The Last World (6 page)

Chapter 7

Although his shift didn’t begin until eight, Doctor Townsend liked to get to the hospital a little early in case something happened en
route so he wouldn’t be late, and to take some extra time to read over the night shift notes. He enjoyed the quiet the hospital provided, something which his daughter was forever teasing him was the reason he went into medicine. The quiet a small town like Tarken Heights offered also allowed him to get to know his patients.

H
e hated the business practicing medicine had become, where patients were faces or, worse, insurance claims. How could anyone hope to help someone under such terms? No, he was a family doctor at heart who also specialized in head trauma. Tarken Heights Memorial became the perfect place for him to be and, so long as he had a say in the matter, he’d retire there.

Everything in his life was going as well as he
could’ve hoped. His daughter was dating a good, if nervous, young man and neither of them wanted for anything. His day got better when he read the notes on his newest patient. Aside from some apparent anxiety and restlessness, Franklin Bowen checked out on his tests and observation period, meaning a clean bill of health for the boy. By everything he was reading, the young man would be leaving later that day. The thought of which bothered the doctor, for he had the feeling something was wrong, but there wasn’t any scientific proof. The MRI of the patient’s cerebrum showed very little swelling, so the medication was working. After a momentary delay, he closed the folder and rose from behind his desk. For all accounts it appeared the young man had suffered a blow to the head, but nothing serious enough to cause a concussion. Strange, but entirely possible. Doctor Doug had other patients to worry about first.

After closing the office door, Doug walked down the hall
toward another door that would lead him to the nurses’ station on the first floor. He didn’t expect to literally run into the night shift doctor, Doctor Forbes. “I’m sorry.” Doug let out a laugh. “It wouldn’t be good if we put each other in here.”

Emerson Forbes let out a laugh of his own, albeit a little more forced than his colleague
’s. “None the worry, I have the utmost trust in our staff.” Without another word, Doctor Forbes walked past Doug and toward the office they shared.

Doug raised his eyebrows and shook his head. No matter how hard he tried, Doug never understood why a person like Forbes went into medicine. Sure, the man was brilliant
, but he was about as warm as a wet blanket. The man’s personality, or lack there of, was something he’d grown accustomed to over the years and he was curious how the patients took to him. He never asked out of professional courtesy, but he couldn’t help imagining the responses he’d get. Nearing the nurse’s station, he recognized the red-dyed curly hair of dayshift’s head nurse, Phyllis Reed, as she handed out assignments to the other six nurses in the building. He knew through experience the same actions were being carried out throughout the land.

He couldn’t help but smile at the scene before him a
fter some of his experiences elsewhere. He often wondered how they’d handle a real emergency, and thanked the Lord they never had to. Doug held back until Phyllis was finished with her task at the command hub of the hospital.

“Good morning
, Phyllis. Glad to see you could make it in today.”

The cheer and warmth in his voice was a part of the mystique behind Doctor Doug and Phyllis wasn’t immune despite all of their years together.

She turned to face him with a smile, her nicotine-yellowed teeth looked like pegs of gold behind her cherry-red lipstick. The casual observer would’ve noticed the bright lipstick made her hair look orange in comparison, but Doug stopped noticing years earlier.

“Good morning
, Doctor Doug. You know me, only the end of the world could keep me away.” Her voice had, at one time, been melodic but forty years of smoking and two throat surgeries left it sounding raspy and riddled, but the pleasantness and good nature still pushed through.

A
two-time cancer survivor, Phyllis was closing in on her fifty-eighth birthday, but looked ten years older. She’d been the dayshift’s head nurse for so long she was close to being an institution in Tarken Heights. No one wanted to be the one responsible for her “retirement” and no one that worked with her would allow such a thing. Doug was a firm believer that she’d work until the day she died. How was open to speculation since cancer failed to change that twice. She still refused to quit smoking after her experiences and the death of her husband five years earlier from lung cancer, much to Doug’s dismay. Given all of that, she never missed a day of work aside from a funeral or her own surgery.

Doug laughed shaking his head. “I wouldn’t wager against you on that one.”

Phyllis eyed him over the rims of her glasses. “You’d better not, if you know what’s good for you.” Her lecturing tone was lower than her normal speaking voice, but it carried more power than most, even when she was joking

Doug raised his hands in defeat and
, smiling, picked up the clipboard listing the five patients under their care. “Looks like an easy enough day.”

“Just like any other, doll.”

Satisfied the nurse’s reports matched those in his office, he replaced the clipboard and made his way to his first patient. The walk wasn’t more than a dozen yards or so and a new day began for Doctor Doug.

*****

Franklin remained in his bed, holding the pillow close to him for several hours. He needed it as a safety net, for his world was changing faster and beyond anything he would’ve expected. Never overly gifted at anything, Franklin led a somewhat charmed life and didn’t want for anything aside from his father’s acceptance, he was finally accepted by someone. Seeing those worlds and feeling the peace emanating from them filled him full of hope but, after being forced back into reality, the acceptance he sought was still so very far away.

More than once since he’d been brought there
, he wished for things to be different. He thought he was sane, Tanok told him he was sane, but did a sane man see the things he did? Did a sane man hold onto his pillow and cry all night long? He didn’t think so and that became yet another thing to be heaped onto his pile of woe. The simple days when he only had to get along with his father were gone. This new world he found himself in was filled with more beauty and horror than he could’ve imagined.

Time and again
, his mind focused on his father to offer a stark contrast to the new visions he’d been given. While Franklin’s life wasn’t as difficult as he chose to remember, most of the easy times were punctuated by moments of anger and frustration when he crossed paths with Winfield Bowen.

