The needle of the speedometer trembled from where it hovered somewhere high in the hundreds. Ordinarily that speed, on a country road filled with twists and turns, would be lunacy, but he knew there was no time to waste. The remaining Russian, Vladischov, had a head start of at least five minutes. It was unknown how long finding the alien would take. In the barn, under a haystack. Those were the directions Cass Thomson had given back in the Russian safe house.

However, those directions were certainly ones that could have been a little bit more specific. In the barn, yes. Under the haystack, yes. But which haystack, if there were multiple? How big was the haystack? How big was the barn? Would the alien serve to be the metaphorical ‘needle in the haystack’, proving exceedingly difficult to find in a short amount of time considering the other potential issues?

All those questions and more buzzed around the inside of Mr. Moon’s head like irritating flies, only serving as momentary distractions from the wrenching pain coming from his left arm. It was strange. The loss of his hand was unfortunate, but it also felt like he could see at least some things more clearly. The girl's face was etched deeply with a mixture of revulsion and hatred. Then, buried beneath both of those feelings, he could also see a slight tinge of pity. Mr. Moon could see her glancing at the pistol in her hands. He could almost hear the gears grinding in her head. To shoot him, or not to shoot him. She grappled with that pointless question constantly.

In reality, the answer to that question did not matter at all compared to the timing of when that question was answered. As long as it was after the alien and Mark were both in FBI custody, Cass Thomson could do as she wished.

Mr. Moon’s eyes narrowed. The farm was now in view, or at least what Cass indicated was the correct farm. That indication was backed up by the presence of a pickup truck with broken windows haphazardly parked right outside the barn. Mr. Moon slowed the car as soon as he saw that, quieting the engine as best as he could. Cass’s breath hitched.

This was it. The culmination of multiple days’ worth of bloody work. Tracking the Russians to Carlston, the sacrifices of Steve, Dag, Cathy, and the Carlston PD. It was all for this one moment.

Mr. Moon cut the engine twenty feet away from the pickup truck. There was still no movement from the barn. The barn doors were cracked open a hair’s breadth, just enough for a large Russian man to squeeze through. Cass nervously clutched her borrowed Sig Sauer while Mr. Moon popped open the car door and slid out with his SPAS-12 shotgun dangling from his right hand. Near his chest, the reassuring weight of his own Sig Sauer rested within the safety of the holster strapped under his left arm.

Making sure to catch Cass’s gaze, Mr. Moon held a finger to his lips for silence. There was still a chance to end this in one fell swoop with an ambush of their own, as long as they stayed as quiet as church mice. Moving silently, Mr. Moon moved off the gravel driveway to creep along the grass. Closer and closer he drew to the barn, and still there was no noise. A glance to the side saw Cass doing the same, albeit a slight bit more shakily.

And then the silence was broken by blaring sirens.

Mr. Moon threw himself to the side just in time to avoid a hail of bullets splitting through the wood from inside the barn. A curse formed on his lips, but before he could say anything, a speeding patrol car roared out of the night, blue and red lights like spotlights in the darkness. Yet, there were no police officers in the car, the one racing down the driveway at simply insane speeds.

It was the madman, hooting and hollering, hanging his body halfway out the window with a glee accentuated by the bloodied police uniform haphazardly thrown around his torso and the… what seemed to be scraps of human skin and ligaments decorating the top of his bald head in some sort of macabre hat.

He was given no more time to observe. The police car finished its journey by smashing into the barn doors with such force that the wood was turned into more of a pile of splinters than an actual barn door. Mr. Moon clicked his tongue. This had just gotten much, much more complicated.

Any more thoughts on the matter were banished as Mr. Moon scrambled to his feet, yelling for Cass to take cover while the sounds of gunfire within the structure intensified. He raced for the open doors, peeking around them to reveal Vladischov firing wildly at the madman, who had the grey, pencil-thin neck of the alien wrapped tightly in his hand. Mr. Moon’s eyes narrowed.

Finally. His target was in sight.

