Project Lazarus (33 page)

“And then?” another man asked.

“We move in on the donut until we reach the center.  The circle gets smaller and smaller until there’s nothing left.  Cotter will be a whole in the ground.   A crater.”

“And the cover up story?” Asked the oldest man at the table, with white balding hair.  This was a question that might have disturbed Samuel but the old man deserved respect.  His reputation was legendary.  The oldest man covered up many government blunders, buried the bodies and hid the stories, he was the best.

“Already taken care of.  The papers, the media, will call it a meteorite.”

“Good, very good,” the old man complimented his protégé, “A crater,” he mumbled to himself.

“A crater,” Samuel repeated.

The weight of destruction and death weighed heavy on the individuals at the table.

“It has to be done,” Samuel assured them.

No one dared protest.  The living dead was among them.  With their evil, the true evil of human nature surfaced.  It was an evil some referred to as survival of the fittest.  But in reality, there was always a way to save lives.  Samuel’s choice was the same as the living dead.  Solve the problem.  Kill them.  Move on.  Keep going.  You live.  They die.

And so it began.

It wasn’t a difficult choice for the Chuttle boys to leave their parents behind.  The reality was they would abandon the safety of the only home they ever knew.  They were a part of the mystery now, a part of the urban legend that was the Lazarus Man of Cotter.

They fretted over their parents.  They were young but not invincible. Still they worried for loved ones not themselves.  They were better off dead, however, the boys knew they were an integral part of the turmoil in Cotter.  There were witness to the inexplicable.  They were a part of history.  None of it mattered.  They just wanted to run away.

They prayed for their parents as they fled by foot.

The older brother Gilbert who had the power to communicate with the living dead, knew they had tried to kill them at their parent’s house once and they would be back for more.

Ivan could heal his brother and wondered where that gift would fit into the scheme of things.

The boys were adventurers at heart and long before their chilling discovery at the military compound, they had been exploring the back woods of Cotter most of their young lives.

They were wanted.  Wanted by the living dead.  Wanted by the government.  Wanted by the military.  Wanted by everyone for answers and now their powers. 

They were potential lab rats and potential talkers and they were a liability.

The prayed for their parents once again.  Then they cried for them.  The military wasn’t cunning but they had resources.  They knew their move.  They would take their parents if they could get them.  But in their short time, Ivan and Gilbert had trained their parents well.  They knew how to run and to trust no one.

They boys were on the run now literally and there wasn’t a plan, not a whole lot of time to think.  They decided the best thing they could do was disappear.

Gilbert fell to the ground, screaming, covering both ears.

“What is it?” His little brother asked. 

“I can hear the living dead….they’re being guided.  Guided by a man.  A man with great powers.  I think he’s the man that helped these people come back to life.  He’s so powerful Ivan.  I’m scared.”

“He’s communicating with the dead people?’ Ivan asked.

“Yes,” Gilbert paused and then added, “I think he raised them.”

“Can you hear him?”  It was all the younger brother desired to know.

Silence.

“Can you hear him?”

“I’m not powerful.  We…you and I….we have these strange abilities now.  We don’t know how to use them.  We have no idea how to summon these gifts.  They may come and go.  They may fade away forever.  Who knows Ivan.  All I know is our world has been changed forever and I don’t think there’s any going back for us.”

“What will we do?  How will we survive?”

Gilbert was visibly shaken, “I don’t have the answers little brother.”

“What about Mom and Dad?”

“I hate to admit it but we’ve put them in great danger.”

Ivan fell to the ground.  It was too much for the boy to bear.  He began to sob.

Gilbert quickly took to the ground beside his brother and attempted to quiet him, to comfort him.

There was no solace and the sobs grew louder.  Gilbert noticed a change in his brother.  His healing powers had brought great emotional turmoil, ups and downs, highs and lows.  This was a low mixed with a high.  Ivan could feel a hatred beaming from his brother’s heart.  It was an anguish that couldn’t be quenched.  It was as if their parents were already dead and the Gilbert knew it.

Spooky and eerie, Gilbert knew the chatter in his head was a normal part of life now.  Something he would have to deal with.  God, would it ever be normal again?  Would the dead ever stop?

The snap of the twig somewhere to the right of his ears grabbed not only his attention but made his heart pound so loud, he could feel it choking him up in his throat.

He pushed his finger to his mouth and stared at Ivan, “Shhhhh,” he whispered.  It had become a familiar refrain between the boys.  When you witness something or become part of a secret, silence isn’t only a code, it becomes a way of life.

“They’re coming,” Gilbert announced.

“The living dead?” Ivan asked terrified.

“No,” he paused, “the military.”

“You think they’re here to save us Gilbert?”

“No, I think,” another snap of a twig, a rustle in the leaves, a falling branch or two and now footsteps, “I think they’re here to kill us.”

