Saving Medesha

by DK Land

  Harold continued in earnest, “That’s what I’m talking about, Mabel. I think it was about ten years ago… the summer after Jefferson graduated from pre-med. That was the summer he spent helping Preston at the clinic.”

  Unsure where he was going with this, Mabel replied, “Yes, I remember.” Then she said, “And, he was very good at it too!”

  “Well,” said Harold. “I’m sure that it was during that summer that Jefferson started formulating his ideas about this spirit stuff, and the after life, and that nonsense about proving where a person’s spirit or, what’s he call it, ‘life force’, goes after death.”

  “Hmmm,” said Mabel thoughtfully. “Yes… you’re probably right. So, what are you getting at?”

  “As you may recall,” he answered. “During that summer, it was very apparent that Jefferson and Preston had some kind of falling out. They seemed to have had a major disagreement and Jefferson left the clinic, and I don’t think the two of them have spoken to each other since then.”

  “You know? I think you might be right!” said Mabel.

  “I am absolutely right!” replied Harold. “Then it was later that same fall that Jefferson met with the city commission and offered to donate the land for the hospital and the equipment for the pathology lab. I think the only reason that Jefferson donated the land and the money, was to get back at Preston. I think he wanted, just out of spite, to see Preston’s clinic closed. Doesn’t that sound rather vindictive to you? I mean, gee cripe! The guy has an argument with somebody, and he spends an enormous amount of money just to get back at him by putting his clinic out of business. To top it all off, it was a free clinic! I don’t think that Preston ever charged anybody a single penny!”

  Mabel shook her head. “No! I can’t believe that Jefferson did all of that just out of spite. It just doesn’t seem to be his nature.”

  “Well,” replied Harold. “What other reason would he have for doing it? I’ve never heard anything bad about any of the Vandervorks, and Preston seems to be better than either his old man or his grandfather.”

  “Don’t you suppose that it could just be possible,” asked Mabel, “that Jefferson donated all that stuff out of kindness, and concern for the people of Medesha? I refuse to believe that he would try to put Preston’s clinic out of business merely out of spite.”

  “Oh, and another thing,” Harold said incredulously. “This is the other thing that bothers me about Jefferson, and makes me wonder about what really happened with the Sadler boy. Did you know? Shauni told me this herself. She was bragging about Jefferson as if he was some kind of hero or something.”

  Becoming impatient with him, Mabel said, “Harold! What are you talking about?”

  He began to whisper. “Shauni said that he spent more than four months, a few years ago, down on some island in the Caribbean working with some medical relief outfit, helping the poor.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she said with frustration. “Harold, I swear! Sometimes, you are such a redneck!”

  He continued whispering. “Redneck? Mabel! Listen! Shauni said he spent much of his free time studying Voodoo! Do you know that they sacrifice real people! Maybe that’s what Jefferson is doing up there on the other end of the lake.”

  She placed her hand on her forehead, and began to smile. “Harold, sometimes talking to you is like talking to a rusty gate. You make all kinds of noises, and I can’t understand a single thing you’re saying.”

  He smiled back at her. “You’re just too trusting of people, Mabel.”

  She grinned. “And you spend way too much time in the science fiction section at the library.”

  Chapter 4

  “Where did you get those three Electroencephalograph Machines, Gerard?” asked Jefferson.

  The two men were in the Pathology Lab working up new samples from the first six patients to be admitted with the strange flu-like disease. The first four young boys had already lapsed into coma, and only three of them had been able to be connected to EEGs for monitoring of their brain functions. Hospital equipment had been taxed to the limits, and the men were trying to decide what their next move should be.

  “That was a bit of a peculiar situation,” answered Gerard, as he continued studying a sample through one of the lab’s microscopes. “About four months ago, Dan received a call from Preston Vandervork…”

  “Preston Vandervork!” exclaimed Jefferson. “What did he want?”

  Gerard looked up from his scope and smiled wearily at Jefferson. “Yes, Jeffer. Preston Vandervork. We do talk to Preston on occasion, you know. Do you think that you should take a little break for a while? You seem to be getting kinda punchy.”

