In this reimagining of the Stevenson classic ...Jekyll and Hyde, AJ Pierce is a handsome, popular junior at an elite Los Angeles high school. Good grades. Good friends. Good life. Then the past catches up with him in the form of a father he barely knew.
Henry Jekyll was a brilliant geneticist on the verge of a breakthrough â using viruses to carry new DNA into the human body, hunting for a genetic cure for cancer. But viruses mutate. The genetic pattern mutated with them. What began as a quest to save lives split Dr. Jekyll in two, and ultimately destroyed him. Now, through a twist of fate, AJ has been infected with his fatherâs creation. And what destroyed Henry Jekyll is starting to happen to his son.
AJ simply wants a normal high school life. Hyde has other plans.
In this reimagining of the Stevenson classic ...Jekyll and Hyde, AJ Pierce is a handsome, popular junior at an elite Los Angeles high school. Good grades. Good friends. Good life. Then the past catches up with him in the form of a father he barely knew.
Henry Jekyll was a brilliant geneticist on the verge of a breakthrough â using viruses to carry new DNA into the human body, hunting for a genetic cure for cancer. But viruses mutate. The genetic pattern mutated with them. What began as a quest to save lives split Dr. Jekyll in two, and ultimately destroyed him. Now, through a twist of fate, AJ has been infected with his fatherâs creation. And what destroyed Henry Jekyll is starting to happen to his son.
AJ simply wants a normal high school life. Hyde has other plans.
Chapter 1
The house at the end of Mariposa Lane looked like every other house on the cul de sac. Spanish tile, mature oaks, an iron gate, the whole Pasadena postcard. You could drive past it a hundred times and register nothing beyond quiet affluence, the studied neutrality of a neighborhood where people kept their troubles behind walls and neatly maintained hedges.
But if you stopped, if you actually stopped and looked through the picture window, you could see that something was wrong. A figure moved behind the glass in silhouette, pacing the length of the living room with a restless, repetitive urgency. Back and forth. Back and forth. His movements were aggressive and pained. They were the movements of a man locked in a struggle with something ugly and brutally powerful. He seemed to be fighting a battle that he was losing. You could tell that even from the street.
The oaks stood still in the windless evening. A dog barked twice and stopped. Its owner looked around uncertainly. The dog started growling in a soft, almost whimper. It seemed to fear trouble, and it started pulling away on the leash. The owner trusted it, so he followed the dog home and avoided the house at the end of the drive.
There was something very wrong in that house.
The kitchen was well-appointed. Italian marble countertops, stainless steel appliances, pendant lights that cost more than most peopleâs car payments. Someone had spent serious money making this room look like the cover of a design magazine, and it had worked, and now none of it meant anything because the man moving through it was trailing tension. The air was thick with it. It was a pressure you felt before you could even think about it.
On the small television mounted beneath the cabinet, a news anchor delivered the local evening report in the measured cadence they reserved for especially solemn news. Her voice was professionally level, slightly softened at the syllables that mattered most.
âA body was found tonight in Echo Park. Police have not yet confirmed if it is another in the series of brutal murders that has plagued the northeastern area of Los Angeles, including Glendale and Pasadena.â
The figure snapped the TV off and grumbled in a low, guttural voice.
The silence that followed was somehow louder than the report had been.
He moved to the freezer and ripped it open, nearly pulling it off its hinges. Grabbed a bottle of vodka. His reflection swam briefly in the shiny stainless-steel door, distorted, compressed, a funhouse version of whatever he had once looked like. Then the door slammed shut, and the reflection was gone.
On the counter, a photo album lay open. He looked at it without meaning to, and then couldnât look away. A younger man and a boy, together at Elysian Park, both laughing with the full, unguarded ease of people who had no idea what was coming for them. These were people who still believed the world was fundamentally generous. He stared at the two faces for a long moment, breathing hard through his mouth. Then he shoved the album onto the floor.
He poured the vodka too fast, and it spilled across the marble and ran off the edge in a thin, clear stream. When his hand shot out to grab the tumbler, it was shaking so badly that his grip was too powerful, and the glass broke in his hand. Blood mixed with vodka tracked across the stone in pink, diluted rivulets.
From somewhere deep in his chest, rather than from his throat, came a sound. Less a voice than a pressure finding an exit.
