Dead Water Zone (8 page)

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.

P
AUL 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 everyone 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.

Monica was staring at him, her body tensed with the force of his voice. He was breathing hard, as if he’d just done fifty push-ups. He looked away from her, into the mist.

“After I set him up, I thought it would be a relief when he went to college. But the guilt didn’t go away. And I missed him, bad. When I was working out, I’d wonder what the point was. There was nobody to look after. I felt like an obsolete piece of machinery. You know how people lose an arm or
a leg and still feel pain in that empty space? That’s what it was like, having him gone.”

He knew now what had driven him to Watertown. Not worry, not guilt. It was need. He needed Sam.

She nodded slowly and for a few moments said nothing. Then, “Do you think she’s in there, too? My mother?”

“I don’t know,” he said carefully. “Maybe.”

“I’m not sure how to get inside. It’s all bricks and boards and iron gates. We’ll need some pretty heavy tools.”

He touched her arm. “Thanks.”

She sniffed the air suddenly and turned to the back of the boat. “Piece of garbage,” she muttered in disgust. “Should have known the damn thing would seize up! Look!”

Paul turned with her to see a few tendrils of black smoke coming through the planking. Monica shut the engine down and yanked open the hatch, leaning back as dense fumes ballooned into the night air.

“This is not a good place to be dead in the water,” she said grimly. “Get the tools.”

He hefted out the toolbox. Monica was already lowering herself into the hatch, coughing away the smoke. A foghorn blasted nearby, and Paul could make out a huge cliff of metal sliding
slowly through the mist. It wasn’t coming toward them, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before one did.

“How’s it going?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Not good. There’s parts all melted together.”

“You can do it.”

“No.” She hauled herself out of the hatch. “It’s fried.”

“You’re giving up?”

She offered him the hammer. “You want to try?”

“We’re going to get rammed if we stay out here!”

The mist swirled around the cabin cruiser, then opened to reveal the shape of a small motorboat drifting toward them. He half raised his arm to wave it off, but Monica stopped him.

“That’s the boat I saw at Ganymede Reach.”

It glided closer. Paul could make out two figures on board. “Cityweb,” he said, helpless.

“No,” she said. “Armitage. And Decks.”

“Y
OU SNAKE
!” spat Monica as the motorboat came alongside. Armitage tried to grab hold of the railing, but Monica kicked his hands away.

“Listen to me!” he yelled up at her. “This isn’t my fault!”

For a few seconds Paul could only stare, the hammer clenched in his right hand.

“Not your fault?” he shouted at Armitage. “You called them. You told them where to find us! Sked and his friends just tried to kill us!”

“Put down the hammer, Paul,” said Decks calmly.

“And you, too,” Monica whispered at Decks.

“No.” Armitage shook his head. “Decks has nothing to do with it. They planted a bug on me.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Monica.

Armitage offered her a coil of rope. “Look, tie us up; let us come on board.”

“No,” Paul said. “What do you mean, they had a bug on you?”

Armitage sighed. “I’m one of their spooks.”

Paul saw the shocked disbelief on Monica’s face.

“Around the time Mom disappeared, they snared me in the docklands. They knew all about the business. I was this close to getting taken in. But they made me an offer. If I spooked for them in Watertown, they’d look the other way. Said they needed people out here.”

“They own you!” Monica said with contempt. “You sold yourself—and me, too. You had no right to do that!”

“I was protecting us!” Armitage said impatiently. “Can’t you see that? They would have shut us down in a second! You’d be in some detention home in the suburbs right now!”

“So instead we’ve got glue-sniffing punks after us! Big improvement, Armitage!”

“I didn’t know they’d go this far!”

“You knew all along they were looking for my brother, didn’t you?” Paul asked. “Even before I showed up.”

Armitage shrugged. “I’m sorry, Paul. I really am. But this was business, and I didn’t know you—didn’t know why they wanted your brother. It wasn’t my problem.”

“No wonder you let me stay,” Paul muttered, ashamed of his naïveté. “You told them about the boathouse. And you were going to give them the diskette, too, weren’t you?”

“Just trying to stay afloat, like I said.” He was staring down at his shoes, but when he looked back up, there was a spark of anger dancing in his eyes. “I tried to buy you some time, Paul. Maybe you don’t realize that. I come back from the docklands and find my place wrecked. And then you suddenly tell me your brother’s been doing research on the water”—his eyes darted to Monica—“so I’m beginning to wonder what’s so important about that diskette, and thinking that maybe we’d better read it before anyone else does. I wasn’t trying to set you up on Ganymede Reach. They must have bugged me this morning. I didn’t find out until I went to see Decks. It triggered his alarm system. Took us about half an hour to find the damn thing in my clothes.”

“We came out to the reach as fast as we could,” Decks continued. “We thought we saw you heading out into the shipping lanes. I’m amazed we found you in all this fog.”

“Yeah, well, the engine’s packed it in,” sighed Monica.

