Project Lazarus (16 page)

He gripped the bottle long before he gripped the Bible.

It was surreal now.  Being locked up with two devils from hell put things in perspective.

He shook his head, all this because they raised a man from the dead.  In the Bible only one so mighty was capable of that and he believed with his whole heart in God and Jesus.  How could they do something so reckless?  Sure, there were the rumors of a man from a lost tribe with powers that could raise the dead.  But why?  Why would they risk it? 

Science was defied.  But there was a price to pay.  The town and its people were ruined, destroyed by this reckless act. 

Jared and his neighbors gave up looking for the mass murderer late in the evening when the police started rounding up the strangers coming down the road.  Jared watched the strange looking people in dressy clothing from the past and present.  Jared remembered thinking some movie mogul had come to Cotter to film.  It looked like a horror movie straight from the beginning.

And then it happened so fast.  Rumors burn quick like that and seldom die out fast.

“They’re dead….they’re awake now…”

“What?  What’s going on?”

“Some tribal man with powers raised the dead in Cotter.”

“They did that,” said a man pointing to the bloody bodies.

All the comments and voices talked to him all at once, blurring his mind and judgment.

“Run.”

“They’re coming to kill us.”

“Who?”

“The one’s from hell.”

“The police are here.”

“Thank God.”

“Let’s go.”

Those were the last words Jared heard.  Let’s go.  A rally cry from his neighbor Stan.  A group of twenty something living people began running to escape death.  It never occurred to them the living dead might run with them or after them.  Barefoot, bloody, they all looked suspicious and soon it was obvious- they would be caught.

They were shackled and easy to retain.

The living dead from hell weren’t so easy to capture.  Jared saw the bite marks.  He even saw long fingerlike claws.  His heart beat so fast he thought it might burst.  The terror in the group detained grew.

“Let us go.  We’re living.  We’re not like them,” the cries began.

But as Jared would find in jail, it was just no use.  They were running from the scene of the crime and they looked guilty as sin.  For as many living that made their claims to be real, the living dead from the hell tried a similar tactic.  This made release impossible.

Jared sat back, restless in the cell, his head of massive black curls, leaning against the prison bars.

There was one image, among all the disturbing images in his head that stood out.  The ones that got away.  Where would these people from hell go?  If they weren’t captured, how far could they get?

Jared got captured pretty early in the game, long before the military was using airplanes to bomb cars and people trying to escape Cotter.  Sure, there were the infrared drones he heard a couple of guards whisper about.  But what would these living dead from hell do if they made it out of Cotter?

A nudge woke him up from such new nightmares.  He was about to find out.

“Got a comrade out there,” whispered the first one with the bald spot and thinning white blonde hair.

“Sounds good,” Jared played along.

The bald one liked to talk more than the younger kid with the shaggy brown hair.  It seemed even among the dead, age took precedence and the old one liked to talk as much as he liked to lead.

“He got a plan?” Jared asked.  The more information he could collect, the more valuable he might become to the guards in Prison 8.

“She,” the bald one corrected him.

“She got a plan?”

“Nope.”

“What then?” Jared wasn’t getting it.

“She’s gone,” he whispered.  That was the kind of information the hell guy wanted to keep secret.

“How?”

“She escaped,” he shook his head, as if, reading Jared’s mind, “not from prison friend.”

Jared sat silently not sure what to say.

“You really don’t get it.  Do you?”

Jared shook his head no.  He figured honesty was the best way to go.

“She escaped from Cotter,” relayed the bald one.

Jared gasped then coughed, to cover up the gasp.

“You’re sure?” Jared inquired, thinking about the ramifications all the while.  Good God.  An escapee from hell.

“Yes,” he said very carefully, “she’s escaped from Cotter and she’s so clever they’ll never find her.”

“Now, I see why you’re so excited.  This is good news,” Jared exclaimed, trying not to throw up.

“Yes indeed.  In time, she can raise more.”

Jared lowered his head in anticipation of the surprise on his face.  He couldn’t let the bald one from hell know.

“Does he know?” Jared asked, casually pointing to the shaggy haired kid from hell.

The bald man from hell nodded in the affirmative.

“If we don’t get out soon, we will in time,” the bald one warned, “I only know of one that escaped Cotter but we all have the power.”

“The power?”

“To raise the dead.  Only the ones from hell can raise more.  With her, we can never be stopped.”

