For half a second, I expected Susan to barrel through.
But my life just wasn’t that simple.
Instead, a stampede of hot dogs burst through the doorway.
Except they were shaped like actual dogs. With little hot dog bodies, stubby paws, and snouts complete with dripping black noses and rows of unsettlingly sharp teeth.
And they could bark. And bite.
The first one spotted us and let loose a mutt-like howl, then charged.
There was a split second, maybe two, when nobody moved.
Then Deva, whose brain worked faster than mine when it came to not dying, pointed up at the rusted fire escape bolted to the wall beside us.
She didn’t hesitate.
She leaped up, grabbed the ladder with both hands, and yanked with all her might.
Metal screeched, the ladder dropped, and we had a way out, assuming we moved faster than a small army of meat-based ankle biters.
“Up! Now!” Deva screamed, already scrambling onto the first rung.
Beth and Carol were right behind, but I, idiot that I am, turned to look back over my shoulder.
That was my mistake.
Because the lead dog was only two feet away, meat-tongue lolling, jaws wide.
I shrieked and hauled myself up, totally abandoning dignity in favor of survival. My foot hit the first rung, and I put every ounce of desperation into climbing.
Dog teeth snapped right where my heel had just been.
A hot dog hound clamped down on my shoe. I bucked upward, heart in my throat, and the thing lost its grip with a wet, meaty pop.
Someone’s hand yanked me up. The world’s strongest deadlift courtesy of Beth, who must have had superhuman adrenaline.
We collapsed onto the fire escape’s first landing, a tangle of limbs and purple streaks and wild heartbeats.
For a second, none of us said anything.
Below, the pack of hot dog dogs patrolled the alley, barking, circling the base of the ladder, occasionally leaping up to snap at the metal. Several had attached themselves to a cardboard box, ripping it to shreds.
“That…” Beth gasped, “was not what I expected today.”
Carol flopped on her back and groaned. “It’s like an Oscar Mayer war zone.”
Deva wiped sweat from her jaw, hair sticking to her cheeks. “I’m putting this on Susan’s Yelp review.”
My hands shook. I tried to brush glitter off my pants, only to realize it had fused to the purple stuff and now looked like a rhinestone accident.
I peered over the edge of the landing, and the hot dog hounds glared back at me with the blank-eyed hunger of true monsters.
“What do we do now?” I groaned.
Carol shrugged, lying flat and breathing in big gulps of alley air. “We wait until they lose interest, or until the next batch of experimental food products comes bursting out the door.”
No one laughed, possibly because none of us doubted it.
