The dead never stayed buried in New Orleans. The rich built houses to store their cold ones when the end came, to stop the tide of bones. But, of course, not everyone can afford a mausoleum. The poor had to place their dead lovingly into the damp earth. Bodies interred below sea level had a habit of reappearing whenever Lake Pontchartrain flooded. Coffins would poke through the sodden earth and embalming fluid flowed through the streets like blood.
No, the dead never stayed buried in New Orleans.
Sunday…
Low Jenkins hammered the last nail into the ply-board and stood back to admire his handiwork. The storm wasn’t due to hit land until four that afternoon, but it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the swamp bowl city he called home. The sky was offensively blue and it was hot. Damn hot. He wiped a thick forearm across his brow, flinging sweat droplets sizzling onto the pavement. Anyone with enough sense or money had already left town. The only ones left were the sick and lonely, the old, the poor and a small band of party animals and jazz fiends who thought they could sit out the worst hurricane in fifty years in a downtown bar.
Eddie’s Sports Bar and Grill had been the haunt for singers, writers, junkies and winos since the 50s. No-one could remember if there ever had been an Eddie. It wasn’t important. What was crucial to the patrons of Eddie’s was that the bar never closed. Not on Thanksgiving. Not on Christmas. Not when the owners were sick. And certainly not because of something as commonplace as the weather.
“Low? Low! Get yo’ ass in here and help me with these bottles, y’hear! I got customers to serve,” Maybelle Jenkins yelled at her husband from inside, a crate of Dixie Beers in her arms. To a stranger, her voice would have seemed like a nag, but the barflies at Eddie’s knew that shouting was how Maybelle Jenkins showed her love. Low ducked inside, welcoming the cool darkness after the soul draining humidity outside. He saw two of his regulars perched on stools, munching their way through a bowl of salted pork rinds. He nodded at them as he passed on his way upstairs to the cramped storeroom.
“Bonjour, Low! Hey, not frightened of un peu de wind are ya? We in need of refreshments.” Frankie Thoreaux, swamp-fisherman and constant cognac companion, shook his empty glass in Low’s direction. His friend, Louis ‘The Thump’ Mason, tipped Low a silent greeting with the battered trilby that stayed permanently fixed to his head. Low asked him once if he wore it in bed. The Thump just smiled a gummy smile and said nothing. He had been a great saxophonist in his day, but a forty-five year heroin addiction robbed him of everything, including most of his teeth.
Up in the storeroom, the air was dead, and so stifling Low couldn’t feel himself breathing. The oxygen in his lungs was the same temperature as his body, making it impossible to feel it going in or out. His head started to spin and he staggered against a stack of soda crates. The bottles shuddered. Low’s ass bumped on the bare boards. In his confusion, the shadows in the corner of the room seemed to reach for him. He shook his head, but he still saw figures all around, black, looming.
Then he passed out.
***
Maybelle’s voice drifted up through the floor.
“Now fellas, what’ll it be?”
Low heard the muffled baritone of The Thump ordering another round. He reasoned he couldn’t have been on the floor for more than a few seconds. He stood on shaky legs, brushed himself down and grabbed a box of mixed spirits under each arm, balancing packets of peanuts and napkins on top of each. Low Jenkins had no desire to return here in a hurry. Those shadows looked hungry.
Back in the bar, the hurricane party was in full swing. Maybelle had served the boys their drinks, and Frankie was trying to convince Thump to come out of retirement and play one last show. Jake Petrie was sat in his usual booth at the back, nursing a Dixie with a bourbon chaser. His wife was up at the old jukebox, bopping her hip to the beat. Corrine had been a dancer back in the day, but a motorcycle accident left her partially paralysed in one leg and in constant pain in the other. What with her medical bills, and Jake losing his job, they couldn’t afford to get out of the city, so they had left their rundown shotgun for the relative safety of Eddie’s.
“Hey Corrine, you’d better be careful. With moves like those, I might be forced to join in.” Low knocked her a wink as he set his cargo down at the end of the bar.
Corrine held her walking stick down at arm’s length and started to twirl around it gracefully on her good leg.
“You ain’t even seen my moves yet, Low Jenkins,” she said, before wobbling slightly and falling into the front of the juke. Frankie, Thump and Maybelle all looked round in concern. Jake leapt up and tenderly took his wife’s arm.
“You need to sit down, cherie.”
Low held his breath.
