Chapter Twenty-Five

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

I ran to the kitchen area, strained to pull the window open and scrambled through it and onto the fire escape.  In order to buy myself a few more seconds, I closed the window behind me. It’s not that I didn’t think they’d look, but it might at least delay them. And the window was old, heavy and really hard to slide up and down. A police officer who didn’t have my heightened strength might be delayed ever further, despite my having loosened it a tiny bit.

I could hear them enter the room just as I ducked away from the window and headed up the stairs. The noise the cops were making was load enough to cover any of the vibrating metal noises I made as I ascended the fire escape and headed to the roof.

Inside I heard a bunch of voices yell “Freeze!” simultaneously, Monty swearing again for good measure, then the sound of handcuffs coming out, being slapped on the ring-leader, as well as the shuffling of various sets of city-issued footwear as the officers swarmed into the room and checked to make sure they’d got everyone.

I counted between eight and ten officers based on the voices, shuffling of feet and sounds I could distinguish in the melee taking place.

Down on the street below and about fifty feet off to my left I could see three police cruisers in full view. There was another one with its back half sticking out from alley, and perhaps a fourth one hidden from view around the corner.

For that many police cruisers to be here, it must have meant that Buddy was able to get away safely and call the police.  Good old Buddy. I knew I could count on him.

Standing on the fire escape and looking down, I sniffed around for any signs of Buddy, but couldn’t smell him in the vicinity. Couldn’t hear his distinctive voice, either.

No, knowing his desire to stay out of things, I imagine he would have put in an anonymous call about what was taking place, then high tailed it out of here.

Knowing my own desire not to get mixed up in such a brew-ha-ha, I imagine he didn’t mention me by name, but rather some of the things he’d witnessed and overheard.

No, Buddy must be safely far away from all this. I’d have to make a point of calling him to let him know I was okay once I got my own butt safely out of harm’s way.

Standing there, I didn’t hear any sort of “Hey look, up there on the fire escape,” sort of activity happening below, but didn’t want to take any chances.

And as I continued to hoof it to the roof, not really sure where I was going to next, I could suddenly appreciate why Spider-Man fled the scene of a hold-up or burglary he had successfully foiled.

Yes, it’s true. I’d questioned Spidey’s judgement.

Sure, I’d been a fan of the Spider-Man comic books my entire life, had always enjoyed the web-slinger’s sense of responsibility, his desire to do the right thing. But I had always wondered why he would flee the scene, why he didn’t stick around to explain himself.

Every single time he nabbed the bad guys, he’d take off the second the police showed up, and end up being misunderstood and getting a bad rap for it.

I’d always thought he should have invested the time into staying with the tied-up bad guys, calmly handing them over to the police and then casually explaining how he’d discovered their plot, swooped in to save the day, and everything would be tidily taken care of.

I figured Spidey could have saved himself an endless amount of aggravation and being misunderstood for his good deeds, constantly on various “wanted” and “menace” lists if only he’d stayed to talk and explain.

But, thick in the middle of a similar mess, I knew that such vigilante activities are neither appreciated nor condoned. The police don’t need untrained citizens out there performing their own personal brand of justice.

So while there might be a little bit of appreciation, there’d likely be a heck of a lot more explaining to do than the average person would be comfortable with.

That much I could understand.

And besides, at least Spider-Man had the secret identity by way of his red and blue costume to keep the police and public from knowing who he was.

I was a plain-dressed civilian, and a somewhat recognizable one at that, given my recent popularity based on the movie tie-ins of my work.

If my explanation didn’t go well, they’d know exactly who I was right away.

And that wouldn’t be good for my career.

Or would it?

I pondered the thought as I continued to hoof it up the metal stairs to the roof.

I mean, if people found out that this particular crime ring had been foiled by none other than Michael Andrews, writer and vigilante at large, perhaps the sales of my novels would explode.

I didn’t let those thoughts go too far, though.

The thought of people finding out about my werewolf abilities would also lead to fear. Fear, walking hand in hand ignorance and prejudice, would mean I’d never again find a moment’s peace.

It was easy to visualize a mob bearing torches moving through the streets on their way to my apartment, chanting “Kill the wolf, kill the wolf!” and seeking to send me packing from the city and into the Canadian wilderness where I belonged.

Or perhaps they’d prefer to locked me up in a cage, or worse, some sort of lab, where secret government agents would perform endless experiments on me, try to see what made me tick, how the phases of the moon controlled the various heightened senses and abilities that ran through my veins.  I’d be poked, prodded, hooked up to machines, experimented on, sliced open and then disposed up like some sort of lab rat.

No thanks.

It made me wonder if I might be better off to design some sort of costume, though, so when I did end up doing my random good deeds, I didn’t have to worry about hiding my face.

That thought fled rather quickly.

Sure, I’d occasionally used my heightened powers to help those in need before, but never had I spent a full day spiralling into such a bizarre series of crime-fighting activities as I had today.

As great as it was to clobber Howard, and know I’d put a stop to an organized crime ring, I would be happy when this day was over and I could go back to writing the next Maxwell Bronte novel.

Sigh.  My novel.

I looked at the time.

It was 2:30.

Yikes!

I needed to get back to my place, get back to writing the damn book and sending it to Max.

I reached the top of the ten story building and looked around, not sure which direction to head in.

The river was south from where I stood, that I could tell from the fishy/salty smell coming in from the bay. I needed to head north.

But the direct route north was a gigantic building that towered another ten stories higher with no convenient fire escape stairs to ascend.

My best choice, then, was the building across the small alley to the east.  It led to a rooftop at my same level, and on it, there was another fire escape stairwell that led up another six or so stories.

To the north, I saw I could likely leap across to another building that was a story or two shorter, and from there, start making my way north again to another building that was the same height.  I figured if I moved at least four or five buildings north and east, I’d be far enough away from the action taking place in this building that I could descend without chance of anyone associating the descending man with the cops and robbers stuff going on here.

Judging the leap across the alley to the adjacent rooftop to be a relatively easy one for someone with my agility, I took a couple of dozen steps back, swallowed a nice deep lungful of air, then sprinted to the edge of the roof and lept across.

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net