We were stacked high and narrow in that terraced Victorian house. The attic contained two bedrooms, one of which always smelled faintly singed – it was accidentally wired to the bathroom below, so when we flicked on that light downstairs, this bedroom would also be illuminated, as though by poltergeists. In this way, through our second year of university, its occupant would be woken as the rest of us returned from clubs or as we finished essays just before our morning deadlines, jacked up on espressos, Red Bull, Ritalin. On the first floor was the offending bathroom, along with three more bedrooms, one of which had clearly once formed part of the hallway. The ground floor held the other two bedrooms and a large bathroom, which had a fireplace and was carpeted. We avoided that bathroom if we could; the toilet was unnervingly far from the door. Buried in the basement were the kitchen, living room and another loo – all perpetually dark and damp. We rarely dwelled in this underbelly, instead, each burrowed away in our separate rooms. Regardless, somebody had tacked wrinkling movie posters to the wall, and someone else had thrown a silky, batik blanket over the sofa to hide its miscellaneous stains. The sofa, like the rest of the furniture and all the pocked-plaster walls, belonged to our landlord. The hole in the kitchen ceiling, where a broken extractor fan had once nestled, belonged to our landlord. Our student loans belonged to our landlord.

There were seven of us. Friends, acquaintances, strangers – all hastily assembled in the landgrab rush. Local estate agents released every student house for the next year on one particular date, so to secure anything inhabitable we had to queue outside their offices all night. Conversation was stilted as we waited on camping chairs, in sleeping bags. Students from the Christian union visited every now and then, with polystyrene cups of scalding tea and answers to any questions about Jesus et al. that lingered in our minds. What the point was, why our saviour had died, how his Father had created the heavens and the light and us in His image so we would subdue the Earth and every creeping thing that crept upon it.

We looked through the photos in the estate agent’s brochure. We were given the tour. We signed for our rights and obligations: seven names on seven dotted lines.

Despite our lack of shared history, despite the toilet paper shortages and slipping standards of cleanliness, on the whole we seven lived together amicably in our house that didn’t smell like home. We learned the new rhythm of our days. We nestled beneath each other’s duvets, we shared soups and cups and socks, we washed ourselves with the same bar of soap, and when the showers acquired thin skins of scum, drains backed up with clumping hairs, we knew this was the shedding of all our bodies, all our filth, and no blame was levied.

Any animosity was directed outwards – to the landlord (whom we never met), to the estate agents (who managed the property), and to our next-door neighbour Marjorie (who had our estate agent’s telephone number and wasn’t afraid to use it). The day after we moved in, she knocked round with her list of expectations: to put out the bins, to never smoke or drink outside, to invite guests into the house for conversation, to wear modest clothing, to always use respectable language, to keep the garden tidy and to keep noise down.

Through autumn term there wasn’t much trouble. We only hosted one party and missed two bin collections. It was after Christmas that Marjorie first heard the screams, and it was then that the trouble began.

*

At first, Marjorie thought we were partying in the garden, yelling our heads off – or that’s what Courtney, the estate agent charged with liaising with us, said in a text the next morning.

Alright guys, I love a party as much as the next person, but could you do me a solid and keep it down? Screaming in the garden, not cool.

We tried to explain that we weren’t screaming, we never had been, but the texts went round in circles for a few days till it became clear that Marjorie’s theory had evolved. Whenever she stuck her head out of the window, our garden was deserted, so now, purportedly, we were pulling some kind of prank.

I don’t know what’s going on over there, Courtney texted, but guys, you’ve got to keep it down. She tells me she heard you laughing outside her window last night?

None of us heard the screams ourselves. Maybe Marjorie was trying to get us evicted, one of us thought. No, her house was haunted, another posited. Maybe her late husband was rotting beneath the foxgloves. Maybe the old bitch was mixing her medication with too much sherry.

