Blue Cove, Delaware
1830 hours Zulu
A Light Brown- haired blue- eyed boy named Jonathan Chase walked along the shoreline. Looking out over the ocean he watched as the sunset made a blazing red path across the water. He was wearing jeans, a dark green shirt and a brown leather Jacket. But the most notable thing about his attire was the unusual bracelet and pendant that he wore. They had ancient markings on them and they looked like something straight out of the jungle. The boy himself appeared to be about 15 years old
After walking a short distance up the coast he stopped and climbed up on a large rock at the base of a stone cliff and sat down. As he sat there memories of his past began to flow across his mind. Images of the jungle, the death of his parents, of his uncle and aunt finding him eight years later bringing him back to America, the lectures that had brought his uncle here to Blue Cove, Delaware for the third time in two years, and his secret. He then thought about the building that stood almost directly above where he was sitting. He hand always sensed that there was something very dark about that place. That it was the heart of a great evil.
His cousin Sara Denise Williams or "Sadie" as she was affectionately know was the only person who knew of his ability to just sense things. Once she had taken a fall off the top of a small rock wall near the hospital where her dad worked in Wynnoka, Falls. She didn't think she was hurt so she was a bit mystified when Jon had grabbed her up in his arms and rushed her to the Emergency room. Once there the doctor examined her and found that she was bleeding internally and didn't even know it. When she asked Jon about he said,
"I can't explain it I just knew." From then on she was his only true confidant the only one that knew of his mysterious and eerily accurate sixth sense as well as his other secret. He sat there on the rock with his eyes closed and let the wind blow through his hair. He was suddenly jarred out of his relaxing by the sound of running footsteps heading in his direction. He looked in the direction of the sound and his eyes briefly changed to look like the eyes of a panther and quick as wink he made a superhuman jump twenty feet straight up to a rock outcropping in the side of the cliff where he lay still and waited. Just then a young brown-haired girl came running down a trail that seemed to lead up the cliff somehow Jon saw that she had a look of sheer terror on her face and she was running for all she was worth. Jon looked back up the trail and saw a heavily armed blonde woman and two other heavily armed men dressed like hoods following her.
"The girl went this way," she was yelling at the two men. The woman was obviously in heels and neither she nor the two men with her were as nimble as the kid they were chasing. Jon could sense that they meant to harm the girl and he knew that he had to do something. Moving to the back of the outcropping where he would be hidden from view by the two stone sides of the massive crevice that the outcropping jutted out of he crouched down. The look on his face became one of concentration his breathing became slow and shallow. Suddenly his skin began to spasm and ripple. The fingers of his hands began to fuse together gradually taking the form of paws. his face sprouted black fur and his skull and teeth became more and more catlike. His whole body twisted and reformed until where there had once been a teenaged boy there was now a black panther!
The panther walked to the edge of the outcropping and leaped off with a primal roar.
The woman and her two cohorts were startled when the saw the black panther land on a rock behind where the girl had fallen. Their attention was immediately glued on the panther.
"Don't make any sudden moves," said the woman. As the three of them stood rooted to the spot. The girl lay there terrified looking up at the panther that was crouched on the rock in a springing position, baring its teeth, and growling. Suddenly there was a voice in her mind it said,
"Run they won't follow!" Not knowing where the voice came from and not really caring the girl took off running the blond woman saw the girl bolt and went for her gun in an instant the panther pounced on her scratching and clawing and biting, causing her gun to go off at a wild angle. The attack was over as quick as it started and the panther darted off around the corner in the direction that the girl had gone.
"Let's get after it," said one of the men.
"We can't," said the other, "we have to get Brigitte back to the renewal wing that overgrown pussycat roughed her up pretty badly." Once the panther was out of site it's body began to change again until once again it was Jonathan Chase teenage boy. Jon raced along the base of the cliff at a speed faster than a normal human could run. He hadn't gone far when he found the girl lying unconscious with a bullet hole in her right thigh. Picking her up he looked around and found that the most level place was the top of a nearby boulder that was about ten feet tall by ten feet wide. With a quick stride toward the boulder he made another superhuman jump and landed as softly as a kitten on the top of the boulder. Laying her down on the surface of the boulder he knelt down beside her and taking one of the silver throwing knives that was on his belt he used it to cut away enough of the skirt so he would have an unobstructed view of the wound. Just then the girl stirred and began to wake up.
"Who are you?" she asked weakly.
"My name is Jonathan," he replied, "don't be afraid I'm here to help you."
"My name is Debbie." She replied weakly
He reached down with his fingertips and pressed two points in front and behind her hip. Her eyes suddenly widened.
"What did you do?" she demanded, "I can't feel my leg anymore!"
Relax said Jon it's just a nerve lock I have to get the bullet out of your leg and that was the only anesthesia I had. Then he took some of the medicinal herbs out of the pouch on his belt, stuck them in his mouth and began to chew them. Taking the knife he widened the wound ever so slightly then he hooked the blade of his knife under the bullet that was lodged in the muscle near the bone and in less time that it takes to tell about it pried the bullet out. All of a sudden he felt a pistol poking him in the back of the head.
"You even flinch the wrong way and I'll blow your head off!" growled a woman's voice he turned slightly to see an attractive brown haired woman standing there. Without looking the least bit scared he spit the half-chewed herbs into his hands.
"Lady," he said, "are you nuts sneaking up on me like that? Do you realized that if I swallowed these herbs I'd be unconscious for a week?" he turned around and packed the mixture of half chewed herbs onto the wound. And put a bandage made from the piece he had cut out of her skirt.
"There," he said, "that poultice well stop the bleeding and start the healing process. Change the dressing twice a day." With that he released the nerve lock and handed Debbie to the brown haired lady.
"Miss Parker," said Debbie quietly.
"Shh," said Miss Parker, "rest." When she looked up Jon was nowhere to be seen.
Jonathan walked into the diner and slid into a corner booth in front of another man. Whose face was partially concealed in the shadows that surround this back corner booth.
"Your tip about the attempt on the life of that girl was right," he said, "The girl will be fine and I think Brigitte has now moved higher than you on Miss Parkers hit list, Jarod."
The Pretender leaned forward and smiled.
"Just the way I want it," he said, "Now we know that Brigitte won't be able to pull that again because she'll be too busy running from Miss Parker."
Jarod smiled as he and Jon walked out of the diner side by side
"Jon," he said is his best Humphrey Bogart voice, "I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
--Fin
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P.s. for any and all who are interested at in the next few days I'll be posting my original story about Jonathan our shape shifter it will be called Manimal.