Margaret's Ark by Daniel G Keohane Read Free Book Online

girls had been sleeping for nearly two hours.
    Eleven Fifty-Seven. Three more minutes until a new day. Fifty-four days and three minutes until a billion souls were lost. Or saved. Maybe. Maybe not. How many people would actually do this thing?
    She'd stepped into a new world, one which terrified Katie but filled her younger daughter with excitement. God had spoken to her Mommy, just like the people they talk about in Sunday School. That was how Robin had phrased it. Margaret didn't think girls her age ever paid attention in those classes. Serves her right for never volunteering to teach them.
    Midnight. Time floated away. Margaret leaned on the couch in the darkened living room and stared out through the picture window to an empty street. She played out what David the angel had shown her. Even to her previously untrained mind, the design seemed flimsy. Most of the ship would be constructed of plywood, material she could get at any home supply store. She turned her head and gazed out at her Taurus station wagon. She played out the dimensions of the wood. There was no way even one sheet would fit in the back. She’d have to measure the tailgate, see what might fit. There were the support beams, two-by-fours, and the glue, and tape and... she needed to build the thing in the middle of the town, in front of everyone.
    So many things, all of them nuts. She was a middle-aged women in the twenty-first century in the same position that Noah found himself in... how long ago... five thousand years? Ten? Depends whom you asked, she supposed.
    Margaret buried her face in the crook of her arm and cried herself to sleep. She awoke in the same position, early morning light casting the former nightscape into sharp detail. After a few minutes of staring at the houses across the street, now and then a neighbor hurrying off to work, she realized she hadn't dreamt. In a way, she missed talking to David. If anything, for those few moments when he visited her, what was going to happen next felt like the right thing to do.
    Fifty-four days. She’d fallen down a rabbit hole into some new world. No climbing out now, so she might as well get to work. Margaret got stiffly up from the couch and wondered what time the lumber store opened.
     
     
     
    54
     
     
    The rock sitting in Margaret's stomach lessened somewhat as the morning waned. After checking that her phone's battery was juiced up and the signal clean, Margaret had to believe her daughters weren't having too bad a time of it in school. She'd made a decision to let Katie and Robin go in, if for no other reason than to free her to do some initial errands with minimal distraction. She left her cell number with both girls, along with a note for their respective teachers. If anyone bothered them, they or the school were to go to the office call her and she'd come get them. Margaret asked the girls not to talk to anyone about what she had told them the night before. She wasn't certain if word had reached Katie's class or Robin's preschool. Doubtful, but gossip traveled fast in that environment.
    Al l she wanted was this one day before the weekend started. Margaret rolled the shopping cart down the home supply store's wide aisles. The second errand would come after lunch. Father Nick Mayhew had been more than happy to meet with her, even on such short notice. The priest had taken extra steps to stay involved in Margaret's family since Vince's death, keeping a quiet eye on them, asking questions after Mass. She wondered how much he had heard about the “crackpots” and their end-of-the-world preaching, and almost smiled, expecting his concern for her would blossom again by the time they were done talking.
    She had no list for shopping. Whenever she entered an aisle, she would think of the dream and recall every detail. Already her cart was filled with three large gallon-drums of shipper’s glue, nails of various sizes, wood putty, and some smaller boards and lumber. A portable rotary saw weighed