Trevor the butcher was a burly bear of a man. Although only standing at about six feet tall, he seemed massive, his shoulders wide, stacked from years of hard graft, and with hands like shovels, rough and weathered. Grim slate-grey eyes tucked under thick brows scanned The Gardens keenly for custom. A strip of cloth was wrapped around his forehead. It worked overtime to prevent the sweat pouring from his bald head from beading on the end of his sharp nose and free-falling onto the hot plate below.

He stood wide and imposed his wares on The Gardens. He bellowed over the bustle, and his gruff voice rumbled across the square, riding on the fragrant waves of greasy meat and fat sizzling from his hot plate. “Oiled rat skewers, salt ‘n’ pepper pigeon – two a coin. Fried rations, hot water – a penny.”

The damned rain wasn’t helping his trade, falling in sheets like volleys of arrows across the sky of an ancient battlefield. It was morning, and thick clouds and traffic smog stifled the city's dwellers, pressing down on them from above. They scurried from the cover of the towering hotel and crossed the tramlines towards the square. Coat collars and hoods yanked up around their faces did little to keep the biting chill at bay.

Trevor grumbled at the cold. At least his hands were warm. They rested inches above the plate of hot metal. Spats of oil leapt up and touched his skin, but the calluses of years etched into his rough palms were impenetrable. He eyed the bruised sky. The damned weather is monstrous, he scoffed. Over a decade ago, the seasons were a bland, never-ending cycle of mild. Bit chilly today, some stiff in a suit would say as he passed by with an insincere grimace. In these times, it was more than small talk; it was life or death.

Deep in thought, he idly flipped the pigeon meat on the hot plate below him. This was his penultimate batch, with the last one marinating in the box fridge to the rear of the kitchen. He would send Jude out for more when he got back from the Archway Squats, where he was delivering a salt ‘n’ pepper pigeon box.

The loud rattle of the generator powering his salvaged appliances was usually his primary source of headache. Today, it was his saving grace. He thanked it profusely as it chugged away and drowned out his wife's constant singing. She prattled around behind him, washing pots and pans. Lisa was a good woman, but her undying optimism drained even Trevor on a day like today. It was beyond bleak. He'd barely had enough custom to cover his running costs for weeks on end. Of course, he had money stashed for the rebels, but he wouldn’t dip into it and deprive the cause.

With a shiver, he urged on the warmth of spring. Seasons were nightmarish now, ten years on from the end of the old world. The city's infrastructure couldn’t handle winter, decimated and left to rot in the poverty-stricken slums. The gutters ran serpentine from the relentless, hard-driving rain. Angrily cascading torrents flowed between the cracked tarmac and pooled in swirls of murky brown swamp. Swells of plastic syringe shipwrecks floated in great puddles. They jutted out from the silt, and icebergs of putrid wet scrap floated by them, picked at by rabid carrion.

He rubbed his hands and raised his palms to his cheeks, pressing them down. “Oiled rat skewers, salt ‘n’ pepper pigeon – two a coin. Fried rations, hot water – a penny.”

A scatty Crochead staggered over and eyed the meat. He offered her a skewer for half-price, but she declined with a druggy mumble and trudged on.

“Can’t even give them away,” he grumbled. He dashed another squirt of oil onto the plate and eyed the crowd, hoping the fizz and hiss would attract custom. Not a sniff.

“Nobody biting today?” said Lisa as she appeared on his shoulder and wiped her wet hands on the back of his neck.

“Damn woman! I’ll catch a death. Get those hands off me.” He snatched the dirty dishcloth draped over her shoulder and furiously rubbed himself dry. Lisa cackled like a witch. “No. No bites. Shame it’s too early to flog some moonshine, eh,” he said, with an eager glance at a group of drunks staggering towards The Gardens from the tramlines.

He grimaced. A tram thundered past, missing most but glancing a straggler on the shoulder. It sent him spiralling into a pond-sized puddle. Lisa cackled again. The tram rattled on towards the Apollo Fighting Pits and the fish yards, screeching and chugging, so overladen with people it seemed to defy physics.