It was Milk who eventually discovered the source. He was our seventh housemate, the one the rest of us knew least – a quiet, glowering boy, with lamb-like, anaemic curls. Milk studied philosophy and physics and did most of his thinking on late-night walks round the neighbourhood wearing chunky headphones and a khaki parka. He’d return once he’d reached some kind of conclusion, then sit on the back stoop, blowing smoke into the garden. Naturally, Milk, the most nocturnal, took the bedroom with the dodgy light. It was the cheapest but also the coldest – on account of the attic crawlspace that funnelled air through our row of terraced houses. He never once complained about it, nor the smell, nor the light. We all respected him for that, and for his commitment to full-fat dairy. There was a six-pinter in our fridge at all times, and the rest of us were encouraged to partake.

‘It’s a fox’, Milk said one afternoon, when he’d finally emerged from slumber to pour his first, cold glass of the good stuff. He’d seen a flash of eyes, a brush of tail, as he’d stubbed out the previous night’s cigarette.

A fox, yes. We thought this revelation would stop Courtney’s texts, but there was another waiting the next morning. She says it’s the bins now, attracting the vermin. Keep them tidy, would you?

After that, the rest of us saw the fox too – as though, by naming the creature, Milk had conjured her into being. She appeared to us one by one. Visitations plump with meaning: the night before an important test; just after the first kiss with a new lover; in the odd hours before dawn amid restless sleep, strange and half-forgotten dreams, a sudden urge for a glass of water, and there she was, through the kitchen window, like an answer to an unasked question.

The fox was always silent when we found her, always skulking off to somewhere else. But she would pause, soft-footed, and watch us as we watched her. The golden eyes, a twitch, a sniff – then she’d disappear into the depths of the garden.

*

We reported these precious encounters in our group chat or as we queued for the shower or in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, and at some point, we decided she was our pet. Kitty, we called her. One of us turned a saucer stolen from their parents’ house into a water dish, scrawled her name in Sharpie along the rim. Another tried to teach Kitty tricks, threw tennis balls which she would coolly regard, occasionally smell, never touch. One of us wondered whether she carried ticks and fleas, whether she might be rabid, whether she would bite, but never told this to the rest of us because the joke, like all of our jokes back then, had evolved beyond control, beyond comedy, if indeed it had ever inhabited that realm – it was, instead, a collective madness, and to point this out would be to mark oneself as other.

Kitty never came when guests were present, only when we were each alone.

Those of us who ate meat collected our scraps and bones in a Tupperware by the back door for Milk to feed to her during his late-night, contemplative smokes. Sometimes in the morning, you could smell that Kitty had visited, before Milk awoke and confirmed it. The feral stink, the bitter dank. A pile of fishbones by the welcome mat, sucked clean. Dear, sweet Kitty. Animal Kitty. She’s a good girl, we told each other.

Neighbour says she sees you feeding them. It’s not hygienic, you’ve got to stop. Check clause 5 of the lease.

It was easy to ignore Courtney’s texts, now that everyone knew we weren’t the ones screaming. There were feral creatures everywhere, we told each other. We couldn’t be blamed. They wouldn’t evict us for that.

One of us had parents who were landlords, and they would ask their parents to ask their lawyer. Another said they would ask their father who was, himself, a lawyer.

‘Or we could just read the contract ourselves’, said Milk, who knew about these things, whose mother had always rented, who copied the relevant clause to our group chat, pointing out that while we were required to take reasonable precautions to prevent infestation of the Property by vermin, foxes were not legally classed as vermin, and anyone who tried to argue otherwise could in fact, legally and contractually, go fuck themselves.

*

And then, one April afternoon – as some of us returned from lectures and others were only waking – we found them in the garden. Marjorie, in her wellie boots and cardigan; Courtney, who we’d all thought was a woman from his name, in a fur-trimmed puffer jacket and suit. His polished black shoes looked alien on the uneven, pebble-dashed paving. We asked what they were doing.

‘It’s gone on long enough’, said Marjorie. ‘Been mussing my lawn for months.’

‘No need to get involved, guys.’ Courtney picked his way over the nettles. ‘Just going to deal with the vermin issue.’

We asked where he was going.

‘It’s under the shed’, he said.

We hadn’t considered that – we didn’t use the shed ourselves. It was locked, filled with the landlord’s belongings. And yes, now we were looking in the daylight, we could see where Kitty had carved out the moist earth, where she would slip her quick body beneath.

