As he took a couple of curious steps closer to the pool, however, the hairs on the back his neck rose as if something had walked up behind him. He shook it off and squatted next to the edge. He gingerly touched the liquid, collecting a little on the tip of his finger. It had the consistency of oil, but where it should’ve been smudged brown-black, it was streaked with red.
Like blood.
“Oh, shi…”
Before he could finish his thought, he was hit from behind by a great force that knocked all the wind out of his lungs. He was still trying to catch his breath when it carried him up over the pool and held him in mid-air for a moment before dropping him. He hit the water with a slap, the thick oil giving it the consistency of yogurt. Sinking quickly, Bartiromo was paddling back up to the surface when he felt the impact of the two contractors landing in the pool as well
His head had just broken through to fresh air when he heard the screams of one of the contractors.
“Something’s got my foot’s caught on something!”
The contractor was flailing his arms, desperately trying to get to the edge of the pool even as he was being pulled backwards. Suddenly, an unseen force yanked him straight down, and he disappeared from view.
Bartiromo looked around for the other contractor, but the fellow was nowhere to be seen. The flight director didn’t need to be told twice that he needed to get out of the pool immediately. He began paddling towards the edge when sharp pains began coursing through his body. It was as if he’d been doused in flames.
In agony, he reached out to the tank’s concrete lip and dragged himself onto dry ground. This did nothing to arrest the burning. When he looked back towards the pool, he saw that the streak of black he’d trailed onto the flooring contained chunks of his skin and drizzles of blood.
Gasping for air as his body sent him into shock, Bartiromo saw a security team fast-walking into the pool area, their eyes widening the moment they saw him. He raised a partially skeletonized arm and tried to wave them away, but they interpreted it as a summons.
“Goooo…,” he whispered, his throat constricting.
A second later, the security team was aloft. Some were smashed against the ceiling, some had their bones broken in midair, while others were simply dropped into the tank, where the oil tore the flesh from their bones. These men drowned as blood and water filled their lungs.
Bartiromo looked down as best he could and watched as the rest of his body was eaten away. He felt himself fading away but then heard a noise and saw another group of security guards arriving, trailed by maintenance workers.
This time, he didn’t have the energy to wave them away.
• • •
The storm wall slowly made its way up from Galveston through Clear Lake, over the Johnson Space Center and into Houston. Power lines, many of which were designed to stand up to 200-mph winds, toppled and plunged city after city into darkness as Eliza crept towards South Houston. Phone lines were dragged to the ground, cell towers were destroyed, the main roads were made impassable by fallen trees, and side roads were done in by flooding.
Like a self-repeating Rube Goldberg device, the storm became downright predictable in its actions, sending Houston’s southern suburbs back to the Stone Age within minutes of its arrival.
But this was normal.
Variations of the same had been felt in Houston since the area was settled. What was different this time was what was piggybacking the hurricane, sluicing its way through the newly flooded byways to get at any human being in the area. Though Houston had a population just over two million, the hurricane-affected area was closer to six million. With the addition of an estimated half a million illegals, it made Houston and its environs among the largest urban population centers in the western hemisphere, alongside Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Los Angeles and New York.
A million and a half people had evacuated the area for Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, or, ironically enough, New Orleans, with several thousand simply spread across motels and hotels they’d deemed “a safe distance away” throughout Texas and Louisiana. These people waited in front of the television for news while eating bad room service cut with whatever was left in the vending machines.
A number of these people would later call themselves “Eliza survivors.” This was not without controversy, as those who survived the storm despite having stayed behind in Houston claimed only they were the actual survivors of Eliza, given what they’d endured. They heaped scorn on the evacuees-cum-cowards until the end of their days.
Not that their voices were heard, so tragically outnumbered were they.
Chapter 10
“Mama! They’re closing school today!”
Zakiyah rolled over and looked at her clock, and saw that it was blinking “12:00.”
“What time is it?”
A flashlight clicked on, and Zakiyah saw that Mia was in the doorway.
“Five o’clock.”
Zakiyah suddenly got suspicious.
“If the power’s out, how did you hear that school was closed?”
“I got a text from Becky, who heard from Louis whose mother works for the district.”
Zakiyah sighed. She had read an article that suggested kids who slept with their cell phones by their pillows didn’t get real sleep, as their brains were programmed to wake with every text and Facebook update.
“Is your daddy up?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she remembered the events of the previous day. She looked at Mia, illuminated by the flashlight, and hoped there’d be no tears.
“Do you think he’s okay down there?”
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
She didn’t know how much Mia remembered about what the police did and didn’t do for prisoners during Katrina but hoped it wasn’t much. Besides, maybe it taught the HPD a valuable lesson in restraint.
She’d never called back the police station the night before. After feeling compelled to soften
