Flood Plains by Mark Wheaton (best ereader under 100 .TXT) 📕

wide around as a 747 and as long as a freight train. The noise was caused by the smashing of its body into the side of the building, over and over again.

“That’s where they’ve all been going,” Alan exclaimed. “It must’ve seen the beacon.”

“Felt the beacon,” Sineada said. “If it’s attracted to humans, then that must be the largest concentration around if it’s going to recall all its little strings. My guess is there might not be a town for miles with more than a couple of living souls in it.”

“So those people up there are like a buffet for this thing.”

Sineada scowled.

“Mom’s not up there,” Mia said.

“Where is she?” Sineada asked.

“Outside, around the corner somewhere. Wait. Now it’s like she’s under it. I don’t know. I’m losing her.”

“Can you reach out to her like you did me?” Alan asked.

“Not with that thing there. It’s too much noise. We have to get closer.”

“Closer?” Alan protested. “What happened to the plan?”

“Might’ve just changed,” said Sineada. “This could be the blessing we needed.”

•  •  •

Scott’s plan was crazy, Big Time thought as he roared the dump truck down side streets. He had his son to think about. He should leave Muhammad at the building and go. This wasn’t his fight. These people would die, sure, but how many people had already died that day in Houston?

Turning from West Dallas onto Bagby, the truck kicked up water like a hydrofoil. The Shell building was just across the street from Buffalo Bayou, so its parking garages and sublevels were the first things flooded.

“Holy shit!” cried Tony.

“Watch your mouth,” replied Big Time.

“No, look!”

Across from the Shell building was a replica of Houston’s “first settlement” on a slight slope overlooking the bayou’s banks. It consisted of a couple of houses, a smith’s shack, and a church, but all that was visible now was the church’s white steeple.

“That’s got to be twenty feet deep of water,” Scott said, sounding impressed.

“Sure it’s the first thing the city will rebuild,” Big Time quipped. “Gotta get the tourists back first.”

“Man, they aren’t ever rebuild this place,” Scott replied quietly. “Once people know about what happened here, they’re going to pave it over. Treat it like one big mass grave. This is it for Houston, Texas, my friends.”

Big Time didn’t say anything. He figured Scott was right.

The parking garage entrance was on the east side of the building. Big Time rolled the dump truck up to the gate but immediately saw a problem.

“Oh, this is going to be interesting.”

A steel bar hung down over the entrance announced a clearance of eight feet. The truck was not only too tall but too wide to negotiate between the parking attendant’s booth and the wall.

“You ready to do some property damage?” Scott asked.

Big Time responded by aiming the dump truck for the gate and stepping on the accelerator. He tried to keep the vehicle centered as best he could, but the front left tire quickly hopped the concrete divider between the entrance and exit lanes. It flattened a steel sign announcing the different fees for parking in the structure before the entire front end of the trunk smashed through the booth. It exploded in a hail of shattered glass and twisted aluminum.

“Oops,” Big Time grunted.

Though the yellow-and-black gate was actually in its upright position, the dump truck completed its wave of destruction by plowing through it and its housing mechanism, crushing the whole machine under its wheels.

“How’re we doing on roof space?” Big Time asked.

Muhammad, who had been keeping one eye out the window, nodded.

“We’re about ten feet high, and the ceiling is maybe eleven or twelve. Don’t hit any speed bumps at speed, and I think you’ll be fine.”

As soon as they were down a level, the cacophony of wind and rain was replaced by the stillness of the empty garage. The sound of the dump truck’s engine echoed through the subterranean parking lot, only a handful of cars having checked in that day. Like Muhammad’s building, it appeared that, at one time, the garage had been flooded, but that all the water had sluiced away, likely to lower levels. The few puddles that remained hardly indicated a hurricane had gone by.

“This lot probably goes down what, seven or eight levels?” Scott asked. “I guarantee you the bottom three or four are all the way to the ceiling with water. It stays there, this thing will come down.”

“It’s that bad?” Big Time asked.

“Well, yeah. It’ll erode the concrete, but the main problem is the weight. These floors aren’t meant to withstand that much pressure. All it takes is one or two columns going, and the rest of the structure will go with it.”

“Pleasant thought,” snarked Zakiyah.

Big Time tried not to think about it, but as he wheeled down a lane towards the building’s elevators, he imagined every creak being a precursor to getting buried alive.

“Is that the tower side?” Muhammad asked, pointing ahead.

“Oh, shit,” muttered Big Time.

Though construction of the parking garage under Brammeier Tower had been completed before the rest of the building went up, it was sealed off from the Shell side with concrete dragon’s teeth-style barricades. Large sheets of plastic were taped together to curtain off the dust and dirt of the work next door from settling on the vehicles of the Shell building workers. Big Time rolled the dump truck over alongside, but the barricades formed a solid border all the way across the garage.

“Where’s the Brammeier stairwell?” Big Time asked.

The translucent sheeting made it hard to see, but Tony finally pointed it out half the distance across the garage floor on the other side of the barrier. Big Time did a couple of quick mental computations, then scoffed.

“If we’re coming down those stairs with a few thousand people and we’re trying to book it? Half of them are going to get caught right up in those barriers.”

“Also, if it’s our necks, I don’t want that much distance between me and the truck,” Scott added. “Let’s see what it