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

“Mia, no!” Sineada cried, but her great-granddaughter wasn’t listening.

Mia reached the front of the truck and found her mother, bleeding from cuts to her head and arm, with a small group of people she didn’t recognize. The cab was filling up with water. The man behind the wheel was trying to pull a teenager up to the driver’s side as if to climb out on top. When he saw Mia, his eyes went wide.

“RUN!” Big Time exclaimed. “Get out of here!”

“That’s my mom!” Mia cried, pointing at Zakiyah.

Big Time was flabbergasted. He thought he’d heard wrong. But then Zakiyah, her eyelids fluttered, looked up and saw Mia.

“Baby?” Zakiyah said, as incredulous as Big Time. “Oh, my God! You have to get out of here.”

But Mia had already shimmied up to the top of the truck and was trying to get the driver’s-side door open. Big Time got to the door, only to find it wouldn’t open. Figuring it was bent, he gave it a shove but almost fell over.

“Hey, Scott. Could use a hand.”

Scott, who had been up against the passenger-side door, was holding himself out of the water flooding into the truck cab as best he could with his left arm gripped behind the seat. His legs appeared to be trapped beneath the dashboard. Blood was pooling around them, suggesting serious wounds.

“Hold on, Scott!” Big Time exclaimed.

He balanced himself against the back seat and began kicking out the windshield. The safety glass spider-webbed and finally bent enough out of its frame for Big Time to knock it free.

“Tony, grab my hand.”

A little more lucid now, Tony did as he was asked and stepped sideways through the windshield. Once on the other side, he helped Zakiyah out as well.

“Mommy!” Mia cried, racing into her mother’s arms.

“Baby, I don’t know how you got down here, but I thank God all the same you’re all right.”

Inside the cab, Big Time squatted down next to Scott.

“Man, we’ve got to get you out of here,” Big Time said, surveying the damage.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Scott replied, muscles taut with pain. “Pretty sure this stitches me up. All that’s uncertain now is whether I’ll die from blood loss or lose my grip and drown.”

“Drama queen.”

Scott snickered, but this quickly became a wheeze. Big Time slid down next to him and tried to lift up the dashboard. The engine block had been shoved backward along with much of the front end of the vehicle, meaning Scott was trapped under about a ton of metal.

“Holy shit, is that Alan?” Scott croaked.

Big Time turned quickly. Sure enough, rowing up to the truck in what looked like an upside-down roof, was Alan. It looked like he’d suffered a grievous injury to his legs.

“Well, what do you know?” Scott sighed. “Zakiyah, her daughter, Alan. Somebody got a happy ending after all. Where’s the critter?”

“Dunno,” Big Time admitted. “It threw us out the door, we landed, and that was the last I saw of it. I thought we were dead.”

“It doesn’t see you anymore,” said Sineada, walking over to the two men. “Zakiyah’s daughter is protecting us.”

“How’s that work?” Scott asked.

Sineada shrugged. Seeing how much pain Scott was in, she glanced back at Mia. The little girl broke away from Zakiyah and walked over, eyeing Scott.

“Will you let me help you?” she asked.

Scott looked bemused.

“Did you really scare off the big bad sludge worm?”

“No, I just talked to it,” Mia replied.

“What’re you going do to me?”

Same.

Mia took Scott’s hand and silenced the part of his brain that was telling him how much pain he was in. He sighed, sinking into his seat.

“I don’t know what you did, but I thank you just the same,” Scott said, a wry grin on his face.

But Mia didn’t return the smile. In fact, she suddenly looked quite sad. Scott could guess why but said nothing. Mia gave him a kiss on the forehead and then climbed back out of the cab.

“Funny kid Alan’s got, huh?” Scott said, his voice weak.

Big Time nodded.

“Are you okay?”

“If you mean ‘am I comfortable’? I’m a lot more now than before she walked over and did whatever she did,” Scott replied. “If you mean ‘do I mind dying?’ I think I’m glad it’s not going to be at the hand of those sludge worms. Only think bothering me is that it looks like you guys got a boat, got some magic kid, and just might get out of here in one piece. Can’t help feeling like that ‘last soldier to die.’ I’m going to miss you guys.”

Scott said the last part with such sincerity that Big Time had to smile.

“Oh, okay, ’cause you’re a doctor?”

“I’m a realist,” Scott whispered.

Scott closed his eyes, exhaled a rattling cough, and seemed to deflate.

“C’mon, dickhead. You’re not really going to play that shit, are you?”

Big Time touched Scott’s shoulder, but he was unresponsive. He shook him for a moment, but the muscles were loose, and he just flopped back and forth. Big Time hadn’t cried that day but now felt tears welling in his eyes.

He leaned over and whispered something in Scott’s ear, gripped his shoulder one more time, and then clambered out of the truck. The constant rain had seemed to let up for a moment but now was back with a vengeance.

The others were gathered on the makeshift raft, Sineada tending to Zakiyah and Tony’s wounds. Big Time joined them, his eyes sunken and hollow.

A moment later, Big Time and Tony manning the oars this time, the raft began to make its way back towards the bayou.

•  •  •

From the cab of the dump truck, Scott watched Big Time and the others leave. He had decided on his ruse, knowing Big Time would stay with him no matter what out of a misplaced sense of duty. The easiest way around it was to just accelerate the process and die, or at least pretend to. He’d gotten up close and personal with a dying person only once. He’d been in