"What was everyone saying about me today?" he asked. "I bet the whole school is devastated."

"Everyone thinks you were eaten by a mountain lion." I could have elaborated and told him about the shrine that had been built in his honor or that the principal had held a moment of silence during the morning announcements, but I wasn't about to fuel his overinflated ego.

"Were any of the girls crying?" he asked eagerly. "I bet they all cried."

"There were a few tears," I admitted begrudgingly. He really was full of himself.

"The football team must be freaking out," he said, speaking with a confidence I could only hope to have one day. "They know they can't win any games without me. Hey, they didn't replace me did they?"

"I don't really follow the sports news," I said, starting the great task of cleaning the mountain of dishes it had taken to feed him. "So," I said, switching the subject, "how did you end up like this? Did you get bitten by a radioactive house cat?"

The mountain lion snorted at my joke. "I have no clue. We threw a big party at the campgrounds Friday night. I remember waking up to take a piss in the middle of the night and feeling strange, but I was still pretty drunk so it didn't register that I was no longer human. It wasn't until I was walking back to the tent and my buddy spotted me that I knew something was wrong. I tried to talk to him, but he took off screaming. I hid out in the woods until my head cleared and tried to go home, but my idiot stepdad tried to shoot me, so I've been hiding in the woods trying to figure out how to turn back into myself."