Project Lazarus (18 page)

The silence between them now was grand.  The crowd eyed them.

For a split second Eric thought of fleeing.  Why hadn’t he met Jenny before?  Why hadn’t he reached out?

In his heart, he knew it was too late for them now.  The fantasy of escape, of what might be, of the perfect life eluded them both in the past and the present.

Jenny shot him a look of fear.  Her body and mind were in overdrive.  They could run, maybe.  If they could just get over that hill.  If they could duck.  If they could hit the ground and roll down.  No.  It was useless.

Eric gave a weak smile.  Footsteps were coming down toward them both now.

Jenny wondered what it might have been like if they met under different circumstances.  But that wasn’t the case.  They were kindred souls.  The kind that live and die in silence without anyone knowing they’ve come or gone.

The woman in the floral frock was leading the pack.  The hungry pack.

“What do we do?” Jenny asked, momentarily blinded by the idea of escape.

Eric knew the answer was to do nothing.  But something took control of his lonely soul and heart, he grabbed Jenny’s hand and together they started running down the hill.

“Get them,” screamed the woman in the floral frock.

“Run,” Eric told her.

“Don’t let go of my hand,” Jenny screamed.

The roar of the crowd was all around them now.

There was no escape.

One group was tearing at Jenny’s arm.  The other group was tearing at Eric’s arm.

He never let go of Jenny’s hand.  Even when they completely tore his arm out of its socket, he held onto her hand.

He screamed in agony.  This pleased the living dead from hell.

“I’m sorry Jenny,” he cried.

“Thank you Eric,” she replied, wistfully now, as the group tore her feeble body limb from limb.  He watched her eyes completely close.

“Another life,” he whispered to himself, as he prepared for the same savage death.

They were at him now, pulling out his legs, his arms.  He died in pain, much the way he had spent his life.

Jenny was a memory he could be proud of.  In her, he finally found someone to believe in.

The crowd was furious.  Eric had infiltrated their group and they took most of their anger out on him.

Tearing him apart while he was alive wasn’t nearly enough.  He needed to be made an example of.

So they tore apart his torso, ripped out his spine, gouged out his eyeballs and meticulously took off each toe and finger off his feet and hands.

When they were done, they tore off his skin.

The leader of the living dead from hell declared the victory by putting Eric’s blood and carcass on a stick planted at the top of the hill.

The group would stick it into the ground and leave it at the top of the hill as a marker for any other traitor.

In the end, the living dead from hell sniffed out two of the living.  Two traitors.  They successfully managed to eliminate them.  And while there were more living in the group, part of the great jail escape, they went unnoticed despite CIA training.  They had taken part in the killing to not draw suspicion.

It was only about survival.

Eric and Jenny survived a lot to meet such a cruel end.  In their deaths, they won.  Free from their own suffering, they were at peace.  They couldn’t return.  Only those living killed that would go to hell could return.  This made the living dead from hell even angrier, they preferred sinners over saints.

Eric and Jenny found each other too late in life.  But perhaps, spending a few minutes with someone who potentially means everything to you is worth more than spending a lifetime with that person.  After all, we only have the present moment and therefore we must live in the present moment.  The past can only haunt us.  The future tries to taunt us.  The power lies in the present moment.  What a gift they had both received.

Reluctantly, Gilbert and Ivan Chuttle followed Commander Luis Henrid to the large bus where the interrogation would occur.

They shuffled along behind the large man.  He was chock full of authority.  The boys gave knowing glances to each other.  The jig was up for the boys.  Someone knew their secret.  Now, they had to spill it.

They had sworn to keep it to themselves.  But this wasn’t the time.  Unfortunately, the never discussed what they might do if they were questioned.  They couldn’t deny it.  They were on tape.

Ivan, the older of the two, thought rapidly.  He wasn’t so willing to play along.  He could keep Gilbert quiet by cueing him.  He planned on finding out how much the men of important authority really knew.  He wanted to see that tape before they committed to any truths.

Commander Henrid had aged five years in the most terrible way since his trip with Charlie Dempster to the Amazon.

That mission was a way back into the military for him.  Charlie Dempster knew Commander Henrid was ostracized after a few bad political moves and Project Lazarus afforded him the opportunity to redeem himself.

