The Works of Mark EdgemonTHE TRIBULATION: BLOOD MOON RISING
The Works of Mark Edgemon from All-Creatures.org

Mark Edgemon has been writing for 30 years. He writes and publishes short stories, articles, poetry and scripts, as well as, produces audio comedy productions for over 700 radio stations nationwide.

Contact Mark through his website, Creator and the Catalyst.

THE TRIBULATION: BLOOD MOON RISING

The sun could not be seen; neither the moon nor the stars, only darkness could be felt enveloping the earth. The earth still had power, but only for a few hours more and then that too would be gone.

The rain was hammering the windshield of the old rig of trucker John Loner, as he was coming off of I-75, approaching the outskirts of Christville, Tennessee. He could see nothing outside of his rig, except for the rain hitting the glass of his windshield.

As he turned off of the exit, he pulled into Clancy’s Diner as he had many times before and parked on the perimeter of the parking lot, while waiting for the rain to let up. He tuned his radio to the national weather service and leaned back into his black leather seat while he listened for an update on the weather. He was tired of the rain. It was ruining his business. You can’t drive if you can’t see.

“Violent thunderstorms with dangerous lightning are wreaking havoc across the United States, blocking the sun for the third week in a row,” the weather forecaster announced. “Temperatures will reach 115 degrees throughout much of this first week in December.”

“Damn infernal heat,” the trucker exclaimed!

“To determine the cause of these storms,” the weather announcer continued, “We have asked Dr. Simon Foxworth of the Danforth Observatory to explain what is behind this turbulent weather.”

“Our sun acts much like a giant nuclear reactor,” Dr. Foxworth answered.

“The nuclear fusion of the sun creates coronal mass ejections or solar flares, which are violent discharges of mass from the sun's outer atmosphere. When powerful solar flares near the earth, they can buffet earth's surrounding magnetic field. The cosmic collision generates huge amounts of electricity, which can cause overloads throughout the electrical grids of the world’s power companies, causing electrical blackouts, as well as disruptions in phone service, television reception and orbiting satellites.

“Why do I feel that I’m waiting for the really bad news,” the radio weather announcer remarked?

“You have reason for apprehension,” Dr. Foxworth continued.

“We all do pal,” John exclaimed under his breath, impatient for the rain to let up.

At that moment, the streetlights of Christville and the neon sign at Clancy’s diner began to flicker, which startled John, who was becoming increasingly more nervous, while listening to the disturbing weather reports.

“As the sun begins to generate less energy through nuclear fusion,” Dr. Foxworth went on, “it’s undergoing a gravitational collapse, which is causing it to heat and expel its outer layers.

This can 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 take only 8 minutes for the remnant to reach the earth.”

Without warning, the power went out at the radio station that was broadcasting the weather report and all John could get across the radio dial was static. Within seconds, the streetlights and the neon sign at Clancy’s Diner also went out.

Now this had him spooked! Moments later, he saw dimly lit silhouettes of people walking about in the diner carrying flashlights. He leaned forward straining to see what was happening, when suddenly he heard a loud knocking on his driver side window. He turned his head left to see a short, balding man continuing to knock on his window in the rain.

John rolled down his window and yelled, “What?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you. My name is Mack Bankston, the mayor of Christville,” the mayor said hoping to get the assistance he needed. “But you can call me Macky.”

“Well, what can I do for you…Macky,” the trucker said with a note of sarcasm in his voice.

The mayor continued, “I hate to bother you, but I’m asking several of the truckers at this truck stop, if they would help us out and drive up and down the streets of our town, announcing through their loud speakers, that there will be a town meeting in the church tonight at 8 o’clock. We have no way of getting the word out with the power outage. Even our cell phones won’t work.”

“What’s with the street lights?” the trucker exclaimed. “When will the power be back on?”

“I don’t know any more than you do,” the mayor replied. “Except that the national weather bureau said we’re being hit by a giant solar flare and our atmosphere is taking a beating. I’m sure they’ll be back on soon.”

The mayor did not want to alarm the trucker, but he knew more than he was telling him. The national weather bureau also announced that the power outage was nationwide. America had been thrown back into the dark ages by this single solar incident and it would take days to assess the damage and begin repairs.

The world’s six major solar observatories throughout the planet began to monitor the sun 24 hours a day.

The U. S. Military had gone on high alert. With the plasma from the solar flares buffeting the earth’s atmosphere, the military’s equipment was blind and the U. S. was now more vulnerable to nuclear attack.

The truckers gathered together inside the diner to divide up the streets where they would broadcast, while the mayor walked back home to prepare for that night’s meeting. The rain was letting up, but without a flashlight it was pitch black and hard to see. He looked up to see if he could see the moon through the clouds and what he saw turned his blood cold.

As the mayor gazed skyward, he trembled to see the moon’s bright yellow light metamorphosed into the color of dark blood. He remembered a passage of scripture that had mentioned this would be a sign of the end of time. He was scared. He considered himself a religious man, but at the moment, he had nothing to cling to for comfort. The air felt different, like it was missing something. He felt alone.

O harvest moon, full of blood, a sore on the face of the evening sky. Do you not tell the time of our destruction? Will you not come back to us, bright, full and gold? Or is the harvest now of souls!

