Christmas with a Bang
Joe hardy stared down at his bloody hands in shock. His head swam with the life altering moments he had just experienced.
The night had started out great. He and Frank had gone to Chet Morton's Christmas Party. It had been great fun. Lots of good food, great company, plenty of dancing, games, and other Christmas-themed activities.
He and Frank had hated to leave the party, but had promised their dad they would have his car back before midnight. Fenton Hardy was a private investigator who, when necessary, worked at night for his clients. Tonight was such a night.
After dropping their dates off, Frank had pulled into an all night gas station to fill up the gas tank. It was Joe's turn to pay for the gas, so he had headed inside to give money to the cashier, while Frank waited by the car to pump the gas.
Unknowingly to both of them, the gas station was being robbed, and when Joe entered the store, he had walked right into the middle of it. As soon as he entered, the muzzle of a gun had been pressed to the back of his head by the robber, and he was forced to lie down on the ground beside the terrified female cashier.
He remembered watching the robber pace back and forth in front of them, staying away from the glass windows of the store, and muttering to himself.
Joe, on the other hand, was waiting for an opportunity to tackle the man, and praying at the same time that his brother wouldn't come looking for him. Who knew how the maddened robber would react to having his robbery being interrupted for a second time.
"Joe, what's-?"
His brother's sentence was cut off by a burst of sudden gunfire, as the already nervous robber was startled by Frank opening the door of the store.
"Frank!"
Joe remembered screaming his brother's name as he watched in horror as Frank crumpled to the floor, blood staining the front of his jacket. Anger filled him and while the robber's attention was momentarily focused on his brother's prone form, Joe rose swiftly to his feet, and launched himself into the air.
The robber, caught off guard, went down hard as Joe tackled him, but didn't lose his grip on his gun. As the robber started to bring it around to shoot Joe, the younger Hardy boy grabbed for it. The two men rolled around on the ground, grappling for control of the gun, while the terrified cashier scrambled to her feet and raced behind the counter to call 911.
Joe, being younger and more agile, didn't gain control of the gun, but he did manage to send it flying several feet away from where he and the robber were fighting. The two fought fiercely, knowing over displays and sending merchandise raining down on top of them.
The robber, getting his hands wrapped around a soda can, struck him on the side of his head, dazing him enough to wriggle from from his hold on him. As Joey lay stunned on the ground, the robber raced for the door, stumbling over Frank's body as he did so, in his haste to make his getaway.
Joe remembered dizzily scrambling on all fours to Frank's side, frantically checking for a pulse, and finding one. Then he tore open his brother's coat, trying desperately to find the source of all the blood staining his brother's torso. He took off his scarf and pressed it against the open wound high up on the left side of his brother's chest, pleading with Frank not to die on him, and vaguely hearing the sounds of sirens, screeching tires, and shouting going on around him. The rest was a blue after that.
"Joseph!"
Joe was brought abruptly out of his nightmarish reverie to see his father strolling toward him down the long corridor, a worried expression on his face.
"Dad!"
Joe rose shakily to his feet, and felt himself being pulled into a fierce hug. He clung to his dad and fought against the tidal wave of emotion flooding over him, knowing that if he broke down now, he might never surface again.
"Joe, I need you to tell me what happened." Fenton inquired.
Joe told him, in halting words about pulling into the gas station, interrupting a robbery, Frank getting shot, and him wrestling with the robber. He also shared with his dad that the police had arrived just as the robber was fleeing the scene, and had arrested him.
"Have you heard anything about Frank since you arrived at the hospital?" Fenton asked him.
"No. I haven't seen or heard anything about Frank since we got to the hospital." Joe told him. "They took Frank immediately into surgery, while they stuck me in the ER to have a doctor tend to the cut on my head. I just got up here a little while ago. But Dad, Frank lost a lot of blood, and I think I overheard the paramedics say that he had been shot twice, but I only saw one wound."
"We have to believe that he's going to be fine." Fenton told him.
Joe wondered if his dad said the words to comfort him or himself. Joe wanted to believe that his brother was going to be all right. He had to believe that Frank would survive being shot. He wouldn't even consider living in a world without his brother.
An hour…then another went by, before the doors to the surgical unit finally opened and a tall man with graying dark hair and glasses, dressed in soiled surgical scrubs, walked over to them.
"Are you Frank Hardy's family?" The surgeon asked.
"I'm Fenton Hardy, and this is my son Joe." Fenton told him.
