"Prophecy" (working Title) Forward and Chapter One

FORWARD....
This is my fifth or sixth attempt to write a novel. I choose to write this one on-line as I will be forced to complete it. If I end up abandoning it, then the entire world will know that I did not finish what I started. I would like to encourage the associated content community to help me with ideas, plot lines and any other criticism constructive or otherwise. I wish to thank my "wife" (Carmen Ann) for her patients in dealing with a bi-polar egomaniac such as myself for the past thirteen years. I would also like to thank my mother for encouraging me to read, which opened up worlds I never knew existed. I would also like to thank my aunt Ginger for showing me that anyone can write a novel with a little persistence. I would also like to tell my family, "I know that I have not been the best son, husband, father, brother, nephew or any other connection that applies. That does not mean that I don't love you all, because I do. If you know anything about me, I have a hard time expressing my true feelings. I also disconnect from you all for long periods of time, that is not because you have done anything wrong. It is because I am ashamed of what I have or have not done at any given time in my life."

For my family, you all know how close I was to my uncle Dale, this story is dedicated to Dale because it was his intention to make a movie about a very arrogant person. He had decided that I should play the lead, because I am so good at being arrogant. I know that he did not mean that as a compliment. However, Dale had an uncanny way of seeing right through us all. We all knew how Dale was, we all talked about him. We all loved him, but Dale always knew our darkest secrets, but refused to say anything bad about any of us. We could have all learned a great deal from him. So, my funky unky, this story is for you, may we meet again soon, RIP.....Love Leonard

CHAPTER ONE........God forgive them for they know not what they do....

The sun beat down hard on the pavement, Greg could actually hear the tires of the Valiant sticking to the pavement. Greg had hastily thrown his wife and the baby bag into the car when his wife had told him that her water had broke. Gina was five weeks past due and Greg had been hitching rides to work so that Gina could keep the car at home. It was merely fate that her water had broken on a Saturday. Saturday, July the sixth 1968 was a day that Roger would never forget. As Greg passed another car in his frantic attempt to reach the hospital, Gina yelled at him, "Dammit Greg, we need to get there alive, slow down!" The expression on her face was enough to let him know that she was serious. This was only the second time that Greg had ever heard his wife cuss. He was not exactly shocked, but he knew that she was scared as hell for her to use such language. Greg slowed the car immediately and replied to his wife in the calmest voice he could manage, " I am sorry baby, I am just nervous." He diverted his eyes from the road to see if she was calming down, " Look honey, I want everything to be perfect."

Gina forced a smile at her husband, the pain was coming more frequent and more intense with every passing moment. She wanted to get to the hospital as fast as possible, but not at any expense. About the time she turned back to look ahead at the road, she heard the sirens. "Damn!" Greg exclaimed, "This is the last thing we need right now." Gina looked back at the approaching cruiser, "Don't make it any worse, just stop the car so we can get going." Greg pulled the car over into the parking lot of the Green Acres Grocery. The cop pulled in behind them and made his way to the window before Greg even knew he had gotten out of the car. "Where's the fire?" a typical question the officer saved for speeders. "Baby" Greg said loudly, as he pointed at his wife. Officer John Helton had heard it all in his ten years on patrol. However, he had never got the opportunity to escort a pregnant woman to the hospital. Helton leaned down to look at Gina, the look on her face said enough that he believed in their urgent desire to go.

"Put on your flashers and follow me son" Helton told Greg. "And don't get to close in case we have to stop quick, understand?" Greg nodded in agreement. Once the officer returned to his car, Greg played the whole thing over in his mind. He couldn't believe that all he had managed to say was, baby. Gina laughed at him, "Greg, I told you to slow down." "Yeah baby, but look at it this way, we have a police escort for our babies arrival." Greg always tried to be optimistic. Gina was the exact opposite and always saw the worst in everything. Almost every argument they ever had was over their different perceptions of the same event. Luckily, Greg had a decent job making a hundred and eighty five dollars a week, so that money was rarely an issue in their house. Gina had grew up poor, yet her family was a very close and happy family, so Gina didn't really know that they were poor. It wasn't until her high school prom when she had wanted a forty dollar dress that she had realized that her family didn't have any money.

Officer Helton squealed his tires as he rounded the corner of Jefferson and Fifth on the last stretch to the hospital. He had called into dispatch so they could inform the hospital of the impending arrival. Helton and his wife had tried unsuccessfully for years to have children. He knew that if he told his wife about the events of the day, she would become depressed and it would last for months. They had applied for adoption, but the fact that his wife had been convicted of shoplifting kept them from passing the screening process. That is how the two of them had met. Six years earlier he had responded to a call at a Big K. Upon arrival he was briefed by the manager, when he went to the managers office to restrain the suspect, he was floored. Here stood a beautiful woman, she was five foot four and had long wavy brown hair. She was a petite woman and what she lacked upstairs, she made up for it downstairs. Built like a brick shit house to put it nicely. Officer John Helton had fell in love at first sight, something that he had never believed in until now. However, for his wife to be, it was going to be a battle to win her over. It was a battle that waged for two years and three of her ex-boyfriends before he became the victor. In the end, it was a bittersweet triumph.

