THE DEVIL'S ARK by George S. Mahaffey Jr

Author:George S. Mahaffey Jr. [Mahaffey Jr., George S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-12-20T08:00:00+00:00

Thirty minutes later, we’d climbed down the rope with our weapons and supplies. I stood before the trap door, the entire area tanged with the odor of excrement.

“Could you have brought us to a more unwholesome place?” Puzeer asked.

I pointed to the door, reaching down and yanking it open.

The water under the ark was as black as midnight in the desert.

“The coracle is secured just outside,” I said. “I will go for it.”

“I’ll help,” said Seth.

It was agreed that Seth and I would release the coracle and then one of us would come back inside and help the others transfer our weapons and gear through a slot in the side of the ark. Seth and I, clad only in tunics, dropped down into the frigid water which had the unmistakable odor of decay and death. Scissoring our legs, we dove deeper, swimming under the shadow of the ark.

We breached the water and Seth and I climbed up and released the other coracle from the spot where it was secured. I waited in the boat.

Seth spider-crept across the exterior of the ark, hanging by one hand before a gap in the side-decking that was not large enough for a man to crawl through.

Someone on the inside passed our weapons and gear through and Seth moved up and down, depositing the materials in the coracle. Seth wiped sweat from his brow, scanning the black sky.

“What a fool I was to leave the safety of Father’s quarters,” he said, offering up a smile that resembled a frown.

“Nobody asked you to come.”

His eyes found mine.

“You have no idea what awaits.”

“Is that why you wanted to come? To scare us?”

“With fear comes clarity, Ham. Besides, we share common goals, don’t we?”

“There is more to it than that I think.”

He seemed to play these words over in his head.

“There is a part of me that believes I have been, in some way, bred for this. Raised up in two worlds, neither of which I really found a place in. In that respect you and I are not so different.”

I shook my head.

“We are nothing alike.”

He clucked his tongue in a kind of language I’d never heard before.

“What is that?” I asked.

“That, my brother, is a desert saying about animals spoken in the tongue of my grandfather.”

“Its meaning?”

“Strays should keep a watchful eye over each other.”

He winked at me at the moment the water bubbled and up popped Puzeer and the others. They swam up to the coracle, everyone climbing aboard as we grabbed our oars.

The stillness and silence of the grave greeted us as we rowed across the barely rippling water.

This was no ocean we maneuvered across, there were no tides, no real waves of any kind.

Just one big, dead pool over which a breeze blew, shepherding a mist that caused visibility to drop in most areas to the distance between a man’s outstretched arms.

I looked back one time and caught sight of Japeth standing on the ark above the railing, torch in hand. He made no signal to me and I made none to him, and soon he was gone, vanished into the mist.

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