‘It won’t hurt’, said Courtney.

We asked what he meant.

He brandished a box of firelighters. ‘I’ll just smoke it out. Common sense.’

We told him he couldn’t do that; it wasn’t safe.

‘Should’ve kept the bins tidy’, said Marjorie. ‘Like I asked.’

Courtney crouched down with great difficulty in his big coat and tight, shining shoes. ‘Guys, what’s not safe is letting this problem get out of hand, yeah?’ He tore open the cardboard box and plastic wrapping, positioned two white blocks beside the hole. ‘And if you’re not dealing with it, unfortunately I’ve got to step in.’

We explained that with the fire next to her entrance, the fox would be too scared to escape.

‘Look guys, you’ve had your chance to fix this problem, alright? Now it’s my turn.’ Courtney took a lighter from his pocket.

It was hard to explain how much we hated him, always had done. The condescension, the faux intimacy, the laddish jokes. We took pleasure in imitating the way he texted. Guys, guys, like he was one of us. Like he was stupid enough to think we were stupid enough to fall for it. We adopted his register when we replied, just for fun. Mate, did you know foxes aren’t technically vermin?

He was still talking. ‘And, you know, I don’t want to be doing this either, but it’s my job.’ He looked at our bleary eyes, our tracksuits and said, not unkindly, ‘Must be nice to be a student. Waking up after lunch and that. Wouldn’t know myself.’

The blocks caught quickly; the flames flickered yellow.

‘Just give it a moment, guys’, said Courtney.

We all watched the fire. There was no sign of Kitty.

‘It is safe, isn’t it?’ asked Marjorie.

‘Yeah’, said Courtney. ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it, Mrs Todman. Just smoking it out.’

We told Courtney again – this time more urgently – that the fox was too scared, she wouldn’t leave the den.

‘Give it a second’, he said.

We told him the shed was going to burn.

‘The fire was the landlord’s idea, yeah? I think he knows what’s best for his own property.’

‘Was it Steve’s idea?’ asked Marjorie. ‘It does seem—’

The back door slammed.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Milk stood in the doorway wearing nothing but his boxers, taking in the scene with blank-eyed horror. None of us had noticed his absence until then. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked Courtney. ‘And why is she here?’ And then to the rest of us: ‘Who let them in? This is trespassing. They can only enter if they’ve made an appointment and notified us—’

‘Alright’, said Courtney. ‘Okay, let’s all calm down.’ Now the flames were tasting the belly of the shed. ‘Trespassing. Right, well, if you read the lease, right, it says that in an emergency—’

‘What emergency?’ asked Milk. ‘You’re holding a box of firelighters, what the fuck’s going on?’

None of the rest of us could look him in the eye.

‘If you’d kept the bins tidy—’ Marjorie began, but Milk had already disappeared. Then he was back, storming towards us bare-footed, fire extinguisher under one bony arm.

‘No, you can’t’, said Marjorie.

‘Just a second, mate’, said Courtney, standing between Milk and the fire. ‘We’re only smoking it out.’

But Milk was aiming the nozzle at the flames, and Courtney was stepping back, and Marjorie was flinching, covering her face with her hands, and Milk was squeezing the handle, and there was a hiss – and then nothing happened. Nothing happened at all.

‘Is it broken?’ asked Milk. ‘Of course it’s broken.’

‘Alright, okay, we’ll get that sorted, guys’, said Courtney. He laughed with relief. ‘Good job we found out now and not in a real fire, am I right?’

‘This is a real fire’, said Milk.

The fire was crackling. Stroking shed slats a metre high now.

‘Right’, said Courtney. ‘Alright guys, let’s all stay calm. Okay, so, maybe—’

‘Water.’ Milk ran back to the house. ‘Help’, he told the rest of us. ‘Fucking do something.’

We filled plastic tubs, cooking pots and bowls from every tap. By the time we dashed back to the shed, the flames had swept to the roof, throwing black plumes to the sky. We sloshed out our water, ran back for more, but it wasn’t enough. The fire burned higher; the fire burned hotter.

