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."
"That's insane," I said.
"Tell me about it. I don't even know if I'll be able to change back. I've tried everything I can think of." For all his bravado, I could tell he was worried. He just wasn't the type to say it out loud. "What about you?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, a little confused.
"Your little flying act."
I dried the last dish and put it away before sitting on the floor a few feet away from him. "I have no idea. It just sort of happened."
He nodded in commiseration with the weird turn our lives had taken. "So why was Alex chasing you? He looked like he wanted to kill you."
After I told him the story, the mountain lion rolled around the ground roaring with laughter for a solid two minutes. It was a dry, brittle laugh that could have easily been mistaken for a choking hairball-in-the-throat sort of sound. "You definitely should have taken a picture of that."
"So what should we do now?" I asked, feeling a little defensive. One day I might find the story amusing, but today wasn't that day. "Do you think we should go to the police for help?"
"Only if you want to end up as a science experiment for the rest of your life." He let out a big yawn, and I realized my entire head could easily fit inside of his mouth.
"What do you mean we?"
He shut his eyes and rested his chin on his paw. "If you rat me out, I'll find a way to implicate you as well." It wasn't a threat, just a statement of fact.
I was seriously regretting my decision to get tangled up in all of his drama. I was about to ask if he wanted me to call his parents, but he'd fallen asleep. I wasn't sure if it was exhaustion or the whole being a cat thing, but I'd never seen anyone fall asleep so quickly.
"Umm, Marv?"
The big cat continued to snore unperturbed. I was about to shake him awake but realized it might be an epically bad idea, so I sat and watched him for a few minutes. From head to tail he was way over six feet in length. Even though he'd been in the woods for three days, his coat was shiny and looked very soft. I had the sudden urge to reach out and touch it, but I valued my hand way too much.
I checked the time and decided it was safe to let him rest for a little while, so I quietly left the room and headed upstairs to my bedroom. I wanted to take a shower more than anything else, but I didn't want to leave Marv unsupervised in case someone suddenly came home. Instead I opened up my laptop and saw I had thirty-four text messages from Amy. I was guessing she was mad at me for missing the audition and was about to read her messages when Facetime popped up. I clicked connect and Amy's pale face filled my screen. Her wavy red hair was mussed and looked as if she'd just stepped out of a tornado.
"Jackson!" She was relieved to see me for some reason. "Where have you been? I have been calling and texting you for the last hour."
"I left my phone in Spanish class," I explained, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Marv hadn't sauntered into the room.
"The cops are searching for you."
"What?!" My head snapped back around. "Why?"
"Alex Cole said he saw you walking into the woods and went in after you to protect you. He told the police that before he could find you he was attacked by a huge mountain lion. His fist is all bloodied up from fighting it off. Everyone is calling him a hero." Amy hesitated for a moment before she continued, "Your aunt is here with my dad and about a dozen cops. There's also a news crew, and I heard they are bringing in helicopters. Everyone is freaking out."
Cold panic sliced my insides.
Before I could say anything, Amy's face disappeared. "I found him, he's home," she shouted at someone off screen.
The image went blurry. All I could see was turbulent sky and ground before a very tired policeman with big jowls and slicked back thinning hair popped up on screen. "Do you know the trouble you have caused us?"
I gulped.
"Don't go anywhere. We will be at your house shortly."
Amy's face reappeared on the screen. "We were so worried about you. The whole school is texting and talking about it. I'm just glad you're okay."
"Listen," I said, "I gotta go." Before she could deliver any more bad news, I snapped my laptop shut, tore out of my room, and practically tripped down the stairs. Marv was still sleeping on the patch of sunlight where I'd left him. "You have to get out of here." I said, bursting into the kitchen.
Marv covered his ears with his large paws. "Dude, I'm trying to get some sleep."
"The cops are coming!"
That got his attention. He shot up off the floor and looked around. "Why? What happened? Do they know about me?"
"No, but Alex told them he saw me going into the woods and that he fought you off. There are cops, and helicopters, and, oh God, my aunt is going to kill me," I rambled.
"That's ridiculous," he growled. "Alex Cole couldn't punch out a girl scout if his life depended on it."
"That's what you're getting out of this conversation?" I was seconds away from a having complete and total meltdown.
"Right," he said with a nod. "Where should I hide?"
"There's an old abandoned cabin about a mile away. You can hide there until this blows over."
Marv began to protest, but there was no time for a debate. I ran out the front door and onto the porch. Mr. Saltzman and his giant Great Dane were in the field right across the street from our house. He had his back to us, but the Great Dane immediately spotted us and began barking like crazy when he saw Marv.
I slammed the door shut and peeked out the curtains. The Great Dane was running toward our house. Mr. Saltzman was shouting for him to come back with little result. There was no way to sneak Marv out the backdoor without being seen by Mr. Saltzman. He may have been old, but he was eagle-eyed.
"Okay," I said, coming up with a plan on the spot, "I'll hide you in my closet. They'll never check there, right?"
Marv tilted his head to one side. "Why would they check in your closet?"
"Exactly!" I ran up the stairs feeling like a wild animal myself. My closet was pretty organized, which couldn't exactly be said about the rest of my room. I shoved the hangers aside and cleared a space on the floor.
Upon entering my room he immediately took notice of the huge collage of Shawn Mendes hanging on the wall. My cheeks started burning from embarrassment.
"Seriously dude?" The mountain lion lifted one eyebrow. "That has to be the gayest thing I've ever seen."
"Just shut up and get in." I pointed to the closet, trying to preserve what little dignity I had left.
He peaked inside and looked back up at me, not unlike a petulant pet that doesn't want to go outside in the rain. "Don't you have a basement or attic I could hide in instead?"
"No." I dropped to my knees and began shoving him in.
"Hey," he protested, turning his head to look back at me, "that's my ass you're touching."
I ignored him and stood back up. Marv settled himself into the corner of my closet but he was still in plain view, so I pulled the comforter off of my bed, threw it over him, and tried to mold him into a smaller, more discreet lump.
"You're seriously starting to piss me off," he said, his voice muffled.
"Stay down and shut up." A brilliant idea popped into my head. I ran to the storage closet in the hallway and pulled out a rolled up tent, some sleeping bags, and a fold-up chair. I tossed everything on top of him, hoping it would camouflage him a little better.
"Dude, what the hell?" said the muffled lump.
"Do you want to get caught?" I hissed. The lump didn't answer, but he did sigh loudly. "You can drop the attitude," I snapped. "I'm only trying to help."
As a final touch I dumped my dirty laundry over the growing mountain of items and arranged the mound to make it look more natural. The only noticeable difference in my room was that my comforter was gone, so I raced back to the storage closet and grabbed an old blanket. I had just thrown it over my bed when I heard someone walking up the stairs.
"Jackson, where are you?" It was my brother.
I slid the closet door shut and jumped on my bed right as he walked in.