Rough Sleepers

by Nem Rowan

  "So you're saying that he was keeping you as a prisoner in the house, is that right?" Ceri glanced up at her briefly.

  "Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, I wanted to be there in the beginning. He said he'd treat me better than my parents did. He bought me all these nice things, and..." she trailed off. There was a glitter in her eyes and her cheeks had become pink with shyness.

  "Did Wallace have sex with you?" Ceri asked outright and I slapped my hand on my knee in protest.

  "You can't just go asking her insensitive questions like that!" I complained as I puffed a cloud of smoke out my nose.

  Ceri looked round at me, seeming alarmed by my raised voice. "I didn't mean it in an insensitive way. I mean, you said we should be frank with the girl."

  "Yeah, frank. Not brutally honest," I retorted, but then Christine interrupted.

  "No, it's okay Leon, it's...it's a good question," she reasoned, even though I could tell that it was a question she had been dreading.

  "So did you?" Ceri gently pushed me out of the conversation.

  "No, I didn't." She shook her head quickly. "He wasn't like that. He said he wanted a daughter, and he wasn't interested in me like that."

  Ceri glanced at Mecky and I. I shrugged and Mecky was blank faced.

  "Are you sure? Your mother told us he kissed you," he probed further, but Christine continued to shake her head.

  "Oh, don't listen to me mum. Wallace never kissed me on the mouth, he just kissed my cheek, in a nice way. To say goodbye, when I was going home. He called me his little girl, and he said he'd look after me and give me everything I wanted. But things changed when he took me back to the house. He kept me locked away. He thought I would try to escape," she told us. "At first, he just kept the doors and windows locked, but then he started to get paranoid, y'know? So then he chained me up in the bedroom and I couldn't leave, not even to go to the bathroom. He'd come up and bring me nice clothes and things to eat, and he'd talk to me about what I wanted to do when he was finished making a place for us to live."

  "Was there anyone else there? Anyone else he might have kidnapped or was keeping prisoner?" Ceri asked, this time not looking up as he continued to take notes.

  "No. Just me," she replied simply.

  "Can you take us there?" he inquired, and she shivered, her fingertips digging into the cushion resting on her lap. "You wouldn't have to go inside. Or you could stay behind, yere with Mecky."

  "No—no, I can come. I'll be all right. He's got all my stuff there, and well, I need some clothes." She perked up, but there was still hesitation in her eyes.

  "You stay in car with me," Mecky interjected as she tapped some ash into the tray on the table between us. Christine nodded in agreement.

  Ceri looked across at me, and I knew what he was going to say.

  We all piled into the car and this time, Mecky was the driver; it was her car, after all. Christine sat in the front with her, and Ceri and I took the backseat. He looked so stern with contemplation, and while we idled in the traffic, I glanced across at him, observing first his severe expression then allowing my eyes to trail down to his hands resting on his knees. I could see the shape under the crotch of his jeans. I looked away quickly, telling myself to stop being such a tart. It was only because of the others that I held myself back; if I wanted him, I would take him, simple as. I wasn't the sort of person who beat around the bush lots of times unless beating around the bush was what I wanted to do.

  Or, at least that's what I was telling myself as I watched the cars passing by on the opposite side of the road. I was also nervous about what might happen when we arrived at our destination; what if we were attacked? Ceri was human, and that meant he was fragile and could get snapped in half like a twig. He could die. I figured I would have to protect him if necessary. He probably wouldn't have liked to know that that was what I planned to do; he was the sort of man who didn't like having help from other people.

  The journey to the other side of town was a long one, and even with the radio on, we were all bored because the traffic seemed bad and the roads were busy. It was only when we reached the area where the house was that everyone really perked up and the atmosphere in the car changed from dreariness to anxious excitement. We were on the other side of the forest, in an area generally regarded as being quite well off, especially compared to where I had originated from, and so we were all quite surprised since Wallace had been jumping from council tenancy to council tenancy.

