by J. L. ROBB
“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.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightening and an earthquake.” Revelation 8:5
Suddenly things seem to be happening very fast in Jeff’s life.
Melissa returned from Puerto Rico after having no luck finding any trace of her new husband, Robert Jeremias, after his plane of missionaries crashed off Vieques.
The night was young, so Jeff stopped by Park Place Café for a glass of merlot, hoping that Abe the Bartender would be working tonight, and he was.
“What’s up man?” Abe asked Jeff, having not seen him in a couple of weeks. “I heard about your heroics at Georgia State last week, saving a damsel in distress.”
“Yeah, right, except I could not save the damsel. There was nothing I could do. She was dead before she fell to the floor.” This still weighed heavily on Jeff’s mind.
“So I read, but you did risk your life to save her. Not just anyone would do that.”
Abe noted the depression of Jeff’s mood and tried to pump him up a little. He wasn’t surprised at Jeff’s heroics, it seemed to be in his genetic makeup; and Abe considered this. Maybe heroics was in the DNA. There were those who helped, those who didn’t help but called 911 and those that chose to do absolutely nothing. Abe set a glass of slightly chilled Duckhorn on the bar; and Jeff took a bigger-than-normal taste, almost a gulp.
“What’s the matter Jeff? How’s Melissa? You seem down.” Abe tried a diversion.
“Well, she’s not good and just returned from Puerto Rico. She’s really down-in-the-dumps.”
“How could she be down after spending time in the Islands, mon?” Abe threw a little Jamaican lingo into the conversation. “Was she vacationing with the new hubby?”
Abe knew that Jeff still had strong feelings for his ex and thought this may be why he seemed so, well, not Jeffish as usual.
“I’m sorry Abe. I guess you didn’t hear.”
“Hear what?”
“Robert, the new hubby, is missing. I almost feel responsible. His plane crashed after the eruption of Soufriére Hills Volcano on Montserrat. Some of the reports were of lightning storms like the Islanders had never seen before. It’s hard to believe that Melissa and I used to vacation there. It was a nice resort island with a lot of European visitors.”
“Uh oh, what did you do? Why would you feel responsible? Maybe he decided marriage wasn’t for him.” Abe didn’t think this was true but felt it might put a lift to Jeff’s spirits.
“No, no. You don’t understand. Robert would not do that. He is Mr. Christianity, he really is. You can’t help but like the guy.”
This was something new, Abe thought. Jeff had spoken very little of Robert Jeremias, good or bad.
“So why do you feel responsible? Did you have something to do with the volcano erupting?” Abe teased just a little but could see Jeff’s concern.
“No. I had nothing to do with that. It’s just that sometimes I have these premonitions, and then they happen. Jeff explained his dream about the car-train wreck to Abe.
“So what happened Jeff?” Abe asked Jeff for the second time.
“Apparently Robert was on a missionary trip. He was visiting Haiti and maybe another island. His plane flew through a cloud of volcanic ash from the eruption and disappeared. They found the plane just off Vieques, in shallow water.
“Melissa called when she got back to Atlanta and said that officials had rescued the pilot and co-pilot, but no Robert. Melissa hoped for the best, that maybe he made it the short distance to shore. At first there were no survivors except the pilot and co-pilot, but other survivors did make it to shore. I think they found eleven of the missionaries, but all the others were nowhere to be found.” Jeff was morose, his mood darkening since he walked through the front door of Park Place.
“Wow, that’s a bad story man. How is Melissa taking it?”
“Not well, as you can expect. He was everything I wasn’t, went to church regularly, liked all her boring friends; and Audry seemed to love Robert. Give me another merlot.”
Jeff consumed the first merlot in record time, but Abe noticed a slight lift in Jeff’s demeanor. The wine was helping.
“Maybe he was raptured?” Abe questioned.
“What do you mean raptured?” Abe was surprised that Jeff, being such an intelligent sort of guy, did not know what the rapture was.
“Rapture! The belief by Christians that before the end comes, they will just disappear from the face of the planet and join Christ in the air, in the clouds. Poof! Just like that.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. That sounds pretty magical to me, like so much of those Biblical teachings. And besides, if that was true, Melissa wouldn’t still be here; because she’s in church when the doors open. She would have certainly been raptured too.”
“Well, I said it was a belief; and I’m sure many Christians that think they will be raptured, will not be.”
“Why not?”