  Jefferson leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his eyes. “No, I’ll be okay, Gerard. I guess my spring is getting wound a little tight, what with all these resamples. Go ahead. What were you saying about Preston?”

  Gerard continued. “Anyway, like I said, Preston called Dan Roberts and asked him if the hospital could use a donation of three newly designed EEGs from Germany. Apparently, Preston had come up with a design for a machine, which had Internet capability, and he had commissioned this company in Germany to build it for him. He said it had just been certified for use in the U.S., and he felt it would be appropriate for Medesha Memorial to receive the very first ones.”

  Jefferson raised his eyebrows in amazement. “I see! If the machine can be connected to the Internet, then doctors could get remote consultations with other experts anywhere in the world.”

  “Exactly!” smiled Gerard.

  “Sounds like an excellent idea. Have you tried it yet?” asked Jefferson. “I mean the remote consultation aspect?”

  “No,” replied Gerard. “As yet, we’ve had no need for it. However, with what we’re experiencing with these kids, we just might be doing some Internet consultations.”

  Jefferson pushed his chair back, stood up and stretched. “You know, Gerard? I think we should take a ten minute break. I am getting a little punchy. You wouldn’t mind showing me one of those machines, would you?”

  Gerard smiled at Jefferson. “Great idea! If I sit here much longer, I’ll probably fall off my chair, hit my head on the corner of the desk, and you’ll have to use one of those machines on me.”

  Jefferson laughed. “I’m so stupefied right now, if I was hooked up to an EEG, it would probably read flatline.”

  The two men left the lab, and walked out into the corridor. The silence was deafening. There was nobody running up and down the halls, no phones ringing, nobody being paged over the hospital intercom system.

  Gerard looked questioningly at Jefferson. “What the heck is going on? Seems like we just walked into ‘The Twilight Zone’. Where is everybody?”

  Jefferson was feeling quite concerned. “I don’t have a clue. Do you suppose they’re having a meeting in the lounge, and we weren’t invited?”

  They walked down the corridor in the direction of the staff lounge, looking into doorways along the way. At the far end of the hallway, which ran the full length of the hospital, they suddenly noticed a nurse ducking into a patient’s room. The men started walking swiftly in the nurse’s direction.

  As they neared the room that the nurse had walked into, a voice called to them from a room they had just passed. “Dr. Slocum! Jeffer! Could you come in here please?”

  Both of them recognized Shauni’s voice. “What’s going on, Shauni?” asked Jefferson, as they entered the room.

  She seemed very frustrated. “Oh, it’s freaky! Suddenly, we started getting buzzers going off in seven different rooms. The patients in every one of those rooms became comatose at almost the exact same time!”

  “Holy cow,” exclaimed Gerard. “How can that be? Has every patient had his vitals taken?”

  “Yes! I believe so!” replied Shauni. “Dr. Slocum, this isn’t going to work the way we’re dealing with this.”

  “What do you mean, Shauni?” asked Gerard.

  In a rush of words, Shauni exclaimed, “W
e’ve got each patient isolated in single rooms, but it’s very apparent that every single one of them is infected with the very same malady. Doctor, there can’t be any way that one is going to infect the other. I know that the main wardroom is designed for twelve beds, but I think that we should take all fifteen patients into the ward where they can be monitored more closely.” Then she pleaded, “We’ve got the complete hospital staff working on this thing, Doctor, and we still don’t have enough people to maintain constant vigil for every patient. If all the patients were in one room, we could keep closer watch on them, and some of the nurses have been here for nearly twenty-four hours with hardly any rest.”

  Gerard nodded his head in approval. “I think you’re absolutely right, Shauni. Where is Dr. Roberts? I think we should discuss your idea immediately.”

  “I believe he’s down in room one seventeen,” replied Shauni with a sigh of relief.

  As he turned to leave, Gerard said, “Okay, Shauni, if this patient is stable, why don’t you and Jefferson go to the ward and start preparing it for a fifteen bed invasion.”