âHow the hell? How? Forgive me, God.â
He reached up into a cabinet and took down a short-barreled Ruger Super Redhawk. He held it in both hands for a long moment. Not pointing it. Just holding it, feeling the weight of it redistribute itself through his palms and fingers. His hands stopped trembling. Completely. The shaking that had shattered the glass was gone, and what replaced it was worse: the preternatural stillness of a man who has made a decision.
He looked up at the ceiling. At whatever he believed was on the other side of it. His shoulders slumped. His jaw unclenched. A terrible calm settled over him.
The sound of the gunshot was overwhelming in the small kitchen as it echoed through the room, loud, urgent, and final. Blood hit the walls. He dropped, and the gun clattered on the tile and skittered under the cabinet, and then there was silence. It was not a peaceful silence. It was an evacuated silence where the birds stop singing. It was the silence of fear, where no one knows what to do other than duck down, look around, and pray not to hear another shot.
And there, beneath the counter, still, invisible, wedged as far back into the shadows as its small body could reach, was a miniature Husky puppy. It had understood what was coming long before the man did. It had pressed itself against the wall behind the cabinet toe-kick and made itself as small as possible and waited.
Now a single drop of blood rolled off the counterâs edge and fell four feet through still air and landed in its water bowl, dissolving in slow, widening spirals of dark pink.
The puppy came forward, looked at its owner, and sniffed the trail of blood on the floor. When it looked up, there was a drop of blood on its nose. Then the dog inhaled, taking the drop of blood into its snout.
***
The first person you noticed at the Chandler Heights pool was AJ Pierce. This was not unusual. He was sixteen, bright-faced and handsome without working at it. He was the kind of kid who hadnât yet discovered that looks were something you could manage and maintain and was therefore more appealing than most of the ones who had made that discovery. He stood at the poolâs edge for a moment with his weight gathered and his eyes focused intently. Then he sprang forward, tucked into a rotation, and executed a forward flip that was sadly, pretty average. He hit the water with a crash of white spray.
He climbed out dripping and crossed to where Lauren Tracey sat on a lounge chair. She was watching him with a dutiful level of interest.
âHow was that?â
Lauren looked up at him. She was a pretty girl. A brunette with a nice athletic figure that radiated youth and vitality. Her eyes were brown. That should have made them ordinary, but there was a brightness in her gaze that was magnetic. She was a wholesome girl whom people noticed right away. She had been AJâs girlfriend for eight months, and she had learned, in that time, to calibrate her enthusiasm carefully.
âAverage.â
âGood,â AJ said, receiving this as a compliment, which it absolutely was not. âIâd hate to stand out.â
âLiar,â she teased. âYou know you want to be awesome.â âThatâs why I have an awesome girlfriend.â
He took her hand and pulled her toward the communal hot tub, where the summer party was already in full swing. The air smelled of chlorine and sunscreen and the faint, sweet edge of something being passed around. Lauren jumped in and leaned back against the underwater ledge, while he settled on the coping and dangled his feet in the bubbling water.
âWhatâs up?â he said to the group.
Five other kids occupied the hot tub, all of them from the upper-middle-class neighborhood. They acknowledged AJ with the minimal nods of people already absorbed in something more interesting: specifically, the far side of the hot tub, where two of their friends were making out with a commitment that had moved well past romantic into something closer to athletic. Where their hands were beneath the surface of the churning water was not exactly a mystery.
âHow long has that been going on?â AJ asked.
âTheyâve been sucking face for ten minutes straight,â said Rick.
Rick Beckett was the alpha in their group, or in almost any group. He was the only one not from the neighborhood. He lived in a big house on the strand by the ocean, but was slumming it for the evening. He was an athlete who was easy to like because he was actually good at the game rather than just aggressively devoted to building his own athletic mythology. He was broad-shouldered, easy in his body, and remarkably handsome. He sat on the hot tubâs edge beside his girlfriend, Laine, who was Laurenâs older sister. At eighteen, Laine was fully, deliberately a woman. She had the sort of presence that caused younger guys to briefly lose their conversational footing whenever she directed her attention at them. She was aware of this and found it amusing. She was forward and overtly sexual.
âAre those two even breathing?â AJ asked.
The Make-Out Guy, Leon, pulled his tongue out of his girl- friendâs mouth just long enough to register AJâs voice, flip him a leisurely bird, and go back to what he was doing.
âYou two are disgusting,â Lauren said.
Both Leon and his partner flipped her the bird without break- ing contact. The hot tub group laughed, including Lauren.
âItâs better just to ignore them,â Rick said.
