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

oil is pumped up from below the crust, transferred into those pipes, and sent here to be refined. A lot of that drilling goes hundreds of feet under the ocean floor. I’m going to wrestle this thing all the way to the center of the Earth.”

“All by your lonesome?”

“Well, somebody’s going to have to light the candle and burn us on down. Then, seal us up when it’s over. And you’d better seal it right. One drop of this mess gets out, and it might start up all over again.”

Big Time really, really wished Scott was there. This was so impossible, so unlikely, that he thought he would benefit greatly from his friend’s counsel.

“Well, let’s get you to one of those pipes.”

The ragtag group carefully waded through the refinery. They saw signs that suggested more than a few men had been manning the place when the storm hit, only to be violently killed by the sludge worms.

Tony seemed to be the most numb to the signs of carnage, which worried Big Time. He’d pass broken glass saturated in blood and not so much as give it a second glance. Big Time wondered what his son thought of Sineada’s plan and if, perhaps, part of his attitude was tied to the fact that he didn’t believe in it at all. His resignation came from knowing he was soon to join the tally of those killed out here in the middle of nowhere.

They reached a massive steel pipe painted white. It was as wide around as a small family house. Behind it and heading towards the interior of the refinery were three smaller pipes connected to the large feeder. Big Time assumed these took the raw crude pulled in from the derrick and whisked it off to three separate areas to be refined, though he didn’t really understand what went into that process. In front, the giant pipe extended across the refinery, cut through the breakwater, and descended into the Gulf at a forty-five-degree angle.

At the very top of it was a watertight hatch. A large wrench was attached to the hatch in order to wrest it open. To get there, one would have to climb a small, steel-rung ladder built onto the pipe.

“Think you can get all the way up there?” Big Time asked Sineada.

“You’ll help me, won’t you?” Sineada quipped.

“Anything to get out of this water. My feet are starting to itch.”

Zakiyah was helping Mia along when her grandmother came over and took her hands.

“I wish I’d gotten to know you and your family a little better,” Sineada said. “You take care of your daughter.”

“Wait, you’re doing this now?” Zakiyah asked, surprised.

“Every second we wait, that could mean another person dead. It can’t wait, so we can’t wait.”

Tears sprang into Zakiyah’s eyes, and she surprised herself by leaning forward and hugging her grandmother.

“I will, Abuela.”

Sineada nodded towards Alan.

“You, too.”

Alan, the words not coming fast enough, simply nodded.

Sineada then turned to Mia.

“You need something off of me, you just say as much and I’ll be there. Okay?”

“Okay,” Mia replied quietly, forcing herself not to cry.

“Okay. I love you.”

Sineada turned to let Big Time help her up the ladder. Mia’s eyes were red and the tears were coming, but her apprehension came from not knowing if she should tell her great-grandmother what she knew or not.

Finally, she spoke up.

“It’s going to hurt!” she cried out, stopping Sineada on her ascent. “But only for a minute. It’s fast. But I could hear the people when they died.”

Big Time’s veins went cold. He couldn’t imagine what that must’ve been like for the little girl, hearing everyone’s pain all day. Sineada simply nodded a little.

“I know, baby. I heard them, too. Doesn’t last long, though. There and gone.”

With that, Sineada gripped the nearest rung of the steel ladder and continued her slow climb with Big Time right behind her.

•  •  •

The storm had been downgraded to a Category 2 but was continuing on through Central Texas, arcing towards the Texas-Louisiana-Arkansas border. The spirit collective didn’t seem to care.

When it rampaged through Houston and the surrounding cities, people had evacuated or otherwise sought shelter. The farther it moved inland, however, the more people it found freely going about their lives. There was no word out of Harris County except for reports of widespread blackouts and folks discovering they couldn’t call in to check on friends or relatives, but no one panicked.

What no one knew was that the military had come under attack in two separate incidents already, one on Interstate 45 north to Dallas and another on Route 290 out to Austin. These were the first filmed attacks by the collective. The soldiers had been lightly armed but were as unprepared for this kind of encounter as the crew of the Van Ness had been. The images of the attacks had been broadcast onto monitors at Fort Hood, which immediately bounced them to the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs were rounded up, and all sorts of judgment calls had to be made. There were rescues to be considered, but the idea that this was some sort of biohazard run amuck weighed heavily on the decision-making process.

It took a full two hours to agree that two navy helicopters would be flown in from the naval air station in Pensacola for low-level reconnaissance with ground units mobilized but not deployed. What they couldn’t have known was that while they deliberated, the sludge worms consumed another thirty-two thousand people.

After devouring the sailors of the Van Ness, the tendrils began retracting to join the main body back upstate. It was then that it became aware of six people on Galveston Island suddenly appearing as if from thin air.

The only pertinent fact was that they were alive and that the resources necessary to collect them were minimal. A thin tendril spun off from the main worm and shot back down south to the island.

•  •  •

When Mia lifted the psychic veil that cloaked their presence, she felt the response of the creature