Flood Plains by Mark Wheaton (best reads txt) 📗

Mia nodded, focusing on the tower.

“There are a lot of people in there.”

“What? You know that?” Alan asked.

“No, I can see them from here,” Mia said. “The building’s not finished, so people are just moving around on a bunch of the upper floors.”

Alan was shocked. He tried to look that far, but his eyes wouldn’t let him.

“Think there’s a doctor up there?” he asked.

“Could be,” replied Sineada warily. “But there’s no telling what else. If there are people, that thing’s going to be looking.”

“Well, you know what my vote is. I’m looking to stay alive. If that means a detour, I’d like to take it.”

“I’m trying to sound pragmatic here. If there are people up there, then that’s probably where all these pitch worms are going. We might only get one shot at this thing. I don’t want to waste it.”

“Oh, so those people over there can die? How many are in there, Mia?”

Mia concentrated on the tower for a moment and then shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Hundreds, maybe a couple thousand.”

“So, Sineada,” Alan continued. “I understand why you’re okay with me dying so we can get down to Galveston to put your little plan in action. But how about those people? You know Mia might just be able to save them, too. Or is that still not the ‘greater good’ you’re doing this for?”

Sineada steamed.

“I’m sorry that you don’t what’s going on, Alan, but this is bigger than all of us.”

Alan thrust his oar back in the water.

“Oh, okay, then. I guess we have no choice. Let’s get down to the bayou while I’m still alive to help you paddle. C’mon! What’re you waiting for?”

“Stop it,” scowled Mia.

“No, no, baby. This is the plan. Everything’s got to be pushed aside because this is major.”

“Stop paddling. Now!”

Sineada recognized something in Mia’s voice that Alan had not.

“What is it, Mia?”

“She just doesn’t understand,” Alan spat. “Sacrifices must be made!”

“STOP IT!”

Pain flooded through Alan’s body as whatever blunting of his nerves Mia had done was pulled back.

“Fuck!”

“Mia!” screamed Sineada. “Stop it!”

“But Mom’s over there!” Mia cried. “We have to rescue her!”

Sineada stopped cold. Alan’s pain ebbed, and he stared at Mia in surprise.

“How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know. I tried calling out to her, same as you, but there wasn’t anything. Now there is. She’s just on the other side of that building. And she’s heading right for the monster. We have to get over there before it’s too late!”

•  •  •

Within minutes, the calm of the hurricane’s eye was all but a distant memory. The torrential rain and pounding winds of the storm lashed at the city anew. Streets that were beginning to drain moments before were now flooded. Buffalo Bayou was restored to its previous rage.

In the dump truck, Big Time raced across Fourth Ward, trying to stay on the high streets. He knew that when they went under the I-45 overpass and entered downtown, they’d be in water up to the wheel wells. As they drew close to Brammeier Tower, not only could they see the beacon more clearly but also the great number of people occupying the upper floors.

“If they’ve been calling out to survivors for long, we could be looking at barricades of abandoned cars around the base of the building,” Big Time surmised. “We need to have a plan of action. Is this a rescue? A reunion? An escape? What?”

“I think that all depends, don’t you?” Scott asked. “They could be in worse shape than us. Still, if there’s even a chance your wife is up there, we’re going to get you there.”

Muhammad hid his surprise behind a shake of his head.

“That’s too much. After all we’ve been through, to jeopardize your lives? I’ll go in there myself. I don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Yeah, but sludge worms aside, that might be the safest place to be as the storm comes back full-steam,” Big Time said. “We were inside when it hit, but you saw how it tore up the factory. The rear rain wall is going to be just as bad, if not worse. The inside of a building is always going to be better than a truck. Might be our best bet.”

As the high-rises of downtown now loomed directly in front of them, Big Time drove the truck down West Gray under the I-45 overpass into the central part of Houston proper. As he’d predicted, the floodwaters were already high. He turned a corner to angle closer to the tower, and what he saw through the windshield then not only answered any questions lingering in the cab, it also chilled the Deltech survivors to their very core.

“Oh, my God,” Zakiyah whispered.

“No way,” Tony added. “No friggin’ way.”

Muhammad, the man most profoundly affected by the implications of what he was now looking at, had no words.

Though Brammeier Tower had been in view for much of the drive, the lower half of the building was mostly out of sight, obscured by other buildings, trees, or even the overpass. Now, in clear view, it made the silent, pleading SOS. coming from the upper floors feel that much more futile.

Extending up from the floodwaters in great towering columns were the sludge worms now massed into four snake-like bodies that rose alongside the building. They reached up to the highest floors as if drawn by magnetic force. Encircling the tower’s base was a solid mass of the black sludge that clung to the building, immersing it in black across the first four stories. Like invisible static electricity bouncing off a child’s fingertips, the poltergeist effect tore through each new floor of the building like a gale-force wind, blasting construction equipment and supplies over the edge. Slowly but surely, the entire contents of the skyscraper were being tossed into the flooded streets below.

“My God,” muttered Big Time, echoing Zakiyah. “How big is this thing?”

“It’s just up the building but all over the cars out front,” Scott said. “There’s probably even more of