Page 1 of The Devil Takes

It was cold.

The kind of cold that takes bites from your flesh and burrows deep inside the marrow of your bones. Icy. Mean. Painful in its winter flavored vitriol.

If I’d been a smarter guy, I would’ve been at home, tucked safely inside my dorm room on the wrong side of campus. I’d be staring at my always studying roommate—like I did every night—wondering why the hell I’d gone to college in the first place when I knew I’d never fit in.

Instead, I was naked.

Dirt clung to my knees and shins, and my toes and fingers were numb.

The scent of dead things permeated the air so strongly that even I could smell it. Rotting leaves and decay, like an exhale between winter’s first harsh, life-sucking kisses.

The sun had sunk below the horizon ages ago.

But stubbornly, I didn’t leave.

I listened to the whistle of the wind, shivering, as my cock shriveled up and the hair on my thighs did nothing to warm the tremble of my quaking limbs.

I was stupid.

I’d always known I was stupid.

Hell, I’d been told it enough times that in my mind it had become just another fact. But even knowing that—for me, this was a new low.

Tales of myths and monsters had kept me awake for days in preparation for this moment. So, I couldn’t help myself as I stared at the gaping hollows between tree trunks, searching through the darkness for the passage beneath the bridge I knew lay hidden in the shadows. At any other time of the year, it was just an ordinary underpass.

Not today.

Not for long.

At least if the rumors were to be believed.

They said the Devil came out on autumn nights just like this one. That the passage to Hell was only a few short steps away, hidden behind tombstones and half-wilted bouquets at the back of a graveyard older than the town itself. They said the Devil visited those that were most vulnerable. They said the Devil took what he wanted to take.

Just like any rumor I’d heard whispered between my peers in crowded classrooms, I’d disregarded this one.

When the brothers’ fraternity had suggested this as initiation, I’d laughed along with all the other guys. It seemed a small price to pay if it meant winning a permanent spot in the frat house starting the next semester.

They said the Devil only took what you were willing to give.

I wasn’t willing to give much, so even though one by one the other freshmen had fled when the sun had bled blue, I stayed behind.

Stay the whole night.

Naked.

Fail to stay, and you forfeit.

Those were the rules.

Maybe it was stupid to risk my life for this, but, hell, I was stupid. The kind of stupid that no one notices till they ask you a question and get to watch your blank-faced confusion as you scramble to understand what they’d even asked in the first place.

Unfortunately for me stupidity wasn’t my only weakness.

I wasn’t particularly great to look at either.

I had no skills to write home about, unless you counted artfully avoiding my roommate’s attempts at painting my toes.

Thick-bodied and untrained, I was athletic, sure, but not in the way that turned people’s heads, or cushioned my dad’s empty pockets. Too big to look the way I was “supposed to.” Too small to look the way my dad wished I did. About as dangerous as a rather large bunny rabbit.

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