by Mark Wheaton
Big Time forced his attention away from the conversation and back over the water. Several objects had tricked him over the past hour. They’d bob up and down in one place and he’d think they were on the move, only to be proved wrong a second later.
Now, his eyes had picked up something else. It surfaced and went back under but didn’t come back up. He watched the spot for a second, only to see it reappear ten feet closer to the pipes a moment later.
“It’s here!” he cried.
Inside the pipe, Sineada hadn’t needed to be told. She’d been feeling its gradual approach for the better part of five minutes. As the day had gone on, she’d taught herself how to better pick up the creature’s “signature,” as it were. She didn’t kid herself into believing she was better than Mia, but thought she was good enough to attempt what she was about to try.
I’m what you’re looking for, I’m right here,she screamed out in her mind. C’mon, now. I’m right here!
She knew Mia’s veil was waiting in the wings to cloak the others, even Big Time up above, but she realized something felt off. The collective’s thoughts were more directed this time. It wasn’t hunting anymore. There weren’t any searching questions in its movements. It was like an arrow released from a bow.
Mia? Where are you?!
I’m here, Abuela. It’s in front of me in the water.
Don’t wait! It might be closer than you think!
Outside, Mia inched closer to Tony. She surprised him by taking his hand and holding it tight. She shut her eyes.
Suddenly, a sharp banging sound came from one of the massive tanks in front of them. It clanged twice, as if the black mass was trying to bash its way inside. It surrounded a service hatch just above the water line. Flattening itself, it swam around the bolts and slowly sluiced its way through the fissures.
“Ain’t that a thing,” whispered Alan.
Zakiyah nodded dumbly. But then she was gripped by something inside. Her pulse quickened and she turned to the tank, her grandmother just on the other side of the thin steel wall.
“What’s wrong?” Alan asked. “Mia’s protecting us.’
“Yeah, but my grandma’s in there. I’m protected, but she’s not. I should be with her.”
“You’re crazy!” Alan exclaimed. “You want to fuck this up?”
But Zakiyah was already at the ladder.
“Mom? Where are you going?” cried Mia.
“I’ve gotta get to Abuela, honey. I’ve got to get in there.”
“Big Time!” Alan yelled up. “Zakiyah’s coming up.”
Big Time, who was closing the hatch, heard Zakiyah’s footfalls on the ladder. He opened the hatch and looked down at Sineada, barely visible in the dim light.
“Close it,” she said. “You can’t let her in here.”
Big Time nodded and slammed the hatch shut just as Zakiyah reached the top of the pipe. He was turning the wheel with the wrench to seal it when the young woman grabbed his hand.
“I’m going down there.”
“You’re not,” Big Time said quietly. “There’s nothing for you to do there.”
“I want to see her! I want to be with her when her time comes.”
Big Time saw anguish in Zakiyah’s eyes but also just a little madness. He balanced himself against the hatch and put his hands on her shoulders.
“You can’t be. You don’t know what’s going to go down in there. We have to keep this closed and let her do her thing.”
“I just want to see her,” she pleaded. “I just want to say goodbye!”
“You already said goodbye. Think about Mia. You’ve got to get back down there. Let me do this.”
Big Time’s face was like granite. He wasn’t going to budge on this. Zakiyah couldn’t help it and started crying.
Down in the pipe, Sineada could hear all of this. She knew Big Time would take care of it but wished she hadn’t caused her granddaughter so much pain. She wanted to reach out to her, maybe soothe her mind, but she couldn’t. She had to remain focused.
It took the sludge worm some time to force itself into the service hatch. Even more to extend itself into the trio of pipes that emptied out into the single large pipe that Sineada sat in. But soon she could hear its approach. The liquid slid across the metal in a snake-like motion, using the slickness of the surface to hurry its progress.
Come on, Sineada whispered to the collective. I’m right in front of you.
We know, it seemed to hiss back, though Sineada figured this was a figment of her imagination.
Suddenly, the ghost wind rushed from the darkness and smashed Sineada backward. Her head slammed into the pipe wall, and she knew her skull had been fractured in multiple places. The voice had been right. This was the day she was going to die.
As the tendril of black oil reached her foot, Sineada realized what had been wrong. The tentacle beginning to flay her skin from bone was hardly the whole piece. A second sludge worm remained outside in the floodwaters.
“Oh, God,” Sineada whispered.
Before she could reach Mia, the ghost wind pummeled her again. This time, she sank into darkness.
• • •
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. Why not just give them a taste of their own medicine?
But slowly, Big Time shook his head.
“Your life after this might be short or might be long,” he began. “Whatever the case, if you walk away, you’ll be coming back to this moment for the rest of it filled with regret. Yeah, Katrina was fucked. Not going to disagree with you on that one. But we made it. I don’t know how much I believed in God, but we were saved and Providence—maybe God, maybe not—put us here. Not Memphis, not Dallas, not Chicago. I’ve worried ever since why we survived and others didn’t. Maybe this is the answer to that question.”
Zakiyah listened to this, but then looked down.
“How am I the bad guy because I want my daughter to live?” she finally whispered.
“You’re not,” Big Time answered. “Because that’s not what this is about at all. From the looks of things, we’re beyond the ‘finding somewhere we can hide’ option. We don’t do this, whole world dies. Doesn’t mean it’s an easy decision, but we’re all dead anyway. That’s the mindset you have to have. But, we just might give Lazarus a run for his money if we pull this off.”
