It felt like a mirror of her desperate escape from the police station. Everything traveled in slow motion. Moving the tiny muscles in her fingers to begin squeezing the trigger felt like she was trying to push a mountain across a football field instead.
And then it all shifted. Dag stepped forward right as Mr. Moon placed his hand on the doorknob, obscuring the smaller man from her view. Cass almost let a muffled curse fall from her lips, but she held it deep within her chest next to the breath that was keeping her body steady. She could still take the shot. The clear line of sight was gone, but she could still try. The problem was – she couldn’t see Mr. Moon anymore. Where was his head? If Cass directed her aim at the upper part of Dag’s chest, would that be around the same height?
It should be. She hadn’t moved the rifle after setting the rifle sights on Mr. Moon’s head. Unless… he was indeed in the middle of pulling the door open. There was a step up to the door – no more than an inch in height, but if his foot was on it, the height of his head would change. Moreover, Dag’s chest was broad. As broad as Mark’s, perhaps even more. She’d heard the term ‘barrel-chested’ in books before, but until now Cass hadn’t truly understood what it would be like until she saw Dag. She would have to shoot through the chest and hope Mr. Moon’s position hadn’t changed much.
A rifle bullet through the chest might not kill, but it would definitely put a guy down for a while. It would take care of Dag for sure.
But she didn’t give a hoot about the big man. This stakeout, sending Mark away, all her frustration and boiling rage was centered around one man. Mr. Moon. The man with the stupid fake name who shot her dad in the back of the head like a filthy coward. Who cared if Dag died? She wanted the thin man’s lifeblood spilling down the steps and his brains splattered across the siding of the house. Shooting Dag through the chest and hoping it hit Mr. Moon when it came out the other side, hoping that its direction and force wasn’t blunted by bone, fat, and muscle, felt foolish. Utterly foolish. Her weapon was a hunting rifle. The chance of those odds working in her favor was unlikely.
Cass’s teeth bit deep into her bottom lip to draw a steady stream of blood. It didn’t matter. She had exactly one shot before her position was revealed, so that one shot needed to be a sure chance at killing that man. It wouldn’t matter otherwise. Her finger fell away from the trigger, the digit only a few pounds of force away from launching a round of hot spitting metal at lethal speed at the agents. Eventually the men would come back out. She would wait and take her chance when that happened. Until then, she would lay in the thick and scratchy bush without moving a muscle.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Mr. Moon tossed his suit jacket onto the couch in the living room. That, and the slight drooping of his shoulders were the only signs of his exhaustion. Patrolling the town for a pair of Russians and a raving lunatic with only two federal agents plus a sparse handful of police officers sometimes felt like a Sisyphean task - futile and unending. The Russkies were laying low ever since their failed ambush. It was as expected, considering they lost two men from their already extremely limited pool of manpower.
The lunatic, whoever he was, also hadn’t shown himself since the gas station massacre. Ms. Miller hadn’t picked up any useful traffic on the radio. Likewise, her regular reports to Mr. Sun were just as dry.
Was this it? Part of him wondered if this Mexican standoff of theirs would last months. No faction knew where the alien was for sure. The Russkies lacked the manpower to deal with Mr. Moon and the police, and he couldn't find hide nor hair of them. The lunatic was a wildcard but seemingly uninterested in the prize Mr. Moon was fighting over with the Russians. Hypothetically, Cass was the key to it all. Hypothetically she either had the alien or at least knew where it was. But like the Russians, she was nowhere to be found either. She hadn’t shown up to school, none of her acquaintances knew where she was, nor had she come back to her house.
Mr. Moon rolled his shoulders, bringing up a hand to massage his muscles to relieve some of the weight of the Kevlar vest concealed under his white dress shirt. Long days and long nights with minimal personnel to work with. It was nothing new to him, as much as Mr. Moon would have preferred otherwise.
“Moon.” Dag’s sharp, yet quiet voice rumbled out behind him. Mr. Moon’s hand shot toward the holster strapped under his arm, his thumb already halfway through flicking off the strap holding his Sig Sauer in place before he finished turning to face his partner.
Dag was standing next to one of the windows in the living room that looked out to the driveway. One of his fingers was holding the curtain barely a centimeter or two away from the window, providing just enough space for an eye to peek through.
“There’s someone in the bush. Side yard, close to the front. Tip of a gun barrel. It’s not poking through. My guess is it’s aimed at the door.”
“A small person or a small gun.” Mr. Moon mused. While he spoke, his feet took him to the back door. “Keep watch.”
