Project Lazarus (35 page)

“Do you think the boys are safe?”  Ida asked.

Gilroy had no idea.  He knew his wife wanted reassurance.  He could only give it to her if he lied.

“I think they’re smart.  I think they know how to handle themselves.  We’re good parents.  We taught them well Ida.”

“They’ll come home then?  Soon?”

“Yes honey, very soon.”

BOOM!

The parents stared at each other.  It was unlikely the boys were going to make it home.  Yet, everything had changed in the small town of Cotter.  They were forced to grow up too fast.  It would ultimately be up to the boys or fate whether they could make it back alive.

The boys were on the other side of the world again, running through the woods, the only thought on their mind- was looking for Dylan Dempster to deliver the message.

BOOM!

The bombs were dropping.  Ida and Gilroy had no idea when it would stop.  If it would stop or why it had even started were passing questions with no answers.  They knew about the living dead.  Everyone in Cotter knew about the living dead.  That was kind of the problem for the government, the one so messed up with an experiment that was clearly out of control.  Beyond their control.

Sweat poured down Gilroy’s face.  In his early forty’s, he looked at his lovely wife Ida.  They got married in their late twenties, had the boys by their early thirties and now, this was not the way it was supposed to end.  But what could he do?  He felt helpless, hopeless, for the first time in his life.  He had never faced tribulation of any sort, he truly was a happy go lucky soul.

He wiped the sweat off his forehead.  His father always warned him, if you don’t go looking for change it’s bound to find you.

Gilroy had never been tested in this way.  He was religious enough.  He and Ida attended church every Sunday.  He never questioned his faith but he wasn’t sure if he even had faith to spare.  What was it and how did he use it?

The answer came swift and he jumped off the couch and got on his knees.

He put his hands together in a prayer position, “Dear Lord, I beg you.  I beg you now.  I’ve never asked for anything and yet you’ve given me so much.  My beautiful wife Ida,” he glanced at his startled wife, moved by his actions, she knelt beside him, her head bowed, her hands in prayer, “If you’re there…if you’re listening.  Help our family.  I need your help now.  You are the Most High power and you rule this world not the people invading Cotter.  God please keep my family safe.  Please…..” he trailed off crying.

Ida stared blankly at her husband.  Was she witnessing a broken man or a man about to break down?

Tears streamed down their faces.  She took his hand and together they cried.

BOOM!

That was God’s answer.  Gilroy pounded his fist into the couch pillow and Ida tried to comfort him.

She had a more difficult upbringing, one she didn’t like to talk about but it required her to be strong and she never let her faith or strength be destroyed by anything or anyone.  She was smart enough to know that people asked God for help first, cursed him for not helping next and finally just asked him why me in the end.  It was kind of a metamorphosis of sorts.  From the looks of things Gilroy was angry at God.

But as in all things human, God isn’t the problem but the answer, this she knew.  And while Gilroy was cursing God, the bombs continued to drop on Cotter and the Chuttle’s were about to receive a more personal attack.  The quiet militant men surrounding their house had threatened two neighbors who attempted to warn the Chuttle’s of their unwanted arrival.  The couple had become very important or rather their son’s had become too smart for their own good.

In this world, we are either the pawns of God or the devil and it appeared the Chuttle’s were indeed about to become the pawns of the devil.  There was a price on their heads.  They were lucky the government’s men got to them first.  They held the ransom key to the boys and with a hefty price on their heads and mild curiosity by more powerful and looming figures in the shadows just about anyone might have taken them prisoner or hostage that day.

But it was the very government they trusted that would do the deed.

The doors were rammed open fast and fell quite simply with a thud to the floor.  So much for the deadbolts and the home security alarms and while the beeping noise was dismantled in 3 seconds flat, the burly men that grabbed them did so with such poise and grace, Ida wondered how many other people they kidnapped.

The Chuttle’s realized it was better to go without a fight.  After all, they only needed one parent alive to blackmail the boys.  They were like alive but dispensable.

They would be used like so many before them.  Not for good but for evil.

BOOM!

The men that took the Chuttle’s had orders to shoot to kill should things become “difficult or anyone get in the way.”

“What do you want with us?” Ida asked anyway.

“Tell me where to find Ivan and Gilbert.”

It was the single question they would be asked over and over again.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“I don’t even know if they’re alive or dead.”

“Why?”

“Don’t hurt my sons.”

“Why do you want our sons?”

“I swear I don’t know.”

