The next cruiser came up fast to their left. It slammed into them, nearly sent them into a tree, but Milo got the Charger back under control and returned the favour. Officer Ortmann juddered in his seat, but kept his nerve. Behind him, the third cruiser was giving them space. Kelly buckled her seat belt.

The road narrowed and the Charger surged ahead and they were driving single file again. Kelly didn’t know where the hell they were headed and she doubted Milo did, either. The cops were firing, though, and their aim was improving.

They took the next bend and a barn loomed in front of them, dark against the twilit sky, and the back window exploded and Kelly cursed, ducked her head, felt the Charger hit something or get hit by something and she opened her eyes only for a moment in time to see the barn hurtling towards them.

They hit it and Kelly jerked hard into the seat belt and rammed her knee and hit her head and lost her gun and sank back into her seat when all the movement had stopped. Dazed, she blinked her vision clear, looked round as a cruiser screeched to a halt behind them.

“Aw man,” she muttered.

Ortmann leaped out of the cruiser, ran at them from the driver’s side, firing all the while, grinning that hideous demon grin. Kelly ducked, as low as she could get with Milo on top of her, shielding her from the glass. She reached for her gun, her fingertips brushing against it as Ortmann appeared at Milo’s ruined window, sliding a fresh magazine into his automatic. In the stark silence that followed the gunfire, Kelly could hear only her breathing, the slide being pulled back on Ortmann’s gun, and the Charger’s door popping open. Milo kicked out and the door slammed into Ortmann and he staggered sideways.

Kelly reached under the seat, grabbed the gun, looked up in time to see Milo outside the car, catching Ortmann with a right hook that spun him on the spot. Milo’s skin was black. Not just dark, but black, like shadow. His eyes glowed red.

Then it was all gone, and he was Milo again, and he reached in and she grabbed his arm and he pulled her out as the other cruiser came to a skidding, sliding stop.

Milo dragged her into the barn as the cops opened fire, their bullets splintering the wood. Once they were inside, Milo let go, ducked to the left while Kelly dived to the right. She kept her head down, started crawling. The barn was full of stacks of old machinery and piles of pallets. She got behind a tractor engine, stayed low.