leaves
patreon
Chapter 17 - Snow in Summer
🕑 Added 2024-10-20 14:02:40 +0000 UTCFive in the morning. That was when Mr. Moon got the call. It wasn’t a notice from Ms. Miller, but rather a panicked radio message from Paul, the temporary chief of police. The man had hardly been thrilled about the sudden promotion – a feeling that Mr. Moon could understand. In the frantic hours after the Russian ambush had been foiled, the two FBI agents revealed the grizzly assassination in the Chief’s own house, a terrible event that had happened mere minutes before Paul called for backup.
A Russian sniper, taking advantage of the chaos on the other side of town to eliminate the Chief and therefore throwing the department into a worse state of chaos than it already was. It was fortunate that Mr. Moon and Dag had been on the scene to provide stability, chase off the sniper, and back up the rest of the precinct.
Or at least, that was the official story. Other than Mr. Moon’s team, Cass Thomson, and her mystery friend, none knew the truth. Paul believed the story. Why wouldn’t he? It fit. The Russkies already had a sniper present at the ambush. If they had one, they very well could have two.
In addition, Mr. Moon had also prepared the scene before the murder was revealed. The bullet from his Sig Sauer, the very same one that passed through the back of the Chief's head, torn through his brains, passed through the front, and drilled into a kitchen cabinet, was found and meticulously pried from the wood to be dropped into a pocket and forgotten. In its place was a used rifle round from a previous battlefield. However, perhaps replacing the round was unnecessary. Paul hadn't thought of checking it.
Thus, Paul, as the most senior officer left on the force, was inducted as the temporary Chief. A temporary Chief with drastically limited resources and a promise of backup that would never come, courtesy of Ms. Miller’s hard work intercepting and directing the local radio traffic. Mr. Moon’s investigation concluded swiftly. The Russians were the only people who were suspected in the matter of the old Chief's death, with the proper time and motive being quite blatantly obvious. Paul went home, Mr. Moon and Dag settled in for a long overnight stakeout of the Thomson residence from their car, parked a block away, and the night slipped on by.
Until five in the morning.
Mr. Moon sat bolt upright, the handheld radio placed on the car’s dashboard between him and Dag so that both men could hear it. Five dead at the gas station. A store clerk and a group of young teenagers, all of them brutalized in a display of animalistic savagery that left Paul’s voice shaking over the radio just describing it. The estimated time of death was somewhere between ten and midnight of last night. Meaning it happened after the assassination of the Chief and the conclusion of the Russian ambush.
Mr. Moon caught Dag’s eyes. His too were narrowed in slight confusion. Not for the description of the carnage, of course. They’d both seen far worse. No, their mild confusion was over both the timeline and the act itself. It was certainly not above the Russians to kill a group of kids. However, those men also wouldn’t bother to do such a thing unless it benefited them in some way. Otherwise, it would be a waste of bullets and time. Causing a massacre when they should have been licking their wounds after a failed ambush? Preposterous.
Moreover, the description of the murders… it was all wrong. Strangulation with a gas hose. Gaping wounds and crushed chests, topped with a kid nearly snapped in half and an iron pipe sticking out of a clerk’s chest like a thrown spear.
It was unprofessional, truly. Something a mindless savage, or a soldier drunk on slaughter would do in the heat of battle. The Russkies, however, were professionals. Bloodthirsty? Sure. They had zero issues raiding an FBI black site. Nor did they hesitate to strike at a police station full of armed officers. But each move they made was still professional and calculated to the end like a surgeon's knife expertly cutting through a patient. If men like the Russians really had attacked the gas station, those teens would have been filled with handgun ammo and the clerk would've been sniped in the head from three hundred feet. Not whatever… this was.
The black site raid was to acquire the alien. The station attack was to retake the creature. The ambush last night was a bit sloppier, but likely a play to gain information and hostages – which would have worked, if not for Mr. Moon and Dag, who were up that point completely unknown to the Russians. It was all brutal yet professional and each action they took had a clear goal attached.
Mr. Moon eased his car down the road while he thought. It was still a few minutes until the gas station. Perhaps more would be revealed when they had their own eyes on the situation. Hopefully. Worst case, this meant there was another variable loose in this delicate situation, one that was brutal and unpredictable.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dino’s Diner was buzzing with life. Late in the night, the lights shone a warm glow over the building that made everyone inside feel cut off from the world, but in a good way. Like the diner was a refuge from the hardships of life. A place that people could escape to, even if for but a few hours, to enjoy good food and good company.
