Brian Murray stumbled over the curb, nearly dropping the bottle of bottom-shelf vodka. Through luck, or perhaps the grace and agility only the staggeringly drunk could manage, he was able to both stay upright and keep hold of the bottle.

His worn boots scuffed against the macadam as he stumbled into the dark alley. His alley. Brian had been living in it for the better part of three months—the longest he had stayed in any place since he’d gotten out of jail two years earlier. The alley wasn’t much, but its narrow walls kept the worst of the biting wind off him, and only one of the adjacent buildings was open for business, so there was very light foot traffic. The other businesses in the small shopping mall Brian called temporary home, a knitting store and a thrift shop, were shuttered for the evening.

It had been a long day, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep until the inevitable thirst came over him again. Memories of the day slogged through the morass of his mind, causing him to chuckle. His breath was so laden with fumes it could peel paint.

Long day, but good.

He collected enough money to not only buy two bottles of good booze—“good” being loosely applied—but to also to buy the company of a lady—“lady” also being loosely applied. It’d been far too long since he’d been with a woman. Longer than Brian wanted to admit even to himself.

The trip from the mouth of the alley seemed longer than usual that night, but he finally made it home. A small fort constructed of flattened cardboard boxes, milk crates, and empty pallets.

On his hands and knees, he scuttled through the entrance curtained by a ratty old tarp he found in the dumpster. Propping himself on a pillow of flattened boxes, he drained the rest of the bottle. The vodka that didn’t end up in his beard flowed down his gullet and mixed pleasantly with the stew he’d eaten earlier.

A damn good day.

Brian pulled an assortment of coats and sweaters over himself. The same place he’d gotten the stew, the church on All Saints Street, distributed the coats, and he grabbed extra for just this purpose.

A flash of annoyance threatened to disrupt his contentment. He was grateful for the food and coats, but he could do without all the Bible-thumping he was subjected to at the church.

If it even was the Bible they were thumpin’. He didn’t pay close enough attention to know what kind of church it was. It seemed like they were always changing, anyways, so how could he keep up with it all? Though, it could have been his state of mind whenever he visited…

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Whatever the case, he could do without the constant offers of salvation. Some of his fellows on the streets took them up on their offer, and Brian never saw them again. He liked to think they got their lives together and moved on, but rumors abounded. Telling stories was one of their few pastimes, so there were some whoppers out there. Despite the pleasant warmth radiating from his belly, a shiver coursed through him.

A burp burbled its way up his throat, and he settled down into the pile of coats. Sleep came quickly. Two bottles of booze and an empty nutsack would do that to a man. The rip-roaring sound of his snoring rattled the lean-to within moments of his eyes shutting.

Ordinarily, the unseasonably warm evening and the stomach full of booze would let him sleep all night and wake up…if not rested then at least not feeling like the gum stuck underneath a bus stop bench.

But not that night.

Moments after his eyes closed, dark tendrils pushed up from the detritus of Brian’s nest. In the dark, it was impossible to discern color or any other detail. The alley was too narrow to catch the moon’s rays, and there were no streetlamps in that part of town.

The tendrils writhed ever closer toward the sleeping man like a weed seeking a source of water.

The thin veins brushed against his skin, and Brian giggled. In his vodka-soaked dreaming, it wasn’t pulsing black follicles caressing him but the hands of a certain overly perfumed companion.

As soon as the tendrils touched his skin, they wriggled faster, as a puppy does when it sees its dinner bowl. The thin tentacles slipped under Brian’s clothes and across his flesh, splitting off fresh shoots like tree roots, their touch as gentle as a whisper.

Within moments, Brian’s body was crisscrossed by the black filaments. The things ceased their motion, the only sound in the alley Brian’s deep, steady breathing.

Dark tendrils burrowed into his skin, delving deep to find the water and nutrients within. Brian’s shriek was loud and shrill, shattering the alley's silence, but it lasted only a moment. The wriggling vines around his chest constricted, and the air in his lungs gushed out like a bellows. They ratcheted down farther, and the last breath Brian took ended in a whimper.

He'd suffocate in mere moments. His extremities would go numb, and soon after, his brain would shut down as he slipped into unconsciousness, then death. Unfortunately, despite the agony, the human ambition to live, to persevere, kept Brian conscious and aware. His body screamed for mercy, for the nirvana of numbness, but the indomitable spirit of being human denied that blessing.

The jagged edges of Brian's new reality carved furrows into his psyche. He felt every twitch, every wriggle. Like a tree root finding an underground spring, the tendrils burrowed into his flesh and down into his veins. They grew as they fed, peeling his arteries like one would a banana. Each second of agony attenuated into eons.

The hideous veins pulsed as they sucked liquid life out of the homeless man’s body. They shuddered and throbbed with each slowing beat of his heart. Deeper, they burrowed, seeking the heat and the organs that housed Brian’s delicious life force. The snaking tendrils found his heart, then, like a root forcing its way through a sidewalk, they cracked his skull and tunneled into his brain.

Then, finally, Brian's body allowed him to succumb to oblivion.