Noah

by Mark Morris

Slowly he sat up, leaves tumbling from his body. The rain battered the outside of the Ark like a never-ending hail of stones, but the hacking of wood was closer and louder.

  He stood up and looked around cautiously. If he hadn’t known better he would have said that the sound was in the room with him. He pivoted on his heels, then came to a halt facing the far wall—the outer wall.

  Is it coming from over there?

  Frowning, still cautious, he walked across, reaching out a hand…

  And jumped back with a startled cry when the wall in front of him suddenly splintered, and the edge of a curved metal axe blade appeared through the wood.

  * * *

  Methuselah hummed tunelessly as he pushed aside the leaves of a spiny-stemmed bush. It didn’t seem to bother him at all that the rain was battering down upon his head and plastering his thin white hair to his face. Or even that, despite being on high ground within the forest, he was still standing waist-deep in water.

  “Ah,” he murmured as he uncovered a cluster of small red berries clinging to the underside of a leaf. He picked one of them, sniffed it, then popped it into his mouth, closing his eyes in ecstasy as it burst, sweetly and juicily, between his teeth.

  All at once a violent roaring, tearing noise made him look up. It was as if something massive and deadly was rushing toward him, destroying everything in its path.

  Unconcerned, Methuselah simply smiled and popped another berry into his mouth.

  * * *

  Secured to the Ark by a length of rope, Noah weighed his options as a score of men scrambled up the slippery incline of the ramp.

  He could go inside and slam the great wooden hatchway behind him. But if he did that, it would only be a matter of time before the invaders hacked their way through the wood and poured inside, leaving a gaping hole in the vessel.

  No, the Creator had appointed him as the Ark’s builder, and as its protector, too. So protect it he would, to his dying breath.

  But could he fight off all of these men? Many of Tubal-cain’s army were dead, true, and those who had survived were exhausted, often injured, mostly weaponless…

  But even so, there were still hundreds of them. And he was just one man, armed with nothing but a spear.

  He thought of Methuselah, his grandfather, the great warrior. It was said that he had killed thousands of men. Would Noah need to match his achievement, in effect become his grandfather, in order to fulfill his destiny?

  The men were halfway up the ramp now, scrambling over one another. They looked eager, frightened, desperate.

  Noah stood his ground, braced himself, tightening his grip on the spear, despite his wet hands.

  Then he looked up, peering beyond the men, into the murky, rain-lashed darkness of the forest. Did he hear something? A deep, ominous rumbling, underpinning the gushing roar of the still-spurting geysers and the hissing clamor of the rain.

  Many of the men clambering toward him could hear it, too. Some of them paused and looked behind them. Some even looked up, as if they expected the Creator himself to break through the black mass of cloud that filled the sky, and crush them beneath His heel.

  The rumbling grew louder and louder. Noah’s stomach curled heavily in on itself.

  Then, abruptly and terrifyingly, the forest was ripped apart, flattened as a vast, white, roaring wall of water reared up, towering over the trees, over the Ark, blotting out the boiling sky.

  Noah’s mouth dropped open in awe as the huge wave hurtled toward him.

  And then it was upon them. Crashing down. Sweeping all before it.

  A white, screaming world of water.

  * * *

  Tubal-cain was still hacking his way through the wall of the Ark when the wave smashed against it. Hearing the thunderous roar, he twisted his head, saw the looming wall of white water, and slammed his second axe into the wall as hard as he could.

  As the wave hit and his world turned upside down, he bent his elbows, flattening himself against the wooden wall. Time became meaningless as he clung there, buffeted and pummeled, unable to breathe, unable to see anything but white, crashing water all around.

  * * *

  When the wave hit, almost all the men milling around the base of the ramp, and most of those who were clambering up it, were swept aside as casually as if they were flecks of debris. However, those at the forefront of the group were propelled forward like arrows from a bow, tumbling over and over until they slammed into the vast wooden door covering the hatchway at the top.

