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  I lock eyes with him.

  Collis town? A homeless man can do well for himself in Collis town. Posh bars and restaurants line the streets and the staff who work in them won’t hesitate to throw away half-drunk bottles of wine or food that’s more than a day old.

  ‘So what’s he doing all the way out here with two bottles of whisky?’ I ask peeling myself from the wall. My joints are stiff. I roll my shoulders and tilt my head from side to side as if I’m warming up for a fight.

  ‘And he’s got a gun,’ Saul adds. He takes a deep quivering breath. ‘It’s inside his jacket pocket.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ I ask, my stomach clenching.

  ‘Asleep in the kitchen. He was pissed when he got here.’

  I rise to check on Tosh. The floorboards creak beneath my bare feet as I walk to the middle of the room where he lays, enfolded in four thick blankets. He looks cute. Baby cute. I crouch beside him and kiss him gently on the forehead. His forehead wrinkles at the touch of my lips and he murmurs something which sounds very much like my name.

  ‘What time is it?’ I ask, coiling a tuft of Tosh’s hair around my little finger.

  Saul rubs the face on the broken digital watch he wears on his wrist.

  ‘Night time,’ he replies.

  And I don’t remember having ever fallen asleep.

  ‘Did Mannis see the gun?’

  Saul shakes his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I saw it by accident, though I don’t think he meant to hide it. I don’t think he cares. I don’t like him Kate. He’s worse than Mannis, much worse I know it.’

  I sigh. I have the same awful feeling and I haven’t even set eyes on him yet. I reach across the floor for a pillow which I stuff under Tosh’s head.

  Saul gets to his feet. He takes up a piece of wood from the floor to cover the back window. Our windowpanes are either cracked, broken or non-existent.

  ‘Must be a runaway,’ he says. ‘He doesn’t look homeless to me.’ He stands with his back to the window. Gazing at me, he looks ghost-like. His skin is smooth, milky white. A faint dark line runs under each murky eye and his full lips are unexpectedly colourless in the glare of the torchlight.

  I bet Saul didn’t look homeless when he first set out on the streets.

  I stand stroking one side of my neck thoughtfully. ‘Must be a runaway with only two bottles,’ I say, more to myself than to Saul. ‘If he’s done a job, he’d have gotten away with more than two bottles.’

  ‘He probably has his stash hidden somewhere nearby,’ Saul replies, heightening my intrigue.

  He wanders to the door and throws it open. Light floods the hallway.

  The kitchen lies directly opposite Our Room.

  Saul stares fearfully at the closed kitchen door. He likes to sleep in the kitchen corner right next to the iron stove. Saul likes corners.

  I can hear Mannis’s laughter and Dock’s slurred speech coming from behind the door. I picture Mannis cracking open the whisky or the ‘Good Stuff’ as he likes to call it and swigging it straight from the bottle.

  The door creaks open slightly. The stench of stale alcohol, sweat and tobacco drifts into the hall briefly filling my nostrils.

  I gently close Our Room door. ‘You can sleep with us tonight,’ I tell Saul.

  I know how Mannis behaves when he’s had a bit to drink; Saul is likely to get a beating.

  ‘You sure?’ he asks, hunching his shoulders.

  ‘Yeah sure, I’m sure,’ I say, trying to sound light-hearted. ‘I don’t think we’ll be getting much sleep with the racket they’re making.’

  All I can think about is Ellie and the stranger in the kitchen with the gun.

  Saul drags a flannel sheet to the corner nearest the door. He sits down cross-legged and tugs the sheet around him. Something tells me he won’t be sleeping much tonight.

  I climb in next to Tosh and put my arm around him. I imagine myself waiting until everyone is asleep and taking the gun from Rick’s pocket.

  Saul’s voice snaps me out of my wild thoughts.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘You won’t do anything stupid will you?’

  ‘No, course not,’ I say, rolling over and punching my pillow.

  ‘And Kate?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m really sorry about your sister.’

  ‘I know.’

  I close my eyes before he can say another word.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  The Forbidden Room

  The batteries in the torchlight are fading.

