Cage of Night by Ed Gorman

About town, I mean?"
    "I have to talk to her."
    "We get anywhere near town, the cops are going to see us."
    "Can't be helped."
    He was looking up at the full moon again, talking to himself.
    He started crying. It was hard for him, as if he didn't quite know how and needed some practice.
    I wanted to hate him but I couldn't. Not quite.
    "Myles?"
    "Yeah?" he said between sobs.
    "Let me take you to the police station."
    "They won't believe me."
    "About what?"
    He didn't say anything for a while.
    We drove back to town on a gravel road. Gravel dust plumed up behind us like a ghostly tail.
    "I did you a favor," he said, looking over at me.
    "You did?"
    "Yeah. I took her away from you."
    "Some favor."
    "You don't know about her, man. Believe me, you don't. That's why I said the cops wouldn't believe me. They wouldn't. You know that time they put her away?"
    "Yeah."
    "They thought she was making all that shit up, what she told them and everything. But she wasn't. It was true." He turned away from me, back to the moon.
    Town lights lined the horizon.
    He reached down and picked up the gun again.
    "I just need five minutes with her."
    "Maybe they'd let you see her after you turn yourself in."
    He reached over and grabbed my shoulder so violently that he pulled me up from the seat. "Knock off the shit about the cops. You're taking me to her place. You understand?"
    He was shouting at me.
    Gravel road became asphalt street, timberland became small bungalows, prairie darkness became street lights.
    Cindy lived on the far side of town.
    With all the cops looking for him, it was going to be a long drive.
    "I didn't mean to kill her."
    I just looked over at him.
    "I didn't want to."
    I looked back to the street.
    "It wasn't me—not really."
    He was on that again. If it hadn't been him, then who had it been?
    I wondered if he was insane. That was possible. People did that sometimes. Just went insane.
    I'm not sure just when Garrett saw me. Maybe he picked me up a couple blocks sooner than I realized.
    He was used to pulling me over and having a little talk and maybe that was what he originally had in mind.
    I didn't realize he was behind us until we'd reached the outskirts of the shopping area, where the lights got about ten times brighter.
    That's when he must have seen Myles silhouetted in the front seat.
    He hit his cherry and he hit his siren.
    Myles came up from a kind of stupor, jerked around for a look behind and then said, "Get me down to J Street and then let me out. I'll be better off on foot."
    Garrett rammed us then, doing to me what Myles had done to me a few weeks earlier.
    The police car hit us with such impact that I was knocked into the curb.
    "Don't stop!" Myles shouted, pushing the gun into my face. He looked lurid, sweat like silver blisters all over his face, dark eyes bulged and crazed, tears running from his eyes.
    We went up over the curb and crashed back down.
    "Step on the gas!" Myles shouted.
    Then we were doing 60 mph down a narrow town street. I just hoped nobody stepped out in front of us.
    Garrett rammed us again.
    This time he knocked us up and over the curb completely.
    We skidded across dew-wet grass, through a shrubbery, through a picket fence, and right up to the front door step of some elderly people who were just now peeking out their front window.
    When we stopped, I saw that Myles had struck his head against the dashboard. He looked dazed. The gun was on the seat next to him.
    I grabbed it, got the door open and crawled out of the car.
    Garrett was on the lawn now, gun drawn.
    "Get away from the car, Spence," he said, walking closer and closer to Myles' door.
    I hobbled away, my knee painful and bleeding from where I'd cut it on the underside of the dash.
    Garrett was at the door now.
    He approached cautiously and then said, "Come out of there, Myles. Right now."
    "He doesn't have a gun anymore, Garrett," I said.
    "Just shut up, Spence," he said. "This is police business."
    Sirens in the distance,