THE MEETING LASTED ANOTHER HOUR, but mostly it was over ten minutes later, when Nikolous strode out and ushered Caleb offstage without any further words. The rest was aftermath.
Donna made her way through the crowd interviewing those interested in telling their tale. As far as they could tell, ninety-eight people had come to the meeting suffering from some sort of ailment, and all ninety-eight left totally whole. A dozen theories were offered as to the cause of the wave that knocked them all over, and a dozen more as to the source of the boy’s power. And that on the floor of the arena, before the talking heads on television had a chance to sink their teeth into what they saw.
The spectacular footage captured by NBC’s crew was broadcast live on over two hundred affiliates, and then picked up and rebroadcast on all the other major networks and cable channels before the ten-o’clock hour. By midnight Eastern time over forty million households had either seen the small boy named Caleb or heard his story.
As it turned out, it wasn’t the paraplegic who’d thrown his chair, or even the sudden inexplicable crumpling of the entire audience (cameraman included), that captured the greatest attention. Although mind-numbing enough, both could have been staged, a dozen commentators quickly pointed out. But it was the small boy who’d been laid at Caleb’s feet that pretty much shut the commentators up. The camera had zoomed in on his naked, twisted legs after Caleb had touched him. They all saw the bones twist and straighten and grow, close up, as if it were a special effect from a science-fiction flick.
Only it wasn’t a special effect. It was live footage shot by a high-definition camera manned by a card-carrying NBC cameraman named Phillip Strantz, who’d been working for the network a good twelve years.
Shown together with the young man hurling his red chair and the wave knocking them all into a definitive silence, the footage took the country by storm.
Jason and Leiah left the Old Theater at ten that night.
It occurred to Jason that Leiah hadn’t been healed of her scars. But then she’d insisted before that she didn’t need anybody’s help. She really didn’t need to be healed, did she? No, she did not.
Stewart Long was in the garage messing with a stripped socket wrench at ten o’clock Tuesday night when Barbara hollered through the kitchen.
“Stew! Stew get in here . . . you have to see this.”
“Hold on. I’m almost finished.”
“You’ll miss it! Get in here!”
“Okay . . . okay.” Stewart threw the wrench back in the toolbox with a grunt. At least it was a Craftsman, which meant he could replace it at no charge. He grabbed an old T-shirt rag and walked through the kitchen wiping his hands.
Barbara and Peter both had their eyes glued to the big Sony television in the living room. “What is it?”
They didn’t respond, and he walked behind his son. Three facts settled in his mind at once—not necessarily critical facts, just the kind that police officers learn to mind. Fact one, they were watching NBC news with that Donna chick. Fact two, the Donna chick was at a meeting of some kind—a convention or a religious gathering—and she was definitely worked up. Fact three, both Peter and Barbara looked like they were watching news of a bomb’s detonation or the president’s assassination rather than coverage of a convention.
It struck him only then that many of the people in the picture behind Donna were on the floor. “I know this looks unusual . . .” Donna was saying. “Well, it looks impossible actually, and to be honest, I might not believe it if I wasn’t here myself, but something very dramatic did indeed happen, ladies and gentlemen. And not just to the people you see behind me, but to me.” Her eyes glinted with eagerness. “We can’t necessarily explain what we’re seeing, but we can assure you that it is real. No tricks, no gimmicks, no wires. Just a little boy’s power. Let’s watch the footage again and let you experience for yourselves what we experienced.”
The picture suddenly cut to a screen with white words “recorded earlier” flashing at the upper left.
“Watch this, Stew,” Barbara said.
“I’m watching.”
He watched a little boy walk out onto the stage, stupefied, it seemed. Then he saw a teenage boy in a red wheelchair shoved onto the stage, and immediately Stewart’s heart began to thump. He glanced down at Peter. His son had pursed his lips in frustration or anger.
The scene rolled on and then suddenly Stewart began to sweat because suddenly things were happening that had no business happening. When the boy took his first step, a buzz lit in Stewart’s ear, and he thought that Donna was wrong. What they were watching wasn’t real.
When the child began to sing and the people slumped to the floor, he knew it was fake. It had to be. He very nearly leapt up to the box and snapped it off. But then the camera wavered and showed a shot of Donna lying on the concrete, and Stewart ground his teeth. A thousand conflicting emotions collided in his mind.
They watched in stunned silence, the three of them, and then they watched the small child’s leg twist and straighten before the camera. The child couldn’t have been older than four. One look into his wide eyes and Stewart knew that this was real.
The screen cut back to Donna, and she continued her rambling, but Stewart wasn’t hearing her. He was replaying that last scene in his mind, and he was thinking that the world had just changed. His heart was slamming in his chest, and sweat was snaking past his temples, and he knew that somehow nothing was ever going to be the same.
Peter suddenly whirled around in his wheelchair and sped down the hall to his bedroom.