Later that night, John Loner 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 glad all you folks showed up tonight,” the mayor said nervously not knowing what to say next. “I know you are all wondering what is happening with the power outage and when you can expect to have your power restored. Well, I’m not sure of that myself. It is my understanding this problem is nationwide, but as soon as we know something, we’ll let you know.

But for right now, I’m going to let the good pastor do what he’s been paid to do and provide a little comfort to you folks”. The mayor extended his arm toward the pastor, gesturing for him to come up to the podium. As the pastor took the mayor’s place at the podium, the mayor walked off the stage and took a seat in the congregation.

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. Pastor Sinaught was pious and proud. He felt that he had his congregation in the palm of his hand. He steered away from sermons about God and talked more on superficial conversations without substance.

As he began to speak to the congregation, he felt that once again he would lead the sheep exactly where he wanted them to go. Calming fears was one of his specialties.

“My dear children, do not fear,” he said with a condescending tone. “The good Lord will not allow anything to happen to the righteous and to those who belong to Him”.

Suddenly, the earth shook with a loud and powerful earthquake, which rocked the foundation of the entire planet. The sun’s helium had ignited an explosion on the far eastside of the sun, sending a core fragment of the sun’s mass hurtling toward earth. The abrupt loss of the sun’s matter changed the gravitational force of the planet, causing the earth to revolve backwards and to the northwest, throwing the earth off its axis and on an entirely new orbit. The church now tilted slightly toward the left, which caused the items in the church to move in that direction.

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 outside, as they cascaded downward, causing a multi-color light show effect.

However, a shard of glass, showing the smiling face of Satan, the only piece of glass that was not completely shattered, fell with the sharp side pointing downward 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 mayor, horror-stricken, cried out in fear as he fell to his knees beside the dead pastor. The people of Christville ran forward to the front of the church and fell to their knees, joining him in prayer. They prayed louder and more fervently than they had ever prayed before.

As they prayed, the townsfolk of Christville worried whether or not God would hear their prayers…if they would actually get through to Him…before all hell broke loose.

The dawn of a new day must first come after the destruction of the previous day. Life is given birth from death, as the seed must die to start anew!

The core fragment of the sun was beginning to burn up as it continued to plummet toward earth’s atmosphere. Minutes later, the inhabitants of earth saw the ball of fire heading toward them and a resolution of death came over those who watched.

Much of the gaseous ball of fire burned up in the earth’s atmosphere during it’s descent, leaving the remaining remnant approximately twice the size of the state of Texas in diameter. As the super nova fragment entered the earth’s inner atmosphere, there were only seconds to determine geographically where it was going to hit. There was no time to escape.

The earth shook as it was once again knocked further out of it’s orbit when the sun’s remnant hit Greenland dead center causing a powerful quake at approximately 72º 00' N. latitude and 40º 00' E. longitude at 8:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. The searing ball of fire burned into the earth’s crust and continued to do so for hours. When the remnant had dissipated, it had created a chasm through to the center of the earth.

Black smoke billowed out of the abyss, darkening the sky where Greenland once was. Every living thing perished within a 500-mile radius of the pit. The waters that were flooding in from the coasts of Greenland evaporated in seconds, once they came in contact with the searing heat rising out of the new access to the earth’s core.

A substance like molten lava began shooting out of the pit like a lava geyser, spilling over onto the rim of the landmass surrounding the hole and into the surrounding bodies of water. Unlike molten lava, the searing ooze that poured out of the pit was somehow poisonous and every living thing died that came in contact with it.

The impact of the super nova remnant created earthquakes on the ocean floor, which generated tsunamis throughout the world, submerging coastlines of continents under hundreds of feet of water, killing the inhabitants who had no time to escape.

Scientists at the Danforth Observatory named the super nova remnant “Wormwood” which was the cause of the poisoning of the waters hundreds of miles around Greenland. Everything that lived in these contaminated waters was killed from the poison spewing from the pit, including all living creatures and plant life. The waters were undrinkable, even after purification. In time, the affected waters looked as if they had been turned to blood.

The people of Christville had stopped praying when the great earthquake hit, which shook their town, and the church they were meeting at. Part of the roof collapsed above the podium, killing all of the townspeople who were praying underneath it at the time, including the mayor. John Loner was safe in a protected pocket of the back corner of the church, when a large piece of lumber fell in front of him, which held the support beam of the roof, keeping it from collapsing.

As he pushed his way out of the rubble, he could see nothing, nothing at all. The atmosphere was even blacker than before. He had a penlight in his pocket, which he used to find the front exit. Having stepped outside, he realized for the first time that these may be the prophecies spoken of in the Book of Revelations. He wasn’t particularly scared. He believed what would happen, would happen.

He stumbled as he walked down the main street of Christville heading back to his rig, which was parked at Clancy’s Diner. There had been an explosion at the gas station; the gas in the tanks underneath the pumps had ignited, turning the pumps into a large torch that lit up the darkness, which filled the environment around the station. John realized he wouldn’t be able to gas up his rig before he left Christville and wondered how much fuel he had left.

As John walked down the sidewalk, he observed that the town looked like a scene from the apocalypse. A frightened woman ran down the street while holding a baby wrapped in a blanket, clutched in her grasp. John looked upwards towards the sky beholding the dark red color of the full moon. Whatever would happen next, he knew things would never be the same, the way they were before. He also knew that the worst was yet to come.

Copyright © 2007 Mark Edgemon

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