yards ahead.
Odd, he thought. In his fantasies, he’d imagined finding the bleeder in an alley. What if it
Too much to hope for, he told himself.
But he felt a tremor of excitement as he entered the alley.
He shined his light from side to side, half expecting to find a beautiful woman slumped against one of the brick walls. He saw a couple of garbage bins, but nothing else.
She might be huddled down, concealed by one of the bins.
Byron stepped past them. Nobody there.
He considered lifting the lids, but decided against it. The things would stink. There might even be rats inside. If the bleeder was in one of them, he didn’t want to know.
Better not to find her at all.
This was supposed to be an adventure with a glorious and romantic outcome. It would just be too horrible if it ended with finding a body in the garbage.
He kept going.
Ten strides deeper into the alley, his pale beam fell upon another drop of blood.
‘Thank God,’ he muttered.
Of course, there were several more bins some distance ahead -dark boxes silhouetted by faint light where the alley ended at the next road.
Fiends
I’ll find her before then, Byron told himself.
Any minute, now.
A black cat sauntered across the alley. It glanced at him, eyes glowing like clear golden marbles.
Good thing I’m not superstitious, he thought, the back of his neck tingling.
‘If only you could talk,’ he said.
The cat wandered over to the right side of the alley. Back hunched, tail twitching, it rubbed its side against a door.
A door!
Byron tipped back his head and inspected the building. He thought that it might be an apartment house. Its brick wall was three stories high, with fire escapes at the windows of the upper floors. All the windows were dark.
He stepped toward the door. The cat leaped and darted past him.
He almost grabbed the knob before noticing that it was wet with blood.
A chill crept through him.
Maybe this isn’t such a great idea, he thought.
But he was so
Still, to enter a building where he didn’t belong…
This might very well be where the bleeder lived. Why had she entered from the alley, though, instead of using the front? Did she feel that she had to sneak in?
‘Strange,’ Byron muttered.
Maybe she simply wandered down the alley, lost and dazed, and entered this door in the hope of finding someone who would help her. Even now, she might be staggering down a hallway, too weak to call out.
Byron plucked a neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket, shook it open, and spread it over his left hand. He turned the knob.
With a quiet snick, the latch tongue retracted.
He eased the door open.
The beam of his flashlight probed the darkness of a narrow corridor. On the hardwood floor gleamed a dot of blood.
He stepped inside. The hot air smelled stale and musty. Pulling the door shut, he listened. Except for the pounding of his own heartbeat, he heard nothing.
His own apartment building, even at this hour, was nearly always filled with sounds: people arguing or laughing, doors slamming, voices from radios and televisions.
His building had lighted hallways.
Hallways that always smelled of food, often of liquor. Now and again, they were sweet with the lingering aromas of cheap perfume.
Nobody lives here, he suddenly thought.
He didn’t like that. Not at all.
He realized that he was holding his breath as he started forward. He walked slowly, setting each heel down and rolling the shoe forward to its toe. Sometimes, a board creaked under him.
He stopped at a corner where this bit of hallway met a long stretch of corridor. Leaning forward, he aimed his beam to the left. He saw no blood on the floor. His light reached only far enough down the narrow passage to reveal one door. That door stood open.
He knew that he should take a peek inside.
He didn’t want to.
Byron looked to the right. Not far away, a staircase rose toward the upper stories. Beyond that was a foyer and the front entrance.
He saw no blood on the floor in that direction.
I’ll check that way, first, he decided. He knew it would make more sense to go left, but heading toward the front seemed safer.
He turned the corner. After a few strides, he twisted around and checked behind him with the light. That long hallway made him very nervous. Especially the open door, though he couldn’t see it from here. Instead of turning his back on it, he began sidestepping.
He shined his light up and down the stairway. The balustrade flung crooked, shifting bars of shadow against the wall.
What if the blood goes up there?
He didn’t want to think about that.
He checked the floor ahead of him. Still, no blood. Coming to the foot of the stairs, he checked the newel cap and ran his light up the banister. No blood. Nor did he find any on the lower stairs. He could only see the tops of five, though. After that, they were above his eye level.
I don’t want to go up there, he thought.
He wanted to go up there even less than he wanted to search the far end of the hallway.
Sidestepping through the foyer, he made his way to the front door. He tried its handle. The door seemed frozen in place.
He noticed that his light was shining on a panel of mailboxes. His own building had a similar arrangement. But in his building, each box was labeled with a room number and name. No such labels here.
This came as no surprise to Byron. But his dread deepened.
I’ve come this far, he told himself. I’m not going to back out now.
Trembling, he stepped toward the stairway. He climbed one stair, then another. The muscles of his legs felt like warm jelly. He stopped. He swept his light across two higher treads that he hadn’t been able to see from the bottom. Still, no blood.
She didn’t go this way, he told himself.
If she did, she’s on her own.
I didn’t count on having to search an abandoned apartment house. That’d be stupid. God only knows who might be lurking in the empty rooms.
Byron backed down the stairs and hurried away, eager to reach the passage that would lead to the alley door.
He felt ashamed of himself for giving up.
Nobody will ever know.
But he hesitated when he came to the connecting hallway. He shone his light at the alley door. Twenty
