Project Lazarus (13 page)

“It will be only a little while right outside in the van Mrs. Chuttle.  They need to be debriefed.  You made the right choice.  I fear for them if they don’t come with me.”

She trusted the Sherriff.  It was a mother’s instinct.  She knew the men in that van would hunt her sons down for answers if they didn’t give them now.  They would also hunt them down for their silence.  But silence would become a code, a standard, a way of living in Cotter from now on. 

No one in Cotter, Arkansas would ever tell of the horrors the man from the Amazon brought to their town.  There was a price for everything.  Sinners could sin.  Liars could lie.  But to save your own skin sometimes you kept silent.

Silent for your whole life.  Silent with a terrible secret.  Anyone living in Cotter, Arkansas would deny the urban legend, that one summer the dead raised from their graves, roamed amongst the living and killed them all.

Those who lived to tell, would never tell.  The choices they made meant someone had died in their place.  Hard choices.  Not the kind of fake scenes on the reality show or major motion picture.  This was real.  Kill or be killed.  Die or watch your neighbor die.  Keep your soul or sell it.  Lay down your life for another or step over it.

The selfish and the sacrificial blended in a sea of faces, once friends, now enemies and someday survivors.

Mrs. Chuttle watched Sherriff Traves lead her sons to the big fancy van.  What kind of men sat inside?  Were they the men that let a monster loose on the town?  She knew the answer.  The men behind the tinted windows controlled people until they didn’t think for themselves anymore.  They had gone too far this time.  They didn’t deserve the truth.  They deserved to suffer in their own self-made terror.  The truth would set them free.  Ida knew they didn’t deserve the truth.  But thanks to good people, they would have  it.

Our spirits are one.  Interconnected, we are all linked by some finite string, invisible and unseen to the human eye.  But the invisible string is always there, waiting to connect each and every one of us.  Sometimes, we meet and the string is separated, severed forever and disappointment strikes.  There are moments in life, defining moments so overwhelming, we can’t go back once these moments pass things are never the same.  Yes, the spirit, our spirit, each and every one that passes into our lives and into someone else’s can’t be broken.  We touch each person in a different way.  We may go our separate ways and disappear into the world we belong to completely, never to return to each other.  But still the sting- the connection remains.

There were hundreds of living dead locked up in schools, hospitals, prisons and warehouses in Cotter, Arkansas.  Many of them went to their death beds with regret and oddly enough they wasted no time among the living.  They wanted to repair the damage, rectify the wrongs, and unite with lost loves- they wanted the spirit to connect.  But they had to wait.  Their feelings before death would be denied again in this strange new life.

Imagine getting to re-do your life over.  You could tell people what they really mean to you.  There would be the opportunity to express and be given forgiveness.  To have a second chance.  Many of the living dead wanted nothing more than to hit the ground running and fix the past.  The opportunities you and I, the living, take for granted and shove aside is all we’ll really yearn for in the end.  In another time, we say.  But there really is no other time but the present and even that moment passes and is gone forever.  We can never get it back.

In Cotter, Arkansas the opportunity of those still alive, often not seized, was now being offered up to the living dead.  And they wanted that opportunity.  To them it was worth a lifetime.  There weren’t enough tears left for them to leave things unfinished and unsaid again.

“I loved you my whole life,” one man rehearsed behind his new prison, which recently turned from a coffin into a jail cell.  He fell in love once but never pursued the girl of his dreams.  It had been years since they had seen each other but he had a second chance.  The prison bars, the shackles on his feet, didn’t seem to matter.

“Yes, I got married after waiting so many years for you to come back into my life.  Yes, I never reached out to you.  Yes, I was too afraid to try.  I kept hoping you would find a way, find me, but you never did.  I regretted it my whole life and I thought of you every day of my life.  I never forgot you.  I have a chance to tell you that now.”

Tears rolled down his cheeks.  He couldn’t find the recipient who needed to hear his words..   She lived thousands of miles away.  She too had waited and wondered and missed him.  She never married and never forgot him.  She regretted how their friendship ended and how she never fought for him.  But she too, would go to her grave with regret. He must find her.

