A Bastion of Pressed Tin

The snowball hit the corrugated metal wall a foot from Benji’s head. It wasn’t a soft, fluffy impact. It was a hard, wet smack, the sound of ice and packed grit. A proper street-fighter’s snowball.

"Give it up, Benji!" Nathan’s voice echoed down the alley, bouncing off the frozen brick. "The fort’s ours. By sundown."

Benji peeked around the edge of the dented green dumpster that was their only cover. Nathan stood at the mouth of the alley, silhouetted against the bright, hazy glare of the streetlights. He had two of his lieutenants with him, Peter and Sam, all of them looking bigger and older in their puffy winter jackets. They were armed, their gloves packed with ammunition.

"It's not a fort, Nathan, it's a snowdrift!" Benji yelled back, his voice thinner than he wanted. "And sundown was twenty minutes ago! Your watch broken?"

Beside him, Alissa crouched low, her face a mixture of terror and fierce concentration. She was seven, small for her age, and her snowsuit was a puffy pink monstrosity that made her look like a marshmallow. A very determined marshmallow. In her mittened hands, she clutched a perfectly spherical, densely packed snowball she'd been working on for ten minutes. It was her silver bullet.

"My watch is fine," Nathan called. "Just giving you a chance to surrender with honour."

"What honour?" Alissa whispered fiercely. "He put slush in my hood yesterday."

"It's the principle of the thing," Benji whispered back, his eyes darting around the dead end. Brick wall behind, dumpster to the side, and Nathan’s gang blocking the only way out. They were pinned. A classic box canyon ambush.

Another snowball splattered against the dumpster. Benji flinched. They had maybe five snowballs left in their pitiful arsenal, tucked into the hollowed-out base of their side of the dumpster. Nathan’s crew had the whole street to draw from.

"Okay," Benji breathed, his mind racing. "Okay. Deputy, you still got the secret weapon?"

Alissa nodded, holding up her masterpiece. "It's got a rock in it."

Benji’s eyes went wide. "Alissa! No! That’s against the code!"

"So is slush in the hood," she retorted, her logic unshakable. "He broke the code first."

He couldn't argue with that. This wasn't a game in the park anymore. This was territorial. He looked at the fire escape above them, its ladder pulled up a good twelve feet from the ground. No escape there. The warehouse windows were dark and boarded over. He looked at the steam rising from a manhole cover near the centre of the alley.

An idea sparked. A stupid, terrible, brilliant idea.

"Alright, Deputy," he said, his voice low and urgent. "You’re the diversion. When I say go, you pop up and give 'em your best pitch. Aim for the big guy. Not the head. The chest. Got it?"

"The chest. Got it, Sheriff."

"And I’ll… I'll draw their fire."

It was a plan worthy of the dumbest outlaws in history, but it was all they had. "Ready?" he asked. She gave another tight nod. "NOW!"

Benji burst from behind the dumpster, screaming a wild, incoherent cry and hurling his three remaining snowballs in a frantic, inaccurate volley. As predicted, three of Nathan’s own shots instantly sailed towards him. He ducked back just as Alissa rose up, a small, pink whirlwind of fury. She wound up like a professional baseball pitcher and launched her secret weapon.

The rock-cored snowball flew true. It hit Nathan square in the chest with a heavy, satisfying thud. The air went out of him in a surprised *oof*. For a critical second, he and his gang were staring at him, stunned by the sheer audacity of the attack.

That second was all Benji needed. He grabbed Alissa's arm and sprinted, not for the alley mouth, but for the manhole cover.

"What are you doing?" Alissa shrieked, stumbling to keep up.

"Making a getaway!" Benji yelled, not slowing down.

The cast-iron lid was heavy, but years of city trucks driving over it had left it loose in its housing. Benji stomped on the edge with all his weight. It didn't budge. He stomped again, grunting with effort, the sole of his boot skidding on the frozen metal. Behind them, Nathan’s crew had recovered. The first retaliatory shots whizzed past.

"It's not working!" Alissa cried.

"Yes, it is!" Benji insisted, though he didn't believe it himself. He gave it one last desperate kick. The lid tilted with a groan, one edge dipping into the sewer below, releasing a thick, phantom cloud of warm, foul-smelling steam.

It wasn't an escape route. It was a smoke bomb.

The cloud billowed up, instantly obscuring the alley in a dense, white fog. Benji didn't hesitate. He yanked Alissa's hand and plunged them straight towards the entrance, running blind through their own steam screen.

"They're gone!" he heard Sam yell from behind them, his voice muffled by the fog. They burst out of the steam and onto the pavement of the main street, gasping in the clean, freezing air. They didn't look back.

Where the Pavement Runs Out

The world outside the alley was a blur of motion and noise. Buses hissed past, their tires crunching on the salted ice. Christmas carols piped from a nearby department store fought with the ding of a streetcar bell. Red and green lights reflected wetly off the slick pavement.

