Charlie's Requiem Novella (3 page)

Chapter 4

Day 1

Charlie

Kirkman Specialty Clinic

“Charlie, how are you doing?” he said. He reached out and gave me a warm and firm handshake.

“Really well, thanks.” I genuinely replied.

“Can you believe that darned football team?” he started.

The good doctor loved to talk football. Every Florida grad does. They breathe the game; and it is football season. That means a lot of football conversation. I had never been a big football fan; at least I hadn’t until I went to college in the SEC. Football is its own religion in the south. You either love SEC football, or you don’t open your mouth. It’s November, and Florida was having a tough year. They won the games they should have won, but seemed to find ways to lose games they had a chance of winning. It was frustrating, given the recent success they had under their last head coach when they had won two national championships during his tenure. Now they just tried to remain relevant in the tough SEC eastern division. At least they weren’t in the western division where at least three or four of the teams had a serious chance at the national title. Because of this, I found that reading the local Orlando sports page was as much a part of my job as the research summaries the company had us learn. I read both with a passion, even reading the entire research papers rather than just the summaries so I could speak frankly with my clients.

“So Charlie,” he started. “I’ve read a bit about your company’s new drug. The results are promising.”

I knew he was testing me. He did that to everyone around him. It’s what makes him great at his profession, and what I personally loved about him. He didn’t tolerate bullshit. When other reps came in and touted their drug, he usually saw through the flaws and called them on it. My drugs worked and were relatively inexpensive. He cared about both of those things. That’s how he built his reputation. He cares.

“To date, and with the limited size of the sample group, I’d say we are on the right track!” I replied.

Our new drug, Cardaxapro, was a cardiac medication that had the added benefit of decreasing the uptake of Calcium in the cardiac muscle. In other words, it increased the blood flow to the heart muscle while it effectively controlled blood pressure as a side effect. Two or three medications were taken care of by our one pill.

“I would caution you that the sample size of the experimental group was not as large as I would have liked,” I added.

“I agree,” he said with a smile. I scored a point or two with him, recognizing that drug companies often cherry picked their results to put a good spin on their product. I read the study and saw the limited size of the group.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “The study was done at John’s Hopkins. The cardiology team there doesn’t have an agenda. Besides, 340 patients tested is enough.”

“What I liked is that their data collection was over a five-year period.” I added.

Dr. Kramer smiled. He took the pamphlet but never bothered to read it. He knew it was full of a lot of fluff and pretty pictures. The real meat of the studies he had reviewed in his professional journals like
Cardiology
and
The New England Journal of Medicine
. He knew that the drug would work.

I was about to bring up some of the side effect when the lights briefly flickered and the office went quiet. Everything shut down. The lights, the computers and the air conditioner just stopped working.

“Crap,” I blurted. “Another brown out?”

Dr. Kramer went to his office door and called down the hall.

“Peg,” he shouted. “Hit the backup generator and call the power company!”

A few moments later, the power returned and everything came back to life. I felt the breeze of the air conditioner on my face. Life was good again.

We began to discuss the drug when we were interrupted by Peg. She knocked on the door and entered immediately.

“Dr. Kramer, we have a problem.”

“What is it?” he asked. “It seems that the generator is working, but we don’t actually have any procedures in place now, do we?” 

The practice had installed backup generators for just such an occasion. They routinely ran stress tests in the back rooms which required constant monitoring of the patient’s vital signs while they ran on a treadmill. Occasionally, they did a Thallium stress test that chemically stimulated the heart. These patients had a much more fragile profile and couldn’t walk a treadmill without a significant risk of an acute outcome. In other words, they could die if they exercised too much.

“No, doctor.” Peg replied. “It’s just that none of the phones work.”

“That’s strange,” he replied. “Then you can use my cell phone.”

“That’s what I mean,” she said with some concern. “The cell phones don’t work either. I mean they don’t work at all. They won’t even power up.”

“All of them?” he incredulously asked.

“None of ours at the front desk. And two patients said their phones are dead too.”

Dr. Kramer opened his desk drawer and took out his iPhone. He hit the power button but nothing happened. He grabbed a charger cord and plugged it into the wall outlet. After a minute, he tried to power the device up again while still attached to the wall outlet. Again nothing.

I pulled out my iPhone and I had the same problem. It was dead.

“What the hell,” he said.

I was in shock. I have never heard him say anything derogatory or mean about anything or anybody. Swearing was so out of the ordinary for him, I became concerned. So did Peg. She got a very bad look on her face.

Just then, a nurse came to the now open office door and peered in.

“Doctor Kramer,” she started. “I think something’s wrong outside.”

“What’s going on now, Janice?” he cautiously asked.

“My car died,” she replied.

“It won’t start?”

“No,” she said. “I mean it just died as I was driving out of the parking lot. Everything just went dead. It won’t even begin to crank when I push the start button. It’s like someone just took out the battery.”

“Where is it now?”

“Still sitting in the parking lot.” 

The three of us followed Janice out the front door. The backup generator was making quite the racket, but the din slowly dissipated as we left the front entrance. Janice’s car was at the far end of the parking lot, sitting in the exit lane.

I ran to my car and pushed the fob. Nothing. I hit button a second and third time; still nothing. I extracted the emergency key that was imbedded inside the fob and manually opened the door to the car and got in. I pushed the start button on the dashboard and was met with perfect silence. The car was dead, totally dead. I got out and looked over at Janice’s vehicle. The three of them just stood next to the dead automobile and stared out onto Kirkman road. The office sat on a six lane thoroughfare about a mile from Universal Studios. At this time of day, traffic was usually heavy. I followed their gaze and looked out of the parking lot and onto the busy street. Nothing was moving. Cars were pulled to the side of the road or sat dead in the middle of the heavily travelled street. People were out of their cars, holding their cell phones to their ears and trying to work the buttons. Frustration was already beginning to build as they were all having problems with their technology. Dead cars and dead phones make a bad combination. Several men were pushing a number of cars to the side of the road, while others just stood in the street, looking for someone to come and help.

