Dead Water Zone

by Kenneth Oppel

  “He’s gone past us,” Monica breathed. “I haven’t felt those things, not ever.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. I only got the water secondhand. He’s taking it directly. It’s bound to make him change, fast.”

  Paul fought back the spasm of fear in his stomach. How far would Sam take this experiment on his own body?

  Day 6

  They’re looking for me. I’ve seen an unmarked helicopter circling Watertown. There are two men—one was at the lab when the City issued special security clearances for the project. They must have found something I left behind. I can’t believe I was so careless. What? Some scribbled notes retrieved and reassembled from the paper shredder? They can’t know very much—but enough to trace me here. What do they want? My findings? My findings destroyed?

  I followed them one night as they moved nervously through Watertown. I felt like a wraith, sliding in and out of shadow effortlessly, pressing my body into alcoves, flat against walls. They have a picture of me and showed it to a punk in black leather. One of the men gave him money.

  I can’t be interrupted now. I’m not finished yet. I’ve grown much thinner, much stronger and quicker, but that’s become almost insignificant. There’s something much more important to be done. But first I have to keep taking it into me. And I must find out where the primary source is.

  Day 7

  I go out only at night now. Daylight hurts my eyes. Too much stimulus. I can travel across Watertown alone, soaring across rooftops like a dream. I never knew that the light changes throughout the night, the spin of the moon and stars. You can hear more clearly, too. Always the sound of the boats, night crews on deck handling metal and rope, voices drifting. I have listened to fish beneath the water’s surface, insects sleeping, the sound of the mist gathering in the night.

  “So, it was Sam,” Paul whispered. But why had he appeared, only to run away? Twice. Why hadn’t he stayed to explain? And the inevitable conclusion: he didn’t want to see me.

  Day 8

  I think I’ve found the source.

  Wandering deeper into Watertown, taking samples, I found a wide canal that encircles a kind of citadel island. The dead water is more potent here. The surrounding area seems deserted. Why?

  I’m worried the helicopter men will track me to the boathouse if I wait any longer. I need somewhere safe to carry on the rest of my experiment undisturbed. It’s time to move on. I’m certain the source lies beyond that canal.

  Paul hammered at the keyboard, but he’d reached the end. There were no more words.

  “Rat Castle,” said Monica, in amazement. “No wonder Mom wandered around there. She must have been drinking from that damn canal.”

  “Sam’s in there.”

  “But Decks said—”

  “Decks was wrong.”

  “She might be there, too, then,” said Monica quietly. “With that much dead water in her, she could have jumped right across.”

  Paul stood up quickly. “We’ve got to go there.”

  Monica took a deep breath. “No. Not yet. It’s too dangerous.”

  “But we’re wasting time!”

  “Paul, I want to go, too. But it’s still light out. At nightfall Armitage’ll come and tell us what’s happening with Cityweb.”

  “Sam hates his body! He’d do anything to change it, even if it might kill him.” He faltered for a moment. “Because he knows he’s going to die anyway.”

  “But why?”

  “It’s part of his condition. They say he’ll only live another twelve years maximum, probably less.”

  “Oh.” She seemed to draw into herself, then said bitterly, “So he thinks he can heal himself with the water.”

  Paul nodded. “When he called me, he was scared. I think he wanted me to come here and stop him. Why else would he have called? I owe him this.” He studied her face, suddenly needing to tell her. “I let him down.”

  “How?”

  “The stupidest thing I’ve ever done. We weren’t the same afterward. And then he left for college and it still wasn’t fixed. Isn’t.”

  “Tell me.”

  * * *

  “Lick it up,” Randy Smith said.

  Pinned to the ground, Sam just stared back.

  “Make him lick it up!” Randy shouted. Gavin and Peter grabbed Sam by the hair and forced his face toward the glistening puddle of Randy’s saliva.

  “Randy, come on!” Paul shouted, but they held him tight.