The man only died a few weeks ago but she never knew.  Now, he faced the possibility she would never know again.  There is nothing as sad as love lost, love unrequited and love denied.  It truly leaves the helpless without hope.  And when we lose that chance, we may eventually lose ourselves and become something close to horrible, a cynical shell of our souls, we fear our lives because we can’t fix this loss.  There is no moving on not without accepting the ending.  And when the ending is not to our liking, there is no closure just a hollow hole.

He was solemn and stoic, honest in his reasons for being back.  He wanted a new beginning.

But the others.  Well, the others weren’t so patient.  Some wanted to find lost loved ones, family members and friends.  Some wanted forgiveness, desperately needed it because being cruel to others has its price.  Some wanted revenge and there is no remedy for that in this world or any other.  We can only trust God provides justice but if we can’t see it, we doubt.  Oh how we entangle ourselves with one another while in this place of the living.

Others were in purgatory, still caught in a mystifying world between heaven and hell.  They were either intent on going back or disoriented from their return.

When night fell on Cotter, Arkansas, darkness set in like it always did.  But this darkness was new.  It involved souls back from the dead.  The darkness of the soul has no void.  For the soul is really just a conduit, a vessel, of feelings, experiences and memories.  The soul wants what it wants just like the heart.  The soul is the connection to the living.  The soul is what lives and lives on.  It is not to be toyed with or messed with.  As messy as life is for the living, it is even messier for the dead who return to the living.

Pitch black.  Pitch black outside.  Pitch black in the prison cells filled with the living dead. 

No one turned on a porch light.  The street lights were off for days straight.  When night hit, there was no rest not for the living dead and not for the living.

Residents worried that by showing any signs of life, the living dead from hell would find them and kill them or worse.  Could there be anything worse?  They weren’t sure.  No one knew.  You see when you mix with things that shouldn’t be touched, you change things and science can be more fickle that groundbreaking.  The happenings that summer in Cotter proved that hypothesis.  One little experiment managed to turn an entire town upside down.

He who believes is strong and he who doubts is weak.  There was much cause for doubt and mostly fear when night fell.  People holed up in their houses.  Silence engulfed the entire town. 

 Around midnight, the rage started.  The yelling and screaming began.

While the living, didn’t understand the need and demands of the dead, now the living dead, they couldn’t deny their voices.

Folks sat around in horror, in the dark, while the agonizing screams amplified to a level they couldn’t ignore.

“No’s,” were heard loudly and they turned from the word “NO” into one long stream of anguish.  Someone just realized a dream denied.  The worst pain of all. 

“I want back to hell,” was heard often in the South corner of the town, where there was extra security.

“Hell,” was the one word the people living in the town dreaded.  When they heard “Hell” they knew it was a rally cry to the others.  Those locked up and those still wandering around the town that eluded capture heard “Hell” and followed the word in droves.

The paranoia set in for the living.  They scrutinized every little noise they heard, outside or inside their home.  They feared the living dead from hell would find them.  After all, there was motivation for them to find the living.  The end game was to kill the living.  Then they could go back to hell.

Hell was a strong motivation.

Though the ramblings of those from heaven were of fantasy and overwhelming joy, the terror of the living was relieved by the sweet swinging of an angelic heavenly choir.  Even if the sounds only lasted a few notes, they were magic and beauty all wrapped up in one.  The singing from the heavenly living dead gave the glimpse of what might be.  It was in those moments those alive could breathe a sigh of relief.  In those moments, they could imagine what it might be like to live in heaven.

The calmness was short lived and the agony started again.  There was no sleep.  The screaming went on all night.  The banging of the make shift prison cell bars made for an unusual instrument of torture of the living dead.

It was evident more nights like these could only make the living going insane.  But it went on.  And as in the game of life, this too would play out.   Those from hell wanted their hell back.  There could be no survivors.

There was going to be a break out of Prison number 12.  Prison 12 was the name assigned to the holding facility at Cotter Hospital.  Each holding ground for the living dead was given a Prison number.

Prison 12 held over 200 living dead, most of them hostile, most from hell.

