Fourth Dimension by Eric Walters

Author:Eric Walters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PRH Canada Young Readers
Published: 2018-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

22

The sun was high in the sky, and it felt good as I lay on a towel on the beach. Around me others were taking in the sun or splashing in the water. There was a lifeguard posted to watch the swimmers. But behind us on the wall were the armed guards posted to watch us in a different way. Occasionally a boat would pass by out on the lake, but unless it came close we could just ignore it. About an hour before a boat had ventured too near and we’d been herded inside the walls until it was gone.

It was strange how it had all become so normal so quickly. Less than two weeks earlier I had been here at night when those prisoners swam to shore and were held at gunpoint. Then the day after that two bodies had washed up onto the beach. The day after that another appeared. I didn’t see any of them. They were taken and disposed of—buried on Main Island so that even the bodies didn’t invade our outpost.

Now, here, today, it was the middle of the summer, and the only bodies were those lying on towels catching rays. July was my favorite month. The world was bright and beautiful and warm and all seemed well. If it hadn’t been for the guards on the walls and the crossbow on the towel beside me, this would have been any beach on a sunny summer day before this all happened.

And we still didn’t really know what had happened, what had caused all the power to go out. It was a constant subject of conversation. Nobody seemed to know, and I guess in some ways it didn’t matter. For me, it wasn’t how it had happened that was important but what we were doing to survive it until it was all fixed again. Maybe that was me just being optimistic. Some people figured it would never get fixed again, that somehow everything had collapsed and it was what we “deserved” for thinking we were above nature. There was a pretty strong anti-progress, anti-technology group living out here, and in a strange way they almost seemed pleased about all of it.

I looked at my watch. I’d been here for over two hours. Willow had been with me for an hour before he’d headed back home. He had become a good friend. I liked spending time with him, and I felt like we could really talk about things. It was good to have a friend like that. Of course, it only made me feel worse about not sharing everything I knew with him.

Ethan was now always teasing me about my “boyfriend,” but Willow and I hadn’t done anything but hang out, and right now that was all I could handle. I needed a friend more than I needed a boyfriend. I couldn’t risk losing one to try to gain the other.

I sat up and looked around. In the shallows there were small children and their parents paddling around.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.