Read Online I Am Phantom (Novella): Subject Number One by Sean Fletcher - Free Book Online Page A

I
were dead. I sliced through the water towards him, using the rocks I could push
off beneath me to propel forward to him. My muscles rejoiced in being used to
their full capacity.
    “Help! HEL—” He plunged under again.
    What a whiny baby. I lunged forward and snagged
the back of his jacket. With my other hand, I latched on to a wayward tree
branch that had dipped too close to the surface, but it wouldn’t hold us for
long. And the icy water would make my muscles seize up before that.
    I judged the distance to an open spot on shore.
It was a good twenty yards away, and the longer I waited, the more the tree
branch stretched, about to break. My feet slipped and slid beneath me as I
tried for footing.
    Screw it. I had no other choice. Here went
nothing.
    I twisted in the water, managed to lodge my foot
between two rocks and with a massive heave, wrenched a semi-conscious, soaking
wet, dead weight Kent out of the water and hurled him on to shore, where he
landed with an ungraceful splat.
    Olympic potential right there, ladies and gents.
    I hung on for just a second or two longer. Long enough
for the water to soak into my arms, long enough to see Kent sputter and spit up
water, long enough to hear the calls of his friends as they threaded through
the trees on the side of the river.
    Then I let go and let the stream carry me away.
    *                                                           *                                                           *
    Somewhere along the way, my powers kicked in
again.
    I had a knack for a regenerative healing of
sorts. Nothing like restoring limbs or anything extreme, but my muscles almost
never grew tired under normal conditions, and any smaller injuries I did get,
like cuts, or even broken bones, healed remarkably fast.
    One time, shortly after I gained my abilities
and still had friends, I busted my skull open trying to prove that you could in
fact ride head first on a skateboard while tethered to the back of said
friend’s truck. No surprise, I’d started swerving side to side and my face
promptly met a NO PARKING sign off Blair road. My friend had stopped the truck
and nearly vomited at the amount of blood pooling from my head.
    The cut was gone by the time the ambulance
arrived. The EMT’s had confusedly searched through blood-matted hair for a cut
that was, miraculously, not there anymore.
    Another slosh of cold river water brought me
back to the present. I had continued drifting down the river. My arms had
started tingling.
      Slowly they gained strength, warming up
until I was able to fight the current and pull myself onto shore and catch a
breath.
    Surprisingly, I felt great. The rest of my body
heated up, driving out the icicles of cold that had seeped all over me.
    As I lay on the rocky bank of the river, I
finally let my thoughts wander to what had just happened. Kent hadn’t seen what
I’d done, I was sure of that. But had any of the kids on the bridge? Even if
they had, they probably wouldn’t believe it, or I could convince them
otherwise.
    And then: How late was it? Mom and dad would
probably be a little concerned. I usually never stayed out this late. The river
had fried my phone so I couldn’t call them to let them know where I was.
    I sighed, stood, and walked up the steep
embankment back towards the road.
    After a mile of following the path I came to a
gravel road I recognized. The left led to more networks of farm back roads and
equipment barns, to the right, Maize.
    I was nearly outside town when I heard a truck approaching
behind me. I got scared for a sec. It could be Kent and his friends. Not that I
was scared of getting hurt, they
couldn’t hurt me if they tried, but I wasn’t quite ready to face them, or what
had happened, yet.
    The truck headlights washed over me. It slowed.
I prepared to make a break for the far tree line if