Devil Let Me Go Read online

  Devil

  Let Me Go

  Nathan

  Robinson

  Text copyright © 2013 Nathan Robinson

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents

  The House that Creak’d

  Top of the Heap

  Crack’d

  Not That Way Home

  In One Form or Another

  If you ever meet a girl named Maisie Mae…

  Eat your Heart out Lorena

  Banana Boxes

  Brian of the Night

  The Skeleton Tree

  The Chicken in Black

  Colder than Hell up here…

  Fallen

  Acknowledgements

  The House that Creak’d was previously published in Thadd Presley Presents Hauntings 2012.

  Top of the Heap first appeared on The Dark Fiction Spotlight and as Snakebite Horror’s story of the month. It has since been adapted into a podcast by www.pseudopod.org and was published in Thadd Presley Presents Murder.

  Crack’d appeared in Winter Chills published by Static Movement 2011 and in Quakes and Storms, a charity anthology published by Panic Press (out of print).

  Not That Way Home is previously unpublished.

  In One Form or Another is previously unpublished.

  If you ever meet a girl named Maisie Mae . . . was first published online at www.spinetinglers.co.uk when it won the monthly competition in May 2010. It was also published in hardback and paperback editions in Soup of Souls by Panic Press and appears in the Spinetinglers 2011 Anthology.

  Banana Boxes was previously published on www.spinetinglers.co.uk and appeared in their 2011 Anthology. It also appears in Phobia, published by Black Hound Press.

  Eat your Heart out Lorena was previously published in Tales of a Woman Scorned by Panic Press (out of print).

  Brian of the Night has appeared online on www.spinetinglers.co.uk and was published in their 2011 anthology.

  The Skeleton Tree appears in Carnivorous published by Static Movement.

  The Chicken in Black gained first place in the www.spinetinglers.co.uk monthly competition in March 2010. It also appeared in the Spinetinglers 2011 Anthology.

  Colder than Hell up here… appears in the charity anthology, The Undead that saved Christmas Vol 3 from Rainstorm Press.

  Fallen appears in Ultimate Angels published by Knight Watch Press November 2012

  For all those that I’ve doomed.

  The House that Creak’d

  Dismay creased across Broome’s wizened features. They’d ruined his garden, the last of his summer crop had been destroyed, the remains now largely inedible. Every tomato had been squashed, the gory, pulped remains still hung from the vine where mysterious hands had popped them in place. Every pepper plant had been thrown about the garden and stamped on; even the burning Scotch Bonnets had been mashed to into a paste of red veins. The lettuce was shredded before its prime. The peas had their stems snapped, severing the flow of nutrients to their burgeoning, crisp pods. Another week and they would have been ready. Now all his crops had been destroyed in some way. Broome had hoped to get through the coming winter with the reliance of wholesome vegetables, jarred as well as fresh, to help comfort him and subdue his bitter and depressing loneliness.

  With the insects gone, Broome had pollinated the garden himself with an old pastry brush. He’d let the grass grow long. One- to save on fuel; Two- hopefully encourage wildlife back to his garden, of which he held little hope after all the time that had passed.

  The vandal/vandals had also taken their aggression out on the greenhouse too, smashing every pane of glass out from the metal frame; a show of strength had been portrayed where they had attempted to bend the framework out of square from where it was fixed onto the concrete base. Now it resembled nothing more than an insect-like skeleton of a robot caught in a pose of death.

  A tear welled up in each eye, before cascading down in rivulets through the aged crags on his face. He wiped them away, offering no more sorrow on the matter.

  He had heard them last night, whilst curled up around himself in bed, too terrified to move in fear of drawing attention to himself; they sounded like a low wind. Moaning and howling in operatic unison with each other as they vandalised his treasured garden, murdering his beloved crops. Animals. They must be animals. There was no other answer for the matter. Feral or diseased. Or both.

  He needed a gun to scare them off. Tonight he’d wait up for them should they come back and blast a few shots in their direction.

  But where to get a gun? It would take a lot of effort in finding one. Maybe borrow one from a nearby farm? Fireworks maybe? Huh, but where from? Make some? Make your own. He needed a deterrent of some kind. Broome guessed that fencing off the garden wouldn’t be an option, as it wouldn’t deter them much. If they were set on ransacking his abode then a simple fence wouldn’t hold much defence.

