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

clue. Didn’t look like a guy ready to throw himself off a building.”

“Yeah, but neither do we,” Scott said. “It’s been hitting me. We get out of this, what do our lives look like, anyway? Is it really worth going to all this trouble?”

Big Time knew what his life was going to look like, as he’d already been down this road. He’d have to find a new city to settle in, hopefully somewhere with jobs. He’d have to find a new school for Tony. He’d probably want to be near his brother. He knew what it was to lose his house, job, health insurance, car, etc., but he’d had his family to hold onto.

“Don’t think like that, man,” Big Time said, as much to Scott as to himself. “We’re in this together. You and me and my son, Tony. That’s a start, right?”

Scott nodded, but didn’t reply.

When Big Time and Scott reached the parking garage, they split off from the rest of the evacuees and kept going down to the lower level.

“Where are you headed?” called Officer Franklin.

“Got a truck and some friends waiting a few levels down,” Big Time called.

Franklin pounded Big Time’s fist and offered him a grin.

“See you on the street.”

“Good luck.”

•  •  •

On P5, water had begun rising almost as soon as Big Time and the others had headed up the stairs, a source of increasing alarm for Zakiyah and Tony. One foot became two feet and just as quickly became three.

“Maybe they need our help,” Tony said, antsy. “Should we drive around and look where the water’s coming in?”

“You want to be halfway across the parking lot when your daddy comes tearing out of there with twenty of those things chasing after him?” Zakiyah asked.

“No.”

“Well, then, we sit tight.”

A few minutes later, they heard a tremendous noise coming down the stairwell. Zakiyah thought it was the building coming down, but the water remained still around the truck. Still, she turned the key in the ignition and fired up the dump truck.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed Tony as the sound got louder. “You think those are people?”

They didn’t have to wait long for confirmation. Dozens of voices could be heard echoing down the stairwell along with the parade of footsteps.

“You know what the best part of this is?” asked Tony. “They’re not screaming.”

Zakiyah snorted and waited. A minute or two later, Big Time and Scott came racing out of the stairwell, looking ragged. Tony leaped out of the truck and hugged his dad as Scott clambered into the front seat.

“What about Muhammad?” Zakiyah asked, alarmed.

“Don’t know the answer to that one,” Scott sighed. “Seems he had something to do.”

“Did he find his wife?”

Scott shook his head. Zakiyah dropped it and scooted over to hand driving duties back to Big Time. Moments later, they were racing through the water towards the exit ramp.

•  •  •

“Are you going to go back to India?”

Muhammad was surprised by Mrs. Fredrik’s question. He tried to figure out what answer would make her happy before deciding on the affirmative.

“Yes, probably,” he replied. “I still have family there.”

He hadn’t wanted to tell her that they’d probably be dead within minutes.

“I have a sister in Round Rock,” Mrs. Fredrik said. “That’s just north of Austin. Only thing is, she lives with my niece’s family, so I don’t think I can go there.”

Mrs. Fredrik had told Muhammad that she’d been carried up all the flights of stairs on a chair. He figured she’d need his help on the way down. Sure enough, he’d found her alone on the thirty-first floor, staring over the city. Taking her by the arm, he began to lead her down the long flight to the lobby.

“I’m getting nervous,” she whispered as they reached the twentieth floor. “I keep waiting to hear it, but nothing’s coming.”

Muhammad eyed her curiously at this. He’d been listening to the distant screams and pounding against the walls for the last three or four minutes. At the very least, he thought the old woman would feel the vibrations running up the guard rail as the foundation of the building began to quake.

Then he realized, she probably did.

“It’ll be all right,” Muhammad said calmly. “We’ll hear it soon enough.”

Laa ilaaha illa-Allah.

Chapter 31

The monster felt no pain even as it was torn apart by flames, only confusion. It had been driving relentlessly forward on its task when it was interrupted. The momentum was lost, and for a moment or two, there was no guidance. The collective had lost its unifying integrity. Several thousand tendrils splashed down into the floodwaters with no direction where next to go. The entire mass reacted as if stunned, caught unawares by a vicious opponent and sent to the mat.

But even as it fell, attempts were being made to reunify its movements.

It could feel the human exodus in the nearby building, but was temporarily unable to do anything about it. No, the creature was temporarily stretched too thin to make any kind of attack.

Besides, the people were moving towards the water.

A reflex of motivation surged down every tentacle at once. As it had done after detecting the large numbers populating Brammeier Tower an hour before, the collective began pulling itself back together into a single contiguous mass.

Just as the last few stragglers made it into the parking garage and began racing over to the Shell building, the revived monster attacked with renewed vigor. Instead of having to ascend the sides of the tower, it found its target far more concentrated in the sublevels. A single, massive strike from the poltergeist effect shattered the flooded first floor of the building, sending water sweeping into the parking garage. Several people were killed outright by the ceiling collapse. Others screamed. They knew what was coming next.

Thousands of tentacles rode the floodwaters down from the lobby and into the sublevel. The garage was only flooded by a foot or two, but that was all that was necessary. The sludge worms entered the safe confines of the