Excerpt: Drifting

Even in the overwhelming darkness, Mikhail could sense he was in there alone. There was no rustle of movement from whoever had locked the door before him creeping out of hiding, and he sensed no breathing, as if anyone could sleep through the racket he had just been making. Whoever had locked the door must not have made it back, or cared enough to put so much effort into getting back into the garage just for a place to sleep.

Mike's eyes quickly began to adjust to the dark, and in a few minutes he was able to take in his surroundings. The garage hadn't changed much since the last time he had been there. A stack of boxes shoved up against the back wall formed the shape of stairs leading up to the ceiling, and someone had spray painted the words "STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN" on the front; one of the boxes, a storage container full of kitchen utensils, sat in the middle of the garage, and formed a table and a box full of cookers for the junkies to use. Hanging from the ceiling was a long, red string that led to an empty light socket, the lightbulb from which had been taken out and broken by a Russian man Mike remembered watching try to kill himself in a dark, frenzied high. He hadn't tried to stop him. If he succeeded, then he got what he wanted, but he doubted he was going to succeed in slitting his wrists deep enough to kill himself with the shards of a broken lightbulb.

Then again, after that night, Mikhail hadn't seen that man again. Maybe he had succeeded — if not there, then another place, another time, another method. In a morbidly optimistic way, Mike hoped he had. Someone in this world should get what they wanted.