Bible Stories for Adults Read Free

with the ice, our provisions are running out. We cannot keep feeding ourselves, much less a million species.
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Tonight we discussed our passenger. Predictably, Japheth and Shem spoke for acquittal, while Ham argued the whore must die.
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“A necessary evil?” I asked Ham.
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“No kind of evil,” he replied. “You kill a rabid dog lest its disease spread, Father. This woman’s body holds the eggs of future thieves, perverts, and idolators. We must not allow her to infect the new order. We must check this plague before our chance is lost.”
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“We have no right,” said Japheth.
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“If God can pass a harsh judgment on millions of evildoers,” said Ham, “then surely I can do the same for one.”
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“You are not God,” said Japheth.
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Nor am I—but I am the master of this ship, the leader of this little tribe. I turned to Ham and said, “I know you speak the truth. We must choose ultimate good over immediate mercy.”
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Ham agreed to be her executioner. Soon he will dispose of the whore using the same obsidian knife with which, once we sight land, we are
bound to slit and drain our surplus lambs, gratitude’s blood.
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    They have put Sheila to work. She and Ham must maintain the reptiles. The Pythoninae will not eat unless they kill the meal themselves. Sheila spends the whole afternoon competing with the cats, snaring ship rats, hurling them by their tails into the python pens.
    Ham is the handsomest son yet, but Sheila does not care for him. There is something low and slithery about Ham. It seems fitting that he tends vipers and asps. “What do you think of Yahweh?” she asks.
    Instead of answering, Ham leers.
    â€œWhen a father is abusive,” Sheila persists, “the child typically responds not only by denying that the abuse occurred, but by redoubling his efforts to be loved.”
    Silence from Ham. He fondles her with his eyes.
    Sheila will not quit. “When I destroyed my unwanted children, it was murder. When Yahweh did the same, it was eugenics. Do you approve of the universe, Ham?”
    Ham tosses the python’s mate a rat.
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    C APTAIN’S L OG . 17 J ULY 1057 A.C.
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We have run aground. Shem has named the place of our imprisonment Ararat. This morning we sent out a
Corvus corax,
but it did not return. I doubt we’ll ever see it again. Two ravens remain, but I refuse to break up a pair. Next time we’ll try a Columbidae.
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In an hour the harlot will die. Ham will open her up, spilling her dirty blood, her filthy organs. Together we shall cast her carcass into the flood.
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Why did Yahweh say nothing about survivors?
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    Silently Ham slithers into the pig cage, crouching over Sheila like an incubus, resting the cool blade against her windpipe.
    Sheila is ready. Japheth has told her the whole plot. A sudden move, and Ham’s universe is awry, Sheila above, her attacker below, she armed, he defenseless. She wriggles her layered flesh, pressing Ham into the straw. Her scraggly hair tickles his cheeks.
    A rape is required. Sheila is good at rape; some of her best customers would settle for nothing less. Deftly she steers the knife amid Ham’s garments, unstitching them, peeling him like an orange. “Harden,” she commands, fondling his pods, running a practiced hand across his worm. “Harden or die.”
    Ham shudders and sweats. Terror flutes his lips, but before he can cry out Sheila slides the knife across his throat like a bow across a fiddle, delicately dividing the skin, drawing out tiny beads of blood.
    Sheila is a professional. She can stiffen eunuchs, homosexuals, men with knives at their jugulars. Lifting her robe, she lowers herself onto Ham’s erection, enjoying his pleasureless passion, reveling in her impalement. A few minutes of graceful undulation, and the worm spurts, filling her with Ham’s perfect and upright seed.
    â€œI