The Last World (9 page)

Doug couldn’t find an argument to counter
him aside from demanding more tests. Franklin nodded his agreement and the rest of the operating room remained quiet, staring at each other in disbelief. This was an unprecedented turn of events.

*****

In the waiting area, Winfield Bowen sat with his hands clasped together in his lap. He wasn’t praying, it was something he gave up years earlier after his wife became sick. He believed in God, in fact, he could recite the Bible cover to cover. He just didn’t understand why a being as all-knowing and powerful as Jahova, would allow a woman like his wife to get sick and then his son to follow suit.

He was being punished through them, it was the only reason he could think of as to why any of it was happening. It was something Winfield realized when he talked to his wife Nancy after learning of Franklin
’s accident. Winfield had been in the business of measuring one life against another’s for a long time. He did it to make a difference and he did, his name would go down as the man that saved countless American lives, but at the cost of his family. Since they took his son away for surgery all he could ask himself was, “Was it worth it?” and he didn’t like the answer.

Janice tried to ease his pain as best she
was able, but she understood he could only be helped by himself. Still, she remained with him for the duration unless she went for coffee or other necessities. Winfield was grateful for all of her offered help but he preferred to be alone. A private man, he didn’t like for others to see him while at his weakest. Luck turned to favor him when Janice was outside on her cell phone calling her boyfriend to let him know what was happening.

So lost was he in his thoughts that Winfield didn’t notice the figure walking
toward him until it stopped. With vague indifference he glanced up and leapt to his feet at seeing who it was. Doctor Doug’s face looked as though he just weathered a severe storm, but there was a gleam in his eye. Later, Winfield thought he imagined seeing it, right then it was worth anything in gold.

“How is he?”

Doctor Doug felt every bit as haggard as he looked. Unsure about what to say, he did what he did best. He told the truth. “We never operated.” Winfield’s gaze dropped and his body began to follow but Doug caught him by the shoulders and seemed to hold him up with his will. The contact kept Winfield from drifting off into a deeper state of shock and while hanging in that hazy area between reality and disbelief Doug broke through. “He’s fine. As fine as he can be, I mean.”

Winfield looked at him. “How can that be? He should be…”

Doug nodded. “But he’s not. He sat up
after
the anesthesia was administered and told us he was fine.” Doug wanted to burst into laughter at the absurdity of the thought, had it not been real. Instead of feeling elated he was even more unnerved than before.

Hope showed brightly in Winfield’s eyes. “Then… he’s alive and well?”

“We’re running more tests now. I’m sorry but I don’t know what happened. Your son was ten minutes from dying and then… he wasn’t.”

A smile so large Doug feared it would swallow him appeared on Winfield Bowen’s face. “A miracle. It’s a miracle!” He slumped out of Doug’s relaxed grip and plopped into his chair with tears of joy running down his face. After a moment he composed himself enough so he could speak. “When can I see him?”

Good question
, thought Doug. “In about an hour, it’ll take that long to complete the tests.’

Winfield nodded, grabbing Doug’s hand in both of his. “I know you didn’t do anything… but thank you.” Doug nodded and the other man let his hand go. Free of his grasp, Doug made his way for the entrance. He needed a breath of fresh air and a dose of reality.

Chapter 12

An hour. That was all he had to wait to see his son who should be dead, if not by the grace of God. Raised a Protestant, General Winfield Jackson Bowen had two books in the nightstand next to his bed at home: the United States Army Code of Conduct and the Holy Bible. While raising his son, Winfield tried to imbue everything that was good about both into his son, just as was done to him. At first, Franklin hung on every one of his father’s words and the child handled himself accordingly.

With the passing years the inevitable began to occur as father and son began pulling apart. Whether it was due to Winfield’s schedule of twelve hours a day at the base or their constant moving around that opened the crack in their relationship
, no one can say. The one thing that all of those involved could be sure of was the small crack grew into a massive fissure over the course of just a few years. Franklin grew out of the idolization phase of his life and began to assert his own views and thoughts. At first, Winfield was more than pleased his son was taking his first steps into adulthood, but it wasn’t long before those views clashed on a regular basis with Winfield’s.

When he was a child, Winfield had the same rebellious nature about him
, but he was also born with a desire to obey his father above all others. Through years of struggling with himself, Winfield stood as solid as he did in present day. Disciplined and controlled, he believed his son would inherit those same qualities. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Franklin differed from his father in that he would forever follow one set of orders, and those came from his own opinions. Not one to break the law, his school career was marked with numerous comments of “can do better” and “a pleasure in class”. It wasn’t that he was stupid or ignorant, quite the opposite actually — he just didn’t want to learn.

