I forget exactly how many shots I fired in that stairwell before some part of me actually clued into what was happening, and I realized a great many number of things all at once.
First and probably foremost, I needed to get the fuck out of here. Sounds obvious, I know, but at the time it was like a stunning revelation. Stevie was here with me, standing mere feet away. Enough shots had been fired that the commotion was probably going to attract a bunch of cops shortly. A guy I'd been talking to a few short seconds ago had been murdered right in front of me. Blood, smoke, and death were everywhere I looked, and all in all I was in very serious trouble. Getting the hell out of this place and not getting arrested, or murdered? Genius, right?
I hadn't come up with exactly how I was going to do that yet, but hey, one thing at a time.
The second thing I realized was that, considering my first idea was so great, I wasn't exactly accomplishing much by standing there like an extra in a bad horror film, firing an ineffectual weapon over and over at the unkillable undead monster slowly advancing up the stairs towards me. Although it did seem that the high-velocity fragments of metal I was sending in his direction were staggering him a little or making him twitch from time to time, suggesting they were actually doing something useful, they weren't dropping him the way shotgun blasts to the face and chest are supposed to. Rather than stand there shooting him again and again, I could - and should - be grabbing my duffel bag and bolting up the stairs. Once I was on the fourth floor I could maybe kick down the door to that suite, apologize to whoever I encountered on the other side, smash through the glass window and onto the fire escape. That whole scenario seemed to mesh rather nicely with my first realization.
Third - the kid at the front desk, the one I'd given a fifty to... had seen me. Stupid. I'd made no attempt to disguise myself, or make myself unmemorable. And cops would be here soon. Though I'm a difficult person to describe even at the best of times, I now matched the description of a 'person of interest' in what would eventually become a homicide investigation. That would make things tricky, but I could worry about that later. Or not at all, come to think of it. After all, I could end up becoming a corpse shortly. That would be that problem solved, right?
Fourth thing - the fear was back.
I was terrified again. Absolutely terrified. I wanted my mommy, badly. I'd never met her, and had absolutely no idea who she even was, but I wanted her there with me... telling me that everything would be okay, and she'd keep me safe from the bad thing that wanted to hurt me. In my entire life, I'd never had a thought even remotely resembling that one. But I was thinking it now.
And that feeling of terror and panic had come on all sudden-like, as though a switch had been flipped. One second I was analyzing and responding to the freakishly bad situation I'd found myself in, and the next? Whammo. It was a feeling that was like discovering the very concept of fear for the very first time... and I hated it.
Hated it.
And I knew these feelings weren't my own, that was the thing. They were a weapon. Stevie was doing something to me, somehow - was attempting to control me with this thing he could do. He was trying to make me feel weak, and afraid... like the terrified little foster boy I used to be.
Weak. And afraid.
I don't have many buttons, I'll admit. But 'weak and afraid' is a big one. Push it at your peril.
They say that courage isn't the total absence of fear, but rather the ability to do what needs to be done despite the presence of fear. However, as it so happens, there's this trick I've learned that can work just as well. It's something that bypasses the need for courage entirely and overrides fear... eliminates it from the equation. Something powerful and primal. Something that is, at times, even scarier than fear itself.
Anger.
Despite being at complete odds with every other one of the realizations I'd just had, my fourth reaction felt like the one that mattered the most just then. I informed realizations one, two, and three that they could go die in a fire.
The gist of my fleeting, angry thoughts on the matter was simple; I wasn't who needed to be afraid right now. I was the apex predator - I was the dangerous one here. Not this amateurish dead-like thing that bashed its way to success without any hint of subtlety, or finesse, or craftiness. Me. That's who was dangerous.
And in barely any time at all, my head swimming in angry thoughts like this, I decided a quick demonstration of this fact was in order.
If this thing in front of me was capable of feeling fear... it would. I'd make it.
I charged down two steps with a yell, reversing my hold on the shotgun mid-step and then thrusting it forward with both arms, attempting to ram the heavy stock of the weapon into Stevie's face. He'd taken a quick step up at the precisely the wrong moment, so rather than connect with his head I landed a solid blow to his collarbone, and I both heard and felt something crack. Praying the cracking sound wasn't the stock of my shotgun splitting, I pulled the whole thing back with a snarl and readied myself for another attempt at the exact same thing, tensing to land the sort of head shot that could snap a neck in two....