“Nope, not for me. Wouldn’t get me on one of them rickety fuckers, not for twenty notes.”

“You say that every time one rolls past, love, and that’s the fifth one today.”

It had been years since the trams had seen maintenance. They shook from side to side, threatening to derail at any moment. Past the tramlines, standing guard over the square, was a looming concrete archway, which provided a respite from the elements.

The Archway Squats was moody. Rank and musty, it stank like death if you warmed it up on a hot plate. Sometimes when Trevor wasn’t cooking, he could smell it even from the other side of The Gardens. He hated going over there. It was dark and miserable. The spotlights in its high ceiling flickered, threatening to give up, and he didn’t like the dark. It was claustrophobic in there, too. People stood under the entrance, shoulder to shoulder, staring out at the cold, waiting for breaks in the barrages of rain.

In the bowels of the squats, on either side of a path carved through begging vagrants, there had once been glass-fronted shops. A coffee shop on one side, something or other opposite, all hollowed out now and filled with the tents and belongings of squatters, beggars, and addicts. Crocheads, they called them, and the Archway Squats was very much a Croc den.

“Hey, kid,” Trevor shouted. A spindly little boy, with an ashen face and holes in his boots, limped past, kicking a plastic bottle, his black matted hair flapping in the wind. He edged towards the hot plate with apprehension, chin to the sky, ogling at the big butcher.

“Here, take this,” said Trevor, reaching down and waving a fried rat tail in the air. The kid snatched at it with both hands as Trevor yanked it away. “Listen here,” he said with a raise of his brow, “you understand me, don’t you? What’s your name?”

“Dylan, mister," he said, nodding profusely.

“Right, Dylan. Take this tail for yourself. But you’ll do me a favour, won’t you, lad?”

More profuse nodding, his eyes wide as saucers.

“Run over there,” said Trevor, jabbing a giant thumb at the droves of beggars on the perimeter of The Gardens. Shops behind them smashed and gutted, rows of sleeping bags and tents inside, they jostled for position closest to the walkway, waiting for roomers from the Mercure Hotel to pass through on their shortcut to the business district. “Tell them all my food is half-price this lunch time. Go on, then. Off you go, lad.”

He watched as Dylan scuttled off at a fast limp through the swamp in the centre of The Gardens, filthy and brown and stank. He scurried over the broad wooden boards – a makeshift walkway through the mire, unused by the children of the beggars who instead fought and played in the slop.

The remnants of grass were barely recognisable through the thick mud. In the swamp’s corner, three wooden boards and some tarpaulin sheets crudely assembled shook in the wind and did little to hide the dignity of a woman squatting in the mud, adding her business to the smell.

“Christ. Would it kill her to use the shit shack?” Lisa squawked.

“Aye, I know, love. I wouldn’t step foot in that marsh, not for twenty notes. I saw Marty Stag and his kids washing their faces in it the other day,” he said with a baulk.

“I’d swim in it…for ten notes,” she chuckled.

“Foul!” He shook his head and shot her some playful daggers. “Get your skewers, pigeons at two a coin, hot water a penny...”

He looked to the other market stalls encasing The Gardens’ marshy middle. The shit shack took up one whole corner. All the other stalls were ramshackle, standing tall and rickety. Made of thin wooden boards crudely nailed together, they were topped with rusted corrugated sheets salvaged from abandoned industrial buildings. Tarpaulin canopies hung out from the shacks, providing the vendors below little to no protection from the rain. It whipped in hard and slanted from across the square.

Of all the stalls, Trevor’s sat strongest, on the corner of The Gardens and furthest from the Archway Squats. Where the others shook and swayed in the wind, his stall – at two floors high – was stubborn and unmoving, made with some skill and lots of care. The top floor, which was the living quarters, jutted out over the bottom, housing a crude, but effective enough, kitchen. Heat lamps burnt orange. They flickered and clicked, flies dancing with death around them. An ancient CD player kept sombre country songs on repeat. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson – all the classics. A wooden plank swung on frayed blue ropes from a scaffold pole, white-painted letters slapped across it: “Trevor’s Kitchen.”

