Young Writers Society

Two Shades of Black

There we were, the three of us, standing at different points on the roof, like the three corners of the Bermuda Triangle. There was nothing between us and there could be nothing; we'd reached a place where anything that could have breached the gap would crash or sink beneath the waves. There we were, the fugitive, the cop and I. I with the only loaded gun between us. And I had to kill a man because that was the only way a story like this could end.

It was a Friday, around eight O'clock, and I was working late on the third floor. A new claim had come in; some poor fool kicked the bucket while putting up the festive decorations. The family hadn't wanted to claim earlier, not while it was Christmas. Or so the story went. His wife wanted to take the kids on holiday. At a first glance, it seemed a cut and dry case, but there was something about the dates that didn't match up. And this was my Friday night. Over-working. Being unsociable. The usual. And my boss wanted some files bringing up so, of course, I was the chump who got the job. It was the last item on my agenda so I left my office, walked to the stairwell and locked the door behind me.

I met him on the stairs, the first of them. I saw shiny black shoes and two cylinders of blue denim protruding from a long over-coat. Beige. I was going up and he was coming down and he ran into me. His face was dark with a squashed, bulbous nose, scratchy facial hair and a distasteful bar through his neat, black brows. But I discounted all these faults in view of the two celestial blue eyes set deep into his skull. It was the beginning of a hundred romances.

He grabbed me instinctively and with a squeal, I let the files I'd been carrying fall to the floor. I stared into his beautiful eyes as he swept me off my feet and pulled me around the corner. My feet landed at the top of the next flight, heavily. Reluctantly. I wondered desperately if he was thinking the same thoughts as me – had he got carried away with the whole Prince Charming act? However, the spray of bullets at our backs was in disfavour of my fantasy.

'You'd better get out of here,' he said in a dismissive tone as he let me go and dropped to one knee. He started putting bullets in a gun and I just stood there, astounded and infuriated, trying to take it all in. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. I couldn't even form a full sentence in my head but, more powerful than the fear, was the heavy disappointment. I wanted to say: Hey, you! Yes, you with the gun, aren't you going to ask me out to dinner already? But that seemed sadly inappropriate.

'You are waiting for me! But it won't work! Not while I hold the higher ground!' For a moment I'd forgotten that there was a third party to this situation and now I felt my anger re-directed at him, for it was surely a he with a voice like that. The tone was deep and strangely civilised and smooth, precise and crisp as bullets. In my mind, I immediately put this monster in a suit – white, not black – and gave him wavy, salt and pepper hair and a chiselled, scholar's face. But his eyes were as dark as bonfire toffee.

I was running down the stairs before I'd made any sort of conscious decision, the sound of my feet slapping hard on the cold slabs of stone – like graveyard tombs – was out of sync with the spit of gunfire and the drumming of my heart. And then. A scream! I froze, partly to catch my breath, but mostly to gather my shrapnel mind. Had it been him? The stranger with the bright blue eyes? Or the other one? I stared up through the well of stairs and saw the sheets of paper, sweeping, falling. I reached out with my eyes, as if I might catch one. Save one. And it was there, the splash of blood hugging the black print.

He screamed again and cried out, 'You bastard!' with a rich, elegant voice. 'My boys are outside and whatever happens in here, they're going to take you down!' I wasn't sure who his boys were, but suddenly running downstairs and out of the building didn't seem like such a pleasant idea. It was very easy to believe that at the bottom of the cuboid staircase, just outside the doors, standing under the security light which didn't have a bulb, would be a group of thugs with balaclavas and lead piping.

There was more shooting a few levels up. Moving quietly down the stairs, hoping I'd been forgotten, I stopped at the third floor and scrambled to unlock the door that led back to the safety of my office. I got it open, fell inside and quickly threw it closed again and leaned against it, taking long, deep breaths. Here was the familiar floor I worked on every day. There was my office. There was the photo-copier and – Amelie.

