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Jeff drove his GTR to Emory University Hospital. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to visit Samarra, but maybe he could learn something. He walked into the main hospital lobby, noting that specific “hospital smell” that was so unique to the medical industry, and to the admissions desk, dodging on the way the older gentleman in the Medline wheel chair.
“Ello dere,” the young woman greeted Jeff.
“Could you tell me what room Samarra Russell is in? She was admitted yesterday.” Jeff waited for the receptionist to check her monitor, smiling at her accent.
“Sir, we don’t shew a Samarra Russell as de patient. Could she be registered unner some udder name?”
The receptionist, a young black woman with a Jamaican accent, was courteous; and as she spoke, Jeff enjoyed the lyrical sounds of her Jamaican language, a mixture of English, Spanish, Portuguese and a little Creole. The Jamaican native language was referred to as patois.
“She may be in isolation. Could you check intensive care?” Jeff persisted, knowing from Jack Russell’s voice mail that she was apparently in grave shape.
“Whey yuh name? I will check.” Jeff recognized her meaning.
“I’m Jeffrey Ross, a close family friend of Samarra and Senator Russell. Senator Russell called yesterday and said she was in isolation.”
The receptionist checked further, finally telling Jeff that Samara Russell was in isolation in the Communicable Disease ICU.
“She have no visitors sir, not even de husband at dis time.” “Can I go to the nurse’s station to see if they can give me any information on her status?”
“No sir, but you can phone de nurse’s station from de red phone over dere.” The Jamaican pointed to the far-right side of the lobby. “Let de nurse know you are a family friend.”
Jack walked across the immaculate floor, a floor continuously mopped and buffed like all hospital floors, and picked up the red phone. He waited for a nurse to pick up, which happened after about ten rings.
“Can I help you?” The nurse’s voice was polite but brief and to the point. ICU nurses were always busy and didn’t have time for chit-chat.
“Yes maam, I am calling about a close friend, Samarra Russell.”
“She’s in isolation sir. No visitors.”
“Could you give me an update on Samarra’s status?” Jeff tried not to be too pushy.
“Not really sir, since you aren’t family. I can tell you that at this point there is no diagnosis. She is still comatose. You didn’t hear that from me.”
Jeff thanked the ICU nurse for the limited info, hung up the red phone and left through the front entrance of the hospital.
What’s going on he wondered to himself. Melissa’s new husband was missing and presumed dead from the plane crash. Samarra, one of his closest friends, was in isolation with some unknown disease; and Jeff figured she probably caught something from her work at CDC. He had just seen her a couple of days before, twice; and she seemed at that time to be perfectly normal, no signs of any type of illness.
Jeff went back to his home in Sugarloaf and called his doctor. Just to be on the safe side, he would go in and have Dr. Harrison check him thoroughly, head-to-toe, just to make sure the exotic disease fairy had not visited him too. Dr. Nancy Harrison had been his doctor for several years, and at one time had been the mayor of Duluth. After talking with her and scheduling an appointment for later in the afternoon, he called Sheri and Bennett in Raleigh to check on Audry.
Chuck Hutz, a.k.a. Upchuck, a.k.a. Chuck the Putz, hated test-drives; but he knew that came with the territory. In spite of Chuck’s dismal personality, and dismal was a compliment, he could sure sell those cars. Test drives were a necessary part of the sale.
“There’s never been a car I cain’t sell,” he would tell anyone who listened. As a matter of fact, Chuck wasn’t too concerned about anything except women and booze, and that included the solar storm that was headed to Raleigh and elsewhere, just a few million miles away.
Chuck needed the money and knew he would make the sell. One needs money if one has a cocaine and alcohol habit. He made good money, but his alcohol-thing and his coke-thing were very expensive, not to mention chasing all those skirts around the nightlife of Raleigh and Chapel Hill. He needed the money, but he didn’t need what happened next.
Solar activity peaks every eleven years, the peak having much sunspot activity and the non-peak having almost none. So far activity had been slow for the past two years, much slower than normal. Low sunspot activity was not unheard of but was not common by any means. Many astrophysicists believed that increased sunspot activity leads to climate warming, and low activity leads to climate cooling. Sunspot activity generated more heat radiation, so it only made sense: More solar radiation equals a warmer Earth.