Neither one of the men had noticed their two observers yet, so great was their fire and fury in the fight. He caught Cass’s wide eyes, nodding before moving into the barn between scarce bits of cover. The movement was just in time, as Vladischov’s eyes widened, and he directed a shot from his stolen SPAS-12 toward Mr. Moon. The pellets struck a support beam, kicking up a cloud of dust from the old, battered wood. Mr. Moon leaned out, replying with a blast from his own shotgun.

The momentary distraction was immediately exploited by the madman, who with a crazed yell of “DEATH IS HERE!”, bit deep into the alien’s neck to slurp down large chunks of the stick-like creature’s flesh, before throwing it away like trash to a dumpster and charging toward the Russian with murderous glee.

Mr. Moon relaxed his grip on the shotgun, letting it slide down so that the pump-action part of the weapon was fully in his hand. He then yanked the shotgun up in the air, using the force of the movement to pump out the used shell to replace it with a fresh one. Normally the action would be done with two hands, but considering the circumstances, he would have to make do.

Mr. Moon let out another blast from his shotgun into the tangled pair of men, catching the madman neatly in the side. With each shot the weapon fired, the recoil hammering into the crook of his arm was nearly too great for him to control one-handed. No doubt it was affecting his accuracy, but there wasn’t any time at all to try and fix it.

Then, Mr. Moon’s eyes widened. There was no way to get a perfectly clear view of the madman, as he was rolling in the dirt with Vladischov, but he could almost swear that the madman’s wounds from the shotgun pellets were… closing.

It hit him with all the force of an oncoming freight train. The trigger. Despite all their experiments, to his knowledge the scientists at the black site had never actually tried injecting the creature’s blood in anything yet. All of their focus was poured into attempting to understand how the regeneration worked, not how it could be applied to others. That was something reserved for later.

The madman bit into the alien. That was obvious enough. But Mark? Mr. Moon gave his shotgun another one-handed pump while he thought, ducking back behind the wooden support pole as the Russian managed to free himself from the clutches of his attacker and sent a shotgun blast of his own toward Mr. Moon. Mark. He was in possession of the alien before and after the raid on the police station. What if at some point he was wounded, and the alien’s blood had mixed with his own?

It was a stretch. A mile-long stretch that even Mr. Moon could acknowledge. On the other hand, it was clear the madman had the ability now. The wounds littering the man’s body were healing at a rapid rate, even as the madman leaned back his head and laughed uproariously as Cass emptied the magazine of her Sig Sauer into his back, her eyes wide with fear.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Vladischov stumbled back, his lungs burning from exertion. How had this all gone so wrong? One moment he was searching the barn for the alien, then the next moment a police cruiser tore through the door to disgorge a lunatic that simply shrugged off anything Vladischov did to him. Then creeping along the sides of the barn from cover to cover, each on opposite sides of the barn, the FBI agent and the girl were taking potshots at everything that moved.

Vladischov backed away from the laughing madman, flinging himself behind an old green tractor while he tried to wrap his head around the situation at hand. Somehow those two escaped from the safehouse. Danten was either dead or captured. The lunatic seemed not to care about who he attacked, and the alien was cast aside on the ground like a discarded trash bag. It was so close. If could just…

A bullet slammed into the metal tractor and Vladischov discarded that line of thinking. Once everyone else in the barn was dead, only then could he take possession of his target. He sent a shot from his revolver over to the FBI agent creeping down his left side, before launching himself away from the tractor as it was lifted in the air by the screaming lunatic. The madman’s muscles strained to hold it over his head. Several bullets slammed into his flesh, but the man did not even acknowledge them, and the wounds healed within seconds before Vladischov’s very eyes. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, he would have been gladdened to see for himself the proof that the weapon Moscow wanted so badly was a reality instead of a fairytale.

“DEATH IS HERE!” The madman yelled again, throwing the tractor at Vladischov, who dodged with a sinking feeling in his stomach. The tractor rolled, hitting the back wall of the barn and breaking through the wood in an instant.

