Angel of The Night by Logan Tanner

Midwest at ShopStyle




Angel of the Night
By Logan Tanner


As I passed the ally, I saw a glint of light out of the corner of my eye that caught my attention. It had stopped raining hours ago but the ground and surrounding buildings still had a murky wet glow in the evening light. This glint of light though was different. It was slow and organic. Not like a wet plastic bag being drug by the wind or a rusty ally door swinging open to take the trash out. It was slow and almost human.


As I stopped and peered down the dimly lit alley, I caught the reflection of what seemed like one and a half eyes looking back at me. I should have been scared, petrified even, but for some reason I wasn’t. I turned and started walking down the alley, loudly and boldly asking hello as I approached.
It wasn’t long before I was staring down at what appeared to be a woman. I crouched slightly in surprise and asked if she was alright.
“Hello? Are you OK,” I asked. “Can you hear me?”
I could tell by the way her face turned towards me that she had, but when she opened her mouth, a gurgle of blood trickled out and ran down her face and into her ear. It didn’t seem to me that she was attempting to talk, but simply purging her mouth of the blood that had apparently been building up.
I looked around nervously, wondering if someone else had seen this, or possibly, if someone else was seeing me see this. I looked down the alley fruitlessly, half wanting to see who did this and half not. Being an avid fan of the cinema and made-for-TV dramas, I also had a slight worry that I would be mistaken as the perpetrator of this vicious act. It happens all the time on TV.
She was splayed out, half buried in a manger of wet, black garbage bags and reams of old newspaper. Her head was cocked back, resting on the pavement and a halo of blood had formed around her head in a near perfect circle. I paused for a moment and thought of her as some kind of saint. An angel fallen from heaven who’d missed her mark. As I peeled back the bags and paper though, my misjudgment became clear: fishnet stockings, a purple-mini skirt, one clear-heeled stiletto and a fake Coach purse with it's faux gold-chained strap wrapped firmly around her neck. I could see the impression of the links in her skin as I cleared some room around her head, causing the chain to slacken a bit.
“Ma’am,” I told her as if she comprehended, “I’m calling the police and we’ll get you out of her as soon as we can.”
I hadn’t referred to someone as a ma’am since I was a Boy Scout. I found it odd that I had just used it now to address what appeared to be a half-dead prostitute, lying broken, bloody and speechless in a wet back alley.
“I’ll stay with you until they get here,” I said, pushing my tangential thoughts aside and pulling out my cell phone. This was weird and probably a little dangerous. But for me, I felt some kind of safety being here with her. I felt needed for the first time in a long time. And for that, I’d stay with her for as long as it took.

http://logantanner.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-i-think-i-might-be-evil.html