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

Outside, Mia felt the death of her grandmother and immediately began to cry. Her breathing sped up, and she thought she might hyperventilate.

“Mia?”

She turned. The voice had been Alan’s and was tinged with horror. Behind him, a web made of dozens of thread-thin tendrils of sludge rose from the water around the pallet.

“I thought it couldn’t see us!” Alan said, astonished.

Before Mia could react, the web slapped down over Alan’s torso, freezing his mouth in mid-speech. His jaws wrenched open, and the threads descended down his throat as the rest emerged from the water and engulfed his body.

Chapter 36

Sineada found herself in some sort of suspended animation. She couldn’t use her senses in a traditional fashion but perceived her surroundings. It was like being asleep but dreaming she was someone else. She was borrowing the vision of others but only catching flashes of light. Orange, red, different shades of yellow, then back to orange.

What a strange sensation, she thought.

At the moment of her death, she’d tucked her memories deep inside her consciousness, fearing that that would be the first thing jettisoned. But there it was, the single word: Mia.

She focused on that word even as she felt herself carried along, as if by a tide. She could sense the presence of many, many others around her but was unable to pick out individuals. She didn’t feel crowded, however. They were so small, so inconsequential. She perceived the space around her as infinite.

But she forced herself back to the word. It was so easy to allow herself to drift and explore this new dimension, but she had one last job to do in the mortal plane. Or, she imagined, what she once thought of as the mortal plane.

Mia. Where are you?

The colors around her went to reds and then black. There was a fury, and it was directed towards her. She felt it inside as well. She was angry at herself. This wasn’t what she wanted to do, was it? How could she?

Mia! She cried out again.

Her fear turned to cold panic. She had underestimated the collective will of the spirits that surrounded her. How was she going to be able to do this? It was impossible, came the thought over and over again. There was only one thing to drive it all forward, and this was revenge.

Far away in her subconscious, she knew that she had been so very, very wrong…

•  •  •

It took only seconds for the second sludge worm to devour Alan before turning its attentions on Tony and Mia. Tony lifted Mia up out of the water and was trying to move away when the poltergeist effect propelled itself against Tony and knocked him off his feet. Mia shrieked and splashed back down into the floodwaters.

“Daddy!” she cried, turning back towards the wooden pallet.

But there was no sign of Alan, not even blood.

“Mia!” Zakiyah cried.

She was halfway down the ladder when Tony staggered back to his feet. The smaller worm meant that the poltergeist packed a lighter punch. Otherwise, Tony would’ve likely been torn apart.

“Hey, goddammit,” Zakiyah yelled at the sludge worm. “Why don’t you come get me?”

Zakiyah leaped off the ladder, breaking her ankle as she landed in the water between the rising sludge worm and Tony. She gritted her teeth with the pain as the poltergeist force knocked into her so hard all the air was blasted out of her lungs. She banged her head into the massive pipe and tried to right herself just in time to see the tentacle rising in front of her. As it had when it attacked Alan, it had formed a web that now hovered in front of her face.

“Come on, goddammit!” Zakiyah roared. “Just do it, bitch!”

The worm flinched as if to accommodate her request but just as quickly appeared to hold back, unable to advance. Zakiyah watched as the web of sludge slowly retreated into the floodwaters. It stayed just on top of the water and rejoined the rest of the worm slowly They could see it moving as it stayed just on top of the water and rejoined the rest of the worm at the large tank’s service hatch.

“What happened?” Big Time asked, coming down the ladder.

“It must be working!” Zakiyah cried. “Sineada’s pulling it down into the pipe.”

Big Time nodded and hurried the rest of the way down. When he reached the ground, he sloshed over to where Tony was kneeling next to an inconsolable Mia.

“It’s okay,” Big Time said, trying to comfort. “You’re okay.”

“It’s not okay!” Mia shrieked, shaking her head. “It was supposed to take me, not Daddy!”

Big Time stared at the little girl in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“It was too strong for just great-grandma, now. It’s taken too many lives. So I didn’t cloak us. I wanted it to take me. I’m stronger than her.”

“What was that?” Zakiyah said, hurrying over. “You were planning to die?”

“Mama, I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“Wouldn’t understand?” screamed Zakiyah. “We’re going to get on that raft and get out of here. I don’t care if we have to go to Cuba. You’re all I have in the world now. You’re too important to me.”

“But that would mean Abuela died for nothing!” Mia shot back. “Alone, she can’t fight it. With me, we can do it. I swear.”

“I don’t care!” Zakiyah cried, throwing up her hands. “I don’t care how many people this thing gets itself around. This is about you and me. Where were these people during the last storm when we almost died down there in the Ninth? We made it out because we never expected anyone to come and get us. We took care of each other and lived when others didn’t. That was it. We were right to do what we did. I can’t let it have you.”

No one said anything for a long time. Big Time could tell that his son was affected by Zakiyah’s words. They’d been screwed, and the whole world turned their back on them.