Flood Plains

by Mark Wheaton

  They turned off the main roads and went into the neighborhoods, though the roads were often muddy and they feared getting stuck. Still, they could tell it was more of the same. The waters had risen, houses had been flooded, and everything within had been carried out and dumped near trees, bushes, or fences as the water receded. It looked all very civilized in Gloria’s mind’s eye.

  “Shouldn’t we go inside?”

  Kenneth slowed the van as a light rain began to fall on the otherwise quiet hamlet.

  “If we stop, it’s not like we have any way of calling for help.”

  Those were the words Kenneth used, but Gloria knew, If we stop, we’re not going to get the story was what he meant.

  “And if what we’re seeing here is any indication of what lies ahead in Houston, there’s a really big story waiting for us.”

  “Unless there aren’t any witnesses.”

  Gloria instantly regretted saying this. It sounded too grand. She didn’t actually believe all these people were dead, did she? And now she looked like an idiot in front of her boss.

  “Unless there aren’t any witness,” Kenneth echoed.

  They pulled away from the curb and pressed on towards the city, neither saying much for the next hour.

  • • •

  Mommy…

  Mommy…

  “Mia?”

  Zakiyah woke up with a start. She was momentarily disoriented but then realized she was still in the cab of the eighteen-wheeler, still moving in towards the city. Rain continued to batter the truck, limiting visibility to only a few feet, particularly as there were no lights on the highway. The wind, thankfully, seemed to have abated.

  “Are you all right?” asked Muhammad, whom Zakiyah seemed to have slumped down against in her sleep.

  Righting herself, she nodded.

  “I’m fine, thanks. Just fell asleep.”

  Big Time was still at the wheel, slowly navigating the obstacles peppering the highway between the Heights and Fifth Ward. Scott sat back in the sleeper alone with a cigarette in his hand that he hadn’t gotten around to lighting. Muhammad just stared out the window with the same look on his face as Scott. They looked like passengers in a lifeboat who were slowly giving up hope of ever sighting land.

  That almost everything on either side of the road remained flooded did little to detract from this image.

  Mommy…

  “Shit!”

  Everyone turned to Zakiyah, who was reacting as if stung by a bee.

  “What’s going on with you?” Big Time asked, his voice hoarse.

  “I heard Mia,” Zakiyah said simply. “She was calling out for me.”

  Scott nodded.

  “You’re probably dehydrated. All of us are.”

  “No, I heard her! She was speaking right to me.”

  But now even Zakiyah realized that this sounded crazy. Worse, it dawned on her that this might be evidence of her daughter’s death. She could have been reaching out from the other side. Whatever the case, she knew what she heard.

  Scott reached over and touched her shoulder, which Zakiyah forced herself to accept as compassionate rather than condescending. Zakiyah was surprised that Big Time didn’t have anything to say about it but then remembered he was from New Orleans like she was. If you’re raised in an area with enough otherwise rationally minded people who’d readily admit to have interacted with ghosts, believe in hoodoo, and put stock in charms, you’re not so quick to judge.

  “How’d she sound?” Big Time asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Calm? Desperate? Sad?”

  “It sounded like she was looking for me, maybe like she was in trouble.”

  “If she was in trouble, maybe that means…”

  She’s alive, Zakiyah thought, not needing Big Time to finish.

  “Yeah, maybe that’s what it means,” Zakiyah nodded. “At least, that’s what I’m going to pray for.”

  “You hear it now?”

  “No, faded out.”

  Big Time nodded. They were nearing Fifth Ward, and he was beginning to get antsy, knowing the fate of his family would soon be revealed. As he drove by the Popeye’s Chicken, he could tell that it had been completely flattened. He hoped that the kind manager and his employees had gotten out in time, but then thought he should be saving his hopes and prayers for his own family.

  “It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be,” Scott said, clapping Big Time on the shoulder.

  “I know.”

  As the truck neared the exit, the devastation of Fifth Ward was immediately evident. The tops of trees could be seen, as several were still standing, but there were no visible rooftops. A stranger to the area might’ve thought it was unincorporated woodlands turned swamp. But for Big Time, it was confirmation that the worst possible outcome was probable.

  “That’s what they told me when we moved in,” Big Time said. “This whole area is a floodplain. But it’s the only place people like me could afford. I thought we’d be here a year at the most, get on our feet, and get out. This is my fault. I left one floodplain and moved into another, knowing the risks.”

  It was more than that. He remembered the very moment they said if Buffalo Bayou flooded, Fifth Ward would go, not the city. He had scoffed, convincing himself that this move was him and the rest of the Katrina survivors putting God on notice. He would not bow, even after the storm of the new century. Right now, he felt the universe correcting him for his pride.

  When they reached the Crosstimbers exit, the water at the bottom of the ramp was too deep. If they attempted to drive through it, there was a good chance it would stop the truck cold.

  “What if you try the entrance ramp?” Scott suggested, pointing across the median. “Might not be as bad on the other side.”

  Big Time figured the opposite would be true but went through the motions of reversing the truck, hopping the center grass, and rolling over towards the entrance. As he suspected, the water was even higher, almost up to the highway. He judged it to be a good ten to twelve feet deep.

