Cass waited by the barn for a full day watching the flames die down. Even as night passed into morning, then afternoon and night again, she did not move from where she sat on the hood of Mr. Moon’s car, rifle cradled in her arms like a protective charm. She didn’t know exactly what she was waiting for. Would Mark miraculously rise from the ashes, after he’d been turned into precisely that? Or would that madman come back instead, leaving it up to Cass to stop his particular brand of murderous insanity? Or would Mr. Moon’s ashes collect back together, reforming the bastard so she could shoot him in the head one last time.

  Yet after a day there was nothing. The flames died down to glowing embers. The barn, once a ragged testament to a long-lived farmstead, was now nothing but cinders. No shouts came from within. Nor was there movement from behind walls that no longer existed.

  Cass was alone at the farm. Only she still drew breath. Yet, a part of her wondered if that breath was real. Was she even still alive? Or was this some sort of purgatory, trapped alone on the farm where everything ended for all eternity?

  She pinched her arm, wincing in discomfort as a flash of pain shot through her nerves. This was no dream.

  As for being purgatory, that was still yet to be determined.

  Another day passed and Cass hardly noticed. There were still no changes to her surroundings. She was still the only living person on the farm.

  The sun traveled through the sky faster than she could ever have imagined possible. Was it really going that fast, or was her perception of time just screwed up? Cass blinked in a futile attempt to bring the world back in focus.

  And at that precise moment, she saw a strip of grey skin amongst the ashes. Cass heaved herself off the hood of the car and went over to investigate. The skin was grey, similar to the color of ashes but different enough to stand out. It was not moving at all, whatever person or thing it belonged to was seemingly content to stay still… or perhaps they were just dead, and somehow their body wasn't burned up all the way.

  The ashes swirled around her shoes, staining the leather as she walked. A cinder, still scorching hot, settled on her windbreaker, melting a tiny hole in it before Cass could brush it away. Then her shoe hit something soft. Cass prodded the soft object with the barrel of her rifle, moving it just enough to reveal the sticklike form of the alien.

  Its body was unblemished. Not a single inch of its flesh was scorched or burned in any way. Its eyes still looked up at her, appearing to see right through Cass’s body to the sky beyond like she wasn’t even there. And, perhaps to the alien, she wasn’t there. Had it ever reacted to anything that had been done to it? It was brought into a car crash, shoved in a trunk, buried in hay, had its throat bitten out, its flesh consumed, and trapped in a burning barn.

  Even then, it still lay there silently. It spoke no words and moved no muscles. The only part of it that twitched was its eyelids, which blinked once every couple of minutes.

  Cass scoffed, shaking her head at the sight.

  What even was this? The object of such desire that had men killing each other in droves for control over it. Sure, it had some sort of healing powers, but she now knew those had limits. Or perhaps were those limits those of the human body, instead of the healing ability? Was turning to ash the final sign that their bodies couldn’t take the physical destruction any longer? No matter what it was, the madman found that out. Mr. Moon found that out. Mark… found that out. The ability was miraculous, but it had limits.

  An emotion shot through Cass with all the force of a rushing tsunami. Anger, but with a crushing sadness behind it. Her brain screamed at her to destroy it. Even if she couldn’t find out how to do that now, with enough time she might have a chance. Burn it to a crisp, never to be killed over again.

  But then reason stemmed that tsunami. A cold sort of reason that spoke in a chill voice in the back of her head. What if Mr. Moon had reported the location of the alien to be Carlston, and more men with guns got sent over to take it back? What if more people she knew and cared about died while men in suits combed through her town in search of it?

  That cold voice was the same voice that had told her countless times to take a shot at Mr. Moon. But this time, Cass did not resist. It was as if a checklist had formed in her head, and she was a robot bound to follow it step-by-step, never deviating until those orders were completed. Her body moved on its own, with Cass's mind taking the back seat and simply watching events occur like she was sitting on a couch with her dad enjoying a TV show after school.

  The alien was hoisted over her shoulder and dumped inside the trunk of Mr. Moon’s car. The keys, still in the ignition, were turned and the car roared to a rattling life, still running but also very much feeling the aftereffects of the crash. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, the leather still slick in some places from Mr. Moon’s blood.

  The car eased its way out of the driveway, rumbling along country roads that Cass knew like the back of her hand. She needed something obscure. Out of the way. Something that no one would even bother to visit months from now.