  I wake twice in the night and stare into the semi-darkness. The first time I wake to the sound of a child crying. It sounds like Ellie’s cry. Mannis couldn’t abide Ellie coughing, and her crying used to drive him mad. Her cry was like a wailing siren with a bad case of flu; well that’s what mum used to say.

  The truth was Ellie seldom cried. In the end, she stopped crying altogether.

  A stupid thought crosses my mind. Ellie will be cold without her blanket. She should have been wrapped in her pink blanket, not some old sheet. Why had I let Mannis take her out without her blanket? I feel a sudden bitterness towards him. He didn’t let me help her. He waited for her to die. One less mouth to feed and no more Wailing Siren, I bet that’s what he thought. He should have done something. He was a grown up.

  I lift my head from the pillow and look over at Saul. I can’t see his face, his head’s hung low. He resembles a bundle of old rags.

  Tosh stirs and nuzzles against me. I drift off to sleep again.

  The second time, I wake with a start. I hear clattering. Something has fallen in one of the other rooms. That’s not unusual. Our bungalow is falling to pieces and it’s full of junk. All the same, I pull on my scuffed trainers and go to investigate, reaching for the torch at the foot of the door on my way out.

  Tiptoeing lightly, I make a right turn into the long passage that leads from the front door. The floorboards creak under my feet.

  I pass junk room after junk room, listening to the mice squeak and scratch. It’s their home as well. And spiders live here, big fat ones, the size of my fist.

  Dock’s growling snores chase me down the hall.

  I stop and pause outside the Forbidden Room door. I once heard noises coming from this room and I’ve seen what’s in it: a yellow bloodstained sofa, sitting on a wooden platform.

  A few weeks ago, Mannis caught me sneaking into the room. He told me the floorboards were loose and to “Get out and stay out!”.

  All the rooms have loose planks. I think something happened in the Forbidden Room Mannis doesn’t want me to know about.

  I return to Our Room. I drop the torch at the foot of the door and crawl back under the covers. The-heap-in-the corner-of-the-room-that-is-Saul has moved.

  ‘What are you doing Kate?’ he whispers. ‘You all right?’

  ‘I went to the toilet. Go back to sleep.’

  I don’t like him worrying about me all the time. I can take care of myself.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  Junk Kids

  I’m the first to wake in the morning. I’ve hardly slept. When I did sleep, I dreamt of shadows writhing across the cracked ceiling of the Forbidden Room and of the woodcutter, chopping down trees as if there were no tomorrow.

  I rise, slip on my trainers and saunter over to the back window, which is partially covered by a sheet of wood. I can still see the built up frost along the top pane.

  ‘Spring,’ I murmur and exhale a white mist.

  Tosh and Saul are sleeping soundly. I put a cable-knit jumper over the one I’m already wearing and set off up the passage to begin my morning ritual: viewing the bungalow’s many rooms.

  There’s so much junk in our bungalow that on each visit I spot something new, something I’ve never set eyes on before: a squashed blue ball, a green sweet wrapper, a broken vase.

  Mannis often talks about cleaning up the place and turning it into a proper home. I d
on’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.

  I can’t complain; the junk makes an interesting addition to our home.

  Tosh calls us the Junk Kids. We search for useful things: pieces of wood for burning, old sheets for draping, chalk for drawing and tattered books for reading.

  Sometimes, I think this place is far too big to be a real bungalow. There’re twelve rooms here, not counting Our Room, the kitchen and the washroom.

  Saul says the bungalow used to be a factory, but that must have been a very long time ago. It’s been a lot of things since then I think, judging by the assortment of junk. Plenty of people have lived here, died here and left their memories behind. I come to a halt outside the Forbidden Room.

  I want to go in.

  I don’t care what Mannis says, I’m going in. I’m psyching myself to turn the brass doorknob when I hear a yell from the kitchen.

  I sprint, not to the kitchen, but to Our Room to check on Tosh. He’s sitting up with sleep in his eyes. Frightened. Fresh tears run down his cheeks.

  Saul is gone.

  I put my finger to my lips. Quiet and stay, I tell him silently.

  I close the door and head for the kitchen.