  Some died instantly, the sheer pressure of the water causing their bones to be pulverized upon impact. Others struck the door and bounced off at an angle, their limbs shattered, their fragile bodies torn open like wet cloth bags.

  A few, however, survived, one even grabbing hold of Noah as he swung around on the end of the rope, and slammed against the hatch door.

  The Ark itself shuddered, recoiled. The wave crashed against it, then swept up and over it, submerging it for a long, terrible moment, before finally pushing it back to the surface, where it popped up like a piece of driftwood.

  Almost as soon as it re-emerged, however, a new wave, like a giant fist, smashed into it from the side.

  The Ark tipped, then teetered, as if about to capsize. And still the man clung to Noah…

  * * *

  Naameh was on the mammal deck, still searching for Ham, when the second wave struck. As the Ark abruptly lurched and the deck tilted, she was hurled sideways so violently that her feet left the ground. Thrown across the vast space, she was fortunate enough to land in the cushioning embrace of a sleeping chalicothere. The huge animal grunted slightly, but seemed otherwise undisturbed.

  Yet Naameh wasn’t the only one affected by the sudden violent tilting of the Ark. Plucked from their sleeping positions, many of the mammals were likewise thrown across the open space of the deck. Although most landed with no ill effects, several were not so lucky. A small, horned horse crashed against a pillar headfirst and snapped its neck. An ape flew across the room and landed on the ground, unharmed, only to be crushed to death beneath the body of a buffalo that landed on top of it.

  There were other casualties, too. Each death was a terrible tragedy. The loss of even a single creature signified immediate extinction for a species earmarked for the new world.

  * * *

  Gathered together in the Hearth, Shem, Ila and Japheth became a tumbling, uncontrollable mass of limbs as the Ark shifted. Unable to stop himself, Japheth found himself sliding across the suddenly upraised floor toward an opening in the deck. He and Ham had been warned by their father to keep away from the shaft because it plummeted deep into the bowels of the Ark, to a furnace.

  “If you fall down there, you will die,” Noah had told him sternly, more than once.

  As he skittered toward it now, Japheth wondered how quickly he would die, how much it would hurt, and how angry his father would be with him when he found out.

  Then something clamped around the wrist of his upraised arm and, with his feet mere inches from the lip of the shaft, his body jolted to a stop.

  He looked up to see Ila lying on her stomach on the still-tilting floor, her arm outstretched, her hand encircling his wrist.

  He flashed her a look of relief and gratitude, and then he looked beyond her, to note that Shem, too, was lying full-length, his hand clutching Ila’s ankle.

  Japheth could see that Shem’s own foot was anchored around the brazier in the corner, from which warm ash was now spilling down the still-tilting slope of the floor toward him.

  The Ark creaked and groaned in protest as it was pushed to what seemed like breaking point.

  “What’s happening?” Japheth cried.

  Beneath him the dark opening of the shaft gaped like a hungry mouth.

  * * *

  Although the Ark tilted alarmingly, it didn’t capsize. Once it had absorbed the impact of the second wave that had sideswiped it, the vessel crashed back down, righting itself in a white explosion of spume. F
or a few moments it bobbed and spun, water streaming from its sides. It was buffeted this way and that, and then, riding the tide, it began to float through the still-rising floodwater.

  Resembling a huge, rectangular box, a giant coffin, the Ark was carried by the swirling currents toward—and then around—a small rocky island jutting from the surface of the sea. If anyone had been standing on the flat upper deck at that moment they might have recognized the peak of Methuselah’s mountain.

  If they had continued to stand and watch as the Ark swept past the mountain, they would have watched the island gradually shrink, becoming smaller and smaller as the water rose around it. Eventually they would have seen it dwindle to a nub of rock, and then a shrinking dark spot in the water.

  And then nothing at all.

  If, at that moment, they had turned in a slow circle they would have found themselves surrounded by a new world, a world composed entirely of water. Try as they might, they would have seen nothing but water, stretching to the horizon in all directions.

