Mystery: Suspense: The Lazarus Phenomenon: : A Private Investigator Mystery Crime Thriller: (horror, thriller, science fiction, mystery, police, murder, ... (Marie Avalon Mystery Crime Series Book 1) (7 page)

There were murmurs of almost unanimous agreement among those who were awake. One small boy was curiously eyeing one of the hanging cadavers as his own lips turned a bright lime green. The others saw his horror and the atrocity was driven home. It was the farthest thing from natural. It was unacceptable.

“All I feel is pain, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Pain and excessive hunger! It’s like I have billions of tiny nails being driven into me with little chisels. Chipping me away, filling me with an emptiness that can’t be appeased. A disease that can’t be cured! My heart beat is agonizing. With every beat, I feel like I am being sprayed with bullets! You feel it too! I have no doubt!” Nick tore at his clothes. He was unable to control the quivering in his voice.

“I am not going to just lay down and let them kill me and then zap me back awake! Over and over again. Like I was some kind of frog to be dissected! I don’t know what the rest of you are going to do. But I’m going to stand up to these God-players! I’m going to fight back. If I have to live against the natural grain of my life that’s already over, then they will too! There will be fire. We will roast this place off the map. You could see it from Jupiter!”        

Now there was a shout from the Waking Ones. Their cry was one battle anthem. A provoked fury rising from the mortal ice. The Dead had been displaced. They would not be quick to forgive. 

Alex held his breath. Behind him, he heard the engines of the police squad cars coming to the Calvary. He heard the rumbling of mobile Lab truck engines. 

It was all falling into place now. News cameras and vlogger sensations tuning into every corner of the Internet. The world was ready to see the great battle for the sanctity of Human will. The corruption of Human life. The deciding battle of the ‘Science of Resurrection.’

“Prisoner’s in the car. His statement’s on tape.” Marilyn hopped out of the Datsun’s shotgun seat and tossed Chief Riggs her phone. 

“I don’t hand out the props over easy, Avalon. Gotta say it now. Good job.” The Chief tipped his hat to her. 

Renee hopped out of the driver’s seat and looked into the misty evening forest. Her eyes popped when she saw the smoke and Nicky standing in the center of the fire. 

“I told you. This has gone beyond the realm of what is and what never should be…” Alex was invisible in the shadow of the trees. His voice trembled with rage beyond relent. 

“Taking it you’ve found out more than you let on over the phone, kid.” Chief Riggs stepped deeper into the shadows and drew back astonished. Something wasn’t right with Alex.

“Some things you have to do in person. In private preferably, but that’s not really an option this time. I saw something in the forest. It might be the end of me. But I had to. I was the one they wanted to do tests on next…My brother has suffered enough.”

Alex stepped out of the shadows. Renee covered her mouth.

Having plucked his coat off, they could now see that the boy was wearing a body armor vest that was affixed with 6 additional hearts each matched with 6 adrenal glands.

“I’m sorry to have to be the one to solve the mystery. Really, I am. It’s not the story I’d like to tell. Yes, I’m pretty good at Hot Potato. You know the saying that words have power? Words took me down like a fighter jet. I had to make a choice. It was either add one more heart to this vest or wear it myself. See, I love my brother. You have no idea what it’s like unless you’ve got one of your own. I couldn’t let him die again. Sorry…I don’t know how to explain…Let me explain.” Alex coughed and held up his hand. His eyes were squinted almost entirely closed pained by even the dim light.

 Renee felt herself break into tears. She was amazed that he could have hidden his agony so well when they were standing outside of the bar.

 “My dad was pretty high up the totem pole of military rank before he was honorably discharged for critical wounds he got in an Afghani firefight. When he came home, Mom always said he was obsessed with medical research. It wasn’t just his own recovery that interested him either. When he was in the hospital, he found himself totally wrapped up in a project that meant to study battlefield resuscitation processes and rapid wound closing. My dad submitted his own blood samples to the supposedly good cause. 

