The Fourth Trumpet by Theresa Jenner Garrido

suddenly, and the earth ceased to tremble, she opened her eyes. The thing was not standing over her. Instead, she looked up through a canopy of interlacing oak branches at a blue sky, dotted with puffy, white clouds. Hope surging, she rolled over, got to her hands and knees and stood.
    And there it was.
    The beast.
    The monster.
    For some reason, it had stopped about three yards away. Nostrils flaring, ears back, pawing the dirt with one hoof, it stared at her with dark, soulless eyes.
    Fear paralyzed Andrea. She didn’t know what to do. Turn and walk slowly away? Face it and wave her arms wildly in an attempt to startle it into running in the opposite direction? She hadn’t a clue how to handle this situation. Never dreamed she’d ever be in a dilemma like this. Had to be a bad dream.
    No, a nightmare.
    “Berry,” she whispered. “Berry, please…”
    Then the beast lowered its huge, shaggy head.
    It was coming for her, and no flailing of arms on her part was going to thwart it.
    * * * *
     
    “Andrea. Andrea, my dear, wake up.”
    Andrea rolled onto her back and opened her eyes. A dark-skinned man was leaning over her—one hand brushing the hair away from her perspiring face. She screamed.
    “No, child. You are all right. You are safe. It is I, Eleazar. You remember me—the old pastor who came to your doorstep for help. Yes?”
    Andrea blinked several times and sat up. It all came back to her. She wasn’t in the woods being attacked by It . She was lying in her own living room, in the dark, with people she hadn’t known thirty-six hours ago. But she was safe.
    “I’m-I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I was having a nightmare.”
    “Yes, and by the sounds of it, a humdinger,” the man chuckled quietly. “You must not worry, Andrea. We are in God’s hands.”
    Andrea looked away in embarrassment. “Right.”
    The old man took her chin in one hand and gently forced her to look at him. “Everything will be all right. You just have faith.”
    “I don’t mean to be rude, Eleazar. You’re a nice man, but…”
    “But you find this old man a bit trying.”
    Andrea shrugged and almost kept herself from sneering. Almost. “Well, let’s just put it this way, I don’t mind being stuck in a never-ending night, without my family, with neighbors lying dead down the road, a young man missing—no, make that two young men missing, not to mention an innocent dog—and a girl who could give birth at any moment and, oh, never mind! What do I know?”
    The older man nodded. “Yes, I can see how it may appear. That the very fabric of time and space has been ripped in two. However, sometimes what we mistake for utter evil may be a blessing in disguise.”
    “Sure. A blessing took my mother away from me when I was practically a baby. Another blessing took my Dad when I was fourteen. And now this ? This end-of-the- world blessing? Give me a break.”
    Andrea’s hands fumbled with the zipper—desperate to get out of the sleeping bag. The zipper stuck, and she yanked on it with savage frustration. Overwhelmed, she gave up and burst into tears. Wracking sobs tore at her insides. She tried to stifle them, but couldn’t. She and Carrie could share a room in the local asylum.
    Eleazar wrapped his thin arms around her and held her without saying a word. He let her cry out years of bottled-up anger and disappointment and despair. When she’d cried all the tears left in her, Andrea settled for an occasional hiccup. Her face was still pressed against the old pastor’s shirt; she couldn’t look up—didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes. She’d never been so embarrassed. She’d acted like a baby—or worse, a neurotic woman like Carrie. The thought-comparison made her cringe in mortification.
    Satisfied that she’d settled down, Eleazar released her from his comforting embrace. He held her out at arm’s length and studied her flushed face and swollen eyes with sympathy. “There, that was good. You got it all out. Now you