The Devil Lives Here

Date: 10/22/2025

I’m at Mum’s. She’s been acting off all morning — twitchy, distracted. Not her usual self. She keeps pacing from the kettle to the window, window to the kettle. Up and down. Up and down. From upstairs, a yell splits the air — raw, human, and close. “Did you hear that?” I ask. “Oh, that’s just your nan playing silly buggers,” she says — and instantly regrets it. The words hang there, cold and heavy. “Nan?” I frown. “Nan’s been dead twenty-eight years.” Mum shakes her head, slow, almost tender. “No, she hasn’t.” Her eyes flick towards the ceiling. A pause — long enough for my pulse to start counting seconds. “She’s been living under my bed for twenty-eight years. Refusing to come out.” For a moment I just stare at her. The clock ticks. Somewhere, the fridge hums too loudly. “Mum, what are you talking about?” Another yell — sharper, closer. The kind that crawls up your spine. “I didn’t want to do this,” she mutters. “Follow me.” The stairs groan under our feet. Each step winds my nerves tighter. The air changes — heavier, colder, like the house itself is holding its breath. In her bedroom, Mum points to the bed. “She lives under there.” The bed skirt brushes the floor — one of those old-fashioned frilly ones. Across it, scrawled in red marker, are the words: THE DEVIL LIVES HERE. The air beneath the bed breathes — slow, wrong. A smell seeps out: damp earth, rust, and something sweet, like rot pretending to be flowers. Something moves beneath. A rasp. A breath. A low, wet snarl. My throat dries. I crouch, fingers trembling, and lift the sheet. She’s there. My Nan. Curled in the far corner like a small animal. Her face — the same soft wrinkles, the same cloudy eyes. Peaceful, just how she looked when I was ten. She smiles, faintly, as if remembering me. “Hi, Nan,” I whisper. “I thought you were dead.” Her face tightens. “I’m the devil,” she spits. “And you brought me here.” She yanks the sheet down. The red words glare back. Mum stands by the window, hands gripping the sill, knuckles white. “I can’t believe Nan’s alive,” I say, my voice too high, too bright. Mum turns, her expression twisted with something between pity and disgust. “You’re like her, you know.” “Like Nan?” “No,” she snaps. “Like that old battle-axe Aunty Ruth.” Her tone cuts, sharp and sudden. For some reason it hurts more than it should. “I guess I’m a little like her,” I say, pretending to believe it. But I’m not. I’m nothing like her. Mum’s eyes flick towards the bed again. “You’ll see,” she whispers. The air hums. A sound — half hiss, half whisper — curls through the room. It sounds almost like laughter, caught in the walls. And suddenly— I’m with Laura. She’s in one of her moods, pacing like Mum was. “I just can’t be fucked,” she says, flatly. “Do you want me to feed Finley?” I ask. The boy’s been tugging at my leg for the past half hour, his big brown eyes screaming feed me! I lift him into the highchair — his body is heavier than it should be, like dead weight. My arms ache trying to place his kicking legs into their designated holes. “Spaghetti?” I offer. Laura shakes her head, blank. “Okay, baked beans then.” Finley opens his mouth like a baby bird. “Hang on, mister, I’ve got to cook them—” Before I can move, Kylo — Laura’s poodle — bounds in from the rain, paws slick with mud. He leaps at me, smearing dirt on my once-clean trousers. I try to push him off, but it’s too late. Bean juice. Mud. Misery. “I just wanna go out and get fucked,” Laura says. Her voice sounds like Mum’s for a moment. I force a laugh. “Okay.” The pub garden is thick with people. Bodies pressed together, the air thick with laughter and the smell of cheap cider. I feel small, exposed. I want to disappear into the sunlight, to fade into the trellis on the walls. Anywhere but here. Then I see her. Kylie — radiant, glowing, her laughter cutting through the crowd. I’d know that laugh from a mile away. And Amy beside her — poured into a leotard that leaves nothing to the imagination. They shouldn’t be here. Or maybe I shouldn’t. I turn, try to vanish into the crowd. By the exit stands Sophie, calm, serene. An angel in a smock dress. “Shall we take a walk?” she asks, her voice gentle. We walk. The sound of laughter fades. “How are the kids?” I ask, because it’s what normal people say. She smiles softly. “Alfred’s started school.” Her voice is full of light. And then, quietly, something inside me bends — that small sharp sadness of being left behind. I wish I was a better friend, I think, but the words never leave my mouth. Because the air’s shifted again. It thickens, buzzing faintly. My stomach flips. I’m back at work. The depot. Fluorescent lights hum like insects. Everyone’s tired, pissed off, waiting to go home. I can’t remember my eight-digit code. The one I’ve written down a hundred times. My mind blanks after the sixth digit. A queue coils behind me, restless and hissing. “Come on, yo!” someone shouts. Panic prickles my skin. I stare at the wall — flyers, safety posters, a joke caricature of the Big Boss. And then I see it — scrawled in red pen: THE DEVIL LIVES HERE. 66. Relief floods over me. I write it down. I turn, smile too wide. “I’m out of here!” But as I walk out, something follows me. A thought that scratches. That hiss again. Low, coiling, familiar. 66. The devil lives here. The red scrawl. The voice under the bed. Mum’s trembling hands. What if the devil was never Nan? What if it’s what we become — one by one — when we can’t face ourselves anymore? At the door, I glance at the reflection in the glass. My eyes look back, but they’re not mine. Too dark. Too knowing. For a split second, I see her — Nan’s smile, faint and familiar. And I realise — The bed was never hers. It’s mine. And something under it just moved.