Flood by Joseph Monninger

Author:Joseph Monninger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

Ellis had made up a makeshift bed beside the kitchen window and the light that slashed in stirred him awake. Not that it was much light, Ellis thought as he opened his eyes and slowly sat up. Rain still pattered against the window, but at least the night darkness was gone. He looked around the apartment. It looked like a bomb had gone off with all the people sleeping in different postures and locations around the room. Still, he was glad that he and Day hadn’t gone upstairs to sleep. It felt better to be around other people.

He tried to go back to sleep, but the baby fussed. He heard him gurgling and doing something and he got up to check on him. The snakes made him jumpy. The snakes and the idea of the baby — warm and bite-sized, oh, yeah! — made him even jumpier. He stood and tiptoed across the room, trying to be as quiet as possible. The baby lay on a blanket beside Kuru, not far from Carmen. He was wide-awake and playing with his hands punching up into the air.

“Hi, baby,” Ellis whispered.

He bent down and picked up the baby. In that moment, something moved underneath the couch.

Instead of making him jump back in alarm, the sound cranked something way down in his gut. He stared at the couch skirt, wondering what he would find if he put his hand underneath it. Really, it didn’t make sense to start seeing snakes everywhere, but something did seem to move when he reached for the baby. It might have been his imagination, or a trick of light, but he snatched the baby up quickly and walked him toward the kitchen and the growing morning light.

“That’s a good baby,” Ellis said, bouncing the baby a little. “You’re a good boy.”

He stood for a moment beside the window, surveying whatever he could see. The landscape had changed. That much was obvious. Everywhere he looked, he saw the reflection of water surfaces. Water had come directly down their street, but it also had gone up and into the buildings on the other side. If it was that high on those buildings, then it was that high on their building. That only made sense. Water sought its own level, which meant it would keep searching until the pressure on it to mount higher receded behind it. He was pretty sure that was true.

It was still raining. He had already seen that, but he noted it again.

“Hey,” Alice said, sitting up.

She had made up a bed in the small kitchen. Zebby slept beside her. He made snorting sounds most of the night. Ellis liked the pig. He walked into the kitchen and sat on one of the small stools that Carmen’s mother had arranged next to the counter. Apparently that was a place to sit and have coffee and watch the morning news. But there was no coffee this morning and no television for news.

“Whose baby is that again?” Alice asked.

Her movement brought Zebby awake.

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