I know where the Devil lives. I don't mean a metaphorical
devil, that is to say, a person who perpetuates evil acts under the guise of
helping humanity/individuals (although I do know more of them that I would
like, as well), no, I mean the actual, literal Devil. The pitchfork, the horns,
the twisted goatee, the whole shebang. I met him when I was eight years old.
When I was eight, the world was a much different place and
not just because I was looking at it through the innocent eyes of youth. There
was no internet. Mobile phones were clunky beasts tethered to businessmen and
women. Music came on cassette tapes and movies came on VHS. I grew up in the
Dingle area of Liverpool which, even today, seems to be a neglected area of the
city. A microcosm of time suspended, forgotten. I would later learn that the
Dingle used to be a heavily green area, with lush valleys and streams
crisscrossing fields, but was almost entirely urbanised at the turn of the 20th
century to provide accommodations for the rapidly expanding population of
Liverpool. What was once a verdant paradise became a grey squalor and has
remained as such ever since.
What is the relevance of the Dingle's history, I hear you
ask of me. Well, I reply, it's to do with tragedy and religion. Many of the
early settlers of the new housing project were fanatically religious Irishmen,
who'd emigrated to Liverpool to work on the docks. Later on there would be an
influx of people with similar fundamentalist Christian beliefs from the West
Indies and the Caribbean. That's the religion, the tragedy was that they were
fooled into coming. The industry dried up. The jobs disappeared. They were
trapped in a land not very familiar, that was bleak, desolate and full of crushing
hardships.
I was born more than a few decades after the initial arrival
of so many immigrants and I never knew anything other than the toil and the
antagonism certain groups felt toward one another.
"We
might have nothing but at least we're not the Irish!" or replace
"Irish" with whatever group, "Blacks" "Italians."
"Protestants." When you haven't got much what you do have has more
emphasis.
Despite this, I grew up relatively well adjusted. My mother,
to her credit, looked around and saw the inhuman conditions and decided that
her family would have none of that. So, before I even got to school age I was
able to read and write. She taught me how to do maths, how to question and
think critically, how to apply logic to the world around me. Her one failing,
or at least the most major one (and one that is perhaps in contradiction to the
preceding sentence), was her unwavering belief in the supernatural. A belief that
she passed along to me.
Consequently, my childhood was one filled of ghosts, bogeymen,
goblins and ghouls. When I was a child we moved from haunted house to haunted
house. Things going bump in the night, the whole family sleeping in one bed
because of what was out there in the darkness. There are many stories about
that as well, oh so many happenings, but the one that concerns us now is the
time I met the Devil.
(BREAK)
As mentioned, I was eight years old at the time. My family
was living on the ground floor of a ring of tenements (ever too proud, my
mother would forever label these buildings as "maisonettes") opposite
of which was a building locally known as "The Florrie". Or to give it
its full title, "The Florence Institute for Boys." It was a grand
building. Built by a grieving father, it become a beacon of light in the eyes
of many a deprived children living in the south docklands of Liverpool in spite
of its imposing gothic look. For over a hundred years it stood, providing these
children a place to play sports, games, to sign up for camps away from the urban
muck of their homes. It was a place that inspired and allowed escape from the
drudgery of everyday life.
It closed down a few years before I was born and I never got
to see it in its proper light. Abandoned, it became home to rats, pigeons and
other assorted vermin. Naturally, we broke in. The children, I mean. Me and my
friends. It was too alluring a proposition to turn down. I should probably back
up a bit here and explain. My friends and I were not thieves. We didn't break
into houses where people lived, well, maybe they did, but certainly not when
with me. I only ever broke into abandoned places. Derelict houses, abandoned
shops, forgotten churches. Have you ever been in a place that once thrummed
with life but is now quiet and deserted? A school after dark? An early morning
street when no one else, not even cars are about? I live for those moments.
Those little, absurd moments when one can stand still in a place that should be
busy with life, surging with noise and action and see, hear and feel nothing.
It's otherworldly.
And that otherworldliness is what drew me to those places.
As much as the supernatural scared and terrified me, it enticed me and I felt
that these neglected places would be the best places to bump into an apparition
or two.
To break into "The Florrie" would require a bit
more planning than my group were used to. As I mentioned, it was a grand
building and I mean that in the true sense of the word. The windows were high
off the floor, the front doors into the building were made of thick, strong
wood and bolted firmly. We decided the best way in would be to climb a tree
overlooking the back wall and try a find a way in from the yard, though, from
what we could see the back of the building offered nothing much in the way of
entry either. We were sure we'd find something, but the more pressing concern
was that we were equally sure that the building was alarmed.
Earlier in the year was the only time we'd ever nearly been
caught. We'd gained entrance into a dilapidated church (coincidentally at the
top of the same road The Florrie is located on) and I was walking about
admiring the chipped gold painting on the pew handles, when my reverie was
broken by the blue light of a police car and an angry voice calling us to come
out of there at once. For whatever reason, whether it was just because they
knew we were kids and didn't want to catch, just scare us, or they were stupid,
or there was only one of them, the police had nobody cover the back yard of the
church and so we scrabbled over the back wall, split up and melted back into
the warrens of the Dingle.