  "It's that one, there." Christine pointed to the house through the windscreen as Mecky pulled up at the side of the road.

  Ceri and I peered through the gap between the front seats so that we could get a better look, our eyes opening wide with surprise. The house was uniform amongst the other houses that lined the street, with the white exterior cladding and a garage door in the wall of the ground floor. There was no front garden, only a concrete driveway, and the wooden front door was painted green. As it was the end of a terrace, a rickety wooden gate section off the rear of the house from the front, providing little in the way of security from intruders. But then again, who would be dumb enough to break into a werewolf's house? Well, we were, for a start.

  Ceri and I climbed out of the car, the wintery air causing us to shiver and do our coats right up to our throats. I had no idea what we were to do next, so I let Ceri take the lead, following him along the pavement towards the front garden. Immediately, I smelled the eyewatering stink of a male werewolf's scent-marking around the open driveway in various places, a warning for others to stay away, but Ceri didn't seem to pick up on it. I decided not to mention it; I didn't want to tempt him into peeing on the driveway, too. He glanced at me hesitantly as we approached the front door. I eyed him with caution, then shrugged.

  "Why don't you knock?" I suggested.

  "You think he'd just open the door to us?" He smiled cynically.

  "Well his number was in the phone book. Stranger things have happened. Look, I'll do it." I moved past him and lifted the plain brass knocker before giving it an abrupt tap. We fell silent and I listened intently for any movement inside, but there was nothing. I could smell lots of other scents around the doorway, but they were so thickly clustered that it was hard to tell them apart.

  "I don't think anyone is home," he whispered, and I nodded in agreement.

  "So what now?"

  "We'll try a different approach." Ceri winked as he moved towards the side gate. I watched as he put his arm through the bars and lifted the latch on the other side.

  "Wait, let me go first." I hurried to his side. He looked at me confusedly, but still he moved aside to let me enter the gate ahead of him.

  "You don't have to protect me, Leon," he remarked as he followed me through onto the flagstone path between the property's external wall and the brick wall of the house. Hanging baskets of frozen, rotting plants hung from brackets over our heads and they creaked in the breeze.

  "As if I'd want to protect a scruff like you," I retorted, and I heard him chuckle.

  The back garden was nothing but a closely cropped lawn with a decrepit tree standing in the middle of it. A clear plastic canopy provided shelter over the back doorstep and the small patio, supported by metal beams cemented into the ground below. We found our way to the back door, which after closer inspection we discovered was also locked, but then Ceri noticed that one of the windows was open on the middle floor.

  "Look, footprints." He pointed up at the roof over our heads and I saw the foot-shaped marks in the frost above. "That must have been where Christine climbed down. Come on, I'll give you a foot up and you can pull me up."

  "Are you sure that's gonna take our weight?" I stared at him with uncertainty.

  "Only one way to find out. Come on now." He gestured with his chin as he threaded his fingers together so that I could use his hands as a step.

  Grumbling, I hitched my trainer into his hands and with a gasp, he hauled me up towards the edge of the canopy where I struggled onto the icy surface
until I was able to get onto my knees. I wiped clumps of ice from my coat before laying down on my front and offering my outstretched hand to him. I could feel the structure bowing unhappily underneath me, but I chose to ignore it. Ceri was heavy, but I was strong, and in one effortful motion, I pulled him clear off the ground and dragged him up onto the roof beside me.

  "Wow, you're stronger than you look." He grinned as he dusted snow off the front of his jacket.

  "Does the thought of a strong, independent woman frighten you?"

  "Not at all. Those are my favourite kind." He smiled as we both shuffled towards the open window.

  Breathing deeply with trepidation, we peered through the glass into the dim room beyond. It was a large living room area, or at least it would have been if there had been any furniture in it. The tatty 1960s wallpaper was peeling, and the patterned carpet was so faded that it had barely any colour left in it. In the far corner was a plastic crate turned upside down, and beside it was a mountain of cigarette butts and spent matches. Ceri pulled the window pane towards himself, carefully drawing it wider so it would be open enough for us to climb through, and then he slowly stretched a leg in over the window sill. Debris on the carpet cracked under his boot. I followed behind him, and we stood and observed the empty room, while I listened for any movement within. It seemed the house was empty. Ceri crossed the room and opened the only door, his breath puffing from his open mouth. His nose had turned very red in the cold.

