The Real Devil's Face

A few months back, I told the gang across in the fan club on Facebook that one day I’d reveal the very real inspiration for The Devil’s Face. As I’m now writing this, it would seem that day has come.

Several years ago, before I became a full-time author, I was in a very difficult and turbulent work situation. I have never experienced stress levels like it in my life and it affected everything.

I’m not about to go into the nuts and bolts of said employment, but I need to give you a little more perspective on a couple of the aspects. I live out in the sticks. It was a fifty-mile round trip to get to work and back and, in winter, I sometimes had to set off extra early to get there for 6.30 a.m.

There are large sections of road that don’t have streetlights at all, but at the times I was travelling, it didn’t make much difference because even those parts with lights didn’t have them turned on.

Now, one morning, at about 5.40 a.m., I was a few minutes into my journey and my entire world turned upside down. I’d just entered the neighbouring village and was driving past a church when goosebumps broke out all over my body and it felt like the temperature dropped in the car by about twenty degrees. All that happened in a fraction of a second and then my eyes were drawn to a figure in the periphery of my vision. It was elongated, freakishly tall, in fact. It wore a hood and its arms hung down by its side, one seemingly a little longer than the other. Its movement was jerky, like a frame-by-frame advance on a DVD. I was past it before I processed everything that was happening and I brought my foot off the accelerator ready to hit the brake when something in my head screamed, “NO!”

Somehow, in those fragments of a moment between seeing this image and trying to understand what it was, a voice in my head said it was not something I wanted anything to do with. I should point out at this stage that I have never believed in supernatural forces or anything remotely like that. However, alarm bells were screaming and, I don’t know how or why, but my brain was telling me that this was a thing of malevolence and I needed to get the hell out of there as quickly as I could.

So, I hit the gas and continued my journey with haste. I looked in the mirrors, but it was pitch black and there was nothing for me to see. I went down the hill, over the bridge and up the slope on the other side. There were more houses dotted around by this point and the goosebumps started to dissipate a little. I normally used to text T when I got to work, just so she knew I had arrived safely, but on this particular morning, I phoned. I know I must have sounded mad, but I recounted exactly what I’d seen.

This job was done in shifts of over twelve hours, three on and three off. Thankfully, this was my third day, and when I got home that night, I don’t mind telling you that I had more than a couple of drinks.

There was a part of me that wondered if my mind had somehow played tricks, but there was another part that knew exactly what I’d seen. As much as I tried to reason, I couldn’t.

After my three days off, it was with some trepidation that I got into my car again. This time, I slowed down as I went past the church where I’d seen the figure on my last journey. I had no idea what I expected. Would I see it again? Would I see a different figure? Would something help me make sense of the experience?

As it turned out, I saw nothing. If any of the villagers happened to look out of their windows at that time, they must have wondered what the hell I was doing. But anyway, after a short period of virtual kerb crawling, I pressed down on the accelerator and continued to work.

I didn’t see anything for the rest of that three-day stint, or the next, or the next; but I continued to be a little apprehensive every time I went past that church.

Then it happened again. Only, this time, it was even creepier. I caught sight of this thing, this whatever it was, straddling the white line at the side of the road just metres before the bridge. It just stood there with its back to me, its hands down by its sides, its legs apart.

I mean, what the hell? Straddling the white line like that. There was a part of me that wondered if it was going to lunge at the car or something because, this time, I had to drive much closer to it because it was where the road narrows to cross the bridge.

Needless to say, the goosebumps were back with a vengeance and I was kind of hyperventilating a little too. I thought I’d seen the last of it, but, suddenly, here it was again and it was closer and more threatening.

There were no thoughts of slowing down this time. I put my pedal to the metal. Again, because of the dark, as soon as I was past it I couldn’t see anything in the mirrors. I went over the bridge and up the hill. I didn’t slow down when I reached the build-up of houses this time, nor did the goosebumps vanish. I have to admit I actually swivelled around in my seat. It sounds stupid all this time after when I say it out loud, but the ghosts of a thousand horror films came back to haunt me that morning and I looked for any outlines that shouldn’t be there in the glow of the dashboard lights.

Eventually, my breathing returned to normal once more, and, again, when I got to work, I phoned Tina.

My head was in a spin. It was bad enough the first time, but when nothing happened after it, I thought it was just going to be one of those inexplicable things in my life that one day I would probably put down to having an overactive imagination.

There were several more apprehensive morning journeys. Each time, I expected to see something and, each time, I saw nothing. There was one occasion when I got the goosebumps as I passed the church, and I felt sure I there would be a sighting, but I saw nothing. I just had the notion that it was there.

The days gradually became weeks with no further occurrences, and then, one morning in late January, there it was. I got the by now familiar feeling of bristling skin and my breathing became erratic. But this time, the figure was hunched over as it walked up the hill beyond the bridge. Due to the angle of the road, it was further away from me and the feeling of dread didn’t last as long.

Once I was past it, I couldn’t see anything, just like the two occasions before. I wondered if this was how it was going to be from now on, just seeing this thing from time to time, or whether it would finally do something. Would I mysteriously lose control of the car one day? Would the engine just quit at the moment I saw whatever this entity was so I’d be trapped with it?

None of that happened. To this day, I have not seen this thing again. I continued to be completely baffled by what I’d seen. I mean, it just didn’t make sense. Now, looking back, I have concluded that these events were some kind of bizarre hallucinations caused by a previously unparalleled level of stress. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Or it’s the only thing that makes a sense that I want to consider.

I’ve always prided myself on my logic and this is the only logical solution I can come up with. I said that, one day, I’d have to use the fear I felt during that period and write a horror book, but no inspiration came that would do it justice.

Then we got a new multi-light fitting put up in the kitchen and something gave me the seed of an idea. Our house looks over fields at the back. On a night, it’s insanely dark. To avoid serious injury, you need to put the light on when you head into the kitchen and there is a split second when, due to the angle of the bulb, a figure can be seen out of the corner of my eye. It’s an optical illusion caused by the light, the movement of our white kitchen door, my position and the window all working together for that fraction of a moment. The first couple of times it happened, I did a double take. When I finally got used to seeing it, the idea for The Devil’s Face was born.

What if the fleeting glimpses, the things that send shudders through us until our minds process what they actually are, are something else? What if that figure we see out of the corner of our eye, the one that we put down to a trick of light, is more than that? What if it’s that thing I saw on my travels to work? What if it’s stalking me, waiting to strike again when I’m at my weakest and most vulnerable? What if all those flashes of movement that sometimes send shivers down our spine are linked to our darkest fears just waiting to seize their opportunity when the time is right?

The idea developed quickly and, before I knew what was happening, Lev, Jodie, Beth, Taleen and the rest of The Devil’s Face cast were in my head and telling me their tale.

So, there it is. That’s the story behind the inspiration for The Devil’s Face. It was born from one of the most tempestuous periods in my life, but if I hadn’t gone through it, the book would never have been written, so it all worked out in the end. (And here’s hoping that was indeed the end.)