When I’m almost back where I started, I take a nearly fatal misstep. I put my foot down on some fallen branches and find there’s no ground beneath them. My arms windmill as I try to shift my weight back onto my other foot. After a moment of wobbling, I crash down loudly onto my ass next to the hole.

I lie still for a full minute, then two. The smell of decay washes over me. No sounds from the cabin, or anywhere else. Seems like I got away with that moment of clumsiness. I’m guessing no one’s home. There’s no sign of a car anywhere around, and this place is too remote to easily reach on foot.

I pick up my dropped phone and shine it into the hole. It’s a little more than two feet wide, dug deliberately by someone. Can’t see the bottom. I think it’s a hunting trap. A deer steps in, breaks its leg, and screams until the hunter comes to shoot it. Doesn’t seem very sporting to me, but I used to eat death-row inmates, so what would I know?

The hole is only twenty yards from the cabin. It seems likely that the owner dug it. And this isn’t too far from where I found Biggs, either. Maybe there was no car. He could have been running away from this cabin when he died of a heart attack.

Time to have a look inside.

I walk up onto the porch. A little square of glass is set in the front door, but it’s too dark inside to see anything beyond.

If I’m going to break in, I want to be damn sure no one’s home. Home invaders get shot in Texas. So I knock. Three loud taps echo out.

No response.

I knock again, and call out. ‘Hello? I need help! My car broke down, and I have no service out here. Can I use your phone? Please.’

Nothing.

When I was homeless, sometimes I’d be lucky enough to find somewhere to squat. Houston keeps spreading outwards, so there are thousands of vacant half-finished houses on the edges of town. Finished ones, too. Investors buy them, wait for the value to go up and then sell, often without bothering to rent them out in between.

Unfortunately, most of the neighbourhoods are patrolled by private security teams, because rich assholes don’t like giving free accommodation to homeless people. The few houses which have no security also have no insulation to keep the heat in or out. By law the renter pays the heating bills, so there’s no incentive for investors to build the houses efficiently. I spent a lot of nights shivering on a stolen yoga mat while the cold seeped up from the concrete below.

But I got good at breaking into houses.

Step one: you check if any of the doors or windows are unlocked.