  “Shut up and watch.” Randy grinned. “This is for your viewing pleasure.”

  They’d been ambushed on their way home from school. They’d been taking the secret route through the park for months, but Randy had found out and was waiting with a whole bunch of his friends.

  Peter and Gavin dragged Sam’s face into the spittle, but his lips were clamped tight. He tried to raise a hand to wipe his cheek, but they restrained him.

  Randy prodded him in the ribs with his sneaker. “Forget it,” he said. “We like you like this. Don’t you think it suits him?” he asked the crowd. Laughter.

  Paul looked around in revulsion. “That’s enough!”

  Randy looked at him with interest. “You love it, Paul. Admit it, you love seeing this.”

  Paul caught his brother’s eye, but Sam looked away.

  “There’s not much to him, is there?” Randy said. “Let’s see how little there really is.”

  Sam started to struggle again. Paul couldn’t bear the panic in his eyes.

  “Randy, that’s enough, damn it!” he yelled. He struggled with all his might, but the three boys holding him only clamped down tighter.

  “Paul, you’ve always wanted this,” said Randy.

  Gavin and Peter were ripping Sam’s shirt. Paul watched, mesmerized. They pulled away the tattered fabric, exposing Sam’s pale chest. Then they dragged his naked, firepole arms over his head so that he looked even skinnier, skeletal.

  “Look at his arms!”

  “His chest’s weird!”

  “His jeans,” Randy said.

  “No,” Paul mumbled. “No!”

  When they were finished, Sam was stripped down to his underwear, lying on his side, his knees pulled up to his chest.

  “Sam, you okay?”

  Sam stood up, his back to Paul, and dragged his jeans on. He arranged the tatters of his T-shirt over his shoulders and walked away.

  “Sam.” Paul followed at a slight distance. “Sam, I tried.”

  Sam kept walking.

  “They held me back.”

  * * *

  “There was nothing you could’ve done,” said Monica.

  He wanted to believe her. Nothing he could have done. But he’d come too far with the truth now. “I told Randy Smith where we’d be. I told him to wait there for us.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t plan it, not really.” He studied her face, trying to decipher the look in her piercing eyes. “He was so pleased to be going away to college, so happy to be leaving Governor’s Hill. It shouldn’t have made me so angry, but I felt like he’d forgotten all the things I did for him, taking care of him. None of it was important to him anymore.”

  “So how did it happen?”

  “I was in the locker room after swim practice one day, and Randy was there, and they started baiting me about Sam. Usually it’s like flashes of dark colors in my head. But this time, I just started agreeing with them. And the more they went on, the angrier I got—not with them but with Sam. I just blurted out about our secret way home from school. He was going to wait there for us. He’d give Sam a scare, that was all, maybe a few shoves. That was our deal.”

  “Randy broke it. Not you.”

  “Well, I was an idiot to believe him, wasn’t I? Paul—who suddenly trusts the enemy.” The enemy. You love this, Paul. Admit it, you love seeing this. And somewhere deep inside him, a very quiet voice had replied, Yes, I do.

  “Did Sam know it was you?”

  “No. B
ut he still blames me. When I came down here, I was hoping I could somehow fix things between us.” He combed his fingers restlessly through his hair, suddenly assailed by doubts. “But it’s been so long now. Maybe he doesn’t want me here at all; maybe I just imagined it to make myself feel important. How can I convince him to stop taking the water? What would I say?”

  Monica stood and lit an old oil lantern hanging from the ceiling.

  “I don’t know what I’d say if I found my mom. I’d probably be angry as hell. Leaving us like that. Aw, who knows what I’d say.” She flung out her hands in a gesture of contempt. “I’d ask her some things, I guess. Why’d she keep on drinking the water? She knew it was making her crazy, but she kept on anyway!”

  She sat down beside Paul, her body rigid, looking fiercely at the wall.

