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This novel by Bob Moore,is about 60% finished. It’sabout ones experience of theend of time, ostensibly from an evangelicalChristian perspective, but accountedfor from an apostates’ perspective.PURE HELLCopyright 2007IN MY DREAM I hear a spine-tingling shout—not unlike a prolonged, “Yee—haw!”It wakes me up. Maybe it wasn’t my dream. The digital clock is dark; the first glimmersof morning are outside my window. It’s “The Lord’s Day”, as I sometimes used to denoteSundays when I wanted to evince ancient authorities.The power’s off—not unusual out here on our Missouri Rural Electric Coop, but notnormal for a perfectly clear day. My wife, Carolyn, is gone to Baylingham, Washingtonfor her son’s graduation—I’ve got too much painting work to go with her. Maybe I won’t be able to work after all if the power’s off where I’ve been working. I use my airlesssprayer to do the walls and ceilings in a new house, and then use sheetrock taper’s stiltsto cut-in the tops of the walls with the wall colors. It’s really fast. If I don’t have thehouse ready for the trim work to go in on Wednesday, maybe it can be blamed on a power failure.I walk out to the garden to look around at how things are coming along. Maybe I’lldiscover some connection with the apparent shout-noise and the power outage. Thecherry tomato plants really look good. Just nine days ago, for the earliest time ever, we
 
harvested our first ripe tomato—June first, my birthday! We posted photos on the blogsite of us holding the prize with boastful smiles. The kids and my brothers and sister have already posted return comments.What a pristine sky! I jerk insanely when I hear from behind me, a sound sort of like a bottle rocket. It really shakes me. I think I’m seeing stars. First there is a burning fusesound, then a swoosh, then a scream—more of a “yee-haw” but a little different than theone that woke me. I turn in time to see another something, fizzling in the dirt.Something like tree roots just under the ground, sizzling; a little smoke puffing up hereand there through the dirt, then a coalescing of a light or of a fiery spark which leapsskyward; glowing and expanding into further indistinguishable details; changing like atransformer toy as it converges—almost as fast as lightening—on a brilliant, glisteningmeteor of some sort. It’s traveling quickly from South to North, pretty high up, and I seeother streaks, faintly visible and also converging with it.I’m cowering on the ground between raised garden beds. I find that I’ve banged the back of my head on one of the tomato steaks, but it doesn’t seem too bad. “No one’s going to believe this!” My first reasonable rationale is to suspect some ground-to-cometlightening-like charge is being connected due to static charge buildups between themeteor or comet and the ground. I’ve never seen anything like it, but I have seen strongelectrical charges build up on antennas during dust storms. I wonder if this has anythingto do with the power outage?
 
Fumbling with the car radio, I find my station, and most others are off the air. Onestation apparently has power, but—I guess—it maybe has automatic backup power and is pumping out early Sunday morning programmed stuff. Starting to sweat, I find my cell phone connection is down. Unreasonable thoughts crowd in as I pick up the regular  phone line and find a dial tone. Who do I call? The power coop line is busy as is thestate troopers’. This might be bigger than I think. It would be interesting to know whoelse may have observed what I’d seen. How will the experts explain things?My interest is sharply focused by a second attempt on the car radio, which reveals astation, which has switched to the emergency broadcast system. I’ve never seen thisused, except on rare occasions for tornado warnings. Just as I thought: NOAAspokesmen are speculating that a meteor—in fact, radar has shown it is probably a large,unforeseen meteor shower—entering the earth’s atmosphere, unusually from the directionof the earth’s axis. It has somehow interfered with the operation of power plants andelectrical systems in the Eastern half of the country and seems to be spreading westward.The program breaks to another expert who—a little excitedly—theorizes that we mayactually be dealing with extra terrestrials. I don ’t believe it, but it’s unnerving. He goeson to say that evidence suggests that the ET’s may be tapping into resources and energyfrom our planet. The station quickly breaks back to the first spokesman. My heart feelsskittish as I ponder the earth/sky energy-connection that I had just witnessed.
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