Out in the main pool, kids were jumping from the deck. A few of the boys were drunk and naked, shrieking at the cold of the water as they dive-bombed each other, landing as close to one another as they dared. Empty beer cans had accumulated at the poolâs lip, gathering like evidence. A joint made its slow orbit around the hot tub, hand to hand, and when it reached AJ, he passed it along without taking a hit. He did this smoothly, with no ceremony, and no one commented on it.
âWhat did you do all day, Max?â Laine asked after taking her hit.
Max occupied the spot in the hot tub where the jets were weakest, which suited him. He was the smallest in the group, sixteen but plausibly fourteen. He was shy and said little in group settings, particularly around women, and Laine was all woman. He was usually almost catatonic in her presence, but tonight heâd had a few beers.
âNot much,â Max said.
The joint came back around. Max took a hit and passed it to AJ, who again moved it along without taking a hit or breaking the rhythm.
Leon sniffed the air.
âHey. Donât bogart that.â
Lauren handed it to him.
He took a long pull, turned to offer it to his make out partner
Mazzy Hanson, whoâd gotten the nickname Magic Hands be- cause she was known to enjoy jacking her male classmates off. She liked the nickname, and when it leaked to her parents, she simply told them it was because she was such a good guitarist. She took a hit from the joint and passed it along, then went back to kissing Leon.
Laine climbed out of the hot tub and took her seat next to Rick on the coping.
âMax, youâre going to let me copy off your test in Fosterâs class Monday, right?â
Max ran a quick internal calculation. It was the kind that involved risk, benefit, and the particular annoyance of being caught before. He would have simply said yes at any other time, but tonight he was buzzed and braver than usual.
âNo. He was all up my ass last time because he thought you were cheating off me.â
âOh, come on, Max.â
âOkay, but at least get a few wrong.â âYou get a few wrong.â
âThen weâll still have the same answers.â
âThen get them all right,â Laine said.
Max sighed in exasperation. âOkay, but whatâs in it for me?â Everyone looked at him. He held steady under their collective gaze. This was an interesting moment. It was clearly a come-on of sorts, and everyone knew Rick might smash him. He wouldnât hit him in the face because he was so much smaller, but he could easily hit him in the shoulder and knock it out of its socket.
AJ wanted to say something to defuse the situation, but Rick moved first.
Without a word, he untied the knot at the back of Laineâs swimsuit top. She spilled out into the warm light, magnificent and entirely unbothered by this development.
Max looked away. Then, in spite of himself, looked back. He could not help it.
Leon happened to glance up, registered what he was seeing, performed a legitimate double-take, and turned back to his girlfriend with visibly renewed passion.
âBetter put those away before poor Max has a medical event,â Rick said.
Laine readjusted her top with the unhurried composure of someone who has never once in her life felt embarrassed about her body. Max tried desperately to keep his expression carefully neutral, but his pulse rate was accelerating wildly.
Lauren tilted her head back against AJâs knee and looked up at him.
âIf you ever do that to me, I will stab you in the face.â âI used to think you were nice,â AJ said.
âItâs an act,â Laine countered. âI can tell you stories.â âWhat stories?â AJ asked with a laugh.
Laine was about to start, but she caught Laurenâs warning glare and stopped talking. Then Lauren turned back to AJ.
âI mean it. In the face.â
âWhy am I in trouble?â
âBecause you got the prude sister, dipshit,â Rick said helpfully.
He wrapped Laine in both arms.
âAnd you got the fun one,â Laine said.
Lauren flipped her sister the bird. It was a comfortable, well-worn gesture between them, the kind that carries more affection than offense.
Then Leon and Magic Hands reached a crescendo that was difficult to misread, and Lauren vaulted out of the hot tub.
Max bailed a half-second later.
The laughter was enormous, raucous, and bounced off the surrounding houses, and nobody cared even slightly.
âThatâs it, ladies and gentlemen,â AJ announced from the coping, assuming the authority of a sports announcer, âthe hot tub is now closed to all non-military personnel. Someone call a janitor.â
A girl in the pool called over, wanting to know what had happened.
Rick cupped his hands.
âLeon just blew a load in the hot tub.â
Leon rose from the water and bowed with great solemnity. âI couldnât have done it without the lovely Magic Hands.â Mazzy stood alongside him, bowing with equal dignity, swatting away the beer cans being lobbed at her.
Then headlights swept across the pool deck and stopped. The glare hit everything at once â kids dove under the water, someone swore, and the naked kids submerged to their chins.
AJâs mother, Paula, stepped out of the car. She was barely visible behind the headlights.