  The kitchen door’s shut. I pause, take a deep breath and kick the bottom of the door, slamming it open. The sour smell of vomit takes me aback, forcing me to swallow hard. Dock’s lying in the corner mumbling to himself and rubbing his own puke into his clothes. Mannis is standing by the kitchen sink, the spider-veins on his cheeks aglow.

  The New One, Rick has Saul in a headlock. Saul’s leaning forward, coughing and spluttering. He’s turned a deep shade of red.

  ‘You let him go!’ I shout. My voice comes out all wrong. I sound hoarse.

  Rick’s not what I expect. He’s nice-looking, in his twenties, clean-cut and clean-shaven. He’s got short, wavy brown hair and deep blue eyes. Saul was right; he doesn’t look like a runaway. He looks like a rich boy from the city.

  Rick bares his white, pointy teeth in a wolfish grin and pushes Saul to the ground. Saul scurries like a mouse to his favourite corner beside the stove, shuffling against the iron surface he hopes will make him invisible.

  It won’t.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  Wolf

  Rick marches over to me, his long arms swinging. He’s confident. His smile is unwavering - nasty as it is. He towers over me like a wolf over a haunch of meat. There’s little more than two feet between us. I crane my neck to look up at his face. I see malice in those blue eyes. I see danger.

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ he asks. ‘I’m a sucker for a girl with brown eyes.’

  He winks at me and offers me his hand. I don’t take it. I can smell the stale whiskey on his warm breath. He’s wearing a navy-blue wool jacket over a crisp white shirt.

  The jacket with the gun.

  ‘Her name’s Kate,’ Mannis replies, rubbing one of his blurry eyes. ‘And you don’t touch her. You got that? She’s just a kid.’

  Rick puts up his hands defensively.

  ‘Just being friendly that’s all. Relative is she?’ he asks with a smirk.

  He’s well spoken - for a wolf.

  Mannis nurses his hangover by kneading his head with the back of his hand. Black and grey stubble cover his cheeks and chin. He’s wearing a dirty white vest with three gaping holes and the same horrible green corduroy trousers that he wore to bury my sister.

  ‘I was trying to get Solly here to rustle me up a bit of breakfast,’ Rick says to me. ‘Perhaps you’d like to do the honours Kate?’

  ‘Get your own bloody breakfast,’ I say, my tone good and sharp this time.

  Rick stiffens. The smile freezes on his face.

  Mannis glares at him. I realise he doesn’t want Rick here any more than I do.

  ‘You keep away from her or I’ll swear you’ll be sorry.’ Mannis warns him again.

  Rick’s lips curl. ‘You want to teach her some manners then, hadn’t you?’ he snarls.

  Mannis’s nostrils flare. He could flatten Rick with his belly if he wanted to. So why doesn’t he? Unless he’s seen the gun.

  ‘Saul, take Dock out front and stick his head in the trough,’ Mannis says, waving a hand at Dock, who in his effort to stand has slumped even further down the wall, licking his own drool from his chapped lips.

  Saul doesn’t need telling twice. He’s used to vomit duty, dump duty and piss duty. Saul helps Dock to his feet and together they stagger outside. Dock grumbles and scrunches up his pinched, scrawny face.

  And then there were three.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  And Then There Were Three

  Mannis reaches for his tobacco papers. His hands are shaking. ‘Get me a light!’ He shouts at no one in particular.

  I fetch a box of matches from the top of the stove.

  ‘Here,’ I say holding the box out to him.

  He snatches it from me, and spreading the tobacco paper out on the kitchen draining broad, takes a pinch of tobacco from the tin and trickles it onto the paper. He gives me, from the corner of one bloodshot eye, a sly warning glance.

  He takes a long drag on the hand-rolled cigarette. ‘Kate, this is Rick,’ he says, ‘He’ll be staying here with us for a couple…for a while. He’s sound.’

  ‘How do you know he’s sound?’ I ask Mannis, keeping my back to Rick.

  Sometimes, I can read Mannis’s mind. Right now he’s telling me to shut-the-hell-up. ‘Bill and I go way back,’ Rick says. As if anyone was talking to him. ‘We used to work together. Isn’t that right Bill?’

