I looked at Charlie, shocked. That was it -- time to leave. I turned, trying like hell -- well, not exactly like hell -- to appear larger, to leave the impression that I had a choice. My trenchcoat fluttered a bit, impotently. I opened my mouth to tell Charlie that my little vacation in this borderland was over.

Charlie's voice stopped me before I could work out the tone I wanted. "Bradley. Turn around. We have work to do." It wasn't his voice, but his Voice, and those weren't exactly the words that he pronounced.

I turned around slowly, feeling weak and hating myself for not being able to fight the Voice. Charlie was leaning against the wall of The Alley, examining his fingernails with a small, secretive sneer. He looked just like the first time I'd seen him, when I'd taken a shortcut on my way to work and never quite found my way out off The Alley. I couldn't believe I'd seen Charlie, junkie thin and too clean for a street kid, as my savior on that day. He'd been waiting for me, and he hadn't left my side since.

"Charlie, you know how I feel about all this-- I mean. I-- fuck. I can't go through with it." I was whining and pleading and I hated myself a little more with every word. Charlie took off the mirrored aviator sunglasses that made him look like an '80s television star, and his eyes briefly flared a deep orange, just to remind me of who -- no, what -- I was dealing with. Then he grinned.

"Oh, Brad, my man. You think you can just walk out of here now? When you couldn't even walk out the first day you wandered down here like a little lost kitten? That you even found The Alley means you were destined for this place." He flashed his grin again and put his sunglasses back on. "C'mon, Brad. Don't tell me you wanted to be an accountant for the rest of your life."

"No, I wanted to be a CFO, rake in the big bucks. Steal from the little people." I tried to sound ironic and detached.

"Word of advice, Bradley. Don't try to sound cool."

"Don't call me 'Bradley'."

Charlie turned to walk down The Alley, kicking at a pile of rags. I half-expected it to rise up and spout oracular nonsense, but it just scattered on the dark, greasy pavement. He looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow above the sunglasses. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my Hell-issued trenchcoat and slouched after him.

We walked along in silence for a bit, The Alley growing darker. I played the "where would I be now?" game in my head. It was after dinnertime, and I pictured myself in a warm pub, the bartender refilling my glass without needing to ask, and my friends clapping me on the back and congratulating me on some amazing feat of accounting. Hey, no one ever said the game had to be accurate or realistic. I glanced up, and Charlie was a step and a half ahead of me as usual, and as usual, he ignored me. It was, I had discovered, less easy for me to ignore him.

"You got the Key, Brad?"

I reached into the oversized pockets of my coat, and panic twisted around my bowels. "Uh." I unzipped the secret pockets that lined the inside of the coat, and ran my hands along the built-in leather sheaths, empty since I wasn't qualified to carry knives. Not even here. I fumbled frantically, patting myself down. I couldn't have lost it. "I-- I mean. It's here. I have it." I felt the hem of my coat, hoping it had just fallen inside the lining.

"Bradley." Charlie's voice was cold, as cold as I'd ever heard it. I swallowed hard to keep from vomiting on his exquisitely shined boots.

My knees almost buckled with the relief. "Here. And don't call me Bradley." I held out the carefully crushed and elaborately embossed Diet Coke with Lime can. Charlie merely looked at it.

"What're you handing it to me for?"

Oh. Right. I looked at the Key. And then back at Charlie. His sunglasses were off, and his eyes glowed softly. They looked like a campfire, ready for making s'mores. I wanted to tell ghost stories around his eyes, and pretend that all of this -- The Alley, the trenchcoat, the Diet Coke with Lime can -- that it was all just a tale made up for the amusement of some child. That I didn't actually know any children personally, and that I scared the ones I might have gotten to know, wasn't a hindrance. No one said the game needed to be true. I closed my eyes and thought of the cheery sort of fear that a good ghost story brings, and apple-cheeked children, and gooey melted marshmallows, and the lingering smell of woodsmoke. I took a deep breath and the brimstone brought me back to reality.

"Here you are then." Charlie gestured toward one of the innumerable and indistinguishable back doors that closed onto The Alley. I looked at the burnt-out bulb hanging from a rusted chain above the crumbling stone and concrete stoop.

"I--" I swallowed hard again, my bowels reclenching. "I think I don't really know what I'm supposed to do."

Charlie paused, and when he finally spoke, the words were measured and tightly controlled. He didn't use his Voice, but just his voice was enough to frighten me. "You've seen me do it enough times, and it's time for you to actually earn your keep."

"Yeah, bu--"

"So go on then." He waved in the direction of the door.

"Bu--"

"Bradley." His voice deepened into a low growl, and it wasn't actually 'Bradley' that he pronounced. I turned to the door. I had no choice.

"That wasn't fair." I flailed at the cobwebs surrounding the door.

"Hey, Brad, man" Charlie said, in his normal voice. "You've got a bug in your hair."

I pulled a clump of cobwebs and dead things from the top of my head, silently willing him to let me stop this.

"Ok, then." He nodded at me. "You're on your own. Good luck, man. Don't fuck up. See you in a few." And he vanished in a puff of orange-grey smoke. I held the Diet Coke with Lime can out toward the door, forming in my mind the incantations for transport back to the living world. Wait. I was on my own. Charlie wasn't looking over his shoulder at me. I. Was. On. My. Own. The words felt giddy in my brain, and they formed themselves in the almost-magic I had performed and danced merrily, Snoopy-like. I was on my own. I could find my way back out the way I came, and I would be free. I was a corporate accountant -- I knew a loophole when I saw one. I knew that I couldn't stay stuck here, in this back alley between hell and living worlds, and if I could retrace my steps, I'd be out. And free. On my own.

