BOOM!
Randy jumped down below the window seal in an attempt to hide from the loud sound that erupted from somewhere inside the apartment complex walls. In doing so he dropped the TV remote, he had been holding, and franticly reached out in front of him to retrieve it and turn the noisy hissing from the emergency broadcast off. Randy felt his pulse racing as he struggled to breath. It was almost as if his heart had leapt into his throat and was now blocking his airway.
After a few moments of silence Randy started to calm down. Then two more loud bangs rang out. At first, he wasn't too sure what the sound actually was, but now he was positive. "Gunfire" he thought as his heartrate picked up again. Faint sounds of running echoed down the hall on the other side of his front door followed by dull clank of a heavy door, likely to the main stairway, slamming shut.
Randy stayed hunkered down taking in the muffled sound of the car alarm still blaring from the street below until it finally went quiet. With shaky hands Randy picked up the corded phone from the end table next to him and brought it to his ear. Before even entering a number, a busy signal rang out from the receiver. Both his shoulders and ears drooped in disappointment. He tried hanging up the phone several times to get legitimate dial tone but to no avail.
Randy gently placed the phone receiver back on the dialed holster. How didn't he see something was amiss right away? He should have realized there was far too little movement on the street for this part of the city regardless of the time of day. "Oh well." He thought to himself. Being freaked out 20 minutes earlier wouldn't have done much good, anyway.
Taking in, and almost enjoying, the return hum of silence Randy thought about the message his sister had left the day before. "Hope she made it outta town alright."
Randy crawled to the other end of the living room where an old radio, complete with multideck CD played, sat covered in a heavy coating of dust. He rarely played music in the living room as he and Tyler didn't agree on what was considered acceptable musical composition. The brown male squirrel flipped the power switch on and slowly adjusted the frequency potentiometer in an attempt to find a clear radio station signal. Within 10 seconds he zoned in on a mostly static free channel. He kept the volume low, as he didn't want any trigger-happy guests nearby hearing him and deciding to drop in for a visit.
"- Repeat. Stay inside and await further instructions from local law enforcement officials." Randy let the short-recorded message repeat a few times before turning the radio off. He wasn't really one to hang around and wait for law enforcement to show up, let alone have them give him orders. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he'd be damned if he was going to sit around and wait for the government to come and rescue him as his run ins with the state had always been far from friendly.
A feminine scream came barreling up from the street below. Randy creeped back to the window he had ducked under earlier and peered out to see what was going on. He made out what looked like a large man, with a long gray coarse tail, on his hands and knees just behind one of the cars parked in the street. It almost looked as if he was pounding down on the cement with all his might over and over. Only he doubted it was just bare cement he was hitting as each time the man lifted his closed fists, they seemed to be covered with more of something dark and glossy.
Randy stared at the canine male for a while as his brain continued to try to process what was going on. The man on the street turned and looked up in his direction. Blank black eyes locked on Randy's before he quickly ducked down again. "Shit!" He muttered as he made his way to the front door and began to engage all 3 locks.
"How'd he spot me?" Randy wondered as he scampered down the hall to his room still in a bit of a crouched position. "What the fuck is going on?" He hissed under his breath as he opened his closest to find his Go Bag. He and a few of his friends had put together an emergency bug-out kit. It was mainly something they drag around camping, so they could play weekend warriors. It also was a way to act like they could take on anything, and try to one up one another with worthless gear they would likely never really use. Randy honestly never thought he'd ever use his kit for real, but now seemed like a pretty good time to grab it and go.
After throwing the bag on his mattress he reached under his bed and pulled out a long single barrel shotgun. After placing the firearm on the bed next to his bag Randy then pulled out a large green ammo container that he opened to retrieve a small semi-automatic pistol as well as a few ammo boxes. "Here's hoping I don't get shot by a cop once I step outside." He forced out with a worried laugh as he stuffed the handgun into its fabric holster and clipped it on his belt.
Randy then strapped on his backpack, that had so many more latched than he previously remembered, and stuffed the extra ammo boxes into the lower pockets of his cargo pants that he had worn the day before. He then laced up his boot, threw on his baseball cap as he grabbed the shotgun from the bed and walked to the front door. He stood there and stared at the off-white door for a little while. He wasn't really sure he wanted to leave. At least not right now. He took a side step and looked out the window once more to see the street empty and quite once again as the sky started to darken with heavy overcast blowing in.
"I gotta see if Sandy and the kids are still at home." He sternly cited to himself.
Randy unlocked his door and took a deep breath before striding out into the empty complex hall. He started towards the staircase door and had only taken a few brisk steps before the lights above him all went dark. A few short seconds later a loud crash rang out from behind him. Randy found himself break into a sprint to close the gap between him and his escape. It took all his will power to stay focused on the door ahead of him and not look back at the rattling coming from the other direction. After finally making it to his destination he desperately pushed open the heavy exit door, at the end of the hall, and slammed it closed behind it. He didn't bother waiting around to see if the cause of the racket would, or was, following him. Randy started going down the stairs two to three steps at a time.
"I gotta find her." He repeated to himself in his head as his adrenalin pumped through his body at full force.