Free Cage of Night by Ed Gorman Page A

tell that this wasn't a suggestion, it was a subtle but definite order.
    This was Garrett the cop talking, saying that it wasn't a real good situation when one citizen sat there spying on another.
    "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."
    He looked at me and smiled. "You'll get over it."
    "Yeah, I suppose I will."
    "You'll meet somebody else."
    Once again, I had the sense that Garrett had become a real adult while I had remained a child. He wouldn't sit here watching her like this. He was too proud, too sensible, too much of an adult.
    "I hope it's soon, Garrett."
    He nodded, and then walked back to his car.
    I did what he wanted me to. I fired up the beast, which was running again after smashing into Cindy's tree, and then I drove away from there—
    —all the way around the block.
    Garrett was gone.
    Myles and Cindy were just pulling out.
    I followed them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

    At first I wasn't sure where they were going.
    We drove out of town on an old highway that paralleled the Interstate. Everything got dark. I stayed a half mile behind. Farmhouses shone in tonight's red harvest moon. I had the window down and I could hear cows and horses and barn owls.
    When he turned west, I knew where he was going to take us.
    I had to smile when I tried to imagine him at the well. This hard, unimaginative football hero trying to play along with her fantasy.
    Maybe that would drive her back to me, the way I'd been sympathetic and pretended that I'd heard something.
    Suggestible is what I'd been.
    I'd gotten caught up in her mood and then, while we were making love, my mind had started imagining the voice. At least the voice had been speaking gibberish.
    I smelled hay and cow manure and silo corn and prairie night; I saw hill and creek and railroad tracks shining in the moonlight.
    And then we were pulling off the road, and he was parking, and they were walking up the hill to the woods that would lead them to the shack and the well.
    I gave them a ten minute start on me, and then I was out of the car and walking toward the woods.
    It was spookier than I'd thought it would be.
    Monsters didn't bother me. But killers did. You weren't safe anywhere these days. Just last year there'd been a guy in the adjacent county who'd kidnapped an eleven year old girl and chopped her up and ate her.
    By the time I reached the end of the woods, they were already down by the cabin.
    I couldn't tell what they were saying but their words were harsh and angry.
    He shoved her, and then he hit her.
    I could see it all clearly in the moonlight.
    She sank to her knees, touching her jaw where he'd slammed his fist into her moments before.
    Their words continued harsh and loud but I still couldn't quite understand them.
    I wanted to go down there but I knew better. She might appreciate the fact that I saved her from him but she'd never forgive me for following them in the first place.
    And then she was on her feet, and pushing him.
    I was surprised at her strength, surprised that he didn't hit her again.
    The first time the spasm took him, he was a few feet from the well.
    My first impression was that he was joking. I've seen boys try to scare their girlfriends by throwing themselves to the ground and pretending that they're having some sort of seizure.
    That's what this looked like.
    He started doing a sort of dance, his arms fluttering crazily in the air, his torso snapping and jerking as if in rhythm to violent music.
    Then he screamed.
    That's when I knew for sure that he wasn't kidding.
    The spasms got even more violent over the next few minutes, and so did the screaming.
    She just watched.
    Didn't try to stop him or comfort him in any way.
    As if she knew what was happening here and had just decided to let it run its course.
    He fell to his hands and knees and, in silhouette against the blood red harvest moon, he resembled an animal, a wolf maybe, there on the ground by the well.
    And then he began sobbing.
    This was worse than his screaming, the way it