Project Lazarus (49 page)

No.  Dylan Dempster looked innocent but he was hiding behind a mask.  When a person distorts the evil behind their face it can only be sensed in some other manner.  It wasn’t a look about him.  It was a smell.  Both Chuttle boys could smell it.  It was the smell of evil.  Dylan Dempster wasn’t worthy of resurrection.

“Anyways, I was thinking maybe we should all get this stuff off our chest,” Ivan interrupted, disturbed by Dylan’s newfound silence.

“He’s weird.  We’ve talked about this before,” Gilbert whispered to his brother, as they walked down the street.  Dylan lingered behind, throwing his left over crumbs to the birds in the park.

“He’s hiding something,” Gilbert whispered.

“I know,” Ivan told his brother, “it’s time we deliver him to The Fixer.”

Ivan had found The Fixer right there in Philadelphia only a few months ago.  He recognized the boy immediately and he recognized the name he had been given by the Lazarus man.

“Come on guys we’re here,” Ivan pointed to the church.

It was a difficult decision.  But it had been made.  Ivan was delivering more than a message.  He was delivering Dylan Dempster.

“Come on are you serious?  What?  Confession?”  Dylan stormed.

“Gilbert,” he looked at him, lying, pleading to Dylan.

“It’s good for the soul,” Gilbert said.

He was more than ready to end it for both of them.  It was time for the nightmare of the weird going-on’s in Cotter to be over for the Chuttle boys.  They wanted to find their family.  They wanted to go back home, even though, there was no home left.

The three young men stared at the small church.  There was a single stained glass window on the front entrance.  Ivan recognized it from the church in Cotter.  Without it, he might never have found “The Fixer”.  It was the only thing that remained from the church in Cotter.  The beautiful window before them was the only item repaired and salvaged.

Gilbert pulled Ivan aside.  Dylan was mesmerized by the small church.  Did he remember the stained glass windows?  They hoped not.

“I can’t wait for this to be over,” Gilbert confided.

“Do you think it could be dangerous?”  Ivan asked.

“It’s a church, no, I don’t think anything.  In fact Ivan, I don’t care anymore.”

The Chuttle boys looked back in amazement.  Like a magnet pulling him in, Dylan Dempster was already heading up the stairs.

“Wait for us,” Ivan announced.

It was the last time they would speak to Dylan.

They entered the church not knowing what to expect.

Father Flannery stood waiting.  He sensed Dylan coming.

He was much older than Gilbert remembered.  Now in his sixties, his hair was graying but his eyes ablaze.

“You,” Dylan roared.

“You,” the Priest answered back.

The Chuttle boys took off running much like they had back in the woods of Cotter, Arkansas when they saw the Lazarus man resurrected from the dead. 

It was clear the two men knew each other and the boys couldn’t imagine how.

Dylan Dempster, now twenty years old, stared into the eyes of the man in the aisle of the church with pews on both sides of him and the cross behind him on the wall.

Father Flannery returned his gaze.  It had been a long time.  Long enough for him to realize what the words “The Fixer” meant to the other resurrection man, the Lazarus man.

The sandy blonde brown haired man and the grey haired old man of the cloth continued the stand-off.

Dylan Dempster had been raised from the dead by the Amazon man and spared from the clutches of death by God himself.

Father Flannery had walked through fire and no matter how many times the powerful resurrection men had tried to kill him, he always lived.

Hatred spewed across the aisle between the men.

Dylan formulated a plan to kill the Priest instantly but his hands couldn’t wrap around his throat.  There was an invisible force that shielded Father Flannery.  

Father Flannery lunged at the boy but he too had an invisible force protecting him.

  Neither one of them could kill the other.

Evil protected one.  Good protected the other.

Resurrection has a funny way of balancing the scales.  Once you come back from the dead, you can’t kill another.

Kill or be killed.  It was a way of life for both men now.  The Fixer would have to wait his turn.  There were a lot of men in line waiting to kill Dylan Dempster.  There were plenty of men waiting to kill Father Flannery too.  But there would be no killing today.

Heaven and Hell was balanced in that church.  Who belonged to which side, good or evil, remained undetermined.  Things were changing in this spinning world.  It was only a matter of time before the scale was tipped.

A woman crossed into the back roads of Elkhart, Wisconsin.  She had come a long way.  Her clothes tattered, barely clinging to life, she crawled on her hands and knees to reach the secluded town.

