Project Lazarus (7 page)

He gagged and mustered his mangled body to sitting up on the floor.  He was blind.  But he was alive.

Cotter, Arkansas had a silent war brewing on its turf.  The dead were coming back to life and some were excising revenge.

Amanda Hall was the first to kill.  But she was only the beginning.

The two voices in the woods wanted to go back to hell but they had to kill all the living to get there.

They put out the sign for the dead to see and with their new found powers they were quickly learning the dead could raise the dead.  The newly planted trees in the cemetery weren’t going to last long.

Dreams die with their owner’s every day.  Books are never written, songs never sung, love denied, businesses never started, inventions never formed, every imaginable want or goal might not be completed because someone has to die. 

We come into this world knowing only one truth.  The day will come when we will die.  There is no escape.  It is the only fate we’re certain of.  Our time is limited.  Yet, our lives are so complex and twisted we never really do or say any of the things that are truly important to us.

Cotter was a vortex now.  Opening up a Pandora ’s Box of sorts.  What happens when the dead come back to life?  If it were possible…what would they do?

Feathers were flying on a farm off Route 22.  Cecil Kippin returned from the dead and he wanted his chickens back.  It was a hundred year old feud between two families.  The Kippin’s and the Pottenfiled’s.  The Pottenfield’s won the war prior to old man Kippin’s death.  They got part of his land and most of his chickens.

“Drop the cage,” Cecil Kippin, a seventy five year old man with a twenty year old ax to grind bellowed to the young lad, named Derrick Kurb, he bribed to drive the truck.

“It says no trespassing,” Derrick argued, “this here is private property.  It belongs to the Pottenfield’s.”

“Shut up boy,” the crotchety old man with white hair and formal attire including the black suit and tie, he was buried in, yelled.

“I ain’t paying you to wise off.  And don’t you mention that name to me again you hear?”

Derrick backed off, one hundred fifty bucks for a night with the old quack would get him closer to that old Mustang he wanted to buy so he could impress the girls in Cotter.

“Get closer,” Cecil demanded.

Derrick glanced out of the rear view mirror, he moved the truck as quietly out there in the middle of the night.  He didn’t want to wake up the Pottenfield Farm.  He didn’t know what the old man in the seat next to him was up to.  But he knew it probably wasn’t legal.

“That’s far enough,” the lanky man hobbled out of the truck.  His legs searing with pain, he landed on the dirt with his cowboy boots.

“Damn that Pottenfield,” he muttered under his breath, taking the ax with him.

Some people die with their dignified dreams intact.  Others die with revenge in their hearts and their minds.  They’ve been wronged, screwed out of their money, their lives, their property, their loves and in the end with just the bitterness left they die with it.  It never truly goes away. 

Cecil Kippin woke up from the dead with the searing image of a man named Henry Pottenfield.  Henry Pottenfield viciously stole his land.  He then took his chicken farm away.  He did all this by bribing town officials and harassing Kippin until there was no fight left in him.

But now Cecil Kippin’s family feud with Henry Pottenfield was about to get a second life.  Even though, Henry Pottenfield had died five years after Cecil Kippin, Cecil wanted what was rightfully his.

With every whack of the ax against that metal chain and padlock, Cecil Kippin got closer.

“Sir, Sir, I don’t think you should do this,” Derrick told him.

“What did I say before?  Shut up son.  Now, get out of my way.”

Derrick didn’t remember Cecil Kippin or he might have freaked out.  But the freak out was about to begin, when he saw Henry Pottenfield emerge from the shadows.  Derrick knew he was dead.  He saw the article in the Cotter Bulletin several years before.  He flipped out.  The shadowy figure simply held up a finger to his mouth motioning the boy to silence.

Derrick could be easily silenced but his mind not so much and it told him to get out of there.  He ran by foot leaving his truck, the keys and the two old men behind in the dark.

Cecil finally broke the padlock and began rounding up the chickens.

“Come on boy.  Help me out here”

But no one answered.

“Where’d that damn boy go?”

Cecil wandered back to the truck.  The chickens started to make noise.

“Shhh…keep it quiet little ones,” he begged.

The boy was gone.  But the truck and the keys were still there.

“Good,” he muttered and went about his way,  loading the chickens into the cage.

Henry Pottenfield watched from the shadows.  Dressed in his best navy suit, he carried a Bible and a grudge.

“Come on little chickadees.  Come to papa.  Yes, you know me darlings.  I’m sorry you were taken away by that evil man.  It’s all over now. Come home to me.”

He loaded the last of the chickens from one cage and started walking to the second before the other dead man approached.