Vladischov whipped around, wasting no time in seeking cover again. This time, however, several shotgun pellets clipped him in the leg, eliciting a grunt of pain from his scarred mouth. He spun to the side, aiming his revolver at the girl slinking down the right side of the barn. The pellets were mere flesh wounds, but the flesh wound was enough to slow him by a mere second, long enough for a glancing pain to erupt around his skull. The last thing heard, before the darkness closed in, was the sound of a woman screaming the name ‘Mark’.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mark’s chest heaved with exertion, but he continued to slam the wooden board in his hands into the Russian’s skull over and over again until it was nothing but blood, bone shards, and visible grey matter. He could hear Cass screaming out his name, terror in her voice. He looked up, just in time to see the crazy bald man running toward him howling with laughter.

Mark let out a snarl of rage, raising his arms to meet the oncoming threat. He didn’t know what came over him. His head was hazy, full of fog like it was some great big empty valley. He remembered waking up in a car on the side of the road. In the front seat there was a dead woman. Once he’d processed that (and vomited a little), Mark had slid out to see a dead man lying on the road. The guy was huge, a bit bigger than even Mark was.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A feeling had shot through his brain saying that Mark should know who those people were. They were familiar for sure, but why? He’d never seen them before in his life. Then another feeling had shot through him.

Cass. She was in trouble. The problem was, Mark hadn’t the foggiest idea where she was. There was no sign of his girlfriend anywhere. Nothing along the road, nothing back in the car with the dead woman, no notes, no bags, nothing!

Still, they’d been dating for over a year. Known each other for much longer than that. She was the girl he hoped to marry someday after he graduated high school and blazed through college. He’d wracked his brains, over and over again. Nothing, nada, squat. Until finally, it was as if Cass herself had whispered in his head.

The old Henryks farm. Why? He still hadn’t the foggiest idea. However, what Mark had learned long ago was that Cass was always right. She was smarter, better, and kinder than he could ever be. Her voice would always guide him along the correct path.

After reaching the farm, Mark had practically turned it upside down trying to find Cass. He’d torn through the house. Nearly uprooted the remains of the garden. Dashed through the forest, all while shouting her name. But there was never an answer to his pleas.

At least, until the sound of gunshots came from the barn. As soon as Mark ran over to the wooden structure, the back of it exploded in a shower of splinters and other shrapnel, followed by a freaking tractor soaring into the air. The shrapnel had caught him square in the chest and carved deep grooves into his skin, but to Mark’s wonder, those grooves healed within seconds.

Once the dust settled, the scene before Mark was enough to turn his vision red with rage. There was a man, covered in scars and tattoos, pointing a gun at Cass. Every other living creature in the barn faded away to nothing once Mark saw that. Nothing else mattered in the world, and the world itself moved in slow motion.

Cass was always the smart one.

But Mark was the strong one. For Cass, he could move mountains.

He had covered the distance between himself and the scarred man in less than three seconds, blitzing forward at speeds that, if he was thinking straight at the moment, Mark would have realized were impossible to reach without seriously damaging one’s muscles. Along the way, a splintered board was snatched up in his grip.

Mark could see the scarred man’s fingers begin to squeeze the trigger. Yet, those fingers did not move fast enough. The length of wood in his hands descended once, twice, and then a third time with a sort of brutal efficiency of a man who knew very much well how to seriously hurt someone. The threat was diffused before the trigger of the gun could even be pulled. Mark could feel a flicker of pride settle warmly in his chest at how fast he’d managed it.

Cass screamed his name again, and just like that his mind was snatched away from the past to be back in the present, no matter how foggy and confused that present was. His girlfriend’s face was a mask of tears, there were thick bloodstains all across her windbreaker, and there was a handgun clutched in her grip. She looked both like a scared girl out of her depth and like an avenging Valkyrie warrior soaring out of the heavens to seek retribution. For what, Mark did not know, only that because it was Cass seeking it, that retribution would be found.

“Mark! Look out!”

Mark’s eyes flicked over right as a sledgehammer-like fist slammed into his chest, crunching through bone and tearing through flesh. He could feel the fist scrape against his organs, shattering his spine before coming out of his back. Mark’s chest heaved, but the world was back to that dreamlike state. Had the fog thickened?