“If I knew I’d tell you.”

“Please stop……..”

Bloodied, bruised, tortured, sleep deprived- the questions and answers were always the same.

They were prisoners for life without the possibility of parole in a country that believes in innocence before guilt, that was not the case for the Chuttle’s.

This was their life now.  It would go on for years.

The Chuttle boys, theirs sons Gilbert and Ivan, could never possibly know that evil lived in the hearts of living men not just the dead ones.

Gardenia Hall was anything but determined when it came to her long friendship and kinship with Travis Hilfin.  He was a part of the living dead now, a military man killed on the spot because he witnessed the raising of the Lazarus man from the dead.

It was a cruel act indeed, killing your own.  But in a cruel world what could one expect.  These were such sad times for sad faces.  These were the things her grandmother warned her of, times as child she couldn’t comprehend entering her life.  But these were the acts of men who knew better.  Men that knew history shouldn’t repeat itself.  Yet, it did.  Time and time again.  So, Travis Hilfin was a casualty of such arrogance and hypocrisy.  Each civilization advances, yet its people remain base and primitive at the core.

She had snuck into the military compound with the help of the reporter, Natalie Winston and Sherriff Traves.  She was on her own but unafraid, as she was a gifted woman, she could see the dead.  She was psychic and that helped her to go unnoticed.

While she studied the frantic running and shouting, it seemed the living dead were in perfect unison but the living were in complete disarray.

“No wonder they killed Travis,” she mused defiantly, “they don’t know what the hell they’ve gotten themselves into.”

The lost soul-mate on the front lines, she pondered how anyone could be so brutally cold.  Revenge wanted her hands on his killer but that was not her purpose.

She was a very beautiful girl on the outside, raven hair, spiraled in curls that traveled in the wind with her.  She was as beautiful on the inside, a mellow heart, filled with much ache.  It was too good a heart for anyone but perhaps worthy of Travis, which is why he was so drawn to her yet so distanced long ago.

His life was one that would go down a dark path.  Travis was meant to see men die.  He was also meant to help them die.

Gardenia couldn’t hurt a soul.  But that was changing.  The strange events of Cotter had changed everything and everyone.  She thought she might go unscathed from the wrath of something so terribly wrong, yet even she, could feel the pull of evil tugging at her and wondered what decisions she might find in the end.  What choices she would have to make?

She was desperate to find Travis.  She wanted to save his soul and get him safely to the other side before anything worse happened and he was stuck in limbo or worse hell.  She knew it was wrong to bring him back to life, even though, with her powers she most likely could make the Amazon man do just that.

No one had seen her angry.  Only one time did she show herself when the abusive husband across the street punched his dog for the hundredth time and she lashed out at the brute.  It took months for that man to recover.  What happened to him no one ever really knew.  Something came over him and he couldn’t speak or move for two years.  He was so spooked after the incident, his pride and arrogance torn, he moved away the minute he healed.

Gardenia had fixed him.  Her anger had destroyed his own anger.  She knew he would never touch another living thing, for she had shown him hell, in her own special way.

Her long black flew with her, down corridors, down steps, closer and closer to the only person she ever truly called her friend.  She could feel Travis’ presence in the building basement and she knew it was too dangerous for him to be there.

She couldn’t lose him now that she found him again.  Yet, it seemed she was always destined to lose him in one way or another.

A few months ago when the terror in Cotter began and she reunited with Travis he told her the story of his life and death.  He let her know he always cared for her. They had a strange inexplicable bond that carried them through life and now perhaps death.

It was then she knew he had to return to the dead and it was up to her to save his soul.  He warned her to stay away but she vowed to bring him to the other side.  She promised to find the Amazon man first and through her powers she contacted him mind to mind.  She didn’t think she could handle the Amazon man, as his powers were so vast.  But during her meditation in the fields, the Amazon man led her to the old abandoned building in the woods.  There she would find Travis and him.  Which one would she find first?

She ran quicker now, stopping briefly in front of the elevator doors.  They would open soon.  Who would be behind them?  Did she dare?

Hell no.  She ran to the stairwell.  Sensing Travis, she continued into the basement.  God what was he doing in the basement?  She didn’t know and she didn’t care.  She wanted to save him.

Wildly she ran, her pace quickened, so many things in her life passing by, flashing through her eyes, right to her core, she ran faster again.  Did she hear someone behind her?  She stopped quickly to look, still running without looking at the terrain and managing not to trip.  She paused to look.  There was nothing to see but her shadow.  How she’d like to pray to that shadow.  If time allowed, her sensible self might stop and talk to that shadow for a while, making it find some sense, trying to keep herself safe, make herself stop.

