THE DEVIL TAKES CARE OF HIS OWN (I.P.)

May 12th 1979. The late afternoon sun reflects off the iconic stone towers of that great temple to football, Wembley Stadium. The 100,000 crowd are stunned; with barely four minutes to go Arsenal, the mighty Gunners from North London, are two goals to the good; Manchester United are down and out… and yet. Two goals in two minutes, incredible stuff, United are level, extra time beckons… and yet.
In the dying seconds Liam Brady flies down Arsenal’s left, he crosses to the far post, Alan Sunderland is waiting, poised to score the winning goal, but no, the ball is taken down by eleven year old Peter Wright, his first touch is perfection, the net beckons, glory is there for the taking. Then… disaster; he steps on the ball, he slips over backward, slamming onto the …..
No, not the hallowed Wembley turf, but the unforgiving concrete of the alley that led to the gate at the bottom of the garden. With twisted ankle, sore backside and bruised pride Peter limped down the garden path to the kitchen door, seeking sympathy and care from his mother; some hope.
‘You were told not to play in the alley,’ she snapped immediately, barely acknowledging her son’s injury.
‘B… but,’ the tearful child stammered.
‘But nothing,’ continued his mother. ‘It’s as I always say, “the Devil takes care of his own.” ‘
And that was that, case closed, time to move on.

Now, thirty years, six thousand miles, thirty-eight savage murders and a death sentence later, Peter Wright had both the time and a reason to recall her words. That he had the time was fairly self explanatory; there’s very little to do on death row except lie around and watch the last dregs of your life slip uselessly by. The reason for recalling the incident was his recent and painful altercation with another concrete floor; wracked by nightmares he had fallen from his bunk. We will get to the cause of his nightmares in a minute or two; for now Peter was considering his mother’s profundity, and he had a problem.
If the Devil does in truth take care of his own, rewarding those who do wrong rather than punishing them, it was not Satan who caused him to injure himself that day, but God himself; “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” and all that. As usual his not so sage mother had “mexed her mitaphors”, so to speak.
‘Oh well,’ Peter conceded. ‘What does it matter now if a bear is Catholic or the Pope shits in the woods?’ Chuckling warmly at his own extraordinary wit the cold blooded serial killer rolled over and went back to sleep.

Once again Peter Wright woke violently from a recurring nightmare, just as he’d done for the last twenty-nine days. He knew with certainty just when they had begun because the day before the guy in the next cell, some poncey upper-class chess player by the name of Chad Pemberton-Smythe, had been taken away and executed as “reward” for brutally murdering his wife. The real eye opener was that the posh twat was innocent; he’d been framed not only by some cop but by the very same cop who had actually done the killing; sweet or what?
Chad had always pleaded his innocence but hey, don’t they all? Peter, however, knew for a stone cold fact he was telling the truth, the cop himself had come into his cell at four o’clock the morning after the execution and told him exactly so. The thing that initially prompted his bout of nightmares was not so much the unconventional nature of the visit, but rather the cop had appeared in his cell without bothering to open the locked steel door.
‘Hello Wrighty,’ the detective asked, his voice low and sibilant, disembodied and distant. ‘Remember me?’
‘Yeh,’ Peter replied, calling on every ounce of his old lag’s instinct to never show weakness. ‘You’re that bent copper, Donovan, Jim Donovan; one of “New York’s finest”.’
‘That I was,’ said Donovan with more than a hint of misplaced pride and a complete disregard of the obvious sarcasm. ‘That I was. But now, you see, I’m dead; murdered by a ghost, just as I am going to murder you.’
‘But why?’ stammered Wright, his bravado shattering upon the cell floor. ‘And why me?’
‘Well, it’s like this…’
The shade of the former NYPD detective had proceeded to regale Peter with a frightening account of how the recently executed Chad Pemberton-Smythe had made a deal with the Devil. In return for Chad being able to come back and kill his wife’s murderer, Donovan’s ghost would have to kill two people who he believed had wronged him. In turn those two individuals would each have to kill a further two people who had wronged them, making four new victims. Those four would kill a total of eight people, who would kill a further sixteen, who would kill thirty-two; and so on until eventually the entire population of the world would be eradicated.
‘And there’s the crux of the matter Petey old boy. One of those prostitutes you sliced and diced was a favourite of mine; I don’t know how you feel on the subject but for me that definitely comes under the heading of being wronged. Say goodbye Pete.’
With that the ghost of Jim Donovan lunged with clawed hands at the convict’s throat. The talon like fingers were within inches of their target when a ball of intense flame erupted within the confines of the cell. Peter screamed, convinced he would be burnt to death; louder still, high and blood curdling, was the scream that came from the apparition’s mouth as it was consumed by the fire.
Peter picked himself up from the floor; both the unearthly conflagration and his equally unearthly visitor had gone. He crossed to the sink and vomited, his nose full of the rotten-egg smell of sulphur.

Over the intervening month spectre after spectre had come to Peter Wright’s cell, all were people he had wronged, and let’s face it, for a serial killer that’s quite a crowd. On each and every occasion, the moment they tried to execute the task laid on them by the spirit who had caused their own demise, the same ball of flame erupted, leaving behind nothing but the smell of sulphur and an increasingly confused and terrified mass murderer.
He knew from the TV news, as well as the increasing number of unexplained deaths amongst both prisoners and prison staff, that what Donovan had forewarned was actually happening, and with increasing speed. What he didn’t know was why he was being spared, why that fiery force was protecting him.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he yelled, thumping the cell wall in his frustration.
‘Because,’ a chilling voice replied from behind him, ‘I have a job for you. You know of my …. Devilish plan of course?’
‘Of course,’ Peter agreed.
‘Unfortunately,’ the Devil continued, ‘not everybody in this world has wronged someone; the young, the innocent, that sort of thing. I need you to take charge of what is left; you will be Lloyd Henreid to my Randall Flagg, but unlike Henreid you will be no mere employee. Welcome to your kingdom Mr Wright.’
With that the voice was gone. Turning around Peter immediately noticed two things: the overwhelming, eye watering aroma of sulphur, stronger this time than ever before, and, more importantly, the wide open cell door. Poking his head gingerly out into the corridor he could see all the doors that led to the outside were also open. Apart from himself the place seemed deserted. His path was clear, the path to his kingdom.
As his wise old Ma always used to say, the Devil really does take care of his own.

COPYRIGHT D M PAMMENT 15th FEBRUARY 2010