Uncanny Magazine Issue 7 by Lynne M. Thomas

Author:Lynne M. Thomas [Uncanny Magazine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fantasy, fantasy, horror, magazine
Publisher: Uncanny Magazine
Published: 2015-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Yoon Ha Lee’s collection Conservation of Shadows came out from Prime Books in 2013. His space opera novel, Ninefox Gambit, is due out from Solaris Books in June 2016. His fiction has appeared in Tor.com, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed Magazine, and other venues. He lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat, and has not yet been eaten by gators.

I Seen the Devil

by Alex Bledsoe

I don’t claim that this story is true, and I don’t care if you believe it. It happened in 1973, when I was ten years old. It’s impossible to verify. But I’m still going to tell it to you.

On this particular hot summer night, I ran through the swamp behind the trailer park as hard as I could, even though the night was dark and moonless. I’d run this same trail many times, so I knew where to turn, when to jump, and how fast it was safe to go in the straightaways. Even if I stepped on a cottonmouth, I’d be gone before it had time to turn and bite me.

I didn’t have a watch, so I had no idea what time it was; it had been 9:30 when I left home, slipping out the narrow window and dropping soundlessly to the ground while my mom yelled after my dad’s car. No one came out of any of the other trailers near us; people no longer paid any attention when my mom yelled at my dad.

At last I reached the old house, but I didn’t run to the door. Instead I went to a flat place in the yard where the untended grass was considerably thinner. I got on my hands and knees and yelled down at the ground.

“Tater! Tater! You in there?”

“I’m down here,” a voice drawled back. “What you want, boy?”

“They caught the devil!”

“Who did?”

“The police!” In my childhood drawl, it came out, “POE–lease.”

The ground rose in front of me, as the plywood sheet covered with sod lifted, allowing a shaft of yellow light to punch out into the steamy darkness. It backlit Tater’s head, so that I couldn’t see his face.

“Boy, it’s awful late for nonsense.”

“It ain’t nonsense! Mr. Moose done called my daddy, and he’s headed down there to look.”

“Mr. Moose,” he repeated with a snort. “Moose” Gimble was the mayor, and probably would be until the town dried up and blew away; it was certain no one else wanted the job. “Well, then, your daddy can tell you all about it when he gets back.”

“He ain’t gonna tell me nothing,” I whined. “You know that. Ain’t you curious?”

He pushed the roof of his little hole up higher; behind him I saw the table, chair and portable black and white TV. He’d even hung a picture of an old man praying over a loaf of bread on the dirt wall. “I ain’t never curious about nonsense.”

“It ain’t nonsense!” I insisted.

“Why you bothering me about it?”

“Because you told me once that you shook the devil’s hand.

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