Amos woke up stiff, but it was not as bad as he had expected. He stretched out for a moment and then relaxed back on the rumpled towels watching the sunlight stream through the windows and the millions of particles of dust eddy and swirl through the shafts of light. For this brief moment the young boy felt a moment of peace, free from the grief, anxiety and fear that had plagued his existence these last few months.

  As unpredictable as their lives had been, at this instance he saw the tiniest fragment of their world, isolated in this sunbeam, perfect as it was and for this moment, at peace.

  “Just wait” Amos whispered. “Just wait, I thought I heard something…...ok, let’s go…but quietly.” Amos took his ear from the door, checked the peephole one more time and then slowly unlatched and opened the door. There were no creaks, he had oiled all the mechanics of the door a while ago and stepped out into the hall.

  Alanah followed and after locking up they silently crept down the hall and he opened the door to the fire exit stairway. Amos stepped through the doorway holding the door for Alanah when all of a sudden, a voice boomed out. “Ahh hah, so it is you…come here you little rat.”

  Amos was startled and disoriented, Mr. Phil’s loud voice echoed throughout the small stairwell, and he had no idea where it was going from. He guessed wrong and looked down the stairs only to have two large hands grab the collar of his jacket and violently push him up against the wall.

  HUNNFFF Amos felt his breath escape as Filthy Phil shoved him up against the wall. The burly landlord smelled of stale cigarette smoke and beer, but he still had much more strength than Amos did, and he had moved quite suddenly from where he had stood on the stairs sweeping just a moment ago. He was pinning Amos against the wall and had already grabbed one of the boy’s wrists and was twisting it behind his back. “You not getting away this day, no way…UHHHHNNHH.”

  Alanah had hit Mr. Phil hard enough that Amos had felt the tremors on his back as well. THWACK Alanah had now targeted the big man’s right knee and with great success. He sagged to the floor holding his knee and most likely saying some very bad words in Polish.

  Amos did not know or care what he was saying, he turned and saw Alanah holding the baton she had just gotten from Jim’s the night before. She held it out in front of her; Amos could not tell if she was admiring the baton or selecting the next target on Mr. Phil’s giant lump of a body. “This is awesome, it’s like a magic wand for pain” she exclaimed not taking her eyes off of the landlord.

  Amos’ mind was racing; they needed to get their stuff out of the apartment but at any moment they could be trapped here as well. The longer they stayed the more likely that became. He almost went to the window and then thought better of it. “Come he said, grabbing her arm and then pulling her down the stairs.”

  The fire door was only locked from the outside so a minute later the two kids crashed through the door and took off down the street. The moment of peace that Amos had enjoyed earlier was now a distant memory and his mind was once again filled with problems to solve.

  They stopped at a coffee shop along the way to the warehouse roof for a quick breakfast. Amos was relieved to see that Alanah was still in good spirits. “There are not many dull moments with you” she said with a smile, “do you always have this much fun?”

  He laughed and then paused and told her his plan for the office building. “It sounds ideal, a shooting range and a home? It may be too good to be true, but I trust your judgement so let’s check it out.” After paying the bill Amos worried briefly about money, the majority of their funds were now hidden in his old apartment. I don’t think Filthy will find anything right away but I have to get back in there to get it back soon but that is not our first problem now.

  Once atop the roof, Amos walked over to where he had stashed the bolt cutters and hoisted them up. “Our key…one time use only.” He walked over to the access door on the side of the office building and after some effort he managed to cut the lock by squeezing hard with his hands at the very ends of the bolt cutters. The old wooden door gave way with a decent push and shuddered open on hinges that had almost seized from lack of use.

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  They both stepped silently inside and cautiously looked around, their nerves on edge and their ears straining to hear the slightest sound.

  The rooftop access door had been most likely a fire exit years ago when the office building had still been in use. The three floors of offices had been abandoned for years now and had a ghostly quality to them. They had stepped into the end of a wide hallway that moved through large, open office spaces on either side.

  The ceilings were high, twelve feet at least and the building had large windows with rounded tops on the three remaining sides of the building. Even with all the lights off and with no one present the floor had a sense of warmth and a solemn peacefulness to it.

  The two kids moved cautiously through the building to explore. They crept up to the main staircase at the other end of the hall that led down to the front entrance on the 1st floor. This had been fenced off with a sturdy metal barrier at the bottom to restrict anyone from the first-floor medical offices from accessing the upper floors. Amos was delighted with this feature and with the sign that said that the elevator had been disabled too.

  The third floor and fourth floor had an identical layout except the access to the warehouse roof. In the end, after a lot of consideration and careful study they both agreed that a corner office space on the fourth floor was the ideal location for a hidden apartment.

  “Do you see that large bookcase along that wall and then two more like it over there? Amos pointed them out. They were dusty and still half full of discarded books and boxes and other junk. “We empty them and then push them up against the office walls. We can hide the entire corner office and this little kitchen on the side. Anyone that looks in here will just see these big shelves filled with old dusty junk.”

  Alanah looked at him with a puzzled look. “How do we get in or out then genius?” “Ahhh…we make a secret door in the bottom of one of the bookshelves at the back of the big shelf. We will have to crawl through it, but no one will ever see it unless they look really closely, and no one has been up in along time I bet anyways.”

  It took a lot of effort. They carefully removed all the books and boxes trying their hardest to leave all the dust in place. “Perfect camouflage” said Amos trying to sneeze over his shoulder with the smallest of movements. They pushed, dragged, and shoved the three large shelves over to the corner office walls and managed to completely conceal the interior doors and windows to the large office and small kitchen.

  They left one shelf slightly ajar until they could make their trapdoor and then they piled all the dusty old books and boxes back on the shelves which suddenly made them look like they had stood there for years once again. Finally, they rearranged office furniture where the shelves had been to disguise their absence.

  “Amazing. This is just amazing” said Alanah. “You can’t tell that the office is hidden behind these shelves, this is a great hideout.” An added bonus was that the kitchen sink still worked as did the toilets down the hall. “What we need is an emergency ladder, one we can secure next to a window so that we can break the window and unroll and go in a minute if we need to. Next time we see him, I’m asking Jim if he has something.”

  “Why not rig up that swing chair you just left at his place. For a one-time use wouldn’t that be faster and safer?” Amos thought briefly about this, she was not wrong, and it would be the best choice to get out quickly although he had really kind of hoped to never ride that flimsy bosun’s chair again.

  Spread amongst the three floors there was lots of furniture so after a few hours of scavenging and lugging they had managed to assemble a dining table from desks and office chairs, a decent kitchen with everything mismatched and two beds made from couch cushions and backrests. They did not want to use the overhead lights so they brought smaller desk lamps for light and they both vowed to never use them unless the blinds were down.

  Amos had a plan for a bathtub too. He figured he could use a large recycling bin that had wheels at the base as the tub and re-jig a window curtain as a shower curtain. He just needed a few hoses to extend water from under the sink and then to drain the bin when they were done using it.

  It was getting late, and they both were hungry. They left the building quietly by creeping down the stairs, through the second-floor access door and across and down the roof. Alanah was a natural at scaling the gas pipe either up or down. They shared a quick pizza at a small nearby pizza joint and then carefully made their way back into the building. Amos stood inside the second-floor hallway and slowly looked up and down the hall. “You know Alanah, I just think this might work out after all.”