You bet, he’d respond, palm on holster. If there was something he could put his leg up on, he’d do that too.

He’d played the part so well. But maybe there was one last part he could play here, too. Officer Bertil reached for his firearm, this time for his life rather than for show.

He mustered as much strength as he could from his right arm and he felt something move across it—something solid but pliable. The sensation churned his stomach and he spit up bile. His fingers fumbled around the holster and unbuttoned the clasp. He pressed his palm tight against the holster so gravity would not steal this moment from him. Then Bertil wrapped his fingers around the 4006 Smith and Wesson and brought it to the roof with what seemed like more effort than anything he’d done in his life.

Whatever you are, I’ve got something for you, my friend, he thought. I’ve got something special indeedy Officer Bertil fired a round through the roof. He straightened the barrel, face purple, eyes fixated to the roof corner. The roof of the car popped and dished as the vehicle was carried deeper into the woods. With the sirens blaring in his ears, Officer Bertil fired another shot into the roof, choking from the effort. Then he straightened the barrel with a trembling hand and fired another round that induced a berserk roar from the thing underneath him.

Gotcha.

Bertil fired another round, eliciting a freakish wail. The car plummeted and the ferns rushed up to him like a thousand green angels. His head smashed into the roof as the choking sensations increased, numbing all feeling. Slowly, his world dimmed.

See any cool animals, Daddy?

Officer Bertil fired one last shot out the window before his body went limp. His firearm thudded to the roof.

The upside down squad car elevated over the understory, sirens wailing and reflecting off the forest floor in vibrant patterns. The car ripped through leafy branches, collecting bits and pieces of trees as it went. Birds chittered and flew out of the canopy as the ghost car approached. The crows did not. Instead they watched from their perches with keen eyes. Four-legged animals rustled vegetation and snapped branches as they fled. Snowshoe hares tripped over roots in the scramble. Fishers tumbled from dead falls in haste. A goshawk collided with a branch, bruising a wing.

The flipped cruiser wailed deep into the northern forest, the emergency lights illuminating dark glades and exposing shadows that ought not be exposed. The car that carried the body of Officer Bertil as if a casket with no pallbearers paused at a small bog ringed by old growth hemlock—one of the few places the loggers missed.