Project Lazarus (39 page)

He glanced at the paper before him and unfolded it carefully.

It simply ready “The Fixer”.

Father Flannery stood in silence and returned to prayer.  A thought entered his mind to run to the doors to ask the man more questions.

His once weak legs were now strong and sturdy and he ran with all of his might and threw open the doors.

“What is The Fixer?”

No answer.

“Who is The Fixer?” He screamed at the top of his lungs to a world that now was new to silence.  He disrupted it.  But it was necessary, the stranger disrupted his life.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the mysterious stranger in black, look back at him for a moment, their gaze lingering, as if they both knew some truth yet to be determined.

“Why me?  Why?” He called out in vain.

He departed from his eyesight around the building.

Father Flannery knew better than to call out after him again.  The man in black wasn’t about to give away anything until the time presented itself.

He knew he would see the man again.

And indeed, this was the truth unspoken.  Although the man had vanished from his sight, it wasn’t the last time he would see the Lazarus man.

Yes, the man they knew as the Lazarus man had made his way into Father Flannery’s life.  He was still standing, the Lazarus man.  He delivered an important message indeed.  The experiment of Project Lazarus had started out as most experiments do, controlled and set with a determined outcome.

Unfortunately, Project Lazarus and the man raised from the dead had taken on a life of their own.  He wasn’t going away anytime soon and neither was the danger that lurked in the minds of men with such impossible dreams that turned into necessary nightmares.  Such was the Lazarus man and he would consume all of Father Flannery’s nightmares until, unless, he, a Priest, a man of God, became indeed The Fixer.

He was out there.  Somewhere.  Dylan Dempster had no idea why the fact he remained among the living was of such great importance to the United States military or government.

He was just a kid on the run.  A disheveled, disoriented kid who witnessed trauma and was almost killed not only by his own fellow man but the very country who he once thought he might serve.

It was about a year ago Dylan considered filling out that enlistment form to enroll in the Army.  He wanted to honor his country.  He needed an education.  His aunt couldn’t provide him that.  Like most young men without opportunity within their own small towns looking for a way out and trying to find a better life without the resources, he looked to the military.  He remembered filling out the papers and forgetting about them.  New opportunities didn’t present themselves and he forgot the call to duty until the man in the uniform put the knife to his neck.

Dylan Dempster would never look at the military or the government, mostly his country the same way again.  He was the enemy.  He didn’t even know why.

Commander Henrid never imagined he would feel the same disgrace, resentment and abandonment from the military he worshipped again.  It was a repeat performance of his disgraced return from the Amazon all those years ago.

Now he was on the receiving end again.

Last time he received a dressing down in person.  This time it was on the phone.  Cotter was still going to hell in a hand basket, which meant no time for personal visits.

“What do you mean you lost him?” The gruff, angry voice asked on the other end.

“It was a mess…there was the Amazon man….Charlie Dempster….the kid….and…”

“He’s not dead?” The voice rose without prodding in anger.

“No.”

“You failed.”

“You don’t know what happened here.”

The unsettled furious man on the other end of one of greatest inventions of vocal transmission gave pause.

Slowly he spoke, “Tell me.”

“Do you believe in God?”  Commander Henrid inquired.  The words were controversial given the situation, given the nature, background and beliefs of the man on the other end.

“No,” he answered tersely.

“Well, then I can’t explain.”

“What’s God got to do with it?”  Asked the man.

“He let him live,” Commander Henrid confided.  It was the voice of an innocent child, one that believed in something bigger, something good, and something beyond all of us.  Commander Henrid had hate in his heart but not enough to deny a miracle of God when he saw one.  Still, the military commanded him and his revenge had a hold of his soul.  The voice of the man on the other end didn’t know this.  But perhaps the devil in Commander Henrid knew it, knew it very well indeed.

“Again, let’s review, is the boy dead?”

“No, I told you,” answered Commander Henrid.

“Then find him and kill him.  You don’t stop until you find him and kill him.  Understand?”

“Yes Sir,” Commander Henrid resounded in his answer like a lost little school boy.  At that moment, he lost himself.  Again.  He could have learned or retrieved himself from the Amazon incident.  But wanting to belong and burning revenge were a solid conversion.

The phone clicked.  And although it sounded light, he knew the hand on the other end of that manual phone slammed that antiquated old phone to the receiver.

Commander Henrid sat down in the chair both stunned and shaken.  His belief system couldn’t be broken.  Yet, the tears were flowing.  There would come a time his belief system would be tested.