“No, never,” Jared managed a smiled that looked more like an evil grimace and pleased the bald man from hell.

“While they’re trying to save Cotter, she’ll be raising more from hell and she’ll be destroying the next town.”

“Idoits,” Jared mumbled, about ready to faint even though still sitting up.

The bald man slithered back to the corner and back into a trance.  Dare he believe him?  This was a disaster.  The disease was spreading and wouldn’t stop.

He composed himself.  He wouldn’t let the fear get beyond the gate to the fortress of his mind.

He had to get to that guard.  Fast.

While every resident of Cotter was trying to escape, Natalie Winston was trying to get in the town.

A pretty brunette in her late twenties from the neighboring town of Mountain Home, Natalie was a Staff Reporter at the Baxter Bulletin and attempting to land the story of a lifetime.  She had Pulitzer Prize written all over her.

Educated at the University of South Florida, she returned home to help her family.  Her mother had a difficult time after her brother Dalden became sick.  A neurological disease, it was a ticking time bomb, he slowly dwindled from an active high school athlete to a wheel chair ridden young man in a matter of years. Their father disappeared years before and she always felt responsible for Dalden.

Medical bills could be so consuming.  These were times, an individual fantasizes about money but not for material gain, as there is nothing left when a life in ruined.

Natalie was determined to help and while the money wasn’t there, nothing could replace love and support.   Her brother Dalden worshipped Natalie and it was her wild stories as a local reporter that made him smile.  Never mind the long hours, the ungrateful editors, she was on her way to the big time but family was more important. 

Ethics are an important quality for a reporter.  They are lacking in today’s world.  Stories combined of words into sentences can be bought and sold.  But Natalie Winston could neither be bought nor sold.  Money was meaningless.  She knew how it could destroy.  Her ethics were solid as a person and a reporter.

She assured her mother, she would be back.  But Natalie’s mother knew the ambition that had set her on a journalistic career path would eventually lead her back.  The story, in both their minds, was the equivalent of a great prize, a gold medal of sorts.  It was the Pulitzer Prize, the recognition that the pen is still mightier than the sword that led her to the river.

She was a good swimmer.  It would take a few days to swim her way up the river and into Cotter.  It would be a stealth mission.  She honestly didn’t know if she could do it.  But there was little left to live for, she heard the rumors.  There was trouble brewing in Cotter and like any good reporter she sniffed the smell coming her way into Mountain Home.

The stories coming out of Cotter were horrific.  Dead people coming back to life.  Natalie was hot on the trail, using every contact she made in Cotter to dig.  She found out about the military blockades from the air before they were set up.  She knew the lengths to keep the people contained and it confirmed why traffic and people ceased coming out of Cotter.

Sherriff Traves was her most valuable source.  He told her there was no back up.  The higher ups in government and the military were leaving them high and dry.  This infuriated her but encouraged her to go after the story.  She wanted to interview the residents.  She wanted pictures.  If only she could get into that facility…but first she had to get into Cotter and the only way to do that was to swim.

Her camera was going to be a problem.  It was her most expensive tool as a reporter.  She had no back up photographer and she needed pictures.  The water was a threat to her camera.  So, she purchased a water proof backpack on the internet just days before the internet stores stopped delivering to Mountain Home, Arkansas.  It was bad enough they started charging tax on all internet sales but it was a bad sign when no one wanted to ship to your town anymore.

Like anybody else living in the back woods, Natalie Winston was part survivalist.  While there were some infamous cases of militia’s on Arkansas soil, everybody owned a tent, a gun, survival gear and a good supply of canned food and water.   Mountain Home wasn’t different than any other small town.  Folks dreaded the day the crap hit the fan and the city people would come out to raid and kill the small town folk because the stores couldn’t supply them.  So, it wasn’t rare to be prepared, instead it was a necessity.  She knew of every bunker in a five mile radius and made sure to know the owner, just in case.

This was a solitary mission though.  Slim but fit, the challenge was the triathlon style marathon minus the biking.  Walking, running and swimming.  She would live and breathe the use of her muscles until she reached the shores of Cotter.

She entered the treacherous waters, knowing the dangers.  She was raised canoeing on that river.  Still waters not only run deep but fast sometimes.  She was lucky though.  Despite the reality, Cotter was in total dismay, the water was unusually calm.

It took her a week to decide this was the only way into Cotter.  The only way into the story.  It was bittersweet leaving her mother and brother behind.  But it was her one shot.  She felt a strange duty to bring truth back to the living, it appeared those in Cotter had been rendered helpless.