There was a blur of motion in front of me as Stevie's hand shot out and wrapped around my left wrist, clenching it tightly and halting my two-handed attack mid-thrust. I realized he hadn't actually grabbed the gun, so I quickly let go of the stock of the shotgun with my left and gripped the barrel with my right, trying to ignore how warm the metal I now held had gotten. Then I swung the heavy end of the weapon in an arc, aiming for the shoulder of the arm that was holding mine.
I managed a glancing blow, which was accompanied by a sickly 'thuck' noise. It wasn't much of a hit, admittedly, but it had missed Stevie's nose by mere inches, and had gotten his attention.
As I readied myself for a second swing I could see he was already anticipating my next attack, positioning his free hand in such a manner that he'd be able to actually catch my shotgun by the stock this time around.
Rather than complete my swing, I abandoned it altogether, relaxing my arm and allowing the attack to fall short. Instead I pushed my trapped arm directly at his torso. Then I twisted my entire body and shoved my arm up towards him at a very specific angle, continuing to rotate into him as I did. It was automatic... something that had been drilled into my head over and over when I'd started learning Krav Maga.
See, leverage is a thing, and physics is also a thing, and thumbs are a very important thing when it came to being able to grip someone's wrist effectively. They're the vulnerable bit, the weakest link in that particular chain. Someone grabs on to your arm tightly, and you can use your arm as a lever, apply enough force to it at the right angle, and it didn't matter how strong the other guy was... they either let go, or they lost the use of their thumb. At which point they let go anyway.
I brought my shoulder up with a growl of effort, twisting my forearm down as hard as I could. There was a noise not unlike the sound you hear when someone bites down on an ice cube, and the vice-like pressure around my wrist abated instantly.
Guess he'd opted not to let go....
Twisting out of Stevie's grip like that had required me to put one knee on the step, and I realized I was still dangerously close to him. This fact was made much more obvious when he raised his non-injured hand and brought it down in a hammer-fist aimed at my head, catching me near the top of my left brow. Pain exploded in my temple, and everything flashed white for a split-second, at which point I found that I was now on both knees and turned mostly away from my opponent. I started to get back on one foot-
A second powerful blow interrupted my attempt to get up, and caused the stairwell to jerk itself in an unexpected direction. I could tell it was a body shot this time, one that felt as though it had just barely missed my left kidney. While the portion of my ribs where Stevie's fist had connected were currently informing me they weren't exactly thrilled with this bit of news, I myself was overjoyed - a properly executed kidney shot could have ended things for me right then and there.
At that same moment I also came to the conclusion that giving him a second chance at a kidney shot wasn't exactly in my best interests. I needed to turn around and face him in order to defend myself, or I needed to put some space between us, one of the two. Attempting to scramble up a couple of stairs was a truly sucky option when it came to creating space, since I'd still be giving up my back, but I also knew I couldn't spin around fast enough to do anything significant. Two sucky options.
So I chose to go another route instead.
I quickly transferred all my weight to one knee. Then, spinning in place on the stair I was kneeling upon, I brought the foot of my free leg around in an improvised crouching spin-kick that connected just above Stevie's knee. Based on both the force behind my kick and the downward angle I'd managed to achieve, I was almost certain I'd end up breaking something.
What surprised me was just how insubstantial Stevie's leg was. My entire boot practically shot through the portion of femur I'd been aiming for, as though his leg was barely even there at all. My boot encountered something, yes, but it seemed like there was little more than cloth and a bit of stuffing behind it... hardly any resistance whatsoever.
I became even more surprised a second later when I saw that my kick appeared to have a tremendous impact on Stevie's ability to stand...
His entire leg folded in a way that looked hideous and unnatural, bending and buckling under the weight of the rest of him, and then very quickly resembling an appendage that had no business propping up any sort of weight in the first place. It collapsed in a manner legs weren't ever supposed to, creating an instant and noticeable difference in Stevie's ability to remain upright.
Off-balance, Stevie bowed his head and fell back a step to recover his balance, momentarily windmilling his arms as he did so. While he was busy doing that I took a moment to regain my own footing, getting back to my feet in an instant and reorienting the shotgun I held so that the dangerous end was once more pointing at my attacker. I then took a few hurried steps backward, up the stairs, watching Stevie and attempting to ascertain what he'd do next.
Once he'd steadied himself Stevie went still, his arms held out on either side of him. He then squeezed his hands into tight fists, complete with several rather disturbing popping sounds that I suspected weren't coming from just his knuckles. Then, making a soft growling noise, he looked up and leveled an extremely angry look in my direction. It was a look that, I do have to admit, was really really intimidating under the circumstances.
