Flood Plains (22 page)

“So, Sineada,” Alan continued. “I understand why you’re okay with me dying so we can get down to Galveston to put your little plan in action. But how about those people? You know Mia might just be able to save them, too. Or is that still not the ‘greater good’ you’re doing this for?”

Sineada steamed.

“I’m sorry that you don’t what’s going on, Alan, but this is bigger than all of us.”

Alan thrust his oar back in the water.

“Oh, okay, then. I guess we have no choice. Let’s get down to the bayou while I’m still alive to help you paddle. C’mon! What’re you waiting for?”

“Stop it,” scowled Mia.

“No, no, baby. This is the
plan
. Everything’s got to be pushed aside because this is
major.
”

“Stop paddling. Now!”

Sineada recognized something in Mia’s voice that Alan had not.

“What is it, Mia?”

“She just doesn’t understand,” Alan spat. “Sacrifices must be made!”

“STOP IT!”

Pain flooded through Alan’s body as whatever blunting of his nerves Mia had done was pulled back.

“
Fuck!
”

“Mia!” screamed Sineada. “Stop it!”

“But Mom’s over there!” Mia cried. “We have to rescue her!”

Sineada stopped cold. Alan’s pain ebbed, and he stared at Mia in surprise.

“How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know. I tried calling out to her, same as you, but there wasn’t anything. Now there is. She’s just on the other side of that building. And she’s heading right for the monster. We have to get over there before it’s too late!”

•  •  •

Within minutes, the calm of the hurricane’s eye was all but a distant memory. The torrential rain and pounding winds of the storm lashed at the city anew. Streets that were beginning to drain moments before were now flooded. Buffalo Bayou was restored to its previous rage.

In the dump truck, Big Time raced across Fourth Ward, trying to stay on the high streets. He knew that when they went under the I-45 overpass and entered downtown, they’d be in water up to the wheel wells. As they drew close to Brammeier Tower, not only could they see the beacon more clearly but also the great number of people occupying the upper floors.

“If they’ve been calling out to survivors for long, we could be looking at barricades of abandoned cars around the base of the building,” Big Time surmised. “We need to have a plan of action. Is this a rescue? A reunion? An escape? What?”

“I think that all depends, don’t you?” Scott asked. “They could be in worse shape than us. Still, if there’s even a chance your wife is up there, we’re going to get you there.”

Muhammad hid his surprise behind a shake of his head.

“That’s too much. After all we’ve been through, to jeopardize your lives? I’ll go in there myself. I don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Yeah, but sludge worms aside, that might be the safest place to be as the storm comes back full-steam,” Big Time said. “We were inside when it hit, but you saw how it tore up the factory. The rear rain wall is going to be just as bad, if not worse. The inside of a building is always going to be better than a truck. Might be our best bet.”

As the high-rises of downtown now loomed directly in front of them, Big Time drove the truck down West Gray under the I-45 overpass into the central part of Houston proper. As he’d predicted, the floodwaters were already high. He turned a corner to angle closer to the tower, and what he saw through the windshield then not only answered any questions lingering in the cab, it also chilled the Deltech survivors to their very core.

“Oh, my God,” Zakiyah whispered.

“No way,” Tony added. “No friggin’ way.”

Muhammad, the man most profoundly affected by the implications of what he was now looking at, had no words.

Though Brammeier Tower had been in view for much of the drive, the lower half of the building was mostly out of sight, obscured by other buildings, trees, or even the overpass. Now, in clear view, it made the silent, pleading SOS. coming from the upper floors feel that much more futile.

Extending up from the floodwaters in great towering columns were the sludge worms now massed into four snake-like bodies that rose alongside the building. They reached up to the highest floors as if drawn by magnetic force. Encircling the tower’s base was a solid mass of the black sludge that clung to the building, immersing it in black across the first four stories. Like invisible static electricity bouncing off a child’s fingertips, the poltergeist effect tore through each new floor of the building like a gale-force wind, blasting construction equipment and supplies over the edge. Slowly but surely, the entire contents of the skyscraper were being tossed into the flooded streets below.