Cotter, Arkansas was far away now.  She was the one.  The escapee.  A resurrected living dead disciple, she had to get to the new compound.  It was her only chance at survival.

With matted long mangy brown hair and a blank stare, she stumbled through the woods.  She was near.  She could sense it.

Innocence crept up on Horace and Chancity Crowden that Summer.  The brother and sister duo were captivated by the stories of the mysterious building off of the main highway.

They scoped it out for months determined to find out if the tales were true.  Men coming in and out of the building all hours of the day and night, followed by the military helicopters and the explosions, all of it roped them into what they believed to be an adventure.

“Come on Chancity.  For a girl, you are so slow,” Horace announced in a barely audible whisper.

“Horace…I’m afraid.”

“Well we can’t turn back now.  This is it.  This is the day we’ve worked so hard for,” Horace assured her.

This day was indeed special.  It was their final excursion to the building hidden deep in the woods of Elkhart, Wisconsin before school started that year.

“Look,” Horace whispered excitedly, “just look at it.  There it is.”

“I can’t believe it,” Chancity, only ten years old just the month before stared with her blue eyes jetting beneath her long blond hair.

Horace’s wild blonde curly hair threatened his vision of the building which he fixed by shoving it out of his eyes promptly.

He grabbed his younger sister’s arm and pulled her along, hurrying towards the action.

They stopped to let the shrouded pine tree cover them.

It was then out of the corner of this eye, Horace saw them.

Many men surrounded the building.  They marched back and forth.

He motioned Chancity to hide under the big pine tree.  She knew how to do this watching wild deer and cats seek shelter in the nasty mid-western winters.

He pointed above and she gasped.  There was a drone hovering above them.

They held their breath.

Horace looked at his sister in horror.  What had they gotten into?  Someone wanted to make sure no one saw that building in the woods.

They waited patiently.  Thirteen minutes passed before the drone passed over them and continued aimlessly on its way.   They were safe.  For now.

“What’s going on in that place?” Chancity asked.

Her now equally terrified brother exclaimed, “I don’t know but let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen enough.”

“Too dangerous,” her older brother and protector determined.

And they ran.  They ran as fast as they could away from the building with the men guarding it.  The stories were true.

Chancity lagged behind again and Horace, too caught up to let her catch up didn’t notice her departure.

She turned back to take a look at the building when a force hit her and hard.

Horace heard the thump.  He stopped immediately.  Where was Chancity?  He panicked.

Chancity stood dumbfounded, as the woman before her stared.

Chancity looked at her matted hair and grungy clothes.  What was she doing out there?  Where did she come from?

Horace ran quickly to his sister, watching the scene unfold.  He too was dumbstruck by the odd woman.

“Are you one of them?” Chancity asked, her naivety getting the best of her.

“Are you?” The woman returned the question.

“No.  Come on let’s go,” Horace grimaced, trying to get out.

He grabbed his sister by the arm again, this time in fury to move quickly but couldn’t help asking the woman, “Hey are you lost or something?  Do you need help?”

She stared blankly then answered, “Is this Hell?”

She looked at the building in the woods and smiled, “Never mind.  There it is.”

“There what is?” Horace asked.

“Hell,” she replied.  Her face turned an eerie color and she began running toward the building.

“Hell,” she mumbled on, “they really did it.  It’s here.  Here for me.  Hell…” she continued on and sped towards the building.

Horace stuttered something inaudible and motioned Chancity to run away from the building.

Unknown to the two young visitors in the woods, Project Lazarus was resurrected elsewhere.  Their woods in Elkhart, Wisconsin were home to an entirely new government project- Blueprint Hades.

Blueprint Hades had only one objective: Create hell on earth.

Michelle A. Packard, the author, specializes in a new kind of horror she dubs “social horror”. Truly her writing shows us the bogey man isn’t a figment of our imagination but alive and well possibly living right next door.

The average person is capable of horror beyond our wildest imagination whether psychological if not murderous. This is the inspiration for “social horror” which travels down the very dark road of an evolving human condition with a propensity to win or destruct at any cost. It’s a very dark road indeed and once we’re introduced to this road it’s difficult to know where the road ends let alone begins.

The author crosses many genres in her work trying to keep a fine balance in her writing and her message.

She is the author of several books, numerous short stories, poems and a quarter-finalist in the New Century Writer’s Ray Bradbury Short Story Award.

She remains steadfast in her dedication to her craft and the art of cultivating a new kind of horror dancing on the edges of darkness. It’s her belief words have power whether spoken or written and should be used wisely by all.