Greg and Gina pulled in behind Officer Helton, in the officers haste to rush Gina into the waiting room, he had forgotten to turn his car and sirens off. Only after the nurse complained and told him of the desire of their patients to sleep did John realize that someone could steal his car. Officer Helton left the hospital and Greg figured that would be the last he would ever see of him. Gina was rushed into the delivery area of the hospital while Greg started the inevitable list of phone calls that he was required to make. Gina had been pre-admitted by her doctor, Doctor Howard Klein the third. Nurse Mercy Madeline was to be Gina's nurse, her parents had named her Mercy in an attempt to appease her Grandmother. Mercy called the doctors office only to find out that his partner was on call for the evening. Not an unusual event, but one that often upset the mothers to be. When Greg returned to the birthing area, Nurse Mercy Madeline pulled him aside and told him of the change in doctors.

Greg went into the forth room on the left as the nurse had directed him. The room was as impersonal as a Russian Gulag, the walls were painted a dirty off white that made it look as if it had never been cleaned. The floor was the typical asbestos tile that closely matched the nasty paint except for the black and gray flakes of color randomly distributed throughout each tile. The ceiling was the typical drop ceiling with one two foot by four foot fluorescent light off center in the room. The walls also had a wide greenish bumper border that resembled a chair rail straight out of a doctor Seuss book. A television was mounted high in the left corner next to the window on the adjacent wall. The window was a five foot square split in the center with a crank that allowed you to open it about four inches. Just enough to let in some fresh air and not enough to allow newly depressed mothers to jump. The crank on the window looked as if it hadn't worked in the last twenty years. As Greg took the time to take in the setting, he failed to notice that it was not his wife in the steel framed bed. Luckily the woman was asleep and didn't notice his intrusion.

Greg slowly backed out of the room and quietly closed the door behind him. Greg peaked into the next room to make sure that it was occupied by his wife, to his relief, she was in here and he didn't have to try again. He would make a note of the miss-direction by the nurse. Surely it was a mistake her being such a busy person and all. Greg leaned over Gina and lightly kissed her on the forehead, "Honey, everything is going to be alright, but I got something I have to tell you." Gina smiled weakly, "What is it babe?" "Well, the nurse called your doctor and he isn't on call, they are sending his partner in." Gina grinned at the news, "Oh, I thought you were going to tell me something bad, the doc told me that this could happen." Greg was glad that the news hadn't stressed her further, "So, he prepared you for this?" "Yes, honey, all the women who see him are required to get to know all the doctors in his practice just in case." "No matter what doctor they send here, it will be o.k." What a trooper, Greg thought. "Well, what did the nurse tell you?"

Gina had Greg's hand in hers and as she was about to answer his question another wave of pain washed over her. Greg winced as his wife nearly crushed all the bones in his hand. To Greg it seemed as if the moment lasted for four or five minutes, to Gina it seemed even longer. In fact, this time it only lasted for about thirty seconds. Gina panted slightly and as she gathered her composer, she told Greg what the nurse had said, "Right now my contractions are about eighteen minutes apart, and I haven't even started dilating. To this Greg only knew one thing, they were going to be there all night before that baby was born. Greg sat by his wife for hours, he had tried to watch television, he had tried talking to his wife, but her patients had run thin. Greg just sat in the chair and waited as the contractions became closer. Sometime around three o'clock in the morning, Greg woke up to the sound of Gina screaming. The contractions were coming every couple of minutes and apparently she was dilated enough for the doctor to move her into the delivery room.

Greg decided that it was best if he did not watch the baby being born. He was excited beyond belief, he wanted a boy but would be happy with whatever God had given him. Greg figured that he had some time so he stepped outside and lite a cigarette. Just as he was about to stomp it out, the ground underneath his shook. He was thrown forward into the glass door. Luckily, it did not break, however, his wrist became caught in the doors cross bar and as he fell to the ground, he felt his arm snap. The pain was blinding. As the earthquake subsided, Greg passed into unconsciousness. What in the hell just happened? Was the last thought that went through his mind.