This was… unforeseen. A Russian? If they were going for an assassination, they were better off taking one of the houses down the street and sniping from the attic or an upper floor. Hiding in the bushes would do fine in killing him or Dag, but the survivor would have plenty of time to return fire. A sign of desperation, perhaps? The ambush at the house was already risky. Perhaps the Russians were gambling everything on taking him and Dag out. It had to be desperation. It reeked of such desperation that it bordered on amateur! It defied every move the Russians had made so far. Before this, sure they’d taken risk after risk, but nothing they’d done could be called amateur, merely bold moves within their ability to pull off. Until now.
Mr. Moon’s left hand eased the back door open as carefully as possible to reduce all noise the door could potentially make while his right hand palmed his handgun. The door silently swung open. His thumb flicked off the safety while his other hand racked back the slide to finish readying the weapon, and he began to ghost across the back lawn. His feet traveled with all the speed he could muster while the faint bits of unavoidable noise were drowned out by the warm summer breeze that whispered overhead.
Dag had said the side yard, close to the front and probably aimed at the door. That would mean the assassin was waiting for one of them to step out of the house. For a brief moment, a stray thought crossed Mr. Moon’s mind, one which wondered why a shot wasn’t taken when they’d entered the house, but it was brushed aside to be examined later.
Right now, in this very moment, there was a chance. Mr. Moon moved as silently and quickly as possible, taking care to avoid even crunching the grass with his shoes. There was a chance that he could avoid killing whoever was in the bush. It wasn’t because of mercy. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.
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No, in this case his goal was information. A lone assassin lying in wait in the bush. A target who had a chance of knowing where the other Russians were. Capture the target, squeeze them dry, organize a strike against the rest of the Russians, and then Mr. Moon’s search would have a far more forgiving time limit. Though, on the flip side, dropping the Russian in the bush from thirty feet with his Sig would be a whole lot less complicated.
Huh. In a way, he was like the Russians – chancing a risk instead of following the safest path.
Mr. Moon drew close to the house. He pressed his shoulder up to the siding and slid another inch forward to risk a quick peek around the corner of the building. From this distance he could see the area Dag pointed out, but the angle made it impossible to see which overgrown bush held the assassin. No matter.
From what he could tell, the bushes were extremely thick all around. They pressed up against each other and the white-picket wooden fence behind them.
If he tried to slide behind the bushes, the ruckus would alert his target. It would be beyond any amount of noise that could be excused by the wind. Hopping over the fence would be quiet, but he would have to hop back over when he got close. Possible, but once he hopped back over there would be an immediate scuffle. However, sneaking up next to the bushes and walking down would be much too risky. The moment the assassin turned their attention away from the sights of their gun would be the exact moment Mr. Moon would be spotted.
Hop the fence it was. If the intent was to capture, a scuffle would happen regardless. Close quarters could help him avoid a gun battle, which would have naturally come with the risk of lethally shooting his capture target.
The fence was well-maintained, reaching just above the height of the lower part of Mr. Moon’s chest. He quickly crossed the rest of the backyard to slide up to it, his offhand grabbing the wood experimentally once he was close enough to the bushes for his body to be mostly obscured by them. It hardly flexed at all. Once he put his full weight on it, that would change, but it seemed sturdy enough that hopping over it wouldn’t cause too much in the way of wobbling. The other side of the fence was clear as day. It was only grass, no bushes to be seen. As long as he stuck the landing, it should be quiet.
Mr. Moon sent one last glance toward the sideyard. There was no movement coming from that area. No rustling of bushes, no sounds of gunfire, no shouts from Dag. His free hand clutched the top of the fence, and in one smooth movement he vaulted over the top to land in the grass on the other side. The grass rubbed against his shoes as he expertly landed, stooping low to keep his profile under the edge of the fence.
All the while, there was still no movement on the other side.
Mr. Moon silently crept toward the bushes in question. Closer. And closer. And closer. The wooden slats making up the fence were placed close enough to each other to fully obscure Mr. Moon’s view of the other side, so the second floor of the Chief’s house was his only indicator of how close he was to his target.
Twenty feet away.
Mr. Moon continued to creep closer. His gun was still held in one hand, his other hand kept free in anticipation of leaping back over the fence.
Ten feet.
The summer evening breeze brushed his neck and pushed against his dress shirt, the suit jacket having been left lying on the couch. His Kevlar vest rested heavily on his shoulders and chest. Somehow the weight felt more suffocating than it normally did, even though he usually wore it every day, even at the office. It was his ever-present shield, sufficient enough to stop most low-caliber bullets.