  Eventually, she found it. Heading off the dirt road, Cass parked the car outside an old, depilated one-room schoolhouse. Its white paint was chipped and fading, while weeds grew out of the cement sidewalk leading up to the steps. The flagpole outside was nearly bent in half, having received the wrath of some storm or other natural force and been found lacking. This building, one she knew had been built in the days of the pioneers, hadn’t seen use in nearly eighty years.

  No one even bothered to come by anymore to cut the grass, even though the schoolhouse was a historic building. That was just how little people cared about it, an old, rotting one-room schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere, a decent distance from Carlston or any other town. Sure, many people knew of it, either from word of mouth or after driving past it, but no one cared about it.

  In a sense, it was the perfect hiding place for the creature. Cass popped open the trunk, heaved the alien back over her shoulder, and stumped her way up the cracked brick steps of the schoolhouse. The door, all wooden and rotten, opened after Cass put her shoulder into it, to reveal a littered collection of broken desks and cracked chalkboards.

  Cass walked gingerly up the aisle, watching for wooden floorboards too rotten to step on. Above, a wasp floated lazily in the air, paying little attention to Cass’s journey. At the front of the classroom, Cass dumped the alien right on top of the old teacher’s desk, arranging it so that it would be the first thing anyone would see upon entering the schoolhouse.

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  She sighed, breathing in the musty air. It smelled like forgotten history. Perhaps in another fifty, or even twenty years, even the schoolhouse itself would be forgotten completely. It was a strange sense, because in another way, if Cass tilted her head just right and squinted her eyes, she could almost imagine what it must have looked like back in the day when it was still in use.

  Clustered students, some watching with careful attention to the teacher, others doodling on the little chalkboards stacked in the corner out of boredom. During the summer, the end of spring, and the start of fall, the room would be blistering hot, just like how it was now. Even with the windows cracked it would still be a hellish environment. Then during the winter, it would be freezing cold, the small cast-iron stove in the middle of the room struggling to heat the building enough for the students to safely study.

  Then Cass blinked and the vision was gone. She was alone again, just like she was alone on the farm after the fires faded. With one last glance at the alien, Cass left the rotting piece of forgotten history, firing the car back up and rumbling back down the dirt road to the paths more frequently traveled.

  It didn’t take her long to reach the highway, even with how remote the schoolhouse was. If one knew which roads to follow, it didn’t take long to get much of anywhere. Parked by the ramp leading onto the highway, Cass heaved herself out of the car and approached a payphone. Judging by the amount of graffiti, assorted debris, and broken glass around it, the phone saw little, if any use.

  But still, her body was like a robot following a checklist. She clutched a handful of quarters liberated from a small compartment in the center console of the car. She wrapped her right hand in her windbreaker, then slid the payphone off its hook. The quarters fell rattling into the box one by one as Cass made her call.

  “This is the FBI tipline, how may I be of service to you today?” The calm voice of a woman emanated out of the phone.

  “The subject of the Nirvana Project can be found in the old schoolhouse next to the intersection of Q Road and Terrace Drive.” Cass said in as deep of voice as her vocal cords could manage, slamming the phone back on the receiver before the woman could ask any more questions. She couldn’t be sure if that information would make it to the right people, but hopefully the words ‘Nirvana Project’ would ring some alarms.

  Then the alien would get picked up by some men with guns, it would be far from the town, and if they tracked the phone, it would only lead to a derelict payphone. Wrapping her hand in her windbreaker would prevent fingerprints from being gathered, though that would matter little at all since Cass wasn't in the system. There would be no fingerprints to compare to even if some were found. With luck, unless disaster struck, the FBI wouldn't know Cass even existed.

  With that final task done, Cass turned, started the car up, and disappeared down another dirt road.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  After Cass’s waiting ended, and her robotic checklist came to an end, Cass went back into town and showed up to school the next day to finish up the last week of classes. Each time the principal asked if she wished for time to mourn, and to finish her classes later, Cass would look at him with a sad, tired smile and decline. She needed people around her. She’d spent too much time alone at the Henryks farm, watching ashes swirl in the breeze. Not all of the people around her were friends, in fact some were people she blatantly disliked, but they were all familiar. They were all individual pieces to the calming, gentle puzzle that was a small town like Carlston.