Zakiyah wasn’t convinced. Mia walked over and put her arms around her mother, who hugged back. Finally, she nodded.
“All right. Let’s do this.”
• • •
The group climbed the ladder up the side of pipe, Big Time and Mia in the lead, Zakiyah and Tony pulling up the rear. When he reached the hatch, Big Time gingerly gripped the wrench, not knowing what he’d see below.
“We’re cloaked,” Mia said.
“I thought that was the case before. You could’ve let me know.”
Mia said nothing. Big Time cranked the wrench back, and the watertight hatch unsealed. He spun the wheel the rest of the way, held his breath, and then opened it up, fully expecting to be knocked off the pipe by the poltergeist force as he did so.
When nothing happened, he exhaled.
The light was even dimmer in the pipe now. Big Time pulled Scott’s lighter out of his pocket, made sure it still had fuel, then began climbing down the ladder on the inside of the pipe.
“See anything?” Tony asked once Big Time was halfway down.
“Nothing,” his father replied.
As Big Time descended, it came home to him how tired he was. The endless rushes of adrenaline had left him weary, and his muscles ached. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and he was just able to see the sludge worm at the base of the ladder. It was about three feet wide and as thick around as a telephone pole. It seemed to be inflating and deflating, like a lung but wasn’t moving backward or forward.
It was as if it had gone to sleep.
“What do you see?” called Zakiyah.
“It’s not reacting to me, so I guess we’re good. But it’s also not moving. I haven’t seen it do this. They’re always moving towards something or moving away from it.”
He climbed off the ladder and saw a tuft of Sineada’s skirt pressed against the side of pipe. It was completely soaked through with blood and bits of sinew, all that was left of the old woman. Big Time felt overwhelming sorrow and had to look away.
He moved towards the stationary sludge worm and flicked on Scott’s lighter. It was the first time he’d gotten that good of a look at its surface. From a distance, it looked as shiny as a polished rock. Up close, it resembled any of the tar balls he’d seen on beaches most of his life. It wasn’t so much black as brown. And it was ugly.
That’s when he realized that it was anything but stationary. No, in fact it was under a tremendous amount of tension, straining to retract. It was like a fox whose paw had been caught in a trap and was trying to get free, except there was no visible reason as to why the tip of the sludge worm was nailed in place.
“What’s it doing?” Mia asked, walking up next to him.
“I don’t know,” Big Time demurred. “Part of me thinks your great-grandmother was stronger than you gave her credit for.”
Mia knelt in front of the worm, focusing on the area where it was held fast. She held her hand out over it, but nothing happened.
“Your grandmother thought I was just being polite when I offered, but I’m serious. If you don’t want to do this alone, I’ll go with you.”
Mia nodded as if knowing Big Time was going to say this but then shook her head.
“You’re the one who has to burn it once we’ve led it all the way down the pipe,” Mia explained. “If you don’t, all those people will be just as trapped as the ones who started it. Then it’ll happen all over again. This way, they’re free.”
“I’ll make sure it happens,” Big Time replied, still amazed he was speaking to an eleven-year-old girl.
“Stand back.”
Big Time rose and took a dozen steps back. He could barely see Mia, so swallowed up by the darkness was she. She sat down about a foot in front of the tip of the sludge worm and closed her eyes.
Abuela? It’s me. Can you hear me?
A voice came back immediately, hitting Mia so hard she almost toppled back.
It’s too strong! Mia, we didn’t know. It’s too strong, you can’t. Save yourself. Run away! I can’t reach it!
Abuela, it’s all right. I know you’re scared, I know you’re turned around, but it isn’t as you think it is. It’s working, what you’re doing. You’ve stopped it. You just need my help.
You’re wrong! Please…
But Mia didn’t listen. She dropped the veil, reached out, and placed her hands on the sludge worm. Her flesh began dissolving immediately.
• • •
The furthest tendril of the collective was 230 miles to the north in the town of Corsicana, 50 miles south of Dallas. Though the most recent census put the population as just past 25,000, the off-the-highway hamlet had lost half that number in the past ten minutes.
But then a miraculous thing happened that survivors of the Hurricane Eliza disaster would remember forever. A stopped-clock moment like none other. At precisely 5:24 in the late afternoon, the attacks ceased.
All across Texas, the hundreds of thousands of sludge worms began to retract. A thousand slowly became a hundred, a hundred became ten, ten became five, and five became one until there was only a single mass returning to the Gulf.
For the survivors, it was a moment filled with horror. No one could believe it was really over. The living ran for their lives. Some clambered into vehicles, but most were on foot. The injured, the maimed, and the dying were left behind to face whatever might come next.
In this case, it was nightfall, which meant coyotes, rats, and a deadly drop in temperature. By morning, the list of dead had increased by the thousands.
• • •
Zakiyah hadn’t been able to see when her daughter was consumed by the sludge worm, but she’d heard its movement and the cracking of her daughter’s bones. The sound echoed through the pipe like gunshots.
“No!” Zakiyah wailed as if wounded. “No, please God! Just, no!”
But she didn’t try to descend the ladder even as Big Time clambered back up. The fight had drained out of her. She put her fists on top of the hatch and lowered her head between them.
