Project Lazarus (45 page)

The man was standing in a ring of fire screaming.  Louder, his cries grew.  Louder and louder.  He was about to be burned alive.  He could see the fire, smell it and feel it growing in power, surrounding him like prey.  His mind was polluted with thoughts of death and brimstone.  Cotter was about to pay for its sins and he would die a most brutal death as a casualty.

This place wasn’t hell.  This man had no desire to return to hell.  He wasn’t one of the living dead returning to hell.   He was very human indeed.  The scene was palpable and inescapable.  It would make more sense if it was hell, for that is what it might look like, unavoidable and certain, fire and doom.  But this wasn’t hell.  This was the Cotter Catholic Church.

This fire occurred in the last place destruction should take place.  Only an hour ago the bomb hit this sacred place of worship.  The church in Cotter was a definite strike, a blow against the core of the town.  It was a critical, diabolical and irreversible strike against humanity.

Religion, science and politics mix but they don’t mix well.  That’s what the masses are taught.  They don’t belong together, church and state are separate.  But evil mixes into every separation.  The powers that initiated the bombing of the town and the destruction of its people couldn’t risk putting religion in front of the mission. Everything and everyone had to die, no matter your own beliefs.  It didn’t matter if you were behind the button or the trigger, you pushed the button or pulled the trigger because it was a necessary evil.  Was that even a plausible excuse? Was bombing this church or any church a necessary evil? 

Yes, to the people in control of death, it was necessary.  Religion was put out of the picture.  No one could live in Cotter.  They had to die.

The very man that pointed that missile and bombed Father Flannery’s church had given confession to him a week ago.  In that meeting, he told Father Flannery he sinned.  He was considering having an affair with another woman, a co-worker.  Father Flannery didn’t judge.  He simply gave the best advice the man could ever receive.  He told him to go home to his wife and sin no more.  He encouraged him to remember why he fell in love with his beautiful wife and choose to continue his life with her.  He implored him to abide by the laws he followed and spoke of on his wedding day in that very church, to cherish and honor and love his wife.  He told him to go home.  The words stuck in his mind.   He reminded him he had a choice.

“In this world, we always have a choice.  Sometimes we choose right, sometimes we choose wrong.  Just like God answers our prayers.  Sometimes yes and sometimes no.  You already know what you’re supposed to do.  Have faith my good son and be on your way, you will do the right thing and make the right choice.”

Aiming that missile was a choice.  But not really.  There was no choice.  Not really.  That’s what he kept telling himself.  Back and forth his mysterious mind debated the choice.  Even though, he would never be able to sleep at night again- it was a must.  He had to commit this heinous act by command.  That was how he was going to justify it to himself.  But he couldn’t’ really live with himself knowing Father Flannery might be in that church.

He prayed before the attack.  He prayed for Father Flannery.  He prayed for his own soul.  If he could justify this act was he capable of committing the sins the Priest had counseled him on?  There was the hatred and vengeance for his boss, which would now grow.  There was the emptiness and bitterness he held for his occupation, an occupation where he killed men.  There was the coveting of what others had.  There was self-pity.  There were suicidal thoughts.  There was temptation of another woman.

There was nothing now.   There comes a point in every life when the choices are completely taken away and someone else runs our life.  We then run away from our own minds.  The future would find this man completely broken as so many others that lived through the days of Project Lazarus, the deeds that they committed then, had indeed woken up the dead.

Now the dead were silent and their choices made them as miserable as the living dead.  They were awake.  Awake to a world that cared for no one and nothing but its own agenda and greed.  Such men might choose to leave life by their own hands, a single gunshot to the head, a leap off the bridge or an overdose.  Nothing good can come out of playing with human nature or the minds of men in such a cruel manner.

When Father Flannery heard the bomb, he didn’t hide.  He ran up and down every pew, into the confessional, in all the corridors and rooms of the church to make sure no one was in danger or hurt.

He found out he was very much alone.  No one was home.  Only he was home.  He was home in his church, the only place he ever really knew.

He was fortunate he found this home but now his faith was tested in a way that no human could endure.  He watched the home of his God destroyed.  His place of worship was torn apart.  It was evil indeed.

The beams fell around him.  They didn’t hit him.  He was lucky.  He watched the pews catch fire and spread one by one.  The ashes and dust swirled in the air to the point they mixed and looked alike.

He fell to the ground, seeking some kind of shelter.  The glass blew out.  The beautiful stained glass window made by a fellow artist in Cotter who barely got out of his house let alone his wheelchair except to create this great work of art was broken to smithereens.  And the Priest cried.  He cried wondering if that great artist too would die.

He refused to leave his church.  The sad reality was no one was there to tell him to leave anyways.  He was the only person left in the church.  There was no way out and he resigned himself to perishing in the fire.

On his hands and knees, he prayed to the Lord.  The fire encircled him and grew fierce.  The wind blew like it was angered by the scene.

The danger and the eminent death of the Priest, the fixer was at hand.

He could feel the fire.  He prayed the Lord’s Prayer incessantly.

“Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…”

“Thy will be done,” he adjusted the glasses on his face, the heat threatening to melt them right off.

This would be a terrible death but he reconciled himself to it.  There was no way out.  Life is a gift and death leaves no life behind.  Death is the only guarantee we receive upon entering this world is that we shall leave it, some sooner than others, some more grievously than others but none without having made some small change while they were here.

“Thank you Lord,” he whispered and bowed his head, waiting for the inevitable.

He could feel the heat and then he could see it all around him.  It touched him.  It went through him like the wind.  He blinked in awe.  Fire kept coming at him and passing by him like the wind.  There was no death for the Priest today, not by the fire, not by the wishes of men.  Again, a higher power was at work in Cotter.

Father Flannery had been spared.  He wasted no time.  He got up and walked through the fire.

It was a miracle and Father Flannery started to announce it as such. 

“A miracle,” he cried out, walking through the fire, tears streaming down his face.  Faith had replaced fear.  Was it true?  One only needed faith the size of a mustard seed?  Father Flannery hadn’t asked for anything or relied on faith but accepted his fate.

“It’s a miracle,” he screamed out to a defeated and dead Cotter.  No one could hear him but the grace and goodness of the God that spared him, “A miracle.  Thank you Lord Jesus.  God.  Why me?”

The question had to be asked.  Why had he been spared?   The thought of one day being “the fixer” crossed his mind.  Was he destined to be “the fixer”?  And what did it all mean to a man that devoted his life in the church?  He could never kill another being.  He was being tested again and again.  But this triumph, this victory would be celebrated.

He fell to his knees, the fire dancing all around him and embraced the fire.  It was surreal.  What should have killed him didn’t even scare him.

He sobbed at the miracle and decided it wasn’t a time for crying.

This proved God ruled the water, the fire, the wind and the earth.  No once had to be convinced but Father Flannery at that moment.  He would never spend a day trying to convince anyone else.  This was a miracle.  It should be shared.  But it was a personal miracle.  One he didn’t ask for.  This was a saving grace, an unexpected gift.  He would be accountable for what he did in his life from now on.  He knew this.

This was a resurrection of a different sort.  As the building burned and seared and crumbled all around him, he lived.

Not one shred of clothing or skin burned on Father Flannery as he walked through the fire.

“That you confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-11)

He walked on.  Dazed.  He couldn’t hide in the church anymore.  The world had revealed itself.  The resurrection occurred.  He had been spared. 

As the church around him was destroyed to the ground, not a hair was touched on his head.  For the Lord knew how many hairs were on his head and not one was damaged.

The evil that invaded his church didn’t conquer his soul.  His body, mind and flesh, soul intact, heart with God led him through the turbulent times, like so many others.

And he repeated, “That you confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-11)

Again, “That you confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-11)

And over again, “That you confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-11)

The entire church was in ruin.  Father Flannery turned to look one last time at where the miracle took place and then walked out into the cool air of the world past the flames and the destruction.  He had to embrace this new world now, untouched and unscathed.

What would he become?

“That you confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-11)

He repeated the words over and over.  The resurrection was different for everyone in Cotter. 

Father Flannery was the same man he was an hour again.  His choices would define his future.

His every step made a choice.  He walked on away from the church he once called home.  His choice clear.  His purpose unclear.  His heart clean.  The world he walked into unclean.

He stared at a town he used to know.  There was fire all around him.  No one could escape this fire.

The bombing ceased and the fire raged on.  Cotter and all its secrets should have burned to the ground.  But they wouldn’t be buried forever.

“That you confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-11)

How does an entire town burn to the ground?  The town of Cotter, Arkansas would become a mystery, the stuff of intrigue and conspiracy theories.  Centuries from now it might be considered a lost city, one in which the residents lived technologically advanced lives and some strange occurrence wiped out an entire town of people.

When the fire was over, it had consumed the entire town and its people.  The only thing that remained was the military complex for Project Lazarus.  It was bomb proof and fire proof and remote.  The barbed wire and electrical fence went up first, then the many Government Property signs and warning signs for trespassing and the like followed.  It would take years before anyone noticed the remote location that hosted Project Lazarus.  Then, the rumors and theories would start.  People from all over the United States would come to the building hoping to catch a glimpse of something.   Unlike the Chuttle boys, those people wouldn’t be so lucky, after all, there was nothing and no one left at the Project Lazarus building.  The place of so much allure, tension and a time when so many things and lives were decided upon would hold nothing for anyone to view.

It was left there purposely.  A good secret was a better explanation than a leveled town with no one to tell the story.

After the dust settled, the story grew about Cotter.  Nearby towns heard the two days and nights of bombs.  The original story was simple.  A Hollywood movie special effects went wrong and the town was evacuated.  That was the first story that hit the news when the bombing occurred.  After everyone saw a leveled town, the “truth” came out from the military and government.  It was now an asteroid that collided with the town, setting it ablaze and killing masses without warning.

The man made crater in the middle of the town where the church once stood was like a fantastic crop circle on a farm.  It was crude but few people challenged the explanation.  A few ventured out to the crater and took soil samples but that was ten years later.  The town was quarantined all that time.  After all, this foreign object collided with the earth and no one knew what kind of effects it might have on everyone.