She had many friends in Cotter and thought about them often, wondering if they were alive.  The telephone lines were now down in Cotter, as was the internet and the cell phone reception.  In all respects, Cotter was dead.

She knew the area well.  It took a while to map out the route.  Inside information provided her a direct route, one that would allow her to escape the infrared drones.  Knowing a mistake could be made and she might be bombed alive was a risk.  But not telling the story was a greater risk.

She swam during the day and rested on the banks of the river at night.  There was no time for sleep.  There were guards marching the banks of the river, she had been warned.  Although, she banked on the fact they were looking for people trying to get out of Cotter not get in.

She studied military commanders, Napoleon mostly, in her spare time.  She never knew why.  These men just interested her.  Now she found herself embedded in their tactics.  Her advantage was simply doing the opposite of what the enemy expected.

No one expected anyone to sneak into Cotter and after three days and nights she did.   She made it into Cotter, undetected.  While, she wasn’t frightened before, she was now.  It was dusk.  Dusk was a bad time to be out.  She was warned about the living dead from hell.  She knew how they liked to kill.

She feared for her life.  A life yet to be lived.  She spent most of her time trying to fix her reality.  It was impossible for her to fix Dalden and she couldn’t accept it.  Her family needed her.  Life remained interrupted.  Like any human being she wondered what might have been without the tragedy in her life.  She resented she had to pick up the pieces as proud as she was to put them back together.  Good people often have a hard road.  She soared to live and promised herself her life wouldn’t go in vain.  She would die trying.  With her feet planted firmly on the ground of Cotter, Arkansas, it was a decent possibility outside of her safe cocoon, she might indeed die trying.

The last of great reporters, left her career long ago.  While she earned the respect of everyone she worked with, she knew when to push and when to stop. 

“Natalie can’t be bought.  You go talk to her,” the Editor of a competing paper once told a witness to a potential mob hit.  What else can you call a man who drives his car into a gas tank, to blow himself up?  Locked up in the trunk, the fire almost blew up the town.  She was told his pinky was cut off.  Reporters from big cities wanted her sources but she refused them.  She was true to her word.  Sure, she could have furthered her career but then who might have talked to her?

Yes, Natalie Winston was true to herself, but naïve about a career in which big names new nothing of ethics.

A reporter from a larger neighboring newspaper warned her, “I print what my editor says.  He signs my check.”

This was her first taste of the bitterness she felt for her profession.  If the people with the pen and the citizens with the voices were afraid to speak and write, only arithmetic was left.  Money talked.  It disgusted her when good decent citizens were afraid to speak out, as they felt the police would single them out.  This was a local thing.

On a national level, she knew on air personalities were fed the questions by talented producers.  Stories were dumbed down to the level of a third grade education.  That’s how the media saw people.  Dumb.  Natalie loved her country and the people in it.  She knew they were smart.  They only needed the truth and that was something the media skirted around to suit their own needs.  Money talked, on the highest and lowest of levels.  The media had the power to cover things up and to slant the stories.  Yes, the spin doctors were alive and well.

Natalie Winston danced around the edges of modern journalism.  Policemen and politicians treaded carefully, giving her something to run with so she wouldn’t have time on her hands to find out the truth they really wanted to conceal.

It was the truth that brought her now to Cotter.  The lies had gone too far.  People were dead or dying.  A whole new species threatened to take over an entire town.  This wasn’t a story as much as a matter of survival.  Before the phones went out in Cotter, she found something surprising anyone of importance gave her full cooperation.  This wasn’t the time for a cover up.  While the whole town had pretty much sworn never to speak of the unspeakable in Cotter, they had guaranteed being a source, each and every one of them- the ones who couldn’t escape.

It hit her, cold and shivering, sitting on the rocks, she couldn’t escape anymore.  The people in Cotter were going to have to get themselves out of the mess that had been created for them.  She fit right in.  She was good at understanding messes you don’t create but have to clean up anyways.

The town needed her as much as she needed the story they had to tell.  They could all remain anonymous but she dared dream the impossible, she would put her name on the truth.  Perhaps, the consequences were more deadly than the town itself.

With her new found purpose, she got up.  Digging in her back pack, she found the light, a small flashlight beam that she fit snuggly around her head, like a headband.  She would find the living.  Then, she would find the military base in the woods.  In the end, she would find the truth.