It was like an island of calm in the center of the storm of life, with Cass weaving in between tables as if she was a bird elegantly flying through the harsh winds, making them seem like nothing but a calm ocean breeze. She’d gotten the job and taken to it like a fish in water. The diner, once a hangout spot for her and her friends, was now a part of her life that she continued to enjoy, albeit in a different way than before. It gave her the fulfillment of a job well done alongside people she knew and trusted.
From a table a few feet away, her dad waved a greeting. Cass smiled back, the expression as warm and gentle as a morning sun peeking over the horizon. Balanced over her shoulder was a heaping platter of plates stuffed to the brim with food still sizzling with the residual heat from the grill.
To an outside observer, the pile would appear precarious, as if a gentle gust of wind would be enough to make Cass drop it all over the floor. That was not the truth, however. There was a method to the madness. Daly, one of the long-time waitresses who’d worked there even when Cass was still in elementary school, showed her the trick. It was all about balance. Dino would stack the plates just right in the kitchen, and as long as Cass kept the proper balance, it would all hold true.
Cass reached over the platter balanced on her shoulder to grab it with both hands to set it on the table that her dad and a bunch of guys from the station were sitting at. It was quite a large order of food, but she was used to it. They stopped by for dinner at Dino’s almost every day! A few of them were packing on some extra pounds because of that, but her father’s only response was to schedule more department-wide fitness mornings to stay in fighting shape.
“Alright! I’ve got a number ten, two number three’s, a four right off the grill, a number nine with no pickles, a Dino’s special, five milkshakes tall and frosty, a bottomless basket of chili-cheese fries, and a small apple pie. Pie’s on the house tonight!”
Hands raised one by one as Cass went through the orders, expertly sliding them across the table to each man.
“Enjoy!” Cass waved at the group. They all shouted various affirmatives back at her in response. Their voices bounced around the busy diner, adding their cheerful tones to the hustle and bustle of the place. Cass took a moment to breathe it all in. The smell of delicious food being cooked by Dino in the kitchen. The occasional drafts of night air mixed with the faint hints of cigarette smoke filtering in each time the door opened. How did the cheer in the air even have a smell? It was an emotion, a concept, but she could feel it deep in her lungs!
Cass let the happy breath out and moved over to the table that Ashley and Jen were at, sliding another round of milkshakes toward her girls. The three of them were still as close as ever, even after graduating high school. Ashley had found work at the police station as the secretary. Jen was going to a community college a few towns over but often found excuses to visit Carlston. Cass was pretty sure the girl would come back to the place after her degree was done. She loved the town too much to leave for good, and a nursing degree could be used practically anywhere.
That was the same wavelength Cass was on. This town… it was home. It was a warm, cheerful home, just like the diner was. Who cared that it was small? That it hardly had any stores, that the population had hardly changed since Cass was born? It was their slice of simple paradise. It was a town where everyone knew your name.
Another burst of raucous laughter erupted from the table where all the policemen were, Paul having apparently told one whopper of a joke. All bets were off whether it was a particularly rude one or some strange inside joke only men would understand. A group of smokers were happily chatting out in the parking lot while their food was being prepared. The picnic tables in the grass off to the side of the lot were filled with teens horsing around and ignoring their studies. Once upon a time Cass would have been among their number. Now she watched, content to see them enjoying the freedom of youth.
Cass was happy.
The dream broke and Cass opened her eyes. Daylight was streaming through the curtains of her acquired room to land directly on her face. She rubbed her face, the action doing little to soothe the itchiness brought by the tears that accompanied her to dreamland. It was a place she wished to still be in. The fragmented memories of her dreams, nothing but a half-remembered dream of a dream, still swirled away in her head. Fantasies of what could have been.
The nasty, terrible voice in the back of her head told her in cold words to ‘Wake up sweetie and smell the crappy roses, that dream is never going to happen. Dad’s dead and his killer is walking around like nothing happened.’
