I buried my own granddaddy some seventy-five years ago; I couldn't have been much older than eight, barely older than my own grandson is now. Soon, he'll have to watch like I did, bear witness as his papa is lowered into the ground. They'll put me down there with the worms, and there won't be a damn thing he can do about it. I'll be dead, and he'll go on without me, just like I went on when I had to. People live past death every day. My grandboy won't be an exception. He'll survive just fine without his papa, just like I did. But my death will leave him with one very important thing to do. I pray to God everyday he does it right.

We brought them with us from the old country. They hid out on the ships when we crossed the pond, holed up in the shadows, dressed like men, pretending to be something they're not. They've pretty much always done that, dressing up like us men when we both know they ain't.

They're not men, never have been, and no matter how much they try to pretend, they never will be.

They like the water; they need it, can't survive without it. That's why you only see 'em when you're around it. On a lake shore, by the banks of a river, in a house with leaky pipes or a flooded basement, those are the kinds of places where you mostly find 'em, but it's in the rain where they thrive. Water falling from the sky brings 'em out most every time. And if you have yourself a funeral in the rain, they'll always be there, never fails. They'll be there, and they'll be primed to make a deal.

They make deals. Sometimes the trades are fair; sometimes they ain't. Mostly, it depends on them. But the question is really how much are you willing to give up to get what they offer. I was only eight when I was first forced to make that choice. It wasn't as easy as it seemed. Nothing never quite is.

Granddaddy and Grandma raised me from the beginning; Mama died while birthing me. The three of them had come over from Ireland when Mama was just a baby. They said she'd took sick with a fever halfway 'cross the ocean, barely survived the trip. Granddaddy said they never had much of a choice, either die of sickness on a boat or die of starvation. A lot of their folk moved up North, into the cities, but they came to the South. With all the green hills and dense forests, I reckon it reminded 'em more of the home they left.

Granddaddy always figured they had come along too. He would see them sometimes out in the rain, and he would always say to me in his thick accent, "Watch out for those Bloody-Bones, boy. Don't ye ever listen to a word they got to say." And when I said I wouldn't, he'd always say, "Their tongues are made of silver, boy, and they'll offer ye what ye always wanted. But if ye listen, if ye take it, then ye'll damn us both to Hell."

Bloody-Bones, that's what he always called 'em. He said they were hobgoblins from the old country, demons bound to the world of men to create mischief and strife, but mainly, they were just jealous of men, 'cause man had the one thing they could never have: a soul.

I wasn't no more than eight when granddaddy died. A stroke took him in the middle of the night. Grandma had always told me that if it rained when you died then God himself was shedding his tears for you, and it rained for a solid three days from the time Granddaddy passed to the day we laid him in the ground. Gray covered the skies, and the Good Lord's tears fell from them, all for my Granddaddy.

I wore my overalls to his funeral; the same old pair I'd worn every other day. We had always been poor, and after Granddaddy died, we only got poorer. The day we buried him was a cold October day, the light barely peaking out from behind the black clouds. It must have rained an inch during the service. The preacher couldn't see his pages or his Bible; he had to make half of his sermon up as he went along. Lots of folks turned out to bid Granddaddy farewell, but most made themselves scarce before the end.

I was the last one standing, still looking down that six foot hole at his casket. Don't know what I was waiting on? The gravedigger wasn't coming to cover him up for a while, and I guess I felt like I still had a little bit of time left with him. Long as he wasn't covered, he was still with me. I stood in silence for the longest time, staring down that hole, not sure whether to cry or scream, just knowing there was something left there for me to do.

That's when I saw it. It slowly walked across the graveyard, not bothering to cover up from the rain that fell against us both. From a distance, it almost looked like a man. It was shaped like a man; hell, it even wore a man's clothes, cloaking itself in a coat and a hat, but the nearer it came, the more it inched towards me, the more I knew it wasn't a man. It was what Granddaddy had always warned me about.

The closer it got, the better I could see it. It stood barely five feet in height, but I still had to look up at it. Some of its skin was red, and in spots, there was no skin at all, showing the bloody meat that should have been on the inside. There were bones poking out from places, and a hole in its neck, looking as if someone had ran a pencil through what should have been its adam's apple. Its face was marked with scabs, and to be honest, standing in front of it, facing it as I was, I felt scared, probably more frightened than I have ever been in my whole life.

It stood in front of me and looked down. I looked up at it, doing my damnest not to look away. I wanted granddaddy to be proud of me at this moment; I wanted him to look down on me from Heaven and know he could count on me.

It finally spoke, and when it did, its voice sounded like gravel being scraped across concrete. "You his grandboy?" It asked, showing its fang like teeth to me in the process.

"Yep," I answered, wanting to run, but knowing I had to stand my ground in front of it.

"Then ye're the man I need to talk to."

"What do you want from me?" I asked it.