Upstairs with Gina, the doctor, whose name Gina couldn't recall, just announced that the child was a boy when the building began to shake. The doctor and nurse Mercy were astounded. This was Tennessee, the last real earthquake here had been in 1812. It was more of a legend or a myth than anything they ever thought that they would have to deal with. The power lines all over town went down. Houses and smaller buildings were slammed to the ground. The hospital itself had been built to withstand high winds and other possible natural disaster. There was no major damage to the building, however, the backup generators did not come on-line as they were supposed to. The maintenance men were only there during the day and no one had ever expected such a situation to arise. Life support systems all over the hospital went dead. Nurses were frantic, they knew that if the power didn't come back on in a couple of minutes, allot of patients were going to die.

At the end of Officer Helton's shift, he had returned to the hospital to check on the baby that he had escorted to the hospital earlier in the day. He was happy for the young couple, but his desire for a child depressed him terribly. He had been sitting outside the viewing window watching the infants when the building began to shake. He was shocked, then when the lights went out, he took the flashlight off his belt and spun to see what was going on around him. He heard one of the nurses near him exclaim, "Everyone remain calm, the backup generator is built to kick on one minute after a power failure!" John looked at his watch, the first minute went by in what seemed like an hour. After about three minutes, John made his way over to the nurse who had taken charge. "What is going on with the power?" John asked. "I am not sure, the phones wont work without power and there are no maintenance men here at night." John tried to remain calm, "What does that mean for all of the patients?" The nurse looked up past his flashlight, looking for the eyes behind the questions.

The nurse tried to be quite so that the people in the waiting area would not hear her, "Look officer, if we don't get power back in a couple of minutes, all of our patients on life support will die." The building started shaking again. "Just an aftershock, try and keep these people calm." "Where is this generator?" The nurse pointed at a door and John's flashlight followed her hand to an unmarked door "Its in the basement" She replied. John rushed over to the door, "Keep these people calm!" He said as he made his way to the basement. John reached the door and tried the handle, damn its locked, he thought. "Who has a key for this door?" He yelled. "I don't know, the maintenance men I guess!" "Shit, I don't have time for this." John took two steps back and with all his might he kicked at the door. The door held, it jumped in its frame, but it was a steel door. John's foot and leg were in real pain, he wasn't going to try that again. "Look people, I have to get into this basement, the door is locked so I am going to have to blast the lock." John tried to be as authoritative as possible. " When I count to three, I am going to blast this lock, so cover your ears and don't be afraid." "You can't shoot a gun in here!" A voice from the darkness said. "Look people, I don't have any choice." Setting his flashlight against the bottom of the door so that he could see where to aim, John stepped back and fired three shots from his police revolver. The third one busted the lock and handle into thousands of pieces. Part of the shrapnel lodged into his thigh.

With another swift kick, the door gave way and John snatched up his light and ran down the stairs. It took him a minute, but he found the generator. His father had been an electrician and John had worked with him as a teenager. John was by no means an electrician, but he knew what to look for. After about thirty seconds, John found a reset switch. Saying a little prayer as he reset the machine, John was elated when it slowly came to life. John didn't know it at the time, but his actions on this night would lead him to be the town hero. The events that were to unfold because of one stop in a grocery store parking lot, not even the most imaginative fortuneteller could have dreamed up. John made his way back up the stairs only to be thrown back down them by the second and much more powerful aftershock. It would be twenty minutes before the nurse who sent him down here would find him unconscious at the bottom of the stairs.

An ambulance driver, arriving at the hospital minutes after the earthquake began, noticed a man laying on the ground by the visitors entrance. The driver of the ambulance unloaded his gunshot victim and then went to the body lying out back. Greg lay still, the ambulance driver tried to wake him, "Sir, Sir, Are you alright sir?" Greg did not respond. The driver noticed that the mans arm was bent back in an unnatural position. He ran back inside for help and brought out a gurney. They loaded Greg and returned him inside to the emergency room. The doctor there assumed that the man had broken his arm and then while trying to make it to the hospital, passed out at the door. It would be hours before anyone realized who he was and what he was really doing there. Of course, they would have to wait for officer Helton to regain consciousness before all the pieces were puzzled back into place.

In the mean time, Gina was laying upstairs with her beautiful baby boy in her arms. She repeatedly asked Nurse Mercy where her husband was, but she would only say that in the chaos of the evening, know one knew anything about anyone. Gina thought the worst as usual, thinking that Greg had abandoned her and her new baby. They had talked about names for months. Greg had convinced her that they should meet their little person before deciding on a name. Now Gina was glad that they had made that decision, because if Greg never came back, she would be damned if the baby had his name. Gina cried herself to sleep while holding her new baby boy. If she had known the truth about the events of the evening, she still would have cried herself to sleep, just for a different reason. When Gina awoke four hours later, she found herself alone, her baby was gone and Greg still had not come back to her side, she now knew in her heart that Greg had abandoned her.