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

“I don’t know. So far, that’s been Mia-only.”

“What happens if she tries again and it just pushes back twice as hard?”

“I don’t know,” replied Sineada, shaking her head. “Believe you me, I wish this burden was on me, not her. But if she’s the only one who can reach it, then we’ve got to try.”

•  •  •

Muhammad picked his way through the hundreds of people on the thirtieth, desperately seeking his wife. When he came up dry, he hurried to the stairs, only to be rebuffed.

“Back of the line, asshole.”

Scanning around, he spotted a wooden ladder one of the construction workers had propped up near a service access point cut in the ceiling. He hurried over, set up the ladder, and clambered up to the next floor.

As he emerged onto the thirty-first floor, he was struck all over again by the blistering cold so high up in the building. There was even less hung up around the exterior of the level to keep out the elements, and rain poured in from holes cut in the ceiling as well. There were only two floors left to go.

People were huddled together in small groups stretched out across the entire level of the building. Most looked shell-shocked by the events of the day or, perhaps more accurately, resigned to their impending doom.

One group looking over the side of the building had a woman with them about Fadela’s height, so Muhammad rushed over, only to be disappointed when he saw it wasn’t her.

“They’re getting closer,” one of the people said.

Muhammad saw that they were positioned directly above one of the gently swaying sludge worms, which now approached from only a couple hundred feet below them. From the street level, they looked like giant earthworms straining upwards as if to climb over a rock. But now, the sight brought to mind what it’d look like to stare straight down over an oil geyser as it exploded from the ground. Something Texas was famous for, even in India.

“Muhammad?”

Muhammad wheeled around and saw Mrs. Fredrik standing behind him.

“Oh, my Lord, it is you,” Mrs. Fredrik exclaimed, holding her face in her hands.

She walked over and immediately embraced her neighbor, tears leaping to her eyes. It was then that Muhammad knew his wife hadn’t made it.

“She saved my life,” Mrs. Fredrik whispered. “I would be gone if it wasn’t for her.”

“How?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know. She was in the garage, I heard her cry out, but when I went down she was nowhere to be seen. I don’t know. I went back upstairs, but then a truck going by looking for survivors picked me up and took me here. I was carried up here in a chair.”

Muhammad had thought he’d steeled himself against the inevitable, that even though his wife might have made it out of their apartment, that didn’t mean she had made it to safety. But as he felt his body reacting to the news, he realized he’d never believed she was alive.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Mrs. Fredrik said.

“It’s okay,” he said finally. “I’m sure I’ll be with her soon enough.”

Chapter 30

It was time to go.

With the columns of sludge now only four flights below them, the poltergeist wind was already blasting through the twenty-ninth floor. For safety’s sake, the mayor and her aides had evacuated the three thousand survivors to the highest floor. There, they had divided them into three lines positioned around each of the fire stairwells. Controversy abounded as to places in line, the younger and presumably faster wanting to be at the front. The slower, the injured, and the elderly refused to go along with it at first, but as there was so little time for dissension, their voices were soon drowned out.

One of Mayor Bresnan’s aides had actually confronted Big Time with the possibility that what they intended to do might bring down the building.

“You’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in property damage with possibly hundreds of millions more if this affects others in this corridor,” he had charged.

“You’re willing to die to save Houston taxpayers a couple of bucks?” Scott had asked, incredulous. “Hell, you ever decide to run for office, you’ve got my vote!”

Still, everyone knew this was a possible no-win scenario. Everyone could die up on the top floors of the building, or they could die in the floodwaters below. There were no guarantees either way. Big Time’s worst fear was that setting these fires could lead to a conflagration that would send smoke up the stairwells, killing hundreds. There was no way to avoid it—chances were good that the fire would be out almost as quickly as it began—but it was a possibility to consider.

Big Time was trying to force this idea from his mind when Muhammad returned, coming down a wooden ladder from the upper levels.

“Did you find your…?”

But Big Time didn’t need to finish the question to know the answer.

“I’m sorry.”

Muhammad nodded but then moved towards the cans of paint thinner set up at the corners of the floor. Officers Gonzales and Franklin had volunteered to help Big Time and Scott, but Gonzales welcomed the return of Muhammad.

“I’m going to head for the stairs. You guys are crazy.”

“I don’t know if I could argue with that,” Scott said.

Muhammad stared down at the approaching worms with grim fascination. Somewhere inside it lay whatever was left of his wife. He saw his mission as one to free her from its maw. It wouldn’t bring her back, but at least he wouldn’t let the beast win.

Scott came over and extended his hand to Muhammad.

“See you down there?”

“Will do,” Muhammad replied, shaking the man’s hand.

“Sorry about all the, you know, douche-y shit.”

“Sorry for wishing you’d be plagued by monstrous sludge worms in return.”

Scott’s eyes lit up.

“A joke! I hope you don’t die, man. I’ll bet you got more of those in you.”

As Scott headed back to his corner, Franklin and Big Time hurried to theirs. Thin strips