Seed

by Ania Ahlborn

“I saw it, Daddy,” she told him, lowering her voice so her mom wouldn’t hear. “I saw it before the lights went out. I saw it just like you.”

Arnold wasn’t anal; his father-in-law just had a constipated disposition.

At what point do parents back away from something they love more than their own lives, put up their hands, and admit defeat?

She knew there was only one way to get rid of the prickle that had burrowed into her heart: get up, stand over her sister again. Stand over her and wait until she stopped breathing.

Even he knew that if demons could exist, it meant there was real evil in the world, and if you believed in the devil, somewhere in the deepest fibers of your being you had to believe in God. He knew, firsthand, that the devil was real; he’d seen it with his own two eyes. But he’d never seen God. He’d never felt God. He’d never been helped by God. For all he knew, wickedness was strong enough to exist in a world without good.

But that was how the devil worked, making his appearance when you least expected it.

Somehow he had managed to get away from the evil that had tried to consume him as a kid only to have it take his own child away.

“I’ve never seen any miracles,” Reagan said, “but I sure as hell have seen my share of darkness. Does God exist? I don’t know. But I kind of hope he does. Because if he doesn’t? We’re probably fucked.”

“Don’t be scared, Mommy,” she said. “At least you still have Abigail.”

“I’ll do what I want with you,” she hissed. “And I’ll take your family too.”

“Daddy,” she said, “it says collect all four.”

“He’s here to play,” she told him. “He said you never finished the game.”