Keeping Luna

by Todd Michael Haggerty

  Maybe that’s the point, thought Claire. Maybe I’m not meant to have any thoughts that aren’t of her. She will be my only thought, and I will be attached to her for as long as I live. I know that now. There’s no way around it.

  They had now driven a few blocks past their destination, and Owen swung the car to the right at the next intersection. He looked over at Claire and their child. There was a spark of awe in his eyes.

  “We made that,” he said. “Can you believe it?”

  “I know. She’s perfect. I’ve never seen a baby before; not since I was old enough to remember, anyhow. Are they all like this? Are they all so perfect? Had you seen a baby before, Owen?”

  Owen nodded reticently as he pulled the wheel once more to the right, remaining taciturn as they approached the rear end of building 231. Someone stood there in the doorway, the overhead light upon his hood casting a dark shadow over his face.

  “You sure that’s him?” asked Owen.

  “I’m sure.”

  “That could be anyone. They could already be here, and that’s our chaser standing there.”

  “Oh shoosh. I told you I covered my tracks. It’s afterwards I’m worried about.”

  “We’ll get out. Out and far away before they even know where to begin.”

  “It’s not us I’m thinking of. We’re really exposing him here. You see that, right?”

  “I’ll fix it,” he said in flat voice.

  “Did you see that bulletin on the tablet? What they did to our poor midwife? And to that poor man? All he ever did was live nearby and have a car, and now he’s dead. We can’t let that…”

  “I said I’ll fix it,” repeated Owen, his voice maintaining its same placid cadence.

  As they pulled to the curb and slowed to a stop, the man half-jogged out from the light of the entryway and towards them. His grey sweatshirt hood remained pulled up over his head.

  Probably a good idea, thought Kale. That’ll be one less face to identify if anyone’s watching.

  Claire pushed her door open and the man’s hands were instantly there, bracing her and helping her pull herself out of the seat and onto her feet. She managed to keep the child suctioned to her breast. The little thing continued to leisurely take in her meal, paying no heed to anything or anyone around her as Claire and the hooded man made for the highrise entrance.

  Kale pulled the car back into the lane and drove for a few blocks before parking it again. As he eased once more to a stop alongside the curb, a distant streetlight caught his eye through a small hole in the section of the frame that separates the driver’s side window from the windshield.

  He could just barely make out the frayed edge of the tracking chip inside the hole, which had cost him one of the precious few rounds he had left in his pistol. He lifted the weapon from his lap, where it had rested for the last hour and ten minutes, and popped the latch to slide the clip out into his hand.

  Fuck. One in the pocket, one in the hole.

  He snapped the clip back into the gun, flipped on the safety, and shoved it into the pocket of his coat. Getting out of the car, he gazed down the street and saw not a single car other than his own. Every other automobile in town slumbered in the lowest floors of the highrises, as parking on the street was only allowed for half an hour at a time without a special permit.

  This car would draw attention.

  It was only a matter of time.

  He got the bags from the rear compartment, flipped his jacket hood over his head and jogged briskly back to building 231, where the buzzer rang for just half a second before the door swung open to admit him. He ran up three flights of stairs and emerged on the fourth floor.

  He started down the corridor, keeping his face to his feet to avoid the cameras that kept steady watch over these hallways. This was entirely unnecessary, as the cameras hadn’t been running for several hours.

  He rounded the corner where the two corridors intersected in the centermost point of the building and saw that the door to room 4012 was open a crack. He approached and pushed his way in, his head still lowered, and closed the door quietly behind him.

  Lifting his hood, he saw their host handing a glass of water to Claire, who sat feeding the baby on the sofa. The man had a smooth, tanned face and wavy blond hair, and was attractive if not pretty. He approached Owen with his hand out in front of him.

  “Terrence,” he said, shaking Owen’s hand.

  “Owen. We are in your debt. I’m truly sorry to have put you in this position.”