The X in blood in the woods drawn by the two souls from hell attracted a lot of attention.  Just as they expected, the living dead from hell able to escape capture found them with the X and attained their solace in the woods.  There was too much wooded area in Cotter, Arkansas for the police to cover.  It was becoming clear to Sherriff Traves the military wasn’t stepping up or stepping in as planned.  Cotter was being left hung out to dry.

The living dead were ready to take advantage of their good fortune.

The plans made in the woods transpired over only two days and they were ready to act.  Silently, the living dead waited with the rest of the town.  They were certain by the screams of agony, the souls in Prison 12, would be the ones to get out of jail first.

They spent little time planning a break out.  For they had the force of 20 humans combined in one person, when they had their powers in effect.  Their powers were not mystical or magical.  They simply used the super human strength they received upon entering hell.  Some were designated torturers in that dark place and they carried evil talents and strength with them.  Those who spent their time in hell tortured had their own brew of rage.  It was perhaps, more lethal, if that was possible.

Quietly marching their way to Prison 12 would be difficult.  A lot of cops and volunteers were looking for them.  Most of the living dead from hell overpowered and escaped the police.  The others were clever and eluded the police.

The living dead from hell were cunning and calculating which made them deadly.  They also possessed the power to communicate with each other without speaking and they got their commands mostly from the Amazon man.

The Amazon man didn’t want a Holy War.  This was a choice based on principal.  His actions were solely based on the actions of another man- Charlie Dempster.  But that ending was to be decided another day.

Charlie Dempster had abused the Amazon man’s powers.  He allowed him to heal his son, raise his son from the dead, with the promise of release. Charlie Dempster broke that promise callously without looking back and never released the man with the power.  Now, the power consumed the Amazon man.  His own powers, having been abused, left him without real control over those powers.  The right inside him knew Charlie had to pay- pay with his own son’s life.  Either he would offer up his son for sacrifice or living dead from hell would kill him.  Only then, would the Amazon man stop.  But a lot of damage could be done before then.  And it was the purpose of the living dead to take over the living, so they could return to hell and take the living with them.  They needed an army of living dead from hell to achieve that.  They were in the process of building that army.

Most of us can’t imagine a hell we would return to.  There is enough hell and pain on earth to want suffering to exist somewhere else, beyond our lives, beyond our continuation, when we cease.  Yet, we have to keep in mind there are too many souls willing to be sold here in our little space.  Hell isn’t just a consequence it’s a choice.  Every person you hurt, every life you ruin, every time you steal, every time you take something or covet something or worship some false idea or idol- break a commandment and you might be one step closer to the fire.  Brush your toe with the danger and you might fall right in.  The Bible makes it very clear.  Yet, we don’t think it’s a reality.  Perhaps, that is why kindness, patience and real love are so easily lost and tossed aside.  No time to judge, your foot might feel the ash.

So, while we deplore the idea of hell, we can go on sinning knowing the popular scientist of the day doesn’t believe in something bigger than the rest of us.  Welcome to hell, you might just build it in your own mind.  It does indeed exist.  And it will find you here or somewhere else.  The living dead from hell smiled at these truths.

They paced, not wandered, they had somewhere to go.

Prison 12 was ready for the taking.

“We storm the door on the count of three,” said one voice from hell.  There were no clear leaders in the group.  Although, it was evident they were all so egotistical, any one of them would gladly take the crown.

“Wait,” shouted another.

“Quiet,” urged another.

“We’ve got to cover the back,” the voice suggested.

“No.  I say we go in full force.  We’ll overtake them and each one of us can work the jails and the locks in precision.”

“What if there are more of them?” Asked another.

“Kill.  Kill anyone who gets in your path.  Remember why we’re here, we need the others for strength.  We need the man power.”

“Okay.”

“Ready?”

They nodded, staying in silence now.

They had scoped out Prison 12 for as many nights as the days they spent planning the siege.  It was the most secure building but it held the greatest prize- 200 prisoners.

The prisoners were already screaming for hell inside.  They seemed riled up, more than usual and this truth had the guards on edge.

“What’s got them going tonight?” One guard asked.

“Same as usual don’t you think?” Asked another.

“Nope, something different.  Something in the air,” warned the first, Dan Kirfer, a veteran in the Cotter police department.

