Project Lazarus (46 page)

Jackson Gillis crept into Cotter unnoticed.  He was an inconspicuous soul.  He knew how to approach the town undetected.  Flying under the radar was a lifelong commitment.

He got most of his experience running from the bullies at Cotter High School.  He got so good at disguises and switching up his look and patterns, if circumstances were different, he would have made a terrific spy.  But with all of his underground skills including computer hacking, conspiracies and his infamous paper “Red, White and True,” by the time he finished the eleventh grade he was on the government radar in a different way.  A way that made him less of a spy and more of a patriot.

He wore his trademark outfit, a Hawaiian shirt, in light green with brown leaves, jeans jacket and tan cargo pants.  His hair was a super curly mess of black curls that radiated from his head and attached to a strange long lanky body.  His old canvas white sneakers  were so worn the tread was no longer there.

Some would call him a minimalist but he didn’t like leaving much of a paper trail for the government even when it came to his clothing preferences.  He didn’t want anybody looking into his likes and dislikes and while the internet was his travel destination of choice, he had so many IP addresses he could look like he moved from Japan to the Netherlands in a day.

He took out the worn map.  It was quite tattered after ten years but safely kept.  He wondered if he could find the location and once he got there if he would even find the box. 

Thoughts of this dear friend Natalie Winston tore him up.  He walked the desolate land, some grass had grown back but the beautiful farmlands were now just dirt pits.

He had a phone number he was supposed to call that day.  It might be the most difficult call of his life because if he didn’t hear her voice on the other end, it meant Natalie was dead.  He couldn’t live with that.

Jackson and Natalie met back in Junior High when the two misfits debated against each other fiercely in debate class.  They liked the debate but mostly the tournaments that debate allowed them to escape for a day from school.  He was a geek.  She was an all American beauty.  They were an unlikely pair which made them the best of friends.  And while it was nothing more than friendship, their relationship lasted longer than most marriages and Natalie confided in Jackson all her sources and stories. 

It was that deep confidence that led him to old man Rivers Farm.  So much had changed.  Jackson got married to a wonderful girl, a teacher in Mountain View named Lauralie and they were expecting their first child.  His family meant everything to him but so did the truth.  If anyone knew the truth or had found it, his friend Natalie Winston would be the one. 

He felt guilty living a normal life knowing his closest friend sacrificed everything for the truth.  She sacrificed her own happiness and perhaps even her life but that was Natalie.

Light years were flying by and soon maybe everyone would be going to the moon.  While Lauralie put up with his quirky theories, Jackson had pretty much gone underground after Cotter turned into a modern day Roswell.

He continued writing conspiracy stories but stopped publishing and distributing “Red, White and True.”  Like his friend, Natalie Winston, he simply disappeared.

He smiled thinking about that momentarily.  Hopefully, if she made it out alive, she followed all the protocol.  It was Jackson that taught her how to get a new identity, how to leave without a trace.  Essentially, he taught her how to disappear. 

He was aware through scanner and internet chatter she had stumbled by downloading a book regarding the topic of homestead farming.  That might have tripped her up.  The people chasing her might be able to trace her, track her down and find her.  But it appeared if she was alive, she was a very quiet living person.

He wondered what her new name was and where she was living.  Was she even still in the United States?

He paced by the large tree on the property.  X marked the spot and he prayed for a miracle.  If anything was left, it was Natalie’s ticket to hell but now it might buy her safety. 

Jackson reached for the tape recorder in his pocket.  He considered it the most powerful weapon on earth.  What human beings say to each other can be damning evidence.

He wasn’t expecting to run into anyone.  He simply wanted to record his thoughts.  If the notes were buried in the ground, he would read some of the contents aloud and record his feelings.  It was a modern day journal.

He told Lauralie of his Cotter plans in a secretive field he found out in the middle of nowhere about a year ago in Colorado.  She was apprehensive but as always encouraging.  With the baby almost due, he felt selfish for continuing the journey.  But even Lauralie said it was the right thing to do.

The small gardening shovel in his worn leather shoulder bag was small enough to make a dent in the dirt and dig into it.  It might take hours but that was the task at hand.

He kept watch overhead for the drones.  But most of them had disappeared.  He had at least seven hours before one flew over head.  This was a well thought out plan, one he felt he had been preparing for his whole life.

Too many secrets went to graves.  Jackson and Natalie were vigilantes.  She thought being a journalist would allow her to tell the truth.  Jackson though being a computer geek would help him find the truth.  It turned out both of them were pretty naïve.  Sometimes it takes many years, turning forty, made Jackson see no matter your good intentions there was no room for them in a world filled with two kinds of people- those that lied and those that sacrificed.

The sweat was pouring down his face, mostly from the jitters. It was a nice spring day and Jackson had been digging for over an hour.  Doubt set in.  Did she ever make it to the location to bury the notes?  Of course.  Did the landscape change the terrain so much the box slid?  No.  Did she bury it in the right place?  Maybe.  Did he find the right location himself?