  The two men continued to shake hands, each trying to out-squeeze the other without appearing to try or to notice. It was an easy win for Owen, and Terrence wasn’t sure he’d be able to use his right hand for much of anything for a while, though he made a solid effort to hide his discomfort with an overly straight face.

  The two both turned their attentions to Claire, who worked at fighting off sleep as she fed the child. Her eyelids felt like they were weighted, and each blink of her eyes lasted a fraction of a second longer than normal.

  “Now let me get a look at this little thing you’ve stolen,” smiled Terrence.

  He looked down on the baby as she fed, doing his best not to focus on Claire’s breast, though this was a hard task.

  “Oh… she’s sleeping,” he whispered. “…or sleep-eating? How does that work exactly? I’m not sure I could do both at the same time.”

  Claire smiled softly up at him, her drowsiness magnifying her comfort in the moment. She felt almost euphoric there on the sofa, sinking into those cushions which felt a great deal softer than she knew them to be. This was the same firm sofa she had in her flat. It was the same firm sofa everyone had in their flat.

  “She’s…. she’s…”

  “Perfect,” whispered Claire. “She’s perfect.”

  Terrence grinned in agreement.

  “I’ve never seen one before,” he said quietly. “I never imagined they were so… little. Look at those little hands! Have you given her a name yet?”

  Claire and Owen looked at each other with sad smiles.

  Claire shrugged.

  “I don’t think… we haven’t really had time to think on it just yet,” she answered.

  “I like Luna,” Terrence blurted. “I’m not sure why, really.”

  “Hmmm. Like the moon?” Claire looked pleasantly puzzled. “Luna. Luna. I like that. And she is calm like the moon. Calm and beautiful. Peaceful. Don’t you think, Owen?”

  “Luna it is.” said Owen, smiling. He looked over at Terrence. “It’s a very fine name.”

  Luna came off of Claire’s breast and snorted a few times. Then she cried. The sound grew louder with each breath as Claire brought her upright and halfway over her own shoulder, patting her gently on the back.

  “What are you doing?! Get her to stop crying!” Owen whisper-shouted.

  “That’s what I’m doing! She’s got some gas, and it needs to…”

  A tiny burp came out of the child.

  “There,” she said in a tranquil tone. “That’s better, huh?”

  The baby’s cries turned to cooing, and Claire lowered her once more to try for the other breast. Luna snuggled into her mother, finding a good hold on that elusive nipple almost immediately.

  The two men still hovered over Claire and Luna, forgetting themselves in their silent adoration. Any twinge of wistful pain or jealousy had been erased from Terrence’s mind in the span of these last few minutes.

  He was happy.

  Happy for the two of them and this beautiful child.

  Happy for himself for being a small part of something bigger than he was. It felt right, seeing the three of them together. They were a real family, the first in eighty years, as far as he knew.

  “Hate to break up your creepy leering,” Claire whispered up at them with a cruel grin, “but don’t you boys have some work to do?”

  “Yes. Yes, you’re right.” The reality of the situation returned to Terrence all at once as he turned to Owen. “I sup
pose I have a bit of journalism to attend to. Perhaps my last. It’s just as well, really. It’s dreadful stuff, journalism.”

  ***

  “Are we set?” asked Terrence for the fifth time. “Because once I press this button, this thing goes live, and…”

  “We know,” said Claire. “We’re ready. You said your car is fully charged, right? Well, we’re just an elevator ride away. I know it feels crazy. I thought I was going to have a heart attack at first, but your nerves will calm some once we get moving.”

  Owen picked up his baggage and gestured to Terrence, who dropped a trembling finger onto the keyboard. He nodded to the other two and Owen reached for the door. He had just pulled it halfway open when a voice shouted in from the hallway.

  “Stay where you! Don’t move!”

  Owen slowly opened the door the rest of the way and was confronted by three men in the casual clothing of civilians. There was nothing extraordinary about any of these men, though two were holding large kitchen knives and the third held a long wooden dowel.