As head of a branch of Military Intelligence, General Winfield Jackson Bowen demanded much from his wife
, Nancy, and his son, but far more from himself. With a family bloodline that could be traced back to the American Revolution, Winfield enlisted at eighteen and served his country in any way she needed. Through the years, his expertise led him into the intelligence arm where he made a mark as large and impressive as his entire heritage. The day Franklin was born he held his son with the pride only a new father could feel, already envisioning the greatness his son would have.

The next twenty years would see father and son embroiled in a private war where the only casualty was their sanity and love for one another. Throughout the most bitter of fights, Nancy Bowen somehow walked the line between the battling by supporting each when they were right and chastising them when they were wrong. Over time, the one many thought was the weak and timid member of the family proved to be the strongest and often held the splintering group together by the force of her will. Both Franklin and Winfield listened to her
counsel and tried to refrain from fighting around her. Their peace became permanent when she suffered a stroke and subsequent seizure a year earlier. Refusing to give in, Nancy showed steady improvement even to that day, but the relationship between father and son was damaged from their visiting devils. Each blamed the other for Nancy’s condition, despite her regaining much of what she initially lost. Franklin felt his father would forever look on him as being unworthy of the Bowen name.

The sound in the hall stirred Franklin from his thoughts
, but he refused to move. Thinking it was another visit by Tanok to further torment him, he planned to resist in the only way he could. When a nurse entered to ask what he’d like for breakfast, he almost burst into laughter from relief. She waited patiently for his answer, which came after a minute of incessant giggling he was unable to stop.

Ham and swiss on rye with mayonnaise and mustard. Not an odd combination when eaten later in the day
, but it was Franklin’s favorite. Watching her leave, he couldn’t help but wonder what was happening to him. First he was depressed about returning from his vision and now he didn’t want another one. By all rights, it should be difficult to be forced to wait to have another and experience the peace it engendered. Nothing made sense to him anymore.

“That is because you are learning
, my friend.”

Franklin closed his eyes against the coming vision. “Leave me alone. Please.” He spoke the final word in a pleading tone.

“I cannot do that. You have been chosen. To stop now would sacrifice all you hold dear.”
Tanok’s voice echoed in his mind.

He knew his “friend” was there with him whether he wanted him to be or not. Adding to it, Tanok’s words struck a cord in him and he knew he was lost but
Franklin wouldn’t give in without a fight. “There’s nothing I hold dear anymore. You’ve chosen the wrong person.”

“You are wrong. There is more at stake for you than you know.”

Franklin rolled onto his back as his arms and eyes opened wide in frustration. “What the hell do you want from me? What the fuck did I ever do to you?”

Silence remained in the room
following his outburst. Franklin thought he could see Tanok off to the side but when he turned to look at him, there was nothing there. It’d been the first time Franklin’s temper came out since the early visions he had with Tanok, and it felt good. He also carried a weight of sorrow for losing control of himself in such a way. He was ashamed.

“I’m sorry. I had no right…” Franklin’s voice trailed off.

Although he couldn’t see Tanok physically, he did appear in Franklin’s mind looking more apathetic than ever.
“It is not for you to apologize. There is much for you to understand, but not much time. I will give you the time you need to understand why you are the one.”
Tanok’s image faded into the room like a thin fog.

It was then Franklin heard voices and felt his body being shaken but there were no hands. When he let go of the image of the room his eyes opened
, revealing the faces of the nurse and doctor that greeted him the day before. The worry on their faces was enough to scare him, but not enough for him to admit he was crazy. Not yet, anyway.

*****

So far the morning had been a pleasant one for Doctor Doug. The first four patients were in good spirits and even better health. Two with a broken limb that would be going home before long, a thirty-year-old man getting his tonsils out the next day, and an asthma sufferer enjoying the benefits of breathing freely for the first time in years, thanks to a new medicine recently authorized by the FDA. The fifth was Franklin Bowen, the oddest case Doug could remember in all of his years practicing medicine.

Oddly enough, it was Franklin that was slated to be released first. Doug checked his watch, so long as he remained positive with the next battery of tests he’d be released in four hours. Thinking about the patient, Doug realized he may be interrupting breakfast. Such a thought infuriated some patients and he
debated putting off his visit. Even now, he couldn’t shake the strangeness the young man made him feel. It was too early in the day for him to feel the “willies” as his daughter liked to put it. With a deep breath, Doug turned the corner and entered the room where a nurse was trying to wake the young man. The tray of food was set to the side.

“Mr. Bowen? Your breakfast is here. Mr. Bowen?”

The concern in her voice alerted Doug and he rushed forward to help. When he reached the nurse, he heard Franklin mumbling as if he were speaking to someone else. “Was he like this earlier?”

The nurse shook her head
. In his estimation she was young enough to be a Candy Striper. “No, Doctor, he looked tired, but he was lucid.”

Doug reached out to try to wake Franklin when the patient’s eyes opened. The sudden change shocked Doug, causing his heart to pound wildly in his chest. “Mr. Bowen? Are you alright?”

Franklin eyed the pair for a moment before recognition dawned on him. After a couple of deep breaths he nodded. “I’m sorry, I must’ve fallen asleep.”

Relieved
, the nurse turned her attention to the tray, but Doug took a quick look at the readings on the monitors next to the bed. Everything read normal but that nagging feeling kept tugging at him. “Do you have a history of sleepwalking, Franklin?”