The front door was unlocked and I fall inside as I throw my weight against it.
"Whoa, there's this thing called knocking, you should try it." Don came walking down the hallway from the kitchen with his eyes barely open. He wasn't even phased by the fact that I was breathing heavily and had practically kicked the door open.
"Where is Jenna?" I flew right past him and into Jenna's room. The weird guy from this afternoon was still hanging around and had brought two girls with him. They were giggling loudly from the living room and asking who I was as I began shoving my few possessions into my regular bag.
"She's at work for another hour. Are you leaving?" Don seemed to perk up a little as he trailed after me.
"Yeah. You guys should really lock the door, by the way." I said as I got to my feet and snatched up my crowbar. Okay, new plan. Go to Jenna's work, tell her what happened, run. Yeah, that sounds good. Won't cause a scene at all.
I felt like I was teetering on the edge of sanity as I walked briskly towards the door, my thoughts were racing past one another while I struggled to drown them out with clarity. The entire time Don watched me like I already had lost it. Without much else formality, I opened the door again, locked it for them, and closed it firmly behind me.
A neighbor was standing in their doorway in the hall, smoking a cigarette as the flickering light from their tv reflected off their face. I paused to ask for one and stood there lighting it before I walked down the stairwell. When, directly down my line of vision, several men dressed in cartoon animal masks appeared at the bottom. I made direct eye contact with the first in line as he raised a beetle black oozi.
I only had forty five seconds to react.
The bullets exploded against the concrete walls in front of me as I took the stairs two at a time. Past the landing where Jenna lived, all the way to the top with the men's footsteps thundering up the stairs after me. I dove behind the wall as another hail of gunfire followed at my heels. Cornered and hiding, the paranoia only worsened.
I had a plan, I know what to do...
No, no, no, no, Lucy.
You shouldn't be the one running from them, you did nothing wrong. They were the ones attacking your friends, making all this mess. This annoying mess. And look-! You know where some of them are at. In one convenient line, in a cramped stairwell. Plus, you are right behind that handy-dandy corner, excellent for getting the jump on someone...for reasons you have been told…
The gunfire had stopped, and then came a storming of footsteps, a crescendo of applause from the audience.
Here was my moment.
I fought off the sense of deja vu as I thwacked the flat end of the crowbar against the first guy's face. The shiny duck mask he wore cracked in half as his head bobbed backwards. Dropping the crow bar, I ripped the gun out of his hands before shoving him down the steps and into another one wearing a bubblegum pink rabbit mask.
An intake of breath, my finger on the trigger of the gun with the barrel pointed forward-
-and then the strangest thing happened.
The window on the right exploded as a woman dressed in an all black get up came swinging through. She kicked one of them in the head, sending him falling over the railing in loud shrieks of terror. I had fallen from the force of her entrance and scrambled to get back up to my feet, the palms of my hands scratching against tiny shards of glass.
No, no, no, no, I was not about to get tangled up with a supe. Actually, given the sheer number of them crawling around the city, it took one of them long enough.
With my heart still pounding in my ears and hands shaking, I ran as fast as I could for the emergency exit on the opposite side of the building facing the other side of the street. A loud, shrill, alarm sounded as I kicked the door open and darted loudly down the winding steps.
People stared at me or jumped out of my way on the street as I walked by, at first I was confused, then I realized I was still carrying the oozi in one hand. I cut down an alley way as police sirens wailed around the corner, my boots splashing in the puddles and muck. My hands still shaking, I made sure the safety was on before hiding the gun under my layers of clothing. The weight rest heavy against my waist as I walked calmly, almost normally, down the dark and smelly alley.
I put my hand on the wall next to me to steady myself and fight off the daze, the ringing in my ears. Had I been followed? Or did they, whoever they were, already know where I was going?
Then again, the most important question, why?
The forces that had once terrified me were now beginning to anger me. And I had anger issues.
Of course, the man with all the answers was dead. Perhaps I could get some answers from his next of kin, from Jenna who always hung around his bar when she wasn't at work or stoned at home. I guess now I had a second reason to go see her.
