Cage of Night by Ed Gorman Page B

laugh at me if I tell you," she said. She sounded almost angry.
    "No, I won't."
    "You know I had a breakdown. Everybody in this whole fucking town knows I had a breakdown."
    "I won't laugh at you, Cindy. I promise."
    She didn't speak, didn't move, for maybe half a minute, and then she walked back over to me and said, "You really promise?"
    "I really promise."
    "I can't stand it when people laugh at me. That's what it was like when I came back from the hospital. I'd walk by people and I could hear them whispering and see them smirking. And I'd tell this to my so-called shrink and he'd just say I was being paranoid. He also tried putting the moves on me, the asshole."
    "Your shrink?"
    "Yeah. I really hated him."
    "Why didn't you tell somebody?"
    She glared at me. "Why didn't I tell somebody? Because I was crazy and if I told anybody they'd just see that as proof that I was crazy. Dr. Granger is an important man in this town." She shook her head. "But I don't give a shit about that. It's the well I want to tell you about."
    "And I want to hear it."
    She walked over to the fieldstone edge of the well and looked down inside.
    "He's some kind of space alien."
    I didn't say anything.
    "He was inside the meteor that crashed here that time.
    "And he stays down in the well?"
    "Yes."
    "Why?"
    "Because if humans ever laid eyes on him, they'd go insane. Right on the spot."
    "How do you know that?"
    "I—communicate with him."
    "I see."
    She glanced up at me. "You don't believe me, do you?"
    "I'm listening, Cindy. With an open mind. I really am."
    "You think space aliens exist?"
    "I think it's possible."
    "You think one could exist down this well?"
    "I think that's possible, too."
    "You're not just saying that?"
    "No."
    "Really?"
    "Really."
    "Good," she said.
    "How did you find out about it?" I said.
    "That's the part I can't tell you."
    "Why not?"
    "Because I'd get my friend in trouble. My ex-friend, I guess."
    As soon as she said ex-friend, I suspected who she was talking about.
    "David Myles told you about the alien, didn't he?"
    "I really can't talk about that part of it. I hate him, but I don't want to get him in trouble."
    I thought of what Garrett had hinted at, that he thought Myles was in some serious trouble. "We did things," she said.
    She spoke so softly, I could barely hear.
    At first, I assumed she was talking about sexual relationships. Maybe now that they'd broken up she regretted sleeping with him.
    But then she said, "He did the things. But I was there. I didn't stop him."
    Then: "Put your head down into the well a little."
    "Like this?" I said.
    "Yeah."
    I kept my head down there for a full minute. The wind whined as it whipped in circles inside the well.
    "You hear anything?" she said.
    "Just the wind."
    "Listen harder."
    I knew what she wanted me to hear. And I wanted to hear it, too.
    But I didn't hear anything.
    When I brought my head up, I saw her watching me, disappointed.
    "Maybe it takes a couple of times," she said.
    "I'm willing to try it again sometime."
    "You're just so damned good to me."
    She came over to me then and pulled me to her. She kissed me with a kind of desperation that alarmed me a little.
    And then we were making love.
    It was crazy, it was so cold, and there really wasn't even any good place to lean against.
    But she was slipping her jeans down. She got one leg of them off entirely so that I could put myself up inside her.
    And then we were doing it, her leaning back against the well, and finding the rhythm and the moisture to pull me up way deep inside her. Her thighs were cold but her sex was so hot and nurturing that it warmed my entire body.
    She had a wonderful body and she really knew what she was doing.
    I just kind of followed her lead. When she went fast, I went fast. When she slowed down, I slowed down.
    One time something funny happened, I heard this voice, it was very strange, it wasn't hers, it wasn't mine, it wasn't even out loud, at least I don't think it was. It was just this