Through it all, Winfield could deal with the mediocre grades
—he’d been the same way as a youth—so long as his son proved his mettle by doing something positive with his life. For Winfield that meant his son would enlist as their family tradition dictated. It didn’t have to be the Army, despite it being Winfield’s choice, as any of the branches of the military would instill the pride and determination he felt his son lacked.

The morning of Franklin’s eighteenth birthday
, Winfield was dressed by five a.m., as was his custom, and waited to give his son a ride to the enlistment office. When Franklin didn’t come down from his room, Winfield went to collect him. Thinking his son’s alarm must’ve malfunctioned, he opened Franklin’s bedroom door without knocking only to find him in bed with a pair of ladies Winfield was sure were jail bait.

The sound of the door opening roused one the girls
, who responded by screaming when she saw Winfield standing in front of the opening. In seconds, every sleeping soul in that room was awake and hurrying to get dressed as Winfield dragged his son from the room by his arm. Once in the hall by the stairs, Winfield shut the door and began to dress down his son for his attitude and lack of priorities.

Franklin spent the first thirty seconds or so absorbing his father’s rant until he had enough and argued back. Words being exchanged
weren’t new to the Bowen household, but fisticuffs were. With Winfield’s back to Franklin’s closed bedroom door, Franklin scored with a sucker punch to his father’s nose and shoved him backwards. Between Winfield’s weight and the force of the shove, he fell through the door and ripped it off its hinges, bringing another series of screams from the pair of young women. With his father stunned and his nose broken, Franklin grabbed his nearest pair of pants, shirt, and shoes and dressed before running out, despite Winfield’s calls to him.

That was the first time either of them had laid a hand on the other
, aside from showing affection. It took Winfield several minutes to understand what had happened, but by then his crisp uniform was covered in blood and his son was gone.

Sitting in the hospital’s waiting area, Winfield fought back the emotions the memory stirred within him. It was the only time they ever struck one another
but he didn’t feel anger or shame over what happened between them. No, he felt failure then as he did while waiting for his son to be returned to his room. He failed his son, it was as simple as that. While Franklin never did drugs or drank, his attitude was something foreign to Winfield.

Over the last couple of years
, the pair had more then their share of fights, culminating with Nancy’s stroke. That day wasn’t any different than any other, but the trigger that set them off was Franklin asking for a new car to replace his twenty-year-old Thunderbird. Everything seemed calm enough until Winfield refused to pay for more than half of the cost of a car Franklin spotted the day before. In seconds, the two men were shouting at one another and didn’t stop until they heard glass breaking in the next room. They found her there, semiconscious after suffering a minor stroke.

Each of them believed such a tragedy would bring the other to his senses. Prideful as they were, they each carried part of the guilt for what happened and their fight
s lasted no more than a few exchanges and never went above a whisper. Until he saw his son having a seizure, Winfield hadn’t seen his boy in five months. That wasn’t the last image he wanted of his son, no father deserved that. Still, despite his failure, he was sure God was giving them a second chance.

He heard a sound off to his right
, like someone was rolling a cart about. Tearing himself from his thoughts, he glanced over and his heart leapt into his throat while he watched his son being carted back to his room.

Seconds later
, Doctor Doug approached him. “You can see him in a couple of minutes, once the attendants leave.”

“How is he?” Winfield’s eyes pleaded for some sort of good news.

All Doug could do was shrug. “The same as he was before his seizure. We’re running a new series of tests now, but I don’t think we’ll see anything in the results to show otherwise.”

“You mean that he’s fine?”

Doug nodded. “Yes. In fact, he would’ve been released already, had it not been for that embolism.” As he spoke he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, to be accused of malpractice and get sued. He tried not to let his surprise show when the General hadn’t demanded more or accused him.

Instead of taking the opportunity to attack, Winfield was being retrospective. “Any idea at all?”

The pain in his voice was apparent and almost made Doug wince. As much as he wanted to save the man grief, he couldn’t do so. “None. For all accounts it looks like this was a miracle. I wish I could say more.”

Winfield nodded and squared his jaw in an effort to screw up his courage. “Thank you
, Doctor, I appreciate your candor.”

Doug nodded, what else could he say? Instead, he motioned toward the room when the last attendant and nurse left. “He should be comfortable now if you’d like to see him.” The General nodded
, and then made his way toward the room. Watching him go, Doug didn’t envy him in the slightest.

*****

The last of the attendants and nurses left the room, giving Franklin a perfect opportunity to think over everything he had witnessed. He could still see the people in his last vision dying, the lesions covering them until they couldn’t move, but even that didn’t stop their cries of agony. He could still hear them in his mind. He knew it was something that would remain with him until the day he died. He no longer doubted whether he was sane or not, such trivial things carried little weight anymore.

