The Supermarket Out of Space Pt.1

It is with great dismay that I I find myself encased within this foetid and dank cell deep within the foul corridors of York asylum. I have little recollection of the exact circumstances which led me to my current incarceration and even less knowledge of the foul language I was speaking when I was brought here. I have been told I was babbling some un-Godly discourse in the manner of a barbarian or tribal jungle dweller. During the course of my treatment my doctor happened to play me a recording of this loathsome patois, but even this did not jog my memory of me doing such a thing, nor unfurl from the darkest recesses of my mind an identification of this treacherous prose. Four months have I languished here in this harsh womb of concrete and slowly have I pieced together the final fatal moments before my complete mental break down in that nauseating chamber of untold horror.

I remember the lead up to the event clearly. Having recently given up my lodgings in the leafy and magisterial surrounds of Nicholas Gardens due to the sale of the rented accommodation in which I languished, I was forced by fiscal matters to move further out into the suburbs. My new abode was in the dead centre of the ancient hinterland of Acomb. As Innsmouth is to Newburyport, Acomb is to that fine city of Kings, York. The people of this place carry the 'Acomb' look. A distant view is held by their eyes, as though not looking directly at a person, but through them. A slouching manner is their countenance and a shuffled gait is not uncommon in a population so queer. One would be wise to avoid contact with these 'folk', their manner is gruff and sharp and their fists quick. The dwellings in the town themselves speak of evil, with permanently shuttered windows overlooking dank streets and gloomy alleys. Every other building is either in derelict condition or boarded up, a home only for rodentia and Irish vagrants. Amongst this scene of degradation feral children with wild eyes and slavering maws scream obscenities at passing gentle folk. Yes, Acomb can be called the pit of human despair as recalled by the Mad Arab in his hateful book, The Necronomicon.

So it was my fate to subsist in this accursed precinct. I spent the first two days unpacking my wretched belongings, mostly in an effort to ignore that malodorous community outside my mouldy windows. Busy and engrossed as I was with this task I failed to notice that my supplies had grown short and it was upon the morning of the third day that the slow aching realisation dawned on me that I would have to set foot outside to find further sustenance. Slowly opening the front door I saw that the sky above hung low and dark, like a filthy and greying blanket. No break in the clouds would allow for the sun to penetrate and it was with this framing that I took my first tentative steps towards the centre of the village and the boutiques that stood therein.

As I strode along the street to which my new abode belonged I could feel the filthy curtains in the windows on either side of me twitch as unseen shapeless faces peered and then disappeared behind their drapery shields. A cat-like creature mewled from some unseen location, I say cat-like for I have never heard such a noise come from a feline before. I looked in vain for the creature but saw nothing except what I can only describe as a fungus like mass disappearing behind an outhouse attached to one of the rickety slums which made up my neighbourhood. Shaken, but sure I was mistaken, I quickened my pace in order to put as much distance between myself and that formless horror I thought I had espied. It must have been lack of sleep playing tricks on my mind, I reasoned, but still I could not stop my brain from slowing my step.

To be continued...