Jeff thought about the news reports of disappearing people, not just in the United States but apparently nearly every continent. If there was a rapture, it seemed to Jeff that with all the Christians in the world there would be a lot more disappearances.
“Aren’t there about two billion Christians in the world? It is the world’s largest religion you know.”
Abe did know. As a matter of fact, Abe knew a lot more about Christianity than most people. He and Jeff had never broached the subject of religion, or religions. That didn’t happen much betwe
en a bartender and patrons.
Abe knew that most of his patrons were conservative. Who else would come to a bar with all the flat screens on news channels, rather than golf, baseball and football? The Park Place crowd was different, more learned maybe.
Abe knew because it, religion, was one of his many interests, along with Biblical archeology. It hadn’t always been; but as Abe approached adulthood many years earlier, his interest was piqued when he read a book about Biblical prophecy, The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. Abe began an endeavor that most never experience, an intense thirst to discover the truth, whatever that may be.
“Besides Abe, suppose this rapture had occurred, wouldn’t all the missionaries have been raptured too? I mean if missionaries don’t make the cut, who does?” Jeff did not believe in supernaturality, including a rapture.
“Jeff,” Abe began, “I don’t know if there is a rapture or not. I do know there are about two billion Christians in the world, at least there are two billion who lay claim to being Christian. If they all disappeared at the same time, that would mean that all two billion talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk of the teachings of Jesus. We both know that’s not true. It’s easy to claim to be Christian, but it’s not easy to be Christian. Many have a real problem believing that Jesus walked on water, because it defies the laws of physics. All of his miracles defied logic and rationality. God is about supernatural, not natural.”
“So you believe that Jesus was an actual person, that he really did exist?” Jeff had never seen any proof of such.
“Ever hear of a guy named Josephus?” Abe queried. This may be an opening for Jeff, like the opening that Hal Lindsey offered Abe so many years earlier.
“Sure. He married the virgin Mary, didn’t he?” Jeff smirked just a little, the wine now easing his depressed mood, knowing that a woman couldn’t have a kid if she didn’t have sex. How could anyone think otherwise, for Pete’s sake?
“Nope, that was Joseph, Mr. Mensa. Josephus lived in the first century when Christianity consisted mostly of Jews. He was possibly, the most famous historian of all time. After watching the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by the Roman Empire, Josephus, a Jew, defected to Rome and was hired by Roman Emperor Vespasian to write a history of the Jews, which he did.
“Josephus mentioned Jesus, James and John the Baptist in his history, Antiquities of the Jews. So yes, I do believe that Jesus really did exist. Don’t you?” Jeff didn’t, but he was impressed with Abe’s historical knowledge.
“Not really. Seems more like legend to me.” Jeff had a lot of difficulty with this particular subject, though he didn’t know quite why. The story was just too fantastic to be believable.
Abe saw the Breaking News Alert on FOX, grabbed the remote and turned the volume up. Shep was the anchor; and Abe liked Shep, though no one compared to the beautiful Condi Zimmerman of local channel five and FOX fame.
“Folks, the reports of missing people keep coming in, and now this. It just gets more-and-more bizarre. Apparently there has been a dolphin attack. Yep, you heard that right. Several surfers off the coast of South Africa have been attacked and killed, can you believe that, by a school of dolphins.
“The surfers, about thirty of them, were rammed by the derelict dolphins, causing serious injuries to seven surfers and killing two. Then in London, there have been attacks by domestic cats. Kitties? Biting the hand that feeds them?
“We report, you decide.”
“Oh, and then there’s this.” Shep continued. “There has been a small earthquake in Manhattan, 4.2 on the Richter scale, actually shook the studio during an interview with Barry Linn as you can see from this video. An earthquake in New York? What in the world is going on? Wonder what PETA will have to say about dolphin and kitty attacks? Let’s go live to Greta who has been researching the attacks. Greta?”
“Thanks Shep. Yes, as though terrorist attacks were not enough, now we have to worry about domestic and wild animal attacks. I have seen Associated Press reports of domesticated animal attacks all over the globe. In China, a man named Cho Xian, hope I pronounced that correctly, was attacked and seriously injured by two of his pet cockatoos. Apparently the cockatoos had the run of the house; and when Cho came home from work, the two birds attacked, one biting off part of Mr. Xian’s ear lobe and the other attacked his eyes. He is now blind in one eye.
“Shep, is this strange or what?”