A thick chain hanging from the ceiling clinked in the wind. His defence from the night. It connected to a roll shutter recessed inside the kitchen. The huge black metal hot plate made up the front of the stall, and standing behind it, lit up by its fiery red glow, Trevor stood deep in thought.

“What you thinking?” asked Lisa.

He was thinking about the food on his hot plate that wasn’t going to sell. And he was wondering if that Dylan kid had passed his message on at all.

“You seem better today,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Ah, I’m alright. I’ve not seen Marcus in a few days, so that’s something.”

Trevor grunted his agreement. A few weeks ago, Marcus and his brother Lloyd approached the kitchen, and he could tell from the hunger in their eyes that he might have some trouble. Only their hunger wasn't for his food; they needed his moonshine to help manage their Croc withdrawals.

The Croc resupply was monthly, and towards the last week of the month, Crocheads got desperate. His was the only stall that sold moonshine, and the only stall that made any real profits. So the addicts from the Archway Squats tried him from time to time. Tested his good will, shot him a half threat. He had weighed up his options and decided an act of charity would be better for business than two dead Crocheads cleaved apart in front of his stall. And so he offered them a free drink.

Marcus glared at him, paused as if ready to pounce. The cogs turned. He fought a visible battle with his withdrawal, greedily eyeing the lockbox behind Trevor. Lloyd, a muzzled hound behind him, waited for his master's order to attack.

For what seemed like an eternity, Trevor waited to find out if he would need to fight, but with a toothy smile, Marcus snapped from his daze and accepted the gift. The manic look on his face dissipated, and he slunk back to the Archway Squats.

The entire ordeal left Lisa shaken up. She knew it wasn’t the end of the matter.

Marcus was the unofficial leader in the Archway Squats, and although a Crochead, he was charismatic, a thin veil hiding his malice. He was the mitigator between the City Guards and the slums of The Gardens, and on ration day, he would keep the Archway Squats in order and prevent chaos. And so they listened to him, did his bidding, aiming to please him.

“It’s month end around now, Trev. They’ll be rattling in the Archway. I think he’ll come back and I’m scared.”

“Aye, I know. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel it. Something in the air, eh? Not just the Crocheads either. Every customer brings more talk of rebel attacks.”

“Did you hear about the ambush on the City Guard patrol down in Ardwick? They lost two patrol pickups and a full squad.”

Trevor smiled. “Improvised grenade, wasn’t it?”

“Yes! They say the rebels are pushing for another uprising. Now could be our time to join back up, leave The Gardens and Marcus behind?”

He swatted a fly from the countertop with a dishrag and wiped his hands on his apron. Dashing the rag down, he turned to Lisa and clasped her cheeks. “We will. Soon. Mick was here this morning when you were out scavenging. They need our stash money for the cause. I told him we’ll re-enlist.”

“You did? Oh Trev, thank you! I feel better already. When?”

“Two weeks. We’ve surplus to sell. Barrels of moonshine to move. I need to find a buyer for this place.”

“We could be here two years and not sell another skewer, Trev.”

“What am I meant to do? Croc’s cheaper than food. The Crocheads survive off the shit the City Guard dish out on ration day. I’m near redundant.”

“Let's just go!”

“And what about the boy?” Trevor snapped. “We need to talk with him. Where will he go? Who’ll take him in?”

“We’ll take him with us.”

“Pah! Who are we to make a rebel out of him? You think he’ll come and live with us and the rebels and conscientiously object? You know what he’s like, full of ideas and notions of romance. He’s a dreamer. And I’m telling you now, the second Mick sees how lethal he is with that bow and arrow, he’ll have him assassinating guards that same day.”

Lisa opened her mouth to protest but closed it before she did. She looked doleful at Trevor. He continued with a sigh.

“I wouldn’t leave him behind. I just won’t push him into a cause he doesn’t believe in. The City Guard killed our families, not his.”

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“So he can come?”

“We’ll talk to him. If I sell the kitchen, he might want to stay on here for whoever buys. If he wants to come, we’ll take him. But he has to decide for himself, and he has to know what he’s getting into.”