She couldn’t stop.  She could see the end of the stairs and the door to the basement.  She knew Travis was behind that door.  She prayed to God he hadn’t turned to those from Hell.  She prayed earnestly.  She prayed God was there.  In the midst of all the madness, God was always there.  God was love and if Travis was behind that door, she could never find so innocent a spirit as his on this earth.

Grateful to God for all her gifts she breathed, a sigh of relief, finally facing the door and what she determined must be done.  Ultimately, she would be letting go of Travis forever.  This much she knew.  In the past, she could live with the foolish dreams and hopes of seeing him again.  Now, she had the task of really letting that girlish dream go. 

How many people get a second chance?  She might have found him only to lose him again but at least she would see him one last time.

She turned the door knob.  It was cold to the touch but suddenly warm.  She thought about the last time she saw Travis.  He was a dead person on the run.  She knew him long ago as a vibrant college student, a friend, a soul- survivor in this world that had an innate connection to her soul.

She opened the door.  Travis Hilfin stood directly behind the door facing her, his wavy longer black hair and olive eyes.  He had been waiting for her.  As most soul travelers know, they can sense each other. 

“Hurry, they’re coming,” Travis warned.

She tried to touch his face but he was an illusion, “You survived,” she said almost surprised.

He looked at her with a strong connection in his eyes, “I know why you’re here,” he announced.

She was a bit stunned.  Did he really know?  Understand?

“Is it okay I’m here?”  She asked.

He said nothing.

“You do have a choice.  I can go,” she told him.

He grabbed her hand, she could feel him but quickly let go of the illusion and dreams of the past.  It was time to let him go for good.  She knew this and so did he.

“I know you can help me.”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“You’d better hurry.”

“I can bring you to the other side.  To the light.  I can make sure your soul is safe.”

“Gardenia you are mystery and magic and love all rolled into one.  How fortunate I am to have known you.”

She smiled, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“The whole world is a masquerade and yet you share your soul to save another.  You are true and good.”

She grabbed the hand that was the illusion, because she could, “I couldn’t be here if you hadn’t made this world a better place Travis.  Thank you.”

He let go of her hand.  There was no room for attachment.

“Are you ready?” He asked.

She nodded hesitantly and they stared at each other for a long time.

“I know we’ll meet again,” she told him.

“I’m sorry this is the ending,” he wiped away a tear, she knew couldn’t be human but she felt the emotion behind it anyways.

“I could go with you,” she offered.

“You could?  But how?”

“I could leave this world and come with you.”

“Forever?”

“I don’t know.  But I could make sure you find your way.”

“Gardenia Hall…I wouldn’t risk it.  I think by now, I know the way.  After all, my life has been touched by you.  Please show me the way.  You’ll be with me in spirit.”

She shook her head, “I know, I can’t follow…it was but a dream.”

“You said it anyways.”

“Yes.”

“I would have done the same in your shoes.”

They stared at each other again, until she realized it was time for Travis to go.  She was holding him back and making things more dangerous for herself.

The light was bright in the corner of the room behind Travis.

“Hey there. Look Travis, behind you.  Do you see that light?”

It was blinding and she shielded her eyes from it.

He turned slowly.

“I see it.”

“Just walk towards it okay,” she told him, holding back the tears.

If there was a God, why did the good people in her life all have to leave?  Why did the good people get killed and hurt in this world?  People were selfish and stupid, careless and reckless; she and Travis paid the price.  People who wouldn’t hurt a soul were always second place behind the devious and the cold, it was unfair and she tried to contemplate the sad reality of it all.

She was interrupted by Travis’ smiling face.

“I see it.  It’s so warm and beautiful Gardenia.  I can’t wait for you to see it.”

“Keep going,” she choked a bit on the tears.

He hesitated, looking back at her.

She knew what he was thinking.  She was gone.

“Goodbye,” he whispered and disappeared into the light.

“Until we meet again,” she whispered in return.

She waited for the light to leave.  Usually, it did.  But this light grew bigger like a sphere and danced around the room.  She watched the unusual spectacle in awe.  What was she seeing?

She could feel his soul was safe.

It was done.  What was this strange spectacle?  The sphere of light stood still and there in her mind’s eye she saw an image of Travis.  He was larger than life now and appeared as a strong angel.