"I reckon yer grandpa told ye I was coming."

"He did."

"And he didn't tell you what I wanted?"

"No," I replied, "Only told me not to listen to a word you had to say." His grin seemed to grow a little after I said that.

"That's peculiar," it said in return. "Reckon that means he didn't trust ye so much. Must of figured that with a little time to think about my deal, it might have grown on ye a bit."

To hear it say, even imply, that my Granddaddy didn't trust me cut down to the bone. In life my Granddaddy had been my best friend and the closest thing to a daddy I'd ever had, and in death, he was my saint, my light I had spent a life time steering myself towards, in just the hope, the slightest chance, that someday I might be half the man he was.

I bit back. "Shut up. You ain't nothing but a stupid hobgoblin who don't know nothing about nothing." I was so mad tears rolled out of my eyes and mixed with the rain still falling from the sky.

"Hold ye self, boy," it said firmly. Somehow the grin on its face had gotten bigger. "I ain't here to fight with ye. I'm here to offer ye a deal, probably the greatest deal of your life."

"You ain't got nothing I want."

"But ye got something I want."

I broke its gaze, ending the little staring contest the two of us had been having, and I turned to walk away.

"I'm through with you, goblin," I said as I turned. But before I could take a step in the opposite direction, it appeared in front of me, stopping me cold in my tracks. It stared down at me, standing so close the rain dripped off of its hat and landed against my face.

"I ain't done with ye, boy," it growled.

The look on its blood splotched face held me at bay, but I promised myself I wouldn't show any fear. "Make your offer demon," I said. "Say what you've come to say." My words held a confidence I didn't actually feel on the inside.

"It's pretty simple, boy," it screeched. "I'll give you one request, anything yer little mind can think of, in exchange for your granddaddy's soul. It's a fair deal, and if ye ain't stupid, ye'll take it."

I really didn't know what to say, so I came up with the only piece of logic my little eight year old mind could come up with. "His soul ain't mine to give. It was his when he was living, and I guess it belongs to Jesus know that he's dead."

It snorted a little laugh. "Nope, boy, ye got it all wrong. Ye be the man of the family now, the only male heir to generations of souls, all bearing your family name. Some of those in Heaven, some of those burning in hell, but yer Grandpa here, his soul is still out there, waiting on judgment, still bound to the land like us, till God and the Devil decide which one of 'em wants it the most, so it's prime for the taking." It slowly flashed me some teeth. "And boy, I could have it if I really wanted, but I don't want ye saying I done stole from ye. That's why I'm here to make ye a deal."

I looked down to my feet, not sure what to say to him. It cupped my chin in its hand and pushed my face up to meet its stare, leaving me wet with what I hoped was water and not the blood that seemed to be just pooling on its skin.

"Look at ye self, boy," it said. "Yer poor as dirt, probably wearing the same overalls that yer Granddaddy there wore when he were a boy. Yer family was poor in the old country, and they're poor here. Ain't nothing every gonna change for ye, unless yer willing to change it." It smiled. A small amount of its own blood trickled off of its teeth onto the bottom lip of its scab covered mouth. "I'm offering ye a chance boy, a chance to have something, to be something, something more," it pointed to where my granddaddy was to be buried, "than a tater farmer like the old man in the box over there."

Those words, the thought of my granddaddy as nothing more than a potato farmer, clicked something in my little brain. I thought of the image of my granddaddy, a decent, honorable man, a man who sacrificed for his family and never for himself, a man who always took his supper plate last, making sure his family had food even if he had to go without, a man who would have probably given his soul to a demon if it meant saving his family. But just because he would have given it away if asked, didn't mean this little hobgoblin had a claim to it, and it absolutely meant I had no right to sell away what wasn't mine.

"No," I said. "My granddaddy was a good man who will go to Heaven and sit across from Jesus, and he'll eat from the plate of glory." More tears began to fall from my eyes, "And you'll never touch his soul. Ain't nothing you got worthy of him." With those words, I turned and walked away.

The old hobgoblin stood there in silence, letting me walk away, but before I could get to far, I heard him yell, "Ye'll regret this, boy. And in about seventy-five years, when yer buried out here in this bone yard, you better hope yer grandboy is just as stupid as ye are."

I never turned back to look at it again, and it never said anything else. I left it in the graveyard, standing pitifully next to granddaddy's plot. I walked home, slowly, letting every ounce of rain wash that demon's touch from my skin, knowing in my heart my granddaddy would have been proud of me.

Now it's my turn. I've told my boy all the stories; I've told him all about the Bloody Bones, and I've warned him about their silver tongues and their false promises. I've told him what they want, and how we'd both be damned to Hell if he gives it to 'em. It won't be long now before I'm the one being lowered into that hole with the rain falling down like tears; I just hope my grandboy loves his granddaddy as much as I loved mine.

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