My Father Gives The Devil A Black Envelope Every Month. Something Evil Is Inside.

A thirteen-year-old boy in Alabama discovers that his family’s extraordinary good fortune—the successful car dealership, the steakhouse, the ice cream parlor, the Rotary fundraisers, the care for his disabled grandfather—comes at a terrible price. Every month, his father gives the Devil a black envelope. Inside is the name of the family’s firstborn son, leased out for possession until the next full moon. The boy, Chris, is that son. After setting up a webcam in his father’s office, he watches his own father sign him over like a check at a restaurant. The Devil knows he’s watching. And the Devil has plans for him.

The Deal and Its Cost

Chris’s family lives in an old antebellum house in rural Alabama. His father is a hardworking, respected businessman who, when the Devil walks into his office, doesn’t even flinch. He offers the Devil hot coffee—because otherwise the Devil will heat it himself and leave scorch marks on the ceiling. The Devil drinks it black, shoots it like whiskey, and then the door closes. Chris never knew what happened inside. But after he turns thirteen, he starts waking up sore, with scratches and black gunk under his fingernails. He sets up a webcam and catches himself leaving the house at midnight, returning at four in the morning filthy with dirt and blood, with no memory of where he’s been. The next day, a local preacher who had been fighting corrupt