“You know what I need, Jakey? Another drink.”
A chorus of whoops erupted from the bar as a gust of wind banged the door shut.
“Drinks all round!” Maybelle yelled, ringing the bell behind the bar. For some reason, Low didn’t feel like celebrating.
When the wind started to scream through the gaps in the windows, they turned the music up and poured more shots.
When the jet-engine roar had been battering at the nails for over an hour, finally pulling the boards loose and leaving rain to batter the glass, they all cheered and drained their bottles.
When that same glass exploded in glittering bullets, they downed their drinks before taking refuge in the back of the bar.
When the storm surge began to force water under the doors and through the windows, they danced on the tables, holding their liquor clear of the rising flood.
And when the brute force of the storm broke down the door, and they found themselves knee deep in branches, hubcaps and strange sea-creatures that had been ripped from their homes by the typhoon, the realisation finally hit.
This wasn’t weather.
This was apocalypse.
“Upstairs, now!”
Low herded the frightened group to the stairway. They followed Maybelle up the narrow steps to the storeroom, scrabbling over each other in drunken panic as the water formed a solid wall behind them. Corrine lost her stick in the swirling blackness and Jake had to drag her up by her arms. Low was up to his waist at the bottom of the stairs when the lights flickered and the bar plunged into darkness.
“Low!” Maybelle screamed, her voice drowned by the raging water.
“Keep going,’ he shouted. “Get everyone up top, I’ll follow.”
Arms out in front, unnamed detritus snaking and clawing at his skin, Low pushed upwards into the black. He slipped, his head colliding with the steps, his shoulder crashing onto a leg with a sickening crunch. He and the owner of the limb both yelped and tumbled onto the floor of the storeroom in a mass of wet bodies. The thundering rain and wind was even louder up here and Low’s voice burned to be heard over it.
“We all here? We alright? May? You okay?”
“I’m here Low, I’m here.”
He reached out his hands.
“That’s me,” said a deep voice.
“Thump? You got Frankie?”
“Oui, I’m here. Jake? Corrine?”
“We’re here,” they yelled in unison.
Cold water rushed over Low’s feet.
“We gotta get higher. Stand up everyone, the water’s still coming.”
Huddled together in the dark, water lapping at their ankles, they waited for the storm to pass.
Monday morning…
Grey sunlight started to filter into the storeroom through tiny cracks in the walls. How the structure was still standing after the storm was a miracle, but they’d clearly lost many of the roof shingles. This allowed more weak morning light in, as well as the rain that had only just stopped falling on the shivering group as they cowered from the power of the hurricane. Low began to make out faces, hair plastered against foreheads, blood and dirt on skin. His temples were pounding. The scream of the storm still whistled behind his eardrums.
“Low, oh Low honey,” Maybelle cooed. “You’re bleeding.” She gripped hold of his hand, her fingers icy.
“I’m fine, just a little bump on the head is all. It’s Frankie I’m concerned about. How ya doing, buddy?”
It turned out Frankie was the owner of the leg that Low had so violently crashed into. Thump had propped his friend against the wall to see the night through, convinced his leg was broken.
“It hurts man, hurts real bad.”
“Here,” Low reached into a cardboard box, now disintegrating with damp. “Drink some of this.” He handed Frankie a bottle of Chivas Regal. “It won’t fix your leg, but you sure won’t give a damn until we can get you to a hospital.”
“Uh, Low,” Jake said slowly. “The water’s still at the top step. How we gonna get down?”
Low looked at the murky brown water filling the narrow stairwell. In the dappled light, he swore he saw a face bob towards the surface before sinking into the silt. Could have been a grocery bag. Could have been a leaf. Could have been a lot of things.
“If we can’t go down, we’ll have to go up,” Maybelle said resolutely.
Corrine, clinging onto Jake for balance, looked up into the rafters.
“How the hell am I gonna get up there?”
“It’s OK, cherie,” Jake stroked her hair. “You ladies can stay here. We’ll go get help.”
“The hell I am,” Maybelle barked, moving a storage crate aside. “We’re all getting out of here together. They’ll be sending helicopters and shit soon. We have to get up onto the roof.”
She turned round triumphantly, a three-foot fire axe in hand. “I knew this was here somewhere. Been thinking about it all night. Remember that retirement party, Low? For the fire department guy? One of these bad boys got left behind. So, who’s gonna give a lady a hand smashing us the fuck out of here?”
