The scratching started at midnight. Liked a thousand ragged fingernails, it moved around the house. The wind blew from the north, with an evil chill. The boy stoked the fire, reciting his Lord's prayer over and over. He knew the scratching was meant to taunt him. It wouldn't stop until they grew tired of tormenting him. Then they would come for him.

They would come. He knew this to be true. He had made a deal years earlier, when he was just a young lad.

He had met the devil, sitting on a log beside the road. He seemed harmless enough. He had black eyes, hair as dark as coal, and a wicked grin.

"You be wantin' something, boy," the devil said. He looked the boy up and down.

"You got nothing I want."

"Aye, I'll bet I do." The devil grinned and wild flowers around him withered and fell.

The boy felt a chill pass through him.

He should have walked away, but he didn't.

"You miss your folks, don't you?"

His heart ached at just the mention of his long dead family.

"Yes."

"Give me your soul and I'll bring them back to you."

The boy willed his feet to run, but they remained fixed where he stood. To see his family again, it would mean so much to him.

The devil licked his lips and gave a mournful whistle.

"Miss your mum, don't you boy? What bliss it would be to have her hold you again. And your pap. You wouldn't have to be doing all the work by yerself, now would ya?"

The more the devil talked, the more the boy listened. It was hard to fight the want now. He could barely breathe, the memory of the past flooding back.

"You could do that?" the boy asked.

"Aye."

"Prove it."

"Can't be bringing back people from the dead just because you say so. There is an agreement that needs to be made. Put out your hand, lad. Shake on the terms."

When the boy touched his palm to the devil's palm, a shock of white hot pain surged up his arm.

"'Tis done," the devil grinned.

"When will you bring them back?" the boy said.

The devil stood and brushed the dirt from his clothes. He let his eyes linger on the boy for sometime. When he finally spoke, he smiled.

"When the wind blows down from the north, they will come. Just as you remember them from the last time you saw them. They will come."

Without a word more, the devil shifted and seemed to melt into a dark oily puddle. A sleek shiny black snake slithered into the woods.

Then came the days when the winds changed.

The boy was excited at first. Then as the days wore on, he felt the ominous change in the air and sky. The devil's words played over and over in his head.

"When the wind blows down from the north, they will come. Just as you remember them from the last time you saw them. They will come."

The fire was dwindling. Soon the house would be dark and he knew they would come, just as he saw them last. The last time he saw them they were laying in their caskets. The devil wasn't bringinh them back to life, he was just bringing them back.

"Come to Mummy," the creature outside the window cried. Her fingers tapped at the windows. "Mummy longs to hold you."

Soon he would be with them. Soon the scratching would stop and then his wish would come true.

And there was nothing he could do to stop it.