  "The hallway. Let's check out the rest of the house," he urged as he turned to leave the room.

  I hurried to his side and together we stepped out into the dark hallway. Bare floorboards groaned under our feet and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling swayed in the wind currents created by our movement. We were on the middle floor, and to the right was the doorway to the sparsely decorated kitchen, which looked as if it had been used fairly recently. Ceri headed for the stairs though, gazing up them with caution as he took the first step, both of us tense with fear should anyone materialise. On the top floor, we were met with three different doorways, two of which were closed. The furthest one, which I assumed lead to the bedroom at the rear of the house, was badly damaged and had gouges in it through which light was shining. Ceri opened the first door and peered in, only to grunt and close it again.

  "Empty," he remarked before going to the second one. "Why don't you go and check out the other room?"

  "All right," I replied as I moved past him and reached out to push the door ajar.

  I poked my head round the corner and discovered Christine's prison cell. A heavy chain bolted to the wall trailed across the floorboards, and a mattress was pushed up into the corner by the window, heaped with cushions and a thick duvet cover, all of which looked brand new. In the corner closest to me was a bucket that from the smell alone I knew had been used as a toilet. By the bed, there was a backpack and a pile of folded clothes and a few other things, a large teddy bear and a small FM radio. Built-in wardrobes took up one of the walls, and a couple of the doors were smashed in and covered in claw marks.

  I could sense the stink of a werewolf here, the scent of Wallace that I recognised even after several months without any contact, and it caused a churning sensation in my belly that made me concerned that I might be sick. I covered my mouth, and as I ducked back into the hallway, I heard sudden movement downstairs, my ears immediately distracted by it. I also picked up on the sound of Mecky's voice, and I realised she was calling for us. Someone else was down there and they were getting away. I fled along the hallway, rushing past Ceri, who emerged from the other room with a baffled look on his face only to watch me darting away down the stairwell. As I hurtled towards the middle floor, I heard the front door opening and then slamming shut, Mecky's shouting becoming momentarily decipherable only to become muffled again.

  When I reached the ground floor, I struggled to get the door open in my panic. As I finally made it out onto the front path, I found Mecky slumped against the side of the car, and as I approached, Christine's head slowly emerged from behind one of the seats, an expression of terror on her elfin features. I didn't stop to ask what had happened; I spotted the shape of a person running down the road away from us, so I turned and took chase. Several seconds later, I heard footfalls behind me, and sure enough, Mecky had caught up.

  "Are you okay!" I shouted at her as she loped alongside me.

  "Dobrze! We catch him! You see!" she pointed down the road.

  I could see that it was a man as it was quite tall, but it was hard to make out whether it was Wallace or not as he had the hood of his jumper pulled up, his jacket zipped up tight and gloves on his hands. The speed at which he was running made me believe that he wasn't human. Mecky was faster than me and took the lead by a couple of feet, but I wasn't unfit myself and managed to keep up with ease. Our prey turned the corner suddenly and we changed direction, following him away from the main road and down a long gravel lane behind the houses on the other side of the block. The icy air burned my cheeks and my eyes watered; it was worse than being on a motorcycle without a helmet. Even though we were potentially chasing our attacker, there was something thrilling about running alongside Mecky, something primeval that caused a thrill for the beast in me. Maybe it was the same sort of feeling a pack of wolves in the wild had when running as one, a united force. Seeing Mecky's lithe, flowing body moving gracefully before me made me appreciate how powerful she was.