They say that bad company ruins good morals. Looks like whoever coined that one got it right, huh? Lucien Swift was a pediatric surgeon that worked under the same research hospital umbrella my father was treated by. That’s how they met each other. It was Lucien’s gung-ho involvement in the study and research of my Dad’s “evolutionary adrenal anomalies” that finally influenced him to become the guinea pig for the test himself. The United States government funded the research program with the intention that it would eventually produce them with “self-resuscitating hybrid soldiers”. GI prodigies that had the ability to adapt the size of their adrenal glands and to make extra of muscle function helping chemicals-like potassium- to actually resuscitate themselves naturally. A harnessed version of what’s called Lazarus syndrome. Like Darwinism meets Zombie Sparta or something, I don’t know. 

 Certain members of our government abused their power and used personal funding from the culprits’ individual bank books, and founded Santa Bianca’s Children’s Home here in Durango about 22 years ago. It was meant to be a satellite foster home they could dump all the offspring of Test Subject# 1(my Dad) off to and harvest for the research work. See, every kid that lives or has lived in Santa Bianca’s is actually my dad’s biological kid. As part of the program, my dad had to donate sperm for loads of women to be artificially inseminated with so there could be as many potential subjects as possible. He was also under strict orders to experiment with different substances and to have sex with as many women as he could seduce, assuming that eventually babies would come out of all of it. They needed to see if any of the factors of biochemical substances or the process of physical intimacy would alter the test subjects.”

Alex looked down at his chest. Now he was shaking, about to be sick. 

“It turns out that my Dad has so far had exactly 8 kids that were a result of these ordered love affairs. I’m one of them. Nicky is another. These guys’ organs here were our 6 brothers…”

Alex looked to the sky tears forming in his eyes. He grit his teeth as the vest obviously caused him extreme pain.

“A corrupted team of Black Ops officials were under orders. The test subjects themselves were to be strategically assassinated under varying circumstances to see how resuscitation would work under every kind of death. My brothers here were killed in a car wreck about 4 years ago. They tried and failed to cause the Lazarus syndrome in them. That’s why their organs were deposited for the study of using another subject’s organs to regulate this stimulated resuscitation or whatever.

 Then the women that were intimate with my dad were targeted. They were trying to see if the process of chemical reaction in the brain when people get together like that could make the subjects’ react to what’s now known as the “Prescott1” adrenal extract. They wanted to do this with women he’d only been with once or a few times, like Detective Avalon, and someone he’d been with for years like my Mom. She was exposed to a large amount of those cancer chemical things when my parents were married to influence the process of cancer they were actually inducing in her. I don’t know how they do it, but then they can do a lot of crap apparently! Anyway, they killed my mom so they could try and bring her back to life. They lured Detective Avalon to Durango so they could attempt to whack her and use her for the project too.”  

Alex clawed at himself and looked down. 

“All the tests were almost ready for moving on to marketing. All they needed to do was see if they could use radiation and chemical exposure in decomposed test subjects and bring them back. That would include some of my Dad’s ancestors. Dad is from Colorado. His whole family is from the Durango area. That’s why the study was done here. So that when we reached this chapter…They’d have my dead relatives to dig up and have a little fun with…”  

The effort to muster the breath for this explanatory monolog had caused Alex intense pain. He bowed himself and coughed up blood. Then he clutched at his throat and make a sound like a dying bull-frog. 

“The vest…Why are you?” Renee was on the verge of mental breakdown. 

“This thing is kinda like a life support device or something. It pumps my body’s blood 6 times as fast because it works these 6 hearts on a battery to do it. It uses these 6 adrenal glands to enhance my performance. S’posed to anyway… It’s better to use real hearts than a machine, eh? That’s what they told me. All I know is it’s killing me to wear and if I take it off…I’mma have a heart attack!” His voice was dying away now and his lips were turning purple. He clutched at his knees crying from the effort it had taken to speak. 

There was sudden applause. 

“Wonderful explanation, Alexander! You might have been a great man someday.”

All eyes fell on Dr. Swift as he emerged from the smoke. Every officer present pulled his weapon. 

“You know, the good soldier’s like you, Alex, weren’t meant to be casualties of this experiment. I never wanted violence and I wouldn’t call it murder either. I had all faith that my science could heal all of you. Don’t you see? We had conquered Death! Before him anyway…”

Swift’s face had so drastically changed from the kind doctor Marilyn had met such a short time ago at Santa Bianca’s. Now it was livid green and twisted by the mania raving inside of him. 