  Why him?

  Of all the people in world, why did it have to be him?

  Because . . .

  Grey clouds hovered with menace like blurring waiting aliens on the northern horizon, threatening to daub out the bright blue sky with their dirty, encompassing shade. Broome could feel the approaching pressure building in his ears and gnawing at his antique bones. He had maybe half an hour of good daylight left before the rains came. He checked the water barrels. Barrel 3 was only half full; he adjusted the guttering so that the third out his four barrels would be replenished by the approaching wash of rain. He’d gotten used to rain water now, he didn’t even have to boil it anymore, saved him the trip to town anyways.

  Broome sighed, shrugged and turned, shuffling toward the back door of his home, thinking that he’d have the last remnants of the dusty porridge for breakfast.

  ***

  When the rain had finished its mid morning assault on the homestead, Broome pulled on a jacket, picked up a brick from the reclaimed pile in the front garden and climbed into his car and headed for town, down the bumpy dirt track that led his home to the outside world, the London red brick his passenger on the seat beside him.

  Upon reaching the T-junction that butted up to the main road, he slipped a CD into the slot, humming to himself the first harmonic bars as ‘Trouble in Mind’ by Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry pleasantly seeped cheerily voiced melancholy from the speakers.

  As he drove, Broome ran a leathery hand over his scalp and felt the emerging fuzz on his head, deciding that it was time for another trim. Every two weeks, despite the fact he proudly owned a full head of hair, Broome picked up an electric clipper and shaved off the emerging growth; it was easier that way. Less trouble in the morning, this wasn’t because of what happened. Broome had always treated his hair like that since his teens, he guessed by not messing with it too much, he’d given his hair a longer life.

  ‘I'm gonna lay, my head, on some cold, old railroad iron,’ he sang mournfully, ‘let that two nineteen, pacify my mind.’

  Broome had to drive a little further today for his needs. He’d already cleaned out the shops closest to his home of what he needed, so he’d have to travel further afar. Not as far as Abcastle, but Powton should suffice his needs. He daren’t even venture into Lincoln; he didn’t even want to imagine what horrors awaited his weary eyes. Stick to the small towns.

  In front, the line of trees that overreached the road like a natural tunnel finally cleared, the supermarket slid into sight.

  As he pulled in he noticed that the supermarket had a few vehicles parked sporadically in the car park, litter rolled around on the tarmac, confident weeds crept out from any available crack in the surface. The unkempt grass bank surrounding the supermarket had overgrown, creating a protective fringe that boozily swayed with the refreshing morning breeze. Grass hadn
’t died, for the unruly lawns were pollinated by the power of the wind. After he had gone, he figured grass would continue to flourish, eventually overtaking every viable corner of the earth.

  Broome eyed the scene with a careful stare. Knowing that he was probably the only one left did nothing to deter his cautious nature. You had to be sure. There might be others. He backed up to the front window of the supermarket and turned off the engine, pocketing the keys. ‘My Pencil Won’t Write No More,’ by Bo Carter abruptly ended half way through the second chorus.

  Broome noticed the fuel gauge was tickling the top of the red; he’d need to fill up soon enough. These little trips to and from nearby towns were starting to add up to an empty tank.

  Eying up the main entrance, which was caged in by a probably locked roller door brought upon him a mild sense of disappointment. Broome didn’t fancy venturing through the confined darkness of the warehouse, so he decided on the front window as the best point of entry.

  He put a dust mask on, then tied a rag around to doubly protect, pulled on a pair of gloves then got out of the car, taking the brick with him. Over to his right, in the centre of a disabled parking bay, lay a dead crow, its unused wing brought back to life by the cooling wind. It hadn’t truly rotted, it couldn’t. Some biological restraint stopped it from doing so. There were no more flies, no maggots or earthworms to recycle the nutrition down back to the earth. The bird simply dried up, and rotted as slow and unnatural as possible. No bacteria had broken down the proteins. Broome had figured, back when he had seen the multitude of fresh looking bodies upon the streets of Lincoln that something was biologically amiss. They didn’t rot normally, as if the usual procedure in which carcasses broke down was missing or redundant. They seemed preserved. Even the lowest forms of life had perished.