“First things first, then,” said Decks. “They’ll come looking in that helicopter of theirs before long. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“We can rig a towline maybe,” Armitage suggested.

“Too slow,” said Monica. “Anyway, they’ll be looking for this boat.”

“Burn it,” said Paul, amazed at his audacity.

Armitage stared, taken aback. “A bit excessive, don’t you think? You have any idea how much it would cost to replace a boat like this?”

“Paul’s right,” said Monica firmly. “We set it on fire, and if we’re lucky, they think we had an accident in the shipping lanes. There’s some gasoline below deck.”

“We could replace the engine,” moaned Armitage. “It’s a perfectly good boat.”

“Make it fast,” Decks said to Paul.

Paul hurried down into the cabin, Monica close behind. He hesitated at the computer and pulled Sam’s diskette from the drive. Prying open the plastic casing with his fingernails, he tore at the flimsy vinyl surface beneath until it was shredded. There. No one else would get hold of it now.

A gasoline canister was being pressed into his hands. Hastily he unscrewed the cap and doused
the floor, the bunks, the wooden walls of the hull. He paused to push open all the portholes on either side of the cabin.

“For a good draft,” he explained when he caught Monica’s look of astonishment.

“How d’you know about stuff like this?” she asked.

“TV.”

She almost laughed. “I’m going above to do the deck.”

Paul could scarcely believe that only a few days ago he’d been in Governor’s Hill, crossing at crosswalks (never against the red light), giving back change that had mistakenly been given to him, holding open supermarket doors for elderly people. Now, here he was spurting gasoline around like a seasoned arsonist. Dumping out the last of his canister he hurried up the stairs, gulping in the fresh air.

“I’m almost done,” Monica told him. “Get off.”

He swung himself over the railing and hopped into the motorboat. He peered into the fog, expecting a tanker to loom up at any moment or a helicopter’s spotlight to impale them.

“Hurry,” he called to her.

“I can’t believe I’m letting this happen,” Armitage mumbled.

Monica dropped lightly over the side, holding two rags and a box of matches. She lit the first rag, allowed it to burn for a few seconds and then tossed it up onto the deck. A carpet of low flames spread across the planking. The second burning rag she pushed through the nearest porthole.

“Let’s go!” she cried out, pushing off from the hull.

Deep orange light blossomed from the cabin, and a hungry sucking noise filled the air. The motorboat’s engine roared to life, and Armitage veered them away. A loud crackling and popping carried across the water. Paul watched as the mist closed in. Only a diffuse orange glow indicated where the boat lay, burning.

“I hereby pronounce you both officially dead,” said Armitage. “My boat, too.”

“We’re going to my place,” Decks told them. “You’ll all be safe there for a while.”

Armitage looked at Paul. “So, you planning on telling us what was on the diskette?”

“Everything about the water,” Monica replied simply.

Armitage nodded slowly. “I thought it might be that.” He turned around to look Paul intently in the eye. “You know we don’t drink it.”

It seemed desperately important to him, and Paul nodded quickly. He could sense Armitage’s
shame and felt embarrassed and guilty, a clumsy trespasser in these people’s lives.

“I know. Monica explained it to me.”

“It has nothing to do with us,” Armitage went on angrily. “It was Mom’s mistake. She drank it; we inherited it. Simple as that. I wouldn’t drink that crap for anything.”

“My brother’s drinking it,” Paul said.

A small groan escaped Armitage’s throat, a combination of surprise and weariness. “Why?”

“He wants to make himself perfect.”

“Then he might already be dead by now,” said Decks quietly. “It works differently on different people.”

“No,” said Monica, staring into the distance. “It took with him. He said so on the diskette.”

“We know where he is, too,” said Paul. “Rat Castle.”

Decks’s brow furrowed. “You’re certain?”

“The place on the other side of the canal,” said Paul, frightened by the intensity of the man’s gaze. “He said he was going there because the water was stronger.”

“It’s the truth, Decks,” said Monica. “And if he’s in there”—her voice gained momentum—“it means there could be other people in there—”

“No,” said Decks abruptly, cutting her off, “there’s no one there.”

“How can you know that?”

“It’s just not possible,” he replied, his voice tired. “Not anymore, not after what the Sturms did to themselves.”

Monica looked at Paul. “They were the first convict family to stay behind after the prison hulks were closed down.”

“You can’t blame them really,” Decks began slowly. “From what I’ve heard, most of the convicts didn’t deserve to be imprisoned. They hated the City for what it had done to them. It was a rage, like a phosphorus burn. Do you know about phosphorus? It ignites when it’s exposed to the air. If it gets on your flesh, there’s no way of stopping it burning. Water’s no good. It just goes on forever.”

Paul wondered if it was this same kind of rage that drove his brother—the fury of being crippled, ashamed, wanting revenge on everyone, the world.