‘… irresponsible fool’, Marjorie was saying to Courtney as we heaved our makeshift buckets. ‘Steve will be hearing from me. And no doubt you’ll be hearing from your boss. Foolish, foolish man.’

‘I thought that if …’ Courtney said, quietly. ‘Fuck.’

‘Help us’, shouted Milk. ‘Call 999.’

‘Good thinking, mate.’ Courtney nodded, swelled. ‘Yeah, fire brigade’, he said into his phone.

The glass windows burst as something inside exploded.

‘Oh God, my birch’, yelped Marjorie and left.

‘Now’, Courtney was saying. ‘Get here now.’

The flames were consuming the structure, each bucket of water a pathetic sizzle. It was useless, we were useless, but none of us wanted to be the first to give up – not when Milk was still fighting, not when we had let this happen.

Neighbours watched from the overlooking windows: a mother jiggling her baby on her hip, an old man in a dressing gown. Nobody was moving to help. Their eyes were on the flames, minds calculating the distance between the inferno and their property lines, and we were struggling back and forth with the water, and nobody was moving to help us, and this was no surprise – they’d never liked us anyway, nor the landlords for plaguing their neighbourhood with year upon year of students, nor the estate agents who couldn’t keep the pests under control. Divine retribution, the neighbours were probably thinking, as their double-glazed windows reflected the blaze.

A paltry spray from Marjorie’s garden hose arched over the wall.

And then another explosion – big enough, this time, to make us step back, put down our buckets.

‘Alright guys’, Courtney said, ‘it’s not safe, so let’s wait for the firefighters on the street or—’

Milk pushed past, wielding our broom.

‘Mate it’s not safe’, Courtney urged, but Milk brushed him off, covered his eyes with his arm and, using the broom handle, tried to lift fallen, flaming debris from the entrance to Kitty’s burrow. The structure shuddered.

We pulled him away.

Milk wrestled free. ‘You killed her’, he was saying to Courtney. To Courtney, and maybe the rest of us too. ‘You sick, stupid fucks’, he spat. ‘You killed her.’

The shed collapsed, as though sighing.

*

By the time the firefighters arrived, the thing was a husk. Courtney explained the situation then disappeared, muttering something about getting back to the office. One of us saw him crying in the hallway, wiping his cheek with a big, padded sleeve.

The firefighters sent us inside. In our rooms, we phoned mothers and girlfriends, we sat on the floor with our eyes closed and breathed, we lay on our beds staring up at the ceiling – apart from Milk, who kept watch from the back stoop, smoking, still wearing only his underpants.

When the firefighters were done, when the embers had died and the charcoal was steaming, he ventured out in his parka to clear the debris with our broom. The rest of us followed in silence, nudging pieces of shed away from the pile with our shoes, till we found the smouldering hollow beneath.

She was there, curled up like her namesake. Dear, sweet Kitty. Her still body seemed so much smaller. Her eyes were closed. Her fur, duller. And there—

Four little bundles nestled beside her.

None of us had known – we’d never seen them before.

Two of us vomited against the garden fence;

One started to cry;

Another tried to reason: the smoke had probably suffocated them in their sleep, and dying by drowning was peaceful, wasn’t it?

Euphoric – isn’t that what people said? Choking was the same, right? Was choking the same?

And the smell, the smell – that sweet and smoking fleshy stench. Death was in our nostrils, our mouths, our throats.

Milk looked away from the bodies. He took an end of the broom in each fist and snapped it over his knee with a great crack. The pieces clattered, hollow, as they hit the ground.

 *

There was no apology from the estate agents; no attempt to clear the wreckage.

I’m afraid we’ve had some noise complaints from a neighbour. The first text from Louise came the next morning. Whether Courtney had been fired or simply shifted to another property, we never found out. Please do keep it down.

Again, we told the estate agents that the noises weren’t coming from our house.

This time, though, we had heard them too. Screams through the night, almost human. But not quite – the yip-yipping of fox cubs.

The neighbour has lodged a trespassing complaint – are you on her roof?

The pitter-patter of little paws, yes, we heard those also.

For four nights, the ghosts of the fox cubs frolicked over Marjorie’s house. For four days, we rejected the accusations. Suffered the cries in the darkness. Our dreams, disturbed. We could only fall asleep with self-medication. We drowned out the noises with music. We still saw the four bundles when we closed our eyes.