I felt my chest tighten around the horrible realisation that Amelia might be dead. Amelie. Was she dead? Was her body stuffed into one of those cramped, metal lockers that always jammed, just when you most needed what was inside? The thought of it made me feel sick and I almost forgot to lock myself in. Then there were loud scuffles on the stairs and just as I was about to turn the key, I saw him through the frosted glass window. The blue eyed stranger.

It was one of those snap decisions.

'Quick! In here!' I hissed, cracking the door open and beckoning to him. I shot a quick glance at the stairs, almost expecting to see the other standing there, blood stains marking his crisp, white suit and a look of grim disapproval on his handsome face. There was no such man though and my blue eyed stranger pushed the door open wider, striding past me and into the room.

'Lock her up good,' he told me, turning his head to throw a smile over his shoulder. I didn't need telling twice.

It was while the second man was banging on the door and cursing at us that I really got to grips with the situation.

'So should we call the police?' I suggested, fully expecting him to confess to being an under-cover officer or even a vigilante inspector. Instead he simply said:

'There's no need. They're already here.' And he looked to the window at the other side of the room. Feeling nervous, I crossed and looked out at the blue and white cars down below us. Ah. Those boys.

'Sorry, darling. We can't all be the good guy.' He started to pace the room and I found that every time he turned to me, his eyes were looking past, out the window. 'They'll be starting on the bottom floor, they'll be searching. Checking out the exits – where are they?' He rounded on me and I shrank back from him. I recoiled from his dark face, his messy hair and that distasteful bar through his neat brow. Most of all, I recoiled from those luminous, trickster eyes of his.

'There- there's a fire escape but no entrance on this floor.'

'Just my luck,' he grumbled and started pacing again.

'Am... am I your hostage? Or something?' I asked, almost too scared to break his concentration. He turned to me and gave a lop-sided grin.

'Or something,' he agreed.

'What's that supposed to mean?' I snapped, my temper flaring. He gave me an irritated glance and I held my breath, shrivelling in on myself.

'I was going to take you hostage on the stairs,' he said quietly, his back turned to me once more. 'But then I thought, I've got a lot on my conscience already and I wasn't so sure Fields wouldn't shoot you anyway. Just to get at me.' I decided I didn't want to know what he'd done but he seemed to be in a confessing mood. He turned around and strode back toward me and I sought to fix my eyes on anything but his face. He was holding a piece of paper in one hand, creases running outwards like a spider-web of veins.

'There's nothing to make a man do his duty like a personal vengeance. I've been accused of murdering his daughter.' I tried to shut the words out but found solace in his phrasing. Been accused. He sounded like an innocent man.

'Why don't you just... uh. Turn yourself in. He can't do anything to you then.' He chuckled mildly and shook his head.

'No, it's too late for that and besides, I got a family to think about. I go to prison and what do they do, eh?' He shook the piece of paper fondly. 'This is their ticket to the sweet life!' I started to get a bad feeling in my gut.

'If that's what I think it is-'

'You don't have to stay here. Go on up the stairs, I don't mind meeting them alone.' He was offering me my freedom and I felt compelled to do the same for him.

'You should come with me,' I said. He shook his head. 'Listen, that's a life insurance contract, huh? And I'm sure you forgot to mention your situation with the law when you took it out.'

'So?'

'It's invalid. Do you really think the state actually pays out to criminals?' He swore and we were soon running up the stairs. He asked if I had a key to whatever level the fire escape was on. I shook my head sadly, no. The only other floor I could access was nine. Amelie's floor. I didn't think either of us wanted to go there.

We burst out on the roof and I bent over, breathing heavily. I picked my head up to ask what he planned to do next and then his arms wrapped around me from behind and I felt the cold barrel of steel against my head. Bloody men.

'It's just for the look, he might not shoot, he... I have to do something. I have a family.' The same sob story didn't have the same effect this time. Not when all I could think about was a bullet in my head. And Amelie. Had he killed her too? Had he hidden her body in her office cubicle – I realised now that there was no chance of getting her fat thighs into one of those lockers, though he may have tried there first.

'Please,' I begged. 'You said yourself, he might- he might-'

'Shoot you?' he asked. 'Eh, probably not.' And he laughed and the illusion was unravelling fast. I kicked out, desperately, landing a solid hit to the groin. I don't think he was expecting it. He shuddered back and doubled over, the gun falling from his hands as they sprung to his injury. What about your family now?

