Heroic Measures (continued)

The faint yellowish-white glow returned. It seemed to shift and pulse, as if it were underwater.

A strange place for a window, Walter thought to himself. Unless you really enjoy the view of brick walls.

It then occurred to him it might not be just a window. It was perfectly logical for a door that led into that alleyway to have a window in it. Despite its questionable view, there were several good reasons why someone might want one.

The dim glow had faded. Walter raised the flashlight again. Very slowly, he moved its beam along the wall. He paused several times, not wanting to accidentally shine it into the presumed window and alert whoever might be inside to his presence.

He found the door after a few more minutes of careful and methodical searching. It appeared to be metal and slightly wider than most doors Walter had seen.

For deliveries, maybe?

Walter looked at each entrance to the alleyway and decided that it was too narrow for a delivery truck of any significant size makes it was through. He turned back and aimed the flashlight toward the door again. It took him a moment to find it, but there it was. From where he stood, he could not tell whether or not it had a lock, but he guessed that it almost certainly would have one. The only way to know for sure, he decided, was to take a closer look at it himself.

He stepped into the alleyway, slowing occasionally to see what lie ahead in his path. While he had not seen any rats or other rodents scurry away under the beam of the flashlight, that did not mean that they were not there. He really wanted to avoid stepping on one and killing it. Or, even worse yet, one that had not been alive for some time. Even the notion of such an encounter made him feel queasy.

There was plenty of debris underfoot to provide one with cover. Some of the stacks, consisting of what appeared to be crushed cardboard boxes, were large enough to house entire nurseries of the critters. That did not bring Walter much in the way of comfort either.