  Mannis winces. He prefers to be called by his surname not his first name.

  Only Charlie, Mannis’s cousin calls him Bill, or William when he’s really annoyed with him.

  Rick saunters up to Mannis and claps him on the shoulder as if they’re old mates.

  White patches have broken out on Mannis’s face. He stares blindly at a cockroach scuttling across the floor towards him. His fat lips are pursed together.

  ‘Isn’t that right Bill?’ Rick repeats. He spies the cockroach and stamps on it with the heel of his polished shoe.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Mannis says, taking another few short drags on his cigarette and staring at the dead cockroach.

  ‘What about her?’ Rick says, regarding me coolly. ‘I’ll shift it quicker if -’ ‘No.’ Mannis glances up sharply. ‘You’ve got Saul and that’s all you’re getting, and don’t go bringing any of the rest of your gang up here either.’

  The door creaks open and Tosh wanders in, his eyes widening as they take in Rick’s height. He runs up to me. His arms encircle my waist. My hand grazes the top of his head thoughtlessly.

  I watch Rick’s expression darken. He whistles softly through his teeth and shakes his head.

  ‘You’re crazy Bill,’ he says. ‘Keeping a kid that young in a dump like this. What’s their story? What’s happened to their parents?’

  ‘No one’s looking for us,’ I declare. ‘We’re orphans.’

  Rick smiles at that. I can see he doesn’t believe me. I don’t care. We were here before him.

  ‘Okay, so I don’t take the girl,’ he tells Mannis. ‘She’ll probably end up chewing my ear off anyway. But I want Saul.’

  Mannis nods and blows out a lungful of air. The white patches on his face start to take on a pink tinge. ‘Kate, get Rick some breakfast.’

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I press my lips together and look from the smirking Rick to the blurry-eyed Mannis. Breakfast? What’s Mannis playing at? Why is he letting a wolf stay in our home?

  Taking Tosh’s arms from around my waist, I go to the dilapidated cupboard under the sink and take out a tin of chicken soup. From a drawer under the draining board, I take out a rusty tin opener. I hand them both to Rick-Man-Wolf.

  ‘There’s your soup,’ I’m tempted to say, ‘I hope you choke on it.’

  The Wolf puts one hand to his chest and howls with laughter. A
nd it is a howl, like a wolf’s howl with the occasional pig-grunt in between.

  ‘You should have stuck with me Bill,’ he says, the moment he’s caught his breath, ‘then you wouldn’t have ended up in this shit-hole.’

  He snatches the tin opener and the tin of soup from me and tosses them into the sink.

  I feel myself growing hot. Little beads of sweat break out on my neck and under my nose. ‘If it’s not good enough for you, then why don’t you clear off?’

  Rick’s expression grows dark again, his eyes fierce. He grits his teeth and clutches the draining board until his knuckles turn white. I get the feeling The Wolf is used to getting his own way. I wonder how long it will take for the two veins on either side of his temples to stop throbbing.

  ‘I’ll stay where I bloody well like,’ he growls. He releases his hands from the draining board and curls them into fists.

  My jaws work furiously; still, all words escape me. My instincts tell me I should be afraid, yet all I am capable of feeling right now is anger and frustration. It’s for Mannis to decide who stays and who goes.

  Rick turns to Tosh and ruffles his hair. Not one strand on Tosh’s head moves.

  ‘Get off me,’ he cries, pushing him away. He’s never shouted at a New One before, not in anger. This one’s a Wolf through and through, I think. Wolves have no morals. All they have are sharp teeth and sharper claws…the better to devour you with. The image of a little girl in a red cape flashes through my mind.

  Rick looks from Tosh to me and bursts out laughing. It’s his way of telling me that he doesn’t see us a threat. That’s a good thing. That means he’ll leave us alone.

  ‘I’m eight,’ says Tosh with an arch of his silky caterpillar eyebrows. ‘I’m not a baby. Don’t touch my hair.’

  Rick looks him up and down, his face relaxing into a half smile.

  Tosh has on an odd pair of trainers and is wearing his trousers inside out.

  ‘You can at least tell me your name,’ Rick says.