The cruiser’s smashed windshield dipped and bent within its frame. Bertil looked out in between glass fragments, marveling at how the hood had flattened into the ground. Smoke snaked from the maimed hood into the U.P sky. But there was something off about what he thought was the sky. It was distorted, blurry. And this distortion moved, suffusing the smoke tendrils in its faint phosphorescence like blood in water.

Bertil reached for the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge.

And isn’t this such a nice song? The engine is gone, oh yes, the engine is gone. Darkness will sing its song, oh yes the engine has gone.

Don’t panic, he thought. Calm down. He reached for the radio.

“Charlie one-oh-two my car is—”

At once his words cut out and his chest tightened. He gagged as prickly sensations erupted all over his upper body. Without a choice, his thumb and forefinger released the receiver.

Oh, you’ve found darkness my friend, he thought. Maybe if you grab your gun you can impress this thing like the tourist girls? You’re having a heart attack. You’re having a heart attack. You’re having a heart attack.

Bertil glimpsed his reflection in the rearview, his face purple and eyes bulging. The vehicle rocked back and forth and lifted into the air. He reached for anything, anything at all but couldn’t move his arms. A soft cry escaped his lips, along with a dribble of cinnamon roll bile. Congested breathing grunted from his left, as if from elephantine lungs.

The patrol car rose thirty feet over Julip Road and rotated like a giant rotisserie chicken. The embankment, trees, and dusty road shifted and spun. With one final turn he was upside down looking south, Julip Road like some hideous sky which could never be flown and the earth as if an endless maw of which nothing stabilized.

The young man was no longer there.

Love you, Pam, Bertil thought. Maybe we can revisit that picnic someday.

As his strength escaped him, he realized his nearly paralyzed fingers were near the siren switch. He could do it. He could do it. A deep breath (except he couldn’t breathe at all), and exhale (nope) and a flick of the finger. He’d do it for Pam, do it for his cutie-pie daughter and Bobby. Yes he would. With spittle peppering from his lips and his vision blurring, Bertil managed to waggle his finger enough to flip the switch, and then he let whatever was squeezing him squeeze him further. The siren wail violated the quiet woods, shaking birds from the canopy like confetti.

The flipped squad car crossed into the maple and birch, holding thirty feet off the ground. Bertil couldn’t tell for certain which direction, but had a feeling he was headed east.

That a real gun mister? they’d ask.