  Except him.

  Broome surveyed the desolate car park once more; ripped carrier bags acted as tumble weeds, jostling about in whirls and lonely circles. Empty drink cans rolled to and fro, creating tinny susurrations upon the tarmac, creating an eerie soundtrack of unease.

  He was alone.

  But he knew that already.

  He hoped for this in a strange, misanthropic manner. Why wish for loneliness in a world like this one? For the fear that a new stranger might bring, what psychosis would a fellow survivor harbour.

  Broome was relatively sane, he guessed. But what of his night-time vandals, clearly they held some form of derangement. He shivered at the thought of meeting them, trying his best to bury the fear.

  Winding his arm back, he threw the brick at the front window of the supermarket, the glass blinked into a mosaic of ice-white diamonds. The brick fell and tumbled to the floor. Broome picked it up and threw it again, tearing a hole through the frozen white collage of glass, replacing it with a gaping black hole that the brick disappeared through, swallowed by the dark internal chasm of the supermarket.

  Broome casually retrieved a garden rake from the boot of his car, and began to smash the shattered glass to the other side, creating a way in, a viable doorway to the other side.

  He’d brought a head torch and a hand held one for back up illumination. He clicked both on, and stepped inside, his boots crunching down on the shattered sugar-like fragments. Outside he could hear the low, mournful howl of the wind. The weather was changing; he was merely in the midst of a reprieve from the rain. A storm was brewing yet again, Broome wasn’t too much of a fan of the rain as it kept him inside when he wanted to bask in the ever-healing sunshine, he wasn’t looking forward to winter at all, the coming one even more so. His olden bones pained in protest at the inclement weather, he could always feel it coming before the sky told him so.

  Broome turned his back to the light and headed into the dark cave of the unwelcoming store. Finding an abandoned trolley, he pushed it with an alarming squeak down the first aisle.

  A stench of rotting vegetables flooded his nostrils, a musky, eye watering odour that did nothing but offend the senses. He passed the dairy aisle as he made his search, the shelves fully stocked with rancid milk, curdling into an inedible cheese in the mould of their plastic containers. Some had burst with the build-up of gases, creating a foul stench that mercilessly permeated his olfactory senses.

  Broome was thankful that the aisles were free of any bodies. It seemed that people didn’t come to supermarkets to die. Most stayed in the comfort of their homes, or died in the crowded, hellish wards of hospitals. Like Jessica. Like all his family.

  He wondered if this place had a pharmacy as well; he needed tablets for the heart attack he had three years ago. The last time he’d officially picked up his rations of Rampiril, Simvastatin and Atenolol had been over a year ago now, when the world started to fall apart around him and countries died one after another, Broome had made his pills last for the six weeks he refused to leave the house. Eventually he left the confines of his shell and ventured into the world where he plundered the first pharmacy he found, relieving it of all heart medication. He had to ration that supply too, now he’d spent the past month with no medication is his system what so ever, so finding a fresh stash of tablets was pretty high on his list. He’d watched his diet, eating well and avoiding cholesterol-laden foods as much as he could. Broome raised his head torch and read the sign that labelled the aisle.

  Home and Garden.

  Pushing the trolley down aisle 7, Broome began to search the shelves for seeds. He wasn’t going to let vandals ruin his crop. He was here to replenish what had been lost in the night. They’d left the potatoes, as they’d been underground. If he could get the greenhouse fixed he still might grow a few toms so he grabbed the remaining packets from the shelf and slung them in the trolley. He needed strawberries, even though it was too late in the year to begin growing, still he took all the seed packets for next year’s crop. Runner beans, parsnip and every variety of pepper he could find. It wasn’t long before Broome had pretty much emptied the shelves of most of the seed packets in a gathering frenzy. Everything but flowers; the flowers had always been Jessica’s department.