  “It’s a non-starter,” Big Time said.

  As he spoke, he let his eyes glaze over when turned towards the window. He knew he wouldn’t be able to see all the way to his submerged house through the downpour but didn’t want to take a chance.

  So it was Muhammad who saw the two people on top of the gas station canopy, frantically waving to the truck. The convenience store and pumps were completely submerged but the roof over the pumps was still riding just above the water, hovering like a diving platform on its thin columns.

  “Holy shit,” Scott said. “They’re alive.”

  Big Time couldn’t believe his eyes. Of all the people in the city, that prick survives this shit?

  “The water has to be crawling with sludge worms. How the hell are we going to get to them?”

  Scott peered through the driving rain and noticed something about one of the two survivors.

  “Big Time,” he said quietly. “Look at the one on the right.”

  Big Time turned the windshield wipers down a little bit so they weren’t slinging water in every direction. Sure enough, there was the asshole that ran the station waving like a maniac, but alongside him was Tony, Big Time’s oldest son. Even if he couldn’t quite make out his face a hundred percent from this distance, he recognized the Houston Texans jersey. He’d given Tony such shit for so quickly abandoning the Saints for the Texans and even more after the Texans beat the Saints their first meeting after Katrina. Though he figured every other kid in the Ward had something similar, he knew his own son.

  “Is that your son?” Muhammad asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

  “Alhamdulillah.”

  “If we can get a little further up the bridge, we’ll be directly alongside,” Scott suggested.

  Big Time nodded and slid the truck into gear. The engine protested, but Big Time wasn’t hearing anything about it. He accelerated up the bridge, threw on the parking brake, and swung op
en the door.

  As he emerged, a cold wind hit him so hard he thought it might be the poltergeist force he’d encountered in the factory. He braced himself against the truck door as the equally frigid rain soaked him all over again. Over downtown to the south, a surprising patch of white clouds and light stood out from the rest of the hurricane.

  “The eye isn’t that far away,” Big Time nodded to Scott as he followed him out.

  “I don’t know if they can wait that long.”

  He pointed to the pump canopy. It was quaking back and forth, and not just from the churning water. Something was clearly attacking it from below.

  “They’re trying to knock it down!” cried Muhammad.

  Big Time waved at Tony and the gas store manager. At first, it looked like his son couldn’t believe his eyes. But then he opened his mouth and, despite the words becoming lost in the din, Big Time could see him crying, “Dad!”

  One of the sludge worms crested the murky-brown water between the bridge and the canopy. Big Time wondered how much higher the floodwaters would have to rise before the attendant ghost wind would be able to knock the two survivors into the drink.

  “Do we have any kind of rope? Anything we could string across?”

  Muhammad and Scott checked the trailer as Zakiyah went through the cab.

  “Nothing but cords,” Scott yelled out. “I’m not banking your son’s life on our ability to build a rope out of them.”

  Big Time’s mind raced. He had to do something. Tony might be all he had left. And there he was, just out of reach. It was maddening, as if God was punishing him even further. That’s when he got an idea.

  “Scott!” Big Time said, banging on the trailer. “Come here!”

  Scott hurried over to Big Time.

  “How far do you think it is, bridge to canopy?”

  “Twenty feet? Twenty-five? You’re not thinking they should swim it?”

  “No, I’m thinking we build them a bridge. How fast can we get all those goddamn computers out of there and into the water?”

  Scott stared at Big Time, realizing what he was proposing.

  “You’re out of your damn mind.”

  “Maybe, but it’s gotten us this far.”

  Chapter 23

  When Alan woke up, he found himself staring straight up at concrete. His head throbbed and his mouth was dry, as if he’d been under anesthesia. It took him a moment to recognize the odd, weightless feeling he was having as the result of the raft bobbing up and down on water.

  Sineada and Mia had made it to an overpass. They’d docked the raft against a column, securing it as best they could by using Mia’s shoelaces to rope the makeshift boat to the rung of a service ladder. A good wave would probably be too much for the strings, but in the relatively calm water, they held fast.

  Sineada was asleep, but Mia stared out over the water. Alan saw on his daughter’s face a look he’d often seen before but on her mother, not her. It was the stern, yet thoughtful gaze Zakiyah got when puzzling over a seemingly insurmountable problem. When something like that arose, everything but that problem got pushed aside until it was solved.

  He’d only just seen the look the day before when he glanced over to her line as he was being marched away by the Deltech security guys. He knew in that instant that she was adjusting her mental landscape to see what her life would look like after she removed him from the picture.

  “Mia…?” he asked weakly.

  Mia was surprised to hear his voice, but her features softened as she smiled.

  “Hey, Daddy.”

  “Hey. Did you guys happen to come across any water?”

  They had. Mia quickly crawled over and gave Alan a bottle.

  “We found a truck up on a wall. They had a bunch of water bottles in the back.”

  Alan tried to twist the cap off the bottle but found he didn’t have enough strength. Mia reached over, popped it off, and handed it back.

  “Thanks,” Alan said, taking a lip. He nodded towards Sineada. “Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Mia sighed. “She got pretty hurt coming out of the attic, but she said she was fine. I don’t know if I believe her.”