I could now see that the entire left half of his face was a traumatized mess... the sort of thing you'd see in an autopsy picture after a really, really bad accident. There was red, glistening flesh and bone clumped together in roughly the same size and proportions of a face, but lacking all manner of other face-like attributes... like a bunch of greasy bacon and red velvet cake batter that had been slopped atop half of a skull. He still had an eyeball on that side, and while it was technically where an eyeball was supposed to be, its overall shape made it look more like a half-deflated beach ball. It was the sort of bloody, horrific parody of a face that would have given Hieronymus Bosch waking nightmares.
Guess I'd managed to get in a pretty good shot or two....
Snarling, Stevie swung his hips around in a decidedly odd manner, a move that produced the sort of explosive crunching sound that would make any good chiropractor gibber in terror. Then he kicked his damaged leg forward and slightly down, a move not entirely unlike something you'd see in a Michael Jackson video. Apparently satisfied by whatever result he'd just achieved, he lifted his leg and stomped hard on the stair in front of him. That action produced several rather disturbing crunching and popping sounds as well.
He stared up at me, looking positively nightmarish.
"Right now, I don't even fucking care if you're not one of them," he managed to spit-hiss at me, some sort of disturbing and unidentifiable liquid spraying from what remained of his lips as he did. "You're dead, understand? I don't-"
"Threats! Blah, blah, blah," I announced, unloading yet another shotgun round into his chest with a thunderous 'boom!', sending him reeling backwards a few inches. He took a half-step back onto the next stair in order to stabilize himself... at which point his entire leg buckled once more, and just as unnaturally as before. Stevie practically crumpled where he stood, falling into a crouch as he attempted to recover from whatever new difficulty he was experiencing.
Looking down at the semi-collapsed figure, a part of me put together a few things and came to an important realization.
All those bits of broken bone weren't fusing. All of the damage he'd been sustaining was being ignored, but it was still accumulating. Stevie wasn't healing at all... he was literally holding the various broken bits of himself together.
The laws of both physics and biology suggested that he'd damaged himself badly back when he'd leaped off that building during our rooftop encounter. In point of fact, he'd actually done it two times, not just the one. And while he was still somehow able to make use of his legs, it didn't change the fact that they were still probably in really bad shape from losing a fight with the laws of physics. After everything I'd witnessed, I wouldn't be surprised if the bones of his legs were little better than a bunch of marbles being pressed together inside of a wet, bloody, fleshy bag of thigh muscle. And those marbles weren't knitting themselves back together. They were staying together, somehow, but the broken bones of this living dead man were staying broken. And that fact, it seemed, was now causing Stevie difficulties.
Hot damn....
While one part of me was celebrating, another part of me was re-evaluating this entire situation, and before long it informed me it had come to a very specific conclusion - I needed to change tactics, and in a hurry.
The vast majority of my moves when it came to hand-to-hand hinged on joint locks and constriction. I wasn't a power-shot guy, at all. And Stevie was. He'd proven it time and time again. My only hope against him close in like this was superior martial arts skills, and from the looks of it none of my joint locks were going to do a damned thing. It's hard to threaten to break someone's leg when it's already been broken in several dozen places.
But the physics of fighting... that still worked, apparently.
Stevie was strong - the fact that he'd just exploded a human skull against a wall with one hand right in front of me was ample demonstration of how strong he was. But strength only mattered when it was being used to push against something, or leveraged against it. Stevie didn't weigh a ton - in the end he was nothing more than a collection of flesh and bone, when it came right down to it. And he might even weigh less than when he'd first started this crusade of his....
Thinking quickly, I pumped another round of shotgun ammo into Stevie's chest, knocking him back a little further. Then I took a step down, and then a second, at which point I used my forward momentum to execute a beautifully placed Savate kick to Stevie's sternum.
He flew backwards, his feet coming off of the stairs completely, and crashed hard against the far wall of the stairwell. Bouncing off of it a split-second later, he lost his footing completely and stumbled forward, careening toward the next flight of stairs.
I watched the last bit of Stevie disappear behind the stairwell railing as he noisily slammed chest-first against the steps, then continued along his way, tumbling down the stairs towards the second floor.
"Ha!" I practically shouted down the stairs, holding my shotgun aloft. "You come on back when you want your supernatural ass handed to you again, bitch! That's right... physics, you-"
Boom!
I reflexively shielded myself as the third floor room door shuddered to my right, and several dozen aged bits of door split apart and became splinters, showering the floor in front of me with wood. There were also now several small holes it the door where there hadn't been any before.
