Project Lazarus (22 page)

Sherriff Traves was in his sixties now but Natalie thought he appeared much older.  The ordeal in Cotter had taken a toll. 

The police car was as mangled as him.  She dare not ask about that blood dried scar on his face.   As a reporter, it was a fine line which questions were for the asking.  People were naturally curious.  But she was brought up to mind her own business.  It was invaluable in her profession and the interesting thing was people were more likely to share their secrets when you didn’t ask.

“Come on, get in,” Sherriff Traves spoke weakly, “I’m not gonna lie to you Natalie.  It’s a bumpy ride out there and the roads…well, the roads have changed.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” he answered candidly.

See.  Yes, she did see.  The destruction the living dead caused.  The evidence was everywhere.

“The stench gets pretty bad but I’ve found it’s best to keep the windows open,” he informed her.

She covered her nose with her cotton black shirt.  The bodies or parts of bodies were strewn all over the road like road kill.  Except these were people with families and lives.

She turned away, closed her eyes.

“It’s pretty bad.  I know.  Thought you’d want to see it first-hand.  If I’d told you, you might have gotten spooked.”

“Yeah,” she mumbled, opening her eyes.

Death, the mere smell of it, wasn’t something she was familiar with.  It was terrible.  The car stopped often for her to vomit out of the window.

The sounds were worse.  When she entered Cotter, she had experienced quiet.  Now, there was nothing but the sound of vultures circling and calling others.  Prey was easy to find.  But watching them pick at the flesh of the bodies was enough to make her hurl again.

This was it, she thought.  This was what stories were made of.  This was what she attended school for.  This was all the work she had put into her career.  Someone had to tell the story.  From the Bible, to mythology, to history, there had to be a record of such events.

She would tell that story.  She would write it.  Hopefully, she would finish the story in time to bury it and leave it for the confidant to find.

“My God,” she murmured, “How have you kept your head in all this?”

It was personal.  A line she didn’t cross often.  But she had to know how the man behind the wheel of the car was holding it all together.

Sherriff Traves smiled nervously, “Who says I’ve not gone insane at this point.”

“This isn’t your responsibility Sherriff.  You’re off the hook.  You don’t have to save the world.”

“Natalie, I’m no coward.  And I’m certainly no hero.  But we can’t get out of Cotter.  The check points.  Even if I wanted out.  I couldn’t.”

“But you got me into Cotter,” she mused.

“It’s my town,” he answered somberly, “and now it’s your story.”

“You could get out then?”

He shook his head, “I don’t know if there would be anything out there for me.  They’re going to kill the residents.  They don’t want us talking.  This is going to be swept under a great big rug.  Heck, Aladdin could fly off on this rug.  Don’t you see?  Look around.  No one’s coming for us which means one thing.  No one’s leaving and if they do, they’ll be hunt down like an animal and killed.  I’m a military man and a government man.  You know that.  You did a piece on my background at Quantico.”

“Yes, I remember,” she told him.

“This is the stuff conspiracies theories are made of.  This makes Roswell look like a fairytale.  There’s no transparency in our world.  We think we know in the back of our minds everyone tells us the story but that’s not true.”

“No,” she said looking about the empty town, the dismal scene.  Looters had gone through the shops, not for consumerism but for survival. 

“I’m going to have to ask you to be quiet for a little while now,” Sherriff Traves told her.

“Why?”

“We’re entering hostile living dead territory.  It’s one thing if they see a car.  That’s bad enough.  But if they hear voices.  They’ll be all over us.”

“How long?”

“About five minutes,” he answered.

No sooner had the words left his mouth when she saw them coming.

Running, they were driven to the car.

She wanted to tell him to go faster but knew Sherriff Traves was a tactical man and there was a plan to the speed of the car.

It was an eerie sight.  Perfectly normal looking people, except for the occasional really old living dead person in the antiquated clothing, were running towards them.  She expected them to look like zombies, gross and unkempt, strange and unworldly.  But they were nothing like that.  In fact, they looked as real as Sherriff Traves did sitting beside her.

He put his finger to his mouth, reminding her to be silent.

The wails started.

