Margaret's Ark (42 page)

Someone struck him on the shoulder. Jack did not turn around. People grabbed his arms and hands; some with violence, others pleading. Now and then a microphone wormed itself between the bodies, only to be yanked away and tossed aside.

“What did you do?” a man spat, cursing and gripping at his shirt.

“Please, it's not too late, I know it isn't. Please touch me and bless me.”

“What's happening? What's going on?”

Jack didn't listen to their words. He stared across the glistening canyon of mud and whispered to the lost sea, “Come back. Please come back to me.”

“Turn around, you coward.”

“Forgive me, Father....”

“Make it stop. Make it stop; please make it stop.”

Jack's grip on the rail fell away. Pulled and guided and shoved into the throng of his self-proclaimed parish, he floated amid their hands and arms. He stared past the bobbing heads, into the sky. In a sea of a hundred faces that twisted and writhed into their own distinct emotion, Jack twisted, both of his own accord and by the flood of arms and fists. Someone slapped him; another pulled at a chunk of his hair. A woman appeared before him, muttering “Bless me bless me bless me” then she was swallowed up as more faces, angry, terrified, moved in her wake. Something stuck Jack in the leg. Pain shooting.

He could see nothing past the faces.

“Michael!” His shouts mixed, and were lost, amid so many other voices.

He was pulled suddenly to his feet. A Latino man in an oversized Bruins hockey shirt was screaming but the words made no sense. Then the man coughed. Blood sprayed from his face and he dropped from sight. The horde behind him parted like the Red Sea. At the far end of this new path stood the young man with the wild blonde hair. His arm was extended, shaking. Jack noticed the gun only when it sparked and something punched him in the chest.

Jack staggered back as another flash punched him again; then the kid’s chest turned red, like it was in the hospital – Jack remembered him, now. So long ago...

Both fell, the kid to the cobblestones and Jack backward over the chains. He tumbled once against the slime-coated harbor wall before landing on his back in the muck below.

He felt nothing now, only a sense of hovering above the filth. Michael stood on the edge of the park, looking down, hand held out.

“Come on, Jack,” he said. Then he smiled. So beautiful, that smile, erasing the scars and lines on the angel’s face. Jack was standing on the wharf beside him. Police forced the crowd back, back, but Jack found nothing of interest here. Michael held his hand. Together they rose above the chaos and the pain, flying like Peter Pan into the bright, bright morning sky.

*     *     *

When she could move again Margaret tried gathering Holly into her arms. She needed something, some
one
to feel beside her. To this woman who was no more than a stranger, she said, “Stay close.” She could not hear her own words. Holly had apparently not heard either, for she freed herself from Margaret's grip and crawled away. Behind, what had begun a few seconds earlier as a low rumbling now overpowered all other sound.

The ramp still led up to the ark from the grass. Carl pulled himself up using the railing. When he'd fallen to the deck, he'd tried to hold himself over the baby to shelter it. Knowing it was useless he'd roughly slid Connor aside to avoid crushing him. Though the baby now wailed in his arms, it didn’t look hurt. Carl held him carefully and stared down to the grass below.

Margaret shouted as loud as she could. “Drop the ramp, Carl!” Wind blew with a panicked force against her back. Traveling with it, or perhaps pushing it along, the roaring din sounded like a freight train storming out of control behind her.

Hoisting the baby in one arm, Carl knelt by the bolts holding the ramp in place. He looked again at Margaret, then slowly beyond her. His face lost all color. Margaret's continued pleas were lost in the wind.

A few feet away, her back to the ark, Holly turned and saw what was coming towards them. She screamed, the voice only a distant keening.

In blind unison, people on the common raced towards the ark. The heavy man who a moment before was storming in that direction fell under the rushing mob. The sudden motion around the perimeter broke Carl’s paralysis. He didn't have time to think about what filled the western sky. Only that it was coming towards them really fast. He pulled the first wooden dowel free then skittered sideways and yanked loose the second. Connor squirmed and wriggled in his grip but Carl held fast, no longer caring if he hurt the baby.

The ramp fell with an unheard thud to the grass the same moment Carl swung the hinged section of railing closed and set the latch.

