Daniel Keohane - Margaret's Ark

The morning sun warmed his back and neck. He stood straighter, but said nothing.

Slowly, the crowd fell silent. There remained the constant hum of conversations, the occasional derisive comment. Compared to his arrival, the noise was that of a hushed congregation. Jack tried to raise his arms but they were too heavy. He felt weak.

The voice of Michael in his ear, though he spoke from across the sea of bodies. “Go on, my friend. Now or never.”

“Now or never,” Jack repeated. Then louder, “Now or Never!” He smiled. Nervous laughter. “Today, you -” he pointed to a fat man in shorts, black socks and shoes, “and you -” a pregnant woman standing nervously near the angel, “and you -” his arm swept the crowds, “will be standing before God and cringing under his gaze. Soon, so soon, the waters will rise up and fill your shoes.” Some chuckled at that. Jack began to pace his small, designated area. The cameras followed. “It will dampen your designer pant cuffs, soak your underwear,” more laughs from the congregation, “fill your mouths. You will try to swim, but there will be nowhere to swim to. You will fall back, feel the water in your lungs. You will be crushed against the pillars of the tempest!”

A rock, or maybe it was a broken piece of asphalt, was hurled out of the crowd. It passed harmlessly into the stagnant harbor behind him. “And I,” he continued, “I will go down into the sea with you, and together you and I will face the Lord's judgment. Together we will beg for His mercy.”

* * *

“Connor.”

Holly's voice was hoarse. She'd screamed at Clay for over an hour last night, begging him to let her go. She and Connor. He'd simply sat in his chair and stared at her. She had tried to scream for help, for the police. None came. Everyone was busy, preparing for the end.

Connor let out a wet burp, and Clay quickly wiped the baby’s mouth with a cloth. He picked up the plastic bottle again, and was about to resume feeding when Holly said, “Clay, no. Please. Let me feed him myself one last time. Even just a little. That’s all I have now.”

Clay's pale face darkened from its usual pale to an ashen gray. His sunken cheeks gave him the look of a zombie, especially now that the sun was up and washing out whatever illusions of health the artificial lamp light offered. She wondered how much he'd slept these past few weeks.

“You're all dried up,” he muttered. His mouth was full of spit, as if he'd been the one who had just drunk half the bottle of formula. “Connor needs to eat.”

She wriggled on the mattress, needing to move. The sores on her back and butt screamed at her. She had to do something. “Connor needs his mother. I still have some milk, but I won't for much longer if you don't untie me. Please.”

Clay looked at her. Two days ago, after feeding the baby, Holly had moved to put Connor in his crib, but instead lashed out at Clay with her bare foot and connected with his chest. She’d bolted for the door with Connor in her arms. Clay was on her before she’d moved two steps. Holly immediately gave up, fearing for the baby. Head hunched low she had dropped the baby back into his crib. Connor cried loudly then, wanting to play, wanting more than simple feeding and sleep and moving the few feet available in the room with his walker. Clay hadn't beaten her. Holly simply lay back on the bed, and let him tie her up. She had cried, apologized, but Clay said and did nothing but tighten the knots.

He never untied her again, neither for feeding or to use the bathroom. Instead, he'd come in with a bottle when it was time for Connor to be fed. Holly had shouted that it wasn't time for a bottle, but Clay ignored her. His skeletal frame reached in and raised Connor up, and together father and son shared the only true moment that should have remained for her and her son. She'd wept, more so when her breasts had filled without relief. Milk spilled from her, but Clay ignored it.

He did play with the baby more after that. If the universe wasn't so close to ending, Holly would have wondered if the man wasn't going through some final change for the good, deep under the horrific transformation he'd been passing so quickly through lately.

“Please,” she whispered now, feeling time racing away from her. At this point, all she wanted was to hold her son, be with him when the water came.

Clay stared at her for a long time, eyes half closed. Connor reached for the bottle but Clay kept it out of reach. Finally he said, “You won't try to run?”

Holly instinctively looked at the clock on the dresser. An hour and a half. Where could she possibly go? “No,” she said, keeping eye contact with him when she answered. “I won't.”

Still, he stared at her. Slowly, as if his muscles had atrophied in the night, he rose up from his chair, dropped the wailing baby into his walker and untied her wrists and ankles.

She sat up. Clay then retrieved the baby and passed him to her. She lifted her stained shirt. When Connor greedily clamped his mouth to her nipple, Holly screamed in pain. The unused milk had clogged the pores. As the baby suckled, it took every bit of her willpower not to pull him away. She could not. It hurt so badly, but this was her last chance.

The room blurred with her tears, and she feared Clay would take the baby away. But his shape slowly sank back into the chair. She almost didn't hear him speak, but when she realized what he'd said, she almost forgot the pain.

“You promised me you wouldn't leave. You promised. I don't want to die alone.”

* * *

Bernard Myers held a crystal glass in one hand and shaded his eyes with the other. Nothing hung over his head but distant wisps of clouds drifting over the outermost peaks of the San Isabel National Forest. The eastern edge of the Rockies rose behind him, out of sight behind the crowded miles of forest. Linda Meyers moved from group to group. A thin white trail marked his wife’s progress as she sucked the life out of yet another cigarette. The sky, reflected in the lake before them, was as blue as yesterday and, if one believed the forecasts, as blue as it would be tomorrow. Bernard took a sip of his drink and tried to listen to the young doctor, to stare at her smooth dark face and not gaze upwards, to the sky.

“The one we passed on the way in, alongside Route 25, looked like it wouldn't even stand up to a strong wind let alone a flood.” Neha smiled and took a tiny sip of wine.

Maureen, the busty redhead from Radiology and former dinner guest, leaned too hard against Director Meyers and laughed. She looked sideways at Neha with eyes which were both amused and challenging. “No kidding,” she said. “You'd think God would have picked more carpenters and ship-builders for this business.” She straightened as best she could and put a hand on Meyer's arm. Her fingers were wet from the condensation of her beer bottle.

“I have an idea,” she added. “Bernard, why don't we sneak away, you and I, and go see what's happening with the arkies!” She leaned closer, ignoring Linda Meyers fluttering about the camp. She flashed her eyelids and said in a Southern Belle drawl, “I'd be oh so grateful! I'd do just about anything.”

Bernard was pleased to find himself somewhat aroused by the gesture. Doctor Ramprakash sipped her wine and turned slowly away, her gaze darkening when it locked on her husband sitting alone at the end of the boat dock. Meyers patted Maureen's hand and said, “My dear, if I hadn't been drinking most of the morning, I'd take you on a trip you'd never forget.” He raised his glass. “After the end of the world, perhaps?”

Maureen smiled and squeezed his arm. “It's a date.”

Derek and Karen Jahns walked casually up to join them. “Speaking of the end of the world,” Derek said, “how much longer do we have?”