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Chapter 29 - Running on Empty
🕑 Added 2025-01-12 16:24:22 +0000 UTCBefore the chapter starts, FYI for all paying Patreon members: I expect to finish with Urban Nirvana within a month, maybe a month and a half. After that I plan on writing a sequel to Frog out of Water. There will be no advance chapters for Patreon members for that as it is a fan work. I have no issue with other authors monetizing their fan works, I just view it as personally unethical and will not be doing that. So, keep that in mind whenever your renewal date for your subscription comes up. What you do with that information is up to you.
Without further ado, back to your regularly scheduled chapter.
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The scarred Russian man left right after the location of the farm spilled from Cass’s lips for the second time that day, leaving her and Mr. Moon alone with the man, Danten. The way he leered at her as if he was hoping something would happen to give him the excuse to kill them painfully, chilled Cass down to her very bones.
For several minutes the room was quiet. Danten stood smiling near the door. Mr. Moon settled on the floor; his face still set in that stony mask of his. Cass couldn’t bring herself to speak a single word, even while her mind raced. Was there some way out of this mess? Was help coming? Or did Mr. Moon give up? Was she going to die in this depilated house right next to her most hated enemy?
Eventually, the stalemate was broken by the helicopter pilot producing a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket.
“I’m gonna head out for a smoke, you two don’t go anywhere, ya hear me?” The man chuckled at his own terrible joke. How could they go anywhere? They were handcuffed to a sturdy metal pole. It would take a bodybuilder on steroids to move that sucker.
As soon as the door closed behind Danten, however, Mr. Moon lifted himself to his feet.
“You’re a father.” Cass said, her words sounding like a mix of a statement and a question. The people she’d seen in the picture were practically a world apart from the expressionless man beside her. The picture was of a normal family at the beach. A man, a woman, and a young boy. The man, who Cass quickly recognized as Mr. Moon, hardly looked like the same murderer that was standing beside her. The man in the picture, while having a similar face, was… smiling. He was leaning back, his arms wrapped lovingly around the woman and the boy. Instead of the usual soulless suit, the man was wearing a truly horrendous Hawaiian shirt. One so loud she could almost hear the cloth screaming at her through the photo. Ugh, the pastels. It was enough to make Cass vomit, die, resurrect, vomit for a second time, and then die again for good.
Then there was the woman. She was smiling just as joyfully as Mr. Moon was in the picture, though her presence was much gentler and more subdued. No Hawaiian shirt for her. The woman’s hair was kept up in a sensible ponytail and she wore a sensible t-shirt and shorts with a sunhat on top. In fact, Cass got the impression from her gaze that she was exasperated Mr. Moon wore the shirt in the first place, though it was a sort of loving exasperation, like at the end of the day she was happy that Mr. Moon was happy, even if the shirt seared the retinas of any sane onlooker.
The boy in the picture, seeming as young as five years old, looked like a bundle of energy. He was eternally captured by the camera mid-shout, like he was yelling out some weird joke that only the three people in the picture could understand. He had sand in his hair, a stick of driftwood shoved through a belt loop in his swimsuit, and a strange bug in his hand. The boy was, in essence, similar to just about any other young boy Cass had babysat for in the past around town.
Cass kept the sight of that picture right in the forefront of her mind and looked at Mr. Moon, who stared back at her with those empty dead fish eyes of his. What had happened to make the family man from the picture turn into the bastard she saw now?
“I am.” Mr. Moon replied, the words as casual as could be.
“Does he know his father’s a murderer?” Cass venomously replied.
“It doesn’t matter.” Mr. Moon said.
“What?”
“My son is why I am here. The others had similar situations. Bringing the Nirvana Project back online is everything.”
Mr. Moon did not elaborate on that. Not about that still-mysterious ‘Nirvana Project’ he’d explained only in the briefest of terms back at her dad’s house. Not about his son’s circumstances, or how it tied to the rest of his team. Then it hit Cass like a roaring freight train.
Mark’s ability to heal after the alien did something to him. The goal of the project being to transfer the alien’s healing to humans. Mr. Moon being here for his son.
Was his son hurt? Hurt to the point that modern medicine couldn’t even help? In a flash, every one of his actions clicked into place like the pieces of a puzzle. The willingness to sink to any low. The lack of reaction to the death of his teammates one by one.
It was the actions of a father trying to save his son.
Make no mistake, Cass still felt an endless hatred for the scumbag, but that hatred was now marred by a kernel of understanding. She knew now why Mr. Moon had done all those hateful things. He was no longer an unknowable monster, but a person with his own motivations to do what he did, no matter how horrible his actions were. In the end, he was a father trying to save his son.
The scrabbling sound of fingers against leather broke Cass’s train of thought. She looked over to him in muted alarm, watching as the FBI agent contorted the back of his left foot to touch his right hand. His hand scrabbled against his dress shoe, moving from the scuffed leather top to dig his fingers into the heel. Her eyes widened. The heel of a dress shoe would normally be made up of several stacked layers of leather. In essence, not a material easily damaged. However, Mr. Moon’s fingers were able to easily peel away the layers to reveal a metallic sheen.