The lines etched around Lisa’s eyes softened, and she stepped in and rested her head on Trevor’s chest. When she stepped back, she was smiling. He watched her climb the ladder to the upper floor, then stepped to the prep board and began butchering the evening deliveries.

He thought of The Panic as he worked. Remembered his rebel days of rioting and refusing oppression. Remembered losing his parents and his son to the cursed City Guard.

Anger pricked him. He thumped his cleaver through the neck of a pigeon and launched the head into the swap. A gang of vagrant children swarmed it, shrieking and fighting.

A clang from the back of the kitchen jarred him. He spun and wheeled away from the hot plate, cleaver in one hand, bloody pigeon in the other. A shape was huddled over in the dark – a girl, shifty and waif, with pasty skin and a flash of gritty blonde hair. Red raw fingers hovering above the heat of the generator.

“Little Tilly Martin. How on earth did you get in my kitchen? Speak now and speak the truth!”

Eyes wide with terror, she scrambled to escape, pushing her bony frame through a small crack in the wooden boards. They moaned and creaked in protest. Trevor’s massive hand snagged the hood of her coat, and he hefted her back, setting her down in the kitchen.

She was shaking, tears rolling and lip wobbling. But then Trevor allowed his sternness to clear into a brilliantly bright smile. It didn’t suit him and had no business adorning his weathered face. But it was sincere, and Tilly could see that.

“Easy, girl. I won’t harm you.” He patted her on the shoulder and fixed her ruffled hood. “That crack needs fixing. If you can squeeze through it, I’ll have rats nibbling at my rations soon enough.”

“My mam says that the rats don’t go near your stall ‘cause they’re scared of the hot plate.”

“Aye, girl. Many a rat have perished on there, that’s true,” chuckled Trevor as he looked towards the ladder in the corner, which led to the second floor. “Lisa!” he shouted. “Have Jude close the gap near the generator when he’s back. There's a spare board and nails next to the fridge.”

There was no reply, but satisfied she had heard, he scooped Tilly up into his massive arms and perched her on the worktop, next to the hot plate. “You sit there, girl. Get warm, then be on your way.”

Tilly stayed for hours, watching Trevor expertly flip and turn the food, periodically splashing the plate with yellow-looking water in a clear plastic bottle. Hot steam leapt up, carrying the sweet scent of meat into the air and toward her eager nostrils. Trade picked up a little by lunch. Customers stopped from time to time to buy a skewer or a plastic tub of salty pigeon. He let Tilly take the coins and drop them into the pouch on the front of his apron. She did it with a smile and a twinkle of the eye.

In the early afternoon, Tilly slid down from the worktop and bid Trevor farewell. But she had only taken a few reluctant steps towards the swamp when she looked back longingly at Trevor.

“Here, girl. Take a skewer. The least I can do for my hardworking assistant.”

She bounded back towards the hot plate and threw her hands out in excitement. “Thanks Trev!” she said, salivating at the meat dripping with oil and salt. Grubby fingers snatched the skewer from Trevor’s hand, and she darted away towards the archway.

“Save a bite for your brother!” Trevor shouted after her as she raced away across the wooden boards. Whether she heard or not was anyone’s guess.

Lisa appeared on his shoulder. “You’re a kind man, Trev.” She smiled. “Too kind. She’ll be back, and others will come. We can’t afford charity. It leads to expectation.”

Trevor sighed, “Aye, that I know. I’m too soft, but there's a method in the madness. Tensions are rising. When anger gets the best of the squats, hopefully my kindness will count for something.”

The amber glow of the hot plate illuminated Lisa’s sombre face as she gazed out over The Gardens. The light below exaggerated her tired eyes and etched skin. Years of worry had aged her ruthlessly. With an uncertain smile, she patted Trevor’s giant shoulder.

“I’m going back up. I’ll sit in the window for a while and read my book, if you don’t mind?”

“Aye. Away with you, woman. You’re scaring away the customers.”

Lisa cackled and swiped at him with a dishrag. He patted her on the backside, his huge palm almost lifting her into the air as she stepped towards the ladder. He chuckled to himself as she climbed.

