The Alcoholic - 4

"It's not my business," he thought to himself even as he stepped back into the alley. He glanced back over his shoulder toward the busy sidewalk. Pedestrians streamed by, oblivious to the noise he had heard. Someone else heard it. She's okay. Need a drink, can't help. Rationalizations rattled through his mind, which was clearing slightly in reaction to adrenaline. Still he continued forward and in moments stood before the door and reached for the latch. He jerked his hand back when he touched it as if it burned. "What the hell am I doing?" he wondered. As if in response, the sound of sharp voices penetrated the door, the words indistinct. He could hear a woman's voice laced with panic, staccato bursts that brought the image of a trapped animal to his mind. He grabbed the door handle and slowly pulled, slipping into the darkness.

He faced a partition that formed a short corridor leading to his right. Light spilled into the space from a room past the partition. A woman desperately cried, "It can't be you! Y-you're dead! Stop, don't do this!"

He peaked around the corner of the partition into the room and took in the scene. The brunette lay near the far wall in a jumble of steel bins, a metal shelving rack on its side on which they had apparently been stacked. She looked up from the floor at a figure, her eyes flashing with panic, her body writhing backward but making no progress through the debris. The figure was the back of a man and he approached the woman, a large knife clutched in his right hand.

"Surprise sweetie," his deep voice rattled, the knife pointed at her.

Hands trembling, the drunk spotted a thick wooden dowel on the floor between him and the man, the furthest of several that were scattered from the direction of the toppled shelves. His mind went blank and he acted out of training and instinct that he had thought were long dead, drowned by the years of abuse. He strode forward, grabbed the dowel and raised it like a club. In a split second, the woman saw him and his presence registered on her face. The man stopped and began to turn. The club came down on the side of his head and he instantly dropped to the floor.

Time flowed once again. He stared down at the prone body, wondering if he'd killed the man. Apparently wondering herself, the woman crawled forward and touched his neck for a moment.

She looked up at her rescuer. "He's alive. Let's get the hell out of here."