Low had taken charge of the axe after Maybelle tried to swing it in the small space, nearly decapitating Jake. They busied themselves building a sturdy stack of crates that they could climb up on while Low stood on a chair and took chunks out of the weakest looking part of the roof. Corrine and Frankie were slumped together on a broken table. He sipped steadily on the Chivas, his face taking on a greenish hue as the sun fully rose. His trousers were dark with blood, and his left foot protruded the cuff at an odd angle that made Low wince every time he saw it.
“Between the two of us, we got a fully functioning pair of legs,” Corrine joked half-heartedly. Frankie laughed, winced and offered her the bottle.
“No thanks, I’m good,” she said. Corrine’s hand strayed to her jeans pocket without her noticing. Thump, who had been silent since they’d got up here, speaking only to confirm his presence, saw her involuntary gesture but said nothing.
With a final solid whack and a tumble of sodden wood, Low broke a hole big enough to pull himself through. He put his arms up, testing the strength of the surface, found some tension, and hoisted himself out of the storeroom and into daylight. He squinted, his eyes blurry and blind as he got enough purchase to pull his legs out of the hole in the roof. Then, he sat up, rubbing his eyes, and looked out to see…
Water.
Eddie’s Sports Bar and Grill had been picked up and dropped into the middle of the ocean. Roofs poked out here and there, some two-storey buildings where you could see the second floor surrounded by water. The tops of trees dotted about, and a few points which he assumed were telegraph and electricity poles, now naked wooden fingers pointing at the sky that had rained down this destruction. There were no roads, cars, bridges, or street signs. Just water.
“How’s it looking up there,” Jake called.
“You’d better come see for yourself,” Low shouted back, his voice sticking in his throat. His mouth suddenly dry, his tongue cracking.
Jake’s hands appeared through the hole, then his head and shoulders. Once up, he stared out at the 360 degree sea-scape, his jaw hanging.
“What…what happened?”
The men stood in silence for a while, their sleep deprived brains struggling to take it all in.
“The levees must have broken,” Jake said.
“Or they was flooded on purpose.”
Jake and Low jumped, unaware they’d been joined on the roof by a third member of the group. They turned to see The Thump hauling himself through the gap, hat still firmly on his head.
‘Jus’ like ’27. They dynamited the levees and flooded the Ninth. Killed the po’ folk. Killed the black folk. Jus’ to keep the rich city white-folk dry.’
This was the most Low had heard Thump say since the storm hit, and was getting on for the most he had ever heard him say in one go.
As the men stood on the roof, Low spotted movement in the water, what would have been a block over from the bar.
“Hey! Hey, over here,” he yelled, waving his arms. It looked like someone was swimming in the filthy brown soup that had swallowed the land. The longer they stared, the more it was clear it was a man, splashing in the water in a jerky appropriation of doggy paddle.
“He must be hurt,” said Jake. “Come on buddy, you can do it, swim to that roof.”
They all began shouting encouragement at the man who, as he got nearer, they could see was not very well at all. His skin was bone white and he had cuts about his head, which would be sure to get infected with all the waterborne bacteria and filth. He finally made it to the closest roof and began to scramble awkwardly onto the tiles. Low, Jake and Thump clapped with joy. He was going to be OK. They would all get rescued soon, and everything was going to be…
Splash.
The scissor-snap of an alligator’s mouth broke from the water and clamped around the man’s ankle. The gator thrashed and rolled, biting the man’s leg clean off.
Jake released a string of curses. Thump closed his eyes and remained silent. Low fell to his knees, watching the alligator slip back into the water with its prize. Expecting the poor man to scream, fall down, bleed out or cry for help, he instead bellowed a guttural moan and plunged into the water after the gator, jumping onto its back.
“What the—”
They watched as the now one-legged man wrestled on the surface with the alligator, a mass of pale skin and thrashing scales. At one point they saw the man raise his head out of the water and chomp his mouth down onto the tail of the animal, but the gator got the better of him, flipped round and bit the man clean in two, before gliding away, leaving floating body parts in its wake.
“What’s going on up there? I heard shouting.”
Low dragged his eyes away to see Maybelle’s head pop up through the gap in the roof. Jake shook his head furiously. They didn’t need to know.
“Nothing, darlin’. Go on back down. We could all do with a bit of breakfast, hmm?’ Food was the last thing Low could think about after what he’d witnessed, but wanted to take his mind off it, plus they would need all the strength they could muster if they were going to get up onto that roof. Jake climbed down. Low beckoned Thump to follow him.