Trevor’s thoughts drifted onto Jude. He had been too long. He only went to deliver a pigeon box to Jolly Roger, a shiv maker with a weapons shop tucked into a corner of the Archway. Roger was far from jolly; in fact, he was a wizened old crackpot, but he liked the boy and would look out for him. Still, it was a ten minute job, and he’d been gone all morning.

The day grew darker. Trevor worried about Marcus and Lloyd and what trouble they might cause if they saw Jude on his way to or from Roger’s. He squinted through the rain at the foreboding stone arch opposite, scanning for signs, seeking out his swaggering stride and flash of blond hair.

“Daydreaming again, Trev?”

“Damn it, boy!” Trevor, jolted from his thoughts, turned to see the boy grinning from ear to ear. “You scared me half to death. I’m not a young man. My heart will give out one of these days, and you won’t be grinning then!”

Jude laughed. “Give over, Trev. You’ll outlast the lot of us.” He plonked himself down on the wooden stool in the kitchen and kicked his legs up, bringing his feet to rest on the box fridge. Trevor scowled at the soles of his boots, caked in mud.

“Clown,” muttered Trevor, with a grin and a shake of his head. “How did you get behind me, you sneaky little shit?”

“Climbed the outside of the shack and went in through the window. I’ve been talking to Lisa upstairs for ten minutes. She’s not herself.”

“Aye, that she ain’t, boy. She’s not been herself since Marcus and Lloyd were here a few weeks ago. Marcus was off. He looked desperate. She thinks he’ll be back.”

Trevor washed rat juice from his hands with the bucket of dish water sitting on the worktop by the fridge. The boy passed him a bundle of arrows, which he examined closely, taking a pair of thick-rimmed glasses from the front of his grease-stained apron and resting them on the bridge of his nose.

“Why is he called Jolly Roger? He’s the least jolly man in The Gardens, and that’s saying something.”

“He looks like the flag.”

“What flag?” replied Jude, a quizzical look across his face.

Trevor chuckled and waved him away. “Christ, you make me feel old, boy.”

The two enjoyed a comfortable silence until Jude pinched a rat skewer from the hot plate and inhaled it loudly.“What if Marcus comes back, Trev? He’s no threat to us, is he?” he questioned with a mouthful of tail.

“These arrows get better with every batch. He has real skill, does Roger,” mused Trevor, peering over the bundle. “I see he’s given us seven instead of five. What's that in aid of?”

“He said the last bird I delivered was the best he had tasted, and that you were a master of the hot plate. He’s taken to calling you Colonel Sanders, whatever that means.”

Trevor let out a bellow of hearty laughter and drifted into thought for a few moments, a smile on his face as he seemed lost in memory.

“What of Marcus, Trev?”

“Heavens above, boy. Marcus will be back. More than once, I imagine. It’s the way of the world. I’ll manage him as best I can without violence. It’s bad for business.”

“If he goes for the lockbox, Trev, what then? We need those takings to keep the power on until spring,” said the boy, scanning Trevor’s face for reassurance.

Trevor sighed. “If they go for the box, they’ll meet the cleaver. There's no other way. Kindness only works up to a point in this world.”

“Yeah, but what if –”

“Boy!” Trevor snapped. “That’s enough. It is what it is. Last I knew, this was my kitchen, and your job was to hunt the meat. Let me worry about security, and you concentrate on bringing me food.”

Jude’s face dropped, sullen and pensive. Then, almost instantly, he flashed a grin and bounced up from the chair. “Okay, Trev. You’re right, mate.” He buttoned up his jacket and straightened his scarf. Taking a few steps across the kitchen, he examined his face in a murky old mirror hanging from the wall. “I best get going on the pigeon run, then, if I’m to be back before dark.”

Trevor peered over the rim of his glasses. “Aye, that you had, boy. Seven arrows means seven birds. For a crack shot, you’ve been getting sloppy lately.”

“Not too sloppy to sneak up on you, old man,” Jude laughed as he snatched the bundle of arrows from Trevor’s hands. He dropped them into his backpack, which he slung over his shoulders, and in a flash, he vaulted the hot plate, coming up in a roll on the ground in front of the stall. Turning on his heel, he sprung off towards the canal.