Commander Henrid mercilessly went after Charlie in the jungle.  He knew Charlie was hiding something. 

Upon his return, with the Amazon man, his career reinvigorated. The higher ups were grateful he returned with the Amazon man.

Commander Henrid served overseas in Iraq and subsequently gained a limp due to shrapnel from a roadside bombing.  That unfortunate event took him out of his beloved military position again.  It was during that two year hiatus, he began to research Charlie Dempster. 

He found out about Dylan Dempster almost by accident.  The internet, ever growing, was a wealth of personal information individuals would prefer to keep personal.  This worked to his advantage.  In this day and age, one can’t visit a website without it being logged somewhere out there in the information super highway data base.  Nothing is sacred.  Nothing is secret.  You can find relatives, birth dates, mug shots, home prices, phone numbers, addresses, emails and just about any like or dislike, want or need of your friend, your spouse, your enemy or anyone else for that matter.  The world agrees mostly on the use of the internet and when we all agree we think it might be a good thing.  After all, it’s about the only place we would find and lobby for peace on a world scale.  People tweet, pin it and face book every day.  They give away bits of themselves, their hobbies, their personal dating status, their photos and snapshots into their lives can be found as easily as a speck of dust on a black shirt.

All the while, we tell ourselves it’s perfectly innocent.  Everyone else does it.  Except in Communist countries where they want to keep the people under control. And yet we can’t even see the ramifications.  Only a private detective or a conspiracy theorist could see the problem with power beyond the keypad. We upload our lives and someone profiles us.  Now, they don’t even have to follow us around.  They can go to Google and see the front door of our house with Google maps and if they’re real lucky our car might be parked in front of the driveway and then they can get our license plates too.  No official channels.  Wasn’t that the stuff only the government, CIA and FBI was supposed to know?  Now anyone could know.

Legislation was actually passed to attempt limiting some of this personal classified information.  It was so detrimental to our own safety.

But this kind of research got Commander Henrid lucky, real lucky.  He got the license plate on the car in front of Charlie Dempster’s house one cool July evening.  After a year of no visitors to the family home, Commander Henrid knew he hit the jackpot.  Whoever was in that vehicle was part of a secret Charlie Dempster held close in the Amazon.  Being a man of great resources, he knew there would be a day that kind of information was worth something.

With a few more clicks and a few typed letters and numbers, Charlie traced the car to Missouri.  It was a state close to Arkansas but yet it was far enough away that no one would link the man in the house with the boy in the car.  The owner was an Aunt of Millicent Dempster.  And the boy in the car, Commander Henrid would learn was their son.  Charlie and Millicent Dempster had a son.  A son named Dylan who was proclaimed dead in a hospital a few years back, while Commander Henrid was living in another part of the world, fighting for the freedom of both the man and the boy.

At some point, Dylan Dempster’s name was legally changed to Dylan Tendall, the maiden name of Millicent and her sister Laura, the woman who took care of Dylan.  Laura claimed legal guardianship of the boy around the same time he made the miraculous recovery in the hospital.

Commander Henrid visited that hospital as soon as he could walk.  Dr. Cassidy confirmed the story.  Dylan Dempster had terminal cancer.  He died in the hospital.

Yet, there he was alive and well under the name of Dylan Tendall.  It was like finding Elvis Presley living in Hawaii, enjoying himself on the beach.

Except this boy didn’t fake his own death to avid fame and lead a life of privacy.  He actually died and returned to live a life off the grid.  Charlie Dempster had gone through great lengths to hide his son, now named Dylan Tendall.

Commander Henrid knew what was at stake in the Amazon now.  What he and Charlie argued about.  The plight of the Amazon man.  Why Charlie knew so much about him and threatened him.  It all made sense.  Charlie was fighting an internal and external war at the same time.  At first, Commander Henrid admired his stealth ability to combine both fights and successfully win.

He obtained the Amazon man.  He had raised his boy from the dead.  Commander Henrid was sure of that.  But now, Commander Henrid felt much like a fool.  A fool used by a man willing to risk every life in his path. 

Charlie Dempster was a dangerous enemy.  His actions proved that.  Now that town of Cotter was paying for his selfishness.

