Reacting quickly, the black-haired man grabbed at a nearby window sill and pulled himself through. A huge crash signaled the ladder’s inevitable meeting with the ground, and the man let out a sigh of relief, happy that he didn’t land with it. He heard a strange voice behind him cry out, and then the soft patter of rapid footsteps. Figuring that he wasn’t supposed to be where he was, he glanced around the room to search for a place to hide. It looked like an abandoned apartment, with a bathroom and an area where a bed could go, but there was no carpet or flooring of any kind, and the walls were bare. Catching sight of an open closet door, he ran inside and closed himself in. The door to the apartment slammed open and a young man of about 19 entered the room.
The man was not strongly built, but he was still wiry and athletic. His dull brown hair seemed plastered to his head, and he had a bent soggy cigarette drooping from his mouth. To the black-haired man’s surprise, the young man held a gun with both hands and was making a sweep of the room with it.
“Hey!” the man with the gun called out. “Anybody there?” Then, more to himself, he added “What was that crash, anyway?” The man drifted over to the open window and peeked out, seeing the fallen ladder. “I guess we got someone on the roof! Time to go for a little chase.” He chuckled to himself. Deciding on impulse to act, the black-haired man swung open the closet door and leaped at the man with the gun.
“Oh no you won’t, kid.” He said as he went for his gun hand and tore the weapon out of the other man’s grip. “Do you really know how to use one of these things? I’ll bet you don’t. But I do, and I’m not afraid to use it on a suspicious-looking kid like you.”
After the black-haired man had disarmed the kid, he cried out and shouted for someone named James. Another brief stampede of feet could be heard from the next room over, and suddenly four more kids with guns appeared. The leader, the one called James, stepped towards the black-haired man and smiled. He was as old as he was, but he had seen his fair share of back alley scuffles. He had a scar on his left cheek which traced his jawbone, and part of his arm looked like it had been burned.
“Well now, what do we have here? An intruder. Timmy, how did you manage to dig up this guy?”
“I think he climbed in with our ladder, boss.” Timmy replied. “He knocked it back down after he was up here. That was that crash we heard a little while ago.”
“You took away your only hope of escape, man.” James was addressing the black-haired man now. “You see, we’re doing some rather…illegal things in this place, and we can’t have just anyone poking around in here.” After a pause, he added, “So we’re gonna have to get rid of you, quickly and quietly. Come on, boys. Let’s rumble.”
At this moment, the black-haired man recalled to his mind some other things that his father had taught him. His father used to be a Marine, and he had taught his son how to fight like one. He had never used his father’s fighting lessons to become a bully, but he knew that he might one day need to fight to survive. Today was that day.
He knocked over a tall pile of cardboard boxes so that they fell on top of the four gangsters, and he realized that the boxes were full of long metal poles as one fell out and rolled towards him. Deciding that he would rather injure these kids than shoot them and potentially kill them, he stuffed the stolen gun in his pocket and picked up a pole. Noticing that Timmy was running up behind him, he swung around and cracked him on the head with the pole. There was a satisfying smacking noise, and the pole vibrated with sound as it struck the boy’s hard skull.
“Ah, I see. So you want it the hard way, do you?” James said as he saw how he had dispatched Timmy. “Let’s make this a real fight. Without guns.” James and his three cronies dropped their weapons and pulled knives out of their leather jackets. With a little bit of strength and a big “Uumph,” the black-haired man tossed his metal pole like a javelin straight into one boy’s face. The blow knocked him out cold, and the man bent to scoop up another pole from the box.
As he came back up to standing position, he used his new pole to swipe another boy’s legs, sending him down to the ground and causing him to bang his head on the wall. Three of the original five boys were now down for the count, and only James and one other remained. The other boy charged and held his knife high, but the black-haired man simply stepped aside and let the boy pass him. James stalked towards the black-haired man slowly and cautiously. He made a tentative and sloppy slash at him with his knife, which the man cleanly deflected with the pole. Suddenly, James let out a primal scream and leaped at him, hoping to catch him off guard and make him forget about the other boy coming up behind him.
But he didn’t forget. He jumped aside again, out of James’ way, and James ended up accidently burying the knife into his buddy’s arm. Expletives flew from both ends of the knife, and James came around to face the black-haired man again with nothing but his bare hands.
“Now look what you made me do, you idiot. Frank was a good friend of mine, and you made me go and stab his arm.” He chuckled. “I guess you’re more trouble than you’re worth. But I ain’t done yet. Drop the pole, pretty boy, and let’s fight like real men. Every try THAT, you pansy?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the black-haired man said. “I was fighting back when you were still wet behind the ears, whelp. Whatever you guys are doing, I can tell that it isn’t good. And I’m gonna get out of here and find the police.”
“Haha! You can try if you can get past me. And the rest of the gang. And all the little booby traps we’ve got set up here to make sure no one like you gets out. Or in, for that matter.”
After a second of intense mental debate, the black-haired man simply turned his head and ran. He thought that it would be better to get out now rather than to take his chances with James. For all he knew, he could have had another knife up his sleeve and would have used it eventually. As he ran out of the room and down a long hallway, he heard voices calling out behind him. Not just James’ voice, but many other voices as well. These kids had some kind of major operation going on in this old abandoned place, and whatever it was, it was pretty serious stuff.
Sneaking into a remote closet in a back room of the apartment, he contemplated exactly how he would get out of the place. He had the gang members to deal with, as well as all of the booby traps they had set up. Screw getting to the police, just getting out of the building alive would prove to be an issue.
It's good...but questionable.
ReplyDeleteSeeing how poorly his gang was performing against the black-haired man, James would've picked up his gun and tried to shoot him. Criminals usually do not behave heroically or bravely, because there is no pay off for that. They do what they have to do to get the job done with as little risk as possible to themselves.
That being said, you could still have the black-haired man knock the gun out of his hand with a whack from the pole, sending the gun flying across the room and out of reach. That might make things more believable.
By the same token, perhaps the gun in the black-haired man's pocket also falls out during the fight and the black-haired man cannot retrieve it to use to get out of a very threatening situation.
One other thing...I am hoping that at some point soon, you will name the black-haired man and refer to him by his name in the story. Using that descriptor at first is interesting, but it will get old fast. Maybe he remembers a dialogue with his father and his father uses his name, thereby revealing the black-haired man's identity for the purpose of storytelling.