The Tribulation: Blood Moon Rising

"I can hardly see past my windshield cause of this damn rain," the trucker said to himself while trying to keep awake. "When I tricked out my rig, I should have installed bulletproof glass. Well, at least I'll be pulling into Christville, Tennessee in about 5 minutes.

Hey John Atkins, You're talking to yourself again," he said as he pulled into Clancy's Diner, a favorite eatery among truckers entering and leaving Christville.

While sitting in his truck waiting for the rain to let up, he tuned his radio to the national weather service for an update. "Violent thunderstorms with increased lightning, are wreaking havoc across our nation, blocking the sun for the third week in a row," the weather forecaster said. "Temperatures will reach 115 degrees throughout much of this first week of December."

"Damn infernal heat," the trucker exclaimed!

The forecaster continued, "To determine the cause of these storms, we have asked Dr. Simon Foxworth of the Danforth Observatory in Nottingham, England to explain what is behind the turbulent weather."

"Our sun acts much like a giant nuclear reactor," Dr. Foxworth answered. "The sun's nuclear fusion creates solar flares, which are violent discharges of mass from the Sun's outer atmosphere. When solar flares are powerful enough, they pummel the magnetic field, which surrounds the earth, creating violent thunderstorms and electrical blackouts. They can also cause disruptions in phone service, television reception and orbiting satellites.

But there is an even greater cause for concern.

When an aging massive star ceases to generate energy through nuclear fusion, it undergoes a sudden gravitational collapse, which heats and expels the star's outer layers. This could cause an explosion on the sun's surface, driving a shock wave to sweep up an expanding shell of gas called a supernova remnant. It would only take 8 minutes for the remnant to reach the earth. The earth's surface would become a furnace with temperatures reaching in excess of 2,000 degrees."

All of a sudden, the lights went out in Christville, due to a cascading power failure sweeping across the nation. Power-transmission components were burning out throughout the nation's electric grids, due to a surge overload, brought about by intense solar disturbances.

The Mayor of Christville, Mack Edmond, a devoutly religious man, was admittedly frightened for the first time in his self-absorbed life. As he gazed skyward, he trembled to see the moon's bright yellow light metamorphosed into a dark blood red color. He remembered a passage of scripture in revelation, which had mentioned that this would be a sign of the end time.

He called for an emergency prayer meeting to be held at the church later that night. With the power and phones out, the mayor walked over to Clancy's Diner and asked the truck drivers, if they would be willing to drive up and down the streets of Christville, using their loudspeaker systems to announce the meeting.

Later that night, John Atkins showed up at the meeting to find the townspeople of Christville frightened and huddled together, waiting for some word of encouragement. As the mayor walked up to the podium, the room became deathly silent. Fumbling for a moment, he addressed the congregation and said, "I'm going to let the good pastor do what he's been paid to do and provide a little comfort to you folks".

Reverend Sinaught had been the pastor of The Church of Christville for over twenty years. He would often use big intellectual words and long-winded elaborations on religious doctrine, so the congregation would admire his religious knowledge and keep him on salary.

"My dear children, do not fear," he said with a condescending tone. "The good Lord will not allow anything to happen to the righteous".

Suddenly, as he spoke, the earth shook with a powerful earthquake, which rocked the foundation of the entire planet. The sun's helium had just ignited with an explosive flash, sending a large fragment of the star's mass hurtling toward earth.

The force of the blast shattered the large neoclassic stained glass window, located directly behind the pulpit, which showed Michael the Archangel throwing Lucifer out of heaven. The stained glass had been reduced to thousands of glass specks, which reflected the frequent lightning bursts, as they cascaded downward, causing a multi-color light show effect.

However, a shard of glass, showing the menacing face of Satan, the only piece of glass that was not completely shattered, fell with the sharp side pointing down and lodged in the skull of Pastor Sinaught as he was standing behind the pulpit. He fell as if in slow motion, to the left of the podium hitting the stage hard with his face toward the congregation. The smiling face of Satan in the stained glass remnant, was illuminated every few seconds, back lighted by the flickering lightning bursts, now pouring through the hole in the window where the stained glass used to be.

The horror-stricken mayor cried out in fear as he fell to his knees beside the dead pastor. Immediately, the people of Christville ran forward to the front of the church and joined him in prayer. They prayed louder and more fervently than they had ever prayed before.

Over the last several minutes, John Atkins had been thinking about his sister, who had mysteriously disappeared a month earlier. She had walked into her bedroom followed by her husband only a couple of seconds later to discover she had vanished. It was now beginning to make sense to him. Revelations…the end of time…people missing! Well…John was comforted by the thought that his sister was in a better place and safe. That was all he could ask for, not being a spiritual man himself.

As the people of Christville prayed …they worried whether or not God would hear their prayers…if they would actually get through to Him…with only 3 minutes remaining.

Find more by Mark Edgemon in the Author Index.

Comment on this story in the Aphelion Forum

Return to Aphelion's Index page.