Daniel Keohane - Margaret's Ark

The wave crested. Miles of sea, rock and ice curved in upon itself and fell back to earth. A giant on a toppling beanstalk.

* * *

Bernard Myers stared at the sky. Clouds raced by, stretched thin by the wind. Though nothing seemed to be pinning him down, he could move neither his legs nor his arms. The house he’d glimpsed before the lake cast him down was gone. Shattered beams and even a bathtub rose in his peripheral vision. He wondered if the wooden stake protruding from some numb area of his lower body was once part of the same house. He also wondered if his back had broken.

From his vantage, Meyers could see the Rocky Mountains to the west. They rose high over the trees that once blocked his view when he stood in the camp’s backyard. A blurred gray bank of clouds rose over the snow-capped peaks. The clouds spread north and south as far as his paralyzed gaze could see. So the final storm approacheth , he mused. Thunder rolled steadily and unendingly overhead.

The rising cloud bank draped across the mountains. Brilliant streaks of white ripped into the gray blanket. What he had originally taken for thunder intensified. Then Meyers understood. The cloudburst everyone had waited for had come and gone. The floodwaters left in their wake advanced with a speed he could not begin to measure.

God, I'm sorry for every bad thing I did. I've never been to confession, as you probably know, but... . He sighed. Air and blood gurgled in his lungs. Oh, hell. Forget me. Take care of Linda. Please. She can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but she's a good woman . He watched with resigned dispassion the approaching monster.

* * *

Arms flailing wildly, Carl hovered in the middle of the ark as it rolled over and around him. The darkness was complete save for occasional shadows whirling overhead. And the voices. Some were screams; others were calm, directed to the children or spouses. Others only howled in terror. He'd been tossed into a madman's carnival ride and expected to be deluged in water. But he felt nothing but an icy wind tearing through the upper portholes. Those, at least, should be spewing water over him, but they did not.

Carl sensed the beam, a dark foreboding shape rising from the gloom below before he actually hit it. He raised his left arm. When the two connected, the arm gave way. A bright flash in his head. His body went limp, rolled away from the beam in time with the tumbling of the ship. He landed on someone's chest. Two hands gathered him up from behind. Fingers dug in to his bare back and pulled him close. In the gloom, he thought he saw Estelle's screaming face before him. His legs tumbled out behind him. When Carl reached for his left arm, something hard and jagged protruded just below the elbow. Touching it sent an electric vibration coursing through his body. What he held between his fingers was the edge of a bone. The darkness expanded. He was passing out, but needed to stay alert. Estelle's breath was on his face. She may not be able to hold him much longer. The darkness continued to expand, swallowing everything, then Carl fainted.

* * *

Linda Meyers stumbled across the yard, fumbling with her lighter. When she finally ignited the cigarette on the ninth try, the smoke burst from her mouth, only to be whisked across the empty lake. Fueled by the nicotine, she ran towards the cottage, shouting, “Bernie? Bernie?” No one paid her any attention. They gazed through their own fearful stupor at the lake or the sky or each other.

Neha Ramprakash stood at the edge of the grass, for how long she did not know nor care, one foot tentatively on the dock. She stared down its length to Suresh, who hung awkwardly over the edge. The ground shook in chorus with the baleful roar approaching from behind her. She bit her tongue to keep the growing hysteria from showing on her face. More than the terror of the moment, or the growing understanding that her husband's delusions were true, she felt betrayed. Somehow all of this, foretold in Suresh's god-forsaken premonitions, seemed his fault. He was making this happen.

The sound and wind intensified. Neha wanted to believe in God and Krishna and heaven and hell more than she wanted anything in her life. She considered repenting, however that pathetic ritual might be accomplished. Maybe Suresh knew. The betraying bastard , sitting on the deck making her look like an idiot, summoning his demons and ruining everything .

She walked towards him. It was then, in the last five seconds of her life that Neha knew what she had to do. Kill Suresh; stop the madness. Kill the prophet and his delusions. How didn't matter. People were starting to scream behind her, but the reasons for their renewed outbursts didn't concern her. All she could see, all she could focus upon, was the man hanging over the edge of the dock.

Suresh watched Neha watching him. He wondered if she noticed the vomit on his shirt. His wife's face twitched with an effort to appear emotionless. He had seen her do this many times before. Now, though, a thin line of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth, falling across the dark skin of her perfect chin. When Neha began walking, her gaze never wavered from his own. Suresh's hands ached. He slipped past the edge of the dock, keeping his head above the wood as if treading water. He wondered what he must look like. The cowering husband flinching away from his wife, a dog fearing the rap on its nose.

The mud at the bottom sucked at his ankles.

“I'm sorry,” he said. Like Linda Meyers' smoke, Suresh's voice tore away behind him. Neha must have seen his lips move for she spoke in reply. He was grateful not to hear. When she reached the end of the dock Suresh released his grip. He sank to his knees, wondering if he would continue sinking, away from the woman leaning over him. The trees and cottage, the very earth holding them all in place erupted behind her. Neha never looked back. The world was suspended in that final moment as she reached towards her devoted husband, the destruction only a quickly descending backdrop. Then the Pacific Ocean passed overhead, carrying them all away.

* * *

The first major crest rolled over the valleys between the mountain ranges. In a mad game of leap frog, the next wave tumbled overhead, rose back up. Torn between gravity and momentum it found its mark further east. In this manner the water moved from town to town and state to state. Each cresting wave surged lower than its predecessor until the sea, its initial enthusiasm spent, rolled across the Plains.

Miles later, it settled, finally spread as a level of rising salt water that broke and fell back against the first significant obstacle in its path.

At its furthest point, thirty-five miles east of the now-refilled Mississippi basin, the flood became a playground for children who understood little its source. They danced in the salty puddles; scooped mud into red plastic buckets, the nightmare of being pressed to the ground only an hour earlier forgotten with this new distraction. Trembling on porches, mothers and fathers stared westward and wondered why they had been spared. They leaned against poles, sat in folding chairs, watching the increasing number of olive green helicopters thumping with an angry urgency westward.

Epilogue

The sail flapped uncertainly in the wind. Carl leaned forward on his knees against the portside railing and stared out to sea. Now and then the sleek body of a dolphin broke the surface as it swam westward, following the receding tide. Not for the first time, he wondered why he searched for Margaret among the waves, rather than his own family. He tried to imagine what his parents went through in those final moments, but all he could summon was a still image of his front yard. The only reality he could envision at the moment was Margaret Carboneau, and she was gone forever. He thought about his discussion with the priest, if the man believed in the Rapture, God taking his chosen ones to heaven before the world came to an end.