"This way!" Benji shouted, pulling Alissa through a crowd of shoppers who barely noticed the two small figures darting between them.

They ran. They didn't have a destination, only a direction: away. Benji’s lungs burned, and the cold air felt like swallowing needles. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Nathan and his crew were out of the alley, scanning the crowd, their faces grim.

They’d been spotted.

"They see us!" Alissa panted, her little legs struggling to keep pace.

Benji cut a hard right, down a side street lined with smaller, older shops. The windows were filled with dusty antiques and mannequins in outdated clothes. Fewer people here. Easier to run, but also easier to be seen.

The slap of their boots on the sidewalk was the only sound that mattered. Their breath came in ragged, white puffs. Benji’s mind was a frantic blank. Where could they go? Home was too far, ten blocks and across a busy intersection. Telling an adult felt like a defeat too great to consider.

He saw an opening between a bookstore and a pawn shop—not an alley this time, but a narrow, gated walkway leading to the back of the buildings. The gate was tall and wrought-iron, but a section of bars near the bottom had been bent apart years ago, creating a gap just big enough for a kid to squeeze through.

"In here!" he gasped, diving for the opening.

He slid through on his stomach, the icy ground soaking through his jacket, and scrambled to his feet on the other side. He turned to help Alissa, who squeezed through after him without a problem. They were in a cramped, dark space, a dumping ground for old crates and garbage bins. It smelled of wet cardboard and something vaguely sour. At the far end, maybe thirty feet away, was a single metal door set into the back of one of the buildings. It had no handle.

Footsteps pounded on the sidewalk outside the gate. "Where'd they go?" It was Peter's voice. "Check that gap!"

Benji’s heart hammered against his ribs. Trapped again. He pushed against the metal door out of sheer desperation. It didn’t move. He shoved harder, putting his shoulder into it. Nothing.

Alissa, however, wasn't pushing. She was fiddling with a small, rusted panel near the bottom of the door, one he hadn't even noticed in the gloom. With a metallic screech, she pulled it open. It wasn't a panel. It was a mail slot, long disused.

"I can fit," she stated, not as a question, but as a fact.

"No way," Benji breathed.

"Yes way." Before he could argue, she was on her stomach, wriggling headfirst through the opening. Her pink snowsuit snagged, and for a terrifying moment, Benji thought she was stuck. Then, with a final grunt, she was through. A moment later, he heard a series of loud, clanking sounds from inside—the sound of a security bar being lifted.

The door swung inwards, revealing Alissa standing in a vast, dark space, looking immensely pleased with herself.

"Told you," she said.

Benji scrambled inside, pulling the heavy door shut just as Nathan’s face appeared at the bars of the gate. The click of the lock sliding home was the loudest sound Benji had ever heard.

They stood in absolute blackness, the only light coming from the thin crack under the door. The air was still and cold, but not as cold as outside. It smelled of dust and old paper and something else… something sweet, like dried flowers.

"Where are we?" Alissa’s voice was a small whisper, her earlier bravado gone, replaced by an awestruck quiet.

"I don't know," Benji admitted. His eyes were slowly adjusting. He could make out huge, hulking shapes around them, draped in white cloths like sleeping giants. The ceiling was incredibly high, lost in the darkness above. He took a hesitant step forward, his boot scuffing on a smooth, polished floor.

He reached out and touched one of the shapes. The cloth was soft, the object beneath it hard and curved. He lifted a corner. In the gloom, he saw the faint glint of polished wood and the pale ivory of a piano key.

He moved to the next shape. It was another piano. And the next, a grand piano, its lid propped open like a silent, waiting mouth. They were in a room full of them. Dozens. A piano graveyard.

Alissa found a light switch by the door. She flicked it. Nothing happened. She tried again. On the third try, a single, bare bulb hanging from a long wire high above them flickered to life, casting long, dancing shadows. The light was weak, but it was enough. They were in the storage hall of what must have been an old music shop. Pianos, cellos in their cases leaning against the wall, stacks of sheet music yellowing in their bindings. The place felt ancient, forgotten, a pocket of silence in the heart of the city.

Benji walked to the centre of the room, running his fingers over the dusty lid of a baby grand. He felt a strange sense of peace settle over him, the frantic energy of the chase draining away. They were safe. They were hidden.

He looked over at Alissa. She had climbed onto one of the piano benches and was looking around with wide, curious eyes. She didn't look scared anymore. She looked like she had discovered a secret kingdom.

But the silence was unnerving, too. The single bulb above them hummed, and Benji became aware of how thin the metal door was. He could hear the wind howling in the walkway outside. They were safe from Nathan, for now. But they were also locked in a strange, dark place they knew nothing about, with no obvious way out but the way they came in.

Alissa pressed a single key on the piano in front of her. The note, a deep and resonant C, echoed in the vast, quiet room. It hung in the air for a long moment, a lonely sound in a forgotten place. It sounded less like music and more like a question.