“It is Greta. Things are getting stranger by the moment, as parts of China and Russia have experienced widespread power outages, possibly an effect of the recent solar activity.”
Abe turned the volume down. Jeff continued listening to Shep and Greta and wondered the same. What in the world was going on?
***
“So what do you want to do about the grids?” Admiral Justin McLemore directed the question to Sheryl Lasseter, director of the United States Public Relations Liaison in Washington. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“How much time do we have Justin?”
“I would say ten, eleven o’clock tonight, maybe a little earlier to be on the safe side. Better to err on the side of caution.”
Sheryl agreed that caution should be the word of the day but decided to wait a few hours to see the effect of the solar activity on Europe, as Earth continued its 1000+ mph spin. The European electrical grids were better shielded than those of Asia and Russia, so maybe they would maintain.
“Justin, I’m not a hundred percent sure this is the correct advice; but I see no need to panic the population if it turns out to be unnecessary. The satellites have been directed away from the sun; and so far, all satellite shielding appears to be functioning properly. We haven’t lost a single one. That’s good news.”
“What about the public? Should we make a Public Service announcement?”
The Admiral didn’t want to pressure Sheryl, as she could be a little temperamental at times; but at the same time, if all the power suddenly went out, that in itself could cause panic in the streets, possibly a lot of accidents too as traffic signals ceased to work.
“Let’s wait on full disclosure. We will broadcast a few Public Service announcements and wait to see how Europe responds. At least the PSAs will give notice.”
Sheryl directed Admiral McLemore to notify authorities with all national electric companies, putting them on standby just in case.
“Tell the electric companies to be prepared on short notice; and when they tell you how great their shielding is, pay them no-nevermind. We do not want a Canadian experience.”
Sheryl was referring to the last major outage in Canada in 1985 after a solar storm bombarded the planet with electromagnetic energy. All Canadian power grids were damaged and remained inoperable for more than a week.
“We cannot have that happen!”
***
At 9:30, the keyboardist at Park Place, returning from his brief break, cranked up the music. It was Georgia night; and the last set ended with Georgia On My Mind, preceded by The Devil Went Down to Georgia. This set started with The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia, and they did. The TV went blank, lights went out, the night was black, as dark as death itself.
No one had a clue as to what was going on, at least almost no one except for those who were news-attentive. The government hierarchy knew, Sheryl and The Admiral knew; and they knew they had waited too late to send notification to the national electric company network. There was not enough time to make further PSAs. Sheryl and the Admiral had to do whatever was necessary. By taking this drastic measure, they hoped to save the national power grids and the American public from a lot of misery. The power would be out for twelve hours, maybe less.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals!” Ezekiel 14:21
This has been one heck of a week, Jeff thought, a week like he had never
experienced. The electricity had remained off for about twenty-four hours a few days ago when all the power went out. Since newspapers could not be printed and television and radio stations could report the news only sporadically, powered by emergency generators, most in the United States still had no clue as to what happened, did not know the electrical grids had been powered down, intentionally.
Had it not been for Jeff’s interest in amateur radio (HAM), he would have remained among the uninformed. Powering up the battery operated ham radio, Jeff soon made contact with a young man in Canada who informed him that the government most likely authorized the disconnect of the grid system, just as Canada had done. Even backup generators could be affected.
Today Jeff planned to stop by Starbucks at Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody, a routine he rarely missed; before buying Mother’s Day flowers to leave on his Mom’s grave, the second year that Jeff had done so since his Mom died from colon cancer. He did miss her tremendously, even missed her harping on Jeff to “get some religion Sonny Boy. It’ll change your life, maybe get Melissa back,” and Jeff was glad that his Mom didn’t know that Melissa wasn’t coming back and had married someone else.
When the power did finally come back, a good thing because Jeff had to gas up his GTR with the spare tank of lawnmower fuel he always kept in his garage since all the gas pumps were down, he learned more about the power outage and why it happened.
Chinese and Russian grids were still down, crispy-fried when the solar storm collided with Earth’s magnetic field, and would probably remain down for at least another week. Jeff wondered what those poor people were doing, not able to pump gas, freeze or cool food and beer, especially the beer. Jeff knew the Russians were not only consumers of large quantities of vodka but also loved their Baltica beer. There was even a large beer display at the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St. Petersburg. Jeff had toured the museum when he had toured Russia with Melissa a few years earlier.