“They wanted power,” Decks went on. “And they got it, in a way. They made themselves the new rulers of Watertown. They controlled all the inner piers, the canals, trade routes across the harbor. To rival the City—that was their dream. They wanted to spread their power right into the heart of the City. But the City made it illegal for anyone to trade with Watertown. That crushed them.”

“They went at it the wrong way,” said Armitage in a tight voice. “Playing by the rules won’t get you anywhere, not against the City. They make the rules to protect themselves. So you’ve got to break them if you want to get strong. Be patient, secret. That’s the way they should have worked.”

“Maybe so,” said Decks, “but the Sturm family was crushed. In only a few years all their power had ebbed away. The family turned in on itself, living isolated in Rat Castle.

“But when the water turned, the last of the Sturms thought it might be another chance for them. They discovered what the water could do to people and what’s more, that the water around Rat Castle was the strongest of all. That’s why the walls went up. The Sturms wanted that dead water for themselves only. And they started playing with it.”

Decks paused to spit into the water, as if his words left a foul taste in his mouth. His broad fingers scratched thoughtfully at the stubble on his chin.

“Nobody knew where the dead water came from or what it was. The Sturms didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Some drank too much; others made concoctions that killed them before they’d finished swallowing. Most of those who survived were half crazy from it. They were nothing
like the other Waterdrinkers, who drank only from the outer piers. You might not even think they were human.

“The Sturms were killed off by it, except for two brothers. David, the oldest, was hell-bent on refining it so that it wouldn’t kill you but would make you stronger, faster. He wanted to make himself into an invincible being, a god.”

Paul’s scalp tingled. Exactly what Sam was after. He had to hear the rest. But Decks hesitated, as if reluctant to continue.

“There was a falling out between the brothers,” he began carefully, “and the younger one left Rat Castle. You can’t understand the pull of the dead water, even the weakest of it. Once people drank, it was almost impossible for them to stop.”

“Like Mom,” said Monica quietly.

“She fought against it, your mother, but she couldn’t stop.”

“You know what happened to her, don’t you?”

“Waterdrinkers, like your mother, were aware of what went on in Rat Castle. They needed the stronger water. David Sturm would use them to test his new potions. It was unholy what he did to them.”

Paul winced in revulsion. The expression on Monica’s face made his heart contract.

“You knew all along!” she whispered. “She
might still be there!”

“Now listen,” said Decks kindly but firmly, “these are terrible things to hear, I know. I watched your mother fighting against the water, and when she disappeared, I went to Rat Castle myself. You must believe me when I tell you she wasn’t there, Monica. There was no one there.” A sigh escaped his lips, misting in the night air. “The dead water wasn’t meant to be drunk. The final experiments must have killed anyone who was left.”

“Whenever I asked you about Rat Castle,” she said evenly, fighting emotion, “you always warned me away. Why? What would I have found?”

“I was afraid for you,” replied Decks. “I was afraid you’d feel the lure of the water, too. Your mother said it was like a sound, a song in her head. That’s how powerful it was, don’t you see? I didn’t want the same thing to happen to you.”

“You never saw her dead?” Monica asked, insistent.

“No.”

“Then you can’t be sure, can you? Maybe they were hiding.”

“I can’t believe that,” Decks muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “David was already half dead when I last saw him—”

Paul stared at him, stunned. “You’re the younger brother.”

Decks looked back in silence.

Monica was shaking her head in disbelief. “No, it’s not true. I remember you when I was little. You lived in the houseboat. You weren’t a Waterdrinker. Mom said you tried—”

“But it didn’t take with me. I couldn’t share what they had. So maybe there was jealousy in me. But I left Rat Castle over twelve years ago, not long after David began his experiments. I went back from time to time, to plead with him to stop. Each time, there were fewer people and he was more mad and wizened. The last time I saw him—a few months before your mother disappeared—I knew he couldn’t last much longer.” Decks hesitated but then continued in a forceful voice. “And it’s right that he died. It’s right that the experiments are over, because the water’s evil.” He raised his finger at Paul. “And if this brother of yours is doing the same work, he may end up dead long before Cityweb finds him.”

“Can you show me the way inside?”

“You want to save him, do you?” said Decks softly. “But ask yourself this: does he want to be saved? I tried with David. Once he’s taken the water in abundance, you won’t be able to stop him.”

“Yes I will.” What did Decks know about it? He didn’t know Sam, didn’t know either of them,
their whole history together. Sam wanted him here: he’d telephoned; he’d haunted Paul through Watertown! At night on the pier, he’d come to watch Paul through the stilt-house window. How could Decks possibly understand?

“Try to understand what I’m going to say,” Decks said. “I think it would be best if we let him be.”

“Let him kill himself?” asked Paul incredulously.

“He’s made his choice.”

“Say we did leave him,” said Paul as calmly as possible. “Cityweb will find him eventually. And if it’s something they really want to cover up, they won’t kill just Sam; they’ll kill everyone who knows about the dead water. All of us, everyone who has the water in them. I’m not asking anyone to go with me. Just show me the way inside!”