“Pottenfield.  You son of a bitch.”

“Out for a walk Kippin?”

Cecil started swinging at him wildly with the ax but he couldn’t kill the dead man even if he had a good aim, which he didn’t.

Henry snuck to the cage on the back of the truck and opened it, letting the chickens spill back out onto the Pottenfield property.

“Damn you,” Cecil warned, “You know you stole all this from me.  I want what’s mine.”

“I don’t think so,” Pottenfiled responded.

Henry began running wildly around the chickens, upsetting them, getting them riled up.

“Stop it you old fool.  I’m coming back for my chickens, my property and then I’m going to kill you.”

“Can’t do that.  We’re both obviously back from the dead,” Henry Pottenfield warned.

“You robbed me and you know it,” Cecil screamed at the man, “I know what you did.  How you bribed the town officials.  Turned this whole town behind me.  You broke me you wretched man.”

“This is Pottenfield property you’re on.  Trespassers only get warned once.  Get off my land Kippin,” Henry retorted.

“Damn you,” Cecil yelled again, watching the chickens scatter about and his dream of revenge with them.

The two men began fighting each other over the chickens.  Feathers were flying in the dark of Cotter.

It was early morning at the Cotter Gazette when a face from the past walked in.  He glided by the secretary and headed straight to the Editor’s desk.

“Remember me?”  Edwin Lurch asked.

His opponent stared back at him.

Robert Fielding hadn’t seen Edwin since he was fired from the Cotter Gazette.  He overworked him as a reporter back then and made sure he would quit but didn’t expect his untimely death.

Robert Fileding’s face turned pale white.

“You’re dead.  I thought you were dead,” Robert muttered, reaching for the phone dialing 911.

“911 what’s your emergency.”

The dead man watched him.

“I’m at the Cotter Gazette and there’s a dead man here.”

Edwin looked at him amused by his fright, leaned over the desk and announced, “Pack up your things.  I’m taking my place as the Editor of the Gazette.  You stole that position from me long ago and I’ve come back to get what I deserve.”

“A dead man?  Did I hear you right?” The rattled woman’s voice asked from the other end of the phone.

“Yes, his name is Edwin Lurch and he died two years ago.”

“How do you know he’s dead?”

“I wrote his obituary.”

“And he’s alive now?” She asked.

Edwin smiled at Robert. He picked up a reporter’s pad and pen off the desk, forcefully telling him, “Finish up your call then vacate your desk.  I’ll be taking over for today and by the way Fielding you’re fired.”

Robert didn’t know what to do, so he conceded and removed himself from the chair.

“Yes he’s alive.  Get the Sherriff over here now.  It’s an emergency,” he yelled in panic, before the icy yet warm hand grabbed the phone out of his hand and slammed down the phone.

Louisa Startling always had a good shot.  Her daddy, Wilfred, God rest his soul, taught her how to shoot a rifle before the age of ten.

The Cotter Town Board meeting was at 10 am and she arrived loaded with heavy artillery and a heavier heart.  Town Board Chairman Danny Tintet would be there.

The group of  five men, one woman and the town lawyer were all present.  They sipped their coffee and whispered alibies and answers for their corruption, for they fostered most of it.  It wasn’t too long before a measly few residents showed up and they were in the thick of it. One town member was yelling at them for neglecting a  problem with the rezoning of their property.  The man’s voice grew louder when Louisa walked in with her shotgun aimed at Danny Tintet, a fifty five year old real estate mogul, who had walked the fine line of conflict of interest one too many times.

“Found you,” she yelled, grabbed the microphone from the startled town resident and dropped it to the ground.

“No sound amplification required,” she announced, pointing the shotgun directly at Danny Tintet.  There would be no ceremonial warning shot to the ceiling.  She squared her aim and shot him straight through the heart.

The town board members froze in horror.  No one moved to help the man shot to death.  They all stared at Louisa Startling, knowing she was a walking dead woman.

She put down the shotgun and lifted the microphone off the ground.

She tapped it, “Testing….testing…one…two…three…Can everybody hear me?” She asked making a mockery of it all.

They nodded feverishly, gasping, terrified, none of them knowing what to do.

“The man dead on the floor rezoned my residential property five years ago so he could steal it and sell it under his own company as business property.  He destroyed my family and left us for broke.  When I died of cancer, I was penniless and I couldn’t afford medical treatment because we were living in a one bedroom apartment.  My kids have suffered ever since and my husband went into a deep depression.  I think my kids are in foster care.  I’m going to get them now.  Their mother has come home.”