The mob slammed against the hull. Men in suits tried to scale the sides, only to slip on the thick coats of grease and fall onto three others waiting below. Everyone looked behind them at the monster rising over the town. The woman with the sandwiches raised one of her children towards the deck. There was no one there to pull him on board. The boy squirmed, and someone grabbed his foot as if to pull himself up. Both came crashing down.

*     *     *

“Everyone stay in the Lord's house for these final moments! God is pleased you came to him and we must continue the Mass!” Some of the parishioners, mostly those near the front, calmed a little and knelt in the pews. These people were safe from the chaos at the
back
of the church. There, the crowd pushed in claustrophobic mindlessness towards the exit. One of the glass doors shattered. The jet-plane roar from outside shook the building.

Nick held one hand flat against the altar and tried to remember where he'd left off. The Host and Chalice were prepared, but he didn’t think it was time for the benediction. He looked at the front row, at the young couple huddled close with a small boy between them. Others stared back at him, oblivious to those who fought and struggled to get outside. The daylight drew away, dimming the brilliance of the stained glass windows.

Father Nick Mayhew closed his eyes and whispered a blessing for his congregation, both here and elsewhere. And for Margaret and her girls, that they would be safe aboard God's vessel. When he opened his eyes, raised his hands in blessing for the community, the front of the church ripped apart. Bodies flew towards the vacant front pew and altar moving too fast to see. Everything blew apart then was gone completely.

*     *     *

Carl slammed the bulkhead and bolted it with one motion. He jumped the last three steps and stopped. In the morning light streaming through the eastern portholes, he found Margaret's vacant harness. Beside it, Katie lashed out with both arms, screaming as if what was bearing down on them had already hit. Beside her, Robin was silent, staring ahead of her. It almost seemed as if she was singing, but the sound went unheard in the approaching freight train roar.

Carl ran to Margaret's harness. He didn't think, just hoped the relentless rehearsals weren't for nothing. He dropped Conner in, grabbed the two straps and pulled. The baby swung back and forth as the harness closed around it. The baby's head was below the harness line. That was good. Less room to bounce around. Carl tightened the straps further, ignoring the baby's wails. As an afterthought, he pulled off his t-shirt and stuffed it around the back and side of Connor's head. He didn't re-check the straps, only ran blindly in the direction of his own berth, past the shouting and crying passengers. His chest heaved with sobs he couldn't hear. The boat shook. He saw his harness hanging a few feet away. The deck of the ship tilted. Carl knew he wasn't going to make it.

*     *     *

The sound, reflected in the screaming face of the woman beside her, was the sound of surf magnified a million times. Margaret momentarily considered going to the young mother, holding her close, then decided not to. She was alone, and it now seemed she was destined to be so. Margaret closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her chest, imagined her girls with her. She leaned forward, pushed by the unrelenting wind. Two strong arms wrapped around her from behind, held fast. She wondered who was kneeling there with her, the angel or maybe Marty emerging from his self-imposed exile. It didn't matter. She opened her eyes but did not look back. The roaring of the wind faded in this invisible embrace.

The ark tilted sideways. The people outside hadn't noticed, so mesmerized were they by what loomed behind the fire station – a wall of uncountable leagues of salt water rising over them from the western horizon. The sun reflected off its face in immense ribbons of swirling color. Ahead of it all came the wind like a trumpeting angel, and the deafening sound of a thousand million high tides rolling towards shore but never cresting.

As Carl ran for his harness and the ark began to roll, a shadow passed over the town square. Then, like so many chess pieces, the trees and buildings and people of Lavish, California, were swept away forever.

*     *     *

The ocean rose higher across the western shore and beyond. The front of the growing wall tore across the landscape without thought to borders or property, continued to rise out of the deep bowl it had so long filled. The more the sea tore from captivity, the higher the wave became. Horizon to horizon, it reared up and across the United States, Canada, Mexico. Everywhere.

Eventually, gravity won over the heaving mass. The wall began to fatten, then fall. By the time the ocean reached the Rocky Mountains, it was a mile higher than the tallest peak. When the wave rolled across it, its underbelly tore open.

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
.