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    Jekylls
    Jekylls
    Jekylls
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Jekylls

    By Erin M. Hartshorn

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Lou Lopez's normal life falls apart when he's diagnosed with a new genetic mutation. The beautiful CEO wants to date him. Members of his support group want answers. Lou just wants to know whether he's changing into a monster--and how he can stop.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHartshornPublishing
    Release dateNov 26, 2012
    ISBN9781301314843
    Jekylls
    Author

    Erin M. Hartshorn

    Erin M. Hartshorn is a desert rat transplanted to a humid climate. Her ideal home has bookcases in every room. She is a moderator at Forward Motion for Writers, an online writers community. Her fiction has appeared both on-line and in print in various places, placed in the PARSEC short story contest, earned honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest, and been shortlisted for the UPC Award. When she's not writing, she enjoys various handicrafts, though she prefers spending time with her family.

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      Book preview

      Jekylls - Erin M. Hartshorn

      Jekylls

      Erin M. Hartshorn

      Copyright 2012 Erin M. Hartshorn

      Cover Fonts: Yataghan by Daniel Midgley, Winterthur Condensed by Manfred Klein

      Cover Image Credit: MorgueFile

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book 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 return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Published by Hartshorn Publishing, Bethlehem, PA

      All rights reserved.

      Once upon a time -- that's the way stories are supposed to start, right? Once upon a time, I was human. We all were. Or at least we were raised human, with no idea that there was even another possibility. We hadn't heard about jekylls. No one had. Then Fleischer Inc. came along.

      One of the big biotech firms that sits down near the Bay, Fleischer had been around for decades. Anything to do with hormones -- birth control, test tube babies, testosterone supplements. They splashed into the news briefly half a dozen years back for playing part in a baseball steroid scandal. Unintentionally, of course, and the company didn't even get a slap on the wrist, although people lost their jobs over the mistake. Now here they were, making news again. I was there from the start, before the first news story ever ran, and I can tell you, those stories missed half the truth. Intentionally? Some of it.

      I still remember the letter I received from them on that sparkling October day. Dear Mr. Lopez, We were contacted by your company's insurance agency, Cal Core Care, about some irregularities in your latest urinalysis results. Please contact us at your earliest opportunity to schedule follow-up testing at our facility. This is confidential; results will not compromise your position at First Bay Bank.

      Irregularities? There shouldn't have been any. First Bay Bank, the company I work for, does mandatory drug testing. No worries -- I might go out for a couple beers with the guys occasionally, but I don't do any hard drugs, and I stay out of the kind of places where I'd inhale enough secondhand pot smoke to test positive for using it myself. Just an average guy.

      I flipped the paper over, looking for any more information, a sheet of results, anything. It didn't make sense, especially the bit about not compromising my position at work. The kind of things that would show up in the drug screen would get me booted out without notice. Maybe there'd been some bad test, something everyone tested positive on, or some test that they had to double-check. I didn't know, but staring at the letter wasn't going to get me anywhere. I made the call.

      It never occurred to me to talk to anybody about it beforehand, to ask my parents for advice (I'm 25. If I asked them for advice, they would want me to take a drug test) or to check with the insurance company to find out why they'd shared the results with Fleischer. This wasn't a random piece of junk mail, after all. It mentioned my insurance company and my employer. Whoever wrote it knew that I'd taken blood tests for my job. It was official and seemed legitimate. Looking back, I can't say I would have done anything differently.

      Maybe I shouldn't have responded so quickly. Maybe I shouldn't have answered at all. In the long run, it wouldn't have made any difference. Brigit and I still would have messed everything up.

      As a courtesy, Fleischer offered weekend appointments. Ten o'clock sharp on Saturday, October 17, I presented myself at the clinic entrance I'd been told to use. The map on their Website made finding it easy, even though I always get lost wandering into Emeryville. A pair of women -- one white, one Asian -- in light green scrubs sat behind the reception desk. A couple of other civilians sat in the waiting room. A pregnant woman, her red hair matched in tone by her freckles, flipped through magazines, and a black man in a suit watched the TV, which had CNN Health on. After checking in at the desk, I sat down on the other side of the room with the stack of paperwork they'd given me to fill out -- the usual identification forms and acknowledgment of their privacy policy. The privacy policy had an added sheet, a non-disclosure form. Since I couldn't imagine talking to anyone about tests that might have landed me at the clinic, I signed without a second thought. When I was done, I turned in the forms, sat back down, and pulled out my iPhone, ready to play a game.

      The door to the back opened and a man with a florid face came out, slipping sunglasses onto his face as if he were already outside rather than in the waiting room. His lips were pinched, as if he didn't like something he'd been told. His arms bulged beneath his Oakland A's sweatshirt, though they were of a piece with the rest of him -- burly, my dad would say, clearly a physical laborer. He moved like that, too, unhurried and smooth, his muscles used to being there. Whatever had brought him in today, it wasn't steroid use.

      I turned my attention back to my phone; Angry Birds was waiting. I didn't have time to get past the splash screen before the door opened again. Light glinted off the glasses of a thin white guy in scrubs who called, Lou?

      Sighing, I stood up and slipped the phone back into my pocket. The man watching the TV glanced up, a flash of annoyance on his face. His thoughts were clear. He'd been here longer; why was I getting called in first? The woman didn't seem to care; she just turned another page in her current magazine. If the nurse or tech, whatever he was, noticed the others' reactions, he gave no sign, merely held the door open and waited for me.

      The illusion of a normal doctor's office stopped at the door; the hallway beyond looked more corporate than medical, with industrial carpet running halfway up the walls and a couple innocuous framed landscapes on the right-hand side. I expected information pamphlets about various medical conditions and posters showing the necessity of immunization; there weren't any.

      As he let the door close behind us, the guy in the scrubs said, My name's Jim. Think of this as an expanded physical, like what you'd get at your doctor's office, but with a couple of blood draws added in. We're also going to do an EKG and an EEG, just as baseline. Nothing to worry about.

      Easy for you to say, I replied. Are you going to tell me what I'm being tested for? The letter wasn't specific.

      I don't have that information. I'm just a tech. He motioned to an open door on the left. In here, please.

      The room could have been in any doctor's office, complete with padded bench (covered with white paper), a sink, and a couple of cupboards faced with pale pink Formica. Again, no information pamphlets, not even for Fleischer's products, which struck me as odd. In addition to the usual equipment on the walls -- the racks of cones for looking into people's ears and noses, the blood pressure cuffs hung up in order of size, a red plastic box

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