Mississippi

We were going to cross the Mississippi River today. That ended up not working out, mostly because there isn’t a Mississippi River anymore.

We reached the riverbed a bit after noon. The ground was dry and cracked, like a desert that hadn’t seen rain in years. Given that it had only been a week since the apocalypse, definitely wasn’t a result of natural causes.

A small group of cars were parked by the river, with about twenty people standing amongst them. They were the first living people we’d seen since Tennessee, and given how that encounter turned out, we were understandably cautious about this group. That caution seemed unneeded, since all of them seemed intently focused on something in the riverbed. We drove a bit closer, and I could see a man in a black hoodie with a red x-ed out circle on the back slowly walking across the cracked ground. For some reason he had one of those Japanese sword things, I think they’re called katanas. He was holding it in front of him with both his hands, as if expecting something to jump out and attack him.

We drove closer to the cars, and Flint rolled his window down. “What’s going on here?” He said.

Someone in the group held up a hand for us to be quiet, and they continued to watch the man making the crossing. When he reached the other side, he waved back at them, and a collective sigh of relief spread amongst them.

“Alright, pack up and get ready to move.” A man in a camo jacket said to the others. “It looks like it’s clear.”

The moment he finished saying that, the ground began to shake, and a rumbling sound came from the north. Further up, I saw a wave of water rushing through the riverbed toward the man in the hoody. He tried to climb out, but the wave hit him before he could.

As the wave rushed by us, tendrils of water rose out and lashed at the cars. Flint got his window up as one hit the truck, nearly causing it to flip over. The people outside ran back into their cars; those who weren’t fast enough were grabbed by the tendrils and dragged into the water.

And suddenly, the water was gone. The wave passed on, leaving dry land and the bodies of those who had been dragged in. In the silence that followed, I got out of the truck to investigate. A few others got out of their cars, cautiously holding various improvised weapons. I saw the man in camo who had been giving orders, now holding a hunting rifle, and approached him.

“What was that all about?” I said.

He looked me over suspiciously before saying, “Most rivers are like that now. Whenever someone tries to cross them, that water monster thing gets them. And then….” He aimed his rifle at one of the bodies, which was starting to stand up. He fired a single shot through the head. “… turns them into these water zombies.”

Several of the others had started shooting the bodies before they could get up. “It’s called EAT.” I said, causing the man to raise an eyebrow. “The ‘water monster thing.’ Its name is the Epping AquaTarkus, or EAT.”

“Oh? And how would you know that?”

Tried to think of a way to answer that other than “My past self from a different universe was told it by a member of a secret FBI organization.”

I was saved from an awkward silence when the hoody guy suddenly ran out of the riverbed and charged us with his sword. The man I’d been talking to fired a shot from his rifle, but missed. I jumped between the two when I saw the sword slashing down, and moved my left arm to block it. The sword dug into my arm, but stopped. I heard the man behind me swear, and then swear again louder when part of my sleeve fell way and he saw the darkness underneath.

Pulled my arm back, and the shadow quickly healed the cut the sword had left. Another slash came at me, but I stepped aside and countered with a right hook to the head. With him dazed, I reached for him and snapped his wrist, then grabbed the sword as it fell from his grip. Swung it at him, cutting through the neck all the way to the bone. For a moment, he struggled on the end of the sword. Then he stopped moving and just stared at me until all the water had leaked out of his neck and his body slumped over.

Took a breath to calm myself, and turned around to see the guy I’d saved was now pointing a rifle at me. “What the fuck are you?” He shouted.

Oh, right, arm. It was starting to look like a writhing mass of shadows, and I had to will it back to being arm-shaped. That didn’t seem to calm him down much, and he shouted his question again.

Flint ran towards us and aimed his gun at the man. “Drop the weapon, now.” As if on cue, everyone in the group with a gun pointed theirs at Flint.

Well this was a wonderful mess. If I could just fucking time travel, then I’d have if fixed in seconds. Instead, all I could do was stand where I was and watch everyone’s trigger fingers getting itchier.

Miles stepped into the midst of this, his hands raised up in a conciliatory fashion. “I think we all should just calm down for a moment here.” He stepped between me and the man, so the rifle was pointed at him. “We’re not here to harm any of you. If we all just put down our guns, we can explain.”

The man stared down Miles, then slowly lowered his rifle; everyone else followed suit. He held out his hand and said, “Sorry about that. The name’s Lucas.”

Miles shook his hand. “I’m Dr. Miles. This is I-330, and that’s Agent Flint.”

“Agent?” Lucas’ eyes narrowed. “You with the government?”

“We were.” Flint said. “Doesn’t seem to be much government left these days.”

Lucas grunted in response. I took the chance to jump into the conversation. “We’re trying to make it to Fort Worth. There was a radio broadcast saying they were gathering survivors there.”

Lucas nodded. “We all heard it too. Can’t say I really trust it, but there’s nowhere else we could go. But we’re stuck at the river.”

“Isn’t there a bridge somewhere we can cross?”

“We already tried that. There were… bugs in the way.”

“Bugs?”

He nodded. So, the Intrusion. “We might be able to help you with that little bug problem.”