And then, after the fourth text from Louise, Milk confessed: it had been him, in the attic eaves that ran from our house to Marjorie’s, blasting howls from a Bluetooth speaker.

Some of us were furious, the rest only disappointed. Either way, it couldn’t continue. We understood he was hurting, we were upset too, but the noises were haunting us as well, his friends, his housemates, and where would it end?

Milk shrugged.

None of us liked Marjorie either, we told him. And yes, Kitty would still be living if there’d never been any complaints, but Marjorie hadn’t killed her, not really. Would terrorising an old lady in her own home really help the situation? Hadn’t he taken it too far?

We were expecting Milk to defend himself, but he said nothing, regarded us coolly.

When he finally spoke, there was a flatness to his voice. He said he had thought we would understand. Then he left, abruptly, for one of his walks.

We had let him down again – first the fire, now this. We had pushed him out. We were thinking only of ourselves. We waited up to apologise.

Milk was surprised to find us there, still around the kitchen table, when he came back to his seat on the stoop. Already, we could tell, his hurt had dissipated – the fresh air had done him good, a spark in his eye. We held our breath to hear what he had to say.

He was finished with the hauntings, he had decided, but he’d had another idea. This time, he needed help from the rest of us. A funeral, he said. A wake. A celebration of life and living.

He lit his cigarette.

We laughed with relief at this gesture of reconciliation. Yes, we would help. Yes, whatever he wanted.

Word about the gathering spread fast. To all our different friendship groups, everyone in our seminars. Three of us played sports, and every teammate was invited, as were the university wind band, the student-paper newsroom. Friends of friends of friends, everyone welcome – as long as they dressed as beasts. It would be a carnival of the animals, Milk decreed. To honour the wild and free.

He bought our costumes for us: seven fox masks in painted, moulded plastic with the fur carved into the shell like woodgrain – wire whiskers from the snout. Again, we would be seven.

And yet, that night too, some of us heard the cubs. They told the group chat it wasn’t funny anymore, and could Milk please stop – while others defended him, there had been no cries, everyone just needed more sleep – yes, and how could anyone sleep with this noise? wrote the others.

But Milk’s room, when stormed in desperation, was found empty and silent. He was apparently out for another walk. The speaker was not, apparently, playing.

Still, once we took to our beds again, we heard the yips echo through the house. Heard the little paws, saw the little bundles.

‘They haven’t found their peace’, Milk explained, the next day. ‘But they will, tonight, with the wake.’

It was a Saturday, the sixth night since the fire, and those of us who hadn’t slept bit our tongues with this statement, whether it was interpreted as a promise or assurance, because, yes, we could all feel it: we were approaching an end to the madness.

 *

We dressed in skin-tight clothing, unwrapped our masks.

The texts arrived before the guests, while we were toasting the fallen with seven White Russians in seven motley mugs.

Neighbour lodged a noise complaint. You’re keeping her awake.

We turned it up louder. Mixed instant coffee, sugar and vodka into Milk’s six-pint bottles so we could fill glasses and mouths as we danced.

Neighbour says you’re having a party? Unacceptable noise levels.

And yes, the animals were there in their hundreds: the cats, the rabbits, badgers and mice. Crocodiles, fish, a snake or two. We spilled onto the street. We opened every window. We sang along to the lyrics of our songs, every shit cunt fuck. Someone took off their clothes and streaked down the road. We knocked over the bins, smashed glass, dropped our fag butts onto Marjorie’s flowers.

She’s scared. She’s calling the police.

When the sirens came, we were outside with the rest of the creatures. Our masks glistening red, then blue, then red. Milk emerged from the house, locked the door behind him.

‘Now we escape’, he declared.

The police were knocking, but we were away, herding the parade through rows of houses into town, where all of our beasts ran wild – into pubs, clubs, via kebab vans, home – laughing, roaring, snarling, whooping.