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have anything to say at all,” she went on more quietly. “What it really came down to is simple—she was more interested in drinking the dead water than sticking around. She wasn’t even much of a mother. I’m still looking though. Stupid, isn’t it?”

  Paul took her cool hand in his. He’d never simply touched someone out of sympathy before, and it surprised him. He could feel her cat’s pulse beneath her pale skin. In the warm light from the lantern she was like something from a fairy tale, thin and airy, with dark, streaming hair. Had he really thought she was ugly?

  She turned to him with a quizzical look, and he almost lost his nerve. He could pull back his hand. But he didn’t want to, and he felt as if some disconnected part of him was making the decisions.

  He awkwardly curved a hand behind her slender neck and kissed her on the mouth. He felt clumsy; he was probably doing it wrong. But she tasted warm and salty as she kissed him back. He encircled her with his arms and felt her pickpocket’s hands pressing into his back. All at once it seemed so obvious that this should be happening, and he was laughing quietly, and she was, too. He drew back to look into her face, brushing his fingertips over her cheekbones and eyebrows.

  He pressed his face into her hair, breathing its warm perfume, wanting to be swallowed up by it. Nothing mattered except this.

  But she suddenly stiffened.

  “What is it?” he asked, embarrassed and confused.

  With a swift movement, she reached up and extinguished the lantern.

  “There’s someone walking along the pier,” she said from the sudden darkness.

  9

  PAUL KNOCKED ASIDE the ragged curtains and peered out into the night. At first he saw only the long, dark line of the pier, shrouded in mist. But after a few moments, his eyes adjusted, and he spotted a vertical brushstroke of darkness blending with the water and the distant buildings.

  “There’s three of them,” breathed Monica, looking over his shoulder.

  As Paul continued to stare, he saw a second dark form and a third, walking in line down the pier.

  “It’s Sked and his fun friends,” Monica said, letting the curtains fall back into place. “They don’t usually hang out around here.”

  “They can’t be looking for us,” Paul muttered.

  “It’s time to leave.”

  Paul hurried on deck after her. The cool of the night air made him shiver.

  “Cast us off,” Monica whispered from the wheel.

  He reached over the side and fumbled with the knot. The engine kicked over with a noisy wheeze, then died. Fingers tugging numbly at the painter, he looked anxiously down the pier. They’d been spotted. Sked and his friends were running now, their boots thudding against the planking. For a second time the engine roared to life, racing for a few seconds before sputtering out. Monica swore.

  Paul clawed at the knot, his hands trembling. He worked a strand loose. Come on! The boat’s motor growled uncertainly and then strengthened.

  “We’re gone!” Monica shouted. The cabin cruiser lurched away from the pier, throwing Paul across the deck.

  “It’s still tied!” he cried out.

  The boat heaved back, the painter taut as a tightrope. Sked was almost at the pier’s edge, and he jumped. With a whip’s crack, the painter ripped the metal cleat out of the pier, and the boat surged ahead. Not quickly enough. Paul watched in horror as Sked sailed through the air and landed on deck in a clumsy crouch. Paul tried to scramble out of the way, but Sked brought a steel-toed boot down on his hand. Swearing, he butted his whole body against Sked’s legs, knocking him against the boat’s railing.

  “Get him off!” he heard Monica yell. Her voice sounded a long way away.

  He pushed himself quickly to his feet and faced Sked. “All alone, aren’t you? No friends this time.” His voice was trembling, but he noticed that Sked looked uncertain.

  “You’re swimming home, Sked.”

  The spider boy laughed—a shrill, demented hooting that sent terror through Paul. Then Sked lunged. He clamped one thick hand around Paul’s windpipe, the other onto his ear, as if trying to rip it off his head. The searing pain paralyzed Paul for a second. He felt himself gag for breath. Light bloomed in the corners of his eyes—a bright, desperate purple. Very detached, he realized he was being strangled. Sked was trying to kill him. He was looking into Sked’s fevered, pockmarked face, smelling his breath. He was going to die.