“Jude!”

The boy skidded to a stop and swung back to face him.

“Stay safe and don’t be late.”

The boy nodded with a smile, spun, and ran through the rain, leaping puddles and dodging cars, until he disappeared into the bustling crowd.

Trevor smiled. He was a good kid, kind and honest and full of naïve optimism. He didn’t have the heart to tell him they’d be gone from the kitchen well before spring. Not yet anyway.

“When all else fails, panic. Well met, General.”

A portly man, too portly for The Gardens, halted in front of the hot plate. Not quite tall enough to see into the kitchen, he peered over it with excited nervousness. His face was shrouded in the shadow of a large hood, chubby cheeks dimpled in a wry smile.

“I’ll take one salt ‘n’ pepper pigeon, vendor,” he said loudly, and with more than a hint of dramatics.

“Alright, Hursty, calm yourself. You’re a peacock in a mangrove full of crocodiles,” Trevor hissed. “Besides, you’re looking far too well. What do they feed you in that City Guard canteen?”

He feigned offence but lacked the skills to hide his impish smile. “If I’m going to redirect City Guard supplies to the rebel cause, I’m going to have to taste them first. You know, check they’re ok.”

“Naturally,” replied Trevor with a grin. He rubbed his hands on his apron and scratched his chin. His lips tightened into a frown. “What are you doing here?”

“Mick sent me. Knew I’d be passing through on my way to the Black Barracks. He said he saw you this morning, but there’s been…developments,” he said with a glance over his shoulder.

“Spit it out, man.”

“There was a riot in the Station Market about an hour ago. Traders grow wearier of the oppressive taxation by the day. You know Mauro, the fishmonger?”

“Aye, nice fella. Mick’s friend, stalls next to each other?”

“Yes, him. He refused to pay his tax. Sergeant Kramer executed him. Shot him on the spot. In front of his kids.”

Trevor’s chin dropped to his chest. He threw his spatula at the countertop. It landed with a loud clang that made Hursty jump. “Bastards! They patrol all day, taxing, pointing rifles, keeping us docile. Then, after dark, when we need them the most — during riots, looting, rape, and murder — they lock themselves away in their fucking barracks. They want us to kill each other, I’m sure of it.”

Hursty nodded profusely. “Sorry, Trev…you know I’m just a medic. I hate it as much as you do.”

Trevor sighed, “Damn it, Hursty. I’m not having a pop at you, man. You’ve done as much for the cause as any of us and at more risk. You’re one brave bastard. You’ll hear no bad words from me.”

Hursty’s smile returned, dimpled cheeks rosy in the cold. “Mick wants you to reconsider. He knows you said a few weeks to a month, but he thought this…incident…might change your mind.”

“Aye,” said Trevor. He picked the spatula up and flipped a rat into a swirl of oil. “I reckon it might change my mind. It’s time to act. We need to do enough damage that they might listen to some terms. All we want is for them to allow the good people of the squats and slums a route out of squalor.”

“Mick wanted them to agree on a discount, across the board, on the impossible rent of the hotel rooms. Oh, and to allow people to look for homes in the residential districts, away from the Crocheads.”

“It won’t happen,” replied Trevor.

“I know. And, after today, the mood’s changed. Mick wants to go for a complete overthrow. That’s why he wants you back, General. He needs you now.”

“Aye. Alright, Hursty. On you go. I’ll talk to Lisa. I’ll send the boy to Mick tomorrow with my reply.”

“Of course, General. It was good to see you again.” He backed away with a sheepish bow and spun away. Head down against the rain, he trotted off towards the tramlines and disappeared into the crowd.

The afternoon drew on, and the dim grey daylight was fading fast. Flickering street lamps spluttered to life, offering nothing but a weak yellow glow in the grim sky. Here and there around The Gardens, large metal drums were being filled with wood and litter.

At dark, the drums came to life and provided some heat to those brave enough to roam. Neon signs, spattered amongst the surrounding buildings, indicated bars where moonshine was drunk to excess. In a few hours, gangs and criminals of all creeds would descend on these places and mix with the vagrant men and women with enough coin to fund their drink. Whispers of unrest would grow into chants of vitriol and angst as the alcohol flowed and violence spewed out into the city streets.