Ivan’s eyes darted wildly at the woods that surrounded him until he steadied his eyes fast on his brother.

Gilbert saw the man in fatigues with the fancy shot gun, “Run,” he roared to his brother.

It wasn’t a command.  It was a means of survival.  They were wanted by two opposing factions, a military that wanted to poke, prod and silence them and a phenomena called the dead that wanted to kill them for their powers.

It didn’t take long for the boys to grapple to their feet and sprint through the woods, their hideout, their solace, and their familiar grounds like two newborn gazelles waiting to use their legs for the first time.

“Over there,” the man in fatigues shouted to anyone listening, “they went that way.”

The boys didn’t speak.  For the first time in their lives, there was nothing to say.  No conspiracy to whisper about.  They were the conspiracy now.  They were the hunted.  They knew what to do.  It’s a gut instinct that kicks in when you’re running for your life, trying to live another day, hoping to see the sunrise again.

Ivan thought for a moment, what if one of them lost the other?  Surely, he couldn’t survive without Gilbert’s wisdom.  But he would have to now.  He would have to move on.  Go on.  In this strange new world he would have to carry on.  The thought killed him but he was as good as dead without using his thoughts anyways.

The two boys kept sprinting to the finish line.  Gilbert knew exactly where that line was and Ivan followed like the loyal suitor.  A small group of caves, the boys had explored a month ago, just tiny enough of a space for them to crawl into and hide.  Perhaps, the important men wouldn’t find them there.

“Over here men,” the man shouted, “get moving.  They went this way.  Come on.  Let’s go now.  No failure on this mission.”

Ivan was running behind his brother Gilbert.  His feet never felt so heavy, like lead.  Was he getting older already?  Was this what it was like to get old?  What you once depended on with your body to move swiftly and agile, you no longer could.  Of course, it was aging.  They had aged years and there were lines on their faces.  Was it possible that stress and grief could move you quicker and farther in age like those infomercials for night cream his mother always watched but never bought from television were true?

Lagging behind, in thought and body, Gilbert waited for him to catch up.

“Let’s keep going,” Ivan urged, “don’t stop now.”

“We’re almost at the caves.  Once we get there, don’t look back and don’t make a sound.  We decide now.  We take our chance at the small crevice opening in the cave or we keep on running.”

“The cave,” Ivan agreed, gasping for breath.

Gilbert stared at his brother.  Would he make it?  He was only slightly older than Ivan but even the sheer terror of what was coming for them weighed heavy on him.

But his brother was feisty and a fighter.  He looked again in his eyes.  The decision was made.

“Come on, we’re drawing closer, fan out men,” yelled the man chasing them.

The boys looked at each other and ran.  The caves were about a half a mile ahead.

Instinctively both boys knew now was the time to run quickly but lightly and they tried as hard as they could to make as little noise possible.

Time stood still, yet still passed.

The caves were in sight.  The footsteps seemed to be going in different directions.  How many were following them they didn’t know but it was less than before.  They could surround them in the woods but not in that tiny crevice in the cave.

They kept running.  And running.  The cave now so close.

“Stop.”

The man’s voice startled them.

They kept on running.

“I said stop.  I won’t ask again.”

Instantly, they ceased.

Gilbert waited.  Would he and his brother turn around only to face the barrel of the gun?

He took Ivan’s hand in his, a time of solidarity was approaching, and prepared himself for the worst.  Together they turned in the leaves, for the first time making noise.

The man’s face that greeted them found them with a new kind of horror.  For it wasn’t the military snipers ready to shoot to kill, it was a familiar face, a face they only saw once before and couldn’t believe they were seeing again.

Ivan and Gilbert Chuttle were face to face with the Lazarus man.  The man that told them he was from hell.  Their faces dropped.  Before them stood the man raised from the dead.  Gilbert waited for his powers to kick in but felt nothing.  The new found talents were unreliable.

“You can trust me,” the Lazarus man told the boys, “I know you’re going to the caves.”

They turned to each other.  Not knowing what to do or say.

“Come on,” he urged them, “let me help you.  Let’s go.”

The military snipers were circling close enough for the boys to take the man’s offer.  It was the lesser of the two evils.

Ivan searched his brother for some kind of facial expression, a warning of sorts,  but Gilbert felt nothing of this man and simply nodded.  He took Ivan’s hand again and the three ran.

Once Gilbert could feel the face of the cave, rough and ragged with his hand, he looked at the Lazarus man and questioned, “Why?”

“A message,” was all he replied.

“For us?  Are you here to kill us?”

“No,” the oddly blank staring man, appeared like some Frankenstein machine, expressionless, without hesitation, he told them, “I need you to deliver a message.”

“What?” Ivan asked, confused.  Here they were out in the middle of the woods face to face with a dead man now alive who wanted them to deliver a message.  To who and why?

“I’m prepared to prove my loyalty,” he told the boys.