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

pain I was in. Now, you’re talking about putting her in harm’s way all over again? And on purpose? I don’t want to watch her die. That’d kill me, too. But Alan said that’s what the plan is, right? We get to Galveston, Mia turns off whatever mental block you guys are using to cloak us, and then we’re bait? How’s that gonna work?”

“Well, we’re going to try and talk to it,” Sineada said evenly. “Draw it away from the others.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Very serious.”

“What if it won’t listen? What if it just kills us all?”

Sineada gently took Zakiyah’s hands into her own.

“I’m not saying this is the greatest, the safest, or the most likely to succeed course of action, because it might not be. What I am saying is that Alan’s wrong about this one. He still thinks this will go away like the storm. What I’m saying is that the storm opened the door and let it in, that’s all. It’s here now, and there are going to be very few things that can stop it, especially as it gets bigger. I wish we could bury our heads in the sand and save ourselves, but it’d get to every one of us eventually.”

“You believe that?”

“I know that,” Sineada replied. “And I’m not going to wait around to give it the chance.”

Chapter 33

“Elmer?”

“Yep.”

“Beverly?”

“Yeah.”

“What about Mandy? Girl from Zakiyah’s line. You know who I’m talking about, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, she was a piece of ass,” Alan croaked, shaking his head.

Big Time sighed.

“Like I said, everybody except me, Scott, Zakiyah, and Muhammad didn’t make it out of there.”

“Still can’t believe Dennis showed up.”

The raft was just leaving the bayou and entering the waters of the Houston Ship Channel. Big Time had been surprised by how quickly they’d made it from the heart of the city to the port. The fast-moving bayou had presented several challenges, particularly in dealing with obstacles that suddenly appeared directly in front of the raft. But with everyone pulling their weight, they’d just managed to angle the boat around each one. Their success gave them something to feel good about and momentarily pushed the horrors of the day out of their minds. When they’d seen the cranes and warehouses of the Port of Houston approach, they cheered. The realization that it meant they were that much closer to confronting the creature again soon muted their celebration.

The rain was still steady as Big Time and Alan angled the raft south towards the Gulf, but the wind had died down considerably. Big Time had considered taking off his shoes, as his feet were swollen and itchy from the wet, but there was nowhere to dry them. He kept moving to keep up his body temperature, but it wasn’t particularly cold out even with the rain. Houston was Houston, and the humidity didn’t let something so minor as a hurricane keep itself from cooling too much.

“Poor Scott, man,” Alan muttered. “Living just long enough to know he lost his whole family, only to then die himself.”

“He didn’t want to live,” Big Time surmised. “I don’t think Muhammad did, either.”

“Did you?”

Big Time thought about this. Tony was poling the raft beside Mia, looking after her the way he’d done his younger brothers.

“The moment I found out my family was dead for sure was a moment after I’d seen the resurrection of my son, who I’d assumed was gone,” Big Time said. “That’s who I’m living for now. It’s not about me.”

“I hear you,” Alan nodded.

Alan’s eyes traveled down to his ruined legs for the umpteenth time. Though the rain would wash it away each time, thin rivulets of blood would occasionally swim out past the makeshift bandages and join puddles under his stumps. Devoid of blood, his flesh had gone from green-gray to ashy white over the hours. The ragged flesh looked like meat left on a bone to rot. Worse, he was losing feeling in what was left of his legs, a general numbness traveling up past his waist.

“Big Time?”

“Yep?”

“I’m hoping to stick around, but we both know I’m not going to make it out of here alive,” Alan began. “So, I want to ask you a favor.”

“Come on, Alan,” Big Time scoffed, though his heart wasn’t in it. “You’ve seen those boys coming back from the Middle East. Some are in a lot worse shape than you. You’ve got a chance.”

“Big Time. I’m asking you something here.”

Big Time fell silent.

“I don’t think Sineada’s going to make it, either,” Alan continued. “In fact, I think that’s her plan. It’ll be you, Tony, Zakiyah, and Mia. That’s it. I know it’s not perfect, but I need to know they’re going to have somebody to rely on. Whatever all this looks like when everything’s said and done, well, it ain’t gonna be easy.”

Big Time put his hand on Alan’s shoulder and nodded.

“You don’t have to ask. We were a bit like an accidental family even before this. Bon temps.”

Alan smiled, but was choking up. Big Time put his arms around his friend and brought his forehead up to his own.

“But we’re going to get through this, so banish those thoughts.”

“Yes, sir.”

But as he said this, Alan saw that his daughter was looking back at him and realized that around her there was no “banishing.” Her face, reacting to Alan’s thoughts, was pale. It took Alan a moment to realize that it wasn’t that she didn’t know how bad off he was. Rather, she hadn’t wanted him to know.

It’s okay, he thought. It’ll work itself out whatever way it’s meant to.

She nodded. I know.

•  •  •

Lt. Dobson and the other sailors had covered a lot of ground by the time they encountered the first sign of violence they couldn’t immediately ascribe to the storm. They’d gone from house to house in the outskirts of town, only to find most of them boarded up, rental properties left to face the storm uninhabited. When they moved a few blocks into town, however, they came