Trevor scanned The Gardens eagerly. The last City Guard patrol of the day rolled through without incident. He cursed them under his breath, and with that, the night was free to descend.

It was around this time of a late afternoon he would start selling his own moonshine from his stall. The City Guard would tax shine vendors extortionately during the day, meaning there was little point in operating until the sweet spot between late afternoon and early evening. Beggars and vagrants, unable to afford to drink in the bars, would arrive with their own canisters, to be charged an amount based on capacity. This was Trevor’s primary source of income, fronted by his hot plate trade. Most of the other vendors would be over to his stall as they closed up, spending the day's takings on his shine, renowned as the best outside of the dive bars.

“Damn it, boy. What’s taking you so long?” Trevor muttered to himself as he ladled moonshine into an empty aluminium can. He passed the can to a sodden wet vagrant, who ambled off towards a fire drum near the archway.

The boy had run towards the canal, so he’d be going to Sackville Pile, where the pigeons nested. Provided he hadn’t gotten delayed with talking or daydreaming, as he was prone to doing, he should have been there an hour ago.

“Where’s Judy?” called Lisa from upstairs, as if she had read his mind.

“On the bird run. He should be on his way back now. Don't worry.” He tutted as an afterthought irked at him, “And you’ve got to stop calling him that, he’s not a kid anymore. You know it irritates him.”

“He’ll always be a kid to me, Trevor Evans…and anyway, you’re a fine one to talk about irritating him. ‘Boy’ this and ‘boy’ that…” Her voice trailed off as she pottered around with whatever chore she was doing upstairs.

Trevor sighed. Maybe he’d put too much pressure on the boy. Shooting pigeons wasn’t easy, or everyone would be at it. The boy was a bow master, all The Gardens knew it, but he had been coming back with less and less over the past weeks. Trevor chided himself. The boy would be tarrying, trying to get seven out of seven to prove a point.

An eerie scream echoed from the archway on the far side of The Gardens, wrenching Trevor from his thoughts. Such sounds were commonplace. The Gardens were dangerous by day and deadly by night.

He glanced down to his right. On the rusty metal worktop, next to the hot plate, was a vicious-looking cleaver, its handle – longer than to be expected and which could be held two-handed – strapped up with leather. The blade was wide and menacing, and Trevor always made a point to leave the blood upon it after he had completed his morning butchery.

He smiled as he recalled the vagrant’s face last winter, who had been seconds away from being cleaved into pieces like an unfortunate pigeon. He caught the plucky bastard by surprise as he burst through the door to the side of the hot plate and grasped at the tap protruding from the barrel of moonshine. In a heartbeat, Trevor swept his up cleaver, while simultaneously booting the vagrant back through the door with a kick to the chest.

He slammed into the mud with a screech, clawing on hands and knees, desperately trying to escape. The onlooking crowd gasped as a second kick from Trevor spun the vagrant onto his back, and in a fierce swoop, the cleaver arched over head and bore down, stopping inches from the vagrant’s nose. Calmly, Trevor stepped back, eyeballing the crowd. A challenge. Does anyone else wish to make an attempt on my wares? Nobody did.

He hadn’t found the need to boot or butcher anyone since then, not until Marcus’s recent test of his resilience. Calculated kindness had been enough for a long time, but Trevor was wise enough to know it would only work for so long. Maybe another show of strength is in order, he thought as he looked out across The Gardens, towards the intimidating dark of the archway.

Then, almost as if it had heard him, it spat out a group of five men, armed with clubs of metal, into the flickering streetlight. Trevor’s eyes narrowed and locked on the front man of the group – Marcus. Holding a flaming torch aloft, he led the men across the wooden boards of the marsh, striding with venomous purpose towards Trevor’s Kitchen.

Trevor snatched his cleaver into his hands and spun towards the metal roll shutter. He yanked it hard and was stunned when it failed to drop.

“Lisa,” he called, “pull up the ladder and hide!”