  “Right, Doctor. We’ll have it ready shortly,” she said.

  Thirty minutes later, all fifteen patients were squeezed into the large ward at the back of the hospital, next to the morgue and ER. There were seven beds on one side of the room, and eight on the other.

  The head nurse, Cindy, was conferring with Dan Roberts. “All the patient’s congestion has completely cleared up, Doctor. It appears that they could all be taken off of oxygen.”

  “Okay, Cindy,” he replied. “Let’s do it, but let’s take them off, one at a time. Take a mask off, check vitals and blood oxygen levels, and watch for any distress. If things seem to be going okay, then you can continue on down the line with each patient.”

  “Right, Doctor,” Cindy said.

  “Oh, another thing, Cindy,” said Dr. Roberts. “With all the patients situated in one room, I think that we could get by now with half staff for a while. Why don’t we let four of the nurses take eight or nine hours to go home and get some rest. The four that remain on duty can split up the shift. Two can remain here in the ward, while the other two take some down time in the lounge.”

  Cindy could barely manage a smile. “That’d be great, Dr. Roberts.”

  Dan Roberts added wearily, “I’m really sorry, Cindy, but all staff will have to remain on call until this crises has passed.”

  Hesitatingly, Cindy placed her hand on his shoulder. “Every one of us understands the situation, Doctor. We’re all more than willing to do what ever is necessary.”

  At the opposite end of the ward, Gerard and Jefferson were inspecting one of the new Electroencephalograph Machines. “I really have to admit that Preston did quite a job with these things,” commented Jefferson.

  “He really did,” said Gerard. “These things are top of the line. I couldn’t even begin to guess how much the hospital would have had to shell out if he hadn’t donated them.”

  “How does it connect to the Internet?” Jefferson inquired.

  Gerard pointed out a small connection on the backside of the machine. “This little socket is where the phone line connects, and over here on the side is a red light that glows when an Internet transfer is taking place.”

  Jefferson smiled approvingly. “Amazing!”

  “Oh!” said Gerard. “That reminds me! Cindy, could you make sure these EEGs get hooked up to the phone jacks, please?”

  “Sure, Dr. Slocum,” she replied, as she walked over and opened a small storage compartment on the front of one of the machines. “The phone cords are right in here.”

  Jefferson commented. “Well, now that I know where the cords are, I guess I can do the connections, Cindy. Why don’t you go back to what you were doing, and I’ll connect the machines.”

  She looked up, and smiled. “Thank you, Jefferson.”

  Gerard looked a little embarrassed. “Hmm! I guess if I had asked, I could have found out myself, where the cords were. I’ll get the other two, Jefferson.”

  As he was hooking up the last machine, Gerard mentioned to Jefferson, “With the machines connected to the phone jacks, we can view the readouts while we’re sitting in the Doctor’s Lounge.”

  “Alright!” smiled Jefferson. “Let’s go get some coffee while we keep an eye on these EEGs.”

  As they were leaving the ward, Gerard said, “I wish we had more machines. We’ve got eleven patients in comas, and only three machines.”

  Jefferson answered, “I’ve got two EEGs at home in my lab, Gerard. They’re not as sophisticated as these are, but they’re good machines. If you’d like, I could run home and get them. They’re portable machines, so both of them would fit in my Jeep.”

  Gratefully, Gerard said, “That would help so much if you’d do that, Jefferson.”

  “It’s no problem,” smiled Jefferson. “I should be back within an hour. If you see Shauni, would you mind telling her where I went, and when I should be back?”

  “Will do, Buddy!” replied Gerard.

  Half an hour after Jefferson had left the hospital, Shauni and Audrey were the only two remaining nurses on duty in the ward. Each nurse would systematically start at one end of the room, and work her way down to the other end, taking vital signs and talking encouragingly to each of their young charges.