The pattern of damage that now decorated the door very strongly resembled a shotgun blast.
"Did I get him?" a semi-drunken voice asked from somewhere beyond the door.
"Hey!" I yelled at the two mafiosi, scrambling backwards into a seated position, away from the door. "Dipshits! Put the guns down, and get the hell out of here, now! Stevie's here, and Dom is down! Get to the fire escape and-"
"It's a trick! Fuck you!"
Boom! More splinters. Bigger holes in the door now.
Idiots.
"He killed Dom! Gimme the-... where'd you put the fucking shells?"
"You had them last, you idiot!"
I looked up at the ceiling, took in a deep breath, and sighed explosively.
They had a double-barrel shotgun with them - a manual reload shotgun - and they'd just fired both rounds at the door for practically no reason at all. No eyes on target, not even the suggestion of someone opening up the door, nada. And it only now had occurred to them they should have kept the rest of their shotgun shells nearby.
Yeah, these guys were totally prepared. I already found myself mourning the passing of Dom... at least he'd seemed to possess something resembling a clue.
Pausing a second to catch my breath, I realized that I wasn't quite as angry as I'd been a few moments ago. Not only that, but I also discovered I was no longer in the grip of fear and terror. These two facts in turn allowed me to start thinking a little straighter, and I remembered some of those great many things I'd realized earlier.
Stevie was here. That meant 'here' wasn't a safe place to be.
So hey... why don't you go with your very first impulse and get the fuck out of 'here', Joe? Like, right goddamn now?
Genius. Like I said....
I picked up the duffle bag with my free hand as I scrambled back to my feet, pausing only long enough to listen for any indication that Stevie had recovered, or was coming up the stairs. Hearing nothing, I raced up and around the stairwell towards the fourth floor, gripping my shotgun tightly. Soon I found myself standing in front of a door that very much resembled the one I'd left behind, save for the fact that there was a numeral four nailed to it instead of a three, and its surface lacked any sort of shotgun-related holes. After putting a bit more distance between me and the door, I adjusted how I was standing, took a quick breath, and then gave the door a solid kick, the heel of my foot connecting sharply with the metal plate just underneath the doorknob.
"Aaand now my foot hurts," I announced to no-one in particular. Then I grit my teeth, and kicked the door even harder, in roughly the same spot. And then I kicked it a third time.
Nothing.
I gave a little shout and rammed my shoulder into the door, practically leaping against it. When that didn't work I decided to just stand there and stare at it for a few seconds, inspecting it for damage. There didn't appear to be any.
"Huh..." I muttered.
Pretty good goddamn door, actually. Much better than the one on the third floor, even before it had gotten all shot to shit. This one must have been replaced recently or something.
Well, it looked like they'd be replacing it again....
I pointed my shotgun at where the steel doorknob met the door frame, and I squeezed off a single round. There was a thunderous boom that did absolutely nothing to ease the ringing in my ears, which was followed by the faint tinkle of broken metal coming to rest against the floorboards.
And just like that, I was now dealing with a slightly open door with a big, gaping hole where its locking mechanism used to be.
I kicked the door wide open with my still-smarting right foot, then murmured 'Ha!' to it under my breath as I hurried into the room, just to prove a point. Stupid door....
The white-haired older couple in the bed were clinging to one another quite desperately, their eyes wide as they watched me enter the room. They were quite obviously naked, and both were attempting to cover themselves with their bedsheets even as they attempted to huddle together.
"Sorry," I said to them, making a point of shielding my face with my duffel bag, an action which, while preventing them from seeing most of my face, also had the added benefit of keeping me from seeing the bits of them that they hadn't been able to cover up in time. "I'm so sorry about this... I just... I locked myself out. Gotta get in through the window." I gestured to the nearby window with my non-duffel-bag hand. The window bore a label indicating that, yes, this particular window did in fact open, and the fire escape ladder beyond it was indeed to be used in case of emergency.
Well, this was certainly one of those.
Without saying another word to the slightly disheveled couple I quickly made my way over to the window, dropped my duffel bag on the floor, used my free hand to flip the latch that held it shut, then opened the window with a single gesture. I then stepped through it out onto the rust-colored metal platform beyond it, pausing only long enough to send a quick apologetic wave to the startled occupants of the room. Once I was all the way outside I reached back in to retrieve my bag, then turned and headed down the ramshackle metal stairway as fast as I deemed would be safe.