Dr. Kramer slowly walked back to me and gently grabbed my arm. The four of us walked back into the building and went directly to the break room.

“Dismiss the patients but let them know that their cars aren’t working,” he said to Peg. “Then I want all the staff and patients to gather in the reception area in five minutes.”

Peg and Janice split up to deliver his message; Peg to the front and Janice to the rear treatment areas.

“Come with me,” he gently said. I followed him into his office and he shut the door.

He tried to boot his computer but had no luck, so he turned to me in his chair. I sat across from him not knowing what was happening or what he was about to say.

“Charlie,” he started. “Where do you live?”

“Orlando,” I replied, unsure where this was going.

“No, where in Orlando?”

“Baldwin Park,” I replied. Baldwin Park is a planned community that sprang up about 20 years ago when the Navy closed down a large base on the east side of town. The large lake and newly available property were scooped up by a city-approved development group. A colonial style 1100-acre miniature city was created with a planned mixture of trendy condominiums and traditional New England style homes, all packed into the former federally-owned land.

“That’s not too bad,” he said. “You’re only about 10 to 15 miles away.”

“I suppose so; I’ve never measured it. I just plan my day around traffic. It’s about 25 minutes from here with normal traffic.”

“That means nothing now,” he cryptically replied. “Nothing’s normal now.”

“What do you mean?” I tentatively asked.

Peg entered the private office and informed the doctor that everyone was in the waiting room.

“Just follow me,” he said. We moved down the hall into the reception room. Almost 20 people stared at us when we entered the common area.

“Please, sit down.” Dr. Kramer requested. Everyone did as they were told.

“We have a total power outage outside. We’ve lost more than the electricity,” he continued. “All land lines and cell phones are out of order as well. In fact, everything electronic seems to be down.”

“What happened?” One of the patients asked.

“I don’t know,” he honestly replied. “But things don’t look good. All the cars outside on the road are dead as well. Everyone is stranded.”

“But we have lights here,” the patient stated.

“We have a generator,” he replied.

“Why is it working and nothing else does?” someone else asked.

“I truly don’t know,” he said. “We had it installed with a lightning protective screen around it. Maybe that kept it from going out. All I know is that nothing outside this building seems to be on.”

Panicked conversations began as the assembled group tried to deal with their new reality. Dr. Kramer hushed them. Talking loudly, he finally silenced the group and continued speaking. 

“We don’t know how extensive this is,” he continued. “It may just be our area; or it may be larger than that. I would recommend that you stay here until we figure this out. At least with our generator, we will have power for the next few days.”

“FEW DAYS?” Another patient gasped. “What do you mean a few days?”

“Just what I said,” he replied. “We don’t know how long this will last. If it’s local, I would expect emergency services to be here shortly. If it is more widespread, we could be looking at an extended period of time.”

“Just how extended?” Another patient asked.

“No way to know,” he said. “But let’s just take this one step at a time.”

Dr. Kramer organized the group. He got a list of medications his patients were taking and had us all check the medicine locker for replacements. I volunteered my stash and he gratefully accepted. The patients were given water and shown where the bathroom facilities were. The cable was out, so the staff tried to put on some old movies over the DVD connection but neither the television nor the DVD player would work. They all sat in silence as Dr. Kramer went back to his office, and I followed along.

After he shut the door, he sat heavily in his chair and looked at me. I sat down without prompting and faced him. He looked both tired and worried and I quickly realized that I had never seen him like this before. Here was a man that literally held people’s lives in his hands and he was afraid. After seeing his demeanor, I became afraid too.

“So what’s really happening?” I asked.

“I think we were hit by an EMP,” he replied.

“An EMP? What’s that?”

“Electromagnetic Pulse. A burst of electromagnetic energy that overwhelms electronic equipment. It basically fries anything that uses electricity.”

“How? What could cause this?”

“Well,” he continued, “A lot of things can cause an EMP. Nature creates them with a lightning strike, but given the large area that’s affected, I doubt that is the cause. Solar flares can cause this as well. We could have been hit by a solar EMP.”

“How many are affected then?”

“It could be just us, or all of the east coast. He replied. It could affect the entire nation; or it could be global. But that’s only if the cause was solar.”

“What else could have caused it then?”

“A nuclear detonation would do that,” he somberly replied.

“WHAT?”

“I didn’t see any mushroom clouds when we were outside,” he said with some conviction. “If there was a nuclear detonation and it caused this outage, it would have most likely been about 200 miles up in the air, and would hardly be noticed here on the ground. At least the blast wouldn’t be noticed, but the damage we see around us could be from just such an event.”

I was stunned. Either scenario sounded bleak. A thousand things ran through my mind.
My family
, I thought.
What about my family?

My parents were divorced almost two decades ago. My mother brought another man into our house after asking my dad to leave. In the long run, it was probably for the best. My dad remarried five years later and lived nearby, but was up in North Carolina for a few weeks. My mom moved to Tampa to be with yet another guy. She was always looking for something better, playing the victim whenever things didn’t work out. I forgave her, but promised myself I would never be like her. So far, I was doing OK. But with my family far away, I had nowhere to go other than my apartment. I lived alone.

“I could use your help,” Dr. Kramer said, breaking me out of my trance. “If you can, I need you to help me with what’s coming in the next few days.”

“I guess so,” I replied. “I don’t have any family in town anyway. What do you need me to do?”

He laid out a plan that seemed excessive, but I had learned to trust him over the past six years. He had never lied to me or let me down. I did what he asked.