A Deal with the Devil

I used to appreciate dark humor. My favorite jokes were the ones you questioned if you should even be laughing at; the ones about the dad that says he’s going out to get milk and the punchline is the kid is still waiting a decade later for him to come back. Now that I’m saying it out loud it doesn’t sound so funny, but maybe that’s just because my dad never did come back, and here I am waiting, admittedly only a week later.

My dad didn’t go out for milk, cigarettes, or anything else you could get at the Kwik-E-Mart; he went to work his third double-shift this week as security for the local hospital. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to notice his absence. If dad wasn’t working at the hospital, he was upstairs getting just enough sleep to barely function as a human being, laying next to mom, who only left the bed each day for about the amount of time dad slept in it.

Dad only worked as much as he did because mom couldn’t. She couldn’t because she has cancer. We filed for bankruptcy a year ago and that helped, until the bills piled back up when she didn’t get better. Turns out dying was an expensive process, who knew? But dad loved her and was willing to do anything for her. For us. Until he disappeared about a week ago and we hadn’t heard from him since. On the third day he was gone I realized I hadn’t seen him, on the fourth I realized something was wrong, on the fifth day I called his work, on the sixth day - I called the police.

A missing persons report was filed since it had been over 48hrs since anyone had last seen him, but we lived in a small town and I knew what the looks on all of their faces meant. Everyone thought the same thing - too much debt and death had sent my father packing. But the thing was, mom wasn’t dead yet. If we could just scrape together the money for chemo, to buy her some time for this new trial of medication to work it’s magic... I knew it was a long shot, but dad believed it could work. At least, I thought he did.

A ring of the doorbell drew me out of my thoughts.

I practically sprinted across the puke-colored carpet that hadn’t been updated since I was born, ripping open the door, praying to any God that would listen that my dad was standing on the other side.

He wasn’t.

Nobody was.

In fact, all that was there was a small brown-paper package, tied shut with a single piece of twine.

I ran past the parcel left on my doormat, down the three concrete steps, and onto the patch of dirt I called a lawn, craning my neck left and right to see who dared to falsely raise my hopes.

Not a soul in sight, I returned to my doorsteps, swiping the package as I made my way inside, remembering myself enough to quietly shut the door so I didn’t disturb my mom.

Tucked under the twine was a little piece of paper folded in half with a jagged edge, like it had been ripped out of a book. Unfolding the page, I read the six hastily scrawled words that would forever haunt me, “Take care of your mom, Bumblebee.”

It wasn’t signed but I knew that handwriting. Knew the only person who called me that ridiculous nickname.

Unwrapping the package next, my heart stopped a second time at what I saw within. Two stacks of crisp hundred dollar bills, each with a band around them that read “$10,000.” Twenty grand wasn’t a life changing amount of money for most, but for mom? This was her ticket to chemo, which was the ticket to that drug trial, the ticket to growing old and...

How did dad get this money? Why didn’t he give it to me himself?

I contemplated what to do for all of five minutes before tucking dad’s note in my pocket, running upstairs, creeping into my parent’s bedroom, and leaving the cash on mom’s bedside table for her to wake up to. I wanted her to have it, to know it existed in case I got into any trouble my dad might’ve too. I pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, praying I’d be there with an explanation for the money when she woke up.

Slipping on my dirty, worn-out converse, I made my way to the hospital to trace my dad’s steps.

Two hours later, and I had pestered enough sick people and their caretakers at the hospital to be standing where I am now. Apparently my dad had taken to playing cards with a gentleman everyone knew as “Old-Nick” in patient room 313 when nights were slow for security.

I knocked on the heavy wooden door, pushing it open carefully when I heard an enthralling male voice answer, “Enter.”

The man that replied stood at the window, gazing off into the night, his back to me as the moonlight illuminated his frame. The only features I could make out were general. A tall, muscular man with a head of dark curls stood before me. He appeared young too, at least too young for everyone to know him as “Old” anything, though the details of his profile were hazy at best in this light. The only defining feature was the tailored suit he wore that even from this advantage seemed worth more than my existence.

