Short Story : Me and the Devil
By Prabir Rai Chaudhuri . All Copyright Reserved 2009
I felt safe within the four walls of our mobile home. The
experiences of the previous evening with the ghost in the old castle ruins were
quickly forgotten and would soon become a ridiculous horror story in my
memories that I myself would no longer consider to be real. But by then we
should have visited a few more interesting destinations during our tour with
the motorhome. The next one was Scotland and was more or less around the
corner. At least that's what the man who had programmed the navigation system
said. In reality, it still took us a few hours to get from England.
With the best view of the Highlands, the breathtaking
mountains in Scotland, we stopped in a small parking lot away from populated
areas. All around us were meadows, forests and harvested fields with a few
bales of hay still on them.
"This is the right place," said the man wearily
and crawled out from behind the wheel. "We'll spend the night here. I'm
too tired to drive another kilometer. But I'll treat myself to a walk in the
fresh air. Is anyone coming with me?
The woman, who had been dying to move for hours, had
immediately put on her shoes. I shook my head and laid down demonstratively
across my sleeping area. No amount of horses could get me out of here. My hairy
flatmates shared my opinion. So the people went outside alone.
As time went by, this too. What started as a few minutes
quickly turned into an hour and then another. I was slowly starting to worry
about the man and woman. After all, we needed them to somehow get out of here.
I was theoretically familiar with operating a vehicle, but my legs were
definitely too short to reach the pedals. So I decided to look for the two of
them.
I left the motorhome. At first I had to get used to the
changed lighting conditions, because the sun had set. Only the last remnants of
dusk provided a dim light.
I went in the same direction in which the people had
disappeared and soon saw someone coming towards me in the distance. Was that
them?
I ran towards it, but stopped in shock after a few metres.
The person opposite me was tall, slim and seemed to have horns on his head. It
was the devil himself. He seemed to have come out of hell to get me.
I panicked. I didn't want to be caught so quickly. I ran
towards the mobile home as fast as my untrained body would allow, scratching at
the door like a madman. My pursuer came closer and closer and suddenly split
into two people. It was the man and the woman, who had apparently walked one
after the other.
"Look, Manni," he called out to me proudly.
"I found an old pitchfork in a pasture. Isn't that cool? After our
vacation, it will go on the wall in the hallway as decoration.
I looked at the man angrily. His behavior was not funny. I just wanted to go up on my scratching post.
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