ROUGH DRAFT

Snow was falling again, and it took Nick Cotton twenty minutes to get to his apartment complex. He saw Guy Douglas stumbling out of a car.

There was definitely something wrong with Douglas. He staggered, fell against the fender of another car, and gradually straightened himself. Nick’s first thought was that the man might be drunk.

Douglas came closer, moving unsteadily, his overcoat open in front, revealing a dark shirt, his arms dangling. In the dim lighting Nick watched him stagger again.

Then he smelled something, and it wasn’t liquor. It came back to him from his MP army days..

Douglas’s eyes were open, but staring and unblinking. He seemed to be looking past Nick, or through him. His knees buckled as Nick moved toward him.

Guy Douglas fell into Nick’s arms. Nick supported the man who no longer could support himself. There was a squishing sound when the man’s shirt pressed into Nick’s jacket. The shirt was sodden with blood, and that’s what gave it the darker color.