  His vision wavered, and for a moment he was looking into the face of Randy Smith. With a sudden rage he drove his numb fist into Sked’s chin, and the hands loosened. Paul felt a burst of dark, intense pleasure. He lashed out again, punching Sked in the stomach, winding him. The hands fell away from his throat and ear. Another punch in the face sent Sked staggering back. Paul danced forward and struck him again. He realized he was bellowing, a deep guttural roar racking his throat. He could feel the superb strength of his body, wanting to break bones, see blood.

  He pinned Sked to the deck by sitting on his legs. He caught him around the neck with both hands, squeezing.

  “How’s that?” he shouted feverishly into the spider boy’s face. “How does that feel?”

  Sked’s fingers tried to pry away his hands, but Paul held tight, tighter.

  “Just get him off, Paul!”

  The spell was broken. Paul looked down at Sked, took hold of his leather jacket, and half dragged, half lifted him toward the side of the boat.

  “You’re dead!” Sked screeched hoarsely, and then he was laughing again. “They’re going to get you! You are dead!”

  Paul shoved him backward into the night water and watched him flailing about until he was swallowed by the mist. He dropped to his knees. It hurt to swallow, and there was a faint ringing in his right ear. Several fingers were already swollen around the joints, and he could only bend them halfway. His stomach lurched and he made it to the railing just in time. He’d been ready to kill Sked—he would have done it. A second wave of nausea swept over him.

  A hand rested gently on the back of his neck. “You all right?”

  He spat to clear his mouth, waiting for his breathing to smooth out.

  “I thought you were going to kill him.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I would have stopped sooner, but I saw another boat. I just wanted to get as far away as possible.” She took his hands carefully between hers. They felt cool and soothing against his burning skin.

  “Your brother set us up,” he rasped.

  She stared into the mist.

  “He was the only one who knew where we were! Monica, are you listening to me?”

  “I’m listening,” she replied, her voice expressionless.

  “He told Cityweb where to find us! They wanted to kill us! Both of us! Why’d Armitage do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your own brother!”

  “I don’t know why he did it, all right? He’s got his own reasons, probably. You can’t trust anyone, not even family. They all betray you in the end! Look what you did to your brother!”

  “That’s not fair! It’s not the same!”

  She wasn’t listening. “Everyone does it to ev
eryone else. You should never trust anyone!” She was raging through her tears now. “You should never put yourself in a position to lose! I was stupid to get involved in any of this,” she muttered in disgust. “Look at us!” She flung out her thin hands at the fog. “This is a loser’s situation.”

  “Where are we?”

  She sighed, jamming her hands into her pockets. “Out in the shipping lanes.”

  Foghorns sounded mournfully across the water, seemingly from all directions at once, soft, strengthening, then fading.

  Paul gazed anxiously into the impenetrable mist. “Is it safe out here?”

  “Where is it safe for us? You tell me and I’ll take us there. Cityweb’s probably paid off everyone in Watertown by now. They want us dead, Paul!”

  “What they really want is the diskette. They think it’ll lead them to Sam.”

  “Your brother found out some secret and they don’t want anyone to know about it. Whatever it is, it’s worth killing people for.”

  “We’ve got to get to Sam first.”

  Monica turned away from him. “You can get out of this, you know.” She spoke quickly, as if trying to convince herself. “I could dump you in the docklands. You could catch a train back to where you came from.”

  Escape: leave everything behind. Watertown. Cityweb. Sam. Forget it all.

  “It’s impossible,” he told her softly.

  “It’s out of our control!”

  “I’ve got to find him.”

  “Your brother’s made his choice,” she said fiercely. “You don’t owe him anything! It’s stupid, thinking that way! Why do you have to take these risks for him?”

  “Because I’m nothing without him!” The words welled up from deep inside him, unbidden—his brother’s words, traveling across time.