  “Don’t move!” shrieked the man in the middle, his nerves showing themselves in the high pitch of his voice. He looked to be in his mid-twenties.

  “And you are?” asked Owen, nonchalantly leaning his right shoulder into the door jam and slipping his hand into his jacket pocket.

  “They live here, in the building,” said Terrence.

  “We know who you are!” The man was waving his knife wildly as he spoke to Owen, but Owen continued to look straight past the shining steel that darted around in the space between them, holding eye contact.

  “We know who you are and we know what you’ve got! We heard it crying!”

  “I see,” responded Owen. The cool manner in which he spoke, teamed with his relaxed posture, only served to make the man and his knife all the more uneasy.

  “Uh huh! And we called it in! Derry’s got them on the line right now, matter of fact! They can hear everything!”

  Owen shot a glance at the man he presumed to be Derry, and saw the earpiece.

  “I see,” he repeated.

  “And someone’s on their way, so you just stay right where you are and nobody gets hurt!”

  “I see. And you believe that? Well then, you are obviously the big dick in the group here. What’s your name, son?”

  “Me? I’m not telling you!” He continued to shout everything he said.

  “Well, big dick, any other night I might just ask you to take a few decibels off your voice and then explain to you just how badly you are fucking up here. And then I could only hope that the three of you would all fuck right off back to your little holes and forget that you heard or saw anything here tonight. But you’ve got your boy Denny standing over here transmitting all of this as we speak, and I’m afraid we just don’t have that kind of time. I see you boys brought knives.”

  All three men dropped their eyes onto the weapons in their hands, as though they had forgotten that they were holding them at all.

  “You know,” Owen continued, “there is an old saying about bringing a knife…”

  A loud pop rang out from Owen’s pocket and left Terrence’s ears ringing where he stood just behind Owen.

  The man let the handle of his blade slide out from his fingers and onto the shiny blue-grey hallway floor. Blood was spattered in a more or less circular pattern on the wall behind him, and he clutched at his abdomen, where more blood was seeping from a small hole in his T-shirt. He fell to his knees, and then onto his side.

  Owen pulled the pistol from his pocket and trained it on Derry.

  “Is there any more conversation to be had here this evening?” he asked in a chillingly flat voice as he shifted back and forth between the wide eyes of the two men still standing.

  One man dropped his knife and took off running down the hall without a word. The other man, Derry, couldn’t peel his eyes from his neighbor on the floor at his feet. He carefully unwrapped his earpiece from behind his ear and tossed it down in front of Owen before wandering off in a daze. He dragged the tip of the dowel on the floor behind him as he walked.

  “Let’s go. We can forget about that elevator ride,” said Owen.

  Owen ushered Terrence out into the corridor, and then Claire and Luna. Terrence’s wavering knees didn’t feel inclined towards anything but collapse, but the pressing of Owen’s heavy hand on his back was enough to get him started towards the stairwell. He rubbernecked as he walked, his eyes transfixed on the bleeding pile of man in front of his apartment door.

  Claire also stared down at the pool of red that was growing larger as it seeped from the man’s stomach. His eyes were closed and he was unconscious, but she could she his body heaving with labored breaths.

  “It was you or my Luna,” she said softly as she kneeled down and took up the knife with her free hand. “So it had to be you.”

  Owen studied her as she rose up again and walked towards Terrence, holding the blade down next to her thigh as she walked.

  She is marvelous, he thought.

  Terrence held the door to the stairwell as the others passed through and they all started down the five flights that separated them from the lower level of the parking garage. Owen was the first in line.

  Terrence tried to find his tongue.

  “Wha, wha…”

  Eventually he was able to put together a sentence, even if it came out in spurts and stutters.

  “Wi… will he make it? I mean… I mean live? Will he live?”

  “I doubt it,” answered Owen. He didn’t offer any other thoughts, though he was thinking to himself that the man had been lucky to fall unconscious. It would spare him a great deal of pain. A gut shot, after all, is nothing to laugh through.

