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

of cloth hung from the mouths of the paint thinner cans, the caps keeping them loosely in place. Franklin’s hand was shaking as he tested the lighter in his palm. Each man had five lighters, all requisitioned from the survivors upstairs. They all worked, in theory, but Scott hadn’t wanted to take any chances.

“What happens if I drop it and it misses the worm?” asked Franklin.

“Don’t think twice,” Big Time replied. “Light the next one and let it drop. We’ve each got three five-gallon cans. It’s all theoretical, but it should only take one.”

“How so?”

“When the can blows up, it’ll ignite the thinner, and instead of one fire, there’ll be fifty raining down on the worm. The worm itself it flammable as all hell, and if a handful of those fires lands on it, the flames should just suck down that fuel like mother’s milk.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, we’re going for the big prize on this one. Good luck.”

The officer shook Big Time’s hand and took up his position on the northwest corner as Big Time stood over the worm moving up the northeast side. It had only gotten larger in the intervening ten minutes or so since he’d checked it out. It looked like a tower of ebony, polished to a shine. As the rain spattered down onto it, it was hard to conceive that it was in some way alive instead of a rocky edifice that had been rising there for generations.

The go-signal was a nod from Big Time that would lead Officer Franklin to discharge his firearm three times into the rain. The exodus of people would begin down the stairs, and the makeshift bombs would be dropped.

Big Time looked over at Scott on the southeast and nodded. Scott quickly lit the wicks on his bombs and signaled for Muhammad, outside Big Time’s plane of vision, to do the same. He then knelt down and lit his own as, fifty feet away, Officer Franklin did similarly.

A quick glance from Scott and Big Time signaled Franklin. Franklin had only fired his weapon a handful of times in the line of duty, but as he pulled the Heckler & Koch 9mm from his holster, he wondered if he’d ever get the chance again. He pulled the trigger three times, and three shots echoed out over the storm.

“Here goes nothing,” Big Time whispered to himself.

He took the first can and quickly lowered it as far as he could over the flimsy wooden guard rail, positioning it directly over the slowly moving sludge worm. With rain now threatening to douse the flames, Big Time let go. He immediately pulled himself back from the edge, but glanced down to see the effect.

Which was nothing.

The can hit the worm straight on, but immediately bounced off. The wick was extinguished, the cap fell off, and the thinner splashed out of the can as it spun harmlessly down to the flooded street below.

“Shit!”

Big Time tightened the caps on the next two before hesitating a beat. He waited for the wicks to burn down, almost to the can. He then picked both up, lowered them as far as he dared, and dropped the pair together.

The wind blew out the wick on one of the cans almost as soon as it was airborne, and it landed harmlessly on top of the worm. The second can missed the worm entirely. Big Time was about to curse his luck and run to the fire stairs when he heard the can explode.

The small blast had an incredible effect. Having exploded a few feet below the top of the worm but directly alongside it, super-heated shards of metal and flaming liquid were showered onto the creature. At multiple contact points, the worm immediately caught fire.

But instead of the flames spreading across the surface as Scott had postulated, each small fire ignited veins that shot deep into the worm like lightning bolts tearing through the body. This had the effect of shattering the worm like a split log. Several splinters, glowing orange and red with fire albeit still attached to the main body, peeled away and down into the floodwaters.

Like a blossoming flower, the sludge worm divided into thousands upon thousands of ever-thinning tendrils as it thrashed against the building and sank.

Big Time watched all this for a moment, enraptured, until Scott’s hand grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

“Time to go.”

•  •  •

Three thousand people or not, the rapid descent down the three stairwells was nowhere near as harried as everyone expected. People were terrified and going as fast as they could, but a strange order ruled the day. It was as if after all they’d suffered, they were determined to prove they weren’t willing to sacrifice their humanity even in the face of death. Young people helped senior citizens. When people fell down, there were six hands offered to help them up. No one pushed or shoved. Because of this, it was only five minutes before the first few made it down to the parking garage.

Big Time had told them about the obstructions, but no one seemed to care. Everyone shared a single-minded goal of exiting out the Shell building parking lot, barricades be damned. Despite what they’d glimpsed through the stairwell windows and heard as rumors went up and down the chain of people, no one believed that the monster had been vanquished.

Scott, Muhammad, Officer Franklin, and Big Time had joined the crush of people in the center stairwell, receiving a round of applause even as folks raced past.

“Hope Zakiyah didn’t get itchy down there and head off without us,” Scott joked.

“You really think she knows how to drive that thing?” Big Time called back. “She wouldn’t get six feet.”

Muhammad smiled at this but then glanced up. Something hit him clear as day. He patted Big Time on the shoulder.

“Don’t wait for me.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

Muhammad simply smiled and headed up the stairs against the current. Scott eyed him curiously but then hurried after Big Time.

“Where the hell is he going?”

“No