The fist was wrenched out of his chest, but Mark did not fall to his knees. He could feel the hole in his flesh closing up, so he grabbed the laughing madman and replied in kind by smashing his forehead into the man’s nose, breaking it in one single movement. Then Mark tensed his muscles, straining at the man’s sides as he lifted him high up into the air, before flipping him to his back and bringing the man’s body down hard on his knee. There was the crunch of a spine breaking in half, but Mark had no time to process the sound.

A flaring pain erupted from his legs. Mark threw the man aside, looking down to see the blade of an axe biting deep into muscle. That moment of distraction proved far too lethal. Before Mark could look back up, he was on the ground, feeling a warm liquid gushing out of his neck while the bald man tore at the flesh in his chest with his bare hands, gulping up Mark’s organs with the sort of gusto normally only reserved for a starving man at a five-star restaurant. He could feel the strength leaving his bones, but curiously enough, at the same time he could feel the strength returning with the same speed.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mr. Moon heard Cass’s screams as the bald man began to eat at Mark’s organs, but ignored them in favor of moving closer. Her screams were heartfelt, but they were nothing but pointless noise right now. By his count, Mark should have died several times in the past twenty seconds. Truly, the durability given by the Nirvana Project was astounding. The data from this fight would amaze the lab techs back at the sight for certain.

Any further contemplation on the subject was interrupted as Mr. Moon unloaded the contents of the final shell in his shotgun into the bald man’s back, blasting him off the boy to land a few feet away. It hardly did much. Already the madman was back on his feet, his bloodstained mouth bared in a savage grin.

Mr. Moon tossed aside his shotgun and pulled out his Sig Sauer, backing away and squeezing the trigger as fast as he could while the madman ran toward him. Each bullet, though they smashed perfectly into his chest, was disregarded as if they were nothing but mosquito bites.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Cass let out another scream of horror as Mr. Moon was launched backward in the air like a ragdoll being thrown away by a child's temper tantrum. The bald man hadn't even flinched as Mr. Moon had calmly landed shot after shot on his body. Cass added her own gunfire to the mix, but it was like trying to put out a roaring inferno with handfuls of water at a time. The shots only served to draw the madman’s attention to her.

But unlike Mr. Moon, Cass did not slowly back away. She ran like the devil himself was behind her, sprinting not toward the barn door (for it was further away), but for the hole the tractor had made in the back of the barn. She jumped through the hole just in time, feeling the air woosh over her head as the madman’s fists closed not over her neck, but over thin air. Then a roar of pure, undiluted rage split the air, and Cass looked back.

Mark was back on his feet, the remains of his organs slinking back into his chest as she watched, causing foul bile to rise to her throat. Cass could see a missing chunk in his liver reappear as if nothing had happened. Mr. Moon was on the floor, laboriously dragging himself away with his damaged left arm clutching his chest. Mark swung his fists against the bald man’s side, hammering away with strength that Cass knew quite well was able to dent steel. It was more strength than that, now. His fists punched through the madman’s flesh, just as the madman’s fists punched through Mark’s own. His eyes were unfocused and confused. He hardly seemed to be present at the moment, forcing his body to keep moving through sheer adrenaline and rage alone.

Cass peered down the sights of her pistol, but the pair were grappled close together now. Any shots from her weapon had just the same chances of hitting the bald man as they did Mark. For several seconds they exchanged blows, dented skin and splintered bone tearing apart yet also knitting back together in mere moments.

Then, an opening. The bald man’s fist sunk deep into Mark’s chest again, tearing out of his back before the man threw Mark away to the ground. Cass took the chance in an instant, snapping off five shots in a row to hit him square in the chest.

But the bald man ignored them. He ignored the bullets in favor of grabbing a steel pipe, hefting it experimentally in his hand. Cass let out a horrified scream, firing the last bullets in the gun’s magazine, but that did nothing to stop the pipe from impaling Mark through the head.

Mark’s hands sluggishly rose to grasp at the pipe, but the bald man was laughing even louder now. He kicked away Mark’s left hand, grabbing his right hand and tearing it off Mark’s body like a sadistic child would remove a limb from a bug. Mark’s movements grew feebler by the second, his remaining left hand merely slapping against the iron pipe, instead of firmly grasping at it like he had earlier.

