Chapter Ten

Stanley Green, his apartment in New York City, Day 41

  Stanley woke up to the muffled sound of breaking glass, but while he was still half asleep, he tried to leap out of bed, scrambling for his gun at the same time, but tripped on a leg instead, landing face first on the rug. “Shit!” he swore into the rug, as he untangled himself from the sheets and pinched his nose to stop the oncoming nosebleed.

  “Stan? What’s going on?” Marie asked from the bed, pulling the sheets back to cover herself.

  “I don’t know,” he said, pulling on a shirt as he palmed his handgun and some bullets from his drawer, “I heard something breaking,” his statement was unfortunately punctuated by the sound of a security alarm.

  “Shit,” Marie replied, scrambling out of bed, looking for clothes, “Go check it out, I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

  “Got it,” Stan said, loading the bullets as he peeked out of the bedroom and into his living room.

  Seeing nothing, he advanced into the room, searching with his gun ready, but there was nothing. He gave a cursory glance at the bathroom, but since the sound seemed to be coming from the alley, he headed toward the fire escape. He set the gun down to pry open the window, the window he hadn’t opened since Ms. Winters vanished down the fire escape a month ago, opening it just in time to hear a scream. He stuck his head out of the window, looking for the noise, and saw a tiger trying to break into an apartment downstairs and across the way.

  “What the heck?” he muttered to himself, struggling to grab his gun, but before he could maneuver the gun to aim at the tiger, it tore its way into the apartment and disappeared. Unfortunately, he was stuck in a hard to mauever position, with one arm and his head and shoulders through the window, and his stomach resting on his counter, so he struggled to maneuver himself out of the window and onto the fire escape.

  By the time he finally managed to get his feet on the fire escape, he heard another, more terrified scream from the hole where the apartment window had been, causing him to worriedly rush downstairs, trying to get closer. The other escape was too far away to reach, however, so all he could do was wait and see for a few tense minutes, gun at the ready.

  Soon enough, the tiger returned through the hole, this time biting an arm in its mouth, but before he could aim away from the woman, the tiger got stuck in the small hole, backed up out of sight again, and then came through backwards, dragging the woman with it. Stan carefully aimed his handgun at the tiger, and fired, hitting it in the back, provoking a cry of pain.

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  The tiger quickly pulled out of the hole, tearing at the walls more with its bulk, and turned to spot him, dragging the unconscious woman behind it. Stan hoped that the first shot would have caused it to drop her, but since it didn’t, he fired again, hitting the shoulder. To his surprise, the tiger dropped her arm and began to whine and cry at him, but he couldn’t tell why. He fired again, hitting its shoulder a second time, trying to scare it off, but instead causing it to give off an awful caterwauling.

  He hoped the tiger would leave, but to his horror the tiger bent down to grab the woman again, and leapt off the fire escape and down into the alley. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could, but his next two shots missed, and then his gun gave the familiar click of an empty chamber, he was out of bullets.

  As the tiger raced down the alley, Marie called him from upstairs, “Hey Stan, James just called in, a woman reported a tiger around here, and he’s on the way. You fired your gun, was there really a tiger?” she shouted, as she climbed out the window.

  “Yeah,” he grunted, “It took three shots and kept going, with her. I’m out of bullets.” He let her know, pointing down the alley, after the tiger.

  “Shit,” Marie answered, ejecting the cartridge of her gun and giving him five rounds to put in his own cartridge before replacing it, while they momentarily fumbled in their attempts to drop the ladder, before they rushed down to ground level, hurrying after the beast.

  As they got deeper and deeper into the alley, however, Stan began to notice where they were heading, already signaled by dozens of air fresheners taped to the walls, “Marie, it’s heading to Pa Pa Jiang’s,” He warned her.

  Marie paused, surprised, “Stan, nothing goes behind old man Jiang’s, you said it yourself.”

  “I know,” he replied, not stopping as Marie picked up the pace again, “Hold your breath, it’s going to get worse, fast” he advised about the already foul odor seeping from behind the dumpy corner restaurant.

  As they rounded the corner behind the restaurant, the fetid odor assaulted their noses, but they continued, hands over their mouths and noses to help keep the smell out. However, there was no tiger. As they wandered down the alley, however, they noticed a large grate in the ground, large enough for a tiger to enter, but when Marie used her phone light to check it out, it was just an unusually large drainage hole. Stan checked it out anyway, but there wasn’t anything inside, so, with nothing to show for it, Stan motioned them back up the alley.

  Once they reached the first layers of air fresheners, Marie asked, “You said it was going behind old man Jiang’s, Stan. It’s not there,” she sighed, breaking out into coughs, “That’s a problem.”

  “Yeah,” Stan agreed, “Let’s keep looking, it can’t have gone nowhere, that woman must be somewhere, we have to be able to save her.” He hurried down another alley, looking for the tiger and the woman.

  As he bolted around the corner however, he spotted a giant rat in his path, causing him to shout in surprise, “What!?”

  Unfortunately, Marie was a ways behind him, and he had startled the rat, the minute he realized that, the rat was already leaping at him. He tried to aim his gun, but before he knew it, the rat was on him and biting and he just fell to the ground screaming while the yard long rat tore at him.

  As he was struggling, he heard two gunshots, and felt a sudden pain in his arm, but the rat slowed down. Two more gunshots followed, and the rat stopped moving. He pushed the rat off from himself, and climbed to his feet. He checked his arm, finding he had a gunshot wound.

“What the heck is that?” Marie asked, “A giant rat? What the fuck?” Stan had to agree.