Dead Water Zone

For as long as he can remember, Paul has looked after his younger, weaker brother Sam. But when Sam leaves home to work as a research assistant in Watertown, he disappears into the dark folds of the city's noxious slum. Accustomed to shielding his brother from bullies back home, sixteen-year-old Paul refuses to let him vanish without a trace.

A frantic phone call reveals a dark mystery: Sam has fled his lab, obsessed with a dangerous biological experiment. Trading his suburban life for the docks, Paul meets an ominous reality—unmarked helicopters circle overhead, hunting for his brother.

When Paul goes looking for Sam in Watertown, he learns a dark secret: something in the water is changing the residents of Watertown, transforming them into something inhuman. But can Paul reach Sam before the dark waters get to him first?

• Forced Proximity: Stranded in the harbor slum, Paul takes refuge in a tapestry-lined stilt house with Monica Shanks, a streetwise pickpocket whose family is bound to the lake.
• Survival Thriller: Ruthless Cityweb operatives scour the waterways, armed and determined to bury every witness to the bioengineered contamination.
• Race Against Time: Deep within the rotting prison hulk of Rat Castle, a skeletal survivor wired to circulating tubes of toxic runoff readies a lethal new strain.
• Sibling Dynamics: Driven by guilt over failing his brother in the past, Paul must navigate a web of betrayal before Sam tests the irreversible mutation on himself.
• Also by This Author: Airborn, Skybreaker and Starclimber.