As the night stretched on, some of the other creatures lost their ears, tails, fangs and furs, but we kept our masks pulled over our faces. We danced to the beat as a pack, all seven – bathed in strobe light, bass pulsing at our chests. Nuzzled our noses, licked our paws, let our bodies roll closer, limbs touching. Every so often, another clubber would dance their way between us. Through our eyeholes, we watched them watching us.

The masks were only removed as we began the walk home, panting – lifted onto our heads so the night air could cool our damp skin.

We turned into our street. The flashing lights were still outside the house, but not police cars any longer: another fire engine.

We felt for each other’s hands. The smoke in our nostrils, again. The blackened brick, broken windows. And there was Marjorie, wrapped in a blanket. Spotting us, she lifted a shaking finger. Mouthed one word: Them.

*

A woman in a long, camel overcoat marched towards us. ‘Are you the tenants?’

We said we were. She identified herself as Louise. Beneath her left foot, a pair of pink velvet bunny ears lay sodden in a puddle.

‘Where the hell have you been? None of you were answering your phones. First the neighbour calls the police, then when they get here the house is empty, and the neighbour’s saying she can smell smoke—’

We told her we’d been out.

‘So the police break down the door, and they find it. In the attic. Already spreading next door. That poor, poor woman. Did you leave a flame unattended? Was it the party? The house is in a right state, all that alcohol—’

We said there had been no unattended flames. We asked how bad it was, and what about our things?

‘Well’, Louise snapped, ‘something started it.’

Lavender pyjama bottoms were peeking from her coat.

‘And what have you been doing with the fire extinguishers? Playing around with them or something? Dangerous. Someone could have been killed. The police said the first extinguisher they found wasn’t on its stand, and when they finally located one, it was empty, so what’s going on? You’re on the hook for any damage caused by that, you know, because they could have stopped the fire sooner, if you hadn’t— If you’d— Plus if the insurers find out—’

We told her about the shed incident, how we’d found the extinguisher empty too – hadn’t Courtney passed that on?

Louise’s lips drew to a tight line. ‘Well, we’ll have to investigate that, of course.’

We asked again: what about our belongings?

‘For god’s sake’, said Louise. ‘I don’t know, okay? Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you were careless with cigarettes or whatever it was. No one to blame but yourselves. This is someone’s house, someone’s livelihood. And that poor old woman next door, she’s been out here for hours in the cold, waiting to get back into her house – if she ever can, that is. God knows how far it spread before the fire brigade got here. A pensioner living alone. A widow. You’re bloody lucky no one was killed.’

Louise returned to console Marjorie. The neighbours stared at us, at the masks on our heads.

We lurked at the edge of the crowd, awaiting more news. There were no flames, the engine hose was coiled, but firefighters were still weaving in and out of the house – that narrow, bricked house which had thrust us together, where small bodies were buried, where the smashed glass glittered and milk had been spilt.

It was cold, in the dark dawning blue.

We asked ourselves whether we would be allowed back inside – that night, or ever. We asked ourselves how bad the damage seemed, how much the flames had consumed. We wondered if anything had survived – the coursework on our laptops, our clothes, our books, all our photographs lovingly tacked to the walls.

‘It’s just stuff’, said Milk. ‘Stuff can be replaced.’

His voice was muffled by plastic; he had pulled his mask back down.

‘The insurance will cover it’, he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

One of us began to cry – quietly, but audibly. Perhaps we would be arrested, criminal records. We needed to call our fathers.

‘It wasn’t our fault’, Milk went on. ‘We didn’t have candles, did we? No one was smoking inside. It wasn’t our fault the house was full of cheap furniture. Not our fault the roof spread the fire to Marjorie’s—’

The weeping continued.

‘Not to mention the extinguishers which the council requires for rentals. I’ve been reading up on it.’

Every one of us could hear his breathing cupped by the mask, that dogged in and out and in.

‘We’ll be fine’, Milk insisted. ‘We’ll get our money back and more. Compensation.’

We couldn’t see his face, but the mask was grinning – sleek and sly.

‘And we told them when we first moved in, didn’t we? So there’s a text message trail.’

The mask was grinning, but the voice was firm.

‘Yeah’, said Milk, turning away from us. ‘They really should have fixed that wiring in the attic.’

2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist