Project Lazarus (8 page)

She turned away from the horrified group, who now shuttered with fright as the dead man on the floor started to whimper and move.

The town clerk, sitting in the back row, managed to get to the corner office of the building and the phone.

“Sherriff Traves, you’d better come quick we’ve got a dead woman here at the Town Hall.  She just shot a man.”

In her panic, she didn’t her the beep.  The phone went straight to voice mail.

Her eyes widened, as she listened the Sherriff Traves message again.

“If you’re calling about the dead people, please continue to wait on the line.”

Emma Winters and Audra Thyme were neighbors for twenty years in Cotter.  Together, they resided in a small subdivision of houses that most would envy given the current economy.  Their families exemplified the remainder and reminder of the middle class.  They survived economic hardship by luck. Their husbands had good jobs and hadn’t been fired. Their continued survival depended on how well they continued their new part time jobs as scavengers.  Scrimping and saving every penny was a past time and the two women talked about it often.

A new reality set in that morning at Emma’s house, over coffee and conversation about the latest coupon website.

Audra, with her coffee mug in hand, stared blankly outside the pretty ivory curtains shading Emma’s front window, watching.  Money faded quickly from her mind.  The world outside the house of savings was now about real survival not material survival.

“Emma,” she started, “Look outside,” she commanded.

Emma obeyed.  Startled, she saw all the people walking, wandering around, really.  Women in dresses and men in suits.  Walking like zombies.

“What’s going on out there?” She asked Audra.

“I don’t know.  Who are all those people?”

“Beats me.  What do you make of it?”  Emma asked, becoming more bewildered by the minute.

The two women sat silently, watching the strange scene before them.

A group of the dead had just woken up from the gravesite nearly five miles away.  They gathered and seemed to like their neighborhood.

“Look at that one,” exclaimed Audra, pointing to a woman wearing a long white dress, obviously from the eighteenth century.

“Come on.  Let’s go outside and see what this is all about,” Emma urged.

She was always the more adventurous of the two.

“No way,” Audra told her, “something weird is going on.”

Emma, already out of her seat, was heading for the front door.  Audra hesitated and followed reluctantly.

The two women opened the door slowly.  Emma stood in front with Audra right behind her, ducking, as if ready to take cover behind her.

They had no idea what was beyond that door.

They peered out first, as the strange group of people, kept wandering, aimlessly.

“Who do you think they are?”  Emma asked.

“They act funny.  Like they’re in a daze or something.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, “what do you suppose happened to them and why are they all dressed so funny?”

“Look,” Audra pointed, their neighbor across the street Jim Walters was on his porch.

Jim was a big burly guy, not someone to be messed with and he was one neighbor’s feathers no one wanted to ruffle.

“I said get off my property,” he shouted at a woman dressed in black.

“I’m looking for my husband Walter.  Have you seen him?” She asked.

‘No, now get off my land,” he told her.

The incident on Jim’s property was heating up.  More of the strangers approached the woman dressed in black.

Emma and Audra’s attention was quickly taken from Jim’s house to the screaming voice of a man, about thirty years old, with sandy blonde hair.

“I want to go back to hell,” he screamed so loudly, both women inched back to the door.

The strange group was crowding on Jim’s land and he too retreated quickly inside.

“Why did they take me from heaven?” One young girl with black hair and startling blue eyes asked.  Her hands rose to the sky and she fell to her knees, in one distraught motion.

The strangers seemed to think Jim had the answers and began knocking on his door.  Then ponding.

“Where’s Mommy?”  Asked a little girl.

“I want to find my sister Nancy,” said another man.

“Go to hell,” roared one to another.

“Help me,” screamed out another.

“Where am I?  Who am I?” Asked another older man, who appeared to be suffering from Alzheimer’s.

They horror show began when they saw their friend Alice Calton being surround by the group.  She glanced at the women before disappearing, “Go back inside,” she screamed to them.

Both women crept slowly from the door and shut it behind it.  Then the locks began.  First the regular lock.  Then the deadbolt.  This is was a routine they would have to complete from now on.  Now that the dead were awake.

Emma proceeded through the entire house with Audra helping her.  Together, they shut and locked every window and door.

When they finished, they whispered, deciding not to speak loudly, for fear the strangers outside might hear them.

“There must be a hundred of them out there,” Emma said.

“I think we better call Sherriff Traves,” Audra told her.

After a long wait on the phone, they reached Sherriff Traves.