  The stranger stopped ahead and began climbing a metal fence that separated the lane from a field, and by the time we reached it, he had made it across and was escaping over the frosty lawn that stretched out towards the woods. I helped Mecky up and we hauled ourselves over, both landing with a thud on the frozen mud below before we took chase again. When we reached the trees, the man was out of sight. I breathed deeply, sucking his scent in to identify where he was going, and Mecky and I both pointed simultaneously as we had come to the same conclusion. She allowed me to navigate through the frost-covered trees as my sense of smell was stronger than hers, but soon it became clear that we had lost our quarry.

  "Bastard. Where he is gone?" Mecky panted as we stumbled to a halt. Surrounded by trees, I began to wonder if we had gotten ourselves lost.

  "I dunno. I can't smell him anymore. Can you?" I puffed, wiping my nose in the sleeve of my coat as I turned to look at her. Her hair was wind tossed and her cheeks were glowing.

  "No. No smell." she shook her head.

  "We should get back to Ceri. I'm worried we did a stupid thing and left him and Christine. Could have been a trap, ya know?" I sighed as I rested my hand on my hip and caught my breath.

  "I am not thinking of trap." Mecky seemed worried as we turned and began walking back the way we had come.

  "Don't worry, I'm sure it's fine." I waved my hand dismissively. "Ceri is pretty tough."

  *~*~*

  Ceri and Christine were waiting outside the house when we returned, and they waved to us as we came marching along the road towards them. After we had climbed the fence back into the lane, Mecky reached out and took hold of my hand, startling me so much that I had near enough jumped away from her, which caused her to giggle and grin at me.

  "We are making good team, eh?" she smiled, and I saw the little glint in her eye that told me she had been thinking the exact same thing as me when we had run together. The warmth of her fingers round mine helped ease the pain in my fingertips that the cold was causing. The cold always seemed to bite into me; it didn't matter that I was immortal. Mecky wasn't affected though, and she pulled me along, refusing to leave me behind. When we reached the house, Mecky paused to explain what had happened and that we had lost track of the stranger, who we both believed was not in fact Wallace Reed, but somebody else. Another werewolf, perhaps.

  "I hope it's not another one. That's the last thing we need right now is Wallace Reed having himself an accomplice. I don't know for sure if killing Wallace would undo any curses his progeny have. I don't know if you guys bit someone that killing
him would undo your victims as well." Ceri spoke as we followed him towards the open front door. "Only one way to find out, I suppose."

  "We kill all werewolf. No compromise," Mecky replied determinedly.

  "That's not fair though, really," Christine interrupted, standing beside us in the hallway as I closed the front door behind us. Even the air inside the house was chilly.

  "Life's not fair," Ceri said as he turned and began climbing the stairs. "You'll figure that out soon enough, kid."

  Christine glanced at me with resignation in her eyes. She seemed upset by what Ceri had said; I figured that she was just sensitive considering her age. Either that or Ceri and I had become miserable killjoys. Mecky, too.

  "Don't listen to him," I whispered to her as I put my arm round her shoulders and gave her a gentle hug. "Come on, let's go get your stuff from upstairs."

  She sighed as she began to climb the stairs ahead of me. Mecky was walking around the ground floor and as we left her behind, she opened the under-stairs cupboard to have a nose. Ceri had already gone to the top and I could hear him rifling through paper; when we reached the bedroom he had been in before, I stopped at the doorway and looked in to find him crouched in the corner. Christine headed for the other room, seeming apprehensive about being around him at the moment. The room he was in was devoid of furniture except for another bare mattress, and there was a pile of documents and envelopes heaped by the wall where Ceri knelt.

  Tacked to the wall above him was one of the flyers from The Murderess Club; I spotted the neon writing in a split-second. My eyes lit up when I saw it and I hurried over, reaching to pull out the pin and take down the dog-eared piece of paper. There was a photo of me on the front in one of my Mardi Gras outfits, a huge plume of feathers splaying from the headdress and my body clad in a glittering, shimmering dress of rainbows. I looked young, happy. A couple of queens that had been my friends were either side of me in the photo, all of them dressed up and cheering.