  By the time the final week was over, Cass’s grades were in the middle of the pack, nothing out of the ordinary. She graduated in the middle ranking of her class, right next to her close friends Jen and Ashley. The day after graduation, Cass received a job offer from Dino at the diner, which she accepted in a heartbeat. Work kept her busy, the good people kept her smiling. On some nights, when the moon was high and the business was slow, Cass could almost imagine the ghost of her father sitting in a corner booth with all the other people of the town who'd died, sipping down endless phantom milkshakes and laughing over nothing in particular. That daydream never failed to make her smile, as bitter as it felt to know they only lived on in her heart now.

  And though her life went on, surrounded by friends and familiar faces, Cass always made time to revisit the old farm once a year, staring at the fading ashes while thinking about nothing in particular.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  A chubby hand gently placed the phone back on the receiver. Finally, after so many weeks, the alien was back under FBI control. Mr. Sun sat back with a sigh. It was in a new black site now, one so secretive that no outside communication was even possible, and no one – from the scientists to the security detail, could leave. Only himself and the President of the United States of America knew of its existence. The team that had retrieved the alien from the schoolhouse flagged in the tipline conversation had been dealt with. It no longer mattered if anyone had gotten a glimpse of them moving the alien from Kansas back to Washington D.C.

  Getting the Nirvana Project back online was of extreme importance, and keeping it secret was everything. They were a team of volunteers, just the same as Mr. Moon’s was. They knew what would happen after.

  As for Mr. Sun himself, he was in his office, far past usual working hours and late in the night. He took a long drag of his cigar. There were only two living souls in his office. Mr. Sun himself, and the watcher, who was there to make sure Mr. Sun did what he had to do.

  “It’s over.” Mr. Sun muttered to no one in particular. “Guess that means it’s time.”

  “It is, sir.” The watcher, a man in a black suit with sunglasses that covered his eyes replied in a monotone.

  Mr. Sun felt the weight of the metal in his other hand. He wasn’t used to it, not like Mr. Moon was. Suddenly, it all felt strange, so strange that it was almost comical.

  “Ha, after all this time clawing my way up. Dobson, do you know why this is happening?”

  The watcher, a man named Danny, shook his head. “No, sir. I do not, and I wish to keep it that way.”

  “Good man.” Mr. Sun muttered, his amusement fleeing as soon as it arrived, “Good man. That’s the right answer. One last thing-“

  “Yes sir?”

  “Remind those suits upstairs about my contingency involving our little promise.”

  “I don’t know what that is, sir.”

  Mr. Sun shook his head. “The right people will. They made a promise in exchange for the lives of good men. I expect them to keep it in the end. You don’t need to tell them anything else.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Mr. Sun took one last drag of his cigar. It was funny. He wasn’t ever much of a smoker, but now that smoke felt like the purest air filling his lungs. The cigar was placed in an ashtray on his desk, the first time it had ever been used. Then his right hand rose, a flash of metal gleaming within his chubby grasp. The metal dug into the side of his head, cold and unfeeling.

  “This, I do for my country. So our children, and our children’s children can prosper.” Said Mr. Sun. The solemn words did little to settle his nerves. A glass of whiskey was set before him, poured wordlessly by Danny. Mr. Sun smiled thinly. One last mercy, huh? The glass was snatched up and quaffed in one greedy gulp. It was no way to enjoy good whiskey, but that hardly seemed to matter much to him anymore. It burned all the same, traveling from his fiery mouth to settle at the bottom of his stomach like hot coals giving him the strength to do what needed to be done.

  It was the best whiskey he’d ever tasted.

  “Yes sir.” Danny replied, still with that infuriating monotone voice of his. With his last thoughts, Mr. Sun idly appreciated how close Danny was in temperament to how Mr. Moon used to be. Perhaps with ten more years of experience, Danny could be just as useful to the next director as Mr. Moon was to him.

  And then with a deafening bang, Mr. Sun pulled the trigger of the revolver pressed into the side of his skull. His head slumped lifelessly onto the desk in a mess of bright red blood. After a few seconds, Danny stepped forward, placed two fingers on the side of Mr. Sun’s neck, and nodded. Then, with the death of Mr. Sun confirmed, he moved away to wordlessly leave the room and the body behind, the door closing with an empty clicking sound that echoed around the space.