I stepped back off the stoop and into another strand of desiccated insect matter. I pulled it off and shook my hand like a cat shaking her paw in the snow. I turned back the way I'd come, only a week and a half ago. I wondered if the time in the living world had passed in the same way. I wondered if anyone had bothered to look for me, beyond making sure I hadn't overdosed on asthma medication in my apartment. I wanted to run, but I did not want to draw attention to myself. Charlie and I weren't the only, er, living things in The Alley, of course. I was afraid to walk too slowly as well, so I tried to embody Charlie's confidence, his absolute surety that he knew where he was going, and I moved as quickly as I dared.

"Back so soon, then, eh, Brad? You may have set a record for fastest rookie errand boy." Charlie was there, leaning against a doorway with his little sneer. I could've sworn nobody had been there. "You got it?" He gave me a cheery little nod.

"Oh, right. Uh."

"Brad, Brad." He shook his head mockingly. "You can't think we'd send you on your first solo mission unobserved? Especially when you've been so vocal about wanting to leave our lovely little world." He chuckled in that low Other voice. The one I couldn't ignore. "You're moving better, though. Your training is starting to sink in, I think. Finally."

I shrank back into myself. I'd been stupid, that was clear. "Ok, you got me." I forced a smile. "Back to the doorway. No, er, funny business this time."

"What did I tell you about trying to sound cool, Bradley? Just don't. You sound like a flippin' idgit."

"Don't call me Bradley," I said through clenched teeth.

He gestured at the doorway again. "I think I'll watch you go through this time." He grinned, and I shivered.

I took a breath of brimstone, pulled the cobwebs out of my hair for a third time, and formed the incantation. It glowed in my gray matter, and I held the Diet Coke with Lime can against the keyhole. The door swung open.

Onto a playground. I spun back around. "You're sending me after a kid? Oh, no, you're not." I caught a glimpse of Charlie before the doorway closed.

"Not a kid."

I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I wouldn't have to worry about a little brat screaming and running for his mum. Or, more likely, I thought, as I looked around, his nanny. This was the perfect storybook playground, with slides that spun in gentle circles for what looked like miles, and swings that, at the top of their arcs, would give a view of the distant harbor full of yachts with their perfect white billowing sails. The grass was perfect and green, and tulips swayed beside the teeter totters. I could not imagine a less likely place to collect my prey.

"Why, hello. You're new here, aren't you?" A woman appeared at my elbow. "A little warm for that coat, isn't it?"

"It is," I said. She looked at me expectantly. "Oh. Er. I'm not a flasher. Or, er. I mean." My face felt as if it would explode from eight pints of blood suddenly filling it.

She giggled prettily, and I noticed the small gap between her front teeth. I've always fallen for that sort of imperfection. I smiled shyly and stared at my feet, waiting for my blush to subside. "I was cold when I got up this morning." I hoped this wasn't an unreasonable thing to say. For all I knew it could be the middle of July here.

"I never thought you were a flasher. Do you have a child in the playgroup? I've never seen you here before." She tilted her head at me as if nothing could be more important than my response. I ached, realizing just how much I'd missed this sort of random encounter with an actual living person.

"Oh, no. I was just, um. Checking out the place. For my nephew. My sister's been looking for some place like this."

"Great! We'd love to have her. How close does she live? Would I have run into her and your nephew?"

Charlie was right. I was an idiot. I wasn't even sure what city I was in.

"She, uh. You know, I don't know the name of the street. Just how to get there, you know? It's pretty close to here, but they haven't lived in the neighborhood long. Divorce, you know." I tried to smile back at her.

The woman smiled her understanding. "Yes. I know," she said, and I felt a rush of warmth and good will. She brushed her fine, blonde bangs back from her face, and she smiled. At me. I blushed again, and then I understood.

"It's you," I said. It had never gone like this before. Prey was supposed to run away from the predator. The prey should never corner the predator, even when the predator was a mediocre accountant on an errand for hell. I was confused, and a little frightened.

"It is," she said. "It took you long enough to figure it out." Her smile twisted and the gap between her teeth lost its charm. I held out the Diet Coke with Lime can almost defensively, and, instead of disappearing into the vortex the Key should have opened, she chuckled, low and Other. "This isn't even a real place. You didn't notice? Who's doing your training? It's obviously not taking, and I need to find out -- is it that you're just stupid? Or does your trainer need a bit of a demotion?"

She took the Key from my hand and opened the door. There was barely a ripple in the wall between the realities, better even than Charlie's smooth openings. She made mine look like a fat kid's belly flops. I followed her, a step and a half behind, as she opened the door. A cobwebby glob caught on my face, and a moth flapped feebly against my ear. I swiped it away, and saw Charlie, staring, horrified. He sank to his knees.

"Charlie," she drawled. "I might have known it would be you."

"Loretta," Charlie said. He squeaked. His fear was contagious, and I sank down behind him, amidst the garbage and the grease and the blood.

"Do you have an explanation? You, my dear Charlie, are a case study in diminished expectations. It's a case that practically screams for the midgets." Those are the words I understood as she spoke, but they were not the words she pronounced. Charlie moaned incoherently, and his form shifted, disassembling into a pile of rags.