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

the army and a convoy he was a part of got involved in a crack-up outside of Waco. The troops had done what they could, but it was too late for a young mom and what Scott later learned was her aunt.

She begged Scott to make sure the kids in the back seat were safe. He assured her they were, and this knowledge allowed her to die in peace. The scene had burned into Scott’s mind. He felt silly trying to re-create it but figured he could fake it well enough to fool Big Time.

When his friend had moved to leave, Scott was impressed by how well his scheme had worked. But then Big Time leaned over and whispered in his ear.

“I know you’re not dead, motherfucker.”

It took all of Scott’s self-control not to laugh or even flinch. He felt Big Time’s eyes on him for a long time, but the big man finally moved away.

It’s better this way, Scott thought.

He listened to the hurricane rains beat a tattoo against the metal of the truck. He idly wondered what the search-and-rescue people would think when they found him. Could he perhaps be the one corpse left intact in all of downtown Houston? He hoped Big Time or the others might live in order to tell the police what happened, but also imagined the not-knowing had its own appeal.

Is this guy some kind of superhero?! Was his blood poisonous or something? Who IS this guy?

Scott chuckled to himself. He thought of police, scientists, even the military pondering how come some white trash motherfucker in a dump truck wasn’t worth the monster’s time and energy.

A moment later, and he was gone.

Chapter 32

Out in the Gulf, rain continued to pour down on the Van Ness. The winds had subsided for the most part as the hurricane’s rear wall moved further onto land. Eliza would likely soon be downgraded to a Category 2 or 3 storm.

The Van Ness’s commander, Coast Guard Captain Leslie Kubena, was originally from the Virgin Islands. She’d grown up on the water and had weathered several storms long before becoming a sailor. If she did the math, she thought it would come out that she’d actually spent about twice as many hours of her life on the sea than on land. Though her first consideration was always the safety of her sailors, she felt a strong sense of responsibility towards the people on Galveston Island, particularly after the discovery of the collapsed causeway.

What disturbed her the most was that there was still no communication with the island. She didn’t expect telephones, but there should’ve been something on the radio by now even if it was just picking up traffic from first-responders.

Instead, there was nothing. Multiple lookouts had reported seeing no signs of life. Yes, visibility was extremely poor, but there hadn’t been one vehicle, one civilian, or even so much as a flashlight spotted from the ship.

“The roads on this side of the island are flooded,” reported the Van Ness’s executive officer, a young lieutenant commander named Bruce Arrington. “People might just be waiting for the waters to go down.”

The Van Ness was anchored off the east side of the island, selected because it was the most protected side. The danger of capsize was real even with so large a vessel.

“Yeah, but people are unpredictable, and storms make them crazy,” Kubena countered. “Someone would panic. Someone would decide to be the Good Samaritan. Somebody would go on patrol and another would just be stupid. Heck, someone would decide to loot. We’ve been sitting here six hours, and we’ve haven’t seen a soul. We need to get somebody on the beach just to make sure it’s not worse than we think.”

Though the seas were still rough, Arrington had served with his captain long enough to know she’d weighed the danger to her men before suggesting such a course of action.

“Two fast boats, twelve men?”

“Sounds right. Check the weather again, but then get ’em in the water.”

“Aye-aye.”

It was a routine the men had drilled several times, so the boats were in the water less than five minutes later. They swung wide around the island in order to let the current do some of the work for them but also to scope out the best landing zone. Even in the relatively light boats, they were still wary of underwater hazards. With rain pattering down on their waterproof boonie hats, they kept the boats over deep water until the last possible moment. Then they took the last few yards slow.

They needn’t have worried.

The ride in was a dream. Everything went according to their training and most optimistic models. The sailors swept up towards the shallows, hopped out, and dragged their boats up onto the beach. Tying the fast boats up to a guardrail thirty feet from the water, they moved out and headed inland.

The low-lying areas of the island were flooded up to two and three feet. For just this reason, many of the roads around Galveston were slightly elevated or up a grade. Though they were slick with rainwater, there were few puddles on the streets.

“Anything yet, lieutenant?” Arrington asked over the radio to the team leader, Dobson.

“These roads are drivable, sir,” Dobson replied. “We’re looking at lots of water, likely some real property damage, but nothing compared to what we saw with Andrew or Katrina.”

From their position on the bridge of the Van Ness, Kubena and Arrington could see through their binoculars the men fanning out over the shoreline. Kubena feared that once they’d landed, the only means of communication would be with handheld strobes, tiny signaling lights that could be used to blink Morse code messages. She was relieved then that, despite a little wind distortion on the throat mics, radio communication was possible.

“Have you seen any signs of life?” Kubena asked.

“Negative…oh, wait. Ma’am, we just spotted a dog.”

Through her binoculars, Kubena spotted a small white terrier trotting towards the sailors.

“I’m going to take that as a