Read an Excerpt

Dead Water Zone EPB

Chapter One

Paul dreamed machinery.

The oiled push of steel pistons, the rustle of rubber hosing, the low roar of a powerful furnace.

He walked into his brother's room. Sam sat on the edge of the bed, curling barbells in toward his chest...right arm, left arm, one, two. Impossible. Sam was too weak to be lifting them.

"I'm getting stronger," Sam said. One, two, one, two, effortless.

"But how?" Paul asked.

"Secrets are subatomic," Sam replied with an enigmatic smile.

"What does that mean?" Paul demanded. How typical of Sam to say something clever and not explain it. "What does that mean?"

"Look."

Sam lowered the barbells to the floor and began peeling off his layers of clothing, one sweatshirt, then another, then another...all the time getting skinnier and skinnier.

"You don't have to do this," Paul said anxiously. "You don't have to, Sam. Stop!"

But Sam kept stripping off his shirts, until he came to the very last one. Paul knew what was underneath.

"Don't!" he shouted. "Sam, please, I'm sorry!"

"Paul," his brother said, "watch."

There was a blinding flash of skeletal white, but something else, too, something metallic.

"No!" Paul shouted. "No, no, no!"

He clamped his eyes shut, but the scalding brightness filled his dream vision, white and intense as a camera's flash, then slowly faded to the dark color of deep water.