A few more tense seconds and that metallic sheen was revealed to be a handleless blade, about the length of a palm with the thickness of a finger. It was no lock-picking tool, or at least not one that she’d seen before. The blade was too large to fit in a keyhole. It was also definitely not the kind of tool that could file through any sort of metal without taking literal ages. Did he intend to scrape away the concrete floor to free the pole? No, that would make little sense either. The concrete was neither chipped nor new. It was as solid as could be.
Mr. Moon looked her dead in the eyes.
“Do not speak a single word.”
Cass nodded. There was another unspoken sentence trailing behind that one. A sentence implying her throat would be slit if she failed to follow those directions. But then, the importance behind those words became clear. The handleless blade came close to Mr. Moon’s cuffs, as close as he could by contorting his wrists. It did not seem like an easy task, with his hands being bound behind his back like they were. Yet, the blade did not touch the handcuffs themselves. Instead, the edge of the knife rested against his left wrist. Cass swallowed an unspoken question. Just what was that man trying to do-
Cass choked back a scream of horror as Mr. Moon took a deep breath and began methodically sawing through his left wrist. Bile soared up her throat, but that too was forced down. The only sound from Mr. Moon other than the scrape of metal against flesh was soft, pained groans that slipped from his lips to accompany each stroke of the knife, even as Cass’s cheeks were dusted with blood.
Cass lurched into movement, leaning as far away from the madman as the handcuffs restraining her to the pole allowed her to be. But even with that, Cass couldn’t put enough distance between herself and Mr. Moon to avoid the splashes of blood coming from the man sawing off his own freaking hand. She could feel the droplets of blood dripping down her cheeks, only to be joined by more and more speckles of the warm liquid.
It was too much. Cass tore her eyes away and vomited as quietly as possible. She could hear the knife crushing against gristle, slicing through tendons, sliding through muscle and flesh, and scraping against bone. Somehow those were louder than any shout could ever be. Another shuddering groan came from behind her while Cass wiped her mouth against her shoulder. Movement followed. She saw Mr. Moon stumble away from the pole, breath ragged and clutching the stump on the end of his left arm. One end of the handcuffs was still fastened around his right wrist, but the other end swung free.
Cass’s stomach lurched once more, but nothing came out other than sickening bile from the very depths of her being. Mr. Moon sank to his knees, his face white as a sheet and paler than she'd ever seen a person before. For a moment he was still – utterly stock still, to the point Cass began to wonder if the man had blacked out right then and there. Something like that would be understandable in a situation like this. But then, movement.
Mr. Moon’s right hand slipped away from clutching his left wrist to shakily undo the leather belt around his waist. The belt was wrapped around his wrist so tight that the leather groaned slightly, and finally, the steady flow of blood changed to something more like a sickeningly slow ooze akin to molasses flowing downhill in January. The makeshift tourniquet had worked.
“I’ll be back.” He said with a strained, shuddering voice.
Cass blinked, frantically nodding while her brain tried to process the sheer insanity of what she’d witnessed. To have a chance of escaping before either of the Russians came back, the man cut off his own freaking hand.
This-
Seeing Mr. Moon be so composed after being captured by the Russians had scared her.
But this?
Once more, Cass felt more fear than she ever thought possible.
The door responded to the one-handed man’s touch, opening as smoothly as could be. The helicopter pilot hadn’t locked it on his way out. An act born out of arrogance and the surety that they couldn’t escape. Then the door closed. The minutes following were nearly the longest in Cass’s life, second only to the time she’d spent waiting in that bush for her time to strike.
A shout of alarm rang out, swiftly followed by the booming roar of a shotgun. Silence invaded once more.
The door opened. Mr. Moon’s pale face emerged, his remaining right hand holding a small key while the brutish, jet-black form of a shotgun sat cradled in the crook of his left arm. Cass recognized it. The shotgun was one of the weapons taken from Mr. Moon’s car.
Without a word, Mr. Moon walked over and released Cass from her handcuffs. She took a few shaky steps away, eyes still wide and darting between the man’s face and left arm.
“Come. No time to waste.” Mr. Moon curtly ordered.
Cass nodded, following him wordlessly. She consciously avoided looking at the floor, to where she knew lay a severed hand. Once out of the house, she held back yet another surge of foul bile as she saw Mr. Moon step over what she assumed to be Danten’s corpse. Its face was a bloody ruin, half-caved in and mangled to pieces with shotgun pellets. Scattered on the ground nearby was a pack of cigarettes. Danten had been taken by surprise while smoking. Did he even have time to realize what had happened or was it over before his brain could process it?
Mr. Moon’s car was still parked where it had been left on the weed-filled driveway. One of the trucks with a broken window was missing. Yet, Mr. Moon didn’t go for another one of the stolen vehicles, instead sliding into his battered car. It started with a sputter that turned into a steady rumble, the headlights bathing the area with a harsh yellow glow. Cass hastily slid into the passenger's seat.
Once the car began its rough journey down the driveway, Mr. Moon’s curt voice filled the air once more. It was still strained, a fact that Mr. Moon seemed happy to ignore, and which Cass lacked the courage to point out.