I slowed down once I was a few steps away from the third story window, which had been propped open about six inches or so, and had several spent cigarette butts laying on the platform beneath it. Two familiar hushed voices were discussing something from inside, I could hear, so my two jokers were still in the room.
Taking a moment to collect myself, I took stock of my situation.
Well, I'd already lost the one guy who had seemed like he'd actually be of use to me, and all that was left were these two. They were here, and Stevie was here, which meant things weren't looking too good vis-a-vis them living for more than a few minutes. I still needed bait, true, and these were the only two that I knew the whereabouts of. That had been the entire reason I'd come down here, in fact. Without at least one of them, I'd have nothing to lure Stevie in later except for the one guy Diavolo said he was still able to reach on the phone. Which meant I probably should give convincing these two at least one more try.
I sighed, then considered my overall readiness. Guns, currently in either pocket, full clips. Shotgun... how many times had I fired it again? Unknown. Best reload.
I dropped my bag and retrieved a box of ammo, pulled out the shotgun's drum magazine and began shoving ammo in it until it was once more at maximum capacity. Then I carefully re-inserted it where it belonged, doing it quietly enough that the 'snick' of the locking mechanism was barely audible.
Twenty shots... remember to count them as you fire them this time, Joe. Now was not the time to get lazy with that sort of thing.
I held the shotgun aloft and forced myself to relax before closing the distance between me and the open window, at which point I took a cautious peek inside.
Both guys were crouched behind the bed, facing the door. One large, mostly-bald guy looked to be unsuccessfully attempting to shove shells into his double-barrel shotgun with trembling fingers, and there was a good deal of perspiration already on his forehead and pate. The second guy was a greasy-looking fellow with lanky hair and a scruffy beard, and he was holding a Beretta in his left hand in addition to the decent-looking forty-five revolver in his right. Both guys looked pretty wound up and distraught. Understandable, really.
I cleared my throat gently.
"Guys? Out here. Listen, we've really got-"
I pulled my head back right away when I saw Greasy swing his arms around towards me, and as soon as I had cover I heard two gunshots in rapid succession. One of them I could tell hit the brick of the wall inside the room, while the other round managed to nick the wooden frame of the window before sailing into the night, off to god-knows-where.
Poorly aimed panic shots... I would have been just as safe if I had left my head exactly where it was.
"Jesus, boys! It's me, for fuck's sake! We've got to go! Right now! Leave your shit and come with me if you're looking to stay alive," I called to the window.
"Fuck you! You killed Dom!" came the slightly hysterical-sounding reply.
"No, I didn't! Trust me, I'd have much preferred to be leaving here with just Dom and leave you two jokers to your fate, but that can't happen now. Stevie's here, alright? He's found you, and this isn't the time to be fucking around! He started on Dom, and the two of you are next."
As if on cue, a crashing noise erupted from the other side of the room, like a much-abused and shot up door being rammed into.
"Aaaaauuugh!" Baldy screamed, and I heard him snap closed the breach of his shotgun, which likely meant he'd experienced some measure of success when it came to loading shells into it. Not even a second later I heard him unload both barrels of his shotgun simultaneously once again, followed shortly thereafter by the distinct sound of wood splitting and splintering, and bits of door falling to the floor.
I risked a quick peek.
Both of them were now facing the door once more, and Greasy's brown leather jacket was moving as though he was panting heavily. Baldy was trembling even more noticeably than before as he fiddled with the double-barrel, trying to open the breech. Once he finally managed to snap it open and discard the two spent rounds he froze, as though he'd just heard something important. The only sound I could hear was the ragged, panicked breathing of Greasy, who was still staring at the door.
I briefly wondered if they were currently experiencing the abject terror I'd felt earlier.
Baldy turned to Greasy, licking his lips nervously before speaking.
"Did-" he began.
A fist-shaped mass of skin and leather shot through one of the smaller holes in the door, about chest height, turning it into a much bigger hole in the process, and contributing further to the splinter collection on the floor. A second later Stevie's entire arm came crashing through the newly made hole, and a substantial portion of his shoulder and neck became visible through the rapidly expanding opening soon after.
"Fuuuuu-" I heard Greasy start to yell before he interrupted himself mid-curse by firing his forty-five revolver. Then he began to scream a much different sort of noise at the door, firing with both guns simultaneously. And rapidly.
And I could see why.
Stevie had managed to shove his entire face through the door, and it wasn't at all pretty. Half of his face below the eyeball was still mostly gone, save for the ominous skeletal grin, glossy and red-black. The other half of his face was not grinning at all, however, and what remained of his lips were curled into a snarl. And his eyes... both of them were wild and angry, even the sad-looking half-deflated one. They were the sort of eyes you instinctively knew belonged to a guy who was not fucking around.