  Upon reaching floor U2, he swung the door open and waited for Terrence and Claire to hurry past. Terrence was still struggling to keep his legs beneath him as he passed through the portal and into the car park. His lips were just working out another question for Owen when the knuckles hit him in the left temple. His legs were quick to give up the fight, and his arms failed to come up beneath him to save him from taking a header on the smooth, cold concrete.

  Kale followed his punch out into the space before the threshold and snatched Claire into his body in the same fluid movement. He stood now, facing Owen, with Claire’s throat pinched tightly between his right bicep and forearm.

  Only half-able to breathe and with her face reddening quickly, somehow Claire was able to keep a hold of Luna without any of her own body’s stress transferring into her grasp on the child, who writhed and cried in agitation within her layers of blanket.

  Everything in Owen went tight. His heart pounded against his ribs, seemingly swelled up within him, and his left fist was so tight that his short-clipped fingernails were starting to cut into his palms as his right hand raised the gun.

  “Chaser?” The word ground its way through his teeth. He stared down the length of his arm, along the barrel of his pistol and into Kale’s left eye.

  Kale nodded, his head only half-hidden behind Claire’s. “I think if you wanted to shoot me, soldier, you would have done it by now. You’re empty. You might as well be holding your dick in that hand.”

  “So they sent a gambling man.” Owen’s sight was trained on the exposed portion of Kale’s forehead and his finger was tightening on the trigger. Looking down from Kale’s face, he saw Claire. Her visage was dark pink and the veins were beginning to protrude from her forehead, but her expression was that of concentration, her eyes fixed on singular point just above their heads. He saw her free hand working at something by her side, and then there was a quick flash of silver.

  The blade plunged deep into Kale’s thigh, then the solid muscles in Claire’s forearm contracted and twisted the knife sharply. Kale’s eyes shot open as the pain hit him. His grip seized even tighter on her neck as he glanced down at his leg.

  In the same instant, the handle of Owen’s pistol whipped into the left side of Kale’s head, crushing the periphery of
his eye socket. A rush of white filled his entire field of vision, and he swore he could taste the pain on his tongue for a split second before the butt of the pistol crashed into his skull once more. His arm came loose from Claire and his legs buckled beneath him.

  Claire gasped a deep breath as she slipped away. Her lungs filled with air and the blood began to drain back out of her head. A rage filled her as she turned her sights to the man at her feet. Half of his face was swollen to the point that one eye wouldn’t open. The other eye wandered about, trying in vain to pierce a wall of white nothing.

  She screamed down at him. Possessed by something primal, her feet rained down onto him. She stomped down on the handle of the knife that protruded from the side of his thigh and took pleasure in the look of agony that filled his face.

  Her heel came down into his face as she howled and spit.

  “FUCK…”

  Stomp.

  “YOU!!!”

  Stomp.

  “FUCK…”

  “That’s enough.” Owen’s voice was calm as he looped an arm around her hips and pulled her away from Kale. “That’s enough.”

  Her legs kicked ravenously at the air and sticky saliva flew from her mouth with each feral breath she pushed through her teeth.

  “That’s enough, Claire,” repeated Owen in the same serene tone. “See to Luna. She needs you.”

  Remembering the babe she still held clutched to her, Claire’s breathing calmed drastically and her legs stopped their frantic kicking. Owen swiveled around and set her down so that he stood between her and the limp body on the concrete behind him.

  The child’s cries registered in Claire’s ears and she realized that the little one had been wailing for some time now.

  “Sh sh sh sh shhhhh…”

  She was bouncing Luna and staring down into her child’s eyes, the lines of her face suddenly soft with blind affection.

  “Sh sh sh shhhh… There there, little sweety.” Luna continued to cry.A pained moan came up from the floor to Owen’s left. Owen lowered himself and pulled Terrence’s torso onto his shoulder. He rose slowly, keeping his back in a straight line from his butt to the base of his head.