[15: The alleyway was darker than the hall. He stood and waited while his eyes
adjusted to the dark]

The door shut with a very final click. There always seemed to be something
about doors that stay locked that click differently than the ones you can go
right back through.

This one made him uneasy. The hall was a dark passageway through the rear of
the pub, smelling of old beer and must, and it hadn't been at all welcoming,
but the smells of the alleyway were worse, and the finality of the click of
the door left a small spot of dread in the pit of his stomach.

He tried to put it out of his mind, and he steadied himself and his stomach
against the combined onslaught of a trash-strewn alleyway and a full
dumpster of pub refuse.

Neither worked all that well, and he stumbled over a trashbag and nearly
lost the contents of his stomach.

This hadn't been one of his better nights. He'd lost a dozen bets in a row
playing darts with the lads up front early on, leaving him with hardly a
dime to pay the bar bill. He'd flashed enough cash then that the bartender
let him run up a hefty tab, and it was starting to get close enough to
closing time that the bill might come due if he went for another drink.

He didn't need another drink, anyway. He'd lost count of how many he'd put
away a long time past, and that was never a good sign.

So, wallet empty, he'd slipped out the door in the back of the pub,
left unlocked from the inside, either carelessly or because the fire marshal
had done inspections recently and cited them for having only a single exit
in case of fire. In either case, it worked somewhat to his advantage, in
that he could be well out of the building and on his way home before the
bartender noticed he wasn't in the small crowd anymore, and before closing
time brough the bar bill to bear.

On second thought, though, he decided that the alleyway might be worse than
owing on a bar bill late at night. It was nearly pitch black out, the snow
that was now falling blotted out the little starlight that had been there on
his way into the pub, and there wasn't so much as a lit window to give
light. He stumbled, tripping on another black bag full of waste in the black
alley. Even the snow didn't add enough contrast to see the bags, strewn
about like landmines.

He stumbled out, after stepping in a couple sticky places he didn't want to
imagine with his leaky boots, and shivered as the grungy, cold and wet
seeped into his shoes.

He smelled coal smoke, not surprising for this time of year. By spring, the
snow would be piled waist deep in this alleyway, and covered in a thick
black layer of grunge, coal cinders and dust.

Such is life in a city like this. Factories and abandoned industrial
buildings, and a fair number of people like him -- content to drink most of
their money, and willing to drift if they ran out.

He strode out of the alley and into the dim light of the narrow street. A
streetlight flickered on, then off again, giving just enough clear view to
know which way to go. He trudged uphill, following the winding road as it
curved, then back downhill to a row of warehouses, abandoned long enough
that the windows had been boarded up twice without the warehouse being
occupied inbetween. At least officially. The boards over the windows were
quickly torn out again, and then left only looking like they were attached.
He found the third window and gave a tug at the corner of the wood covering
it.

A little boost, made only slightly difficult by the snow on the ground, and
he could climb in through the crack.

The air inside wasn't much warmer than the outside, but it was dry, and it
didn't smell quite as bad as the alley had.

Inside, old crates and packing material had been hoarded by the various
residents to make little shelters inside the open spaces of the warehouse.
He was glad it was an old warehouse, the kind with low ceilings and many
floors, rather than a gaping void of black space inside. It kept someone
from coming in and making it suit them for their commercial purposes quite
so easily, especially since there were so many other buildings to pick that
were easier to exploit for the project of the moment.

This one had been vacant since the moving company had gone bankrupt, leaving
packing materials everywhere, and even a few trailers near the loading
docks. Those had been converted first, making dandy residences for someone
down and out. They'd been taken long before he got there, and he wasn't
about to put much effort into making the friends he'd have to to score such
a pad. He was content with his space, a cubicle of crates and blankets
tucked into a corner on the second floor where a freight elevator had been
years before. It didn't echo so much as the lower floor, and he could get a
good night's sleep.