  * * *

  Astonished to find himself still clinging to the side of the Ark as it righted itself, Tubal-cain opened his eyes and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Water streamed from his hair and beard, trickled from the toes of his boots.

  Looking around, he saw only water.

  So the prophecy has come true, he realized. The world has been swept away in a deluge, after all.

  But Noah himself had been wrong. What was it he had said?

  “He will wash away all of you!”

  Yet Tubal-cain had not been washed away. Despite everything he was still here, still alive.

  Perhaps, he thought with a grim smile, Noah was not the only man left on this world with a destiny to fulfill.

  * * *

  As soon as the Ark stopped lurching, and they were able to regain their feet, the man clinging to Noah began to grapple with him, attempting to wrest the spear from his hand.

  He made no attempt to befriend Noah, to beg for a place on the Ark. His ordeal seemed to have reduced him to little more than a creature driven by the basic instinct to survive. Certainly his eyes were filled with a kind of flat, impenetrable madness, and violence seemed to be his only recourse.

  Frenziedly determined though he was, however, the man was also weak, thin and exhausted. His physical condition and his clothes told Noah that he was clearly not a soldier, but merely a refugee from the squalid camp that had surrounded Tubal-cain’s compound. Noah, therefore, was able to overpower him easily and shove him away. The man staggered backward, his bare feet skidding out from under him on the slippery ramp.

  He fell heavily and lay on his front for a moment, his thin body rising and falling as he breathed rapidly in and out through his open, drooling mouth. His saturated clothes, little more than rags, were plastered to his body, and his hair was a black, dripping cap clinging to his head. With a grunt he clambered painfully to his knees and crouched there, glaring at Noah with a sullen, hateful expression.

  Noah regarded him steadily, though not without pity. Still he did not speak; he knew there was nothing he could say or do.

  The man spat on the wood beneath him and uttered a shrill, half-hysterical laugh.

  “So what would you have me do?”

  Noah’s face was like granite.

  He leaped at Noah, who instinctively raised his spear to fend him off. The man neither stopped nor tried to dodge out of the way. He ran straight onto the point of the upraised spear, which punctured his belly.

  Bleeding profusely from the wound, the man stumbled and fell sideways, his falling weight almost wrenching the weapon from Noah’s hand. Noah tightened his grip on the spear’s haft, which pulled free of the man’s belly, opening the wound still further. The man’s eyes rolled upward and he fell into the sea with a splash. For a moment the water turned red around him, and then his body sank and was gone.

  Although Noah had seen much violence over the recent days, this final encounter rattled him to the core. He stood at the top of the ramp, shaking, trying to come to terms with all he had done and seen.

  The Creator’s actions were necessary—he knew that—and yet he knew also that he would not be worthy of His compassion if he rid himself of all emotion. For a while Noah looked out at the vast gray sea of death, at the thousands of bodies, tangled with other debris, bobbing on its surface.

  And then he turned and went inside.

  * * *

  After a pause during which the Ark—and Ham himself—had been hurled first one way and then the other, the chopping sounds started again, becoming increasingly frantic, as if whoever was trying to gain entry was working against time.

  Ham had managed to avoid serious injury when the Ark had tilted, by grabbing onto the base of a thick wooden strut in the hold. Then he hid himself once again beneath a pile of leaves, peering in fearful fascination at the widening hole that appeared in the opposite wall.

  He considered running to find Shem, or his mother, to tell them what was happening, but something prevented him.

  Perhaps it was a fear that he wouldn’t be believed, or even listened to, though he didn’t think either was the case. Although he was reluctant to admit it to himself, the real reason was simply that he wanted something to upset his father’s plans.

  After what had happened to Na’el, Ham wanted to see his father humiliated, broken. He wanted to see all his years of toil and sacrifice fall to ruin around him.