It was quite a sight.  Men in suits covering their bodies combed every inch of the town for effect.  They say movie productions only occur on set.  The destroyed remnants of Cotter were one hell of a set and the entertainment it provided was endless.

Once the story hit the news, the questions began.  But spin doctors have a great way of turning a falsified story into a scary possibility.  Citizens began to wonder if this could happen in Cotter, might their town be next?

Instead of watching the news for the weather, viewers started watching for the asteroid and meteor report.  They measured the size and assessed the speed of every rock hurling to earth.  These segments were the most popular and well paid for in commercial time.  It kept everyone occupied.

The truth got lost in the story and stayed buried with fear.  Fear is a crippling thing indeed but it’s not the only enemy.  For fear blinds of from reality and the truth.

Once the dust settled in Cotter and then on the news, the small town became the Roswell of the 21st century.  Roswell happened in the 1950’s and the UFO and alien speculation that ensued would continue forever and encompass the entire world to this day.  There were so many other Roswell’s, UFO or other unknown forces left unexplained, that Cotter blended in well after ten years passed.

After all, there really are only a few people that take the time to research events like this in our own world.  Most of the time, we’re consumed with living our lives.  We have little time for the unexplained.  For those willing to venture down those dark roads, the roads can be murky.  They’re afraid to draw attention to themselves.  They don’t want the government looking into them.  Some are just plain obsessed and pose more of a threat to wasting their lives than uncovering any real secrets.  Besides aren’t secrets just the thing we love to watch other people solve, preferably in the safety of our own home and large screen television set.  Let the actors figure out the mystery, get chased down by the bad guys only to be beamed up or disappear.

Yes, we all live in a world of complacency.  If more citizens were involved, by now, we would have questioned to see every law passed by our own governments.  We would demand to vote on important laws ourselves instead of having corrupt lawmakers with special interests vote on our behalf.

The asteroid in Cotter was a modern day Roswell.  It made the rounds of the Sci-Fi type shows.  Some were impressive.  They featured guests whose faces were blocked out and voices altered.  People who swore they would be hunted down and killed if they said anything.  They told quite a story about a government and military with something to hide, a secretive project and what would later become known as “the resurrection men”.

They were right of course Cotter was the place of resurrection.  Every citizen was accounted for as dead or alive by the powers in control of Project Lazarus.  No matter how far they ran or how long, they were always found and died mysteriously.  That list included less than a hundred names.  Most of them never told a soul what happened in those dark days.  Still they were hunted.  Most never saw it coming. 

A few knew they were being watched and were promptly called paranoid.  They preferred the medications and being committed to a hospital than the alternative which was death.  Death was slow in such prisons of knowledge.  Speaking of prisons, a few were accused, tried and convicted for crimes they never committed.  These crimes earned them life in prison.  They could scream to fellow prisoners about Cotter but they were too busy surviving to scream and they always got a visit from a mysterious stranger, a well-dressed man, who told them all the same thing. 

“You’ve been allowed to live.  Talk and you die.”

“But these guys in here will kill me,” they would respond.

“No, we will kill you.”

“Why let me live then?  Just kill me.”

“Less is more when asking too many questions.”

The conversations were rarely that long.

Was anyone left behind?  Did anyone escape?  Was anyone left untouched?

Time would tell.  This was a project, after all, and the players pulling the strings would decide how it ended.  They would decide who lived and why.  Those souls could only hope to disappear into the canvas like a famed painters name barely brushes the surface to leave its mark.

Knowing what happened in Cotter was a matter of life and death.  It would always be that way.  Getting too close to the truth proved fatal for normal civilians and journalists alike.  Strange car accidents, homes burned down, trouble followed anyone who showed an interest in Cotter.  And in the end like most good conspiracies, the theories were left to book authors, internet fanatics and folks in their homes who did their own research on the topic.

The cover up was less than convincing.  But time marched on.  From Hollywood special effects to asteroid, the unknown happenings of Cotter remained simply an enigma.

The barbed wire fences, that surrounded Cotter, were warped and rusted from the rain.  The crater was deep and left nothing but a scar that was the town.  The dust that settled slowly blew away and the day turned to night again and again.  There was silence, except for the few people that ventured in to see it for themselves.  They had to satisfy a curiosity.  What could an object coming at the earth 36,000 miles an hour do?  Could it wipe out more than a town?

Cotter was a ghost town.  There was talk of rebuilding it.  But it was just talk.  The talkers knew better in their gut.

The stories remained just that-stories.  The only souls that dared wander the desolate town were ghosts, unable to settle or find their own way home.

The powers that be felt good and safe.  They moved on.  Project Lazarus was underway, in another town, tucked away in the woods just like before.  A resurrection would take place and that secret just like the first one would remain silent.

Nothing is certain though and even the most powerful plans can be threatened.  They never saw him coming.  The unassuming man.  He was about to enter Cotter.  He was about to unearth something.

He was about to change everything.