Shelter: Book 2, A Long Days Night (41 page)

Millions around the world called in sick while those in America considered what they would do about their Thanksgiving Day plans. The media in America was being run by second and third string holiday staff who weren’t investigative reporters, they read the scripts which came from the major news reporting organizations, many were also short staffed due to the sudden attack of sore throats. As such, none of the world’s news organizations mentioned the mystery illness, they had more important stories to report on. In America, there was the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade with the first transgender Santa Claus and the multiple football games which took up all of the time the news programs had. Many local news programs didn’t even broadcast that Thursday evening in order to provide additional time for the various football games. Many news directors thought, “Who wants to hear about people calling in sick on a holiday weekend?” The story was buried and not reported.

Restaurant owners and managers were overwhelmed by the number of voice mails left by their workers calling in sick.  They started calling every employee to find replacements for the afternoon and evening shift’s full bookings. They were surprised to learn many of their other workers weren’t feeling well either, some restaurants were faced with the unpleasant and money losing task of informing their customers they had to close for the holiday due to a lack of workers. Some hired new part time staff so they could serve their customers. Many diners were inconvenienced and upset they were going to have to make alternative plans on Thanksgiving Day, an almost impossible task in normal times, with many restaurants closing, it was impossible to rebook. Supermarkets which remained open on Thanksgiving saw a run on turkeys with demand for prepared dinners skyrocket.

Hospital emergency room managers showed up for their morning shift at 7 AM to see lines of people waiting to be seen in the ER, they were shocked to learn of a high number of doctors, nurses and other support staff who themselves had called in sick. They contacted their human resource department to call in everyone possible. An hour later, HR reported they were only able to recall 10% of the vacationing staff. The lines of people continued to grow outside every ER. Some hospitals watched in shock as people lined up around the hospital waiting for their chance at seeing a doctor. The ER administrators watching the lines of people grow felt fear and ice form in their stomachs, they didn’t know what was going on, clearly they’d missed something, but what? They tried contacting the CDC to learn if there had been a high priority warning they’d missed. They quickly learned the CDC was also operating on a holiday shift with only 10% of their people in house and they hadn’t issued any special notices or updates. The CDC was as surprised as the calling ERs about the number of people claiming similar symptoms. The CDC was quickly overwhelmed with calls, faxes and emails for help. Their incoming phone lines became overloaded and jammed. Due to the limited number of support personal on site, the phone lines remained jammed, no one was able to reach anyone at the CDC until midday Friday when additional emergency phones could be installed. Some hospital administrators even tried calling the US Military biological labs at Fort Detrick in rural Maryland. Fort Detrick didn’t have any information of any biological attack against America, or, none they could share, they referred the calls back to the CDC whose switchboard was already overloaded and shut down. Local medical systems were on their own for the first thirty-six hours of whatever was affecting people.

The first time the average person knew there was a potential problem was when they noticed different people reporting on their morning news and entertainment programs, most of the usual anchors and actors had called in sick. The new faces were quickly forgotten about when the viewers remembered it was a holiday. Many laughed saying they had the holiday flu, they would be fine and back to work come Monday morning. Family members noticed some of their loved ones had a serious sore throat, one that caused their throats to swell making talking almost impossible. The most serious cases caused the swelling of the patient’s throat, blocking breathing. Those affected grabbed their throats as their eyes widened in shock, they tried their swelling throats blocked all movement of air. Unless someone was with the affected and trained in performing an emergency tracheotomy, the most severe cases died within three minutes.  Hospital ERs and Immediate Medical Centers also took note that many of their patients couldn’t speak to explain what their symptoms were. They could only point to their throats or write their symptoms which caused additional delays as many local medical facilities were short on translators.  People arrived at hospitals and Immediate Medical Centers, to find long lines of sick people waiting to be seen by a doctor or nurse. Many decided they didn’t want to spend their holiday waiting in a line, they turned around, returning home figuring they would see how they felt in twenty-four hours. Many of the affected didn’t survive twenty-four hours.

The ER staffs had never seen so many people with similar symptoms in such a short period of time. They were initially confused. To be sure what they were dealing with, they ordered numerous tests performed on the patients. While the tests were being run, the patients filled every available bed, chair and couch the hospital’s had. The test labs, also operating with a reduced number of technicians due to the holiday and staff who called in sick were all overwhelmed with blood work marked URGENT. The labs called in every technician and staff they could reach, they too quickly discovered that many of their critical people were ill and couldn’t report to work. The lack of the skilled staff in the labs delayed the test results for many hours. Some of the patients had to wait over eight hours for their results. The impact of the delays meant hospitals had no place to hold the ill who kept arriving. Some setup emergency tents, others used covered parking for triage while many simply turned the sick away explaining they had no beds and the wait time to see anyone exceeded twelve hours. For the first time in American history, hospitals had to place “CLOSED” signs on their doors. Riots broke out, people with limited transportation refused to leave, they demanded treatment Parents carried their sick children in their arms pounding on locked doors. Police arrived to try to love the ill to other locations. Some cities turned to school buses to transport the sick to quickly set up triage centers. As the moon rose on Thanksgiving Day, the world knew something was seriously wrong, none knew what was causing the mass illness.

