the homeless

 He hauled her out into the dark alleyway and slammed the door shut.  "Go on, babycakes.  You free t' go."  he said with same snicker and chortle.  Autumn held his gaze warily for a few seconds, and slowly looked down the dark, steamy alley.  She hesitated a moment, and made her way into the steam, into the dark.  He just laughed and chortled.  She heard him dial someone on a cellphone, but couldn't hear the words...

 Autumn stumbled down the alleyway; the groans of the **** addicted, the winos, and poor echoing thoughout the corridor of brick and sweat and dark.  She crossed her  arms over her chest.  Four blocks ahead, she saw traffic vaguely through the steam.  Autumn bit her lip, and picked up her pace.

 Something hard hit her shin.  She didn't know whether someone had hit her or if she had tripped.  She went down onto the cool, wet pavement.  She took a couple deep breathes, and looked back to see him standing there.  

 He was in rags.  A tattered army jacket, tweed pants stained from a thousand sources, and old worn out sneakers with no socks.  He hadn't shaved in weeks, and she could smell the Thunderbird wine stench of him from ten feet away.  Another man, just like him except for the brand names, stood up beside her from a the cover of a dumpster she just walked passed.  He held a broken pool cue in his hand, and she was sure that that was what she had tripped over.

 Autumn held her breath and scooted along the concrete away from them, at least until her back hit the legs of a third bum and she was stopped dead in her tracks, three blocks from a major street.

 It might as well have been three miles.