âAJ, I need you to come home now.â
âWhat for?â
âPlease. Get in the car.â
He looked back at his friends. There was something in his motherâs tone that made him realize he shouldnât argue with her.
âIâll be back in a little,â he said to Lauren.
He kissed her, grabbed his T-shirt and towel, and vaulted the pool fence the way he always did, easy, barely breaking stride.
Paula gripped the steering wheel with both hands, her knuck- les pale in the dashboard light. AJ watched her from the passenger seat, tracking the shift in his own mood, from the mild irritation of being pulled away from his friends toward something quieter and more attentive.
âWhatâs wrong?â
She took a breath. There was a pause for a beat longer than normal.
âYour father. AJ, your father committed suicide.â âRay?â he asked desperately.
âNo, your biological father, Henry.â
The words landed in the car and sat there.
âPull over and let me go back to my friends.â âDidnât you hear what I said?â
âYeah.â He looked out the window. âSo?â âAJ.â
âI couldnât care less if heâs alive, dead, or whatever.â His voice was level, without performance. Not cold, exactly, but stripped of any tremor that a moment like this would normally produce. âHe was a shitty husband to you and a shitty father to me. Now pull over.â
Paula kept driving. Her jaw was set.
âHeâs still your father. We are going to be respectful. Do you understand me?â
AJ looked out at the houses going past. He had lived in the neighborhood since his parentsâ divorce, and the houses always looked the same to him. Comfortable and sealed off. Now, one of those sealed-off houses in a better neighborhood about 25 miles away in Pasadena had a body in it. His fatherâs body.
He thought about what that meant. He hated his father. At least he thought so for the last eight years, and he hated him especially hard at missed birthdays and holidays apart. Now that he was dead, AJ no longer knew what he felt. All he knew for sure was that his mother was crying, and that made him sad as well.
He shrugged and gave in to her. He would go with her wherever she wanted to take him. He would behave and do what he must to make her comfortable. That would be done for her, not for his father.
Robert Louis Stevenson is one of my favorite authors, and his work, "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," is one of the first books that left an indelible impression on my mind. Thatâs why I picked up HYDE by Patrick Cirillo for review: I was keen to discover what had changed.
I found HYDE and Stevensonâs original classic, "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" arenât significantly differentâexcept that the story unfolds in high-tech modern America, the characters appear in contemporary settings, malicious genes in a person (from a failed experiment to find a cure for cancer) automatically and randomly trigger Hyde in subjects (similar to the potion Dr. Jekyll drinks in Stevensonâs original work), and the author replaces Utterson (the lawyer) as the narrator.
As mentioned above, I was expecting changes that would deepen or expand upon the original theme. For example, advancements in the Jekyll and Hyde dynamic, insertion of a point of redemption during the transformation between the two states (like if Hyde hears the voice of a deeply loved one, Jekyll reawakens, and by sheer willpower forces himself out of the Hyde state), or the introduction of an advanced robot that can contain Hyde. Finding none of these, I was considerably disappointed.
Although thematically the same as the original classic, the story possesses considerable cinematic potential due to the powerful portrayals of some poignant events. For instance, the agony of the protagonist, AJ Pierce (AJ), who commits heinous crimes when he lapses uncontrollably into Hyde, laid stark and bare before readers, is shocking. AJ fell to the disease after a strange attack by an infected pet dogâhe did not contract it deliberately. The remorse he feels for harming others when out of control is destructive. He lives in torment because he desperately wants to put an end to Hyde, but cannot. The fear of recurrence and the helplessness of escaping Hyde in the future drive him toward suicide to save his loved ones. I felt scared and devastated when I empathized with him.
If these instances are already soul-searing in writing, I believe without a doubt that they will leave an unforgettable, achingly beautiful mark on the mind when rendered graphically on movie screens, along with suitable sound and visual effects.
The book is highly readable, gripping, and short. Although the cover is serviceable, it did not meet my expectations. Apart from one typo, the novella is also free of language errors.
In view of the foregoing, I award it 4 stars.
"Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," first published in 1886, has earned worldwide acclaim by revealing the dual nature of every human, thus making Jekyll and Hyde household names among the educated all over the world. Moreover, this theme extends into philosophy, religion, ethics, and value systems, among others. It has also become a cornerstone of modern thought, particularly in the context of the human condition. Therefore, all global English-speaking fans of Stevenson, thinkers, philosophers, and generally, those drawn to the âThriller & Suspenseâ genre may love this book, and I recommend it to them.