Page 7 of Intrepid

But I’d chosen it as my home. They weren’t thugs and hoodlums. They were my people, and even if I didn’t quite fit in with them, I was a part of them.

I strolled the rest of the way down, until I reached the lower level, and pulled up the Uber app on my phone.

A thunderous crack reverberated down my spine.

A collection of shouts and screams pierced through the music, which cut out with an abrupt scratch.

What sounded like a train rolling through the building, all the footsteps pounding against the gravelly floor, kept me frozen in place. In complete horror, I watched the crowd disperse in a chaotic wave toward the non-boarded up windows and entrances.

Another crack, the sound unmistakable that time. Gunshots.

My blood ran cold, my whole body paralyzed.

Move! my head commanded, but all I could do was stare from the shadows, while bodies forced their way to the exits, squeezing through broken windows like rats in a flood. Climbing over each other to get away from whoever held the gun.

The screams grew louder.

Someone tipped over the trashcan, and fire caught the papers strewn about.

The DJ rushed over to stamp it out, catching his pants leg on fire. A second guy doused him with beer, putting out the flame.

Another trashcan toppled over, once again sending flames across the garbage littered ground.

Go. Get out.

I had no place to run, though. The crammed exits meant getting trampled alive. Or burned.

I was trapped.

Something gripped my elbow, and I swung around to see the guy from the rooftop standing over me. “C’mon. I know a way out.”

At another tug, I shook my head. “Up? Up is not a way out!”

“There’s a fire escape on the east wall.”

Fire escape. Made for fire. And escape. I pushed after him, trailing behind as we made our way back up toward the rooftop.

“Why do we have to go to the roof? Why not just catch the fire escape on one of the lower levels?”

He didn’t answer, and eventually, we pushed through the rusted door, back out onto the rooftop. Below us, the crowd trickled out of the building like bugs scampering out of a nest. I followed the stranger to the east side of the building, where we came to a stop in front of a narrow wall of bricks sticking up from the edge. A chimney, I guessed.

“Where’s the escape?”

“You’re looking at it.” After shrugging the pack from his back, he unzipped it and pulled out a skinny flashlight, tucking it between his teeth. Rising to his feet, he hoisted the pack over the top of the chimney, down which it tapped against the bricks, falling out of sight. Angling the flashlight over the building’s edge, he swept it across the lawn below, a circle of light cutting over the dark abyss. “There.” He pointed to the pack where it lay on the ground about a hundred feet down.

Sickness churned in my stomach as his plan crystalized in front of me. “No. No, no, no.”

“This building is nine stories. About ninety feet in the air. There used to be a storefront connected to it that they demolished after it caught fire a few years back. The chimney ends just below the second story. We’d drop, not even twenty feet.”

A nervous chuckle burst through my chest. “Unless we drop ninety feet from the top. I’m not doing this.”

“You wanna head back in with the gunman? Be my guest. I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Wait. I …. I’m afraid of …. It’s a tight squeeze in there. What if we get stuck?”

“We won’t.”

“How do you know? Haven’t you heard the Santa horror stories? Guys getting stuck in chimneys?”