I'd never held a gun before. But I grabbed it and held it up threateningly, backing off, claiming my own space on the roof. And then the other came sliding through the door. He was beautiful. Instead of the white suit was a ruffled officer's uniform, pulled taut over his muscled Greek God body. And his face was indeed sculptured, his jaw square, his chin smooth and his eyes. His eyes were a warm, toasted brown.

He stepped forward slowly, taking a moment to judge the situation. His eyes roamed from the fugitive to me and my hands where the gun wobbled. While he was thus distracted, the fugitive threw himself across and they wrestled for the gun. The cop hit the ground quick and hard, crying out as he landed on his bleeding leg and the gun was pulled sharply from his hand. Then he kicked out and he kicked hard. The gun came skittering toward me.

I left that one laying there but pointed at them with the one I held.

'Get up and walk,' I said, shaking violently. 'You over there,' I jerked the gun, 'And you that side.' They started moving, watching me, watching each other and there we were. The Bermuda Triangle replicated on a city rooftop. And then the cop charged toward me and I flinched and put a bullet in his chiselled face.

We stood there for a moment, I looking down at the body and he looking satisfied but grim. The calm before the storm. Two fugitives trapped on a roof-top with a troop of officers about to file in. And there was only one question to ask.

'Did you kill her?'

'Not everyone can be the good guy, darling.'

'Bastard.'

Hi Heather!

So, I think is the first time I've ever read or reviewed something of yours, and I will say, your writing is a pleasure to read. You have a good sense of atmosphere and how to describe it -- parts of the story made me feel like I was there. You have clearly put a lot of effort into formulating and drawing this out. Your dialogue is great as well. However, what really keeps this from being a favorite for me is your pace -- you really seem to rush through the plot at times and it becomes hard to understand what is going on. This is magnified by how your narrator carries the story -- she feels underdeveloped and rather passive (ie. we don't get a sense of distinguishing characteristics and you don't really portray her emotions as to what is happening).

I feel like you can draw this story out a lot more and paint us in with some details as to the circumstances of this whole thing. Even though this an action and supposed to be fast-paced, you can have slower moments to absorb what is going on in terms of story and character. You start off when she's in the office alone -- that's a great opportunity to set up the atmosphere! Is she lonely? Tired of work? What does her office look like? Is she wishing and dreaming about her Prince Charming, so much so that when the man comes that she's too in awe to smell fish?

That's another thing -- when she sees the people in her office building that she doesn't know firing guns, she just somewhat goes with it and doesn't question anything. I would be both terrified and have a million questions -- what did these people want? How did they get into the building? Instead of thinking about hot the guy is, wouldn't she be more concerned about her own safety? I'm not saying that she doesn't think about her own safety in this piece, but you don't really get into her thoughts to understand how frightened she is. I'm not sure who Amelie is, or why the narrator would think she had been killed. I also don't really understand why she has to shoot the man at the end, and I read this through a couple of times so that everything would be clear.

So, in general, yeah. Just try to draw this out and think about your characters and the situation that they're in, and this story will become a lot clearer for your readers. And please don't draw from this review that I hated this story, because I don't. It's really wonderfully laid out and composed, and I can see from this your talent as a writer. Keep up the excellent work, and of course, feel free to drop me a note if you need anything further!

~ Elinor

Thanks for the review, Eli! I suppose I should have mentioned that I wrote this for class so it's currently to a word count, hence the rush. I'm going to do a re-write where there's a lot more character development and stuff

I really enjoyed the voice of this story. It’s kinda like it’s overloaded with private eye detective story cliches, like, “It was the beginning of a hundred romances” and “His eyes were as dark as bonfire toffee.” All in all, pretty damn cool. I did find that a couple times I wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but it kinda felt like that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The way the main character is swept off her feet, literally, and essentially turned into a criminal is priceless. It’s a pity the cop charged, though. I guess I can understand why he might be a bit reckless after the loss of his daughter, though.