“My God,” muttered Big Time, echoing Zakiyah. “How big is this thing?”

“It’s just up the building but all over the cars out front,” Scott said. “There’s probably even more of it under water, maybe a good quarter-mile in every direction. What in the name of hell on earth is that thing?”

Big Time was about to reply when two more of the black tendrils went racing past the dump truck to join the main mass. Realizing how the creature worked now, he wondered just how far afield those strings must’ve been. A hundred miles north? Maybe the same distance west or east? How far had this plague of death spread? He tried to follow them as they became part of the main body, but they simply disappeared. The effect their return had on the black columns, however, was evident as they rose a few more feet, bolstered by the new edition. The tops of the worms were only about eight floors down from the first group of people.

“What do we do?” asked Zakiyah.

“I don’t know,” said Big Time. “This is well out of my purview.”

“But all those people,” exclaimed Tony, unable to turn away. “They’re all going to die. I know how they’re feeling right now. That was me not too long ago. We’ve got to do something.”

“Like what?” Big Time asked blankly, staring at the tower.

“They keep climbing higher, thinking they can get out of its way,” Scott said. “But the rate that thing’s climbing, they’re about to run out of stories. Now, if we go up there and tell them there’s a way out, I’m not saying they’ll believe us, but I am saying that we’d be right.”

“You’re going to tell us your brilliant plan or make us beg?” Big Time asked.

“When they started putting up Brammeier Tower, the only thing I remember was that it was going to be a big hassle for Vicki because it was supposed to share its parking garage with One Shell Plaza across the street where she worked,” Scott explained. “So far, that thing is just on the outside of Brammeier. I’d be willing to bet it needs every square inch of itself to make the climb. If we can get into the parking garage of the Shell building, I’ll bet it won’t even notice we’re there. Then, we drive over to the south side of the garage that’s directly under Brammeier Tower, climb up thirty goddamn flights of steps, tell everybody that there’s a way out, and run like hell. Whoever makes it to the garage and out the other side survives. Anyone too slow, well, they’ve sacrificed themselves to the sludge beast so the others can live.”

Big Time shook his head immediately.

“You’re crazy. There’s no way that would work. That thing has been able to be a thousand places at once. We wouldn’t get two floors.”

“The building’s not flooded. It’s using all its energy to ascend, and we’d be locked in a stairwell in the heart of the structure. We’d tunnel up right through it.”

“And when we get to the top?”

“We do what we’ve been doing since we left Deltech. Burn the fucker.”

Scott pointed up at the four rising columns of sludge worm.

“It’s
exposed
. We set it on fire, we might just roast the thing before it’s able to get back to the water. Also, with much oil, who’s to say it won’t keep boiling in its own juices even if it does hit the street? We could kill it.”

Big Time processed this for a second. Even if the things did catch fire, he envisioned them flailing wildly at the building as they tumbled down, collapsing the tower in the process. Still, it might buy them just enough time.

“This might be our only chance,” Scott added. “Who knows when it’s going to expose itself like this again.”

“How you planning to light this super-fire of yours?”

“That place is under construction, right? Gotta be about three or four dozen different things we can use as accelerant in there.”

Big Time glanced to the others. They looked convinced. The fire wouldn’t have to last more than a couple of minutes, right? It was the mother of all Hail Marys, but maybe, just
maybe
…

Chapter 27

T
he closer Mia got to downtown, the worse her headache became. She’d come to a good understanding of why, too. If the sludge was gathering together as one, the concentration of dead souls was getting higher by the second. This meant their voices, their very
presence
, was beginning to produce a feeling of sensory overload in Mia.

What kept pulling her in that direction, however, was the echo of her mother. Different from the dead spirit—she could tell that Zakiyah was still very much alive. Mia had no idea how she’d gotten down to Houston but worried that her mother was risking her life looking for her. If she was down near where the collective was massing, she was probably in grave danger.

