Shelter: Book 2, A Long Days Night

by Ira Tabankin

  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.

  @@@@@

  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.”

  “Th
is 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.

  “Good evening Mr. President, no, you’re not interrupting anything. How can I be of service?” At the same time his front doorbell rings, Linda opens the door to see three men standing on their door stoop dressed in dark suits, she also notices their street is blocked by state police cars with their roof mounted lights flashing. “Mrs. Blacke?”

  “Yes?”

  “Madam, I’m secret service special agent Jason Burke, I’m been tasked to escort your husband, I assume he’s currently on the telephone with the President?”

  “Yes, he is, would you like to come in?”

  “Thank you Mrs. Blacke.” She sees four SWAT officers in front of her house holding M16s, she also hears a helicopter circling over her home.

  The secret service agents enter the foyer, they hear, “Yes, Mr. President, I haven’t seen any new reports on any Strep breakout. No, sir, I haven’t had my television on, I haven’t seen any news reports of riots and burning pharmacies. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I understand, Sir, now?”

  Special Agent Burke lifts his left hand to his mouth where there’s a hidden microphone, “Confirm, target acquired. Repeat, target acquired, proceed to land and move to phase 2.”

  He hears a voice in his earbud respond, “Roger, landing now.”

  The President is saying, “Doctor Blacke, I would like you here in DC as soon as possible, the secret service agents at your home will escort you to a US Army Blackhawk helicopter which should be landing on your street, I’d like you to be on it with a packed bag in less than five minutes. The bird will take you to Hartsfield where there is an Air Force plane waiting to bring you to Andrews.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be on the bird in five.” He hangs up the phone, Agent Burke says, “Sir, I’ve been tasked to ensure you are on the Blackhawk and the plane to D.C., if you don’t mind I’ll escort you upstairs.”

  Doctor Blacke is already taking the stairs two at a time while Special Agent Burke is still talking, he hears his wife say, “Jim, what in the world is going on?”

  “Honey, I’m sorry, I have to go, we have a fire alert.” His wife knew fire alert was code for a very serious situation, possibly a biological attack. As she’s thinking about the words ‘fire alert’ a black helicopter is landing on their street, four armed Special Forces soldiers exit, they’re dressed in all black MOPP 4 biological suits, each is holding a silenced M4 automatic assault rifle. The troops ensure no neighbors or press interferes with their orders to bring Doctor Blacke to Washington. His wife sees the MOPP suits and starts shaking. Jim returns downstairs, she points at the soldiers asking, “Is it that bad?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t checked the office email for the previous four days, I wanted a nice quiet holiday weekend with just us. I’ve got to hurry, there’s jet waiting for me at the airport.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Stay here, I’ll get a message to you. I love you.”

  Her words, I love you too are drowned out by the Blackhawk, which is already rising before her husband even closed the side door. Special Agent Burke says, “Mrs. Blacke, will you please pack a bag and come with us?”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To a safe location.”

  “Okay.”

  Neighbors watching the scene take place on their street become very worried, all know who Doctor Blacke is. If their street was blocked and the Doctor taken away in a black helicopter with armed soldiers, something very bad is happening. Many of the Doctor’s neighbors being packing to get away from Atlanta.

  Look for “Silent Death” coming to Amazon Kindle October 2015.

  Copyright July 2015,

  Ira J. Tabankin, Knoxville, TN

  “In the Year 2050.”

  America’s Religious Civil War

  Ira Tabankin

  1st edition

  Copyright April 2015

  Ira J. Tabankin

  Sterling, VA 20166

  Author’s note

  This story started with me reading a report, “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050. Why Muslims Are Rising Fastest and the Unaffiliated Are Shrinking as a Share of the World’s Population” By the Pew Research Center. They published a chart which woke me up.

  When I read the report, I thought, what would happen if a radical Muslim were elected President? How would one get elected? Since the report made it’s projections in the year 2050, I choose that as the year to place this story. Rather than turn the story into a “SciFi” story focusing on the advances in technology in the next 35 years, I made very few technology projections used in the 2050s, I wanted the story to be about the ‘What if’ America elected a Muslim as President. Since technology plays a major role in our lives, I did project that our televisions and gaming will be replaced by 3D hologram technology which seems to be a logical step in entertainment devices. If anyone is interested, the full report is available online at the Pew Research Center site.

  Prologue

  In the year 2050 the world’s population based on their religious beliefs is almost equally split between Christianity and Islam. The high birth rate in the Islamic communities combined with the much lower birthrate in the world’s other religions laid the foundation for Islam to pass Christianity by the early 2050’s. By 2050, Islam controlled most of the European Union states. The shift started in the late 1990s when Europe’s open borders allowed large numbers of Muslims to relocate to Europe. Instead of assimilating into the existing population the Islamic immigrants separated themselves into Islamic ghettos where they followed their own religious practices and practiced Sharia law. Infidels were not welcome in these ghettos, the Muslim immigrants patrolled their ghettos which over time grew to encompass entire cities with their own government, police, and fire departments. In order to be competitive local banks were forced to follow Sharia law, which outlawed charging interest. The Islamic cities formed roaming religious police, who were called the Mutaween. Their job was to ensure the population followed Sharia law. The Mutaween ensured that no remnants of the ‘Western lifestyle’ remained to pollute the followers of Allah. With high birth rates and high immigration, the size of the Islamic cities and communities grew, as did their political power. The Muslim’s voted in an Islamic block. By 2020, they were running their own candidates for public offices. In 2022, Muslims held the offices of the mayor of London, Birmingham, Paris, Berlin, and over 200 smaller towns and cities. In 2050, the Islamic Caliphate covered all of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, (with the exception of South Africa which after numerous race wars was a devastated battlefield of ruined cities) and a third of Eastern Russia. The Chinese Communist Party fought the expression of all religions. Australia and New Zealand outlawed radical Islam, they deported any who tried to overthrow their democratic lifestyle.

  In 2015, America and Iran signed the worst treaty in modern history. America agreed to release all economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran agreeing to not produce a nuclear weapon for ten years. Iran laughed at America’s stupidity in accepting their word without a backup plan. Iranians chanted “Death to America”, “Death to Israel.” While their government signed a worthless treaty.

  In 2020, Iran launched a surprise attack against Israel with fifty nuclear-armed missiles. Forty-six of the missiles were intercepted by Israel’s expanded anti-missile shield. Israel struck back at Iran with 200 nuclear missiles and bombs. Tehran was struck by six 350KT Israeli weapons, the capital of Iran was vaporized, the city ceased to exist. Saudi Arabia also struck Iran using their secretly developed nuclear weapons. Israel had secretly traded nuclear assistance to Saudi Arabia in exchange for them attacking Iran if Iran struck Israel first. Israel also shared with Saudi Arabia various technologies. The two entered into
an uneasy peace. Saudi Arabia knew Israel had enough weapons to destroy the Kingdom if Saudi Arabia moved against Israel. With the destruction of Iran, Saudi Arabia took its place as the leader of the Islamic world. The King of Saudi Arabia signed an agreement with Israel agreeing to recognize the right of Israel to exist in exchange for Israel agreeing not to attack Saudi Arabia. The treaty allowed Saudi to focus on converting the rest of the world to follow Allah. The Saudi Royals knew that when Islam was strong enough, they would return to the question of Israel.