She shrugged the sheets off her body. The bed had been left there in the wake of old Henryk’s death. It was large enough to be determined as not worth the effort to lug down the stairs. The sheets had been found in a forgotten closet near the pantry. No longer did her chest feel the raging heat of grief. It was all cold now, like icy shackles were restraining her heart and snow was covering her frozen shoulders. Cass didn’t know if that would ever change.
Unsteady steps took her out of the bedroom. The stairs outside the room led downwards to the living room where she could see Mark sitting. The man looked to have hardly slept a wink. His face looked terrible. Just as bad as hers probably still looked. The shower hadn’t done much to fix that.
“Morning.” Cass’s rusty voice caused him to jump, breaking the man out of whatever thoughts he was trapped in. He tossed her an apple, which Cass clumsily caught and bit down on. It seemed neither of them had the energy to make breakfast.
With slow steps, Cass finished descending the stairs to join Mark in the living room, crunching away at her apple as she walked. She sat on a wooden rocking chair next to the unlit fireplace, her eyes flicking across the room while she thought. The hunting rifle was resting against the brick fireplace. Her pistol was probably still on the kitchen table, which was out of sight from the living room.
Half of the apple disappeared in chunks down her throat before Cass finally spoke.
“I’m going back. Taking the rifle and my car.”
Mark flinched in his seat. It seemed he could guess what she planned to do.
Cass didn’t care. He could come or he could stay. It mattered not to her.
“What about the thing in the barn?” Mark abruptly switched topics. Maybe he was still trying to think of a way to persuade her to stay safe. Or maybe he wouldn’t try at all.
Cass shrugged.
“What about it?”
“If it really is the reason all this started, shouldn’t we do something about it?”
If he had been speaking to a Cass that was a day younger, she might have agreed. However.
Cass shook her head. “Later.” She replied after taking another large bite of the apple. Each piece felt like it was hurtling to the end of an empty stomach, echoing away as it hit the bottom. “First the scum in the suit dies. After that I’ll figure something out.”
Cass didn’t wait for him to respond. She finished the apple, tossed the core out of an open window for the animals to have, and then grabbed the rifle and her keys. She still wore her grubby superhero pajamas. Her windbreaker was still wrapped around her shoulders. It would have been sensible to change clothes. If she looked hard enough there were probably a few old sets of clothing in some forgotten closet around the property.
Maybe it was another sign of how the world was turned upside down, for her to decline to do so. But in the back of her head, spoken by that nasty, terrible voice, she really, truly could not bear to give up the last things linking her to her old life. Not even if they were just a pair of grubby pajamas and a windbreaker.
Striding out of the house with the pistol in her pocket and the hunting rifle resting casually on her shoulder, she walked up to the barn and yanked open the doors. The haystack was still undisturbed. Cass shot a disgusted glance at it, a glance that held the unspoken words, 'If you'd never come to my town, my dad would still be alive.'
It was nothing more than a look, though. Dealing with that ‘Mr. Moon’ fellow was a more pressing matter.
She popped open the car door, setting the rifle in the passenger seat before she slid into the driver’s seat. Then the passenger door opened. The rifle was lifted into the air by a massive hand. Cass looked up, catching Mark’s eyes. He studied her, his face formed into an unreadable expression before he slid into the seat with the rifle set on his lap.
Mark didn’t say a word. Neither did Cass. She started up the car, filling the barn with a gentle rumbling that was once music to her ears. Now it was just the sound of a car starting. She placed her hand on the shift to put her car into drive. Warmth infused the top of her hand, causing Cass to glance over. Mark’s hand was placed over hers. He caught her gaze and nodded before his hand fell away and his gaze slid over to look out the window.
Cass put her eyes back on the open door and the car ambled out onto the road to the unsteady melody of gravel crunching under the tires.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
‘Scrape’
‘Scrape’
The sound of an axe rubbing against a whetstone filled the air. It was music to his ears. The whetstone was a nice one. A bit talkative, but nice.
“Hey.”
“Hey!”
"Hey, Jack!"
Jack paused, looking at the whetstone trying to speak to him. It had lips but no eyes. Not like it needed eyes to talk. No one needed eyes to talk. Unless there was some strange language out there that used eyes to talk? That would be kind of cool actually.
“Good work on fighting your demons, Jack! Me and the boys were wondering when you’d hash it out with them. You’ll have to get that one that got away, though. No sense in leaving a job unfinished.”
