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But tonight, something beckoned me into that alleyway; something told me it would be different and worth taking the risk.
With the football hooligans having made a pass through the town’s streets already, I was sure the dregs of society would have been scared off.
After all, no one liked to be confronted with the same violence they liked to dole out.
And so I turned and headed into the mouth of the alley.
It was deathly dark in there, more like a portal to another world than just shadows.
I clutched my coat closer to myself, glanced back at the mouth of the alley, the orange light of the street lamps like lanterns at the rim of the River Styx, and decided to push on.
The glowing light at the opposite end of the alley was only a few dozen feet away, I sensed no one else within that alley with me, so what was the harm?
I fortified my spirit and continued forward, keeping a close watchful eye on either side of me, my attention focused on the end.
The stink of urine hit my nostrils hard, causing me to slap a hand over my mouth and nose to block the worst of it, but it was too late.
It had already invaded my senses and made me gag.
I pushed forward to get past it, but as I scurried forward, the stink seemed to follow me — or maybe it just infected the whole alleyway, I wasn’t sure — and I suddenly found myself alert and awake.
And now that my senses were on full-beam, I wondered how I had allowed myself to do something so stupid as to come down this alleyway in the first place.
Suddenly, dozens of cases of attacks flashed in the forefront of my mind, one after another; attacks, muggings, even attempted murders… all had been carried out in this alleyway of evil.
You idiot, idiot, idiot!
I had repeated the same mistake the foolish football fans had — and left my senses at the door and let the lazy part of my brain make the decisions.
The part of the brain that told me it was okay not to exercise, that it was only to sleep in, that it was okay to do the bare minimum at work.
And now it had allowed me to come into this alley just to save twenty minutes?
I hurried my footsteps forward and made a b-line for the glowing orange of the exit ahead.
I was halfway through now, and if I kept going, if I could just keep up this pace, I would be there within two minutes.
The hard soles of my uncomfortable black shoes bounced back at me off the stained brick walls.
Clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack.
And it almost sounded as if someone were shadowing my every step.
I began to glance back, to look over my shoulder before thinking better of it.
Focus on getting out of that alley, and then I could look back all I wanted.
A dozen yards remained.
A dozen strides.
A dozen steps.
Clack-clack.
Clack-clack.
Cla-clack.