“Y’all go on,” he growled. “I’m gon’ stay up here. I needs the air.”
Once back down in the oppressive heat of the damp storeroom, Low understood why the old sax player wanted to stay put. Nevertheless, he dished out some packs of potato chips and bottles of grape Ne-Hi. He reckoned they had enough supplies up here to last a day or two, maybe more if they were careful. He was hoping they wouldn’t need to find out. Halfway through his soda, Low realised another reason why he might have wanted to stay up top. Confident Thump would have had time to do his business, Low headed up to answer his own call of nature. As his eyes came level with the roof, he saw Thump laid out flat on the few remaining tiles, eyes closed, looking to the world like he was sunbathing. Low opened his mouth to make a joke, when he saw Thump’s grimy shirtsleeve rolled up exposing his arm, tied off with a belt and stuck with a needle.
“Oh, Thump,” he said softly.
He opened his eyes lazily and looked at Low with pupils like matchheads.
“I couldn’t wait anymore.”
“Don’t you think poor old Frankie could have used a bit of painkilling, with his leg the way it is? I thought he was your friend.”
“I only had one shot. Didn’t think the storm would be this bad. Figured I’d be home by morning. Now I ain’t got a home to go back to. And you know what, right at this particular moment, I don’t care. That’s junk for ya.”
Too exhausted to be angry, Low took a seat next to Thump. “You can’t stay up here on your own being high, we’ve got to work out how we’re gonna get ourselves out of here. There might be more gators.”
Worse than that, thought Low, there might be half a man still paddling around in there, looking for his legs.
Monday afternoon…
By the time the sun hit its peak, the whole crew had managed to make it onto the roof. It was a struggle getting Corrine up there, and although Frankie was strong enough to hoist himself through the gap, he was so drunk on Chivas Regal and pain, that he slipped a few times, falling on his broken ankle with sickening screams.
“Mad dogs and Englishmen,” Jake Petrie murmured.
“What’sat now?” Maybelle asked, fanning herself with an old bar menu.
“Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. It’s a song.”
“Well, I sure as shit ain’t no English man, and I don’t see no dogs neither.”
They all sat, sweating, but more comfortable than they had been below. The air was at least breathable, if already starting to take on the stink of stagnant ponds.
“I wonder what happened to them…” Corrine said suddenly.
“Happened to who?”
“All the dogs. And cats. All of everybody’s pets.”
An unexpected breeze blew across the rooftop, bringing with it the stench of death and raw sewage.
They all knew what happened to the pets.
The whomp whomp of faraway helicopter blades broke the maudlin silence. Low leapt to his feet, waving his hands. Jake and Maybelle jumped up too, and soon they were all screaming and flailing their arms in the air, not knowing which direction the chopper was coming from. It circled over nearby trees, skitting round in the sky until it was facing them. Sunlight bounced off the glass, blinding them and protecting whoever was inside from view. It hovered for a few moments before pulling up and away.
“Noooooo!”
“Come back, hey! Come back!”
They all shouted, in vain. The helicopter was gone. Only Thump was sitting in calm quiet, still riding the opiate wave. He pushed his hat up with a finger and said to no-one in particular, “Jus’ like ’27, man. Flood the bowl, save the rich folk.”
Save them from what? Low almost asked out loud. Then he remembered the pale man’s clawing hands and face as he chomped down on the gator’s tail.
Monday. Dark…
After a dinner of peanuts and beef jerky, they watched the sun set, and for the first time, saw the night sky over the city without the diluting glare of streetlights.
“This is what it looks like out in the bayous,” Frankie slurred. “Just me and the stars.” He winced and nudged Maybelle on the arm. “Hey darlin’, you got another bottle of that Chivas? My leg is hurtin’ something awful.”
“Hey, Maybelle,” Jake shouted. “While you’re down there, fancy bringing up another bottle of soda. Corrine needs to take her meds.”
“Meds?” Frankie whipped his head around, needling Corrine with bloodshot eyes. “You got painkillers? Pills? Shit, I’m dying here.”
Corrine turned away, looking up at Jake.
“They’re for Corrine, for her leg…”
“Her goddamned leg don’t even fucking work!” Frankie raged, leaning over to try and snatch at Corrine’s pocket.
