her neck stand up. Was someone else in the apartment?
As if to answer her silent question, at that very moment, three people, dressed head to toe in black, appeared from the other room. They walked nonchalantly into the living room, heading right for Caitlin. Three men. It was hard to tell how old they were—they looked ageless—maybe, late 20s. They were all well-built. Muscular. Not an ounce of fat on them. Well groomed. And very, very pale.
One of them stepped forward.
Caitlin took a step back in fear. A new sense was coming over her, a feeling of dread. She didn’t understand how, but she could sense this person’s energy. And it was very, very bad.
“So,” the leader said, in a dark, sinister voice. “The chicken comes home to roost.”
“Who are you?” Caitlin asked, backing up. She scanned the room for a weapon of some sort. Maybe a pipe, or a bat. She started thinking of exit points. The window behind her. Did it lead to a fire escape?
“Precisely the question we wanted to ask of you,” the leader said. “Your human friend had no answers,” he said, gesturing at her Mom’s body. “Hopefully, you will.”
Human? What was this person talking about?
Caitlin took several more steps back. She didn’t have much room left to go. She was almost flush against the wall. She remembered now: the window behind her did lead to a fire escape. She remembered sitting on it, her first day in the apartment. It was rusted. And rickety. But it seemed to work.
“That was quite a feed at Carnegie Hall,” he said. The three of them slowly approached her, each taking a step forward. “Very dramatic.”
Caitlin scanned her memories desperately.
Feed? Try as she could, she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
“Why intermission?” he asked. “What was the message you were trying to send?”
She was against the wall, and had nowhere left to go. They took another step closer. She felt certain they would kill her if she did not tell them what they wanted.
She thought as hard as she could. Message? Intermission? She recalled roaming the halls, the carpeted hallways, going room to room. Searching. Yes, it was coming back to her. There was an open door. A dressing room. A man inside. He had looked up at her. There had been fear in his eyes. And then…
“You were in our territory,” he said, “and you know the rules. You are going to have to answer for this.”
They took another step closer.
Crash.
At just that moment, the apartment’s front door shattered open, and several uniformed policeman rushed inside, guns drawn.
“Freeze, motherfucker!” a cop screamed.
The three wheeled and stared at the cops.
They then, slowly, walked towards them, completely unafraid.
“I said FREEZE!”
The leader kept walking, and the cop fired. The noise was deafening.
But, amazingly, the leader didn’t even stop. He smiled even wider, simply reached out his hand, and caught the bullet in midair. Caitlin was shocked to see that he stopped it in mid-air, in his palm. He then held up his hand, slowly made a fist and crushed it. He opened his hand, and the dust slowly poured out onto the floor.
The cops, too, stared back in shock, mouths open.
The leader grinned even wider, reached out and grabbed the cop’s shotgun. He yanked it from him, wound up and struck the cop across the face. The cop went flying backwards, knocking over several of his men.
Caitlin had seen enough.
Without hesitating, she turned, opened the window and climbed through. She jumped onto the fire escape and raced down the rickety, rusted steps.
She ran for all she was worth, twisting and turning. The old fire escape probably hadn’t been used in years, and as she rounded a corner, a step gave way. She slipped and screamed, but then caught her balance. The entire fire escape shifted and swayed, but it didn’t give completely.
She had descended three flights when she heard the noise. She looked up, and saw the three of them jump onto the fire escape. They started descending, impossibly fast. Much faster than her. She increased her pace.
She reached the first floor, and saw that there was nowhere to go: it was a 15 foot jump down to the sidewalk. She turned her neck, saw that they were coming. She looked back down. No choice. She jumped.
Caitlin braced herself for the impact, and expected it to be bad. But to her surprise, she landed she landed lithely on her feet, like a cat, with hardly any pain.