As the raft entered downtown, the water calmed despite the downpour that began as the eye passed to the north. The current had picked up over Buffalo Bayou, threatening to drag them under. They’d made it to a bridge, which acted like a breakwater and managed the crossing.

For Alan, it was a difficult return. He was reliving his escape from only a few hours before. In every direction, he saw dozens being slaughtered all over again. Those hanging in mid-air, those being dragged under, those being torn apart directly in front of him. It sent chills through his body.

Why was he bringing his daughter here?

They heard it first. What sounded like a chain reaction of car crashes echoed above the clamor of wind and rain. There was broken glass and the impact of metal on metal, followed by a hollow boom. Then the sequence of sounds repeated itself.

“Dear Lord,” Sineada gasped. “Will you look at that.”

Five blocks down, they saw the gigantic creature slowly making its way up the unfinished Brammeier Tower. They could see two of the worms as well, the other pair coming in and out of sight on the other side of the building. It throbbed and undulated as it rose, each tendril as wide around as a 747 and as long as a freight train. The noise was caused by the smashing of its body into the side of the building, over and over again.

“That’s where they’ve all been going,” Alan exclaimed. “It must’ve seen the beacon.”

“
Felt
the beacon,” Sineada said. “If it’s attracted to humans, then that must be the largest concentration around if it’s going to recall all its little strings. My guess is there might not be a town for miles with more than a couple of living souls in it.”

“So those people up there are like a buffet for this thing.”

Sineada scowled.

“Mom’s not up there,” Mia said.

“Where is she?” Sineada asked.

“Outside, around the corner somewhere. Wait. Now it’s like she’s
under
it. I don’t know. I’m losing her.”

“Can you reach out to her like you did me?” Alan asked.

“Not with that thing there. It’s too much noise. We have to get closer.”

“Closer?” Alan protested. “What happened to the plan?”

“Might’ve just changed,” said Sineada. “This could be the blessing we needed.”

•  •  •

Scott’s plan was crazy, Big Time thought as he roared the dump truck down side streets. He had his son to think about. He should leave Muhammad at the building and go. This wasn’t his fight. These people would die, sure, but how many people had already died that day in Houston?

Turning from West Dallas onto Bagby, the truck kicked up water like a hydrofoil. The Shell building was just across the street from Buffalo Bayou, so its parking garages and sublevels were the first things flooded.

“Holy shit!” cried Tony.

“Watch your mouth,” replied Big Time.

“No, look!”

Across from the Shell building was a replica of Houston’s “first settlement” on a slight slope overlooking the bayou’s banks. It consisted of a couple of houses, a smith’s shack, and a church, but all that was visible now was the church’s white steeple.

“That’s got to be twenty feet deep of water,” Scott said, sounding impressed.

“Sure it’s the first thing the city will rebuild,” Big Time quipped. “Gotta get the tourists back first.”

“Man, they aren’t ever rebuild this place,” Scott replied quietly. “Once people know about what happened here, they’re going to pave it over. Treat it like one big mass grave. This is it for Houston, Texas, my friends.”

Big Time didn’t say anything. He figured Scott was right.

The parking garage entrance was on the east side of the building. Big Time rolled the dump truck up to the gate but immediately saw a problem.

“Oh, this is going to be interesting.”

A steel bar hung down over the entrance announced a clearance of eight feet. The truck was not only too tall but too wide to negotiate between the parking attendant’s booth and the wall.

“You ready to do some property damage?” Scott asked.

Big Time responded by aiming the dump truck for the gate and stepping on the accelerator. He tried to keep the vehicle centered as best he could, but the front left tire quickly hopped the concrete divider between the entrance and exit lanes. It flattened a steel sign announcing the different fees for parking in the structure before the entire front end of the trunk smashed through the booth. It exploded in a hail of shattered glass and twisted aluminum.

“Oops,” Big Time grunted.

Though the yellow-and-black gate was actually in its upright position, the dump truck completed its wave of destruction by plowing through it and its housing mechanism, crushing the whole machine under its wheels.