  Eleven of their patients were now comatose, but they were treated the same as those that were lucid. Both women were so engrossed in their work that neither of them noticed when the Internet Connection lights became illuminated simultaneously on the sides of all three EEG machines. The lights remained on for no more than sixty seconds, and all three went off at the same time. Within seconds from when the lights on the machines flickered out, warning buzzers on all three machines began to blare. Both nurses were at the opposite end of the room when the noise began. They each froze with sudden fear.

  Shauni said, “Oh, my God! No!” She looked over at Audrey. “Somebody’s flatlining!”

  They ran the length of the room, and Audrey said with fear in her voice, “Shauni! All three of them are flatlining! That can’t be possible!”

  “Quick, Audrey!” ordered Shauni. “Go get Dr. Slocum! I’ll check vitals!”

  Audrey ran out of the room and down the corridor toward the Doctor’s Lounge. Shauni remained with the three boys that were suddenly showing no sign of brain activity. She checked pulses and pupil dilation.

  Audrey burst into the Doctors Lounge, and yelled, “Doctor Slocum! We need…”

  The room was empty and completely quiet, except for a quiet snoring sound. On a cot in the corner of the room, Dr. Dan Roberts was lying sound asleep. She rushed over to the cot, and gently shook him.

  “Doctor Roberts!” she said with fear in her voice. “Doctor Roberts, I’m sorry, but we need you immediately!”

  The doctor slowly rose to a sitting position on the side of the cot, and looked up at the nurse as if he didn’t recognize her. “What… what’s going…Oh! Audrey! What’s the problem?” he said as he rubbed his eyes.

  “I am so sorry Doctor Roberts, but we’ve got a really bad situation in the ward right now, and I didn’t see Doctor Slocum anyplace…”

  As Dan Roberts began to clear the sleep from his head, he interrupted, “Audrey! That’s fine. Just tell me what the problem is.”

  She exclaimed, “Doctor, just a minute ago, all three of the EEGs began buzzing at the same time! Shauni and I checked them, and all three patients were flatlining!” She put her hands to her face, and said with a quivering voice, “Doctor, three of those little boys just went brain dead at the same time!”

  He jumped unsteadily to his feet, and said, “They’re flatlining? I wasn’t expecting things to go that far! This can’t be happening!” As he headed for the door to the lounge, he asked, “Did you say you couldn’t find Doctor Slocum?”

  “Yes, Doctor. I don’t know where he is,” she answered.

  “I think he’s in Pathology. Would you page him to the ward, ple
ase?”

  “Yes, Doctor. Right away.”

  As Audrey was reaching for the phone to punch the button for the intercom, Dan Roberts noticed her hands shaking. “Audrey,” he said consolingly. “We’ve got to settle down. Every one of us is going to need to keep our wits about us, or we won’t be any help for those young kids at all.”

  Within a few minutes, all personnel, including the two nurses that had been sleeping in the nurse’s lounge, were attending to their duties in the ward. Both doctors had confirmed that the first three patients that had become comatose were indeed, brain dead. They had just completed attaching the EEG electrodes to the next three patients. Doctor’s Roberts and Slocum were quietly conferring in the corner of the room.

  “Dan, this is becoming overwhelming,” said Gerard. “We’re just not equipped for what’s happening here.”

  Dan rubbed his forehead with his hand. “I know, Gerard. I don’t have a clue where to go from here. We’ve done everything we know, and nothing seems to help. These kids are all regressing at the same rate. I’m quite sure that, within a few more hours, these other four will lapse into comas also.”

  Gerard nodded in agreement. “Yes! And then what do we do? I imagine that, by this time tomorrow, we’ll have fifteen brain dead children, because of this strange disease, and one dead from drowning.” He looked directly into Dr. Roberts’ eyes. “Dan, this town won’t be able to stand such a huge loss as this. Hell! I don’t think ANY of us could stand this kind of loss.”

  While the doctors were discussing their horribly hopeless situation, and the nurses were busy tending to the needs of their patients, the three Internet connection lights on the EEG machines came on again. They remained on for a few seconds, and went out. The next sounds were the loud mocking sounds of the EEGs, indicating another triple set of flatlines. Everyone rushed to the bedsides of the three monitored patients.