Earth had experienced a prolonged spell of minimum sunspot activity from the 1600s to the mid-1700s. This period of extremely low sunspot activity became known as the Maunder Minimum, named after British astronomer Edward Maunder and was later described as the Little Ice Age. The Little Ice Age followed an extraordinary three hundred year warm spell starting in 1400 and lasting to the advent of the Little Ice Age.
It was during the latter part of the Little Ice Age that the Revolutionary War was fought, George Washington losing many of his soldiers to the extreme cold. There were instances of soldiers on guard duty who froze to death during their watch. The Rhine River in France remained frozen until mid-summer.
Though not a Maunder Minimum, the first decade of the new millennium, from 2001-2010 experienced incredibly little sunspot activity, leading many scientists to believe that global warming was a thing of the past. That was not to be however, with sunspot activity beginning to increase rapidly, almost exponentially, after 2010.
Chuck had no idea that this cycle happened, nor did he really care, had never even heard of an eleven-year solar cycle. He just knew it was the hottest weather he could ever remember. He didn’t keep up with the news, except business news and anything to do with scantily clad women. He did visit his favorite news site on the internet each day, the Barbra Streisand web page.
Just the night before Chuck had visited his favorite watering hole in Cary, a suburb of Raleigh. He was a regular at, Murphy’s Pub.
“I love Barbara Streisand. She really tells it like it is. I bet she can hold her breath a long time, know what I mean? She’s really got some big uns. What a pair of lungs! No wonder she can sing so good.”
The bartender at Murphy’s Pub listened to Chuck, like he did almost every night, and corrected Upchuck, letting him know that Barbra would be really ticked off if she heard him call her Barbara.
“She changed her name intentionally from Barbara to Barbra, you know.” The bartender told Chuck that repeatedly; but after a couple of vodkas, Chuck’s memory was non-existent. “By the way, what happened to your hand?”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about? Are you crazy? What’s the damn difference in Barbra and Barbara? You are way too stupid Dean. But I like ya’!” Upchuck slurred and turned up his vodka. “She will always be Barbara to me.” He had unusual people skills.
“Plus, that broad’s a sharp cookie, yessirree,” he repeated to the bartender, and reiterated, “She sings good too!” He was a democrat because she was, or at least he thought so.
“If Barbara’s not a democrat, I’ll be whatever she is. I’m not really too political. All I know is that broad’s a hot commodity!” “So what happened to your hand?” The bartender repeated the question, knowing in his own mind that Barbra would not like being called a broad any more than she liked being called Barbara. Chuck did have his idiosyncrasies, but the bartender never remembered Chuck with a gauze J&J bandage wrapped around his palm. He noted the drainage appearing through the bandage.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I burned my hand yesterday when I grabbed the steering wheel before I let the car cool down.” Chuck subconsciously flexed his fingers as best he could, wincing at the pain.
“Uh oh,” the bartender replied. “Burns can be painful.”
“No shellac, Sherlock.” Chuck remarked. “You must be a detective.”
“I am, and I noticed you’re cleaning up your language a bit.”
The bartender laughed and had cautioned Chuck many times over the previous months about keeping his language in check. Dean thought it a step in the right direction that Chuck substituted shellac for the s-word he normally used, abundantly.
“Yeah, my neighbor Ophelia has been helping me with that. She said I sounded like the old Eddie Murphy. That’s why I like Murphy’s Pub so much.” Chuck decided that if they had named the pub Barbara’s Place, he would have just moved into the bar. This morning, another hot and sunny day, Chuck left Crabtree Valley Mall dressed in his usual seersucker attire and headed north on Creedmoor Road. He planned to meet the potential car-buyer at the buyer’s home on Amstel Way, one of the many ways that Chuck managed to sell so many cars. He would drive to the customer, just to make it convenient.
Today, even with the extreme heat, Chuck would don his seersucker sport coat. Chuck didn’t want to gross anyone out with his constantly oozing, infected back from the waxing he had the previous week, to please his on-and-off girlfriend.
After a couple of miles, Chuck was pleased that he had all green lights so far. He usually hit every red light that was available on whatever route he took. Passing through the intersection of Creedmoor and W. Millbrook Road, Chuck glanced in his rear-view mirror in time to see the terrible collision. He figured someone must have run the red light. He didn’t stop to help, thinking people should pay attention or not drive.