A gentle knock on the opened door caught his attention. The subtleness of it surprised him when he saw who was responsible.

“A bit late for that, don’t you think?” Franklin’s voice was hoarse from lack of water and the anesthesia.

Winfield lowered his hand and stepped into the room. “I believe it’s never too late to start over.
” He stopped a few feet from the bed, his eyes focused on his son’s hastily shaven head. The sight was shocking, despite the fact he expected as much. It made Franklin almost unrecognizable.

Franklin snorted at the look in his father’s eyes. “Do you like it? Pretty soon
, your friends at the enlistment office will be breaking down my door.”

“Franklin…”

“Perhaps you want to send me to storm Omaha Beach again. It’s only been seventy years, it’s due for another assault.”

“I didn’t come here to fight.”

“Of course not, you
never
want to fight.” Franklin took a deep breath and let it trickle out. His temper was coming back just from seeing his father standing there. The great General Winfield Jackson Bowen just happened to be one of the many things that could get under his skin. In an effort to push aside his anger, he focused on the memories Tanok shared with him. The extinction of the human race was humbling, even if it was all in his mind. As he calmed down, he decided it’d be easier to go with the flow instead of against it, so he motioned to a chair. “Have a seat. I won‘t bite.”

Winfield hesitated as the memories of their previous fight loomed in his mind. The internal debate on whether he was doing the right thing by coming there was raised at seeing the changing expression on his son’s face. The anger was gone, replaced with an enormous weight of grief and suffering in the boy’s eyes. He took the offered seat out of his promise to Nancy as a father and husband
, but he couldn’t help wondering if his son understood what was happening to him. Once he was seated he noticed the enormous dark circles under his son’s eyes, a sure sign of fatigue and pain.

“You haven’t been sleeping much.”

“Sleeping’s not the problem, it’s the dreams that are killing me.” Franklin’s voice was low, just above a whisper, but it still carried across the room with ease.

“Have you told the doctor? He could give you something to help with that.” Winfield was grasping at straws. He was never one to believe that dreams could harm someone
. If anything, they frightened him like a good old-fashioned horror movie. But something was different about the way his son said it, as though he was doing more than just dreaming.

Franklin shook his head in response to the question. “It’s nothing he can help me with.”

“It never hurts to ask.” Winfield was trying his best to sound upbeat, but his son wasn’t buying into it.
He knows more than he’s telling anyone.
“Your mom sends her love.”

Hearing about his mom brought a reaction from Franklin
that nothing else seemed to over the course of the last day. “How is she?”

“Good. Very good. Doctor Rosenthal thinks she’ll be as good as new by the end of the year.” His voice broke from the growing emotion he felt
, but he held it together trying to sound as positive as possible. His efforts were rewarded when he saw signs of life and color return to his son’s face.

Franklin broke into an ear to ear grin. “That’s great! I can’t wait to try her sausage stew again. I keep screwing it up.”

Winfield nodded with a smile. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“No, it’s not.” The pair burst into laughter over their shared opinion of a simple dish. They continued laughing over the next few minutes as years of frustration and anger melted away.

Maybe we can do this
. Winfield sat and wiped tears from his eyes before he asked the question that was on his mind. “How’d you end up in here?”

It was something Franklin knew would come up at some point.
He assumed his father asked around.
He did, he just wants to corroborate my story to catch me in a lie
. Old wounds rarely heal as quickly as we wish, and the scars always remain. Franklin understood that, but it’s not to say he could push his memories aside, no matter what he witnessed in the last few hours. After a minute of staring off into space, he decided how to answer his father’s question. “I fell when I went after my tire iron.”

Winfield’s face twisted into a questioning expression which then turned into one of understanding after a few seconds of thought. “What caused you to do that?”

Franklin smiled without any humor; some things never changed. “The locking bolt didn’t have a key, so I threw the tire iron into a field.”

Winfield shook his head while looking at the floor. On any other occasion
, he would’ve chastised his son but things were different now. “You’re fortunate to be able to learn from it.”

Expecting his father to continue with a lecture of some sort
, Franklin was surprised when he didn’t and waited to see what he’d do. In many ways this was the moment he always wanted, when his father would hear him and not criticize everything he did or said. It was a beginning, one Franklin would be happy to be a part of. He was about to say something more, but his head began to hurt and images clouded his vision.

Winfield saw the change in his son’s pallor and rose from his seat, every fear he had about Franklin having a recurrence echo
ed throughout his mind. “Do you need me to get you something?”

His father was at his bedside before he could say
“yes” or “no” to the offer. Franklin’s vision began to clear after a few seconds, but the ache in his head grew worse. He shook his head. “I need some rest.”