A second later, all five had been swallowed into the black mass.
“Fuck me,” Scott said, having wandered up next to Big Time.
• • •
Down on Harper Avenue in Fifth Ward, the floodwaters were rising just as quickly. Up to six feet now, this meant most houses could be seen only by their roofs. Cars floated along, only to bottleneck at the end of blocks or at stone walls. When the waters rose again, the cars cleared their obstacles and continued their wanderings.
• • •
Tucked away in their attack, the only living souls within a twenty-block radius, Sineada and Mia watched this from gaps in the roof they’d knocked out to allow in light and air.
They had heard when the water and “whatever it was” began pouring from the faucets below in earnest. Soon thereafter, the floodwaters broke through the windows and doors and filled the house, making it even easier for the tentacles to try to locate them. Something pounded on the ceiling, trying to get at them which Sineada mistook for a person at first. That’s when she realized there was some kind of force in the black water that allowed it to project itself forward. She hoped it wasn’t strong enough to shatter through the ceiling timbers.
Sineada took the time to try to reach out to whatever was within the water. What she got back was unexpected, as if she’d tried to use her perception on a dog or, from what she knew of them, a shark. It was motivated solely by anger and instinct. It would detect them on the other side of the ceiling and launch itself forward like a striking cobra but with an attendant fury that Sineada found most human. And most troubling.
“What’s it trying to do?” Mia whispered to Sineada as the force hammered on the ceiling below with such force it just about drowned out the sound of the rain battering the roof above.
“It seems to know we’re here and is just trying to get to us, as if following a smell,” Sineada said, figuring her great-granddaughter deserved the truth. “It doesn’t seem to fully grasp there’s a ceiling between us, so it just pounds away.”
“You don’t think it’s looking for a weak spot?” Mia asked.
Sineada shook her head.
To make her point, the old woman slowly got to her feet, a little unsteady after sitting for so long. She stooped over and silently moved to another part of the attic. Responding to her movements, the impact of the poltergeist force coming up from below followed in Sineada’s footsteps. After reaching one side of the attic, Sineada turned around and came back, the force continuing to follow her as she walked.
“That’s weird,” Mia said.
Sineada smiled, feeling a strange sense of pride in her great-granddaughter. She knew she wouldn’t have been this calm, cool, or collected in the face of crisis when she was Mia’s age. That’s when she reminded herself of what Mia had already been through in her young life.
“We’ll be okay up here.”
“We will for a little while,” Mia replied, looking away.
Again, Sineada had to agree.
• • •
Sludge worms.
After some brief discussion, “sludge worms” was what everybody had agreed to call the animal-like creatures laying waste to Deltech. Scott had suggested “pitch worms,” as that’s what he thought they were looking at, not oil.
“Pitch is the more solid part of oil,” Scott had explained. “That’s what it looks like to me. Same consistency, same elasticity, same sheen. That ain’t oil. That’s pitch.”
But no one cared that much, and Scott shut up. Everyone was too busy trying to keep warm as the rain swept down in sheets. The roof had a series of gutters that prevented water from pooling, and whatever residual moisture there was poured right down the trap door into the offices. For the time being, everyone tentatively agreed that they were safe.
Hiding behind one of the massive rooftop air conditioner units, Big Time tried his phone again but still couldn’t get any kind of signal. In his mind, he was working out numerous scenarios that allowed for his family to have gotten out and away from their house or even the city before the floodwaters hit, but none of them seemed plausible. It couldn’t have been that long after he left for work that the black water had come down from the faucets. Part of him hoped they’d been asleep and didn’t suffer.
But maybe, maybe there was a chance. Maybe one of the boys woke up, saw what was happening, and alerted Mona, who got everyone to the car. Maybe the waters hadn’t been that high yet. Maybe they’d taken the toll road, too, and found it empty enough to head north. His family had been through Katrina. They were survivors. When their neighbors might stay and fall victim, his family would see the signs and know it was time to leave.
He realized that he had to believe this, or he’d simply throw himself into the waters below.
Scott seemed to have burned off his adrenaline rush and was now huddled by himself next to another air conditioning unit. Like Big Time, he gripped a cell phone in his hands. Unlike his friend, though, the light seemed to have gone out in his eyes.
Zakiyah knew how he felt. The past twenty-four hours had already turned her life upside-down, and now this? If she lost Mia, she didn’t know what she’d do. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d imagined what it would be like having to plan a funeral for her daughter if she had survived Katrina and Mia had not. Even conjuring the memory brought tears. She wondered if she’d be able to kill herself.
The rain wasn’t letting up, and it seemed like everyone was settling in to the idea of waiting out the storm there. Big Time waked over to talk