Command Henrid was determined to finish what he started out in the jungle.  He knew then he should have taken a shot at him.  He knew then in his gut, Charlie was out of control.  He just didn’t know how much and why.  He couldn’t kill an innocent man then.  But he could now. 

Ivan and Gilbert Chuttle were two more pieces of the puzzle.  Putting it together, making it all fit, would enable him to finish what he started.  But the task of piecing together the mystery would prove a challenge even Commander Henrid might regret taking on. 

There was a part of him doing this out of revenge.  It was a weakness he hated about himself.  It hadn’t served him well.  It provided him with a divorce, estranged children, an ulcer and too many enemies to count.  He hated to lose.

“This way boys,” he commanded Gilbert and Ivan.

He was a robust man, in full military uniform, complete with stars and stripes, a hat and shiny shoes.  This impressed the boys.  But most men in uniforms were intimidating to youngsters and Commander Henrid was a very intimidating man.

The boys shuffled behind him and up the steps into the bus.

“This is where we’ll have a little talk,” he told them.

Ivan’s mother told them both to always tell the truth.  He didn’t want to go against his mother wishes.  But this might have been the one time to do so.

“Have a seat,” he told them. 

The boys sat across from the man behind the desk, who was shuffling large stacks of papers.

Gilbert squirmed in his chair.  He felt caught.  He struggled to hear the big man now only with one ear working well.

Ivan was plotting.  He moved his chair closer to Gilbert’s.  He could kick him, if necessary.  That would quiet him.

What did the man have in all those papers?  And what did he want from them?  Ivan wondered and waited quietly.  He wasn’t giving out any secrets to anyone.  He believed in telling the truth but he wasn’t so keen on authority.

“My name is Commander Henrid,” the large robust man announced in a gruff tone.

The boys kept silent.

“Which one of you is Ivan Chuttle?”

Ivan raised his hand, “That would be me.”

He paused, stared and then addressed Gilbert, “You must Gilbert then?”

Gilbert nodded.

“Two brothers.  I see.  I had a younger brother myself…he died when I was about your age,” Commander Henrid commented.

“What happened to him?” Ivan asked.

“Well….we were playing.  It was winter.  Decided to go walking on a frozen pond.  The ice was thin.  It broke and he drowned.”

“Sorry,” Gilbert offered.

“Yes,” he paused, “so, I know a little about brothers being close and the secrets they keep, especially when they’re out playing.”

Gilbert glanced, a bit guilty, at his brother Ivan.  They should have never been out there exploring in the woods.  They should have told someone right away.

Their actions had landed them here.

Ivan was annoyed.  He knew where the big man was going with the story.  He wasn’t naïve like his younger brother Gilbert.  The man in front of him, across from the desk, wanted something very badly.  Information.  The secret information in the woods wasn’t negotiable for Ivan.  It was the only card he held.  It was the difference between life and death.  And while he struggled to hear the Commander ramble on, he didn’t let him know about his one deaf ear.  And if Gilbert dared mention it, he’d kick him swift.

Games.  The manipulation, the extraction of information, getting people to do what you want them to do, reading people, assessing their moves like a chess game- it was what people did to each other day in and day out.  Some did it for gain.  Some for pleasure.  Some for control.  Most people just manipulated others because they could.

Commander Henrid was good at getting what he wanted.  But he was about to meet his match in the two Chuttle boys.  They made a promise to each other.  The trusted each other.  Trust was never something that could be bought or manipulated for long because eventually the mark in the game always knew there was no trust.

Commander Henrid attempted to win over the boys with his little story about his brother. 

Ivan sat smugly, wondering if any of it was true.

He worried about what they might do to his mother.  Were these military men lethal?

Time would tell.

“So boys I wanted to have a little chat with you.  Just a talk.  Is that okay?  Your mom said it was okay.”

The boys nodded in the affirmative.

“Sure,” Ivan added.  He wasn’t trying to tick the Commander off.  He thought he might get his hopes up a bit make it look slam dunk and easy, then switch on him.

“Understand you boys were out in the woods a few weeks back.”

“Yep,” Ivan agreed, holding all the cards.

“Mind telling me what you saw out there?”

“We…” Gilbert started before he received one sharp kick to his shin delivered by Ivan.