Mr. Moon was nowhere to be seen. No one else stirred inside the barn, other than the bald man and Mark. Cass pulled the trigger of her gun once more, but nothing happened. It was empty. Dimly, in the back of her mind, the nasty voice in Cass’s head reminded her of the extra mag Mr. Moon gave her.

Of course. How stupid. Stupid, stupid girl.

Cass pulled the extra magazine out of the pocket of her windbreaker while her other hand pressed the switch to eject the empty one. It fell to the ground with a clatter.

The bald man grabbed a length of wood, slamming it into Mark’s chest even while he continued to feebly paw at the pipe in his head. Cass pulled back the slide on the Sig Sauer and let loose hell from the weapon. The muzzle flared with each bullet fired. A pressure built up in between Cass’s ears, but she ignored it.

She ignored it, just like the madman ignored the bullets tearing into his chest, head, and arms, no matter how they made the man shudder with each hit. If she could just draw his attention once more!

More and more lengths of wood and steel pipes speared through Mark's body. He vomited up blood, and his left arm fell away from the steel pipe in his head. His left arm was torn off. His eyeballs were gouged out and eaten. His organs were strewn across the dirt but this time, they did not draw back into his body. No matter how many times Cass shot the bastard, nothing stopped him. Yet, she couldn’t think of any other way to try and drive him off so Mark could get a breather!

And then, so fast that even Cass had to blink and look again to make sure her eyes did not deceive her, Mark’s body collapsed inwards. The skin pulled together, trembling and smoking, and then there was nothing but ash. Every inch of Mark’s body had turned into ash. Even the bald man paused for a second, confused at what he saw.

“No…” Cass croaked out. It felt like a spear of despair was splitting through her body, worsening by the second as the wind picked up, dispersing the ash until there was nothing back. She had a feeling, a terrible rotting feeling in her body, that this was it.

Mark’s body was no longer reforming. The ash was not coming back. There was no movement now that it was gone. Had Mark escaped death one too many times this day for it to be allowed one final time?

Was Cass alone now, for good this time?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mr. Moon was dying. He could feel it right down to his bones. When the bald man threw him, he’d broken something important. He was bleeding internally and the thoughts in his head were sluggish.

Dimly, he could hear the roars of Mark as he fought the bald man, along with the desperate shouts of the girl. She was trying to drag the madman’s attention away from Mark.

That did not matter.

Mr. Moon crawled along the ground. It was hard, crawling with one hand and no strength to speak of, but crawl he did. He could see that… thing at the edge of his vision.

Would it work? Would it work as it did for the bald man, and for he assumed Mark?

What did it matter? Either it would work, or Mr. Moon would be dead quite soon.

His fingertips brushed against the grey skin of the stick-like figure. Even amongst all the violence in the barn, it still hadn’t moved from where the madman had thrown it. It lay there, staring with an empty gaze at the roof of the barn. Mr. Moon bared his teeth in an animalistic snarl, wrenching the last of his strength from his bones to drag his mouth to the alien’s neck. It was still healing, even now, but its flesh hadn’t fully closed up.

Mr. Moon bit down as hard as he could into the alien’s flesh. It was a revolting sensation, as if he was chewing through a pile of the most putrid sewage imaginable.

Cass let out a scream more horrible than any before, but it fell on deaf ears. Mr. Moon could feel his organs burning.

Oh, how they burned. They burned as they knit back together. Internal hemorrhaging ceased, bones fit back together, and his hand… his left hand was back. Mr. Moon marveled at the sight. The limb worked perfectly again like it was never damaged at all.

And just as Mark died for a final time, Mr. Moon stood up to his full height, blinking slowly.

His head was foggy.

What was his purpose here? It was important, he knew that for certain. Enough to stake his life on the outcome.

He could hear a girl screaming. Did he know her? Did she know him? Her voice was familiar and foreign at the same time. No matter. Answers could come later.

For now, it was his duty as an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to defend a civilian in danger.