“If you think my suit is worth more than your soul,” the man began, his voice sending chills across my body, “I’d be happy to make that deal.”

“Wha-what?” I stammered, certain I hadn’t spoken my previous thoughts aloud.

“You don’t need to speak for me to hear you child,” the creature, as I was now certain this was no man, echoed.

“Creature, eh?” He mused. “I’ve been called worse.”

“What do I call you?” I managed, determined to get the answers I needed.

“I have many names, but what you call me matters not.”

Devil.

“Yes, that’s one of them,” he preened. “Perhaps my favorite of the lot.”

I was frozen. Utterly frozen. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t think. This being before me just said he was the Devil... and I believed him.

“You sure caught on quicker than your old man,” he said with a certain level of gleefulness, snapping me out of my stupor.

“You spoke to my dad?” I dared to question.

“Come now, you must’ve figured it out.” I believe I had, but the words were too awful to say. “Did you know this hospital was built on a crossroads? That pesky veil between our worlds is oh, so much thinner here. I can feel the threads of desperation attached to each and every individual near. All I have to do is... tug. You see, that’s how your dear father and I came to be acquainted. He couldn’t bear to watch you watch your mother fade from existence, so we managed to come to an agreement.”

My dad made a deal with the Devil.

“What was your bargain?” I demanded through gritted teeth, an image of the money left on my porch invading my thoughts.

“Your father requested twenty thousand American dollars. I offered him the funds in exchange for a single day of his life, for every dollar given.”

“That’s...” I did the math to the best of my abilities in the moment, “That’s a terrible deal! Each day of his life is worth more than a dollar, and twenty thousand days, that’s...”

“Fifty four years and some change,” he said carelessly, as though he didn’t just take away over half my father’s life - the rest of his life for all I knew.

“It wouldn’t have been the rest,” the beast answered my thoughts. “However he did trade that too for something even more valuable than green paper.”

“What?” I was absolutely horrified.

Reaching into the pocket inside his suit jacket, he pulled out a little black notebook with two fingers, opening the pages and flipping to one in particular before stopping on it and holding up the notebook over his shoulder for me to read what was written. There, in red ink, was my father’s name, the terms of their agreement, and his signature. My dad had bargained not just for the money, but for all of it to work. The chemo, the new drug trial, everything down to collection of payment after delivery of that damned package... and that note.

Next to the page my dad signed was a jagged edge where another piece had been torn out.

“Ah, yes,” the Devil began, snapping the notebook shut and jamming it back inside his pocket, the first bit of his composure lost throughout the exchange. “Now when I agreed to grant him the power to send a note to his beloved daughter, I did not anticipate him hastily ripping a page from my bargain book and sending that in its place. Though I suppose your father didn’t premeditate that particular decision or else I would have seen it coming.”

I would have thought nothing of it, yet...

“Your father did something so foolish, no other mortal has ever dared attempt it. He stole from me.”

And Old-Nick was pissed, I realized.

“The pages of this book are forged of the flesh of the most depraved sinners in Hell. There’s a power in that, one your tiny human mind could never hope to comprehend. I will not stand to have that power taken from me, even a single kernel of it.” I could feel the room growing hotter as he spoke, could feel his controlled rage slipping further and further. “Return the page at once, and I will not punish you for your father’s insolence.”

A spike of pure terror shot through me as I stood there, my mind racing as I thought of every angle until...

“You would have taken this page from me already if you could,” the truth hit me, my plan forming even as I fought the urge to urinate in my jeans.

“Careful, girl...” I was warned by Lucifer himself, and yet for my dad, I would try.

“You want this page?” I asked foolishly, recklessly as I removed it from my pocket, holding it up for him to see. He turned then, and finally I saw them - his blood red eyes. Still, I did not falter. “You want the page, I want my dad back. Let’s make a deal.”