“I want to go back to hell,” one screamed running dangerously close to the car.  The strange dead man climbed on top of the car.  His eyes met hers.

She almost let out a scream but sat still.

Sherriff Traves turned the car quickly to the right doing a 360 with the mangled vehicle and shook of the dead man.

Dear God, she thought, how would they make it out of this alive?  She wanted to turn around.  Somehow her hearing intensified or her imagination magnified or both.  She knew with all her senses those dead people were behind the car, running and chasing it.  Did they know they were living people inside?  They had to.

The wailing got louder and more frequent.  All these people.  These dead people wanting to go back to hell.  She wondered what got them there in the first place.  Which was scarier?  What humans did to each other while they were living or this place called hell?

She always thought maybe everyone had it wrong.  Maybe hell was on earth and if you survived you went to heaven.  Who knew?  Not her.

Multitudes of them were coming now.

The CB radio broke in.

Her eyes widened.  No noise.  That’s what he told her.

“Help me,” Cried the male voice on the other end, “I’m surrounded…”

Sherriff Traves fumbled for the switch, couldn’t find it and ripped out the plug instead.

Natalie buried her head and said a prayer for the man on the other end of the call.

Sherriff Traves recognized the voice.  Sweat was beading on his forehead.  One of his most trusted deputies Harvey Telterson was probably dead.  God, how he hated this, it was a losing battle.  Why did he have to be the one left behind?  He hated cowards but there was no time for hate in a world succumbing to the ugly truth.  Hate destroys and love conquers.  If only everyone was a bit kinder.  Maybe the indigenous man would have spared them this cruelty.

Natalie winced.  The group was getting bigger and they were running alongside of the car.

The car was going thirty miles an hour and she wondered how they could run that fast.  She made the mistake of turning her head and before she knew it a dead woman in her early thirties was grabbing at the door handle.

It was open and she nearly took the door and Natalie out with her force.

Natalie was holding onto the open door, being pulled out of her seat by two living dead when the sound of a shot gun echoed through the air.

She felt Sherriff Traves pull her back in the car and somehow manage to reach over her and grab the door while still keeping the other hand on the wheel.

“Watch out,” she yelled, breaking his request.

They were headed right for a tree, when Sherriff Traves took a sharp turn to the right.

Before she knew it, there was nothing but woods, plenty of trees and the silence and terror between the two people in the car had been broken.

“It’s okay now.  It’s over.  They don’t come here.”

“Oh my God,” she said, trembling with fear.

“Sorry about the car door.”

“Damn the car door.  Did you see those things?  They nearly killed me.”

“I told you it was like another world out here.  We’re right in the middle of hell.”

“You saved my life.”

“Just spared it for a while,” he told her.

“You know I think this proves hell is on earth.”

Sherriff Traves was nervous and relieved he saved the young reporter, the comment made him laugh, “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

“You know that isn’t the first time you saved my life is it?”

“Yep,” he shortened his answer.

“Come on don’t be modest,” she told him, “you were my guardian angel a long time ago when I went after that story about the drugs.  They put a hit out on me.  Don’t know what you did.  But I know you got them to stop.”

“It’s strange what people will do for money.”

“Boy was a naïve then.  They would’ve killed me over drug money, the life, the trap you know.  Smart ass kid who did I think I was?  I got mixed up pretty bad.”

“Yep,” he agreed, “loyalty left me back in Vietnam.”

“Don’t see much of it these days.”

“Only once in a while,” he smiled, “once in a great while you meet brave people.  People like yourself willing to risk your life for others.”

“You and I, we don’t cut corners.  Guess I should have thought about breaking the rules.  Maybe I would have the career and the life too.”

“Never.  You see this world.  Even this crazy world we’re mixed up in Natalie it has to have balance.  That means good and evil.”

“Where is the good in this?”

“You haven’t met the ones who want to see their family members or go back to heaven.  I imagine some of them have been taken out of here to be studied.  They’re fascinating beings.”

“Wow,” she pondered, “so much we don’t know about.  Yet, here we are living it for real in the great unknown.”

“This is as big as it gets Miss Reporter.”

“How much further?” She inquired.