Local 911 systems were quickly overloaded and started to fail, EMS staffs had constantly updating waiting lists of calls, police and fire departments attempted to offer assistance where they could. In the confusion, people with critical life-threatening issues like heart attacks, strokes, serious wounds, third degree burns from deep fryers which overflowed and gun shots often died because they couldn’t get through to a 911 operator or there was a long delay with EMS responding. Everyone who called 911 said theirs was a critical call, 911 supervisors quickly tried to prioritize the calls. This effort failed when the town attorneys pointed out that as no state of emergency had been declared, not sending a response to an emergency call could leave the town open to legal liability. The lawyers told the 911 operators to respond to the calls for help in the order they were received. Local blogs questioned if the lack of a response was a hidden racial issue since many of the inner cities had to wait for EMS. It wasn’t mentioned that many in the inner cities weren’t the first to call for help. Opening the ‘race door’ quickly brought the local attorney’s back to work to review the situation. Late Thursday afternoon many local emergency responders were ordered to split their responders so the inner cities had a percentage of responders based on the population of the town. This resulted in additional delays. Some people called 911 asking for help with preparing a turkey, some called asking for help in dinner reservations, some called to complain about local issues. The emergency response call centers quickly became overloaded resulting in riots breaking out. First responders were attacked because people thought they weren’t being responsive to the community’s calls for help. People marched and attacked police and fire department buildings because they were ‘racist’ and uncaring to the needs of the community.

The doctors and medical staff trying to assist the ill were surprised when the test results started coming in, all of the ill had similar results. Very high white cell count, swollen glands in their necks and a low-grade fever of 101 degrees. Except for the inability to speak due to the swollen glands, the other symptoms closely matched Strep. Most of the medical staff thought they were seeing a huge spike of strep infections. An unprecedented spike, but one they knew how to handle. They didn’t have a minute to try and figure out why there was a sudden spike of a very common illness, or why people with nothing in common shared the same symptoms. The doctors responded with what they knew would work to cure Strep. They prescribed antibiotics in such quantities that the drug stores which were open on the holiday quickly ran out of the most prescribed drugs, the drug stores attempted to contact the overworked ER to get suggestions for backup antibiotics. Since everyone in the ERs were being pressed into providing patient care, the drug store’s calls went to filled voice mail boxes, many of the ill went home without their antibiotics. They thought this too was caused by either race or economic issues, the rich got the medicine while the poor had to wait. As word spread that local drug stores weren’t filling prescriptions, mobs turned on the local small and chain stores, they attacked the stores, usually setting them on fire. Supermarkets which also had pharmacies in them were also attacked, people broke into the closed pharmacies taking whatever drugs they found, others used the riots to loot food and liquor from the supermarkets. Fire and police were diverted from assisting EMS to riot control and putting out fires. At midnight Thursday the number of supermarkets and pharmacies that  had been broken into and looted was so high, many decided to remain closed for the balance of the weekend blocking people from acquiring medications and food. The store closings increased the local tensions, the normal ‘race baiters’ used the store closings to push their agendas claiming the closings were race based. When store owners and managers responded they couldn’t open until they’d had the recent damage repaired and insurance reviews, the ‘race baiters’ said they should have given the people the medications they needed for free, withholding the required medications was racist. The media refused to cover the store’s side of the story which was, they’d run out of the prescribed medications and no one at the doctors or ER returned their calls. Smoke hung over many of the world’s cities and towns. In many countries, the health care network completely failed, they were overwhelmed, fearing the worse, they closed. Hundreds of millions went to bed too sick to speak.

Those who were able to be seen by a doctor and had their prescriptions filled went home knowing that Strep meant they would be well in a few days. The only issue that concerned most of the ill was they were going to have to spend the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend in bed and they were going to miss the Black Friday sales. Some decided to hell with not infecting anyone else, they weren’t going to miss the special sales on Black Friday, which started mid-Thursday afternoon. Stores were less crowded than the previous year, but still full of shoppers when they opened at noon on Thanksgiving Day.

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Doctor James Blacke, the Director of the CDC, took the long weekend off to spend time with his family. He’s avoided watching the news nor has he answered his cell phone. He is enjoying a quiet Saturday night with his family when his cell and home phones both ring at the same time. His wife, Linda frowns at him, “Please don’t tell me this is another holiday weekend that’s going to be ruined. Why are both of your phones ringing at the same time?”

“Honey, I don’t know who is calling or what they want, I’ll answer my cell, can you please answer the home line? I left instructions with the office only to contact me if the world was ending. I’m going to fire someone first thing Monday morning.”

Linda nods, “Hello this is the Blacke’s home, Linda speaking, who’s calling?” Said Linda in her best administrative assistant voice.

She hears her husband say, “Doctor Blacke,”

“Mrs. Blacke, this is the White House operator is your husband there?” Linda’s face turns white, she motions with her free hand to her husband, she’s waving him to come take the phone. She hears him say, “I haven’t heard anything about….” He looks over towards his wife who’s motioning him to her. He says, “Can you please hold one minute, I have another call on my other line. Yes, I understand this is a critical issue, I have your number, I promise I’ll call you back. Yes, yes, in five minutes. I promise, no more than five minutes.”

His eyes question his wife who’s shaking holding the handset towards him.

He takes the phone from his wife, who’s face has lost all color, he’s wondering what happened to her when he hears, “Doctor Blacke?”

“Yes, this is he.”

“This is the White House switchboard, please hold for the President.” He looks at his wife nodding yes with all of the color draining from his face. He quickly wonders why the President is calling him, he’s questioning what he missed or if something terrible just happened.