“Man, don’t creep me out.  It’s bad enough,” a younger, Derrick Talter, answered.

“What do you think they want?” Dan asked.

“Isn’t it obvious,” Derrick answered.

“Hell….take me back now,” the screams echoed in the dark rooms above them.

Dan and Derrick guarded the entrance with a couple of heavy duty handguns, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

“This is so weird,” Derrick confided, “when is this all gonna be over Dan?”

“I don’t know,” the older wiser cop told him, “got no support teams coming in.  It’s us living against these dead people now, I guess.”

“I just wish things would go back to normal,” Derrick told him.

“What’s  normal?” Dan asked.

“Right,” Derrick concurred.

“I don’t think things can ever be the same,” Dan confided, “You lose anybody yet?”

“Yeah, my aunt.”

“Limb from limb?” Dan asked.

“They tore her eyes out of their sockets,” Derrick could barely stomach saying the words out loud.

“Oh man.  I’m so sorry.”

There was silence between the men.  But there was no peace from the living dead from hell.

“My little girl’s friend, we’re talking an eight year old, went looking for the dog.  Snuck out from underneath her mom’s watchful eye,” he paused and sighed heavy, “well you can’t imagine the carnage on someone so little.”

“This is a nightmare,” Derrick announced.

“Yeah, one nobody could ever dream of.  But you know these science folks…got to explore.  Wonder how many more are out there tonight just on the brink of something like Cotter.”

“Maybe they are the ones who should be locked up in here,” Derrick suggested, “that would scare the hell out of them literally.”

Dan shuffled the Cotter newspaper.  There was no news on the front page about the living dead.  The paper wasn’t printed much these days but when anything was printed it was all being kept quiet.  They lived their desperate lives in secret now, without any escape from Cotter.  All the borders were closed off by high tech military planes from above, on order to blow up any car or moving person on sight.  And while the military wasn’t helping them in the town, they were vigilant in making sure the mess didn’t spread.

Dan put the paper back down.  His job was always the same.  Risk your life.  Guard the people.  Give up your life.  Gain glory.  Go to sleep.  Get up again.  Day in. Day out.  But this was somehow different.  It was no longer about defending the front lines of Cotter, Arkansas from a bunch of killers from hell.  In the end, it was about defending his country and possibly the world.  He always wanted a military career and this was a bit of the dream fulfilled.

“Why did they choose us Dan?”

“What do you mean?”

“Prison 12,” Derrick paused in a questioning way, “come on you and I both know this is the worst of the worst.  We’ve got the most from hell in here.”

“I think maybe because we’re a good mix.”

“I’m not even a veteran cop like you,” Derrick said.

“But you got the smarts,” Dan confided, “Let me tell you something kid.  Ain’t nobody in your graduating class or the years before you- got your skills and instincts.”

“Really?’

Derrick thought perhaps Dan was building up his confidence, easing his nerves.

“Don’t say anything I don’t mean kid.  You got the goods and together we can survive.”

Derrick beamed, for a moment he felt better.  He glanced at the clock it was shortly after midnight.

The screams were getting louder from above.

“Did you hear that?” Dan asked.

The revolt was brewing outside.

“On the count of three,” said one.

“One….two…three….,” they roared.

Dan heard the “ONE” and now both he and Derrick heard the “THREE”.

The crazed eyes and lifeless living bodies came barreling at them. 

In a split second they looked at each other and knew the truth.  They might not be able to protect but they could survive.

Dan was face to face now with a stranger from hell.  His eyes were ablaze, his face contorted, thoughts searing through his mind.  The stranger from hell grabbed Dan’s arm, he tried to seize the gun before Dan could shoot.

He tore at his arm and Dan felt his shoulder remove from its socket.  He repositioned himself and shot.  The living dead from hell got scared and pushed through Dan and Derrick.  Derrick was in the thick of it, struggling with a woman clawing at his left leg.

“Get out of my way you bastard,” she roared.

“Let’s go,” screamed the one defeated by Dan, as the gun shots rang out.

The living dead shut off the lights. Dan and Derrick could hear footsteps scrambling about them.  Dan kept shooting in the dark.  Derrick lost his gun, somewhere in the battle.