Sherriff Traves had seen a lot of things that disturbed him over the years.  Execution style killings, violent murders, missing persons, drug dealers, the usual trouble makers and the list went on, his occupation dictated dealing with news that made headlines.  Usually, the dispatcher handled all the calls.  But with the phone ringing constantly for 36 hours straight, the dispatcher was now fast asleep on the couch across from his office and the Sherriff felt it was time he heard the terror in the voices he had heard  so much about.  The voices on the other end of the line.

“This is Sherriff Traves,” he announced.

Emma Winters rambled on hurriedly, scared, not making much sense, “There’s a bunch of people out here.  I don’t know where they came from or what they want.  What’s going on here?”

Sherriff Traves didn’t have to hear the panic.  He could feel it.  They had a real problem on their hands in Cotter.

“Where are you located and how many have you seen?” He asked, this wasn’t the first call about the strange things going on in Cotter.

“I’m in the Spalding Subdivision and we’ve got over a hundred people out here,” Emma told him.

“We’ll get some men out there.  For now just stay inside.  We’ve got our hands full.  It might be a while.”

“Sherriff Traves….” Emma paused, wanting to ask, but not really wanting to ask, “What is this?  Who are these people?  They talk about heaven,” she lowered her whisper to barley a breath, “they scream about going back to hell.”

The last statement disturbed him.

He collected himself.  It was just another call.  Sherriff Traves sighed, more annoyed, than disturbed at the events and then answered matter of factly,  “They’re dead people.”

“What?” Emma asked, bewildered.

“Somehow the dead in Cotter woke up.  It sounds as strange to you as it does to me.  But it’s happened.  Now we’re asking the public not to interact with these folks.  We’re asking the public to sit tight and remain calm.  Don’t leave the house.  We’ve got this under control.  When things settle down, they’ll be a town meeting.  In the meantime, keep tuned into the local radio station and don’t leave the house.”

“I can’t believe it,” Emma said.

“Let us handle this.  I’ve got to take the next call now.”

He hung up, leaving a bewildered Emma Winters to tell her friend the truth she could hardly accept herself.

“Says the dead woke up.  All these people are dead people and now they’re alive again somehow.  Not to go outside…..” she collapsed.

“Oh Emma, hold on, let me get a wet towel.”

Audra ran to the kitchen, her head processing the news, her hands shaking at the realization that the explanation Sherriff Traves gave made sense.  That’s why they were looking for people, probably loved ones.  That’s why they were asking about heaven and hell.

She took a deep breath and put the cold compress on her friend’s head.

Slowly, Emma revived.

“Dear Lord,” Emma whispered, “what do we do now?”

“Good God,” Audra whispered, “we wait.”

Sherriff Traves had taken too many phone calls.   His coffee was cold and his patience was thick but wearing thin.

Commander Gilten, from the military base in charge of Project Lazarus, ordered him to gather all his policemen and collect the now living dead.

“Find out their address.  Get their name.  And ask them how many they see,” he ordered Sharon Tenner, a petite blonde in her twenties, his secretary of less than three months.

Until that day, Sharon felt rather intimidated by the Sherriff Traves and the work load, incompetent and in way over her head.   But now she felt in command and assured, after all, this disaster was the ultimate job security.  Sherriff Traves needed her help.  The whole town of Cotter did.

Sherriff Traves stood in front of over fifty men in the small auditorium.  It was packed with under-sheriffs, policemen and a few rescue volunteers.

He was a stocky man with brown hair, glasses and a quiet but stern voice.  He was elected as Sherriff nearly five years ago, when his predecessor, Sherriff Umpter decided to retire.  He held the position because the people of Baxter County new him and trusted him.  They re-elected him and he was very proud of that accomplishment.  Of course there was a lot of politics that went along with his success but it was the lesser of two evils.  He made it his business to get to know the residents, the people in Baxter County Arkansas and he gained their respect.

He knew local farmers by name.  He knew how many kids played basketball in a household.  He helped moms in trouble and kids stay out of trouble.  And now the town of Cotter was looking to him for answers, perhaps all of Baxter County.  He was briefed shortly by military, FBI and CIA who he dealt with often in the past but not in this capacity.  This was an epidemic of sorts.  No, a disaster.

He would have an official meeting later that afternoon and more men were coming in for re-enforcement, so he was assured.  But he was leaving nothing to chance.

He cleared his throat, shuffled through some papers and stood behind the podium, adjusting the microphone to his liking.

The men and women before him looked just as frightened as the voices on the other end of the phone.  They were dealing with something that had never happened in the world’s history, except perhaps in Biblical times.  Although, this felt like a Biblical warning and not a Biblical miracle.