  A tin hit the floor a few aisles over. Broome guessed it was a tin. It sounded like a tin; they had tins here, so by rationale, it must have been a tin. However, what was in the tin would forever remain a mystery. Broome froze; fingers clenched the handle of the trolley like the neck of a despised enemy, his knuckles drawing white. It had been loud, breaking the still silence as a gunshot would do so. Every hair jumped to attention, standing up straight, an army of follicle warriors ready to fight a keratin war. A river of sweat burst from his back, greasing the strain of adrenaline he felt invading his arteries.

  An explosion.

  Boom boom boom boom. Not John Lee Hooker or an approaching cannon friendly army. Just his heartbeat preparing to fight, flee or fuck. He prayed it wasn’t anything, just the wind taking down a precariously balanced tin, stacked by some careless, spotty oik those few moons ago, now pushed from its delicate position by the influx of a freshening wind.

  It must be.

  Another clattered on the floor, the unreality of the situation made Broome jump a little out of his saggy skin. Broome rarely jumped at anything, he’d never had the chance. He held his fingers to his mouth to suppress a scream that clung to his throat like treacle.

  Two more tins were removed from their designated place on the shelves and dropped deliberately on the tiled floor of the supermarket, the clatter echoing doubly this time. An animal had followed him in, a dog or fox or deer or something and was now investigating this new seam of a food source.

  He was wrong.

  Broome shivered.

  He never shivered.

  They’re no other animals. Just him. Him and the grass, the full breeze, the unpolluted sun and the dark, dark, dark. The only things that differentiated the days from each other were him and the weather. Everything else was a constant. The loneliness was a constant; it couldn’t even be measured any more. It was a bottomless sinkhole that he threw the days and nights into.

&
nbsp; A waterfall of tins collapsed to the floor in a tinny, metallic clatter, a puddle of sweat escaped his worn and stretched skin. The urge to piss started to overtake him. Even the fluid in his body was trying it’s best to abandon the situation and escape the supermarket.

  A dilemma clouded up in Broome’s head. Take the trolley or leave it. Someone or something was in here with him, even though he couldn’t hear the direct presence of another mortal being, he was 100% sure that he wasn’t alone. Even though he knew he was. He had to weigh up his chances of facing danger.

  Broome decided to take the trolley. Take it as far as he could, then if anything came after him, he’d dump and run.

  Pushing the trolley forward, a burning built up in his lungs; he’d forgotten to breathe. He gasped; annoyed at himself that he’d allowed the breath to resonate so loud. He stopped and took another, almost automatically holding his breath; again, he had to remind himself to keep breathing in order to not black out. A malignant tightness squeezed his chest.

  Broome pushed forward again, the trolley squeaked, loud and proud as if to say coo-eee! Here I am. Come and get me!

  He broke into a loping run, his ancient knees betraying him and refusing to let him travel at the youthful speed he imagined. The squeak chirping faster. More tins fell from the shelves, until it became a jarring waterfall of noise. Battered tins rolled out from the affected aisle. Then the aisle next to it. Amongst the cacophony, the smash of glass, as jars joined the assault on the floor.

  It wasn’t the wind, Broome thought as he absent-mindedly crashed the trolley into the low frame of the smashed window. With the speed he was going, he torpedoed over the top of the trolley, then tipped off the front left hand side, falling down hard, his elbow smacked into the concrete outside firing a lightning bolt of pain brighter than the sky through his entire body. The trolley tipped over with him. Tins started to hit the trolley with a rattling smash. He looked back into the gloom of the supermarket and saw nothing but tins and jars cascading themselves from the shelves. Because of the gloom he couldn‘t make out who was causing the disturbance. Pushing himself raggedly to his feet, Broome left the seeds in fear for his own life, got in the car, and drove away with an impatient squeal and the boot still gaping open. ‘My Pencil Won’t Write No More’ started up, continuing the last verse of the song. The spare torch he’d brought now missing from his person had been dropped in the madness of the moment. Broome left the supermarket scared; his hands quaking as if overnight he’d developed a severe case of Parkinson’s. He daren’t look back. He headed up the hill of Browswater Road, towards the cemetery. ‘Gallows Pole’ by the late, great Odetta began to boldly blast forth its tale of desperation and depression, the next track on the mix CD that Broome had made for his wife. He liked the old tunes; they meant much more to him than the drivel they used to play on the radio.