Jake jumped to defend his wife, smacking Frankie’s hand away. Overestimating the distance, foot slipping on a loose roof tile, his weight shifted too far and he lost balance. His eyes widened in fear as he tumbled over the edge. Frankie reached out to grab Jake’s hand, but his fingers clutched air. Corrine screamed for her husband as they heard the splash.
“Quick Low! Get him! Save him, Low!” she shouted.
Low ran to the corner of the roof, guided by the sounds of Jake in the water. He skidded to a stop, confronted by endless black. Bloated limbs and gator grins flashed before his eyes.
“Help!” Jake gargled.
Not wanting to impale himself on a tree concealed beneath the water line, Low crouched and eased himself into the stinking flood, feet first.
“I’m here, Jake. Swim towards my voice.”
Low held his arms out, strafing the water, feeling for movement.
The splashing came closer.
All around was black and cold.
Ripples lapped against his chest, forcing slimy liquid towards his mouth. Keeping his lips clamped shut, Low started to swim further from the safety of the roof. His fingers brushed against something soft. He imagined skin coming away with his touch, waterlogged flesh putrefying in his hands.
“That you Low?”
“Yeah, it’s me, buddy. Grab on, you’re almost there.”
Jake gripped Low’s wrist and the two men bobbed their way back to the roof. Low’s hand bumped brickwork, skinning his knuckles.
“That’s it, we’re here. Hold on to the edge. I’ll climb up and pull you on.”
Starlight illuminated Jake’s face, floating in the dark, blood oozing from a deep wound on his cheek. Low reached down and heaved his weight up onto the roof, struggling to get purchase, his shoes slippery with greasy water. He heard Corrine babbling behind him, but he blocked the noise out, concentrating all his efforts on dragging Jake free from the flood. Laid down on the tiles, feet jammed against the guttering, Low knew one final pull would get the injured man to safety. He gritted his teeth in determination. Jake gave a weak smile, as a white orb burst through the water next to his face. Low jumped back in shock, losing his grip on Jake’s hand. Teeth clamped onto Jake’s cheek, hands emerged from the black, gripping his shoulders. Rotten skin covered the orb in patches, tufts of wet hair plastered to what Low could now see was a head. The head shook violently, until it came away with the sound of ripping cotton sheets. A bloody chunk of meat hung from the mouth of the creature.
Not meat, thought Low. Jake. A chunk of Jake.
The creature pushed Jake from him, his agonised screams turning to weak gurgles as something, or someone, dragged him under. Noise from all around invaded Low’s ears, panicked shouts, yelling, high pitched wails and bellowed warnings. He scrabbled backwards, up the tiles, away from the thing chewing on the lump of cheek, its fingers clawing at the edge of the building. Bone protruded from the end of each digit, and above all the commotion and screaming coming from behind him, somehow Low could hear the scritching-scratching of dead hands as they clamped onto the gutter by his feet. Opal eyes stared at nothing from deep sockets. Its teeth could be seen clearly chomping up and down inside its mouth through a ragged hole in the side of its face. A white scythe of decomposing arm raked through the air and missed Low’s foot by an inch. He yanked his leg back, as steel glinted in moonlight. The axe swung down on the thing’s skull with a crunch. Its fingers splayed out sharply, then curled under. Its arms jerked. Maybelle hefted the axe high in the air and swung again, this time separating head from neck. The body slid silently into the water. The head rolled along the gutter before plopping into the flood with a splash.
Tuesday. Sunrise…
The rest of the night had seen the survivors huddled together in the middle of the roof, as far from the waters as possible. No-one could speak. No-one knew what they had witnessed, and if they talked about it, it would become real. Every ear listened out for a splash in the dark, for scraping on roof tiles. Corrine sobbed into Maybelle’s shoulder, shivering in shock. Frankie couldn’t look anyone in the eye, knowing Jake’s death was his fault. The pain from his ankle was no longer dulled by alcohol, and he deserved it. Nerve bullets pulsed up and down his leg in rhythm with his heartbeat, each stab of agony like an accusation. Thump had his back to the group, facing the location of Jake’s demise. Low saw him fumbling about under his jacket, felt him tense up and then relax. Of course he had more than one shot. Junkies always lie.
The sun finally broke cover, the morning light reflecting off the oil-slicked waters, creating a swirling eddy of rainbows.