He got up quickly and started to move.  He would find Dylan Dempster even if it killed him which it probably would but that was beside the point.

The angry man was still angry and he picked up one of ten phones at his command.

“Mission failed.  The kid is alive.”

The party on the other end didn’t speak.  They were there to take orders and commands.

“It’s time.  Blow the hell up out of Cotter.  Don’t let anyone out alive.  Outsiders are starting to circle and we don’t want anyone left to talk got it?”

The phone call ended.

The cover up was about to begin.

It was the kind of cover up folks in Roswell talked about for years, except in this case, the determination was- no one lived to tell or talk.

The best cover ups were just left with those who speculate.

It was the plot Natalie Winston’s conspiracy theorist friend might find buried in her papers long after Cotter burned to the ground.  It was the kind of disaster that the powers that be couldn’t afford to let just anyone know a single detail about their decisions, their plans and their eventual ambush of anyone who got in their way let alone tried to survive.

It was vocal chemical warfare that was at stake and a government with a secret agenda to hide. It was a lethal combination.  They couldn’t afford to have the citizens of the United States let people know they were trying to raise people from the dead.  It was the kind of truth that might get people thinking for themselves.  They might start thinking the government and scientists had a cure for every disease imaginable and let people die for greed and acted as an actual killing field in an attempt to not overpopulate the world.  It was the stuff that would give steam to other conspiracies.

Nonetheless, the reasons would be conjecture.  Operation Crucify Cotter carried on.

The bombing began days and nights ago.  Now it raged on furiously.

Some questioned commands, “But it’s a nursing home just some old folks- most of them probably with dementia or Alzheimer’s.”

Others complied, “Shoot to kill them as they cross the borders.  Okay.  What about the folks in the cars?  Missiles…okay.”

And the debate of ethics raged on, “The school?  Really?  What if some kids are hiding in there?”

The orders were taken, “Knock on the doors first. Friendly help?  Got it.  Then just kill?  Got it.”

“Don’t look them in the eyes,” this was the warning one soldier received.

When he asked why, the answer was simple.

“War is brutal.  You want to come out of this on the other side.  The good side.  If you look at them you might not.  You might not be able to live with yourself.  Could you live with yourself?”

“No.”

The plans were getting thicker.

Funny thing about small towns like Cotter, they’re resilient and so are their residents.  Despite, the current economy, the lack of jobs, the lack of community even, small towns have a chance because the residents know them better than anyone else.  They know the hiding places, the secret places, the back roads, the way in and the way out.

Many great escapes were made underground in the sewage tunnels.  The few made it out to nearby towns only to relocate in states far away.  Years passed before the mysterious disappearance and deaths of these individuals started to occur.  Truth is if you were a Cotter residence during the summer of Project Lazarus, you died no matter if you escaped.  You lived if you escaped only to die later.  It was a vicious and necessary cycle.

Many swam across the same lake Natalie Winston took into Cotter, only to find the water poisoned.  The culmination of human bodies floated for a while and sunk.  Only the beautiful pristine colorful dead fish that used to play in some of the United States clearest waters gave the poison away when they piled on top of the waters in mounds.

Of course, towns nearby Cotter heard of the demolition but the media has a funny way of spinning things.  And while in the beginning people always questioned the unusual, they ended up believing the lies in the end.

The noises, the sound of a war in Cotter were explained first as demolition crews and the entertainment industry, movie makers moving into the area to do films, were responsible for the more deafening noises.

When the original explanation didn’t convince anyone, they moved to the real lie- a meteor had hit the town and killed the people in it.  The large crater at the center was evidence of the lie.  This spin was better.  It made more sense.

As a child growing up in Arkansas, Charlie Dempster would participate in such a cover up as a bystander.  There was a night when the sky lit up with stars that seemed to drift in formation, unexplained lights in the sky just overhead.  Charlie was a teen in middle school and everyone in Science class buzzed about the strange lights in the sky.

Damage control was in full gear.  The local newspaper and television media accounted the event as a Russian weather balloon that exploded into light particles as it re-entered the earth’s atmosphere.  Everyone knew different.  After all, when you witness the sight of an unexplained object, you know it.  But as time passed, the small town accepted the explanation and people went on with their lives.

It was the event or lie that changed Charlie’s life forever.  It made him pursue science.

Now, he would be part of the biggest cover up in the world.