“The Program did have a certain protocol in place. We had to prepare for the eventuality of a rebel like Nicolas. A self-resurrecting soldier that cannot be controlled is like a nuclear weapon that can be used by anyone. So we took additional steps to ensure that there was an eventual death for immortal Lazarus.” Lucien produced a syringe with a clear liquid. 

“I still believe firmly in my science. Like the Grecians of old, I will have to face the critics and the firing squads for my radical achievements. I am not, however, an evil person. I have cured the World of Death. At the same time, I have abolished the likelihood of legal encroachment. There will be no more rebels. No more dying. No fear or pain! I gave you fools Utopia! I and my mad science and my raving disciples. I will walk willingly to whatever end you and the uncorrupted Federal body allows for me. There is no greater ambition in my mind than to be the last martyr of science. The greats that come after me will, of course, be cured of the possibility. I have one last work to accomplish. I must rid the Earth of Nicolas Avalon!”  

It happened instantaneously. There was no time to logically map out the next steps. Marilyn leaped forward and caught Renee and Alex under her arms. She dropped to the ground and covered their heads. 

Lucien had thrown down a small canister of tear gas. The officers reeled. Then there was a sound of insurgence as the Dead broke free. Nick’s voice could be heard shouting something rousting over the din of angry rabble.

This didn’t end well for anyone.

Marilyn felt her throat closing under the drug’s effects. There was a trampling commotion out in the midst of the woods. Alex was gagging and making sounds that belonged in a horror flick. Marilyn twisted around in the midst to see him in the throes of a severe seizure on the ground beside her. 

“I’ve got him! You go after your boy!” Renee choked out the words and waved Marilyn on. 

It was madness. She felt so small in the midst of it. People ran in figure eights. Officers were trying to infiltrate the scene. SWAT teams filed into the fumes, faces hidden under reflector shields of plexiglass. If Marilyn had ever wondered she now knew what a battlefield in the Civil War would have been like. 

“It doesn’t work on us, Doctor! You did your job too well!” Nick’s voice. So confident and uncaring faced with his third death this year.

The Wakers hadn’t actually armed themselves. They were equipped only with their fury. This might be enough. Research assistants screamed from the forest. The Dead had come for them and they could not get away. 

Marilyn broke through the trees. She stopped dead in her tracks.

It was sheer frenzy. They moved in circles like a helicopter’s blades. Nick’s torment had turned him into something almost animal. Voraciously savage. He jabbed his fist into Lucien’s throat with the direct lunging action of a cobra bite, letting his fingernails tear into his skin. The Doctor coughed and bowed over his knees. Nick kicked him until he collapsed. 

He stood looming over him with an almost wicked smile spread across his features. 

“Some God you are now, huh.” Nick hesitated, tilting his head to the side. 

“I could kill you. I honestly should kill you. Somehow taking your life is almost as bad as you waking me up from the Dirt Nap. As much as it physically sickens me to actually do this, I think I’m going to let you live, Doctor.” Nick had to literally overpower himself, swinging his shoulders and pivoting his skyscraping frame to back away. Marilyn held her breath. The baby she had given away had become a mature adult.

Mercy had been Nick’s mistake. Dr. Swift was motivated by a scientific obsession that outweighed his physical needs. With a shriek that shook the valley, he dove forward and grabbed Nick’s legs. He dug in his fingers climbing him like a cat will drapes. Thrusting forward, he pierced the syringe into his heart. 

Nick froze. His eyes went wide. 

Marilyn dug her heels into the ground. Knowing he’d died before was one thing. Seeing him die was wholly something else. 

His lips began to foam and tears were wrenched from his eyes. 

“I’ve…I’ve cured you. See, that makes us even!” Lucien had his tongue stuck out sickly and was chuckling through his teeth.  

There was a sudden gunshot that rang out across the trees. 

“Some things you’ve got to take care of yourself.” Chief Riggs declared as he stood with the Sig Sauer smoking in his hand. 

Lucien groaned and fell forward. The Chief had shot him in the back and the bullet had gone all the way to his heart.