Jack curtly nodded. Then he smiled as the sensation of flesh crumbling underneath his fists came back as a fond memory. It was beautiful. Top ten memory, for sure. Ranking right above that one time he took out the lizardman with a metal tent stake, and right below his yearly summer Olympics preparations of going to the city at night and practicing his javelin-throwing skills on any skin stealers or muggers he could find.
As the warm memories flooded through him, Jack realized it was time for a break. He sat aside the whetstone, which groaned in pleasure as its back hit the cool surface of the metal table, and reached over to his snacks. He wasn't usually a snack person. It was kind of a money drain, and too many sweets tended to give a guy a gut that could interfere with a quick murdering, if that was needed at the moment.
But, when snacks presented themselves for free, well, he would oblige. To do so would be an utter waste of a perfect (and free) opportunity. Jack strained his arm to reach over to his most flavorful snack, hanging from the side of the shed he was sitting next to. It was buzzing gently, but that would soon change.
He grabbed the wasp nest in his hand and plucked it off the shed like one might pluck a juicy apple from a tree. The insects kicked up a fuss, but before they could explode from their nest, he shoved the buzzing delicacy into his mouth and chewed. It was a bit stingy, as wasp nests tended to be, but Jack was too strong for their poison to have an effect. Frankly, he was too strong for just about any poison to have an effect. It was a nice result of all his hard work microdosing poisons for breakfast each day. One by one, switching poisons each time his body got used to them enough that he didn’t feel numb from it anymore.
He could feel the wasps stinging the inside of his mouth (or trying to, most of them were too weak to break through the lining), but he continued to chew with crunchy relish. The wasp larva popped in between his molars like tiny little grapes, with a bit of a sour tinge to them. The nest was a bit dry, but the juices of the adult wasps did wonders in helping it go down to settle happily at the bottom of his stomach.
Jack let out a loud burp of satisfaction once the nest was all the way down.
“Juicy.” He grinned. The whetstone chittered in agreement, while his axe hummed in satisfaction over being wicked sharp again. It was almost always sharp, but cutting through bone was sadly a great way to quickly dull a blade. Now, though, now the edge would be back to cutting through bone like a knife through butter or smashing through it like a hammer on rocks. It all depended on the angle and force used in the strike.
“-All units be advised, multiple homicides reported at Skinny’s Gas Station. Suspect unknown.”
Jack cast a glance at the police radio as it buzzed to life with a woman’s voice made faint through the crackling of radio waves. He flicked the volume a notch louder and opened a bag of gummy fruit snacks acquired from that same gas station. He ate the strawberry ones first, following them with a few of the orange ones and a strong chaser of rubbing alcohol right out of the bottle.
“Is it the Russians?” A man’s voice answered, tight with exhaustion and fear. Jack’s eyebrows raised. Russians? In this particular town? At this particular time of day? How odd. He'd known from the start there were interesting times in Carlston. A chance to prove, perhaps even increase his might. Who could've guessed this town also contained scum-sucking communist heathens?
The man’s voice was never answered, though the woman continued to repeat her advisory every five or so minutes, until an hour had passed by and Jack’s gummy fruit snacks were exhausted.
The woman’s voice was cold. Uncaring. Obviously a radio operator working from some office to manage communications, but even an operator’s tone would normally have more life to it.
Maybe she was a demon, too?
-----------
Phew I've had a busy week this week. Work's been zooming along like usual, the pokemon run in the discord is going well, and I've been watching some Studio Ghibli movies I've always meant to get around to watching. From Up on Poppy Hill is truly a wonderful movie. Strongly recommend. It isn't quite my absolute favorite Ghibli movie, but it's high on the list. My overall favorite would be Castle in the Sky, though, due to the fact that's what I grew up with. Not the movie, per say, but when I was little my mom found a full-color 4 part manga version of Castle in the Sky in a book sale hosted by a local library. It was cheap so she got it for me and I cherished it for quite a while. Sadly it's long-lost now after a few moves and life being life, but the memories remain. Many years later I finally got a chance to see the movie itself (it was in a local theater as part of a limited re-run for an anniversary of Ghibli) and it was quite good. The manga did it justice.
Well, that's enough of memory lane for now. Until next week, my friends. As always huge thanks to patreons and readers alike.
Peace