“It’s almost beautiful,” Maybelle whispered in her husband’s ear. Corrine had fallen into a fitful sleep an hour or so ago, after swallowing a handful of pain meds. She had taken Frankie’s hand, opened his palm and placed some tablets on there, before curling his fingers back round with a small nod, and he too was managing to get some much needed sleep. Thump was passed out, no doubt having hazy junk dreams.
“What are we gonna do, Low? If more come?”
“I don’t know.”
His voice was flat. He had no fight. He was drained to his marrow. Those things in the water were impossible. They could not be. But they had all seen them. Corpses floating on a tide of industrial waste with blind, dead eyes. Grasping hands and biting teeth. Bile burned his throat as he thought of Jake’s living flesh being torn from his face.
“We just have to stay here until the choppers come back. We’ll be rescued soon darlin’, don’t worry.”
It wasn’t only junkies that lied.
Tuesday. Sometime before dark…
The foetid stench was now a solid mass filling their nostrils with death and abandonment. No-one was coming. No boats. No helicopters. Their homes were gone. Their businesses. Their family. Their friends. There was no way of knowing who had survived, and if there was anything worth surviving for.
But still the human body called for sustenance. Low’s stomach growled and churned, turning itself inside out. He opened a bag of chips, nudging his wife to wake up and give some to Corrine. The women ate in silence, Corrine’s eyes red-rimmed and dozy with painkiller sleep. Frankie had woken a while ago, but shook his head at the offer of food, still punishing himself. He prodded Thump firmly on the arm, not understanding how he could have slept so long. Still he slumbered on.
“Wake up, you lazy connard!” he shouted, dragging his battered leg behind him to shake his pal by the shoulders. The old man’s eyes were open. The trilby slipped from his head. His skin was cold.
“He’s gone,” Low said firmly in Frankie’s ear. “One last shot.”
Frankie shook his head and slumped on the roof next to Thump’s lifeless body.
“Ya know what, Low?” he sobbed. “Right about now, I wish it was me lyin’ there. No more pain. No more dead people tryin’ to get us. And no more fucking water.”
Night…
Not wanting to sacrifice another member of the crew to the poisonous waters, Low dragged Thump’s body to the far edge of the roof, out of sight. Flies were already buzzing around him, looking for dead crevices to lay their eggs in. It wouldn’t be long before the stink of rotting meat forced his hand, but for now, Thump could stay where he was.
Before night had fallen, Maybelle had gone down into the storeroom and gathered the last of the snack supplies. She also dragged up the wooden legs of the broken table and started chopping them into splinters with her axe. Once she had amassed a satisfying pile, she stacked them onto a tin drinks tray and set fire to them with a box of damp but miraculously functional matches.
“I can’t stand another night in the dark, Low,” she admitted, sitting next to Corrine, who was staring into the flames. She hadn’t said a word since they lost Jake to…whatever it was they lost him to. Maybelle held tight to the axe, her eyes darting all around.
Low opened bottles of soda and passed them between the group. He was handing the last one to Frankie when movement behind the flickering flames caught his eye. Corrine snapped her attention away from the fire, pointing into the shadows. Maybelle stood, axe at the ready.
Frankie shouted, “Wait! It’s Thump.”
The old saxophonist lurched across the roof, the light from the fire jumping over his face, shifting his features into a rigid death mask. Milky blankness shone in his eyes.
“He’s dead, Frankie. That ain’t Thump anymore.” Low ran towards the lumbering ex-Thump, barging into him with the strength and skill of an NFL quarterback. He carried on running as teeth snapped the air next to his ear, and gave the walking corpse a mighty shove into the inky waters of the Mississippi. Knowing it wouldn’t be long before the splash attracted more of them, Low spun round, desperate for a way to fight them off. Maybelle was already there, flaming table leg raised overhead.
“Let the fuckers burn,” she said, and tossed the torch into the water. The multi-coloured oil slicks, so hypnotically beautiful in the daylight, bloomed into walls of fire with a whoosh. The blaze encircled the building, creating a floating barrier against the dark.
“What do we do now?” asked Frankie. Corrine and Maybelle looked at Low. Low looked into the flames.
“We wait.”
Fires burned all over the city. People hid on rooftops and balconies and tried to stay alive. Bloated corpses feasted on their loved ones. Children cried and parents screamed. Bones snapped and teeth chewed through sinew.
The dead never stayed buried in New Orleans.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #29 ‘After Us, The Flood’ by Em Dehaney – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
