I was only 17 or 18 at the time and working at Subway. Two guys came in and one of them took out a gun and fired a warning shot into the lighted menu over my head. I spun around and started running. There was a woman there also (28 or so), who I was working with and she didn't run. I was out the backdoor, scared to look back but also worried I'd run into accomplices (perhaps in a getaway vehicle). I hurried to the nearest safe spot with a phone I could find and called the police.

My co-worker's account after I left was that one guy said to the other "Go get him." But the door to the back room was locked. They asked where I'd gone and she told them probably out the back door. They were now feeling rather hurried and frightened themselves. They demanded the money from the register, but the armed guy had dislodged a button that unlocks the cash drawer when he slammed it with the butt of the gun for emphasis. In her terrified state, the woman couldn't figure out how to open it. With me already gone to get help and shit unraveling fast, they took off, firing one more wild shot that went into the wall.

Had I not run, who knows what would have happened to us both. They wouldn't have had to hurry and could have shot one of us and still had someone to open the register. Had she run with me, they might have simply leaped over the counter and tried to quickly force the register open. It's impossible to say what the outcome would have been. Things worked out because I ran. It wasn't a conscious decision though. I was heading out the back door before I even knew why I was running. You always feel a little shame in fleeing, but without that instinct of self-preservation, there might never have been a TaskmasterJack to share this story.