  That’s when Alan remembered hearing something as he came in and out of consciousness.

  “So, you think these aren’t animals or anything but ghosts?”

  “Yeah. Lots of them. Trapped in the oil. You know how you always see ghosts in movies with a sheet over their head, as you can’t see them otherwise? These ones move with oil.”

  “Where’d they come from?”

  “Sineada thinks they got dredged up by the storm. They were under the sea floor.”

  Alan scoffed. Ghosts? He’d seen some crazy stuff that day, but that was too far for him.

  Sineada may have had her eyes closed, but she was listening to Mia talk with her father. She’d been puzzling over Alan’s question for much of the day. Sure, they came from under the sea floor, but how did they get there?

  Then it came to her…the 1900 storm.

  She knew the stories well. No place to bury the bodies, tens of thousands buried at sea or burned on great pyres. She imagined the bodies that didn’t wash back on shore descending onto the sloping continental shelf. A century of decomposition later, and whatever was human in them once was now co-mingled with silt and sand and the oil that was trapped beneath the sea floor. Discarded without a proper burial as these souls might’ve been, she imagined this collective fomenting a great anger towards those who had imprisoned them at the bottom of the ocean. With Eliza came release.

  Now, embedded in the pitch that had become their vessel, they were able to use the water to travel without dissipating in the liquid. Their numbers stayed concentrated.

  Concentrated. That was the key.

  Sineada opened her eyes.

  “Abuela?” Mia asked.

  “I know how we can stop the thing. It’s not going to be anyone’s idea of easy, but it might be the only way.”

  • • •

  It took only a few minutes to throw all the computers off the side of the bridge. Big Time had backed the trailer right up to the guard rail as Scott attacked each pallet like a demon. A quick swipe with a key tore apart the plastic wrapping that kept them together, and then a few quick kicks knocked them on their side. Zakiyah and Muhammad would then shove them the rest of the way, a great splash erupting out of the water with every hit.

  “Keep ’em coming!” Big Time bellowed.

  He stared out at Tony, wishing he could say something. He could tell his son was terrified. The canopy shuddered violently every time the sludge worms smashed into it. It was clearly only a matter of time before it couldn’t take any more and collapsed into the floodwaters.

  “Last pallet,” called Scott. “Everybody out.”

  The final eight computers tumbled over the guard rail and into the drink. Some of the saturated boxes had sloughed away from the computers they housed, leaving a junk pile of beige chassis stretching away from the bridge. There were nowhere near enough to bridge the gap between the highway and the canopy, but this was only half of Big Time’s plan.

  He waved to his son, trying to indicate for him and the convenience store owner to move back. He then cranked up the landing legs and hurried up to the cab, clambering inside.

  “All right!” he yelled, signaling Scott in the mirror.

  Scott slammed the trailer doors shut and locked it. As several of the computer boxes had been wet inside the trailer, they knew it wasn’t watertight. Still, they only needed it to remain partially buoyant for a moment.

  “Come on back!” called Scott.

  They’d uncoupled the trailer from the fifth wheel “yoke,” but Big Time knew that if the trailer was still attached to the cab when it went over the side, it could still pull him right down. But he had a job to do, regardless of the risk.

  Shifting the truck out of neutral, he drove forward a few feet, pulled the brake, and threw the rig in reverse. Keeping the whe
el steady, he hit the accelerator, and the eighteen-wheeler rolled backwards until the trailer’s ramp gate hit the side of the bridge. Now came the moment of truth. He gunned the engine and pushed backwards. He could hear the infernal screech of the gate being bent and felt the rear tires go up on the curb. Smoke was now billowing out of the smoke stack. Big Time punched the accelerator again, but the truck stayed put.

  “Goddammit,” he swore under his breath.

  Throwing the rig into drive, he rolled forward, the cab jumping the median. He stopped only when the front bumper touched the guard rail on the opposite side of the bridge. Then he threw it in reverse, hit the gas, and raced backwards.

  This time, when the rear wheels bounced over the curb, they stopped for a moment upon hitting the guard rail but then kept going. The guard rail crunched aside and suddenly, the trailer began picking up momentum as it tumbled over the side of the bridge. Big Time tried to slow it down, but it wasn’t happening.

  “Oh, shit!”

  One of the tires blew and then a second one, causing a massive bang, but Big Time was already kicking open the cab door. The second before the trailer carried the cab over the edge, Big Time launched himself out the door, got smacked in the head by the cab-step for his trouble, but then rolled away as fast as he could.

  The rig went over the side, crashing down into the water and landing on the junk pile of computers. It wasn’t perfect, the trailer having landed on its side a good six feet from the canopy, but it wasn’t insurmountable.

  Big Time scrambled to his feet and joined Scott at the guard rail. Edwin, having figured out what Big Time was attempting, grabbed Tony by the collar and hefted him to his feet. The trailer looked as if it might continue listing over, so he wasn’t wasting any time.

  With Edwin’s help, Tony made the leap from the canopy to the trailer. It wasn’t a graceful landing, but he managed to stay out of the water. Edwin jumped next but missed.