Five feet.
The fence still obscured his view. Mr. Moon was sure he was close, but how close? Should he risk it now or move a few more feet? He straightened up to peek over the top of the fence. The bushes were still thick enough to make it impossible for him to see the assassin, but Mr. Moon could see the windows on the first floor of the house. Behind one of the windows, a curtain quivered, signaling Dag’s watchfulness. If anything at all were to go wrong, his partner could immediately lay down covering fire.
A bird chirped overhead. Mr. Moon made up his mind. Even if he was still a few feet away from where he assumed the target was, the assassin’s gun was likely still trained on the door. It would take time for them to swing around to aim at Mr. Moon, or to drop the weapon and grab their sidearm.
In a split second, Mr. Moon grabbed the fence and leaped back over it, sacrificing every bit of stealth in favor of speed and power. The bushes loudly protested as his body crashed through them, eliciting a woman’s voice to gasp in shock. Mr. Moon’s hand yanked his Sig Sauer up to point at his target…
And for the first time since he came to this town, Mr. Moon experienced a feeling of genuine surprise. The bushes parted, revealing the form not of a Russian agent, but that of Cass Thomson.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The garage door rumbled to a shut. Seconds later, the first few lights inside of the house flicked on.
This, and more, was what Jack could see from his super stealthy lookout on the other side of the street. He’d claimed it mere moments after the man and the women he’d tracked from the funeral home returned to their abode. It was nothing but a normal house. Basement, garage, main floor, etc.
Jack was given a brief glimpse into the garage when the couple’s van rolled inside. That too seemed ordinary. Boring, ordinary, humdrum, and mundane. Jack was sick to the stomach thinking about it. How could those people be so boring? Well, he supposed they must not be entirely boring. The woman’s voice was all over the radio directing police patrols in the area. She had to be interesting.
Jack gave a satisfied nod to no one in particular. His mind was made up. The demons at the gas station were a good warmup, so now he’d test the might of the ordinary townsfolk. The best approach would be in this case also the fun approach.
As soon as what looked to be the bedroom lights flicked on, Jack made a mad dash toward the side yard, looping around to the back yard to reveal a closed basement door. Score. A very fun approach.
A one, and a two, and Jack’s axe slammed through the puny wooden door trying to prevent his great self from entering the pitch-black confines of the basement. The noise was deafening in the twilight, but that was on purpose. The splintering of wood, the crunching of glass, it was all music to his ears. The door didn't last long – falling off its hinges backward with all the force of Jack's final titanic swing to reveal a yawning portal of inky black soup that reached into the unknown.
Movement faintly responded from the floor above. Jack grinned. That was fast. He would need to be faster. Quickly and loudly, Jack whipped out a rock from his pocket and threw it at the shadowy outline of the bare lightbulb that, when turned on, would doubtlessly illuminate the confines of his new arena. Light would be boring. It would be cheating. It would be too easy.
Jack stepped forward into the basement and stooped down to grab the fallen door. He heaved it up, muscles barely even straining until it was leaned back into place to block the exit. Now he had a chokepoint. The stairs, oh so hard to see, were about ten feet in front of him. His opponents would have to travel down them to meet him in battle.
Jack grinned and licked the edge of his axe, delighting in the taste of the blood and cold meat scraps congealed on the wicked-sharp edge of the weapon. He could faintly hear a man’s voice on the main floor. Would he come down? Or would he make Jackie-boy come to him?
The door at the top of the stairs rattled. Jack clenched his hands. His trusty yet cheerful axe lounged in his left hand. In his right, there was clutched a mighty javelin (of sharpened rebar). Whoever peered through that door would find their leg pierced with cold, true iron that would cripple them, making his target unable to run from his challenge of mortal combat. One that Jackie-boy would win, for his hearts were greater than any normal man could possess.
He was the reaper. The exterminator. The death-dealer. The harbinger of the afterlife with fangs honed through countless battles in the parking lots, swamps, and storms of Florida. Only the strong would survive, for only the strong would be worthy of facing greater trials in the future. Strength. Cunning. Rage, and joy. Those were all that mattered now.
Jack’s grin widened. This basement would be a grave which he would gleefully dance atop. It would be party time, starting in t-minus 10 seconds. And his dance partner was approaching with a loaded gun, if that faint ‘snick’ of a safety being flicked off wasn’t but a figment of his imagination.
Groovy.