“Back seat, suitcase under the seat. Inside is my rifle and a spare Sig. I assume you know how to use a handgun?”
Cass stretched her body back, nodding while she looked. It did not take her long to find the suitcase. Cass palmed the Sig Sauer. It was an uncomfortable weight in her hand. Like it was trying to drag her down to the ground. She was far more used to something like a revolver, but this new weapon would do. No hammer to mess with, only a safety switch and a slide to ready before the gun could be used. Simple. She could spin around and shoot Mr. Moon right now in a matter of heartbeats. It would be easy. In fact, it would be even easier than the last time she’d thought about it. The man was down a hand, for heaven’s sake. Flick the safety, rack the slide, turn, shoot. Simple.
Cass shook her head slightly. No.
Mr. Moon continued to speak, seemingly oblivious to the nasty voice that whispered in Cass’s ear.
“Take the Sig Sauer. Put the extra mag where you can easily reach it. Don’t touch the rifle. When we get to the farm, stay on high alert. There should be police in the area so watch yourself and avoid friendly fire. Securing the alien is the priority. Once that is done, we retreat, schedule a meet to hand off the alien, and then find Mark.”
Mark. Cass’s breath caught in her throat. The insanity of Mr. Moon’s recent actions had temporarily made her forget about the guy.
“He’s alive?”
Mr. Moon glanced away from the road long enough to catch Cass’s eyes and hold them for a second.
“I would be disappointed if he wasn’t.”
A worried breath caught in Cass’s mouth. Mark was alive – no, should be alive. To delude herself with surety would be stupid. Something like that would be tempting fate, enticing its fickle qualities to deliver Mark’s unmoving corpse instead. On the other hand, Mr. Moon seemed sure Mark was still alive.
“Cass.”
Mr. Moon gestured toward the glove compartment with his chin. She opened it up hesitantly. Normally, a glove compartment would contain a vehicle manual, registration, and some insurance papers.
The only things in this glove compartment were a roll of bandages, a bottle of whiskey, and a gun. Before Cass could even process the absurdity of it all, A hand reached out to her. Cass looked over, watching as Mr. Moon rested the stump where his left hand used to be on the steering wheel while his right was held open to her.
“Whiskey.”
Great. Now the man wanted to drink and drive.
Nevertheless, Cass shrugged and handed over the whiskey. Mr. Moon wrenched the cork out of the top of the bottle with his teeth and downed half of the foul liquid in one go before sticking it between his legs. The man grimaced, shaking his head and blinking rapidly. He breathed in and out, doing so several times in a row, with each breath more rapid than the last. The half-empty bottle of whiskey rose in the air, and then he dumped the contents of the bottle on the end of his stump. Mr. Moon howled in agony. The sound filled the cab of the car, splitting Cass’s ears while she scrabbled backward to get as far away from the madman as she realistically could.
Mr. Moon hunched over the wheel, still driving the car at a speed that Cass really did not feel comfortable knowing at the moment, or any moment at all.
“Bandage. Please.” Mr. Moon groaned, throwing the empty bottle into the back seat to clutch the steering wheel with his right hand. Cass stared at the roll of bandages, flicking her wide eyes between the white cloth and the bloodied stump next to her.
She no longer had the urge to vomit. Instead, it all felt… surreal. As if this was happening on TV and Cass was just a passive observer in a living room somewhere else in the world. On the TV, the girl hesitated, but eventually grabbed the bandages to begin rolling tightly around the shady FBI agent’s wounded arm.
The girl had ample reasons to hate the man, but at this point in the TV show they had no choice but to be temporary allies. Otherwise, all would be lost. The agent would fail to get the MacGuffin he’d been chasing since the start of the show, the girl might never reunite with her friend (who might be dead), and the Russians would be victorious. All of that would be almost certain to happen if the FBI agent bled to death on their way to the farm.
No show should end like that. So, Cass watched the girl’s hands gingerly finish binding up where the agent’s left hand used to be. She watched as the girl glanced at the gun in the glove compartment and at the gun sitting in her lap with the roll of bandages in her hands. Sometimes Cass wondered if the girl on the TV screen would ever decide to throw it all away to get her revenge, finally listening to the faint voices in her ears telling her to do it.
Then Cass blinked, and she was back in the moment. No more was she disassociated, watching her own actions taking place from a distance. It was all real once more. Mr. Moon took his arm away from her and continued to drive in a silence only broken by the roars of a straining car engine being pushed beyond its recommended limits. Cass stared at her hands. They were stained with blood that was not her own.
It felt like no matter how hard she wiped them against the car seat or even her windbreaker, the blood refused to fully leave her skin.
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Cass gets +1 to her traumatized stat while Mr. Moon shows that there is nothing he won't do to get the alien back under his control. Meanwhile, more of the Nirvana Project is revealed and the stakes have never been higher. One Russian left. One FBI agent left. Cass is on the move. Mark's status is unknown. Jack is lurking who-knows-where. The police are en-route to the farm. Who will get there first, to gain control of the key to the Nirvana Project?
I leave you with those questions until next week. As always, huge thanks to all the patreons and readers alike. Couldn't do this without ya.
Peace