We knew it must have been a silent alarm that gave us away
because no one in the Dingle would really care enough to call the police on a
group of kids breaking into an old building, even a church. And if a tacky old
church had a silent alarm then a fine building like The Florrie would certainly
have one as well.
In the weeks leading up to the adventure, people started
telling stories about The Florrie. From out of nowhere it seemed, everybody.
Adults, other children not part of the group, teachers. At first we thought someone
must have spilled what we were going to do to a parent or something and this
was their way of trying to put us off our attempt. But, being kids, we knew
better. Still, every day on the walk home from school (which took me and my
brother past The Florrie), we'd peer through the letter box and gaze into the
dark hallways of the building. We couldn't see much from that angle, just a
staircase leading up to shadows. It was very clean and there was never any
movement. Which, looking back, I should have found odd.
The day finally arrived when our nerve held and we decided
that we were going over the wall. I climbed the tree and leaped down into the
yard behind The Florrie. Only one of my friends joined me, the others left.
Chickened out. I forget the name of the friend who did come with me. I didn't
see him much after this.
We poked around and found a small window set at ground
level. I picked up a rock ready to smash it open when my friend tried pulling it
and found that it opened easily, if creakily. We slipped through the now open
window and landed in what looked to be a storage area. An inch thick layer of
dust covered every surface. Taking care not to breath in too deeply, we pushed
past a collection of leather sporting bags and, opening a door, found ourselves
in a dark, shadowy hallway. As we always did, we split up. He moved deeper into
the bowels of building whilst I went up a small stairway. I had it in my mind
to find the entrance hallway, the one I'd seen through the letterbox. The
stairs curled in a spiral as I ascended.
Cautiously, I opened the door at the top of the stairs. The
floorboards creaked as I entered what looked like a classroom. Lazy afternoon
light spilled onto the mildewed books left open on desks. A dented plastic
globe sat forlornly in a corner, the dust that was everywhere below was
everywhere here as well. I picked my way between the desks and then, gingerly,
clambered on the one nearest the high window so I could peek through. I saw the
familiar street below, the one I would on every day to go to school and back.
Which meant if I went....
I jumped off the desk and exited the room following, in
parallel, the street outside. I arrived at the entrance hall. Eagerly I ran
over to the stairs. Finally, I would get to see what was at the top. I climbed
the stairs. I was about halfway up the stairs when I first heard it. The
slight, tinkling notes of a song, but when I strained my ears I lost track of
it. My first thought was that it was the local Ice cream van, playing its plinky
plonk tune as it sounded very similar, yet not at all so, and that I couldn't
hear it when stopped to listen because it had stopped its siren to serve
customers. It became louder and clearer as I reached the top of the stairs and
I realised that it wasn't the ice cream van. The music was coming from inside
The Florrie itself. Taking care to make as little noise as possible, I crept
down the first floor hallway.
I can't describe the music and not just because I've never
had an ear for instruments. It was beautiful and melancholic, at the same time
boundlessly happy but also infinitely sad. It raised my spirits with one bar
and dashed them in the next and then repeated the process again. On tip toe I
crept behind each door and listened until I reached the penultimate door. An
angry, discordant note rang out, the music stopped and a horrifying scream came
from down the stairs. I paused for a moment, torn between investigating the
room with the glorious music and what was obviously my friend in trouble.
I
decided to do both.
I opened the door, more quickly than I had planned and there he was. The Devil. He was sat on a plush green chair, His fingers knotted in
contemplation of me. He smiled. It was a horribly beautiful smile. On a table
next to him was a fiddle, the strings of which oozed a thick, black oily
looking substance. His hoofed legs were crossed, one on top of the other, and
were covered in a dark, shaggy fur. He stared at me with his eyes, those deeps,
flame-specked eyes and let out a short bray of laughter.
I turned and I ran. I ran and I ran. Down the first
stairway, through the classroom, down the spiral stairs, back into the dusty
storage room. As I was climbing out of the window I suddenly remembered my
friend, but then there he was, climbing out after me, frantically pushing me
out of the way. We collapsed against the wall and stared at the small, open
window.
"Did
you...did you see..." I stammered.
"I
saw...something..." my friend vomited at this point.
I never did learn what he actually saw. Whether it was the
same thing, the same Devil I saw, or something else entirely. He moved away not
too long after that. The rumour was that he hadn't slept since we'd gone into
The Florrie and his parents decided to move him out of the city. I suppose I
should be thankful, if that is the case, that I wasn't affected in such a way.
My parents did find out about my breaking and entering though. I was grounded
for a long while and made to promise to never break into abandoned buildings
again (and if my parents are reading this, I never did, honest).
The Florrie itself is still there, though it's been
renovated now and is once again fully open to the public. I've never been though
and I suppose, I lied at the very start of this story. I don't know where the
Devil lives, only where he once spent an afternoon scaring an eight year old
child. I would still never go back there though, just in case he was still
there. Just in case.
