Tim Pratt - Sympathy for the Devil

“You’re joking.”

“Maybe.” He looked out the window, as if considering all those missing souls. “Don’t worry. It’s like an appendix. You won’t even miss it.”

Nikki walked home from the bus stop; her stomach churned as she thought over the bargain she’d made. Her soul. The devil. She had just made a bargain with the devil. Who else wanted to buy souls?

She stomped into the trailer to see her mom on the couch, eating a piece of frozen pizza. Doug sat next to her, watching a car being rebuilt on television. Both of them looked tired.

“Oh, honey,” her mother said. “I’m so sorry.”

Nikki sat down on the shag rug. “You didn’t kill Boo, did you?”

“The vet said that we could wait until tomorrow and see how he’s doing, but he wasn’t very encouraging.” Long fingers stroked Nikki’s hair, but she refused to be soothed. “You have to think what would be best for the poor dog. You don’t want him to suffer.”

Nikki jumped up and stalked over to the kitchen. “I don’t want him to die!”

“Go talk to your sister,” their mother said. Doug pushed himself up off the couch.

“Show me how to train for an eating contest,” Nikki told him, when he tried to speak. “Show me right now.”

He shook his head. “You’re seriously losing it.”

“Yeah,” she said. “But I need to win.”

The next morning, after her mother left for work, Nikki called herself out sick and started straightening up the place. After all, the devil was the most famous guest she’d ever had. She’d heard of him, and what was more, she was pretty sure he knew a lot of people she’d be impressed by.

He knocked on the door of the trailer around noon. Today, he wore a red double-breasted suit with a black shirt and tie. He carried a gnarled cane in a glossy brown, like polished walnut.

Seeing her looking at it, he smiled. “Bull penis. Not too many of these.”

“You dress like a pimp,” Nikki said before she thought better of it.

His smile just broadened.

“So are you a devil or the devil?” Nikki held the screen door open for him.

“I’m a devil to some.” He winked as he walked past her. “But I’m the devil to you.”

She shuddered. Suddenly, the idea of him being the supernatural seemed entirely too real. “My brother’s in the back waiting for us.”

Nikki had set up on the picnic table in the common area of the trailer park. She walked onto the hot concrete and the devil followed her. Doug looked up from where he carefully counted out portions of sour gummy frogs onto paper plates. He looked like a giant, holding each tiny candy between two thick fingers.

Nikki brushed an earwig and some sour cherry splatter off a bench and sat down. “Doug’s going to explain the rules.”

The devil sat down across from her and leaned his cane against the table. “Good. I’m starving.”

Doug stood up, wiping sweaty palms on his jeans. “This is what we’re going to do. We have a bag of 166 sour gummy frogs. That’s all we could get. I divided them into sixteen plates of ten and two plates of three, so you each have a maximum of 83 frogs. If you both eat the same number of frogs, whoever finishes their frogs first wins. If you have a… er… reversal of fortune, then you lose, period.”

“He means if you puke,” Nikki said.

Doug gave her a stern look, but didn’t say anything.

“We need not be limited by your supply,” said the devil. A huge tarnished silver platter appeared on the table. It scuttled over to Nikki on chicken feet and she saw that it was heaped with sugar-studded frogs.

The candy on the paper plates looked dull in comparison with what glimmered on the table. Nikki picked up an orange-and-black colored candy poison dart frog and put it regretfully down. It just seemed dumb to let the devil supply food. “You have to use ours.”

The devil shrugged. With a wave of his hand, the dish of frogs disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a burnt-sugar smell. “Very well.”

Doug put a plastic pitcher of water and two glasses between them. “Okay,” he said, lifting up a stopwatch. “Go!”

Nikki started eating. The salty sweet flavor flooded her mouth as she crammed in candy.

Across the table, the devil lifted up his first paper plate, rolling it up and using the tube to pour frogs into a mouth that seemed to expand. His jaw unhinged like a snake. He picked up a second plate.

Nikki swallowed frog after frog, sugar scraping her throat, racing to catch up.

Doug slid a new pile in front of Nikki and she started eating. She was in the zone. One frog, then another, then a sip of water. The cloying sweetness scraped her throat raw, but she kept eating.

The devil poured a third plate of candy down his throat, then a fourth. At the seventh plate, the devil paused with a groan. He untucked his shirt and undid the button on his dress pants to pat his engorged belly. He looked full.

Nikki stuffed candy in her mouth, suddenly filled with hope.

The devil chuckled and unsheathed a knife from the top of his cane.

“What are you doing?” Doug shouted.

“Just making room,” the devil said. Pressing the blade to his belly, he slit a line in his stomach. Dozens upon dozens of gooey half-chewed frogs tumbled into the dirt.

Nikki stared at him, paralyzed with dread. Her fingers still held a frog, but she didn’t bring it to her lips. She had no hope of winning.

Doug looked away from the mess of partially digested candy. “That’s cheating!”

The devil tipped up the seventh plate into his widening mouth and swallowed ten frogs at once. “Nothing in the rules against it.”

Nikki wondered what it would be like to have no soul. Would she barely miss it? Could she still dream? Without one, would she have no more guilt or fear or fun? Maybe without a soul she wouldn’t even care that Boo was dead.

The devil cheated. If she wanted to win, she had to cheat too.

On her sixth plate, Nikki started sweating, but she knew she could finish. She just couldn’t finish before he did.

She had to beat him in quantity. She had to eat more sour gummy frogs than he did.

“I feel sick,” Nikki said.

“Don’t you know.” Doug shook his head vigorously. “Fight it.”

Nikki bent over, holding her stomach. While hidden by the table, she picked up one of the slimy, chewed-up frogs that had been in the devil’s stomach and popped it in her mouth. The frog tasted like sweetness and dirt and something rotten.

The nausea was real this time. She choked and forced herself to swallow around the sour taste of her own gorge.

Sitting up, she saw that the devil had finished all his frogs. She still had two more plates to go.

“I win,” the devil said. “No need to keep eating.”

Doug sunk fingers into his hair and tugged. “He’s right.”

“No way.” Nikki gulped down another mouthful of candy. “I’m finishing my plates.”

She ate and ate, ignoring how the rubbery frogs stuck in her throat. She kept eating. Swallowing the last sour gummy frog, she stood up. “Are you finished?”

“I’ve been finished for ages,” said the devil.

“Then I win.”

The devil yawned. “Impossible.”

“I ate one more frog than you did,” she said. “So I win.”

He pointed his cane at Doug. “If you cheated and gave her another frog, we’ll be doing this contest over and you’ll be joining us.”

Doug shook his head. “It took me an hour to count out those frogs. They were exactly even.”

“I ate one of the frogs from your gut,” Nikki said. “I picked it up off the ground and I ate it.”

“That’s disgusting!” Doug said.

“Five second rule,” Nikki said. “If it’s in the devil for less than five seconds, it’s still good.”