Devil On Your Back

Tracey, a teenage single parent in London's East End, pregnant for a second time, is desperate not to end up like her mother: overworked and defeated.




Denny Brown was first prize winner of the 2012 Cafe Three Zero Short Story Competition and was shortlisted for the 2012 Writers Reign Short Story Competition. She was longlisted for the Greenacre Writer's Short Story in 2013.



Tracey, a teenage single parent in London's East End, pregnant for a second time, is desperate not to end up like her mother, overworked and defeated. Having seen her mother beaten and embittered by her violent relationship with unemployed partner Pete, Tracey still feels bound to the house she grew up in and the manipulative step-father who calls her princess.


Ted, Tracey's twin, is addicted to smoking marijuana, and suffers with OCD and an increasingly disturbing fear of the human body. Having abandoned his childhood dream of playing football for West Ham United, and surrounded by friends who supply him with drugs, and a girlfriend he doesn't like, Ted, in a moment of drug-induced paranoia, kills the dog of an old woman who offers him help, and hides the body in the local park.


The separate threads of this compelling story draw both Tracey and Ted back to their mother's house, where Tracey makes a terrifying and life-changing discovery - download Devil On Your Back now.