On the whole, it was like watching an undead version of Jack Nicholson's big scene from 'The Shining'....
"Guys!" I screamed, trying to be heard over the sound of firing weaponry. "Listen! We need to-... shit!"
I ducked and fell back at the same time once I realized Greasy was once more swivelling around to fire a shot at the window. There was a bang, and this time the bullet actually went through the top half of the window pane before sailing off into the evening sky. I thought I could make out a 'die, asshole!' at roughly the same time.
Fuck this noise.
They were panicking, badly. In order to get even one of them to come along with me I'd probably have to knock him unconscious, and given the current situation there was exactly zero chance of me getting away with something like that... dragging an unconscious body from the third floor of a fire escape. The cops were coming, and death itself was already here. Let Stevie have 'em - both these guys were useless to me.
Except maybe as a distraction....
"Hey, Stevie!" I called over to the window, and using my very best greasy-looking mafioso impression. "Think about this! You don't want anything bad to happen to your mother, do you?"
Yeah, that would probably enrage Stevie enough for my purposes.
Once I'd finished yelling I grabbed my bag and practically dove over to the top of the next set of stairs, crawling down the first few before eventually getting up to my feet and hurrying down them, my boots making metallic clanging noise with every step. I noticed a flicker of movement to my right, and above, and what sounded like the word 'sonofa-'
Window. Duck!
I collapsed in place so quickly that my tailbone rammed hard against the step I was currently standing on. Two flashes of light accompanied the two gunshots I heard, and a bit of metal bannister about a foot above my head threw off a tiny plume of sparks and gave a 'teeeen!' sound.
Something hot and metallic clipped my ear, and I involuntarily ducked my head further to avoid it a second after it was too late to do so. Letting out a hiss of surprise, I cupped the side of my head and got back up into a crouch.
I checked my hand. Blood. Great.
Keep heading down those stairs, Joe... put some more empty air and metal between you and the soon-to-be deceased fellow up there. You do not want your brains blown out here and now due to random act of dumb-ass, after all.
I did as the urgent voice in my head demanded, putting as much distance between me and what was happening above me as possible. Before long I could no longer make the window out through the grating of the metal fire escape, though I could still hear many odd sounds coming from that direction. Intermittent shooting, some yelling, a few curse words, and the occasional bit of haunting, primal noise that you instantly don't wish to think too hard about upon hearing. If anything, those last sort of sounds may have made my feet hurry just a little bit more when it came to traversing the fire escape steps and heading to the relative safety of the concrete alleyway below.
I arrived at the last platform... which had that dumb, dangerous, lawsuit-inspiring sliding ladder-thing attached to the far end of it. I hate those things, honestly. So much. But as long as my boots were back to stomping on good old terra, I could high-tail it back to my car and get my ass the hell out of here. How ugly the ride on the way down was didn't really matter just then.
Hoisting the straps of my bag over one shoulder, I grabbed one of the rungs of the ladder before stepping onto it, watching what I was doing carefully even while a portion of me was paying avid attention to the sounds and screams coming from above me. The ladder I was now clinging to lowered itself slowly at first, then quickly, then slowly again as it neared the bottom... which was about as good as I could have asked for under the circumstances.
My feet hit the concrete of the alleyway with two slightly staggered 'clop's as I landed in a crouch, still managing to maintain my one-handed grip on my shotgun as I did. As I stood up I realized I could hear the sound of something else coming down the metal fire escape, and fairly quickly. I turned and brought the shotgun into firing position, then quickly took several backward steps toward the adjacent street where I'd left my car, ready for anything.
Or 'just about anything', as it turns out.
After a few more dull clanks and other sounds, the thing that had followed me down the fire escape seemed to bounce against the last platform and roll off the side, ignoring the ladder completely. Then it landed on the ground just below it, making a sort of sodden 'plop' as it did.
And just like that, I found I was staring at Baldy's rather surprised-looking head, along with a rather generous portion of neck and vertebrae, still attached.
It blinked at me.
I don't care how long you've been in an industry like mine for, there are some things you'll still find unsettling as hell. Things that can stun and surprise you. Powerful reminders of your own mortality that make you want to run really, really fast.
There was another loud growl from above, followed by a piercing scream that made my teeth want to leap into my skull for safety.
Giving what was left of Baldy one last glance, I ran to the street and raced over to my car.
Really, really fast.