  There was a small part of him that was sickened and shocked by his feelings, and most especially by the level of hatred that he felt toward his father. But there was a much greater part that was even more sickened by the callous way in which his father had left Na’el to die. Ham was certain he would never stop seeing the terror, the sense of betrayal in her eyes just before the screaming mob had overwhelmed her. He would be tainted by that memory forever.

  It would haunt his dreams.

  And it was all his father’s fault.

  The hole in the wall had become large enough for Ham to have stuck his head and shoulders through if he had wanted to. Not that he did, of course. He had no idea who was out there, and was afraid of finding an axe in his skull.

  This axe was a particularly savage-looking blade, curved like a half-moon, with viciously sharp prongs at the top and bottom. As Ham watched, the blade hacked back and forth, splintering the wood and widening the hole with each blow.

  He wondered what the owner would look like. He knew he would soon find out, and although the prospect was like a freezing cold hand gripping his heart, he couldn’t deny a certain amount of delicious anticipation mixed in with the fear.

  Suddenly the chopping ceased. Aside from the endless staccato of rain, there was silence.

  Ham tensed, wondering what would happen next.

  There was a grunt, a thump, and a shuffle of movement. A moment later a dark, bulky shape slid in through the hole and crashed to the floor.

  The figure lay there, breathing heavily in a series of rough, rattling gasps, its body heaving and deflating like a stranded fish. Ham remained motionless, his heart beating wildly, his fingers and toes turning cold with fear as the blood drained from them. He wanted to jump to his feet and flee before the man recovered—if it was a man.

  Yet he was too terrified to move. What if the man was only pretending to be exhausted? What if, once Ham made his move, the intruder suddenly leaped to his feet and came at him with the axe?

  Then the prone figure gave a guttural groan and rolled over on to his back.

  It was Tubal-cain, the warrior king whose sword Ham once had carried. His leg was so badly wounded that Ham was surprised he was not already dead.

  * * *

  When Naameh entered the Hearth, she found the floor covered in ash, and Shem, Ila, and Japheth clustered together in a shivering knot, their arms wrapped around one another.

  “What happened?” Naameh gasped, rubbing her back. She was still nursing her own bumps and bruises.

  Quickly Il
a told her. Naameh looked at her youngest son with horror, then rushed across the room, dropped to her knees and embraced him.

  “Thank the heavens you’re safe,” she whispered.

  There was a creak as the door opened behind her. She twisted around to peer over her shoulder.

  Noah, looking old and exhausted, stood in the doorway. He was shaking with cold and shock, water dripping from his hair and beard, and from his saturated skin and clothes. He looked like a drowned man returned from the depths. He clutched a spear in his hand.

  Staring at the spear, Japheth gasped.

  The point was dripping with blood.

  Noah turned slowly and stared at the spear. It was as if he was seeing it for the first time.

  Then he opened his hand, dropping the weapon so that it landed with a clatter.

  Turning slowly, ponderously, he pushed the door closed behind him.

  And then, with a groan, he collapsed heavily against it.

  GENESIS 7: 11–12

  …On that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of heaven were opened. And rain fell upon the World forty days and forty nights.

  17

  THE STORY

  Tubal-cain was lying on a hard surface which had been cushioned by something soft—leaves or straw or sacking. He felt weak, feverish, shivering and sweating at the same time, both hot and cold.

  Gasping with effort, he pushed himself upright, onto his elbows. Immediately he felt faint, dizzy. Nausea rushed through him. He fought it down.

  He tried to move his legs, to use his feet to brace himself so that he could sit up. The movement caused him to howl in pain—then quickly, instinctively, he stifled it by ramming the fingers of one hand into his mouth.

  Nobody can know that I am here. But why? He couldn’t remember. His thoughts felt waterlogged, his head full of roaring, hissing.

  Like rain.

  He turned his throbbing head toward the wall he had breached. But he was surprised to see that there was no hole. The wall was intact.

  And then he stiffened.

  Someone had patched it.