They were eating out of a can. The baby reached in her small hand to pull out a fistful of runny, cold beans. She smeared them on her face, a few beans finding her mouth. I had to stop myself from wincing when I saw her hand in the can, inches away from the razor-sharp lid.

“I’m Wil,” I said.

The girl didn’t answer or introduce herself.

I tried a question. “Where are we exactly? What was this place before?”

“Before it got cold? It was great,” the girl said. “We had cable. Parties all the time. Lots of bands came through here.” She flipped her hair. Stiff with grime, it barely moved. “Metal mostly. Good bands came to play. We paid them and they could skate, too.” The baby whimpered, and she began to bounce the child on her knee without looking at her. “Now nobody comes here. Well—” she looked up at me “—except for travelers.”

There was something about her glance that scared me, something that seemed not right, beyond the usual hunger and sadness—something beyond what I could attribute to cold and loneliness and exhaustion. There was a leer in her eyes, a flashing darkness. It looked like excitement.

I tried to redirect her. It worked sometimes with Lobo’s customers, to get them focused on something else, something not my waist or small hands.

“This is a skate park?” I said.

“No. Not just a skate park.” She laughed. “You’ve really never heard of us?”

“I don’t skate.”

“You’re missing out, then.” She shifted the baby. “This is a community. We have parties every week. Well, we did before the money ran out. People come to party but they stay.”

“They stay?”

“They used to. I did. As long as you work some, Jake don’t care.” She shrugged, like she was offering me half her bedroom, a trundle bed, a bunk. It was no skin off her back, what she was offering. “You can stay, too, if you want. There’s always work to do.”

“I can see that.”

I thought about Jake asking me if I could dance. I thought of the scar filleting his face, the black doorways where some of his teeth had been.

“You help him out, Jake’ll give you a place to sleep, feed you. Take care of you,” the girl said.

I didn’t like this recruitment, the girl droning on. Had Jake put her up to this? Was this her job, the work she did? She didn’t have much to sell the place with. The shed smelled of sickness. The baby was barefoot. What care was he giving her?

“So this is a commune?” I said.

“I don’t know what that word is.”