The Ark

Someone was knocking loudly at the door. Jill ran up the stairs from the basement, yelling out. "I'm coming, hold your horses." She flung open the front door to see Charlie, their next door neighbor standing here, a distressed look on his face.

"Charlie, what's wrong?" she asked him as he pushed his way into the house. "You haven't seen the news?" Charlie replied, as he crossed the living room rapidly and turned on the television.

She came and stood beside him as the TV screen came to life with the face of a local news anchor looking distressed and upset. Behind him Jill could see video of burning buildings and people running through the streets.

"We're urging everyone too stay in their homes and please stay out of the streets. Make sure you have plenty of water. Find candles, flashlights, ,,uuhh..we're..uh.." the news announcer's face looked worse than Charlie's and he was stammering, unsure of what to say.

Someone spoke offscreen to him and he turned back to the camera. "Folks, we're ...uh..going to have to evacuate the station now. Please everyone, take care until we see you again. I'm sure.." and then the screen went blank, static buzzing across it.

Jill grabbed the remote and frantically clicked to the next station, nothing..nothing on any station. She turned to Charlie, yelling at him now, "What has happened Charlie? What is this?" Her voice frantic and scared.

He shook his head , "I don't know Jill. Beth called me from work upset and said something was going on in town, that ..that there were sirens, and she could smell smoke and there was so much noise, people screaming and running. She went to the window of her office to look at and as we were talking, the phone went dead. I can't get through to her Jill! I'm going down there, now! Is John at work?"

She ran to get her cell phone from the dining table and frantically hit the send button for John's number. No signal, nothing. She stared at him, he stared at her. "Oh my God," she cried, "What is going on!"

He took her by the shoulders, "Stay here, I'm going to drive in to town see if I can find what the hell is happening." He started toward the door and then turned back. " Stay here, lock the doors. I'll be back as soon as I can."

She nodded, tears welling up. "Wait Charlie,"she ran to the front closet and pulled out John's old shotgun and a box of shells. "Here, take these. " He looked at her, shaking and at the gun in her hand. "What am I going to need that for?"he said, but he reached out and grabbed them as he ran out the door.

Looking out the door as he left she could see a small crowd gathered down the road. She started to run to them, when she heard a beep from the bedroom behind her. Racing down the hall, she opened the door and saw her laptop there; a beeping sound coming from it. She hurried across to her desk and flipped the black lid open and suddenly John's face popped up on the screen.

"Honey, are you there? he was calling out in a worried voice.."Jill, please answer me!" and then seeing her face come into view, he said, "Thank God, it's you. Jill, Where have you been? Never mind. You have to hurry now. It's time."

"Oh, no John, no, please no."she cried out, collapsing in a heap on the floor.

"Jill, honey, listen to me, get the bag from under the bed, Ron and Susiehave already picked up Jennifer from IU and are heading south. It's not as bad there yet. The other kids left the city over an hour ago. I'm flying in right now to pick you up. I'll be there in less than five minutes. Head to the barn now! Don't stop for anything, Jill. Leave everything else!"

"Oh John, what about Charlie and Beth..can't we take them, please. What about all the kids at my school. What's going to happen to them now?' tears streaming down her face.

"Sweetheart, you know we can't take anyone else. You've known that all along .Some of them will make it. But now we have to do what we've been trained to do. Nothing will survive if we don't." John said with tenderness. "Now go!"

Sobbing, she nodded at his worried face on the laptop screen. "All right , I'll be there. Hurry!"

She closed the laptop as John's image faded and the A.R.K logo came up. Standing there with her hand on it for just a minute, she looked around the room; saw the pictures of the kids when they were little hanging on the wall, John's faded work shirt hanging on the bedpost and Jasmine, their calico cat curled up on the bed pillows. She reached out stroked the cat's sweet face, tears streaming down her cheeks. Then she sat up, wiped her face on her sleeve and slipping her dirty gardening clothes off and went to the closet.

Jill grabbed jeans and pulled them on, slipped a hooded sweatshirt over her t-shirt. She forced her feet into the new hiking boots from the closet and grabbed the duffle bag from under the bed, stuffing the laptop in on top of the contents.

She hurried out the bedroom to the back door and opening it, she saw the big old red barn at the rear of their land, the orchard and lake stretching out behind it. She looked around the yard carefully, saw no one and ran for the barn. It seemed a mile away and behind her she could hear windows breaking in the house, the sound of a crowd gathering heat, fear turned to anger.

Above her she could hear the roar of the helicopter propellers as it sat down smoothly on the concrete pad by the pad. She was there the instant it landed, flinging her slender frame through the air into the open doors. John pulled her in and then moved back to the front to retake the controls. As she strapped herself into the seat, she could hear the crowd screaming, running toward them. She saw Eddie Roberts with a rifle in his head, yelling something, but the helicopter roar muffled his voice. His voice was contorted in rage. She saw him raise the gun and point it at her face and then the helicopter was up and away.

Shots rang out below and as the helicopter rose in the air, Jill looked in horror at the chaos below that had been her home, her town. There were fires burning everywhere, billowing clouds of black smoke rising from the city. Along the I-69 corridor, cars were stalled and backed up to the horizon and beyond. People were streaming on foot away from the city, abandoning the cars, carrying suitcases and children. Tears streaming down her face again, she turned to John, "Why, why did this happen. I ..I thought things were getting better.." sobbing she buried her face in her hands, unable to bear the catastrophe below her.

The helicopter flew higher, the figures and fires becoming smaller and smaller, but it never ended. All around the city, she could see people, like ants, hurrying away in straggling lines of lost humanity. As they left the city behind and headed toward the foothills stretching to the south, the lines gradually faded, but still here and there in every town they flew over, the same feeling of desolation and loss, more fires burning, bodies laying in the streets, small children huddled by dead parents or small bands on foot, fleeing. But to where, she wondered. Where would they find refuge. She could see them as they heard the helicopter and began shouting and waving for help.

She looked at John pleading and his face turned to steel and he said, "Our children are waiting. You knew it would be like this. We have to fight for them now, Jill."

Reaching out she took a white manual out of the bad on the floor beside her and turning it over, she saw the words in stark black on the white cover.The ARK. John reached over and squeezed her hand. She nodded and opened the book to page one.

She knew the lines by heart.