Seed

by Ania Ahlborn

Reality was never as exciting as Hollywood.

“It walked on two legs, like us.”

what kinda creepy kid says that

wickedness was strong enough to exist in a world without good.

Potted plants flanked the walls—wispy palms with delicate fronds that swayed whenever someone walked by, others bearing waxy leaves that seemed too flawless to be real. Pictures hung in a perfectly straight line along the wall, displaying images of glasslike lakes and peaceful forests.

he was like a greedy, time-pressed tourist in a new and brilliant city, desperate to see everything in far too little time, visiting sites with reckless abandon, never giving himself the opportunity to truly take any of it in.

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.

The devout refused to acknowledge the possibility that their God would allow such wickedness to exist, let alone get so close to those they loved.

Anything was better than sleeping in a room with someone who held darkness in their eyes.

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

He gave the doctor a slight nod, a blast of moths’ wings tickling the inside of his stomach.

Was it good that he saw what he was describing only at night? By the way Dr. Barf was scribbling on his pad, it seemed as though maybe he knew what it was. Maybe his mom had been right—that glorious gold seal with the shape of California was going to save him. All he had to do was force himself to be honest, and there it was: success.

Jack was given hope but no no noooo thts wht thz buuk is abot wickedxness!!

Jack’s adolescent denial was left to hang heavy in the air until their session was over.

But every time he reached for that pill bottle, somehow, by some unexplainable force, he failed.

“No,” he said. “There isn’t.” Just another lie to add to the rest.

Markin had looked like a dirty sewer lurker.

If the night sky had torn itself open and bled ink onto the earth, it still wouldn’t come close to the depth of shadow that swallowed the levees and live oaks.

Out in the middle of nowhere, nothing survived—not even rock and roll.

But speed didn’t keep those thoughts from slithering into his ear like a parasitic worm.

Mr. Scratch was busy with a six-year-old girl who, for all Jack knew, would no longer be his daughter by the time he got back home.

up. If Jack had been home, she’d have sent him out into the hall to investigate, sacrificed her own husband so she could make her escape.

As she grabbed a framed photograph of her and Jack on a trip to Charleston as a weapon, a ridiculous thought came into her head: Would she beat the serial killer over the head with it, or show him what a nice family she had?

“Must have a hell of a sweet tooth.”

“You’re runnin’, but you’re runnin’ from something you’ve been runnin’ from all your life, aren’t ya? Runnin’ like it’s gonna make some sort of big difference this time round.”

“I’ve seen your kind. I see you all the time, drivin’ down the road like the devil can’t chase ya if ya step on the gas.”

“Maybe I do got something to buy,” he said. “Maybe what I’m sellin’ you just can’t see yet.”

That place gots the smell of ghosts, chief, and that smell don’t wash off easy.”

“I ain’t never seen anyone, not anyone outrun the devil.”

“I used to live here.”

The keys slipped from his fingers. It was oddly poetic: instead of taking his father-in-law’s showboat into the abyss, he’d simply step into the darkness and let it engulf him the way it had always wanted. Like stepping into the gaping mouth of a whale, he’d either be swallowed whole or he’d find a wooden boat.

she’d stand in front of the full-length mirror on early summer mornings and look herself over like a surgeon, picking herself apart while Jack wondered how a woman could be so beautiful.

ME N BAE FR