Dead Water Zone by Kenneth Oppel Read Free Book Online

alwayswished for things: video games, a portable stereo, new track shoes. Occasionally, he wished his parents wouldn’t fight so much or that Sam’s new pills would work. Lately he’d been wishing for various girls in his class, a better lap time on his fifty-meter crawl, a fraction of an inch on the high jump.
    Just one wish. It was a serious game. What did he want? It had been on his mind quite a lot recently. He didn’t want to be separated from his brother.
    Sam had just applied for early admission to college. If he got in, he’d be leaving home next fall. The two of them had often talked about leaving Governor’s Hill together, being roommates. It was silly, he supposed, because he lagged years behind Sam at school. But they’d still talked about it, made plans, imagined what it would be like to live in a new place. Their rules only.
    Sam had seemed so eager when he’d filled out his applications, as if he’d forgotten about their plans. Or maybe they just didn’t matter. Hadn’t Sam known how hurt Paul would be if he went away to college?
    “My wish,” he said, losing courage, “is for a shower with Susan White.”
    “That’s it?” said Sam.
    “Yeah. What about yours?”
    “Forget it.”
    “Why?”
    “You’re not taking this seriously.”
    “I just couldn’t think, that’s all. Tell me your wish anyway.”
    Sam wouldn’t look up at him. He was sketching in his notebook, tracing lines, shading in with the side of his pencil.
    “At the doctor’s this afternoon,” he said in a conversational tone, “he left the room for a few minutes. My file was just lying there on his desk. You should see the size of it!” He spread two of his fingers, grinning, and Paul found himself grinning back uneasily.
    “I couldn’t resist. I wanted to see all this stuff about me—charts, letters, ECG scrolls, X-ray results. You thought my textbooks were bad!”
    Paul chuckled nervously.
    “I was looking at this one lab report, and my eyes caught the words ‘Life Expectancy.’ So I kept reading.”
    Paul’s smile congealed on his face. “What did it say?”
    “I’ve got a best-before date. Between twenty-three and twenty-seven years old.”
    “You’re joking, right?”
    “No.”
    “Mom and Dad never said anything!”
    “They got a letter,” Sam said. “A copy of it was in the file, too. Obviously they didn’t want me to know.”
    “Maybe it’s a mistake,” said Paul. “Some of your other tests were wrong. They can’t know stuff like that!”
    He wanted to hug his brother—but something held him back. They didn’t ever really hug, but it was more than that. He felt a vague sense of revulsion, of anger. Sam was letting this happen to him! He could fight back if he wanted!
    His gaze suddenly dropped down to Sam’s open notebook. On the front page was a sketch of da Vinci’s perfect man, but half the body was mechanical metal limbs, rubber arteries, a chrome rib cage, and a stainless-steel heart.
    “So my wish,” said Sam, “is to heal myself.”
----
    “Sam!”
    He woke with a shudder, still half convinced that his brother had been standing over him, watching as he slept. Wimp, he told himself. But an electric buzz seemed to linger in the air.
    He stood and looked out over the pier. At first he thought it was Monica again, standing in shadow at the water’s edge. But when the figure shifted slightly, Paul knew it wasn’t her. He whispered hisbrother’s name through his dry mouth, but the figure darted across the pier so quickly he lost sight of it. He rushed out and onto the outer steps. Shivering in the cool of the night, he scanned the pier, and when he saw nothing, he dashed up to the roof for a better view.
    “Shhhh!” A cold hand closed around his forearm. Monica moved up beside him. “I saw it, too,” she whispered. “There.” She pointed down to the end of the pier, near the high iron gate. “See?”
    “No,” Paul told her. “You must have damn good eyesight. Who is