Piece #2 for my creative writing class.

They meander up Bowery, laughing too loudly, stopping, doubling back, and letting each block take as long as it takes.

Jen is intoxicated by the dark, the city, and the goosebumps on her too-exposed skin. She should have brought a jacket but jackets don’t go with sexy lawyer costumes.

She feels her ankle buckle: the heel on her stiletto is hanging sideways, now attached to her sole only by a strip of black pleather.

Great. She’s going to be one of those girls walking barefoot down a New York City street at 3 am. On Halloween, no less.

She bends to inspect the damage and notices a tiny alley. One that shouldn’t exist because it’s not a named street on any Lower East Side map she knows. Barely wide enough to fit a human, a seam between buildings.

“Hey,” she calls, “do you see this?”

“No,” Anton’s voice is already climbing towards a squeak. “We are not going in there.”

“Oh yes the fuck we are,” she says. Her heart beats faster.

“Jen,” Marc begins, “let’s just get home.”

“You’re telling me you don’t want to know where that goes?”

“I’m telling you that’s how people die,” Marc says, monotone.

She ignores them and steps inside.

Anton and Marc sigh at each other and follow.

“FUCK,” Anton shrieks, “I swear to god something furry just touched my ankle.”

“Chill dude,” Marc starts to respond but then pauses. “What the fuck was that?”

She hears it too. A loud scrape.

They all stop breathing for a moment.

A sharp pop echoes.

Anton bolts towards the other end of the alley.

She and Marc look at each other and then race to follow.

“Wait!” She grabs Marc’s arm.

Light spills across the pavement from a window set into the brick.

“Isn’t this building a bank?” Marc asks.

She doesn’t respond.

Beyond the glass, couples float around a ballroom. A long mahogany table stands at its center, crowded with champagne coupes and half-eaten plates. Women spin in beaded dresses, fringe moving on its own. Men in tuxedos, their hair slicked back. Along the walls, guests lift long cigarette holders to their mouths and laugh.

The scrape comes again. A chair being dragged from the table.

The pop. A champagne cork striking the ceiling.

She doesn’t know how she knows, but she’s sure: this is real. No one is holding a phone. Nothing looks rented or fake. It’s too accurate, the energy too jaunty.

Before she can get lost deeper in her thoughts, she hears Anton wail: “Come on, you guys!”

Reluctantly, she follows Marc to the other end of the alley, where Anton is pacing under a streetlamp.

“Did you see…” she starts to ask Marc.

“I did,” he interrupts.

They both turn to look back as Anton examines them quizzically. They see…a wall.

“Wait…how…” she whispers.

Marc gingerly reaches out to touch it. Solid. Bricks where there should be air.

No alley at all.