The last question was answered when the shovel hit something hard.  He got down on his knees and began digging by hand.

Don’t stop.  Don’t stop.  The little voice in his head told him.  Keep going.  It said.

He always followed that little voice in his head.  It was getting louder and his hands were getting dirtier.

The truth was near.  He could feel it.

There it was a small tin box.  He sat back on his heels and rested for a second.  It was surreal.  Was he really a part of this?  Project Lazarus was a mystery never to be solved.  Every answer was in that box.

He grabbed it and opened it without hesitating.

The small notebook was in pretty bad shape just like that tattered map that led him to it.

The notes were scribbled by Natalie Winston, he immediately identified the handwriting.

There it was the true story about Project Lazarus, the secret agenda to resurrect people from the dead there in Cotter at that abandoned military compound.  It was the only building left standing in the town, for show mostly, to keep the mystery alive and silent at the same time.

He read feverishly.  It was like a masterpiece.  A novel that would never by published.  A story too unbelievable it might never be told.

He would have screamed with joy had the situation not been so tenuous.  He glanced at his watch, daylight was fading.  He had about twenty minutes before he needed to get out of there.

He couldn’t believe what he was reading on the grounds of old man River’s Farm.

He read about the scientist Charlie Dempster, his wife Millicent and son Dylan.  He marveled at the mysterious Amazon man from the Arrow Tribe in the Amazon.  He marveled at Dylan’s escape from the hands of Commander Archibald Henrid.

It was like another world.  Reading about the brave Sherriff Traves, who helped her uncover the truth was a marvel..  His stomach turned learning how two faced our own military and government had reacted in the face of disaster that followed the resurrection.

Had God visited Cotter?  He wondered, as did the girl writing the notes.  He read her terrified words, seeing firsthand the killing of normal citizens and fellow soldiers and secret holders.  According to the writings, no one would survive Cotter, the truth suppressed.

He put his hands to his face the writing was real and personal.   It was much different than what he expected.  The girl writing those last few pages had no idea how successful she would ever be.  For a moment, it became clear to Jackson, it might have been a mission she thought she would never complete.

He read this part aloud into his recorder in case he lost it, for it wasn’t about the truth but the people brave enough to blow the whistle on the truth.  The people to afraid to come forward for fear of those more powerful, this was on Natalie’s mind in those harrowing moments.  It was a strange ode to the meek and the brave who fought for them.

“I don’t know if I’m gonna get out of here alive.  I think we’re all gonna die.  And if I do get out of here, I have to ask myself was it worth it?  Is it worth it?  Am I prepared to hide and leave my life behind for the truth?  What I’ve seen in Cotter, I’m sure someone somewhere has seen.  Maybe a different time, another story, but there is evil in this world and it finds its way into the minds of men.  The hounds of hell roam the earth and they don’t need to be resurrected because they’re already alive.  I’ve given up every hope for the future and I’ve left everything and everyone I love for these words that may never see the light of day.  I know anyone else might turn their head and live with the ethical dilemma.  I know of good journalists who are willing to print the truth.  I’ve known a few who died for the truth.  I don’t know what I’ll become.  As I sit here, Sherriff Traves, another man who believes in justice is driving like a possessed man with only one thing on this mind- he’s trying to keep us alive.  He’s trying to keep me alive because he told me so.  He wants me to tell the world.  He doesn’t care what happens to him.  It’s funny what people confess to you when they think they might die.  He signed up for this adventure because there was a time in his career when he turned the other way.  There was a time he was corrupt.  He didn’t want to runaway anymore.  This was his way of redeeming himself.”

Jackson Gillis felt the weight of the author.  She sounded terrified, yet eerily calm about the whole scenario like it was meant to happen.

He continued reading, “I’ve taken enough CPR classes to be a lifeguard in the Summer, working my way through school and spending days at a lake that I can recognize when a man is about to have a heart attack.  We’re near the farm about ten minutes away.  We just buried the notes.  I’ve got a clear cut way out of Cotter that even the police don’t know about.  Sherriff Traves just passed out.  I don’t know if he’s dead.  I’m gonna have to take the wheel.  I’ll have to stop and try to revive him.  Leave no one behind.  Remember Jackson- if you ever read these notes- I wouldn’t blame you for burning them to the ground.  Well my friend, thanks.”

Jackson sighed heavy.  Things didn’t look good for his friend or the Sherriff.

“Leave no one behind,” that was a motto they lived by.  Jackson and Natalie used to tell each other that in high school.  She saved him from bullies many times.  And he knowingly saved her from her own ambition as much as possible.  Friendship was something lost in this digital world.  Natalie and Jackson both refused to text.  They preferred to hear the tonality of voices, people had to be real in person or in voice they couldn’t hide.  You could hide typing but not speaking.  Facial expressions were the same, they told so much.

He scanned back though the notebook to see if anything else was left.  There were only the detailed notes about Project Lazarus and that felt somewhat unimportant now.  He wanted to know if she was alive.