Devil House

by John Darnielle

The idea that any of them might try to hunt you down with the intention of killing you is absurd. They have a hard enough time focusing on social studies for a single class period. They’re not killers. They’re just kids.

By the end of his walk, he sometimes found he’d argued himself out of a position he’d thought immutable at its beginning; there was real pleasure, even joy, in the process.

It’s easier to rely on familiar things when you’re describing something different than to imagine a context whose parameters require faith, and vision. It’s a sure bet that when people see the easy way across such differences, they will take it.

Nobody can know, you told me, what’s going on inside another person, even when they’re sitting there right in front of you.

There is, among the public, a perennial urge to believe the worst about the generation that will eventually replace them.