While Chuck was heading north on Creedmoor Road in the new Crown Victoria, a forty-five foot Blue Bird Wanderlodge, the crème de la crème of recreational vehicles, was heading east on Lynn Road toward Creedmoor Road where Sheri and Bennett would turn their Wanderlodge north, on their way to Kerr Lake where they were taking eight year old Audry camping for a few days, if one could call a Wanderlodge camping.
Kerr Lake, located on the Virginia-North Carolina border, opened in 1952 for the production of electricity and flood control and was Virginia’s largest reservoir. Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kerr Lake’s Kimball Point was an excellent camping location with easy access from I-85. Kerr Lake, with 850 miles of shoreline, was one of the Southeast’s largest reservoirs.
The 2006 Wanderlodge was manufactured by Blue Bird Manufacturing in Ft. Valley, Georgia, until Blue Bird was purchased by Complete Coach Works in 2007. The Wanderlodge, at forty-five feet, was a Ritz Carlton on wheels, the ride described as floating on the clouds. Equipped with cameras galore, outfitted in the finest silk and leather, the Wanderlodge came with granite countertops, king-size bed and hot tub, not exactly what most would call camping.
Sheri and Bennett were also aware, like Chuck, of all the green lights coming their way, but not aware that TACS, The Army of the Christian Soldier, had hacked into the North Carolina Department of Transportation computer systems. TACS had invaded DOT computer systems in several states and now controlled traffic flow, or maybe the term should be uncontrolled.
As a result of the TACS takeover of the N.C. DOT Traffic Control System, all traffic signals in the Raleigh area had been set on constant green, just as Chuck began his trek up Creedmoor Road.
Sheri and Bennett’s RV approached the intersection of Lynn Road and Creedmoor Road at 50 M.P.H. when Bennett noticed that he had a green light, even though all the intersecting traffic appeared to be running their red light. Bennett slowed the 50,000-pound Wanderlodge, a whiff of apprehension in the air.
“Why are you slowing down?” Sheri questioned.
“Not sure what’s going on. We have a green light, but look at all the traffic on Creedmoor. They aren’t stopping for the red light.”
It was unfortunate that the driver of the candy-apple red, Cadillac CTS in front of the Kichlers had not been as astute as Bennett and proceeded to the intersection at the legal speed of fifty-five, never slowing.
The Cadillac T-boned the black, Crown Victoria. Chuck never knew what happened as his driver’s side door airbag inflated, saving his life, barely. “Oh my God,” was all Sheri could say, watching the collision just in front of them, glad they had slowed. The Wanderlodge would’ve made mincemeat of the Ford, and she said a silent prayer of thanks.
Bennett was the first on the scene, followed by Sheri, with Audry staying in the Wanderlodge. Sheri did not want her second cousin seeing the carnage.
Chuck Putz had been ejected out the sunroof of the Crown Victoria, not one to wear a seat belt, and was lying in the middle of Creedmoor Road, battered, bloodied and weaving in-and-out of consciousness.
Sirens of the already approaching emergency vehicles in the distance, Sheri cautiously rolled Chuck over and placed a piece of the Crown Victoria’s bumper that had been ripped off by the CTS, under Chucks neck, hoping the arched neck would provide an open airway. She began CPR, her extensive medical training a plus in the current situation.
Chuck’s compound fracture of the femur was hard to miss, sticking nearly six inches out of his left thigh. Sheri was glad he lost consciousness, knowing that the pain would be excruciating had he been awake, and applied a tourniquet to stop the extensive arterial bleeding.
Arterial bleeding, unlike it’s cousin, venous bleeding, could be detected by the way the blood spurted from the wound with each beat of the heart rather than the smooth flow of venous bleeding; and the arterial blood was a much brighter red because of the oxygen it transported to other parts of the body. Sheri wondered if the man would live through the day, their camping vacation now dampered, possibly cancelled, by the morning’s experiences so far.
Bennett rushed to the red Cadillac, but the female driver was out of the car, apparently uninjured except for the burns she received from the Cadillac’s exploding airbags. The Cadillac driver refused medical attention. Her only concern was the driver she thought she had killed, and she wondered if she ran the red light.