Read Online Radium Halos by W.J. May - Free Book Online

looking all proud of thinking up the nicknames.
    I cocked my
head. All I heard was loud laughter. “How can you hear them?”
    Zoe stared at
her nachos. All of us grew quiet – a weird, almost knowing silence.
She whispered, “I can hear everything.”
    “Git out,”
Kieran said.
    “There’s a guy
talking outside on his cell. He’s about to come in.”
    We all turned
to the entrance and watched some guy walk in with a phone stuck to
his ear. I turned to Zoe. She covered her ears, as if trying to
drown out the noise.
    “You’re ears
are wacked! My hands and feet—”
    “These nachos
taste like a dirty ashtray.” Heidi cut me off. She pushed her plate
away, her face four shades of green.
    Seth leaned
forward, oblivious to what had just happened. He sniffed. “They
stink a bit like smoke, but better than the lard stench coming out
of the kitchen.” He tried a nacho, then slid the plate in front of
him. “If you’re not gonna eat…”
    “Time out, time
out, guys.” I made a capital “t” with my hands. Kieran eye’s jotted
over each of us. He’s thinking what I’m thinking. My head
ticked like the second hand on a clock at each of my friends. Seth complaining stuff smells bad, Zoe can hear a pin drop,
Heidi’s taste is off and…
    My stomach
tightened, and breathing became a challenge. “All of you been weird
since last night?” I scratched my jaw as each of them nodded. All, but Kieran . “Rylee, what’s your deal? Is it your
skin?”
    She blinked.
“No. My skins fine but my eyes are super focused. Remember last
year when I had laser surgery? It was awesome ‘cause I could see
everything without my glasses.” She blinked, her eyes shooting
everywhere around the hall. “It felt like that again this morning.
Except now I can see the trees with five thousand leaves, their
veins and the bugs crawling on them.” She paused. “And watch the
sap running through them. I swear I could see all of
it .”
    “So,” I said
slowly. “You’ve got perfect vision? And Zoe’s got sensitive
hearing, Heidi’s taste buds are off, and Seth’s nose stinks.” I
thought I had sight, but it’s feel. My hands and feet…it’s based on
my skin. My heart pounding, I continued, my words now tumbling
out, “I woke with some wicked feeling-thing in my hands. I touched
a wall and could see through it . Same thing with the floor,
like some kinda X-ray vision.” I turned to the Scotsman. “What
about you?”
    Kieran
chuckled. “Yer serious, aren’t you?” He pretended to sniff, cupped
an ear with his hand, and then licked ketchup off a French fry. He
shook his head as he ran a finger across the table, and then rubbed
his eyes and blinked a bunch of times. “Nothin’. Had a bad
headache, but tha’ was it. But no super-power.” He leaned forward.
“Yer pullin’ me leg, right?”
    “No joke. I can
see through walls.” “I can’t stop hearing everything.” Zoe and I
spoke at the same time.
    “Our senses are
all screwed up,” Zoe whispered. She spoke, tapping a finger with
each word, “Smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing.” Her eyes grew
huge. “M-My dad’s doing some blood work to check for radium and
whatever other shit’s running through me.”
    I put my arm
around her shoulders and gave a squeeze. Her skin felt amazingly
soft, but cool as if it needed my arm there. “Something weird
happened after the lightning.”
    Heidi looked
ready to cry. “It doesn’t make sense. If there was radioactivity in
that room last night, our skin should be falling off our
bones.”
    “But it isn’t.” What had happened in the mine?
    “Do you
remember the weird smell last night?” Heidi asked.
    “Yeah, can’t
get it out of my nostrils at the moment.” Seth wiped his nose with
the sleeve of his shirt.
    “It was from
the lightning. It’s actually ozone.”
    Heidi’s
school book reading kicking in .
    “Lightning
splits water molecules in the air and three molecules of oxygen
bond to form ozone during a