"I'm Doctor Mason, your son's surgeon. Your son was struck twice in the upper quadrant of his torso. The first bullet struck the lower part of his sternum, ricocheted off it, breaking two ribs, and sending fragments of the sternum into his right lung. The second bullet broke your son's left clavicle, and lodged itself in his pectoral muscle." Dr. Mason's explained.
"Oh God." Joe sank into a chair, putting his head in his hands, not sure at all that he wanted to hear anything else that the doctor had to say.
"Perhaps we should talk in private?" Dr. Mason's concern for Joe was evident by the way he eyed the teenager.
"No," Fenton said. "Please continue."
" I've removed the bullets and the sternum fragments, reset the bones that were broken, and repaired the damage to his right lung and pectoral muscle. Scary as all that sounds, your son was very lucky. The damage to Frank's right lung was minor, and his heart and other other major organs escaped unscathed. Frank is in very serious, but stable condition, and barring any complications arising, I have every reason to believe that he will make a full recovery." Dr. Mason concluded his explanation.
"Can we see him?" Fenton inquired.
"He's still in recovery. As soon as the nurses have him settled into a room, someone will come out here and take you to see him." Dr. Mason said before he returned to the surgical unit.
"Did you hear that Joe?" Fenton said, sitting down beside his youngest son and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"I heard…but Dad," Joe started, but Fenton stopped him.
"Frank is going to recover. I won't accept any other outcome."
Joe nodded, emotion clogging his throat. Believing Frank was going to be okay, was better than accepting the alternative.
Twenty-four hours passed with only an occasional movement or motion from the prone figure lying in the hospital bed, along with the rhythmic beeps of the heart monitor, the 'whoosh' of the oxygen machine, and the sporadic updates from the nurses and doctors caring for him, kept Joe and Fenton on edge.
When asked why his son hadn't regained full consciousness yet, Dr. Mason assured him that after suffering such traumatic injuries, coupled with the antibiotics, morphine, and other heavy duty medication being pumped into him, that it was understandable that Frank lingered in a deep sleep-like state.
Fenton and Joe accepted the doctor's explanation, but neither liked it. The sooner they saw Frank awake and alert, the better off they would both feel.
Frank's eyes fluttered open and he gazed confusedly up at the bright lights overhead. His senses were overloaded by the astringent smell of ammonia and bleach. A rhythmic beeping sound filled his ears at the same time he realized that he was in the hospital.
He also became aware of a red hot pain arcing throughout most of his chest area, and a steady agonizing throbbed down his left arm. His head felt muddled, his nose sore, and his mouth tasted as if he eaten cotton.
He tried to remember what had happened to put him in the hospital, but it was too hard to focus. He heard a scraping sound to his right and he turned his head toward it.
He smiled when he caught sight of his dad and Joe. They were sprawled uncomfortably into two leather chairs beside his hospital bed.
"Dad? Joe?"
He called out softly, working his dry tongue around his equally dry mouth, and finding it difficult to speak higher than a whisper. He tried to clear his aching throat, but it did nothing to ease the dryness.
He flailed out with his right hand, not noticing that there was an IV attached to it, until he heard something cling against the frame of his hospital bed.
The noise, low as it was,managed to awaken both his brother and dad. He watched with amusement as they both came suddenly awake. Both seemed to take stock of their own bodies and stretched, their bodies moving in almost identical ways.
"Frank!"
It was Joe who first noticed he was awake.
"How are you feeling son?" Fenton asked him anxiously, as both he and Joe sprang to his side.
"Sore." Frank murmured. " What happened? Why am I in the hospital?"
"You don't remember?" Joe asked him.
Frank stared at his brother. Joe looked like he had been through hell. So did their Dad, but there was something haunting in Joe's eyes than triggered something in Frank's head.
"Gas station…gun shots…I fell." Frank said slowly, as fuzzy images flickered through his head.
"That's right." Joe said. "The gas station was being robbed, and you got shot Frank."
"That explains why I feel like hell." Frank quipped.
"It's going to take awhile Frank, but the doctor said you are going to be just fine." Fenton was quick to assure his eldest son. "
"That's good." Frank's eyes fluttered closed as he drifted off to sleep again.
"He's really going to be okay Day." Joe's voice cracked as the emotions he had been trying so hard to keep in check, finally broke loose, and he began sobbing.
Fenton pulled him into his arms and held Joe sobbed with relief that his brother was going to live.
"Looks like we've just gotten the best gift either of us could have gotten for Christmas Joe."