Visiting Manor Street Community Centre in nationalist north Belfast after darkness, when sectarian killers are stalking the streets, isn't a pleasant experience. It's a Portakabin on waste ground, isolated and vulnerable.
This is peace-line territory. The Crumlin and the Shankill Roads are nearby. Only 16 people have turned up for the Lower Cliftonville Concerned Residents meeting. Normally, there would be three times as many.
Community activist, Tony McKeating, is not surprised. "We're sitting here in a cardboard box," he says, pointing to the flimsy walls. "There is nothing to stop the bullets. The loyalists could drive up at any time of the day or night and riddle the place.
"At our last meeting, loyalists were spotted driving around in cars outside. We had to keep everybody in until they had gone and it was safe to leave.
"Now most people are too frightened to come to their own community centre. When they get home at night, they just bolt their doors, draw their blinds and stay inside. I think that's an awful state of affairs."
The residents have gathered to discuss a range of issues but top of the agenda is improving security. They want a gate at the bottom of Roe Street. Without this, they say, loyalist paramilitaries have unhindered access to their homes.
"We need protecting," says Tony McKeating. "There has always been fear in north Belfast but it has increased 200 per cent over recent days."
That's unsurprising. It has been an awful week, even by Northern Ireland standards, leaving four Catholics and one loyalist dead and three others injured.
It started on Sunday morning with the Loyalist Volunteer Force murder of building worker Fergal McCusker (28) in Maghera, Co Derry. He was abducted from Main Street by at least three men as he walked home and he was shot in the back of the head. Eyewitnesses said two of his attackers' faces were painted orange. Next day the INLA shot dead Jim Guiney (38) at his carpet store in Dunmurry. Mr Guiney was married with four children. Loyalist and police sources said he was a UDA commander.
Later on Monday night loyalists took their revenge. Larry Brennan (52) was in his car outside the taxi depot on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast, when two gunmen shot him. His Protestant girlfriend was told she would be killed if she went to his funeral.
On Wednesday night Ben Hughes (55) was shot dead getting into his car in the loyalist Sandy Row in south Belfast. The father of three had just left the local garage where he worked.
His wife Jean was waiting round for him to pick her up at the City Hospital where she was a nurse, when the ambulance with him drove past. She went home and learned of her husband's murder on the television news.
Later that night Catholic taxidriver John McFarland had a lucky escape. Loyalist gunmen opened fire on him when he responded to a hoax call in Downview Park in north Belfast. He was hit in the head but drove away before being shot again. He was not seriously injured.
A few hours later, a Protestant man was injured in a gun attack on his home in Belvoir, south Belfast. Loyalists are believed to have been responsible.
It wasn't over yet. On Thursday night Chris McMahon (29) was shot leaving the bakery where he worked on the Carnmoney Road in north Belfast. "Why me? Why me?" he said as he lay injured on the ground. He is critically ill.
Last night a Catholic man was shot in the head as he worked on gas pipes off Belfast's Crumlin Road. He died later in hospital. Security sources believed loyalists were involved.
Tony McKeating shakes his head at the latest development. Other members of the residents' group agree to speak only if their surnames aren't used.
"They're shooting taxi-drivers and now this poor fellow," says Francis. "You're not safe even at your work. I've Protestant friends and my business used to take me up the Shankill but I won't go anymore. Nothing is worth your life."
Local pubs have adopted extra security measures since loyalists shot Eddie Treanor dead in the Clifton Tavern on New Year's Eve. Now it "has security cameras and reinforced steel doors", Francis says. "We called it `The Ceasefire' because it opened in hope after the 1994 IRA ceasefire." The other local bar, the Glenview Arms, is known locally as `The Suicide' because of its vulnerable location, he says.
Only one of the attacks this week was carried out by republicans but there is serious concern about the situation on the loyalist side in north Belfast.
"Terrible deeds are being perpetrated," says local DUP councillor Nigel Dodds. "Catholics are being killed at random. Nobody knows who will be next. My community is worried that republicans will decide to up the ante and massacre a group of innocent Protestants in retaliation."
Billy Hargroves, a community worker in the Tiger's Bay area, says: "There is a feeling of apprehension here. We don't think the IRA would carry out an atrocity on the Protestant community. If it breaks its ceasefire, it's more likely to target the security forces or commercial premises.
"But the INLA is another matter. It's a nakedly sectarian organisation. It could drive by a Protestant bar and spray it with bullets. We're just waiting for an INLA massacre to happen."
Yesterday, the UFF, which has admitted responsibility for several of this week's killings, said it had only been responding to INLA violence and was stopping all attacks. However, the LVF is still active and Catholics remain sceptical that the UFF might still carry out attacks, with the LVF claiming them.
Back in Manor Street Community Centre the residents are claiming that the RUC and the Department of the Environment are not listening to their demands for a security wall. They are planning to block the street with a digger and rocks.
The telephone rings. The youth development worker had taken local children down the road to the swimming pool. It's 9 p.m. and she hasn't come home. Her sister is worried sick.